Koontz,Dean - Whispers_玖贝云文库

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If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property.

It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher

has received any payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are

either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously,

and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

establishments, events, or locales is entirety coincidental.

This Berkley book contains the complete

text of the original hardcover edition.

It has been completely reset in a typeface

designed for easy reading and was printed

from new film.

WHISPERS

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with

G. P. Putnam's Sons

PRINTING HISTORY

G. P. Putnam's Sons edition / June 1980

Berkley edition / April 1981

Back cover photograph copyright (c) Jerry Bauer

This book, or parts thereof, may not he reproduced

in any form without permission.

For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

www.penguinputnam.com

ISBN: 0-425-18109-X

BERKLEY(R)

Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

BERKLEY and the "B" design

are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

55 54 53 52 51

This book is dedicated to

Rio and Battista Locatelli,

two very nice people who

deserve the very best.

PART ONE

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The Living and The Dead

The forces that affect our lives, the influences that

mold and shape us, are often like whispers in a

distant room, teasingly indistinct, apprehended

only with difficulty.

--Charles Dickens

One

TUESDAY AT DAWN, Los Angeles trembled. Windows rattled in their frames. Patio wind chimes tinkled

merrily even though there was no wind. In some houses, dishes fell off shelves.

At the start of the morning rush hour, KFWB, all-news radio, used the earthquake as its lead

story. The tremor had registered 4.8 on the Richter Scale. By the end of the rush hour, KFWB

demoted the story to third place behind a report of terrorist bombings in Rome and an account of a

five-car accident on the Santa Monica Freeway. After all, no buildings had fallen. By noon, only a

handful of Angelenos (mostly those who had moved west within the past year) found the event worthy

of even a minute's conversation over lunch.

***

The man in the smoke-gray Dodge van didn't even feel the earth move. He was at the northwest edge

of the city, driving south on the San Diego Freeway, when the quake struck. Because it is

difficult to feel any but the strongest tremors while in a moving vehicle, he wasn't aware of the

shaking until he stopped for breakfast at a diner and heard one of the other customers talking

about it.

He knew at once that the earthquake was a sign meant just for him. It had been sent either to

assure him that his mission in Los Angeles would be a success--or to warn him that he would fail.

But which message was he supposed to perceive in this sign?

He brooded over that question while he ate. He was a big strong man--six-foot-four, two hundred

and thirty pounds, all muscle--and he took more than an hour and a half to finish his meal. He

started with two eggs, bacon, cottage fries, toast and a glass of milk. He chewed slowly,

methodically, his eyes focused on his food as if he were entranced by it. When he finished his

first plateful, he asked for a tall stack of pancakes and more milk. After the pancakes, he ate a

cheese omelet with three pieces of Canadian bacon on the side, another serving of toast, and

orange juice.

By the time he ordered the third breakfast, he was the chief topic of conversation in the kitchen.

His waitress was a giggly redhead named Helen, but each of the other waitresses found an excuse to

pass by his table and get a better look at him. He was aware of their interest, but he didn't

care.

When he finally asked Helen for the check, she said, "You must be a lumberjack or something."

He looked up at her and smiled woodenly. Although this was the first time he had been in the

diner, although he had met Helen only ninety minutes ago, he knew exactly what she was going to

say. He had heard it all a hundred times before.

She giggled self-consciously, but her blue eyes fixed unwaveringly on his. "I mean, you eat enough

for three men."

"I guess I do."

She stood beside the booth, one hip against the edge of the table, leaning slightly forward, not-

so-subtly letting him know that she might be available. "But with all that food ... you don't have

an ounce of fat on you."

Still smiling, he wondered what she'd be like in bed. He pictured himself taking hold of her,

thrusting into her--and then he pictured his hands around her throat, squeezing, squeezing, until

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her face slowly turned purple and her eyes bulged out of their sockets.

She stared at him speculatively, as if wondering whether he satisfied all of his appetites with

such single-minded devotion as he had shown toward the food. "Must get a lot of exercise."

"I lift weights," he said.

"Like Arnold Schwarzenegger."

"Yeah."

She had a graceful, delicate neck. He knew he could break it as if it were a dry twig, and the

thought of doing that made him feel warm and happy.

