Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [44]
“Give me a month to see if I’m doing the story right, or if I’m whacking off on the beach. If you don’t get my pages on time or if you don’t like them, the deal is off. You don’t owe me a dime.”
I thought Sal would swallow his cigar.
“You’re serious, aren’t you, Zadok? Why are you putting yourself through this?”
“Hard for me to put it into words.”
“I haven’t noticed any overpowering shyness from you.”
I shook my head. “You’ve heard too much shit in this office from too many shit merchants.”
“Why, Zadok?”
“When I die, I want one word on my tombstone beside my name: author. I’m not as gifted as a lot of novelists. But I’m not picking soft spots for myself. I’m in a fight to find out if I have the balls and the discipline.”
“Well, I hope you win because if you don’t, it’s going to kill you.”
“At least I’ll die with a shit-eating grin on my face.”
“Good luck, Gideon, I mean that.”
I stopped in the outer office to phone Val.
“Hello.”
“Hi, baby, we’re in screenplay,” I said.
She hung up on me.
I MONKEYED AROUND town most of the day, dreading another brawl at home. It was evening when I turned into the driveway. I sensed something was very wrong. Usually our golden retriever hung out by the main gate waiting for me. No Grover Vandover. I opened the front door and called in. No Val, no maid, no girls. I was startled! What’s going on here? Thoughts of a robbery or that maybe one of the girls had been hurt ran through my mind.
“Val! Penny! Roxy!”
I heard Grover whimper and made for Roxanne’s room. Her dresser drawers were open and half cleaned out as though she had been evacuated in a hurry. Penny’s room was the same. Jesus! What’s going on! No note on the kitchen board. Knock off this shit, Val!
I saw Val’s car in the carport. Did an ambulance come? What the hell? Wait a minute. Val might still be here. I flung open our bedroom door. There it was!
Pinned onto the pillow with a rose lying across it. My special little address book. It must have had fifty to a hundred names of girlfriends, hookers, escorts. There were even phone numbers for some of Val’s best girlfriends, the divorced ones. I drew the line at other men’s wives. I must have gotten sloppy careless and left it out.
I went outside and looked around. My office, maybe. I opened the door. It was an awful sight. Val had gone through it with a club or knives. Everything was smashed. My bookcases were overturned and the books all ripped up ... my typewriter bashed to smithereens, the telephone jerked from the wall, my record collection scratched to uselessness, all the windows broken. The stuffing from my couch and armchair had been cut out with a knife ... all my photographs knocked down and trampled, the curtains slashed.
That’s it. The safe was opened. Val had found the combination and gotten the address book out of it. Manuscript papers were shredded and hurled all over the room. The pistol was gone! Wait! My chair filled with bullet holes, the empty gun on the floor.
Valerie stood in the doorway to the kitchenette. She tossed a big-bladed kitchen knife and a baseball bat to the ground and stood, frightfully calm.
My first reaction was one of relief that she hadn’t hurt herself.
“Where are the girls?”
She didn’t answer.
“Are they with your mother?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “Get out. You can have one of your buddies come over and get your stuff.”
“Okay.”
Oh Lord, that woman was hurt. “Okay,” I repeated.
“I had a long talk with some of your lady friends,” she said with a twisted smile on her lips. “They said they’d put me down as an extra girl. If there’s a big party I can go out and do a few tricks with them. Fifty bucks a pop, three hundred for an all-night party. You don’t have any objections, do you?”
“I’ve been very unhappy, Val. But no matter what happened, you didn’t deserve this.”
“Does Phil Delaney know you’re balling Joany? Did you fuck her in our bed? And sweet little Mary Allen. Prettiest little math teacher I ever did see. Fucking wholesale meat operation!”
“Val.”
“Get