Where Am I Now When I Need Me?

This is a Suicide Note. A journal, if nothing more, of these last days. It will, I fear, drag on for a time, as, alas, I shall pull no trigger. Not only would my courage fail me at that final, consummate moment of despair but my wife, Margery, is chairman of the Sane Gun Law Committee of Westport, Connecticut, and, as an example of her good citizenship, is insisting that I turn over to the Westport police my World War Two German P-38. It is rusty, of course, and to my knowledge has not once been fired in joy, much less in anger.

But it has its uses. Often, in the cocktail twilight of a summer's evening, I break it out and arouse one or more of the bare-midriffed wives of my neighbors with the tale of how I had, in the Ardennes Forest, stooped and plucked the thing from the holster of my fallen victim, usually an SS colonel. God, Harvey, it's so hard to think of you as a soldier! Mike never got any nearer to anything than the Bush Terminal in Brooklyn! Pause. Always the pause. Then: What (asks bare-midriffed-wife-of-neighbor, now sexually inflamed by the mystery that lurks behind my disillusioned eyes, eyes that have perhaps seen too much) does it really feel like to kill a ?man?

The easy shrug. The funny, twisted smile. The turning away, not wishing to speak of it. The reaching once again for the shaker.

Actually, I bought it (my rusted German P-38) in the summer of 1945 from a drunken Army Air Force T/5 for a canon of Chesterfields, which he, in turn, exchanged for a brief ejaculation and an extended and extremely painful case of clap. Maybe I will not turn it in after all. Maybe I will simply lock it in the filing cabinet here in my study. Margery will never know.

Sleeping pills are out of the question.

would, I know, take too few and simply wake some hours later in a semiprivate room, trembling with nausea and disgrace.

I have a fear of high places.

And if one wished to drown oneself at Pebble Beach (having no pool of one's own and being too well mannered to embarrass a more affluent neighbor), one would have to walk out at least a quarter of a mile over a nasty, pebbled bottom and then one would still be only waist deep in slightly polluted water.

Nevertheless, I am dying.

Slowly.

But by my own hand.

• • •

This is a suicide note.

My name is Harvey Bernstein. I am 46 years old. I am a failed writer; author of three novels, two volumes of poetry and perhaps 400 book reviews, all of absurd books, reviewed for absurd publications. My stomach hurts in the morning. I have a bottle of vodka hidden in my desk at the office. I am employed as an instructor at the Best-Selling Writers' School in nearby Stratford, Connecticut. None of my three novels was best selling. My two volumes of poetry sold not at all. My 400 book reviews were all unfavorable.

My son, Bruce, is at Berkeley. He sends me letters from time to time, when there is trouble with the carburetor. My daughter, Linda, is a freshman at Barnard, where she is living, offcampus, with Lester, a graduate student in African literature. As there is no African literature to speak of, his time is very much his own. And Linda's. She brought him home to dinner last night. Guess who's coming to dinner? I guessed. Margery was beside herself in a kind of ecstasy. We have not failed her! We have not failed her! was her war cry throughout the horrid Sunday afternoon.

Lester is very black, indeed. Toward the end of the evening, he twice addressed me as Baby in what I took to be the pejorative sense. Otherwise, he was pleasant enough. And, I suppose, in a way, attractive. More attractive than Linda, surely, who is, when it comes right down to it, a rather fuzzy-looking girl.

Where, I wonder, are the tall girls, with long, suntanned legs and blonde hair flying, that I dreamed of in my youth?

• • •

I awoke this morning filled with the knowledge of impending death. It was raining. It has been raining for a week. My dreams had been of blue water and sun-drenched beaches and tall girls with long, suntanned legs and blonde hair flying, running toward me in slow motion, in the manner of deodorant commercials on television.

Cold gusty wind drove the rain against the bedroom windows. Margery, thank God, was still asleep when I left the house. My stomach hurt, but I have mentioned that before. I drove (through gusts and rain) to the office.

The office, the Best-Selling Writers' School of Stratford, Connecticut, is a one-story edifice of glass and steel, divided, within, into cubicles, where we, the instructors, instruct by mail under artificial light.

Before me on the plastic surface of my desk lay the latest installment of the novel by Mrs. Edna Mortimer (housewife), a new chapter in the memoirs of General Harrison Bradley (U. S. A., Retired), a sonnet (part, I regret to say, of an extended sequence) by Charles Douglas Potter (hairdresser), plus numerous less ambitious exercises by students not so advanced as Mrs. Mortimer, the general and Charles Douglas Potter.

My secretary, Miss Akron (whose name falsely suggests a beauty-contest winner), has just brought in the morning mail. Applications from prospective students. Each will contain a filled-in questionnaire and a sample of the applicant's prose. Twenty-three of them this morning. God help me!

Mrs. Mortimer's latest installment describes the seduction of her heroine, a movie star ineptly based on the character of the late Marilyn Monroe, by a Jewish psychiatrist. Jacqueline Susann and Phil Roth will have a lot to answer for when they finally reach that Great Lending Library in the Sky.

It is raining even harder now. I think I shall add a stab of vodka to the instant coffee Miss Akron has just placed before me. Then, on to Mrs. Mortimer and the seduction of Jacqueline Susann by Philip Roth. At least, Mr. Roth refers to it as "pussy." Mrs. Mortimer speaks of it as "her pulsating Virginia."

Self-pity overwhelms me.

The general has been given his first command. A post in Alaska. Alaska is an American territory situated on the northwestern edge of the continent, he observes. He is thrilled and looks forward to a winter of high adventure. Mr. Potter's sonnet (as usual) celebrates the Grecian glories of the male body. Someday, perhaps, I shall open an envelope and out of it will fall....

Best-Selling Writers' School

Stratford, Connecticut

Application Form And Library Aptitude Test

(Please answer all questions. If more space is required, answers should be typed, double-spaced, on standard 8 1/2" by 11" typing paper, using one side of the sheet only. If, in our opinion, your application shows that you have genuine aptitude for writing, you will be assigned to one of our instructors, all of whom, by the way, are themselves professional best-selling writers. Your application will be processed as rapidly as possible and you will be hearing from us in a very few days. Good Luck!)

(1) Name: Cathy. I'm a girl with only a first name. The last names I make up to suit the occasion. Lewis, Lovibond, Lombard, Lamont. Choose one. And even the first name changes from time to time and season to season.

(2) Address: Cities. New York. Los Angeles. Las Vegas. Miami. Choose one. If I pass this test, you can reach me, if you move swiftly, at 2931 Northern Boulevard, Astoria, Long Island. I share apartment 4D with Joanne. Also a girl with only a first name-that, too, subject to change without notice. When we first met, she was Rhoda and I was Eugenie. I think my name showed greater imagination.

(3) Age: 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. Choose one. Joanne (Rhoda) is the same age.

(4) Bank: The Chase Manhattan. I have a friend there. I have friends everywhere. I am a very friendly person. I enclose a signed check (in case I pass the test). You fill in the amount. I am also a very trusting person.

(5) Present Occupation: "Model," which is, of course, a euphemism. Did I spell that right? I have no dictionary at the moment. If I pass the test, I will buy one. Which do you recommend? There are so many. Actually, I have done some modeling from time to time. See enclosed photograph.

(6) Explain In 100 Words What You Hope To Achieve by Taking This Course. (Use separate sheet, as explained in the instructions above.)

Separate Sheet 1

"What I Hope to Achieve by Taking This Course"

What an ass-hole question! I hope to become a best-selling writer. Why else would I be taking this course? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be vulgar, but it (question six) is so silly that I didn't know what to answer. Actually, I think questions are more important than answers. For example, does a word like ass-hole, which has a hyphen, count as one word or two? That is the sort of thing I hope to learn. And where to begin. That's another problem. I was born.... I awoke....He plunged it into me.... Those are all possible beginnings. But which? (100 words)

(7) To Test Your Literary Ability, Please Write a 500-Word Essay on the Topic: The Single Most Transcending Experience of my Life. (Please use separate sheet or sheets, as explained above.)

Separate Sheet 2

"The Single Most Transcending Experience of My Life"

The single most transcending experience of my life occurred in Webb City, Missouri, when I was 16 years old. As a young girl I was very ugly because of my nose (which I inherited from Grandpa who was known far and wide as Captain Hook not because he was a captain of anything) and my hair which was kind of no-colored and somewhat kinky. Not kinky like we use it today such as making it with boots and electric toothbrushes etc. Just all tight and curly and sweaty in summer. Anyway I was really stacked from the age of 11 on but it did me no good because of my nose and hair etc. At the time I had a big thing about a boy named Harold something I have forgotten his name who was in my class. He would not even look at me of course because of my nose and hair etc. He saw me once in a bathing suit at the Fourth of July picnic and said in my hearing that if he could wrap an American flag over my head so that he did not have to look at my nose and hair etc. he would consider throwing me one for Old Glory. Do you have to put quotation marks if he said it but you are just telling about it? Anyway, Grandpa died (of drink) and my share was $600 so against the wishes of my mother who wanted the money for herself to open a charm and tap dancing school I took the $600 and went to K. C. (by bus) and bought myself a nose job. There was enough left over so I could get my hair bleached (suicide blonde was the shade I chose) and straightened and be fitted for a contraceptive device. That was before the pill. Can you imagine? It seems like the Dark Ages! Anyway believe me it was worth the $600 and one week to the day or night actually from when the bandages came off I was in the back seat of Harold's Chevy. At the big moment for him (personally I didn't feel much of anything as my left leg was wrapped around his neck and had fallen asleep) he whispered for me to say the dirtiest word I knew. Eager to oblige, as I am to this very day, I did so. What I said was ointment. I still think ointment is the dirtiest word I know but I realize now that that was probably not the word he had in mind. Not only that but he probably thought I was making an insulting reference to his skin condition which was not so hot and he had to keep putting this stuff on it although only at night which didn't matter to me as he was built great and very handsome except for his skin condition. Anyway he was so upset that he twisted loose and came all over my (500 words)

Best-Selling Writers' School

Stratford, Connecticut Miss Cathy Lewis Lovibond Lombard Lamont, Apartment 4D 2931 Northern Boulevard, Astoria, Long Island

Dear "Cathy":

Very funny. I assume that "you" are one of three persons-Max Wilk, Ed Hotchner or Max Shulman, all good friends and neighbors in the Westport-Stratford area. What I can't understand is why you would take the trouble to do this to me! A practical joke I can understand. But the lengths: Actually to open an account at the Chase Manhattan Bank under that preposterous series of names! ("Your" check in the amount of $500 has cleared.) What is the purpose? What harm have I ever done you? I suppose, like most writers, you still bear a grudge (grudges? Perhaps the three of you are in this together!) over reviews I have written of your various books from time to time. But even so....

All right. We've had a good laugh. I would be interested, however, to know where you got the photograph. Is she real? Is there such a girl? Do you know her? Could I meet her? You see, you bastards, your vicious, black practical joke has worked. The seeds of doubt (or is it belief?) have been planted. Five hundred dollars for a practical joke? Very much out of character for three internationally famous cheap skates like you. I don't know. I don't know.