"You sure do have a set of big arms," she said, softly, appreciatively. He was wearing a short-

sleeved shirt, and she touched his bare forearm with one finger. "I guess, with all that pumping

iron, no matter how much you eat, it just turns into more muscle."

"Well, that's the idea," he said. "But I also have one of those metabolisms."

"Huh?"

"I burn up a lot of calories in nervous energy."

"You? Nervous?"

"Jumpy as a Siamese cat."

"I don't believe it. I bet there's nothing in the world could make you nervous," she said.

She was a good-looking woman, about thirty years old, ten years younger than he was, and he

figured he could have her if he wanted her. She would need a little wooing, but not much, just

enough so she could convince herself that he had swept her off her feet, playing Rhett to her

Scarlett, and had tumbled her into bed against her will. Of course, if he made love to her, he

would have to kill her afterward. He'd have to put a knife through her pretty breasts or cut her

throat, and he really didn't want to do that. She wasn't worth the bother or the risk. She simply

wasn't his type, he didn't kill redheads.

He left her a good tip, paid his check at the cash register by the door, and got out of there.

After the air conditioned restaurant, the September heat was like a pillow jammed against his

face. As he walked toward the Dodge van, he knew that Helen was watching him, but he didn't look

back.

From the diner he drove to a shopping center and parked in a corner of the large lot, in the shade

of a date palm, as far from the stores as he could get. He climbed between the bucket seats, into

the back of the van, pulled down a bamboo shade that separated the driver's compartment from the

cargo area, and stretched out on a thick but tattered mattress that was too short for him. He had

been driving all night without rest, all the way from St. Helena in the wine country. Now, with a

big breakfast in his belly, he was drowsy.

Four hours later, he woke from a bad dream. He was sweating, shuddering, burning up and freezing

at the same time, clutching the mattress with one hand and punching the empty air with the other.

He was trying to scream, but his voice was stuck far down in his throat; he made a dry, gasping

sound.

At first, he didn't know where he was. The rear of the van was saved from utter darkness only by

three thin strips of pale light that came through narrow slits in the bamboo blind. The air was

warm and stale. He sat up, felt the metal wall with one hand, squinted at what little there was to

see, and gradually oriented himself. When at last he realized he was in the van, he relaxed and

sank back onto the mattress again.

He tried to remember what the nightmare had been about, but he could not. That wasn't unusual.

Nearly every night of his life, he suffered through horrible dreams from which he woke in terror,

mouth dry, heart pounding; but he never could recall what had frightened him.

Although he knew where he was now, the darkness made him uneasy. He kept hearing stealthy movement

in the shadows, soft scurrying sounds that put the hair up on the back of his neck even though he

knew he was imagining them. He raised the bamboo shade and sat blinking for a minute until his

eyes adjusted to the light.

He picked up a bundle of chamois-textured clothes that lay on the floor beside the mattress. The

bundle was tied up with dark brown cord. He loosened the knot and unrolled the soft clothes, four

of them, each rolled around the other. Wrapped in the center were two big knives. They were very

sharp. He had spent a lot of time carefully honing the gracefully tapered blades. When he took one

of them in his hand, it felt strange and wonderful, as if it were a sorcerer's knife, infused with

magic energy that it was now transmitting to him.

The afternoon sun had slipped past the shadow of the palm tree in which he had parked the Dodge.

Now the light streamed through the windshield, over his shoulder, and struck the icelike steel;

the razor-edge glinted coldly.

As he stared at the blade, his thin lips slowly formed a smile. In spite of the nightmare, the

sleep had done him a lot of good. He felt refreshed and confident. He was absolutely certain that

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the morning's earthquake had been a sign that everything would go well for him in Los Angeles. He

would find the woman. He would get his hands on her. Today. Or Wednesday at the latest. As he

thought about her smooth, warm body and the flawless texture of her skin, his smile swelled into a

grin.

***

Tuesday afternoon, Hilary Thomas went shopping in Beverly Hills. When she came home early that

evening, she parked her coffee-brown Mercedes in the circular driveway, near the front door. Now

that fashion designers had decided women finally would be allowed to look feminine again, Hiliary

had bought all the clothes she hadn't been able to find during the dress-like-an-army-sergeant

fever that had seized everyone in the fashion industry for at least the past five years. She

needed to make three trips to unload the trunk of the car.

