CHAPTER 9

 

Slater put his motorcycle helmet down on the grass, used a battered Zippo to light a cigarette and then blew a tight plume of smoke into the air with a look of contentment on his face. He held out the pack of cigarettes but she shook her head. He slowly looked around the towering blocks that overlooked the park and smiled. “New York always brings out the serial killer in me,” he said quietly.

“What?” said Jenny.

Slater chuckled softly and took another long drag on his cigarette. “It’s the first line of the book I’ve just finished,” he said.

“Not the one you were talking about in class? The Bestseller?”

“No, The Bestseller is a work in progress. The serial killer one is called The Basement. The central character is a guy by the name of Marvin Waller and that’s the first thing you hear him say in the book.”

“That’s not the one you were reading from. In class?”

Slater shook his head. “The Bestseller isn’t written yet. It’s a work in progress. That was always the idea, to read out what I was writing and then incorporate the reaction it gets into the story.”

“So you’ll be writing about Dudley?”

“About everybody. That’s the point.”

“You mean I’ll be in the book?”

“Sure.”

“And this conversation we’re having? Will that be in the book.”

Slater grinned. “It’s not a diary,” said Slater. “Only stuff that’s relevant to the plot will go in. The plot’s got to keep moving otherwise there’s no story. What about you? Do you keep a diary?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“You look like the sort who’d keep a diary, that’s why. A lot of writers do. It’s a way of collecting thoughts that you can use in your writing.”

“You’re right. I’ve always kept a diary, ever since I was a kid.”

“A pink one with a padlock?”

Jenny laughed. “When I was six, yes. Now I use a proper notebook.”

He held out the pack of cigarettes again. “I’m not a smoker, Adrian,” she said. “Never have and never will. So this book that you’ve finished. It’s about a serial killer?”

“Yeah. Sort of.”

“Sort off?”

“It’s complicated,” said Slater. “I’ve tried to keep the reader guessing.”

“But it’s written from the viewpoint of the killer, you said. So it’s like American Psycho as well?”

“Now that would be a spoiler, Jenny. I’ll let you read it some time. Anyway, Waller is a wannabe screenplay writer who isn’t having much luck selling his movies. Truth be told, he isn’t a great writer but he thinks he is. He just figures that if he can get his screenplay on the right desk he’ll be rich and famous.”

“That much is true,” said Jenny. “It’s all about getting your work read by the right people. If you can’t get an agent you can’t get a publishing deal. And agents are really hard to get to.”

“I’m sure Dudley will help get your book out there,” said Slater, and he picked up his mootorcycle helmet and started walking across the park.

Jenny hurried after him. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” said Slater. “Grose has contacts, he knows agents, he can get your work read.”

“I’m not sleeping with him!”

Slater stopped walking and looked at her with a broad smile on his face. “Did I say you were?”

“You’re inferring it.”

“I might be implying it, but I’m definitely not inferring it,” said Slater.

“What?” said Jenny, confused.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Slater. “I just said that Grose should be able to help you. He’s got contacts. You’re the one who mentioned sleeping. The lady do protest too much, methinks.”

“What do you mean?”

“Shakespeare. Hamlet Act 3, Scene 2. Most people misquote it and say “methinks the lady do protest too much” but as usual most people would be wrong.”

“You read Shakespeare?”

“Jenny, you can’t be a writer without knowing the classics. Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy. Grisham.” He grinned. “I’m joking about Grisham.”

He started walking again and Jenny fell into step next to him. “I’m really not sleeping with him.”

“Good.”

“Why good?”

“Because he’d be abusing his authority and it’d cost him his job, tenure or no tenure.”

“Anyway, he’s married.”

Slater flicked ash from his cigarette. “Oh sure, married men never sleep around.” A woman pushing a toddler in a stroller glared at him as he smoked his cigarette. Slater grinned at her and held up the cigarette. “It’s not real, ma’am. It’s plastic. One of those new-fangled artificial ones.”

The woman looked away and hurried down the path.

“See that?” he said to Jenny. “Why do people hate smokers so much?”

“Smoking kills people,” said Jenny.

“Smoking kills smokers,” said Slater. “It’s a choice.”

“There’s secondary smoke.”

“I’m outside, in a park,” he said. “A park surrounded by roads full of cars belching fumes that are far more poisonous than this.” He held up his cigarette. “The average New York taxi cab puts out more pollution in a day than I’ll cause in a lifetime of smoking. And the jury’s out on secondary smoking. Trust me, I’ve looked at the evidence and there isn’t any. You breathe in more toxins walking down Sixth Avenue than you do living with a smoker.”

He walked off the path and onto the grass. Jenny followed him. “I lied when I said I’ve never smoked,” she said. “I tried it once. It made me cough.”

