Lynne Pemberton - Dancing With Shadows

Jay thought about home; where was home? The ramshackle wooden house in Sand Springs, Montana that poverty had hijacked long before he’d left? It was where he was born, where he’d started his journey, and he had no intention of ending it there. His mother had refused to leave, even after he’d had his first royalty cheque, and had offered to buy her a new apartment near her sister in a better neighbourhood.

‘I’ve got a few things to sort out here,’ he said, returning to the present. ‘As soon as I’ve done that, in a couple of weeks, I’ll come home, I promise.’

They both knew he was lying.

‘Well I ain’t goin’ nowhere so when you’re good and ready, son …’ She paused. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

For a few minutes neither moved. They held hands, like lovers reluctant to part, saying nothing, lost in thought. Had they compared those thoughts, they would have been surprised at how similar they were. Both were of deep regret.

‘This is great stuff, Jay!’

Ed Hooper was tapping a deep pile of foolscap on top of his battered desk. It was the manuscript of Jay’s latest novel. With the flat of his other hand the agent stroked the mahogany surface, thinking about the day he’d bought the desk. Spring 1968. His buddy, Abe Lesser, had been selling second-hand furniture at the time and Ed recalled how he’d haggled with Abe, who’d insisted the desk was early nineteenth century. Ed had beat him down to a hundred and twenty dollars; more than he could afford at the time. The antique was intended for a big space, and it had incongruously filled his shoebox office in SoHo. He’d named it ‘Samson’, after Bill Samson his first client, and in 1976 Samson had moved uptown with him to his new office on 76th and York. The grander premises suited Big Samson admirably; solid and important, the desk dominated the twenty-foot-square room. Samson had hosted six secretaries’ butts; been party to ten mega deals, hundreds of major deals, and thousands of minor ones. One crazy night after a party, Ed had even had a blow job under the desk; and he’d fucked his first wife over it. Samson could tell a tale or two. It was part of him, the one piece of furniture he’d ever felt really attached to, the one constant in his life. Samson looked good when cluttered; two cigar boxes, one for the legal cheroots the other for black market Cubans, helped the effect. As did a monogrammed ashtray from Ed’s mother, and the eclectic mix of junk he’d collected or been given over the years, including an engraved golf ball on a silver plinth from his teenage son, Josh. And a framed photograph of himself, and Josh at fifteen, on a fishing trip in Key West. Ed liked to put his feet on Samson, happy in the knowledge that he wouldn’t receive a scathing comment from his ex-wife Carole, who had repeatedly asked why he insisted on keeping such a beat-up old relic. Thank God he’d resisted her influence; he liked his office exactly as it was. The floor was carpeted in moss green; the walls were painted white and left unadorned; there was a free-standing rosewood veneered bookcase full of titles he’d handled, and of twentieth-century classics. The room also boasted a couple of leather chairs picked up wholesale twelve years before, and a Tudor oak chest acquired by Carole in a furniture sale. She’d kicked up a stink when he’d used it as a coffee table. But then Carole, after six months of marriage, had kicked up about mostly everything he did. Ed narrowed his eyes, registering the ironic fact that next week he’d be signing divorce papers on the very same spot where he’d first had Carole six years ago almost to the day. Bitch. Double-crossing, money-grabbing, beautiful, devious bitch .

Turning his attention back to the manuscript, he stroked the paper lovingly, a smile creasing his battered face. A ‘lived-in’ face, he liked to think, as he tried to convince himself every morning that what he saw in the bathroom mirror was not a short, pig-ugly, fat Yid, who’d inherited his maternal grandmother’s leathery pockmarked skin and deep-set eyes. His father, God rest his soul, had given him very little except a long hooked nose and a rubbery bottom lip. The pair of them had a lot to answer for. Ed hated being ugly. All his life he’d surrounded himself with beauty; had idolized beautiful women. This was a weakness for which he’d duly suffered, yet he kept repeating the pattern. His father always said that everybody makes mistakes; it’s only fools who don’t learn by them. If that was true then Ed had to accept that he was a prize turkey. He was addicted to beauty, basking in its reflection, hoping some of it would rub off. Just like those dumb idiots who married intellectuals on the same principle. Only it never quite worked out that way. His best friend Joe, when they were teenage kids, hanging out and trying to get laid, had said that with a face like his the only way to get beautiful women was to become successful. Make money, Ed, lots of it. Women love rich, powerful, ugly men. Look at Henry Kissinger, he’s had more pussy than he’s known what to do with .

Ed smiled. It softened his features and for a split second he looked like an old teddy bear; the kind kids cherish for life. Then he was talking again, doing what he did best: negotiating; bullshitting; doing the deal; making a buck, making a million bucks.

‘When I say great , I mean fucking brilliant, Jay! Like, the best. You’re a great writer, man; you know that? You’re a fucking born-again Hemingway. You listening to me, Jay?’

There was no reply. Ed shrugged, lit a cigar, and mentally digressed back to the time he’d read Jay’s first manuscript, Killing Time . A man calling himself Ivanov had delivered the three hundred and sixty pages in a brown paper parcel tied with tatty string. He’d refused to be questioned, saying that there was a letter from the author inside which would explain everything. He was referring to Jay’s simple note explaining that he’d read about Ed Hooper in the New York Times , and wanted an honest appraisal of his first novel. He could be contacted at the Cedar State Penitentiary. The story, a harrowing account of a hitman’s revenge on the Mafia godfather who had destroyed his family, had captured Ed from page one. He would never forget the churning in his gut after the first chapter, or his mounting excitement when he’d thought the narrative couldn’t get any better, and it had. He’d put all his other work on hold, finishing the book in one sitting. The knowledge that in Jay Kaminsky, alias Will Hope, he’d discovered a great talent, and the fact that he had a hot property to sell, had kept him awake for several nights.

‘Come on, Jay, say something. I just called you another Hemingway! What more do you want?’

He was talking to Jay’s back, clothed this morning in new jacket and slacks, and a button-down cotton polo shirt that hung loosely on its wearer’s narrow frame. Jay felt uncomfortable in the designer clothes. Yesterday he’d allowed Ed to lead him into the strange and terrifying world of Madison Avenue. They had started in Ralph Lauren. To begin with, the sight of so much merchandise had been daunting; later Jay had felt like a kid again, let loose in a toy shop, unable to make up his mind what to have first. Oh, the joy of touching the huge array of suits and shirts – wool so fine it caressed the fingertips; crisp cotton, cool to the touch; the smell of polished wood, mingled with a spicy fragrance which Ed informed him was Polo aftershave. The young sales assistants, both male and female, dressed in de rigueur designer gear, impressed Jay even more than the customers who graced the sensual emporium. Heads held high; flawless skin; perfect teeth and supremely confident smiles. Short skirts; panty-hosed legs so shiny they looked gloss-painted, breasts and pecs straining against well-cut fabric. All selling sex, selling the Lauren lifestyle, the dream. Wear a Polo shirt, or a Ralph suit, and you’ll be considered upwardly mobile, recognized as tasteful, sexy, desirable. Jay had been reluctant to try on the clothes Ed picked out for him, and had agreed only after much encouragement from a very attractive girl called Jodie. He’d fumbled with zips and buttons, overcome with embarrassment when Jodie had pinned his trouser hem, and he’d felt his cock get hard.