As she was picking up the last of the parcels, she suddenly had the feeling that she was being

watched. She turned from the car and looked toward the street. The low westering sun slanted

between the big houses and through the feathery palm fronds, streaking everything with gold. Two

children were playing on a lawn, half a block away, and a floppy-eared cocker spaniel was padding

happily along the sidewalk. Other than that, the neighborhood was silent and almost

preternaturally still. Two cars and a gray Dodge van were parked on the other side of the street,

but as far as she could see, there wasn't anyone in them.

Sometimes you act like a silly fool, she told herself. Who would be watching?

But after she carried the last of the packages inside, she came out to park the car in the garage,

and again she had the unshakable feeling that she was being observed.

***

Later, near midnight, as Hilary was sitting in bed reading, she thought she heard noises

downstairs. She put the book aside and listened.

Rattling sounds. In the kitchen. Near the back door. Directly under her bedroom.

She got out of bed and put on a robe. It was a deep blue silk wrapper she had bought just that

afternoon.

A loaded .32 automatic lay in the top drawer of the nightstand. She hesitated, listened to the

rattling sounds for a moment, then decided to take the gun with her.

She felt slightly foolish. What she heard was probably just settling noises, the natural sounds a

house makes from time to time. On the other hand, she had lived here for six months and had not

heard anything like it until now.

She stopped at the head of the stairs and peered down into the darkness and said, "Who's there?"

No answer.

Holding the gun in her right hand and in front of her, she went downstairs and across the living

room, breathing fast and shallow, unable to stop her gun hand from shaking just a bit. She

switched on every lamp that she passed. As she approached the back of the house, she still could

hear the strange noises, but when she stepped into the kitchen and hit the lights, there was only

silence.

The kitchen looked as it should. Dark pegged pine floor. Dark pine cabinets with glossy white

ceramic fixtures. White tile counters, clean and uncluttered. Shining copper pots and utensils

hanging from the high white ceiling. There was no intruder and no sign that there had been one

before she arrived.

She stood just inside the doorway and waited for the noise to begin again.

Nothing. Just the soft hum of the refrigerator.

Finally she walked around the gleaming central utility island and tried the back door. It was

locked.

She turned on the yard lights and rolled up the shade that covered the window above the sink.

Outside, off to the right, the forty-foot-long swimming pool shimmered prettily. The huge shadowy

rose garden lay to the left, a dozen bright blossoms glowing like bursts of phosphorescent gas in

the dark green foliage. Everything out there was silent and motionless.

What I heard was the house settling, she thought. Jeez. I'm getting to be a regular spooky old

maid.

She made a sandwich and took it upstairs with a cold bottle of beer. She left all the lights

burning on the first floor, which she felt would discourage any prowler--if there actually was

someone lurking about the property.

Later, she felt foolish for leaving the house so brightly lit. She knew exactly what was wrong

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with her. Her jumpiness was a symptom of the I-don't-deserve-all-this-happiness disease, a mental

disorder with which she was intimately acquainted. She had come from nowhere, from nothing, and

now she had everything. Subconsciously, she was afraid that God would take notice of her and

decide that she didn't deserve what she'd been given. Then the hammer would fall. Everything she

had accumulated would be smashed and swept away: the house, the car, the bank accounts.... Her new

life seemed like a fantasy, a marvelous fairytale, too good to be true, certainly too good to

last.

No. Dammit, no! She had to stop belittling herself and pretending that her accomplishments were

only the result of good fortune. Luck had nothing to do with it. Born into a house of despair,

nurtured not with milk and kindness but with uncertainty and fear, unloved by her father and

merely tolerated by her mother, raised in a home where self-pity and bitterness had driven out all

hope, she had of course grown up without a sense of real worth. For years she had struggled with

an inferiority complex. But that was behind her now. She had been through therapy. She understood

herself. She didn't dare let those old doubts rise again within her. The house and car and money

would not be taken away; she did deserve them. She worked hard, and she had talent. Nobody had

given her a job simply because she was a relative or friend; when she'd come to Los Angeles, she

hadn't known anyone. No one had heaped money in her lap just because she was pretty. Drawn by the

wealth of the entertainment industry and by the promise of fame, herds of beautiful women arrived

every day in L.A. and were usually treated worse than cattle. She had made it to the top for one

reason: she was a good writer, a superb craftsman, an imaginative and energetic artist who knew

how to create the motion pictures that a lot of people would pay money to see. She earned every

dime she was paid, and the gods had no reason to be vindictive.