Slater laughed. “How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

“You rebel. It makes everyone cough the first time. It’s like coffee. No one really likes their first coffee. It’s an acquired taste.” He sat down on the grass, put down his backpack and motorcycle helmet, then took out his pack of cigarettes, flicked it open and offered it to her.

She stood looking down at him, frowning, then realized that he wanted her to take one. “Oh no, I can’t,” she said.

“Of course you can. You tried when you were fifteen. You can try again now.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t want to? Or are you being told that you mustn’t? You’re scared of the disapproval of the sour-faced hag pushing her ugly offspring around in his five-hundred dollar stroller? Think what her carbon footprint is? Her banker husband probably drives a Ferrari and they fly first class to the Bahamas twice a year and let’s not get started on all the electrical appliances they have in the duplex in Park Avenue.”

“You know her?”

“I’m guessing,” said Slater. He jiggled the pack at her. “It’s your life, Jenny. Your body. Your soul. It’s up to you to make your own decisions, you can’t let everyone else tell you how to run your life.”

Jenny bit down on her lower lip and then hesitantly reached out and took a cigarette.

“Good girl,” said Slater, putting the backpack and motorcycle helmet onto the grass and holding up his lighter. He flicked the thumb wheel and she bent down and lit the cigarette from the smoky flame. She straightened up and almost immediately began coughing. She patted her chest with her left hand and grinned ruefully as she blinked away tears.

“I told you, it’s an acquired taste,” said Slater. He patted the grass next to him. “Come on, sit down.”

Jenny sat down next to him, crossed her legs and took a slow pull on the cigarette but after just a few seconds she started to cough again. She put her hand over her mouth as she coughed, then shook her head. “I can’t,” she said.

“Take it slowly,” said Slater. “And give the nicotine a chance to work its way through your bloodstream.”

“You’re the devil, aren’t you?” said Jenny, looking at the cigarette as if seeing it for the first time. “I can’t believe you’ve got me smoking.”

“You have to try everything, at least once,” said Slater. He lay back and stared up at the sky. “We’re writers, Jenny. We write about the human condition. If you write about a character smoking, then you have to know what it feels like to smoke a cigarette. If you want to write about getting drunk then you have to know what it’s like to be drunk.” He blew a plume of smoke up into the air and watched the wind whisk it away. “Do you think a virgin could write about making love?”

Jenny lay down on the grass. Overhead there was a puffy white cloud in the shape of a duckling.

“Well?” said Slater.

“Well what?”

“Can a virgin write about sex?”

“If she has a good imagination, maybe.”

“Nonsense,” said Slater dismissively. “You have to do it before you can write about it. You have to write from experience.”

Jenny took a careful pull on her cigarette and held the smoke deep in her lungs. She could feel it, almost like a living thing, deep in her chest, warming and comforting. Then she exhaled and it wasn’t until the last of the smoke had left her lungs that she coughed. She grinned as she realized she was getting the hang of it. “So what about this Marvin character. The serial killer. How do you write about a killer if you yourself haven’t killed?”

“I didn’t say that Marvin was the killer. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.”

“But my point stands. If all writing has to come from experience, how can you write about a serial killer?” Slater didn’t reply and Jenny rolled over and looked at him. “Come on, answer the question.”

He smiled easily. “This isn’t an interrogation, Jenny.”

“Ha! You can’t answer, can you?” She grinned and lay down again. She took another pull on her cigarette. This time she inhaled and exhaled with no discomfort at all. She smiled.

Slater blew smoke. “I’ve killed,” he said quietly.

Jenny sat up abruptly. “You have not,” she said.

He nodded slowly as he stared up at the sky. “I had to,” he said. “I needed to know what it felt like, to take a life.”

“Bullshit,” said Jenny.

Slater grinned. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“You’ve killed someone? Really?”

“I didn’t say I’d killed someone,” said Slater. “I said that I’ve killed.” He rolled over to face her. “Cattle,” he said. “I killed cows.”

Jenny frowned. “Cows?”

“I went to a slaughterhouse, in Texas. They let me kill a few. With one of those bolt gun things.”

“Are you serious?”

“Sure.”

“You killed cows?”

Slater mimed firing a gun. “Straight between the eyes. Bang. They’re dead before they hit the ground.”

“How many?”

“A dozen or so.”

“And what was it like?”

Slater lay back on the grass and took another pull on his cigarette before answering. “The first time was hard,” he said. “Really hard. Harder than I thought it would be. I nearly passed out and my hand was shaking like I was having an epileptic fit. I almost couldn’t go through with it.”

“But you did?”

