How about it? Lane called to her.
She shrugged, and Lane heard a quiet intake of breath from Henry likely at the way the gesture made Jessicas breast move under the tight, thin fabric of her top. Only one showed. The other was discretely hidden under the cloth sling that supported her broken arm. The visible one jiggled as she stepped toward the car.
Maybe she got herself gang-banged.
Nice, Lane. Real nice.
Wouldve been her own damn fault.
Cut it out.
Leaning across the passenger seat, she unlatched the door and swung it open.
Thanks, Jessica said.
Henry dropped away from the seat back no doubt with Bettys help and lost his chance to watch the girl climb in. Too bad, Lane thought. He wouldve enjoyed seeing Jessicas leg come out through the slit side of her jeans. The bruises mightve dampened his enthusiasm, but not by much.
She pulled the door shut. Lane checked the side mirror, waited for a Volkswagen to pass, then swung out.
Are you sure you want to be going to school? she asked.
Shit. Would you, ib you looked like this?
I guess Id probably call in sick.
Yeah, Jessica replied through her split and swollen lips. Well, better than habbing by old lady in by face all day. Shes such a bain.
Lane rubbed her lips together, licked them. Listening to Jessica was almost enough to make them ache.
From the backseat came Bettys voice. So, you going to let us in on it, or do we have to guess?
Scowling, Jessica peered over her shoulder.
Its none of our business, Lane said.
Yeah. Well, I got trashed.
Who did it to you? Henry asked.
Who the buck knows? A couple guys. Real asswibes. Beat the shit outa be and stole by burse.
Whered it happen?
Ober backa the Quick Stob.
Behind the Quick Stop? Betty asked. What were you doing there?
They dragged be there. Saturday night. I went in bor cigarettes, and they got be when I cabe out.
Bad news, Henry muttered.
Yeah, Ill say. With one hand she opened a canvas satchel and took out a pack of Camels. She shook it, raised the pack to her mouth, and caught a cigarette between her fat, scabby lips. She lit it with a Bic, inhaled deeply, and sighed.
Did they catch the guys who did it? Lane asked.
Jessica shook her head.
I didnt think stuff like that happened around here.
It habbens, all right.
Lane pulled into the student parking lot, found an empty space, and shut off the car.
Thanks a lot bor the ride, Jessica said.
Glad to help. Im awfully sorry you got messed up.
Be too. So long. She climbed out and headed away.
Wouldnt you just die to know what reallyhappened? Betty said.
You think she lied? Lane asked.
Lets put it this way. Yes.
Henry shoved the seat back forward. Why would she lie about a thing like that?
Why wouldnt she?
Eight
Larry drank coffee and read a new Shaun Hutson paperback for an hour after Lane went off to school. Then he set the book aside, said, Id better get to it, and rose from his recliner.
Have fun, Jean told him, glancing up from the newspaper as he strode past her.
He shut his office door and sat down in front of the word processor.
He had already decided not to work on Night Strangertoday. The book was going well. Two more weeks should take care of it.
Then what?
Ah, he thought, theres the rub.
Normally, by the time he was this close to finishing a novel, the next was pretty well set in his mind. He would already have pages of notes in which he had explored the plot and characters, and have several of the major scenes worked out.
Not this time.
Gotta get cooking, he told himself.
When the day came to write The End on Night Stranger, he wanted to slip a fresh floppy disk into his computer and begin Chapter One. Of whatever.
Two weeks to go.
That should be plenty of time.
Youll come up with something.
Youd better.
Eighty, ninety pages to go. Then he would find himself facing an empty disk, a void, a taunting blank that would push him to the edge of despair.
It had happened a few times before. He dreaded going through a period like that again.
I wont, he told himself.
He formatted a new disk and brought up its directory; 321,536 bytes to play with.
Lets just use up a couple thousand today, he thought.
A page or two, thats all itll take. Maybe.
He punched the Enter key and the screen went blank. A few seconds later he had eliminated the right margin justification, which wouldve left odd spaces between the words, spaces that drove him nuts when he tried to read the hard copy. He punched a few more keys. Novel Notes Monday, October 3, appeared in amber light at the upper left-hand corner of the screen.
Then he sat there.
He stared at the keyboard. Several of the keys were grimy. The filthy ones were those he used least often: the numbers, the space bar except for a clean area in the shape of his right thumb, some keys at the far sides that could apparently be used to give commands for a variety of mysterious functions. He didnt know what the hell half of them did. Sometimes he hit one by mistake. The consequences could be alarming.
He spent a while cleaning the keyboard, scratching paths through the gray smudges with a fingernail.
Stop screwing around, he told himself.
He scraped Saturdays ashes out of a pipe, filled it with fresh tobacco and lit it. The matchbook came from the Sir Francis Drake on Union Square. Theyd had lunch there during a vacation along the California coast two summers ago. The vacation he thought of as the wharf tour.
He set the matchbook down, puffed on his pipe, and stared at the screen.
Novel Notes Monday, October 3.
Okay.
His fingertips tapped at the keys.
Come up with something hot. Original and big. Try for at least 500 pages, more if possible.
Right. That accomplished a lot.
He typed in, How about a vampire book? Ha ha ha. Forget it. Vampires are done to death.
Need something original. Some kind of a NEW threat.
Good luck, he thought.
How about a sequel? he wondered.
Maybe a sequel. The Beast II, or something. Worth considering, if you cant turn up anything better.
Come on, something new.
Or a new variation on an old theme.
Nobody but Brandners done anything decent with werewolves. Come up with a fresh werewolf gimmick? Forget it. That TV shows got the whole thing covered. But thats not a book.
Larry scowled at the screen.
Forget werewolves.
What else is there?
His pipe slurped. He twisted the stem off, blew a fine spray into the wastebasket beside his chair, put the pipe back together and lighted it again.
A few minutes later, he had a list:
werewolves
ghosts (boring)
zombies
aliens
misc. beasts
demonic possession (shit)
homicidal maniac (done to death)
curses
wishes granted (Monkeys Paw)
possessed machinery (Kings realm)
crazed animals (see above, and BIRDS)
haunted house (possibilities)
How ABOUT a haunted house book? he wrote.
Hed always wanted to do one, and always reached the same stumbling block. By and large, he didnt consider ghosts sufficiently scary. Something else had to be in the house. But what?
That question took him back to the list.
He stared at it for a long time.
Something horrible inside the house, he wrote. But what?
How about a vampire under the staircase?