"So relax," she said aloud.

No one had tried to get in the kitchen door. That was just her imagination.

She finished the sandwich and beer, then went downstairs and turned out the lights.

She slept soundly.

***

The next day was one of the best days of her life. It was also one of the worst.

Wednesday began well. The sky was cloudless. The air was sweet and clear. The morning light had

that peculiar quality found only in Southern California and only on certain days. It was

crystalline light, hard yet warm, like the sunbeams in a cubist painting, and it gave you the

feeling that at any moment the air would part like a stage curtain to reveal a world beyond the

one in which we live.

Hilary Thomas spent the morning in her garden. The walled half-acre behind the two-story neo-

Spanish house was adorned with two dozen species of roses--beds and trellises and hedges of roses.

There were the Frau Karl Druschki Rose, the Madame Pierre Oger Rose, the rosa muscosa, the

Souvenir de la Malmaison Rose, and a wide variety of modern hybrids. The garden blazed with white

roses and red roses, orange and yellow and pink and purple and even green roses. Some blooms were

the size of saucers, and others were small enough to pass through a wedding ring. The velvety

green lawn was speckled with windblown petals of every hue.

Most mornings, Hilary worked with the plants for two or three hours. No matter how agitated she

was upon entering the garden, she was always completely relaxed and at peace when she left.

She easily could have afforded a gardener. She still received quarterly payments from her first

hit film, Arizona Shifty Pete, which had been released more than two years ago and which had been

an enormous success. The new movie, Cold Heart, in the theaters less than two months, was doing

even better than Pete. Her twelve-room house in Westwood, on the fringes of Bel Air and Beverly

Hills, had cost a great deal, yet six months ago she had paid cash for the place. In show business

circles, she was called a "hot property." That was exactly how she felt, too. Hot. Burning. Ablaze

with plans and possibilities. It was a glorious feeling. She was a damned successful screenwriter,

a hot property indeed, and she could hire a platoon of gardeners if she wanted them.

She tended to the flowers and the trees herself because the garden was a special place for her,

almost sacred. It was the symbol of her escape.

She had been raised in a decaying apartment building in one of Chicago's worst neighborhoods. Even

now, even here, even in the middle of her fragrant rose garden, she could close her eyes and see

every detail of that long-ago place. In the foyer, the mailboxes had been smashed open by thieves

looking for welfare checks. The hallways were narrow and poorly lit. The rooms were tiny, dreary,

the furniture tattered and worn. In the small kitchen, the ancient gas range had seemed about to

spring a leak and explode; Hilary had lived for years in fear of the stove's irregular, spurting

blue flames. The refrigerator was yellow with age; it wheezed and rattled, and its warm motor

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attracted what her father called "the local wildlife." As she stood now in her lovely garden,

Hilary clearly remembered the wildlife with which she'd spent her childhood, and she shuddered.

Although she and her mother had kept the four rooms spotlessly clean, and although they had used

great quantities of insecticide, they had never been able to get rid of the cockroaches because

the damned things came through the thin walls from the other apartments where people were not so

clean.

Her most vivid childhood memory was of the view from the single window in her cramped bedroom. She

had spent many lonely hours there, hiding while her father and mother argued. The bedroom had been

a haven from those terrible bouts of cursing and screaming, and from the sullen silences when her

parents weren't speaking to each other. The view from the window wasn't inspiring: nothing more

than the soot-streaked brick wall on the far side of the four-foot-wide serviceway that led

between the tenements. The window would not open; it was painted shut. She'd been able to see a

thin sliver of sky, but only when she'd pressed her face against the glass and peered straight up

the narrow shaft.

Desperate to escape from the shabby world in which she lived, young Hilary learned to use her

imagination to see through the brick wall. She would set her mind adrift, and suddenly she would

be looking out upon rolling hills, or sometimes the vast Pacific Ocean, or great mountain ranges.

