He nodded and grinned, and told them he hoped they'd like the new one, and wondered when his driver would arrive to take him away. He glanced at the wall clock four times while the Nice Young Couple hugged their books and repeated that he'd have a place to stay if he ever came through Mobile, that their long drive home would seem to fly by 'cause she (Kathi with an i?) had brought a flashlight to read to him (Rod? Todd?) while they drove, or maybe they would splurge on a cheap motel room and finally have their honeymoon, alone for the weekend, reading chapters to each other. She added, "Except when, well, we are married, you know," and they looked at each other and smiled. He told Confry, "I wouldn't share her with anyone but you," and she swatted him with a freshly autographed copy of I Hear the Heart of the Night, saying, "Dream on, Mr. In Control." After a last awkward laugh, the Nice Young Couple that looked like a Demented Duo left.
Two fans from the standard selection remained in the mall bookstore: a balding Thirty-Something Exec and an overweight Commando-Wanna-be. Both had waited quietly for everyone else to leave, which put them into the subset of Shy Hoverers. The Thirty-Something Hoverer shook his head, smiled, and said, a little mockingly and yet sympathetically, "Fans."
Confry's stomach contracted at the word. Before he could select the right response from (a) Smile, say understandingly, "It's a privilege to make others happy," (b) Laugh, say seriously, "And thank God for them; they pay my bills," or (c) Sneer, say mockingly, "So what don't you like about my work?", the Commando-Wanna-be thrust forward an often-handled first printing of Banshee's Need.
"Sure." Confry took the book and glanced up. "Who for?"
The Commando-Wanna-be looked over Confry's head, as if there were something more interesting on the shelves behind him, then glanced out into the mall and mumbled, "Karl. With a/t."
"Karl, with a k" Confry scribbled: "For Karl--Best wishes! P-scrawl C-scrawl."
"Uh, thanks." The Commando-Wanna-be looked at the books piled on the cloth-covered card table in front of Confry. " 'S good." He looked at the door at the back of the store. "Bye." He looked at the manager by the cash register, turned on the heel of a polished army boot, and walked quickly into the mall.
"Glad you liked it!" Confry called to the man's back. It was easy to sound sincere, though Banshee's Need was his only book that made him feel defensive. It was his grimmest novel, and his first popular one. He had written it just after he lost his teaching job, while Jan, pregnant with Lisa, had supported them as a travel agent. He had written it more quickly than anything before or since. It was his only book told entirely from the point of view of a mass murderer.
He turned to the Thirty-Something. The man held out a hand without a book. "John Hunter."
"Ah." Confry smiled, stood, and shook the hand. "The convention?"
Hunter glanced to either side, though Confry had spoken quietly. "Didn't want to say anything until your fans had gone. Be embarrassing if one tried to crash a private affair. For them, I mean, of course."
Confry nodded. "A sold-out con is a sold-out con."
"Yes. And, frankly, our collectors wouldn't mingle well with most of you fans. People in my trade tend to be, well, conservative."
"Eh. It's refreshing to be invited to a convention where I'm not a star."
"To me, you are."
Confry laughed self-deprecatingly. "Critics complain about my fondness for trademarks, but I never had anyone drown in a bowl of Wheaties. Still, if a cereal convention wants to pay me to show up and sell more copies of my books, I won't complain."
Hunter set a pale leather briefcase on the card table and unsnapped it. The lid rose between them. Hunter reached in with the satisfaction of a Hollywood hit man about to display an automatic pistol or a former U.S. vice-president about to display an anatomically correct doll. "I have everything you wrote, of course, but I thought you might be getting writer's cramp after a long signing, so I restricted myself to two." He held out a copy of Hunting Butterflies.
Practice made Confry's smile perfectly sincere. "I wouldn't do signings if I didn't enjoy them." With one exception, he hated everything about signings and conventions: nights in bland hotels, flights at awkward hours, meals in restaurants that were convenient rather than good, meetings with journalists and store managers who would never read his books but who needed him for an interview or a signing to make themselves a little more money. The exception? He was neither so selfless nor so selfish that he could be annoyed when people told him they loved his work.
"And this." Hunter took back the signed Hunting and offered a pristine copy of Buzzard Love.
"My God." Confry held the book in both hands. "I thought it had a negative print run."