Bruce's car has broken down altogether. This time, it has to do with the transmission. Four hundred dollars is requested airmail special. Linda is still with that unspeakable schwarza. Margery is going through (as she has been since the day we were married 22 years ago) change of life. I am, unlike yourselves, no longer publishable. I am failed. I am vulnerable. This is a suicide note.

But, my God, if there were such a girl! I could teach her and mold her! ("And screw her," I hear you dirty bastards chortling to one another as you read this.) My life would be changed. There would be a reason to get up in the morning and drive to this hateful office and read and correct all this hateful, untalented, hopeless prose. Why does every asshole (asshole, by the way, is not necessarily hyphenated) in the world think he can write fiction? And why is it all, the very worst of it, the dregs of it, inflicted on me?

Frankly, Cathy, Max, Ed, Max, whoever you are, I have a confession to make. I have already been at the vodka bottle that I keep hidden in my desk. I have had three belts, plus the shot 1 regularly sneak into Miss Akron's version of instant coffee. It is still raining, as it has been for the past week. I am, on this hateful March morning, in the mood to believe.

Perhaps, Cathy, you are real!

But I must have proof! 1 will not, in my precarious condition, devote the waning days of my life to laboring over, struggling to correct, struggling to improve a series of "lessons" concocted amid roars of laughter, over drunken lunches, by my three so-called friends. Lessons that will later be read aloud with ghoulish glee at some unfortunate cocktail party. Very probably with my wife and daughter and boogie soon-I-fear-to-be (this is an interesting use of the hyphen, forming, as it does, a compound adjective) son-in-law present.

Max! Ed! Max! Don't do this to me! If it is a joke, drop it now. You've made your point, whatever it might have been.

But, Cathy, if you are real, there is no limit!

You know life, 1 know grammar and sentence structure. Together, we can own the world. I will teach you to become a best-selling writer. And you can teach me ... what? I don't know. To live, 1 suppose. Or at least to want to. (Sometimes a sentence can be ended with a preposition, but only for intentional dramatic effect.)

I am quite drunk now and it is only eleven-thirty-five. I have suddenly become very conscious of the hyphen. I, myself, tend to over-use it; as I do the semi-colon. It is rainy and cold here. As I stare morosely through the window at the flooded parking lot, I realize what it is I am actually dying of. I am dying of despair! I will mail this myself, illtyped as it is, as I do not want Miss Akron to see it. And I wish to mail it before I have second thoughts.

Most sincerely (on my part and 1 hope on yours), Your instructor, H.B.

Dear H. B.,

Of course I am real. The photograph was taken two years ago and I have put on a pound or so since but only (so I am told) in the right places. I was glad to learn that asshole does not need a hyphen. You learn something new every day. I have never thought very much about the semi-colon but that is interesting too. I'm sure you can teach me to become a best-selling writer.

You did not say in your letter whether or not I passed the test. As a matter of fact your letter sounded kind of crazy. You do not sound like a very happy person. But I guess most best-selling writers are unhappy and have a tendency to (continued on page 92)Where Am I?(continued from page 84) drink too much from time to time. I once spent a weekend with a best-selling writer (in Miami) and he drank the whole time. He also cried a lot. Afterward, I read two of his books (both best sellers). They were very kinky (boots, electric toothbrushes etc.) but also very beautiful. I must say he wrote about it a lot better than he did it in real life. But probably he does it better when he is not pissed. Many people do.

Are you a best-selling writer? Have I ever read any of your books? Could you send me one or two? (I will pay for them of course.) Please write soon and tell me if I passed the test. And what you want me to do next. Will there be regular printed lessons or will you just write and tell me what to do?

Your friend (and I hope student), Cathy

• • •

I ran into Max Wilk at a cocktail party two nights ago. Shulman, he tells me, is in Hollywood; Hotchner is in Europe; so that, more or less, rules them out. I dropped several not-too-veiled hints about prostitutes with literary ambitions and bank accounts at the Chase Manhattan. He looked at me blankly, clearly assuming I was drunk. Since he no longer drinks (gout), he assumes that everyone else is drunk at all times. He has a new novel. I have been asked to review it for the Diner's Club magazine. I reviewed an early Phil Roth book for Partisan Review. Now I am dying and unpublishable (except by the Diner's Club magazine) in Westport. Where are the golden girls of my dreams? Where are the reviews by Roth of my new novels? Oh, God! Perhaps Ed Hotchner will review my suicide note. For Popular Mechanics.

I have locked Cathy's photograph in the drawer where I keep the vodka. Last night, shortly after the 11-o'clock news, Margery turned insanely amorous. It was not a happy occasion. I had already taken my pills. She had already done whatever it is she does to herself at night that makes her look rather as she does in the daytime only more so. I could not for the life of me get it up. Then I thought of Cathy. The effect was extraordinary. I have not performed with such style in years. I found myself suddenly thinking "kinky" thoughts. I am toying with the idea of obtaining an electric toothbrush. How in God's name, I wonder, does one employ such an instrument sexually? At the moment of climax, I murmured the word ointment into Margery's earplug. (She had, in her sudden passion, forgotten to remove them.) Very satisfactory. Of course, like so many best-selling writers, I was pissed.

But I am not a best-selling writer. I am a 46-year-old drunken failure.

Later, sitting alone in the dark in the breakfast nook with a vodka and Fresca, I cried.

• • •

It is still raining. The general finds his new post near Juneau, Alaska (an American territory on the northwestern edge of the continent), disappointing. But there is, he writes, an ample supply of whiskey at the officer's mess. He is grateful for small blessings.

Mrs. Mortimer's heroine Madelene's Virginia (sic) continues to pulsate (sic) merrily. Sick. (Me.) Albert, the subject of Mr. Potter's sonnet sequence, continues to bulge provocatively at the crotch of his jeans. He (Mr. Potter), unfortunately, chooses to rhyme "provocatively" with "sock it to me" as the final couplet of Sonnet 163.

This is a suicide note.

I must make a decision. Either Cathy is real or she isn't. If she is (have I misjudged the whole matter? Are Max and Ed and Max innocent? Could this be a practical joke devised by Phil Roth and Miss Susann?), then I must answer her letter. I must begin her course of instruction. Her check was good. She is (I have made my decision) awaiting, with pulsating Virginia, my answer. Astoria (as an address) is beyond the inventive powers of any of the aforementioned best-selling assholes. I (frankly) have no idea if asshole should be hyphenated or not. But as an instructor of creative writing, I must take a firm (if not bulging) position. I shall write her in a moment or two. As soon as I sneak another look/drink from my locked drawer.

God, she is beautiful. Can she be real?

I believe! I believe! I believe!

I believe in the stork! I believe in Santa Claus! I believe in God! I believe in the fucking Easter bunny!

I believe in Cathy Lewis Lovibond Lombard Lamont!

Harvey Bernstein (I have begun to think of myself in the third person-a sign, I have read, of impending madness) opens his desk drawer.

He takes out the vodka bottle and places it shamelessly before him on the desk. He takes out the photograph. He studies it; thinking kinky thoughts, until the crotch of his baggy gray flannels bulges as provocatively as the jeans of Mr. Potter's Albert.

He takes a belt from the neck of the bottle. He reaches for a sheet of paper, inserts it into his typewriter and begins to tap the keys.

Dear Cathy, Good news! You have passed the test!

It is very important for a writer who wishes to become a best-selling author to choose a subject with which he or she is familiar. As your life appears to be a most interesting one, I think we might begin by having you continue with your autobiography, starting at the point where you left off in your most interesting 500-word essay....

The letter itself ran 13 pages, growing (I fear) more incoherent as he consumed vodka; and passion, in turn, consumed him. His concluding sentence was "I love you." Which I hope I had the sense to X out before mailing, but I do not remember.

I am 46 years old. I drink in the mornings. I am in love with a 18-, 19-, 20-, 21-, 22-, 23-, 24- (choose one) year-old prostitute whom I have never met.

This way surely leads to the self-destruction I so desperately seek.

The auto-da-fe has begun.

But it will take some time for the flames to consume me.

(Suicide note to be continued.)

• • •

"Out of your mother-grabbing mind," Joanne said as she wandered in from the bathroom, drying her hair with a large, mascara-stained towel. Joanne, formerly Rhoda and, before that, God knows what, had been considered for most of her life a dumb, rather sexy-looking blonde. As she had recently changed her hair color, she was now generally regarded as a dumb, rather sexy-looking brunette.

Cathy found her roommate's stupidity essentially soothing.

One of the things that amused and soothed her most about Joanne was Joanne's absolute refusal to accept the fact that they were both prostitutes.

"Prostitute?" a recent argument had run. "Wednesday night, Gene let me into the Colony in a pants suit. Do you think he'd let some cheap hooker in there with a pants suit? A restaurateur like Gene is a great judge of people! He has to be! That's his thing! Judging people. Judging, like, who should get the right table. Judging, like, are they good for the check. Shit like that. So, if I was a prostitute, don't you think Gene would be the first one to know it?"

So touched was Cathy by this line of reasoning that she politely refrained from pointing out that while her roommate had, indeed, been admitted to the Colony in a pants suit, she had been admitted as a member of a party of six, the host being a world-famous movie star whom that excellent judge of character, Gene, judged (correctly) to have arrived at the door at a pitch of drunkenness likely to explode into violence at any (continued on page 212)Where Am I?(continued from page 92) moment. As the interior of the restaurant had been recently and expensively redecorated, admitting, without argument, a cheap, pants-suited hooker seemed very much the wisest course of action.

What neither Joanne nor Cathy knew was that when the movie star called for reservations the following night, he was politely but firmly told there was no table available. And that he would be told the same thing every time he called till his dying day or until his mania reached such a point that he decided to buy the place. It was incidents like this that had caused him to wind up owning half a dozen fashionable restaurants both here and abroad. Three of these were so ludicrously successful that they had very nicely offset some considerable oil losses sustained during the star's previous fiscal year. Which, in turn, had annoyed his accountants, whose tax plan it had been to use the oil losses to offset his company's unexpected surplus of nonrental income. Actually, it turned out to be just about a wash.

That particular discussion might have raged on forever, but it was time for the girls to dress and leave for the Americana Hotel, where two gentlemen with Greek shipping interests were even then, awaiting them.

• • •

"In what way?" cathy asked.

"In what way what?"

"In what way am I out of my mother-grabbing mind? Incidentally, did you know that mother-grabbing is a hyphenated compound adjective and about ten years out of date?"

Joanne looked blank. It was an expression that became her.

The rainy spell that had lasted through most of March and April had ended, giving way to unseasonable heat and leaden skies, sullen with humidity.

It was six o'clock in the evening.

Cathy was seated, naked, at a card table on which a portable typewriter had been placed. It was her decision to forgo an evening of fun and profit with a famous movie director and his producer who were in from the Coast to scout locations in Harlem for an updated version of Anna Karenina. which they planned to shoot with an all-black cast that had prompted Joanne's original remark. She Huffed her hair now with the towel.