Most of the time, it was a garden that she conjured up, an enchanted place, serene, with neatly

trimmed shrubs and high trellises twined about with thorny rose vines. In this fantasy there was a

great deal of pretty wrought-iron lawn furniture that had been painted white. Gaily striped

umbrellas cast pools of cool shadow in the coppery sunlight. Women in lovely long dresses and men

in summer suits sipped iced drinks and chatted amiably.

And now I'm living in that dream, she thought. That make-believe place is real, and I own it.

Maintaining the roses and the other plants--palms and ferns and jade shrubs and a dozen other

things--was not a chore. It was a joy. Every minute she worked among the flowers, she was aware of

how far she had come.

At noon, she put away her gardening tools and showered. She stood for a long while in the steaming

water, as if it were sluicing away more than dirt and sweat, as if it were washing off ugly

memories as well. In that depressing Chicago apartment, in the minuscule bathroom, where all the

faucets had dripped and where all the drains had backed up at least once a month, there never had

been enough hot water.

She ate a light lunch on the glassed-in patio that overlooked the roses. While she nibbled at

cheese and slices of an apple, she read the trade papers of the entertainment industry--Hollywood

Reporter and Daily Variety--which had come in the morning mail. Her name appeared in Hank Grant's

column in the Reporter, in a list of movie and television people whose birthday it was. For a

woman just turned twenty-nine, she had come a long, long way indeed.

Today, the chief executives at Warner Brothers were discussing The Hour of the Wolf, her latest

screenplay. They would decide either to buy or reject by the close of the business day. She was

tense, anxious for the telephone to ring, yet dreading it because it might bring disappointing

news. This project was more important to her than anything else she'd ever done.

She had written the script without the security of a signed contract, strictly on speculation, and

she had made up her mind to sell it only if she was signed to direct and was guaranteed final cut.

Already, Warners had hinted at a record offer for the screenplay if she would reconsider her

conditions of sale. She knew she was demanding a lot; however, because of her success as a

screenwriter, her demands were not entirely unreasonable. Warners reluctantly would agree to let

her direct the picture; she would bet anything on that. But the sticking point would be the final

cut. That honor, the power to decide exactly what would appear on the screen, the ultimate

authority over every shot and every frame and every nuance of the film, usually was bestowed upon

directors who had proven themselves on a number of money-making movies; it was seldom granted to a

fledgling director, especially not to a fledgling female director. Her insistence on total

creative control might queer the deal.

Hoping to take her mind off the pending decision from Warner Brothers, Hilary spent Wednesday

afternoon working in her studio, which overlooked the pool. Her desk was large, heavy, custom-made

oak, with a dozen drawers and two dozen cubbyholes. Several pieces of Lallique crystal stood on

the desk, refracting the soft glow from the two brass piano lamps. She struggled through the

second draft of an article she was writing for Film Comment, but her thoughts constantly wandered

to The Hour of the Wolf.

The telephone rang at four o'clock, and she jerked in surprise even though she'd been waiting all

afternoon for that sound. It was Wally Topelis.

"It's your agent, kid. We have to talk."

"Isn't that what we're doing now?"

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"I mean face to face."

"Oh," she said glumly. "Then it's bad news."

"Did I say it was?"

"If it was good," Hilary said, "you'd just give it to me on the phone. Face to face means you want

to let me down easy."

"You're a classic pessimist, kid."

"Face to face means you want to hold my hand and talk me out of suicide."

"It's a damned good thing this melodramatic streak of yours never shows up in your writing."

"If Warners said no, just tell me."

"They haven't decided yet, my lamb."

"I can take it."

"Will you listen to me? The deal hasn't fallen through. I'm still scheming, and I want to discuss

my next move with you. That's all. Nothing more sinister than that. Can you meet me in half an

hour?"

"Where?"

"I'm at the Beverly Hills Hotel."

"The Polo Lounge?"

"Naturally."

***

As Hilary turned off Sunset Boulevard, she thought the Beverly Hills Hotel looked unreal, like a

mirage shimmering in the heat. The rambling building that thrust out of stately palms and lush

greenery, a fairytale vision. As always, the pink stucco did not look as garish as she remembered

it. The walls seemed translucent, appeared almost to shine with a soft inner light. In its own

way, the hotel was rather elegant--more than a bit decadent, but unquestionably elegant

nonetheless. At the main entrance, uniformed valets were parking and delivering cars: two Rolls-

Royces, three Mercedes, one Stuts, and a red Maserati.

