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 Merc