"Two thousand five hundred copies."
"Almost all remaindered." Confry turned the book carefully and looked for a mark across the edge of the pages. "Not this one." He opened it quickly enough that some collectors would have winced, but this book had been open before. "You read it?"
Hunter smiled. "No point in having something without enjoying it."
Confry smiled too, a heartfelt smile that made him realize he was no longer looking at another Thirty-Something. He was looking at a man in blue chinos, a white short-sleeved shirt with an orange tie, and wire-framed glasses. He was looking at a man with watery brown eyes, receding dark hair, a bushy moustache, and a small scar on one cheek. He was looking at a man who had asked himself late at night what the good things in life could be, and had answered that among them were the writings of Peter Confry.
Confry flipped to the title page and poised his pen above it. "Deface it?"
"Please."
He wrote, "For John Hunter, with the greatest pleasure, Peter Confry." Each letter of his signature could be seen, or at least, inferred. "You know, I didn't kill a single person in this."
Hunter nodded. "It's a young man's book. But it's very promising. When Quinn talked about his rage after Janet left, I felt it here." Hunter placed his open hand over his heart.
"I--Thank you."
"It seemed like a first draft for the scene in Banshee's Need when Christopher's in the baby-sitter's basement."
"Well." Confry's signature would add hundreds of dollars to the value of this book. He flipped toward the end, found the scene Hunter had mentioned, and opened the book wide, cracking its spine. After a glance at the words, he handed the book back and, feeling guilty for hurting it, said, "Writers always cannibalize themselves. I hadn't realized the bits were so similar."
Hunter smiled. "Not that similar. Quinn gets drunk and vomits. Christopher kills seventeen people with each tool of a Swiss Army knife."
Confry laughed. "It's the difference between a quiet academic novel and a book that pays for a Manhattan town house."
Hunter shook his head. "You shouldn't belittle your work. You're too good."
"Hey, the only reason you find my books near Joseph Conrad's is we're both filed under Fiction and Literature."
"No. You understand the heart of darkness."
Confry gave a loud laugh that made a teenager in the Human Sexuality section turn to stare. "Come on! You can't compare my little hack-fests--"
"Of course not. Conrad looked from the outside and saw--" Hunter grinned. "The horror! The horror! But you look from the inside, and see--"
"Royalties without end."
"Beauty. Love. Power. The attempt to remake the universe as it should be, even when we don't know what it should be. The courage to act without regard for anyone's opinion."
Confry, still grinning, shook his head. "I try to show the effects on the little people--"
"Exactly! The little people. They suffer. But compare their suffering to that of Christopher or Big Red or everyone in the Dogmeat Gang. Little people can only suffer, but those who see--" Hunter stopped. "I shouldn't embarrass you with my pet theories."
"Well. I just write the stuff. How can I know what it means?"
"You know. Your work proves it."
"Eh." Confry glanced at the clock for the first time since the Nice Young Couple had left. "Hadn't we better be going?"
In Hunter's car, Confry answered the usual question about his next book with the usual answer: "I never know what it's about until I'm into the final draft." The truth was that he had not begun anything for almost a year. He kept thinking about a serious novel concerning a writer of fantasy instead of horror going through a divorce instead of a separation involving a blonde and a son instead of a brunette and two daughters while trying to decide why he was commercially successful and artistically unhappy. It would be a supernatural horror story, but the ghosts haunting him would be the ghosts of complex, ambitious novels that he had never written. Confry thought the conceit might be sufficiently self-referential to win the respect of the reviewers. And if he could figure out a way to have those phantom novels kill a critic or two of the sort who skewered work that bore no resemblance to what the writers had written, Confry might keep enough of his fans to keep his career.
As they drove, he thought about Jan and Lisa and Meg. Meg still saw him as Daddy, and she leaped into his arms whenever he came home. He could not remember the last time Jan or Lisa had hurried to him. Lisa seemed unable to talk to him without sounding exasperated. And Jan said something was wrong, but she couldn't tell him what had changed. The closest she had come to saying something meaningful about their marriage was that perhaps nothing had changed in sixteen years. Shouldn't that be good?
A dead German shepherd lay by the highway. Confry stared, not wanting to see its strewn guts and not wanting to look away.