A long way from the poor side of Chicago, she thought happily.

When she stepped into the Polo Lounge, she saw half a dozen movie actors and actresses, famous

faces, as well as two powerful studio executives, but none of them was sitting at table number

three. That was generally considered to be the most desirable spot in the room, for it faced the

entrance and was the best place to see and be seen. Wally Topelis was at table three because he

was one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood and because he charmed the maitre d' just as he

charmed everyone who met him. He was a small lean man in his fifties, very well dressed. His white

hair was thick and lustrous. He also had a neat white mustache. He looked quite distinguished,

exactly the kind of man you expected to see at table number three. He was talking on a telephone

that had been plugged in just for him. When he saw Hilary approaching, he hastily concluded his

conversation, put the receiver down, and stood.

"Hilary, you're lovely--as usual."

"And you're the center of attention--as usual."

He grinned. His voice was soft, conspiratorial. "I imagine everyone's staring at us."

"I imagine."

"Surreptitiously."

"Oh, of course," she said.

"Because they wouldn't want us to know they're looking," he said happily.

As they sat down, she said, "And we dare not look to see if they're looking."

"Oh, heavens no!" His blue eyes were bright were merriment.

"We wouldn't want them to think we care."

"God forbid."

"That would be gauche."

"Trés gauche." He laughed.

Hilary sighed. "I've never understood why one table should be so much more important than

another."

"Well, I can sit and make fun of it, but I understand," Wally said. "In spite of everything Marx

and Lenin believed, the human animal thrives on the class system--so long as that system is based

primarily on money and achievement, not on pedigree. We establish and nurture class systems

everywhere, even in restaurants."

"I think I've just stumbled into one of those famous Topelis tirades."

A waiter arrived with a shiny silver ice bucket on a tripod. He put it down beside their table,

smiled and left. Apparently, Wally had taken the liberty of ordering for both of them before she

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arrived. But he didn't take this opportunity to tell her what they were having.

"Not a tirade," he said. "Just an observation. People need class systems."

"I'll bite. Why?"

"For one thing, people must have aspirations, desires beyond the basic needs of food and shelter,

obsessive wants that will drive them to accomplish things. If there's a best neighborhood, a man

will hold down two jobs to raise money for a house there. If one car is better than another, a man-

-or a woman, for that matter; this certainly isn't a sexist issue--will work harder to be able to

afford it. And if there's a best table in the Polo Lounge, everyone who comes here will want to be

rich enough or famous enough--or even infamous enough--to be seated there. This almost manic

desire for status generates wealth, contributes to the gross national product, and creates jobs.

After all, if Henry Ford hadn't wanted to move up in life, he'd never have built the company that

now employs tens of thousands. The class system is one of the engines that drive the wheels of

commerce; it keeps our standard of living high. The class system gives people goals--and it

provides the maitre d' with a satisfying sense of power and importance that makes an otherwise

intolerable job seem desirable."

Hilary shook her head. "Nevertheless, being seated at the best table doesn't mean I'm

automatically a better person than the guy who gets second-best. It's no accomplishment in

itself."

"It's a symbol of accomplishment, of position," Wally said.

"I still can't see the sense of it."

"It's just an elaborate game."

"Which you certainly know how to play."

He was delighted. "Don't I though?"

"I'll never learn the rules."

"You should, my lamb. It's more than a bit silly, but it helps business. No one likes to work with

a loser. But everyone playing the game wants to deal with the kind of person who can get the best

table at the Polo Lounge."

Wally Topelis was the only man she knew who could call a woman "my lamb" and sound neither

patronizing nor smarmy Although he was a small man, about the right size to be a professional

jockey, he somehow made her think of Cary Grant in movies like To Catch a Thief. He had Grant's

style: excellent manners observed without flourish; balletic grace in every movement, even in

casual gestures; quiet charm; a subtle look of amusement, as if he found life to be a gentle joke.

Their captain arrived, and Wally called him Eugene and inquired about his children. Eugene seemed

to regard Wally with affection, and Hilary realized that getting the best table in the Polo Lounge

might also have something to do with treating the staff as friends rather than servants.

Eugene was carrying champagne, and after a couple of minutes of small talk, he held the bottle for

Wally's inspection. Hilary glimpsed the label. "Dom Perignon?"