"All right, then, if you don't like 'out of your mother-grabbing mind.' how does 'I think you're absolutely bonkers' grab you?"

Joanne was inordinately pleased with bonkers, a word she had recently picked up from a visiting English jockey, who had paid her in American dollars from an illegal account kept here under his mother's (an American) name.

"I have work to do," Cathy said. "I'm getting behind in my assignments again."

And she was. Those damned Greeks had been in town for over a week. They had been jolly, plumpish men. Demanding but generous.

Cathy rolled a new sheet of paper into the typewriter. She was anxious to get on with becoming a best-selling writer. But it was impossible to work while Joanne put clothes on and took them off again, dumping them on the floor and complaining about her weight.

Joanne's bosoms, while not misshapen, were enormous. At the moment, they were a great professional asset. But when they went, they would go fast.

A decision was finally made.

A green pants suit. Joanne had an extensive wardrobe of pants suits.

"What if they want to eat first? What if they want to go to a decent restaurant?"

"We can always go to the Colony," Joanne said haughtily.

The heat in the apartment was oppressive. They had talked about putting in air conditioning, but it meant running in a 220-volt line and they had never quite got around to it.

"This place is like a steam bath," Cathy said. She rose from her typist's chair (newly purchased from an office-supply firm on Lexington Avenue) and went to the window. It stuck a little, but she finally managed to force it open. She stood for a moment, leaning out over the sill, breathing in whatever there was to breathe and watching the lights flicker on in the hideous rabbit-warren apartment buildings that lined the boulevard.

"Are they sending a car or what?" she asked, not bothering to look back over her shoulder. At least the carbon monoxide billowing up from the street was fresh carbon monoxide.

"They said to take a cab. They're using the car. They're looking for locations. They're not here for pleasure"

Joanne talked largely in italics, which was another thing Cathy found soothing.

Then Cathy noticed the man.

He was standing on the sidewalk directly across from the apartment. He was staring up at the window. The light was still good enough for her to see him clearly. He was 46 or 47 (she had become terribly good at guessing men's ages. It was a parlor trick she sometimes did for side bets. They, if they took the bet, would always have to show their driver's licenses. That was part of the deal. Sometimes, when they were lying about their names, they didn't want to show their driver's licenses. In those cases, she collected by default. She was, however, almost always right). He, the man on the sidewalk staring up, was neither good- nor bad-looking. In fact, he has no particular look at all. His eyes were hidden by huge glasses. For all she knew, they were twin telescopes. One, she suddenly realized, trained directly at her left tit, the other at her right. That is, if they were twin telescopes. Maybe the poor bastard was blind as a bat and simply looking for an address or something.

He wore a tweed jacket and baggy gray trousers.

He seemed harmless enough.

He could, of course, be the person who would subsequently be known in the world press as the Astoria Strangler, just standing there, bracing himself for his first shot. But Cathy doubted it. She decided to play it another way.

She waved. Not a wave with any invitation even remotely implied. Just a simple "Hi, there" wave. Then she rubbed her hands slowly over her breasts, lingeringly jiggling her thumbs on each nipple.

On the street, the man turned and fled. Some strangler.

From behind her, Joanne said, "What are you doing standing in the window with your knockers hanging out? This whole place is absolutely creeping with sex maniacs! Didn't you see The Boston Strangler? Now, come on, get in here and pull the blind! You may want to be murdered and raped and strangled in your bed, but I certainly don't!"

"We ought to put in air conditioning," Cathy said, turning away from the window, "it's like a steam bath in here."

"There's air conditioning at the Plaza," Joanne said, slipping her blue-plastic diaphragm container into her purse. She had no faith in the pill as a method of contraception. In addition, she claimed that it caused her skin to break out.

"How do you know you won't be murdered, raped and strangled where you're going?" Cathy asked, reseating herself at the card table.

"At the Plaza Hotel? In New York City? With two gentlemen who are here from the Coast to look for locations? Are you out of your mother-grabbing mind}"

Pretty soon, she was gone. Cathy watched from the window until she was safely in a cab. There was no sign of the man with the twin-telescope spectacles.

• • •

The silence was refreshing. So was the lack of italics. Cathy picked up the latest communique from her instructor. H. B., if that's how he liked to refer to himself. Maybe that was one of the rules of the school or something. That the instructors be known to their students only by their initials. Bullshit.

Harvey Bernstein.

She knew his name as well as he did. Better, probably, judging from the hysterical nature of his more recent letters. The poor bastard seemed to be having a terrible identity problem. With no technical psychiatric background, Cathy understood the nature of the identity problem as well as anyone in the United States, with the possible exception of Lawrence S. Kubie, M. D. (Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process; Noonday, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1901).

After all, she was, as she had put it herself, a girl with no last name. Frequently, on tricks, she would even forget the first name she happened to be using. And she had made up so many different backgrounds and ages for herself that she was no longer able to distinguish between what had actually happened in her life and what she imagined had happened. Maybe there was very little difference, since imagining is also a form of happening. But Cathy was unconcerned with such high-level abstractions.

A drop of sweat, dripping from her chin to the upper portion of her left breast and then, still unnoticed, puddling down the soft pink-skin slope, leaped from her nipple and landed squarely in the middle of the typed page that she had prepared the night before as part of her new assignment for H. B.

It left a stain.

It (the stain) caused her no distress. Instead, she smiled. On Harvey's last letter, there had also been a stain. He had handled it brilliantly. He had simply ringed the stain with a pencil and written in his own hand: tear-drop from right eye. She now picked up a pencil, ringed her stain and wrote in her own hand: sweat-drop from left tit.

She only hoped that the mark of her tit-drop (she liked that better, but it was too late to rewrite it without messing up the page) would not turn the poor bugger on even more than he seemed to be already. Maybe she should never have sent him the photograph. But, knowing she was barely literate and wanting desperately to take the course, she had done what she had always done. Used what she had.

Two weeks before, he had sent her a paperbacked edition of one of his (it now turned out, non-best-selling) novels. He had been very careful, of course. He had torn off the cover and the title page, thereby hoping (or not hoping?) to keep his identity secret. What he had (or had not) forgotten was that the title of the non-best seller was printed on the lop of each page.

It had been a simple matter to go to the public library, check the title in the card files, discover the author's name and, after obtaining a library card under a name she could no longer remember, take out his two other novels and his two volumes of poetry.

The novels seemed more or less to celebrate the use of the hyphen and the semicolon and had to do with rivalries among professors on various college campuses. Bullshit.

But the poetry was something else. She had never encountered blank verse before. Between it and his letters, he had managed somehow to touch her.

The truth of the matter was that Cathy had developed a kind of long-distance crush on him. She had always been a sucker for losers. Especially born losers.

The prose passage she was working on now was a description of her life as a performer in blue movies. Most of it was nonsense, of course, but she had clone a lot of nude posing and had made a couple of stag reels in California when she first got there.

The stag reels were no big deal.

She had been living with the boy she screwed on film, anyway. And she'd banged the director-cameraman a couple of times before she'd even met the leading man. But, for Harvey's benefit, she was making it sound as glamorous as possible.

A small but beautifully equipped studio hidden away in the Hollywood hills. Dressing rooms with the performers' names on the doors.

"At that time," she was writing when the phone rang, "Jigger and I were at the peak of our success. We were considered by many to be the Jeanette Mac-Donald and Nelson Eddy of the stag-film industry."

She was trying to turn the poor bastard on. No question. Then the bloody telephone. How can a writer really create when the bloody phone keeps ringing all the time?

Naturally, it was Joanne.

Naturally, it was a crisis.

Naturally, she had taken the wrong diaphragm case. The empty one. Could Cathy please just jump into a cab and bring the right one, on the lop shelf of the medicine cabinet, to suite 1846-7 at the Plaza Hotel? The pants suit had been just fine. They had had dinner in the room. Is a pants suit all right?, she had asked. No pants would be even better, had been the reply. And that was how it had gone. Until the blue-plastic case proved to be empty. Terribly sorry. Just jump in a cab. The boys from the Coast were absolutely charming. One (the director) was even kind of good-looking. Very young and groovy. In addition to which (the director was on the bedroom extension himself by now), the film they were seeking locations for was a very important film, indeed, and would very probably make an important statement about the Negro condition. From a White Russian's point of view, of course. But then, Pushkin, a very important Russian writer, had been a boogie himself, and on and on like that. Anyway, they'd love lo have her come up, if only just for a drink, as one of the girls they'd asked was having her period or something and had dropped out.

What the hell. It was hot in the apartment. The suite in the Plaza was air conditioned. She was getting bored sitting here alone, writing lies about the blue-movie business.

And Harvey Bernstein was such a chicken shit that he wouldn't even tell her his real name.

She was getting dressed when the phone rang again.

Could she also bring the stuff? Not the whole jar or anything like that, just enough for maybe half a dozen joints. OK. Why not?

I tried, she thought, I tried.

She looked at her tit-drop-stained page and figured, as so many best-selling writers had before her, why not have a little fun tonight? There's always tomorrow to get it written. In a curious way, she was on the right track.

Harvey Bernstein, lurking in the shadows across from her apartment, watched her get into the cab. Since taking flight, he had drunk five martinis in a bar up the street. It was only after her cab had turned the corner that he got the idea of breaking into her apartment.

• • •

The younger one, the director, was kind of groovy and the producer, while less attractive, had a wang the size of Nashua's (winner in 1955 of the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. Swaps copped the Kentucky Derby that year). By the time Cathy arrived, the three of them were seated, stark-naked, on the floor amid the remains of an expensive room-service dinner, playing spin the bottle.

The air conditioner was going full blast.

Cathy insisted on turning it off before she undressed. An orgy, she said, was one thing, but catching double pneumonia in the process was another.

Joanne told about how she had been admitted to the Colony in her pants suit. The producer suggested that next time, she try being admitted without her pants suit. That, he suggested, would be the acid test.

The three of them laughed uproariously. They had been eating and drinking and screwing for several hours and were feeling just great. Cathy rolled the joints herself. The producer spoke admiringly of the color of Cathy's nipples. Cathy spoke admiringly of the size of the producer's wang. He said that when it was fully distended, he could place ten silver quarters along its length. Cathy said that they did not make silver quarters anymore. The producer said they did not make wangs like that anymore, either. They all laughed immoderately. Cathy told about the days in California when she made blue movies. The director suggested that he had always wanted to direct one. Joanne was enthusiastic but reminded them that they had no camera. The producer said he carried a miniaturized, Japanese-made version of a B. N. C. with a 20mm lens concealed in his wang at all times. Joanne said 69mm. They all laughed immoderately. Pot on top of a lot of booze makes the dopiest things seem funny.

So they made the movie.

Then it was light-up time again.

Through the haze, Cathy became aware of the pounding on the door.

"Have you ever been picked up by the fuzz?" the groovy director said. "No," Cathy said, "but it must hurt a lot."

Everyone laughed immoderately, although it was an old joke. The producer (he had had a picture nominated for an Academy Award two years before) walked naked to the door with a joint in his mouth, opened it and admitted Joanne's friend the movie star.

