Corkscrew

Corkscrew by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Corkscrew by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online
Authors: Donald E. Westlake
know Lucie?'
    'Bryce and I hadn't seen each other in years, until just recently. I guess he started looking up old friends after the marriage died. Listen, I'd love to meet Lucie Proctorr, but I don't know how to go about it.'
    'Easiest thing in the world,' Wagner said. 'It's just, I tell you what, we won't mention you're a friend of Bryce's.'
    'Good idea. What if I know you,' Wayne suggested, 'because I called you one time to get some background about journalism for a novel I was writing.'
    'Perfect. Come on.'
    Lucie was in the kitchen, in a little cluster of people by the refrigerator, next to a door that had a stub of porch outside it and beyond that the darkness of offstage. Wagner waited his moment, and then said, 'Lucie, I want you to meet somebody.'
    She had a bird's alertness, Wayne noticed, in the way she turned her head, and in the brightness of her eyes. She stepped out of that conversation like stepping out of a tub. 'Yes?'
    'Lucie Proctorr, Wayne Prentice.'
    'How do you do?'
    'Wayne's a novelist, but he's all right.'
    'Oh,
some
novelists are all right,' she said, and grinned slightly at Wayne as she said, 'Are you a famous novelist, Mr Prentice?'
    'Oh, no,' he said, 'I'm just a door-to-door novelist, I sell books out of the trunk of my car.'
    'You must be a very persuasive salesman.'
    'I try to be.'
    'Sell me,' she said.
    He didn't follow. 'What?'
    'Sell me a book,' she said.
    'Excuse me,' Wagner said, being called away, but neither paid any attention.
    'Sell me your latest book,' she said.
    That would have been too complicated. He said, 'No, I'll make it easy on myself. I'll sell you my first book.'
    She watched him with amused keenness. 'Why is that easier?'
    'I was very enthusiastic then.'
    'Aren't you enthusiastic now?'
    'Sometimes. My first book was called
The Pollux Perspective,
and it was about two army men whose job is to safe-guard a doomsday machine. One of them decides it's a manifestation of God, and has to be protected at all costs, and the other decides it's Armageddon, and its release should not be thwarted. They both think of themselves as the good guy.'
    'Very arty,' she said.
    'Actually,' he said, 'I was trying to be very commercial. Blowing everything up, you know.'
    She looked thoughtful. 'What did you say that was called?'
    '
The Pollux Perspective
.'
    'But I've
read
that book!'
    Astonished, he said, 'You have?'
    'My husband had it. Ex-husband. Had it, probably still has it. Do you know him?'
    'Your husband?'
    'Ex-husband, or at least eventually. Bryce Proctorr.'
    'Oh,
he's
famous,' Wayne said. 'I don't think he sells books out of the trunk of his car.'
    'No, it might be better for him if he did,' she said. 'Would you fill my wineglass?'
    'Delighted,' he assured her, and carried it away, and filled both glasses.
    When he got back, she was in a different conversation, but she left it immediately, took her glass, and said, 'Thank you.
The Pollux Perspective.
Why aren't you famous, Mr Prentice? You're as good a writer as my former. Don't you push yourself?'
    'Maybe not enough,' he said.
    'Well, you're never going to get anywhere being a shrinking violet,' she told him. 'How many books have you published?'
    'Twelve.'
    'And still among the great unwashed. I think you should be ashamed of yourself.'
    'It might not be entirely my fault.'
    'All the losers say that,' she commented.
    He could not let her see him become annoyed. 'Have you been around a lot of losers?' he asked her.
    'Not for long. What are you working on now?'
    'A man whose brother disappears, and he goes looking for him. I think it'll turn out, what he's searching for is himself.'
    'Arty but commercial again?'
    'Lots of skulduggery,' he said. 'South American generals.'
    'Oh, don't we know all that?'
    'We don't know my guy and his brother.'
    'I'm not sure we need to know them,' she said. 'Sell it to me.'
    'Not here. Too much distraction.'
    Again, that sharp bird look; a bird of prey? 'Are you asking me for a date?'
    He hadn't been. She

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