"You deserve the best, my lamb."

Eugene removed the foil from the neck of the bottle and began to untwist the wire that caged the

cork.

Hilary frowned at Wally. "You must really have bad news for me."

"What makes you say that?"

"A hundred-dollar bottle of champagne...." Hilary looked at him thoughtfully. "It's supposed to

soothe my hurt feelings, cauterize my wounds."

The cork popped. Eugene did his job well; very little of the precious liquid foamed out of the

bottle.

"You're such a pessimist," Wally said.

"A realist," she said.

"Most people would have said, 'Ah, champagne. What are we celebrating?' But not Hilary Thomas."

Eugene poured a sample of Dom Perignon. Wally tasted it and nodded approval.

"Are we celebrating?" Hilary asked. The possibility really had not occurred to her, and she

suddenly felt weak as she considered it.

"In fact, we are," Wally said.

Eugene slowly filled both glasses and slowly screwed the bottle into the shaved ice in the silver

bucket. Clearly, he wanted to stick around long enough to hear what they were celebrating.

It was also obvious that Wally wanted the captain to hear the news and spread it. Grinning like

Cary Grant, he leaned toward Hilary and said, "We've got the deal with Warner Brothers."

She stared, blinked, opened her mouth to speak, didn't know what to say. Finally: "We don't."

"We do."

"We can't."

"We can."

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"Nothing's that easy."

"I tell you, we've got it."

"They won't let me direct."

"Oh, yes."

"They won't give me final cut."

"Yes, they will."

"My God."

She was stunned. Felt numb.

Eugene offered his congratulations and slipped away.

Wally laughed, shook his head. "You know, you could have played that a lot better for Eugene's

benefit. Pretty soon, people are going to see us celebrating, and they'll ask Eugene what it's

about, and he'll tell them. Let the world think you always knew you'd get exactly what you wanted.

Never show doubt or fear when you're swimming with sharks."

"You're not kidding about this? We've actually got what we wanted?"

Raising his glass, Wally said, "A toast. To my sweetest client, with the hope she'll eventually

learn there are some clouds with silver linings and that a lot of apples don't have worms in

them."

They clinked glasses.

She said, "The studio must have added a lot of tough conditions to the deal. A bottom of the

barrel budget. Salary at scale. No participation in the gross rentals. Stuff like that."

"Stop looking for rusty nails in your soup," he said exasperatedly.

"I'm not eating soup."

"Don't get cute."

"I'm drinking champagne."

"You know what I mean."

She stared at the bubbles bursting in her glass of Dom Perignon.

She felt as if hundreds of bubbles were rising within her, too, chains of tiny, bright bubbles of

joy: but a part of her acted like a cork to contain the effervescent emotion, to keep it securely

under pressure, bottled up, safely contained. She was afraid of being too happy. She didn't want

to tempt fate.

"I just don't get it," Wally said. "You look as if the deal fell through. You did hear me all

right, didn't you?"

She smiled. "I'm sorry. It's just that ... when I was a little girl, I learned to expect the worst

every day. That way, I was never disappointed. It's the best outlook you can have when you live

with a couple of bitter, violent alcoholics."

His eyes were kind.

"Your parents are gone," he said, quietly, tenderly. "Dead. Both of them. They can't touch you,

Hilary. They can't hurt you ever again."

"I've spent most of the past twelve years trying to convince myself of that."

"Ever consider analysis?"

"I went through two years of it."

"Didn't help?"

"Not much."

"Maybe a different doctor--"

"Wouldn't matter," Hilary said. "There's a flaw in Freudian theory. Psychiatrists believe that as

soon as you fully remember and understand the childhood traumas that made you into a neurotic

adult, you can change. They think finding the key is the hard part, and that once you have it you

can open the door in a minute. But it's not that easy."

"You have to want to change," he said.

"It's not that easy, either."

He turned his champagne glass around and around in his small well-manicured hands. "Well, if you

need someone to talk to now and then, I'm always available."

"I've already burdened you with too much of it over the years."

"Nonsense. You've told me very little. Just the bare bones."

"Boring stuff," she said.

"Far from it, I assure you. The story of a family coming apart at the seams, alcoholism, madness,

murder, and suicide, an innocent child caught in the middle.... As a screenwriter, you should know

that's the kind of material that never bores."