They greeted each other warmly, embracing and exchanging darlings and babys. Not faggot darlings and babys, Hollywood darlings and babys.

"Baby, I knew it had to be you," the movie star said to the producer. "I mean, I knew you were in town and I could smell the stuff all the way from the Oak Room."

"Nobody busts the Plaza Hotel," the director said.

"Nobody dies on Dawn Patrol," the movie star said. He took the joint from the producer's lips and inhaled deeply, sucking in air at the same time. When he finally exhaled, about eight years later, he smiled and joined the group. He did not recognize Joanne without her pants suit. But he covered nicely. He was, in spite of all his actor crap, a kind man and never, intentionally, hurt anyone's feelings.

The producer told him they had been making a movie.

The director suggested they make a second feature.

The movie star said his agents would not let him play in second features.

The producer told him he could have top billing and also get to screw the leading lady.

The movie star said he always screwed his leading ladies.

Cathy said he could also screw the girl who played his leading lady's best friend.

The movie star said, well, in that case, OK.

They all laughed immoderately.

At two o'clock, Cathy quietly slipped back into her clothes, selected a clean SI00 bill from the wad on the dresser and tiptoed out of the suite, leaving the producer asleep in a chair, his huge wang hanging limply between his knees. Joanne, the director and the movie star were laughing and playing in the Bathtub.

In the corridor, which did actually reek of marijuana, Cathy suddenly remembered that, what with one thing and another, she had never got around to giving Joanne her diaphragm.

Not a plot point, she thought, just an oversight. Without knowing it, she was beginning to think like a best-selling writer.

"Jacqueline Susann did not get where she is today," she said to the sleepy-eyed elevator man, "by having one of her characters forget to give another one of her characters her goddamn diaphragm."

"Jesus," said the sleepy-eyed elevator man.

But without interest or emotion.

• • •

Getting into the apartment could not have been easier. The latch on the front door was broken and, as Cathy and Joanne between them had lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 650 keys in the nine months they had been in residence, they no longer bothered to lock the door of apartment 4D unless they were at home. As it was Joanne's conviction that the area was teeming with sex maniacs, she had caused a police lock to be installed that would have been adequate to keep the crown jewels in reasonable safety.

But it worked only if someone was inside to work it.

"If neither of us are here," Joanne had said in a blinding flash of logic, "the sex maniacs can screw themselves, right?"

Harvey Bernstein was crazed.

He had had his first official drink (as usual) at lunch. He had, of course, been nipping away unofficially since the stab in his instant coffee at 9:37 that morning. Then he had drunk throughout the afternoon. Then he had read over (a number of times) Cathy's detailed accounts (seven installments by now) of her first few months of kinky sex in the Hollywood hills. The erotic uses of the electric toothbrush, for instance, were no longer a mystery to him. In fact, it all sounded like kind of fun.

At 5:35, filled with passion, resolve and 86-proof courage, he called his wife, ready with an elaborate story of why he would have to spend the night in New York. He did not reach his wife, which he decided was just as well, as she had absolute pitch, even on the phone, for the number of drinks, official and unofficial, that her husband had consumed during the business day. Instead, he was told by the cleaning woman (Mrs. Edwards) that his wife had been called to the city to deal with some unnamed crisis having to do with their daughter, Linda.

As Mrs. Edwards, who should have gone home at four, had been into the bourbon herself, she failed to detect the more-than-faint slur in the speech of the master of the house.

"Sure and it'll do you good," she said heartily. "Every man needs a night out on the town from time to time. Especially if he has to put up day after day with a miserable cunt like your wife, if you'll excuse my language."

It was a barometer of Harvey's condition that he had noticed nothing untoward in Mrs. Edwards' language. They were both, if truth be known, smashed out of their minds.

He did find it interesting that Mrs. Edwards' brogue had become more pronounced in recent months. Particularly since she had been born in Florence, Alabama, and was black as the ace of spades. It came, he imagined, from seeing too many late-night movies on television where all the really high-class help were Irish. Who wanted to be Hat-tie McDaniel in this day and age?

"Who dat who say who dat when I say who dat?" Harvey said with what seemed to him enormous wit.

"Fuck you, Whitey," Mrs. Edwards said.

"Fuck you, too, Mrs. Edwards," Harvey said. "You'll be sure and leave a note for my wife?"

"Certainly, Mr. Bernstein."

"Good night, Mrs. Edwards."

"Good night, Mr. Bernstein."

It seemed to both of them that they had had an amusing, informative and perfectly plausible conversation.

All this was some time before Harvey had seen Cathy stroking her nipples in the window and had beat it up the street for five ("bar-sized," so they really didn't count as five) martinis.

Alone in the self-service elevator, Harvey felt in many ways like an astronaut. In the first place, he was weightless. In the second, there was a complex array of buttons to push. UP. DOWN. G. ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX. ALARM. He tried to make contact with Mission Control in Houston, but the bastards were all out to lunch or something. He considered pushing ALARM, which is what he felt, but remembering his position as housebreaker, he decided that it might not be wise.

Your mission, he told himself sternly, is to effect a landing, reconnoiter, bring back a sample of dirt and be on the Johnny Carson show. A penciled graffito on the elevator door brought him back to earth with no particular re-entry problem.

"Lillian," someone had written in a semiliterate hand, "takes it up the ass."

Lillian. It reminded him of Gish. Which reminded him of the old South. Which reminded him of Mrs. Edwards. "Who dat who say who dat when I say who dat?" he said aloud to Mission Control and pushed the button marked FOUR.

Once on the fourth floor, it was remarkably easy. There were only four apartments; curiously enough, clearly marked A, B, C and D.

For the hell of it, he tried the three other doors first. Knowing that his one-and-only love was out for the moment, screwing somebody somewhere, he wondered if perhaps Lillian of the elevator might possibly be home. A, B and C were locked tighter than three chastity belts. D opened to his touch.

There was a card table with a typewriter upon it set up in the middle of the living room. Two of his novels and his two volumes of poetry, in their severe public-library bindings, were on the floor beside the card table. On the table itself was a sheet of yellow paper. He gradually brought his eyes into focus. He saw Cathy's tit-drop. Tears spilled from his eyes. His glasses, like manhole covers, contained the flood. He took them off and shook them over her page, spraying it with tears. He wanted to circle each spot, but he could not find a pencil.

The floor around the card table was littered with rejected pants suits.

It was unspeakably hot in the apartment.

Not bothering to check, with Houston, he took the suicide weapon, his beloved P-38, from his hip pocket and craftily hid it beneath a cushion, removed his clothes and passed out on the couch.

If either Cathy or Harvey had read his horoscope that morning, neither of them would have got out of bed.

• • •

Cathy tipped the doorman a dollar and asked for the producer's limousine. It was, as she had assumed it would be, standing by. It was, she knew, a matter of principle for personalities in from the Coast to have chauffeur-driven limousines standing by 24 hours a day. Larry-Harvey, she remembered, had once insisted on a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. But things were tighter in Hollywood now. Probably due to all these conglomerate take-overs. Good managers, maybe. But they just didn't understand show business.

She awakened the driver and gave him her address.

As they drove across the 59th Street bridge, Cathy was feeling groovy. "I'm dappled and drowsy and ready for sleep," she told the driver, who was, she had noticed, very young and really quite good-looking.

The driver apparently could think of no suitable response. That's the difference between chauffeurs and cab drivers. Chauffeurs keep their yaps shut.

At her front door, Cathy reached into her purse and handed the driver Joanne's diaphragm. "Take this up to suite 1846-7," she said. "It contains the microfilm."

It must be remembered that she was still fairly high on pot and had had no dinner.

• • •

Once inside the apartment door, Cathy briefly considered bolting the police lock. With the groovy director, the movie star and now, possibly, the rather good-looking chauffeur, who would be arriving presently with her diaphragm, Joanne appeared to be set for the rest of the night. On the other hand, if she did decide to come home, it would mean waking up, getting out of bed and unlocking the door. Which was all right. It was the nightmare of being trapped by a now totally stoned Joanne, who would insist on recounting in appalling detail all the fun and games that Cathy had missed by leaving so early. The lost soap in the tub. What happened when the room-service waiter came to clear away dinner and found them all ... and on and on and on. In the end, Cathy decided to leave the door unlocked. She did not share Joanne's conviction about a prevalence of sex maniacs. In fact, she realized, the only honest-to-God sex maniac she'd ever met in her life was Joanne herself.

This interior dialog, while tedious to describe, took, in actual time, something less than a 20th of a second.

She had closed the door, without locking it, kicked off her shoes and begun to unzip her dress (Courreges) when she noticed the naked man asleep on the couth. Harvey was, to be accurate, not completely naked. He was still wearing his eyeglasses and one sock.

She recognized him immediately as the man on the sidewalk. She studied him for what might or might not have been a considerable length of time. (Her time sense was still somewhat distorted by the pot.)

Harvey was a mess. There was no doubt about! that.

She reached down and gently plucked his glasses from his nose. Then she slipped them on herself. The lenses were about five feet thick but definitely non-iclestopic. She took them off and placed them out of reach on the card table. 1) he did turn out to be a sex maniac he would obviously be easier to handle if his vision was slightly impaired.

Gingerly grasping the only nonnaked portion of his body (his left foot), she began to shake him. Presently, he opened his eyes. He blinked several times. "Where am I?" he said. "Now, when 1 need me," he added. It seemed lo Cathy to be a rather impressive thing for a man in his condition lo say. It had a faintly literary ring that appealed to her.

"You're not, by any chance, the Astoria Strangler?" Cathy said.

"What?"

"I mean, if you've come here with the idea of raping, strangling and murdering anybody, you can just put it right out of your mind. Dismiss the entire notion. Immediately."

"I love you," Harvey said.

Then he closed his eyes again and appeared to drift off into sleep once more.

There followed a series of "if onlys."

If only she had had the sense not to go to the Plaza and to lock the door after Joanne had gone.

If only she had had enough sense to remain at the Plaza, laughing, splashing and frolicking with the others in the air-conditioned bathroom.

If only she had had the sense to ask the good-looking chauffeur up for a drink. Together, they could have got the body on the touch into its clothes, down the stairs, into the limousine and out of her life.

If only....

She seemed to have run out of them.

Halfheartedly, she shook his foot once more. Then she stopped. Actually, there was no point in awakening him until she figured out what she was going to do with him once he was awake.

It was .stifling in the apartment.

Sweat caused Harvey's body to glisten. It was rather hairy in an unattractive way, which made him seem even more pathetic. There were tiny tufts of damp fur on each of his shoulders. Cathy found them curiously touching.

She wondered whom he had thought he was talking lo when he had said I love you.

It was a phrase that she had not heard issue from a man's lips in years. I want you—yes. You have a beautiful behind—yes. I'll give you $1000 to go to Vegas with me for the weekend-yes. But, I love you—not in a very long time.