“I had to. I couldn’t not do it.” He sighed. “The second time was easier.” He chuckled. “It was like smoking. The first time was pretty horrible, the second was a bit better, and after six or seven it was fine. I could just do it. Put the gun to the cow’s head and pull the trigger and bang. One dead cow. It’s as easy and as complicated as that.”

“Did you feel sorry? Guilty?”

Slater shrugged. “They were going to be killed no matter what I did. They were meat, pure and simple. Why should I feel guilty? I’m no guiltier than the housewife who bought the plastic-wrapped steaks at the supermarket.” He pulled on his cigarette and then blew the smoke slowly through pursed lips. “But I saw what I wanted to see, Jenny. I saw living things die. I saw the life fade from their eyes and I know what it’s like. I can write about it.”

“And you think it’s the same? Killing a cow and killing a human being?”

“Practically speaking, sure. Emotionally, no. But the book I wrote wasn’t really about the emotion of killing because the killing is done by a psychopath and psychopaths don’t have emotions.”

“So this Marvin is a psychopath?”

Slater chuckled. “You’ll have to read it.”

“Come on, you can tell me. I want to know.”

“I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

“Does he get caught?”

“Jenny…”

She reached over and tickled him in the ribs. “I want to know,” she said. She held up the cigarette. “I smoked this for you,” she said. “The least you can do is to tell me the plot of your novel.”

“It’s a novella rather than a novel,” said Slater. “It’s about forty thousand words, give or take. It’s written from two viewpoints. There’s Marvin, written in the first person. Then there’s the killer, and that viewpoint’s in the second person.”

“So Marvin’s not the killer?”

“That’s the hook,” said Slater. “You try to work out if both viewpoints are Marvin’s, but that because he’s a psychopath he thinks differently when he’s in killer mode.”

“And who’s the hero?”

“The hero?”

“The character you identify with. Is it Marvin?”

Slater laughed. “Marvin? Hell no, Marvin’s a shit. He’s arrogant, he’s not as smart as he thinks he is, and most of the time he has his head up his own ass.”

“So who does the reader identify with?”

Slater finished his cigarette and flicked it away. “Why does the reader have to identify with anyone?”

Jenny sat up. “Are you serious?”

“It’s a story. The reader doesn’t have to identify with anyone.”

“There are cops in it, right?”

“Sure. A man and a woman. Detectives. They’re on Marvin’s case. They think he’s got a woman locked up somewhere and that he’s torturing her before killing her.”

“So they’re your heroes?”

“They’re pretty nasty characters too.”

Jenny frowned and ran a hand through her hair. “So everyone in the book is unpleasant?”

“Pretty much.”

Jenny put her head on one side and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t get it.”

“What’s to get?”

“In a novel you have to have a protagonist that you identify with, and he or she has an obstacle that he or she has to overcome. That’s what makes a story.”

Slater laughed. “Is that what Grose says?”

“It’s what everyone says.”

Slater’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Everyone?”

“You know what I mean. Every book on creative writing says that.”

“And who writes these books? Real writers write real books. The ones that write books on writing are the failed writers.”

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“The truth often is. I wrote from the heart, Jenny. I write what I want to write, not what some failed writer thinks I should be writing.” He sat up and crossed his legs. “You need to do the same,” he said. He tapped his chest. “Write from the heart. Write what you believe in. Then let the readers decide.”

Jenny sighed. “I wish I had your confidence.”

“If you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect anyone else to?” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go.” He stood up and brushed grass off the knees of his jeans, then picked up his backpack and laptop. “If you want, I’ll print you off a copy of the basement story. Just promise me one thing.”

“Not another cigarette?”

Slater grinned. “That was a one-off,” he said. “No, just don’t show it to Grose. Keep it between us. I’ve never shown it to anyone else and to be honest I’m pretty sure he’ll hate it.” He held out his hand and helped her up.

“I promise,” she said. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

She laughed. “Nothing serious, I’d just prefer a PDF that’s all.”

Slater grinned. “Deal,” he said.

“So you’ll let me read it? Really?”

“You sound surprised.” He unzipped one of the pockets on his backpack and took out a thumbdrive. He grinned and handed it to her. It was made from soft plastic, in the shape of a burger, complete with lettuce, tomato and a slice of cheese.

Jenny laughed as she looked at it. “You’ve got to be joking,” she said. She pulled it apart to reveal the USB connection. “A burger?”

“It’s ironic,” he said. “Books are the new fast food. Cheap and disposable.”

She put the thumbdrive into her pocket. “You won’t really write about me in The Bestseller, will you?”

“Why? Are you scared that Dudley will read it?”

“No,” she said. She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry, you can trust me,” he said. He picked up his motorcycle helmet, blew her a kiss and walked away.

Jenny watched him go. She felt a sudden craving for another cigarette and she laughed quietly to herself.