Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

“Damon Harrington to see Mr Nordgren,” he said to the stony face, feeling very much like a character in a Chandler novel. He wished he had a fedora to doff.

“That’s okay, John. He’s a lodge brother.”

Evidently Nordgren was unscarred by last year’s lawsuit, since neither of the girls who were cutting lines on the glass-topped table were as old as Trevor if they could have combined both their ages. Nordgren had lately taken to wearing his hair slicked and combed straight back, and he reminded Harrington of a dissolute Helmut Berger posing for a men’s fashion spread in Esquire.

“After meeting your bodyguard there, I fully expected to find you seated in a wheelchair, wearing a silk dressing robe, and smoking Russian cigarettes through a long amber holder.”

“Melody Heather. Meet my esteemed friend and drinking buddy, Damon Harrington. Damon, join us.”

“Weren’t you in Apocalypse Now ?” one of them asked brightly.

“Quite right,” Nordgren assured her. “And turn a deaf ear when he promises to get you a role in his next film.”

They were almost certain Nordgren was kidding them, but not quite, and kept a speculative watch on Damon.

“The big party isn’t until later tonight,” Nordgren said, handing him the tooter, “but I felt I must unwind after sustaining terminal writer’s cramp from all those autographs. Why not get a good buzz with us now, then rejoin the party after ten?”

“Can’t see how you can go through all that.”

“All that psychic energy, baby.”

“All that money, you mean.”

“A little PR never hurt anyone. Speaking of which, Damon — I noticed quite a number of little darlings decked out in flowing bedsheets and pointed ears and carrying about boxed sets of The Fall of the Golden Isles in ardent quest of your signature. Is rumor true that Columbine has just sprung for a second trilogy in the series?”

“Helen has just about got them to agree to our terms.”

“Christ, Damon! We’re better than this shit!” Nordgren banged his fist on the table and sent half a gram onto the carpet. One of the girls started to go after it, but Trevor shook his head and muttered that he bought it by the kilo.

“You don’t look particularly ready to go back to the good old days of 3¢ a word on publication,” Damon suggested.

“And paying the bills with those wonderful $1,000 checks from Bee Line for 60,000 words worth of wet dreams. Did I tell you that a kid came up to me with a copy of Stud Road to sign, and he’d paid some huckster $150 for the thing!”

Damon almost choked on his line. “Remind me to put my copy of Time’s Wanton in a safe deposit box. Christ, Trevor — you’ve got enough money from all this to write anything you damn well please.”

“But we somehow write what the public wants from us instead. Or do you get off by being followed about by teenage fans in farcical medieval drag with plastic pointy ears begging to know whether Wyndlunne the Fey is going to be rescued from Grimdoom’s Black Tower in Book Four of The Trilogy of Trilogies’?”

“We both have our fans,” Damon said pointedly. “And what dire horrors lie in wait for some small suburban community in your next mega-word chart-buster?”

“Elves,” said Nordgren.

The last time that Damon Harrington saw Trevor Nordgren was at the World Fantasy Convention in Miami. Because of crowd problems, Nordgren had stopped going to cons, but a Guest of Honor invitation lured him forth from his castle on the Hudson. He had avoided such public appearances for over a year, and there were lurid rumors of nervous breakdown, alcoholism, drug addiction, or possibly AIDS.

The Changeling, Nordgren’s latest and biggest, concerned an evil race of elves who lurked in hidden dens beneath a small suburban community, and who were systematically exchanging elfin babies for the town’s human infants. The Changeling was dedicated to Damon Harrington—“in remembrance of Styrofoam boaters.” The novel dominated the bestseller lists for six months, before finally being nudged from first place by The Return of Tallyssa: Book Six of the Fall of the Golden Isles.

Harrington squeezed onto an elevator already packed with fans. A chubby teenager in a Spock Lives! t-shirt was complaining in an uncouth New York accent: “So I ran up to him when the limo pulled up, and I said to him ‘Mr Nordgren, would you please sign my copy of The Changeling?’ and he said ‘I’d love to, sweetheart, but I don’t have the time,’ and I said ‘But it’s just this one book,’ and he said ‘If I stop for you, there are twenty invisible fans lined up behind you right now with their books,’ and I thought ‘You conceited turkey, and after I’ve read every one of your books!’” The elevator door opened on her floor, and she and most of her sympathetic audience got off. As the door closed, Harrington caught an exclamation: “Hey, wasn’t that…”

A hotel security guard stopped him as he entered the hallway toward his room, and Harrington had to show him his room key and explain that he had the suite opposite Trevor Nordgren’s. The guard was scrupulously polite, and explained that earlier fans had been lining up outside Nordgren’s door with armloads of books. Damon then understood why the hotel desk had asked him if he minded having a free drink in the lounge until they had prepared his suite after some minor vandalism wrought by the previous guests.

A bell captain appeared with his baggage finally, and then room service stocked his bar. Harrington unpacked a few things, then phoned Nordgren’s suite. A not very friendly male voice answered, and refused to do more than take a message. Harrington asked him to tell Mr Nordgren that Mike Hunt wished to have a drink with him in the suite opposite. Thirty seconds later Nordgren was kicking at his door.

“Gee, Mr Hunt!” Nordgren gushed in falsetto. “Would you please sign my copy of The Other Woman ? Huh? Huh? Would you?” He looked terrible. He was far thinner than when they’d first met, and his skin seemed to hang loose and pallid over his shrunken flesh — reminding Harrington of a snake about to shed its skin. His blue eyes seemed too large for his sallow face, and their familiar arrogance was shadowed by a noticeable haunted look. Harrington thought of some fin de siécle poet dying of consumption.

“Jack Daniel’s, as usual? Or would you like a Heineken?”

“I’d like just some Perrier water, if you have it there. Cutting down on my vices.”

“Sure thing.” Damon thought about the rumors. “Hey, brought along some pearl that you won’t believe!”

“I’ll taste a line of it, then,” Nordgren brightened, allowing Damon to bring him his glass of Perrier. “Been a while since I’ve done any toot. Decided I didn’t need a Teflon septum.”

When Nordgren actually did take only one line, Harrington began to get really concerned. He fiddled with his glass of Jack Daniel’s, then managed: “Trevor, I’m only asking as an old friend — but are you all right?”

“Flight down tired me out, that’s all. Got to save up my energy for that signing thing tonight.”

Damon spent undue attention upon cutting fresh lines. “Yeah, well. I mean, you look a little thin, is all.”

Instead of taking offense, Trevor seemed wearily amused. “No, I’m not strung out on coke or smack or uppers or downers or any and all drugs. No, I don’t have cancer or some horrid wasting disease. Thank you for your concern.”

“Didn’t mean to pry.” Damon was embarrassed. “Just concerned, is all.”

“Thanks, Damon. But I’m off the booze and drugs, and I’ve had a complete check-up. Frankly, I’ve been burning the old candle at both ends and in the middle for too long. I’m exhausted body and soul, and I’m planning on treating myself to a long R&R while the royalties roll in.”