Jigger was the last, she guessed. And he had loved her, in his fashion. At least he had actually said the words. It was the sentence that had immediately followed his declaration that had dimmed its romantic flavor just a little. "Listen," Jigger had said, "Gersten says he'll give us five hundred apiece to make a stag reel for him."

It was like the old Dan Dailey-Betty Garble musical. She knew damn well Gersten didn't want the team, honey, he just wanted her. But she didn't have the heart lo break it lo Jigger. His ego was in a very delicate condition at that time, anyway. The faggot who had been keeping him had cut him off with nothing but the Thunderbird and a further rejection by her or Gersten might just have been enough to send him oil' the deep end.

So she and Jigger had made the film. In a motel suite two blocks south of Ventura Boulevard. Once in front of a camera, Jigger had suddenly turned ham. He continuously hogged the key light. He had also insisted on the final close-up. A tight shot of his face as he simulated orgasm. They'd asked her to squat down under the camera and out of the picture and give him a helping hand, but she'd said strew that, it's his close-up, let him come any way he can. Then, for a topper, Gersten insisted he'd meant 5500 for the team. Not apiece.

So much for I love you.

Cathy had a sudden impulse to cover Harvey with a blanket, tuck him in tenderly, kiss him on the brow and let him sleep it off. But as the temperature in the apartment was at least 90 degrees, covering him with a blanket would not have been the act of kindness that it might have been on a different occasion.

Instead. Cathy went into the bedroom and carefully took off and hung up the Courreges. Then, really without thinking about it, she stepped into the shower. The cool water was both soothing and refreshing. It seemed to wash away the last of the pot. It was only as she was beginning to relax that she remembered the movie Psycho. The stabbing-in-the-shower scene came to mind with remarkable vividness. Maybe the sad, wet, hairy thing on her couch was a sex maniac. Maybe he was only pretending to be asleep. Maybe at this very moment, he, now fully alert, 20-20 vision restored by the easily found glasses, was rummaging wildly around the kitchen in search of the bread knife.

Without bothering to turn off the water, she dashed out of the shower, blindly grabbing for a towel as she went. In the living room, his glasses were still on the card table. His clothes were still on the floor (mingled, as they had been, with Joanne's pants suits). But the door was now open and he was gone.

Holding the towel in front of her (in her haste, she had taken a small face rowel, not a large bath towel), she went to the door and peered down the corridor. Harvey, naked except for his left sock (black), was lurching toward the elevator, ringing bells at each of the three other apartments as he went.

"Now, you come back here!" Cathy shouted after him. "I'm really vexed with you!"

Vexed? She had not heard nor used that word since she left Webb City God knows how many years ago. It had been one of Grandpa's favorites, though.

The elevator doors closed behind Harvey.

If there had ever been a moment to use the police lock, this was it.

" Jesus-fucking-shit -ass-Christ!" Cathy .said aloud as she strode down the corridor toward the elevator, not even bothering to hold the towel up in front of her. Two of the other apartments on the floor were occupied by hookers and the other one by a pair of really very sweet faggots, who loved to cook and occasionally asked Cathy and Joanne in for Sunday brunch. Bloody marys, baked ham and wonderful homemade bread.

"You know what you are?" Cathy said aloud as she jammed her thumb against the elevator button and held it there. "You are that greatest of all literary cliches "—she was quoting verbatim from one of her instructor's, H. B.'s, critiques—"the prostitute with a heart of gold."

"And what a dumb fucking thing that is to be," she added, as somewhere deep in the intestines of the building the elevator rumbled, farted and changed direction.

When the elevator doors opened, Harvey was seated on the floor in a corner, crying.

"Now, really," Cathy said, "I am terribly vexed with you!" Harvey tried, manfully, to rise. He sank back, however, almost at once. She entered the elevator and attempted to pull him to his feet. The elevator doors closed behind her.

Someone, somewhere in the building, had pushed a button.

In her mind, Cathy rapidly improvised a series of possible costumes that would adequately cover both of them, giving, in addition, perhaps, the illusion of Fun City summer chic. Two of the Beautiful People returning from a costume ball at Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper's, for example. Having little to work with but one black sock and one wet face towel, it did not seem promising.

Cathy draped the towel over Harvey's lap.

The elevator doors opened.

The couple in the lobby stood there beaming foolishly. She was a professional acquaintance who lived in 3D. He was wearing a white dinner jacket. One of her false eyelashes had come loose and was dangling precariously. Harvey moaned.

"Twenty-two dollars, please," Cathy said without hesitation. "Unless, of course, you already have the tickets."

The gentleman in the white dinner jacket reached automatically for his wallet. Gentlemen in white dinner jackets always reach automatically for their wallets. This was one of the few observable absolutes in Cathy's life.

"This is the Elevator Theater," Cathy said, "the smallest, dirtiest, most uncomfortable, most expensive off-off off-Broadway entertainment in town."

"Remember, darling," White Dinner Jacket's companion said, instantly picking up the cue, "we tried to get tickets from the captain at '21,' but he said there was no chance at any price?"

"Suicide to Mission Control," Harvey said, lying now on the floor, the towel for some reason over his face. "Mission Control, this is Suicide. Do you read me? Over and out."

"Grand." White Dinner Jacket said. "I only come to New York once a year. I like to catch as many shows as I can."

He took a 150 bill from his wallet and handed it to Cathy. "Keep the change," he said.

Cathy handed the §50 bill to the girl. The girl pushed THREE. The elevator doors closed.

"Profusely illustrated souvenir programs are on sale inside," Cathy said, to keep the ball rolling till the elevator reached the third floor. On the third floor, White Dinner Jacket made a friendly but ineffective grab for Cathy's left breast. His companion slapped his wrist. "Naughty, naughty!" she said.

"You don't want to leave it all in the gym."

Harvey moaned something incomprehensible through his towel.

The elevator doors opened and eventually closed behind White Dinner Jacket and his companion.

Cathy pushed Four.

"You are a disgrace," Cathy said to Harvey. "A public disgrace."

"I love you," Harvey said and attempted, unsuccessfully, to pass out again.

• • •

As the late Humphrey Bogart once said, "At four o'clock in the morning, you got to figure everybody's drunk."

It was and is a sound observation.

God knows, Harvey was drunk. And the couple now safely landed on the third floor was certainly drunk. By this time, however, Cathy was off her mary jane high and was beginning to feel ever so slightly depressed.

She had hauled Harvey out of the elevator, down the corridor and back into the apartment.

The telephone was ringing.

It was Joanne. The chauffeur was on the bedroom extension. The party was just getting good. Why didn't Cathy come on back in? And bring their piggy bank. The chauffeur's had proved to be equal to if not larger than the producer's. Eleven silver quarters were urgently needed for a test match. But they had run out of change. And the cashier's desk was closed for the night. They were all also pretty hungry and could Cathy just stop at Reubens on the way in and pick up ... she was still getting the orders organized—which kinds of sandwiches on what kinds of bread, some with mustard and some without—when Cathy hung up the phone.

Like Cathy, Harvey Bernstein had suddenly become more alert.

"You do not have, by any chance, something to drink on the premises? If not, and I wish to put you to no inconvenience, I am sure there is an all-night-it is curious that the word night is frequently spelled N-I-T-E at establishments that are open all night, an unforgivable corruption-liquor store open somewhere in the neighborhood. I think frozen daiquiris would be nice. If you have a fresh lime or two, I shall go out and get the rum." He started for the door.

Cathy, seizing him by his shoulder tufts, pushed him onto the couch. "For God's sake, put on your glasses," Cathy said. He did so.

"And cither get dressed or take off that one sock. You look ridiculous." Obediently, Harvey removed his sock.

He observed her carefully through his glasses for a moment or two, then rose and moved toward the telephone, careening off the furniture as he went. Cathy stopped him just in time.

"Who do you want to call?"

"Whom do I want to call. Not who do I want to call. I want to call Max Wilk, Ed Hotchner and Max Shulman and beg their forgiveness.

You are real!"

"My God," Cathy said, "you're Harvey-fucking-Bernstein!"

Harvey Bernstein burst into tears.

"I have been in love with but three women in my forty-six years of life," he said between sobs. "And you are the only one of them I have been privileged to meet in person."

Cathy said nothing. There seemed to be little to say.

Harvey found a pair of trousers on the floor, picked them up and attempted to put them on. They were Joanne's and he could not get them over his kneecaps. Cathy knelt down and helped him disentangle himself, lifting first one of his feet and then the other.

"I cried myself to sleep the night my first love, Alice Faye, married Phil Harris," he continued, reaching into a nonexistent pocket for a nonexistent handkerchief. He finally settled the problem by removing his glasses and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

"I have, over the years, published a series of critical essays attacking Arthur Miller in such periodicals as the Diner's Club magazine. Not because I did not admire his work but because of my second love, Marilyn. You, Cathy Lewis Lovibond Lombard Lamont," he added, "are all that is left to me now. Cathy, I love you!"

He was sweaty and naked and drunk and his nose was running. He had lost his glasses again. He was covered with hair in all the wrong places. He was just awful. But he loved her. He did not say he wanted her. He did not say she had a beautiful behind. He did not offer her $1000 to go to Vegas with him for the weekend. He said: I love you.

Tears welled up in Cathy's eyes.

"Darling," Cathy said, "what can I do? Just tell me what I can do." "I love you," Harvey said. He stood, swaying gently, by the couch.

Cathy was still kneeling in front of him, holding the trousers of Joanne's pants suit in her hand. They were plum-colored, slashed deeply at the sides and vaguely held together by what seemed to be white shoelaces. Gene must have been really desperate, letting her into the Colony in that getup.

"I love you," Harvey said.

Cathy tried. But at that moment and in his condition, it turned out not to be an intensely practical proposition.

"Later, darling," Cathy said. "I promise! I promise!"

"I love you," Harvey said.

She got up. took him by the hand and led him to the bathroom. The shower, naturally, was still running.

Gracefully leading the way, she escorted him under it. Somehow, en route, he had found his glasses again and put them on. This caused a minor problem under the cold cascading water. She took them off his nose and placed them carefully in the soap dish, removing the soap.

For a while, they stood together without touching. Then she opened her aims to him. He moved toward her, slipped on the soap, bounced off the tile wall and landed on his head.

Cathy managed to get his inert body out of the shower before he actually drowned.

• • •

Harvey Bernstein's first thought when consciousness finally returned was that he had gone blind. As far as he could tell, his eyes were open. He fluttered the lids a few times experimentally, but the view remained the same. Total blackness.

For a moment or two, the idea of blindness did seem to have its brighter side. He would not have to read the conclusion of Mrs. Edna Mortimer's (housewife) novel nor the further non-adventures of Harrison Bradley, probably the world's dullest and most illiterate general since the late Dwight D. Eisenhower. Charles Douglas Potter's Albert's bulging crotch would be out of his life forever. People would be kind to him. Old ladies would help him across streets. He could spend his days listening to recordings of Orson Welles reading from the Bible. He wondered if his major medical covered loss of sight.