She smiled thinly. "I just feel I've got to work it out on my own."

"Usually it helps to talk about--"

"Except that I've already talked about it to an analyst, and I've talked about it to you, and

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that's only done me a little bit of good."

"But talking has helped."

"I've got as much out of it as I can. What I've got to do now is talk to myself about it. I've got

to confront the past alone, without relying on your support or a doctor's, which is something I've

never been able to do." Her long dark hair had fallen over one eye; she pushed it out of her face

and tucked it behind her ears. "Sooner or later, I'll get my head on straight. It's only a matter

of time."

Do I really believe that? she wondered.

Wally stared at her for a moment, then said, "Well, I suppose you know best. At least, in the

meantime, drink up." He raised his champagne glass. "Be cheerful and full of laughter so all these

important people watching us will envy you and want to work with you."

She wanted to lean back and drink lots of icy Dom Perignon and let happiness consume her, but she

could not totally relax. She was always sharply aware of that spectral darkness at the edges of

things, that crouching nightmare waiting to spring and devour her. Earl and Emma, her parents, had

jammed her into a tiny box of fear, had slammed the heavy lid and locked it; and since then she

had looked out at the world from the dark confines of that box. Earl and Emma had instilled in her

a quiet but ever-present and unshakable paranoia that stained everything good, everything that

should be right and bright and joyful.

In that instant, her hatred of her mother and father was as hard, cold, and immense as it had ever

been. The busy years and the many miles that separated her from those hellish days in Chicago

suddenly ceased to act as insulation from the pain.

"What's wrong?" Wally asked.

"Nothing. I'm okay."

"You're so pale."

With an effort, she pushed down the memories, forced the past back where it belonged. She put one

hand on Wally's cheek, kissed him. "I'm sorry. Sometimes I can be a real pain in the ass. I

haven't even thanked you. I'm happy with the deal, Wally. I really am. It's wonderful! You're the

best damned agent in the business."

"You're right," he said. "I am. But this time I didn't have to do a lot of selling. They liked the

script so much they were willing to give us almost anything just to be sure they'd get the

project. It wasn't luck. And it wasn't just having a smart agent. I want you to understand that.

Face it, kid, you deserve success. Your work is about the best thing being written for the screen

these days. You can go on living in the shadow of your parents, go on expecting the worst, as you

always do, but from here on out it's going to be nothing but the best for you. My advice is, get

used to it."

She desperately wanted to believe him and surrender to optimism, but black weeds of doubt still

sprouted from the seeds of Chicago. She saw those familiar lurking monsters at the fuzzy edges of

the paradise he described. She was a true believer in Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it

will.

Nevertheless, she found Wally's earnestness so appealing, his tone so nearly convincing, that she

reached down into her bubbling cauldron of confused emotions and found a genuine radiant smile for

him.

"That's it," he said, pleased. "That's better. You have a beautiful smile."

"I'll try to use it more often."

"I'll keep making the kind of deals that'll force you to use it more often."

They drank champagne and discussed The Hour of the Wolf and made plans and laughed more than she

could remember having laughed in years. Gradually her mood lightened. A macho movie star--icy

eyes, tight thin lips, muscles, a swagger in his walk when he was on screen; warm, quick to laugh,

somewhat shy in real life--whose last picture had made fifty million dollars, was the first to

stop by to say hello and inquire about the celebration. The sartorially impeccable studio

executive with the lizard eyes tried subtly, then blatantly, to learn the plot of Wolf, hoping it

would lend itself to a quick cheap television movie-of-the-week rip-off. Pretty soon, half the

room was table-hopping, stopping by to congratulate Hilary and Wally, flitting away to confer with

one another about her success, each of them wondering if there was any percentage in it for him.

After all, Wolf would need a producer, stars, someone to write the musical score.... Therefore, at

the best table in the room, there was a great deal of back-patting and cheek-kissing and hand-

holding.

Hilary knew that most of the glittery denizens of the Polo Lounge weren't actually as mercenary as

they sometimes appeared to be. Many of them had begun at the bottom, hungry, poor, as she had been

herself. Although their fortunes were now made and safely invested, they couldn't stop hustling;

they'd been at it so long that they didn't know how to live any other way.

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