GEORGE RABASA

The wrong people keep trying to get hold of Lockwood these days. They beep his pager and his cell phone, leave messages on his voice mail and on Perla’s answering machine. Suddenly, he has a passel of writing assignments. No time, he says. I’m writing the story of my life.

Most insistently, Hollywood Hank wants to know why nobody was home when the courier showed up to pick up the tapes. “Where the hell are you? Where are the tapes?” He keeps asking, merely irritable at first, but later, his voice straining with frustration: “I paid for those tapes. I paid for Mercè Casals’ story. And I paid for you.” Lockwood sees him red-faced, bug-eyed and skew-haired, jerking his blue silk tie loose, sweat circles dampening his Irish linen shirt.

The phone rings from extensions all over Lockwood’s house: beeps in the kitchen, bells in the basement, buzzes in his study, and chimes in the bedroom. He cannot get away from the phone. He holds Claire by the arm, raises a finger to his lips as the answering machine goes through its clicking paces after five rings.

“This is Hank Holloway. Please Mrs. Lockwood,” he says. “I want you to think of me as your friend. I don’t know what you have discussed with Mark. But trust me, your husband is way out of his league here. All I’m saying at this point is that you and I have things to talk about. Not true for Lockwood and myself; communication has broken down between us. A shame too, because at one point I had said to myself, there is real rapport with this guy; he’s not an egocentric jerk, but a fellow one can reason with, a true professional who knows the value of a client, and a check. Boy, was I ever wrong about him. He’s turned out to be a two-faced, double crossing snake in the grass. I don’t envy your being married to him. Anyway, I’m sure you are by far the superior human being of the couple, a person of sense and sensibility, a rational, balanced woman of the new age. I know your type. You work out, you have a juicer, you subscribe to Oprah’s O and to Vanity Fair. You’re the ‘babe-with-brains’ type. I ask you, from one rational being to another: Please pick up or I’ll just keep on talking until I run out of time. I don’t care if neither of you wants to hear what I have to say. The truth of the matter is that Lockwood is way, way out of his depth on this issue. It’s an important point that bears repeating. The league I have in mind includes names that I’m not at this point able to reveal because of strict confidentiality agreements. And because the principals involved are afraid your husband may take violent action against them. These are names that you would recognize if I spelled them out for you. But I will give you a few hints. The author of The Authorized Biography of Mercè Casals, currently in progress, is no mere scribbler. We are talking a heavyweight household name here. A muscle writer. There is buzz of a million dollar advance. Which is not at all unusual for this particular writer whose name rhymes with Gonzo Taylor. There is talk of a bidding war among three publishers whose names I’m not at liberty to disclose. These are the giants of the publishing world, the editors of which would not give your husband the time of day even at the height of his glory days as a star MFA at some writing school. You want to know what publishers I’m talking about? I know you do. I can’t tell you, but I’m sure you can guess. Think big. You won’t be far wrong. Think of a flightless bird with webbed wings and feet who inhabits Antarctica. Think of the company that gave you Woody Woodpecker. Think of Bill Sorrow whose editor is not called “the sphinx” for nothing. Need I say more? These are major deals your husband is gumming up by hanging on to those tapes. It is futile of him to do so. Nobody will get behind a book by a nobody, even if he did have hours of one-on-one chit-chat with the dead fat lady subject of our collective concerns. That material in itself is worth nothing. It was her name on the book your husband was going to write, which I understand he had not even started when his subject came to her untimely end. That name would have sold books. But now with our heroine’s final breath, we’ve gone from a big publication to a posthumous work by an unknown ghost. And make no mistake about this: Even without those tapes my guy can still write a Big Book. This man is a power writer, a sausage-fingered, ham-fisted keyboard banger. Once he gets his money and he’s off the blocks, he can deliver six hundred pages, three hundred thousand words, ten pounds of manuscript, a couple of gigabytes in about four months. Give or take a few weeks for fact checking and copy edit and our book will be on the Best Seller lists before your hubby is done listening to those tapes. Nevertheless, I am willing to propose a settlement, amicable and productive for all parties concerned. I know that my book-deal makers will come to terms quicker if there is no question that our pugilistic keyboard jabber, the aforementioned Jones-o Smiler, has the wonder singer’s own words to work from. We need to talk, of course. But all your hubby has to do is hand over those tapes and sign a letter saying he has no intention of writing any book, fiction or otherwise, based on Mercè Casals or Nolan Keefe or Prince Liviu Gregoriu or (what the hell we’ve got an investment to protect here!) even opera in general. After five years, of course, he can write about anything he wants to. Lockwood does the letter, I do the check. He gets the most money he’s ever gotten, without having to write a word. Nothing could be simpler. Nothing could be sweeter than instant cash without the brain bash. So, dear Mrs. L., if your lame-brained, cheese-flinging, hack-hearted scribbler is around and listening to this, tell him not to be a principled loser. He had a nice ride chatting up Mercè Casals, and her nurse as you may well know by now, but the time has come to collect his chips and go on to his next game. He can keep the memories, he can keep the nurse, but he just can’t keep the tapes. He even gets to keep some money, a kill fee as it were, out of which I’m willing to make an exception and not collect my usual fifteen percent. It’s all net between him and the IRS. How much, we still need to discuss, but we’re thinking five figures would be adequate. Really, middle five figures. I’m truly sorry to be carrying on like this, but if your scribble-happy husband likes to listen to tapes, then he’s going to get an earful on this one. My voice is not going away; every time you click the play messages I’ll be filling in the gaps, dangling non-sequiturs, trailing off into the distance. And it’s not all good news either. I mean, it’s good news if he deals with us. If he doesn’t, we can still get those tapes. Make no mistake. The lead players in this town always get what we want. Please do not construe this as a threat, but we have ways to relieve him of what he doesn’t own. I can slam down court orders on the knuckles of all ten of his typing fingers. I can send professional persuaders—lawyers, locksmiths, lien servers. I can sue him for the indentured servitude of your unborn children, his mother’s memory, a pound of his flesh—what else have you got? I can get that too; home, car, your womb for hire. Clearly for him to risk all, for the dubious possibility of turning the musings of a crazy old lady into a work of cultural elitism that won’t sell five thousand copies is idiocy bordering on tomfoolery. I’m being too harsh, you might say? Not by half, little lady. In the end those tapes mean nothing in your husband’s hands and are worth gold in ours. I take it I am explaining myself to your satisfaction? Feel free to ask questions if there are any doubts in your mind. The number to call, toll-free, day or night is 1-800-MY AGENT. Ask for your friend Hank Holloway. Seven days a week, twenty…”

His voice is abruptly cut off and the red message light keeps blinking frantically, saying in luminous code, Listen! Listen! Urgent shit for playback!