Tentatively, he raised his head a few inches from what seemed to be a pillow. A crack of light coming from under a door struck his line of vision. For a moment, he felt almost wistful. So he was not blind, after all. He was just lying in a strange room with blackout curtains drawn. He had a bone-crushing hangover. Certain highlights of the preceding 24 hours slowly returned to him.

He began to tremble.

Icy sweat broke out, drenching his entire body.

Then he remembered Cathy leading him gently to the shower and tears filled his eyes. He had been crying and sweating almost incessantly for the past two days. All in all, he must have exuded several gallons of fluid. Of course, he had replaced at least that much by his intake of neutral-grain spirits.

Beside him in the bed, someone stirred.

Cathy! Cathy! Cathy!

Experimentally, he reached out an exploring hand. What it encountered was a breast.

She stirred a little but did not waken.

Suddenly, he was no longer trembling, crying or sweating. As he tenderly caressed her sleeping body, the panic drained from him. She moaned a little happy moan as her nipples stiffened to his touch. Gently, she took his hand and guided it downward between her legs. Then she herself reached downward.

When someone is especially skilled and practiced at a given action, it is often colloquially said that he or she can do it in his sleep.

No word was spoken as, in her sleep, she deftly moved him into herself. It was mad, trancelike and extremely pleasant. They came together and at the ultimate moment, Harvey, not wanting to break the dream, refrained from whispering ointment into her ear. Contented, she guided him out of herself, rolled onto her side and moved happily off into deeper sleep.

Harvey rose from the bed and, on tiptoe, trying in equal parts not to awaken her and not to trip over something and break his neck, groped his way toward the crack of light under the door. He finally made it.

In the living room, he was temporarily blinded by the blazing afternoon sunlight. He staggered to the kitchen.

"Good morning, darling," Cathy said. She was seated naked at the table, studying The Wall Street Journal, a cup of coffee in her hand. "I was beginning to wonder if you were still alive."

Harvey Bernstein did the only sensible thing a man could do at such a moment. He turned and ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Any American male who has survived for 46 years has, at least once, experienced the sensation of knowing that he is at that moment stark-raving mad but still sane enough to be aware of the fact.

With the sane part of his mind, Harvey watched his insane self calmly shower, shave (there was a razor in the medicine cabinet but no shaving cream; he simply lathered his face with a cake of Yardley's soap), comb his hair, wrap a bath towel around his waist and return to the living room. Cathy, still naked, was stretched out on the couch, reading a copy of U. S. News & World Report.

His sane self heard the insane part of him say, "Do you mind if I use the telephone? I think I'd better call my wife."

• • •

Margery and Max had returned from the motel at 11:30 the night before. They were prepared for the confrontation scene with Harvey. Mrs. Edwards had finished the bourbon and left the house, forgetting entirely Harvey's request that she leave a note. Harvey was not there. They had waited until two o'clock. Finally, Max had said, "Why don't we just leave him a note, pack your stuff and get out of here? The wedding's at eleven and our plane's at two. If we leave pretty soon, we can drive to town and get some sleep."

Margery was disappointed. She had been spoiling for a really good confrontation scene for 22 years.

"I wouldn't know how to tell him in a note."

"Let's divide the labor. I'm the writer, you're the housewife. You pack and I'll write the note. Does the silly bastard have a typewriter around here someplace?"

"You are a very beautiful man," Margery had said. "I think there's an Olivetti portable in the hall closet."

• • •

"What will you tell her?" Cathy asked as the Insane Harvey dialed the number.

"I shall tell her that I was called to New York to meet with a publisher who wishes to reprint my three novels and two volumes of poetry in paperback. I will tell her that we wined and dined, not wisely but too well, at Le Pavilion and then repaired to the Oak. Room Bar and, when that at last closed, moved on to an after-hours bottle club of which he is an old and valued member. I will explain that it was all a matter of business."

The Sane Harvey listened to this nonsense, aghast.

At the other end, the phone was ringing.

Presently, Mrs. Edwards picked up the receiver. She had arrived at work with a hangover down to her toenails. But, glass in hand, she was making a nice recovery.

"Top o' the morning to you, Mr. Bernstein," Mrs. Edwards said.

"How are you, Mrs. Edwards?" Harvey asked.

"The better for hearing the sound of your voice, lad," Mrs. Edwards said between sips.

"Listen, Mrs. Edwards, will you please knock off the Gaelic charm and put Mrs. Bernstein on the phone!"

"Fuck you, Whitey," Mrs. Edwards said.

"Fuck you, Mrs. Edwards," Harvey said. "Would you please get Mrs. Bernstein."

Mrs. Edwards, reduced by drink to an uncommonly low threshold of sentimentality, burst into tears. "Missus Bernstein done gone," she said. "She done gone and run off with that no-count white trash Max Wilk. She done left, bag and baggage. She clone left you a note."

"Who dat?" Harvey said.

"Who dat who say who dat?" Mrs. Edwards said.

"Who dat who say who dat when I say who dat?" the Insane Harvey said.

Cathy, who could hear only one end of it, thought it the most mysterious and, in some ways, most glorious conversation she had ever listened to.

"Mrs. Bernstein done gone off with Max Wilk?" Harvey asked.

"Sure and she is after leaving me a note and also one for yourself. In my note, she says for me to give you your note 'if and when that drunken son of a bitch shows up.' Her very words, Mr. Bernstein. On my children's heads."

"You are, Mrs. Edwards, to the best of my knowledge, childless," Harvey said.

" 'Tis the Good Lord's will," said Mrs. Edwards. "But it sure ain't for lack of trying."

"Would you be good enough, Mrs. Edwards, to open Mrs. Bernstein's note to me and read it aloud over the phone?"

"Of course, Mr. Bernstein. Just let me freshen my drink."

"What in God's name is going on?" Cathy asked.

"Apparently, my wife, Margery, has run off with a best-selling writer named Max Wilk. She has left me a note. Mrs. Edwards, our cleaning woman, will read it to me. As soon as she freshens her drink."

"Would you like some coffee?" Cathy said.

"I would like a drink," Harvey said. The Sane and Insane were beginning to merge. Harvey was fighting his way back to what, in his case, passed for normalcy.

"Very sound," Cathy said. She went to the kitchen and fixed two vodka and Frescas.

Mrs. Edwards returned to the phone. "No goddamned cigarettes in the house," she said. "But I found some of Miss Linda's pot. She keeps a stash in an envelope in the family Bible. II Samuel 19:16. There's a nice little bit right here. 'And Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite, which was of Bahurim, made haste to come down with the men of Judah to meet king David.' You wouldn't know, would you, where she keeps the cigarette papers?"

"Will you please just read me the note."

"Certainly."

Then she read the note.

"Dear Harvey, "It is now two o'clock in the morning. Margery is upstairs packing. I am truly sorry to tell you this, but Margery and I have been in love since April, when we worked together on the Westport unwed-mothers thing-a project in which you, callous to the plight of innumerable unfortunate young girls, evinced no interest whatever. Indeed, as I recall, even declaring, drunkenly one evening, that you were in favor of unwed mothers. In any case, we have been conducting an affair for the past two months. We are leaving for Paris this afternoon. My new novel has been accepted by the Book-of-the-Month Club. Phil Roth will review it for The New York Review of Books. I've seen the galleys, of which he was kind enough to send me an advance copy. Sensational! But I digress. Margery asked me to tell you that your daughter, Linda, and her fiance, Lester, are to be married at 11 this morning at the Abyssinian Baptist Church by the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell himself. If you sober up sufficiently, you are most certainly invited to attend. (Perhaps it is important interracial efforts such as this one that cause the Reverend Powell to be so often absent from Washington. Only history will tell us if his was not, in the end. the wiser course.) In the matter of Linda, I congratulate you. You have not failed her. In the matter of Margery, I express regrets. You are failed. I am successful. You drink. I no longer do so (gout). Do whatever you see fit in the matter of a divorce. Your children are grown. Margery is liberated. We are in no haste to marry, so you can take your time and think it over.

"Margery asks me to add (she has just come down with the suitcases) that she is writing a $5000 check on your joint account at City National as a wedding present to your daughter. The house is yours. You have your job. You should be, she feels, OK. She wants, of course, no alimony. As a gesture of good will. I shall undertake to finance Bruce through Berkeley. He is a beautiful boy and I can see no reason for your frequent and clearly uncalled-for remarks about his appearance. Personally, I am proud to have a semi-stepson with the moral fiber to take the action he did against the clean of admissions. I shall also be proud to handle the bail money. Goodbye, for now. And good luck. Believe me, Harvey, old buddy, I'll take good care of her.

Fondly, Max

P. S. I hear you're reviewing my new book for the Diner's Club magazine; I hope you like it. I think it's the most important tiling I've done so far. Phil thinks so, too, apparently."

"Mrs. Edwards." Harvey said, "listen to me carefully. I want you to go to my desk in the study and, in the top drawer, you will find my checkbook. I want you to get it and bring it back to the phone with you."

Mrs. Edwards, who was seated with her feet propped up on Harvey's desk, put down her glass, opened the drawer and took out the checkbook. "Done and done, me bucko."

"All right, now. Turn to the page with the last balance on it and tell me what the figure is."

"Before the check for five big ones for Miss Linda," Mrs. Edwards said after a moment, "you had five thousand, one hundred and eighty dollars and seventy-two cents. Now you got one hundred and eighty dollars and seventy-two cents."

"My God"

"By the bye," Mrs. Edwards said. "You owe me for two days this week and two days last week. That's eighty dollars."

"I'll send you a check."

"Your credit is good with me any time," Mrs. Edwards said, making a face. She disliked vodka but had, unfortunately, finished the bourbon yesterday. "I don't suppose you'll be after wanting me to come in tomorrow?"

"I don't think I can afford you."

There was a pause.

"Well, have a nice day, Mr. Bernstein."

"You, too, Mrs. Edwards."

Harvey slowly hung up the phone.

"My God," Cathy said, "what was that all about?"

He told her.

In detail.

About halfway through, she began to giggle. By the end, she was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down her cheeks. She undid the towel he was wearing around his waist and used it to wipe her eyes.

Then she kissed him. Gently at first. Then harder. After a while, she withdrew her tongue from his mouth and whispered, "Come on, darling, let's go to bed."

Then Harvey remembered.

"I ... I ... can't," he said.

"Why not, darling?"

"I've just been to bed."

"I mean to make love."

"I just made love. A few minutes ago. With someone in there. It was dark. I thought it was you."

Then Cathy started to laugh again.

"How was it?" she asked through her giggles.

"Very nice, I guess," Harvey said. "Except she never really woke up."

"Joanne's good, darling. But I'm better. You'll see."

"I'm forty-six years old," Harvey said. "I want to. Oh, God, how I want to. But I don't think I can."

"Let that be my problem. I know the magic words."

She said them and meant them.

"I love you."

They never made it to the bedroom. The kitchen floor was just fine.

"Ointment!"

"Ointment!"

"Ointment!"

For a man who was, indeed, 46, and who had in his time consumed the equivalent of three railroad tank cars full of alcohol, it really was an extraordinary performance.

But then, Cathy was an extraordinary girl.

After the second one, he had said, "My God, it's not possible. I'm an old man."

"That's right, darling," Cathy had said, "you're the Warren Beatty of Senior City."

That had turned him on for the third one. That and a couple of little things that Cathy herself hadn't even known she knew. Love, not necessity, is often the mother of invention.

• • •

They were lying tangled in each other's arms, asleep on the floor, when, some time later, Joanne, still drunk, stoned and screwed silly, wandered into the kitchen, thinking it was the bathroom, in search of an Alka-Seltzer. One glance was enough for her to know that her deepest fears had finally been realized. She instantly dashed to the phone in the living room and dialed 911, the emergency number.

"Police!" she said. "A sex maniac has broken into our apartment and raped my roommate!"

Then she gave the address and apartment number.

Then, realizing that there was probably more than one sex maniac running around loose in the borough of Queens, she carefully fastened the police lock.

Sensing with pride that she had done something resourceful and possibly even heroic (she could no longer remember what it was), she drifted back to her bedroom, played with herself for a while and was sleeping peacefully long before the emergency squad arrived 40 minutes later.

• • •

About ten minutes after Joanne's phone call, Cathy and Harvey awoke simultaneously. They both felt marvelous. And they were both starving.

"Steak," Cathy said.

"Very rare," Harvey said.

"Blood rare," Cathy said. "Warm on the inside it must be. But just barely."

"Charred, however, on the outside."

"Exactly. With thick slices of tomato and raw onion, lightly garnished with a happy mixture of imported olive oil, red-wine vinegar and a dash of English mustard, salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste."

They were under the shower again, passing the soap back and forth, caressing each other with warm suds.

"Golden-brown French fries with plenty of catsup to glunk them in," Cathy said.

"Or maybe baked, with sour cream and chives," Harvey said.

"Or you know what's great?" Cathy said, gently soaping his far-more-vital-than-he-had-ever-imagined-it-could-be organ. "We could have them scoop out baked potatoes and put the skins back into a hot oven for a couple of minutes and then eat them with our fingers, all glopped in butter." In real life, if not in literature, the conversation after three really sensational screws (four, in Harvey's case) generally turns into a sensually detailed discussion of food.

Cathy's face, framed, as it was, by her plastic shower cap and devoid of makeup, did not look in the least childlike and innocent. It looked depraved, lascivious and totally wanton. Which is exactly how it should have looked. They dried each other.

They organized their hair.

Cathy put on slacks and a shirt.

Harvey put on yesterday's clothes. Then he remembered the gun. "You'd better keep this." he said. "I was planning to commit suicide."

Cathy put the gun into her oversized handbag.

"I don't think that will be necessary," she said.

"Neither do I."

"I love you."

"I love you."

Cathy unfastened the police lock and closed the door behind them.

They took a cab to a place in Brooklyn called Peter Luger's Steak House, where they understand about steak blood rare but still warm on the inside. They also know about hot, crisp baked-potato skins and plenty of butter. The draught beer is served in huge beady-cold glass steins.

The martinis are automatically served double in chilled wineglasses. The lemon peels are sliced paper thin and throw a fine spray of oil over the surface when properly twisted. All of which tends to keep things going till the steaks arrive.

The white-linen tablecloths are long enough so you can mingle legs under the table.

"Enjoy your dinner," the waiter said.

They did.

• • •

Officers Bertolotti and Steinkamp burst through the unlocked door of apartment 4D with guns drawn. It had been a quiet afternoon. Hot and boring. Finally, they had parked their vehicle at the shady end of a deserted alley. Bertolotti had fallen asleep immediately. Eventually, he had awakened and after enjoying the silence for a while, switched the radio back on in time to pick up the third call for the rape at 2931 Northern Boulevard. There were, naturally, pants suits scattered all over the living-room floor.

"My God!" Bertolotti said.

"Don't touch anything," Steinkamp said. He had six months' seniority on Bertolotti and was, therefore, technically in charge.

They were 23 and 24 and had both joined the police force in the hope of beating the draft.

"If this thing is big enough," Steinkamp said, "I mean, like, if it's murder and rape and there's drugs involved, maybe we'll both make sergeant."

"They don't draft sergeants, do they?" Bertolotti said.

"God, I hope not," Steinkamp said just before he sneezed, accidentally discharging his revolver through the closed bathroom door, the bullet lodging in the tiled wall.

"Jesus! Watch yourself!" Bertolotti said.

"Just trying to flush the bastard out," Steinkamp said with no particular conviction.

At the sound of the shot, Joanne leaped from her bed and staggered into the living room. The light was blinding.

"You're safe now, ma'am," Steinkamp said. "We're here!"

Bertolotti's jaw dropped. He had always been a tit man.

"We are police officers," Steinkamp said. "Emergency squad."

Joanne yawned.

The last thing she could remember with any clarity was being in the bathtub with the movie star and the groovy director.

"Listen," Joanne said. "Why don't you mad characters fix yourself a drink? I'll roll us all another joint."

Steinkamp and Bertolotti looked at each other. Then they looked at Joanne.

"What about the rapist?" Steinkamp said.

Oddly enough, The Rapist had been the title of the imaginary movie Joanne had made back at the hotel suite. The second one. The one with the movie star.

"Cut and print," Joanne said. "Unless, maybe, you think we need some retakes."

The younger one, Bertolotti, was kind of groovy-looking. Joanne decided to fix the drinks herself.

"Vodka and Fresca?"

There was a long pause?

Bertolotti looked at Steinkamp.

"Well, maybe just one," Steinkamp said, "while we interrogate the witness."

"Maybe we ought to lock the door," Bertolotti said.

"It's a police lock," Joanne said.

"What the hell," Steinkamp said, "we're the police."

They all laughed immoderately.

They divided the labor. Steinkamp locked the door. Bertolotti fixed the drinks. Joanne rolled the joints.

It was terribly hot in the apartment.

After a while, Joanne suggested to her guests that they take off their clothes.

"Absolutely right," Steinkamp said, loosening his tie. "Do nothing to disgrace the uniform."

They all laughed immoderately.

On the street below, the radio in the abandoned police car continued to crackle.

Ominously.

• • •

When the cab turned the corner, there were five squad cars and a paddy wagon parked in front of the building.

"Gracious," Cathy said.

They stopped the cab and got out across the street. They joined the crowd and watched as Bertolotti, his shirttails out, Steinkamp, his hands above his head, and Joanne, wearing the bottom half of a pants suit and a policeman's cap, were hustled into the wagon. They were followed by the two nice faggots who lived in 4B (they had been cooking dinner when the cops broke into 4D and had come out into the corridor to see what was going on; the filet de boeuf Wellington was still in the oven; the crust would be burned to a crisp) and the man in the white dinner jacket, who had been going down in the elevator. The man in the white dinner jacket was reaching automatically for his wallet as the paddy wagon door closed behind them.

"Darling," Cathy said, "I think it's time we were moving on."

They got back into the cab.

"Kennedy Airport," Cathy said to the driver.

"Where are we going?" Harvey could feel the feeling of being insane and knowing it starting to creep over him again.

"The Coast, I think," Cathy said.

"But how can I?" the Sane Harvey said. "I have my job."

"You hate your job."

"What about my house?"

"Wire a real-estate man and tell him to sell it."

"How will we live?"

"You'll teach me to be a best-selling writer."

"I am forty-six years old. I have responsibilities."

"To who?"

"To whom," Harvey said automatically.

"To whom?"

Harvey thought a minute.

Max was taking care of Margery and Bruce. He himself had apparently taken care of Linda and Lester.

"Mrs. Mortimer, the general and Charles Douglas Potter," was the best he could come up with.

"Whom are they?"

"Who are they."

"I'll never get it straight."

"Of course you will. Who is the subject. Whom is the object. They are my students."

"I can't bear the thought of you teaching anyone but me. Promise you'll never explain the difference between who and whom to anyone else as long as we're together. I would consider it an act of infidelity."

"How about the difference between further and farther?" the Insane Harvey said. "You've never been able to get that straight, either."

"What about the correct usage of that and which?" Cathy said. She knew she had him there. In one of his more drunken letters, he had explained that only a man named Fowler and a man named Harold Ross, who had been editor of The New Yorker magazine, really understood the difference between that and which and, since they were both dead, he didn't think it actually mattered.

His inability to understand the basic usage of that and which had always haunted him. He had once asked Max Wilk and Max hadn't known, either. Oh, he'd bullshitted a little, but in the end, he really didn't know. It was like knowing how they figure what day Easter is going to be each year. Everyone thinks he knows, but he doesn't. Think about it sometime.

"I have no toothbrush," the Insane Harvey said, changing the subject.

"They have toothbrushes in California," Cathy said. "They also have them in the can on the plane. With itty-bitty tubes of tooth paste. I will steal you half a dozen. They also have itty-bitty combs and itty-bitty Wash 'N Dris and itty-bitty samples of after-shave lotion and itty-bitty bottles of men's cologne. I favor Russian Leather myself."

"I also have no money," the Sane Harvey said.

"TWA looks askance at money," Cathy said, producing an Air Travel Card from her handbag. "As does the Beverly Hills Hotel," she said, producing an American Express card, a Carte Blanche card and a Diner's Club card. "Besides, you have one hundred and eighty dollars and seventy-two cents at the City National and I have twenty-five thousand at the Chase Manhattan."

"I must remember to send Mrs. Edwards a check."

"Besides," Cathy said thoughtfully, "I can always get a job with Gersten."

"Making dirty movies?"

Cathy shook her head. "Writing them. If you can teach me to be a best-selling writer, you can certainly teach me how to write dirty movies!"

"The last movie I saw was Alexander's Ragtime Band, with Tyrone Power, Don Ameche and Alice Faye. I could never bring myself to see a film of Marilyn's. The sight of those ravishing lips, seventy feet wide on the giant screen, would have been more than I could bear."

Cathy patted his hand and hoped that he would not begin to cry again.

He didn't.

Instead, he began to sing, in a deep emotion-filled baritone, These Foolish Things Remind Me of You, a song from his youth.

Aesthetically, it would have been better if he had cried, as he was tone-deaf and could not carry a tune.

The last Royal Ambassador flight nonstop to L.A. was at ten o'clock, boarding at 8:45. It was then eight o'clock. Cathy flashed her Ambassador card and had them juggle the seat assignments around so they had two together in the fourth row, which, she said, was best for seeing the movie.

On the way upstairs to the Ambassador Club, she stopped at the newsstand and bought a number of paperbacks. The ones with the sexiest covers.

"Homework," she said.

Inside the Ambassador Club, they sat in the lounge, holding hands and sipping brandy, until it was time to board.

• • •

Tracy Steele was (quite literally) scared shitless of flying. That was why he always took the night flight to the Coast. He felt safer, somehow, if it was dark and he couldn't see the ground. He was also frightened of being alone. That's why he had it in his contract that Tiger Wilson, his stunt double, bodyguard, trainer, chauffeur (Tracy was also terrified of driving), procurer, social secretary and nominal vice-president of several of his less important corporations (the one that owned the restaurants that he occasionally found it necessary to buy, for example), was available to him 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Tiger's official title, as far as the studio was concerned, was dialog director. That way, he could be paid a grand a week, plus expenses, and still be written off against whatever picture Tracy was preparing or making at the moment.

At the moment, Tracy was seated, pants down, in a booth in the gentlemen's room, located behind the bar, through the cloakroom, in the Ambassador Club.

Tiger, a double vodka stinger in his hand, knocked on the door. "You OK, Trace?"

Tracy Steele groaned.

"Pass it under the door, will you, baby?"

Tiger passed the stinger under the door.

"Thanks, sweetheart," Tracy said.

Vodka stingers helped settle Tracy's stomach before a flight.

"Take it easy," Tiger said. "In six hours, we'll be back in Beverly Hills."

These comforting words caused Tracy's sphincter muscles to relax.

"Atta baby," Tiger said.

"Sorry about that."

"Music to my ears," Tiger said.

There was a moment or two of silence.

"What's the movie?" Tracy said.

Tiger told him.

"Shit," Tracy said. It was one of his own pictures. "You should have checked it out." Unlike most actors, the sight of himself on the screen caused him to throw up uncontrollably.

"I got it all organized," Tiger said. "They put us on board first. We sit up in the lounge, play gin and horse around with the stewardesses."

Somewhat mollified, Tracy said, "Anybody else on the plane?"

"Nope," Tiger said. "I checked the manifest."

It was a well-known fact that Tracy Steele refused to fly if there was someone more important than himself on the plane. It was a matter of who would get top billing in case of a crash, Tracy Steele and 67 Killed in Air Disaster was one thing. But being one of the 67 was another. A lifelong Republican, he had once fled a plane when the senior Senator from New York had, at the last moment, boarded the Washington-New York shuttle.

The Senator, a friend of many years' standing, had been deeply offended. Tracy had contributed heavily to the Senator's next campaign fund, but things had never really been the same between them since.

Tracy handed the empty glass out under the door of the booth. "One more, sweetheart," he said, "and old Dad will be just fine."

• • •

Harvey Bernstein collapsed in the window seat and was asleep by the time they were airborne.

The stewardess, rolling the drink table down the aisle, appeared to be close toorgasm. "Guess who's on board?" she said to Cathy.

"Tracy Steele," Cathy said.

"Tracy Steele!" the stewardess said.

"Vodka and ice," Cathy said.

"What about him}" The stewardess indicated with some revulsion the sleeping Harvey.

"The same."

"Tracy Steele!" the stewardess said again and closed her eyes in ecstasy.

Cathy took the four itty-bitty bottles of vodka and slipped them into her bag. "You forgot the vodka," she said.

"Sorry," the stewardess said and passed her four more itty-bitty bottles.

You never knew when a plane was going to be grounded in Kansas City in the wee hours of the morning. Everybody, no matter how well adjusted, has his or her own superstitious fears about air travel. And takes the necessary precautions.

"If I were you, son," the Technicolor Tracy said on the itty-bitty Technicolor screen, "I'd just drop that gun and come along nice and quiet."

Cathy yawned.

She disliked Westerns. Harvey was asleep. And there was work to be done. Quietly, she picked up her bag and, ducking under the flickering image, moved up the aisle and into the lounge.

Tracy and Tiger were seated across from each other, playing gin. The stewardess was seated next to Tracy, leaning over him, studying his hand and breathing heavily. Tiger drew a jack and discarded the gin card he'd been sitting with for the past two minutes. Losing even one hand at gin made old Tracy break out in a nasty rash.

"What the hell," Tracy said. "Live dangerously. I'll go down with nine."

"Son of a bitch," Tiger said, "got me again!"

"Is this seat taken?" Cathy said to the stewardess.

The stewardess looked up and glared.

Cathy smiled.

Tracy looked up, vaguely recognized Cathy and grinned. "Well, sweetheart," he said. "Long time no see."

"We made a movie together once," Cathy said.

"So we did," Tracy said. "So we did. I almost didn't recognize you with your clothes on." It was one of the regular jokes he made when he couldn't remember a young lady's name or where or when they had met.

Cathy knew he didn't recognize her and was delighted.

The stewardess rose. Tracy caught her arm. "Sweetheart," he said, "how about bringing us three vodka stingers?"

"Sorry, Mr. Steele," she said coldly. "Two drinks to a customer. C. A. B. regulations." She flounced off to the lavatory and closed the door behind her. It wasn't much of an exit, but it was the best she could manage without actually openingthe cabin door and throwing herself out onto Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 35,000 feet below.

Cathy slid into her seat, opened her bag and took out four of the itty-bitty vodka bottles, placing two in front of Tracy and two in front of Tiger.

"We aim to please," Cathy said.

"Baby," Tracy said, "you are a beautiful thing."

Tiger opened the bottles and poured the vodka over the melting ice in their two empty glasses.

"Your deal, Trace," Tiger said.

Cathy opened her bag again and took out one of the paperback books she had bought at the newsstand. It happened to be Justine; Philosophy in the Bedroom by the Marquis de Sade. It was in dialog and easy to read. She had just reached the part where Dolmance and Madame De Saint-Ange were explaining the various erogenous zones when the impeccably dressed young man with the Afro hairdo and the Colt .45 ducked politely under the movie screen and entered the lounge.

"Good evening," the young man said. "This is your new captain speaking. Our flying time to Havana will be six hours and twenty-two minutes. If we all remain calm and love each other, no one will be hurt." He bowed politely to Tracy. "A pleasure to have you on board, Mr. Steele. I've admired you on the screen ever since I was a little boy. More recently. I've seen a number of your older films on television. They stand up very nicely."

"Well, gee, thanks," Tracy said.

"Now, if you sit quietly and continue your game, all will be well." He glanced briefly at Tiger's cards.

"You dumb Whitey bastard," he said not unkindly. He reached into Tiger's hand and discarded the eight Tiger had just drawn. "Gin," the young man said, then turned, walked to the cockpit and opened the door.

"Don't be alarmed, gentlemen," he said, holding the gun at the pilot's head.

"They tell me Cuba is especially lovely this time of year." Then he closed the door.

Tracy Steele's face was ashen.

He felt his stomach lurch.

"How can I go to Cuba?" he said. "I got a meeting with DickiZanuck at 10:30 in the morning."

Cathy got out the other four itty-bitty vodka bottles, opened them herself and passed them one at a time to Tracy. He drank them in eight easy gulps. Then she reached into the bag and produced Harvey's gun.

"Why don't you just go up there and take him?" she said.

"What?" Tracy said.

"Me?" Tracy said.

"Why?" Tracy said.

"You have a meeting with Dickie Zanuck tomorrow morning," Cathy said. "Besides, dink of the publicity, 'Movie Star Tracy Steele Saves Hijacked Plane.' "

"The kid's right," Tiger said. "It's a hell of a gimmick."

"They wouldn't say 'Movie Star Tracy Steele.' They'd just say 'Tracy Steele.' Everybody knows I'm a movie star. I'm a household word. They only put 'movie star' in front of somebody's name with kids you never heard of. Real movie stars, all they need is the name itself. Why don't you take him, Tiger?"

Tiger was beginning to enjoy himself for the first time in 11 years.

"Jeez, Trace," he said, "I'd love to. But, I mean, how would it look, 'Tracy Steele's Dialog Director Saves Hijacked Plane'? What kind of shit is that?"

"We could tell the papers I did it."

"Witnesses. The pilots and everybody. I don't think we could make it stick," Tiger said.

Tracy looked at Cathy. She shook her head.

Tracy shrugged. The last four itty-bitty bottles of vodka had just hit bottom.

"Well, maybe you're right," he said. "What do you think I should do?"

"Go up there," Tiger said, "open the door and stick the lady's gun up against the back of that hijacker's head."

"Then what? I got to say something. I got to have some kind of dialog."

Cathy said: "Why don't you try, 'If I were you, son, I'd just drop that gun and come along nice and quiet'?"

"Sure, Trace," Tiger said. "You can remember that. You said it in your last picture."

Tracy considered the matter carefully.

"What time is it in California?" he said. "I mean, there's no point in getting my ass shot off if we miss the early edition of the L.A. Times."

"This is not just L.A., Trace," Tiger said. "This is big. Every wire service in the world will be waiting when we hit the airport. TV cameras. Telstar. Think of Dickie Zanuck's face when you walk into his office tomorrow morning."

"OK," Tracy said. "I'll do it. I just have to take a crap first."

"Oh, for God's sake," Cathy said. "Come on!" She pulled Tracy to his feet, led him to the cockpit door and put the gun in his hand.

"OK, action!" she said, yanking the cockpit door open with one hand and shoving Tracy forward with the other.

"If I were you, son," the internationally famous voice droned, "I'd just drop that gun and come along nice and quiet."

The flight engineer, against whose head Tracy had pressed the P-38, dropped the revolver he was holding against the young hijacker's head and slowly raised his hands.

"My God," the pilot said wearily, without taking his eyes from the controls, "where do you want to go?"

"L.A.," Tracy said. "I have a meeting with Dickie Zanuck in the morning."

Even the young hijacker was impressed.

"If my Cuban plans have been foiled," he said, "could I at least have your autograph?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Tracy said. That was another of his standard jokes. One he used to demonstrate humility in the presence of his fans.

"Would you mind making it out to my wife? She's back in tourist."

Tracy grinned his : $l,000,000-against-ten-percent-of-the-gross grin, handed the P-38 to the flight engineer and reached for his fountain pen.

Cathy mixed herself a double vodka and ice from the unguarded drink table, waved a polite good night to Tiger, who, for reasons of his own, appeared to be convulsed with laughter, and made her way back to her seat. Harvey was still sleeping. She kissed him gently on the brow and sat there in the darkness, sipping her drink and making plans for their future.

• • •

The Los Angeles International Airport, which is usually quiet at midnight, was jammed. Two press conferences (separate but equal) were being held simultaneously. At one, Tracy was explaining how he had singlehandedly disarmed the crazed hijacker. At the other, Lester sat silently while Linda, his wife of one day, held forth on the subject of her husband's martyrdom. While her husband was in jail, she explained, she would occupy her time by writing a book on the black-power movement and the joys of interracial marriage.

Had she ever written anything before? a reporter asked.

No, she said, but her father, a famous teacher of creative writing at the Best-Selling Writers' School in Stratford, Connecticut, would certainly help her.

Cathy led the still-dazed Harvey through the crowds. There were no taxis to be had. but, naturally, since Tracy was on the plane, there was a limousine standing by.

"Mr. Steele's car?"

The driver nodded.

"The Beverly Hills Hotel," Cathy said.

The driver stared at her.

Cathy stared back.

She had been hijacking limousines longer than the driver (a temporarily unemployed actor) had been driving them.

"Yes, ma'am," he finally said.

Harvey was asleep once more, with his head in Cathy's lap, as the limousine drove off into the black Los Angeles night.