"I hate seeing an animal like that," said Hunter. "Killed so carelessly."
Confry glanced at him. "I saw my dog hit when I was a kid."
"They catch the guy that did it?"
"No." He had never told Jan or the girls about Buster. Maybe telling a stranger was proof that he could change. "We were running across the highway. I made it in time, but my dog didn't." He thought he should add the rest, that he had been eight, and he had seen the truck coming, but he had run for the thrill of winning a forbidden race and had not thought about Buster at his heels.
"Another of life's lessons."
"Yeah." He decided to say no more. He had read that confessions were never the full truth, that something was always withheld. That had seemed profound. Now he thought it stupidly self-evident. Who would have the patience to listen to anyone's complete confession?
"We're here." Hunter turned at a sign announcing the Empire Hotel and WELCOME CEREAL CONVENTION.
"Great." Confry forced enough enthusiasm to be polite. He had visited too many conventions at similar places, molds twenty years past their prime on the outskirts of small towns near enough to a city to attract truckers, salespeople, adulterers, swap meets, and fan conventions. He had hoped to be bathed for three days in breakfast food profits. Now he suspected that the World Cereal Society was only a letterhead in John Hunter's computer. He wished he had asked for a check in advance.
Hunter insisted on carrying his suitcase. Holding open the hotel door, he said, "Enter freely, and of your own will." He laughed, and Confry smiled in spite of himself. If this was only a gathering of poor but avid fans, he would be bathed in adulation instead of money. Someone would undoubtedly buy his drinks, and someone would probably sleep with him. Jan had often told him that if he'd just take part in the things around him, he could be happy anywhere.
In the lobby, perhaps fifteen attendees sat on the sofas or spoke quietly with the desk clerk. Most were white men, a few were women, several were people of ambiguous sex and race. Their clothing tended toward working-class: jeans and feed caps, T-shirts and baseball jackets, running shoes and wide leather belts with heavy buckles. A few wore black leather, and a few wore tailored suits, but this was not a flamboyant or a wealthy crowd.
He hesitated inside the door, then answered Hunter's glance. "I'd kind of hoped to be met by Tony the Tiger or Captain Crunch. Don't the companies give you posters or T-shirts or free samples or anything?"
Hunter smiled. "We're a very self-sufficient bunch."
At the registration desk, while Hunter signed him in, Confry listened to a gray-haired black man in a cheap suit tell a young Asian woman in a leather jacket, "I don't keep no mementos, girl. It's all up here." He tapped his head. "Safer, that way."
"Cheaper on insurance, too," Confry said. The two gave him looks that asked him to explain his interruption. "I'm Pete Confry. This is my first cereal con."
The black man smiled. "Oh, yes. The writer."
"Ah," said the Asian woman. "You collect?"
"Just books, now," Confry said. "Butterflies, coins, and comics, when I was a kid. I've been wondering. Do cereal collectors eat the stuff they collect, or isn't that the point?"
The Asian woman smiled. "Some eat nothing else."
Confry shook his head. "Fandom is a way of life, I guess. I think I'd keep the packages and dump the contents."
The black man shrugged. "Some do that, too. We best be gettin' ready for opening ceremonies. See you there?"
Confry nodded and watched them go. As Hunter turned from the registration desk, a thin young man in a Bugs Bunny T-shirt hurried toward them. "Nimrod! Hi! Is this--"
Hunter nodded without pleasure. "Peter Confry. Yes."
The man thrust out a moist hand that Confry accepted. "Hi! I love your work. I really do! I'm--"
Confry released the hand as he read the young man's name badge. "Fan Man?"
Fan Man grinned. "Yeah. It's a silly handle, but--"
"Fan Man?" Confry repeated, hearing a sharp, brittle emphasis in his voice and not caring.
"This is unfortunate." Hunter took Confry's arm to lead him away. ,
Confry jerked his arm away and jabbed a stiff finger into Bugs Bunny's eye. The thin man winced, then blinked as Confry said, "What the hell kind of joke--"
"C'mon." Hunter slapped a room key into Confry's hand, picked up his suitcase, and led him into a hallway of numbered doors.
"I love your stuff," Fan Man yelled. "I really do!"
"Then get a goddamn clue!" Confry called back. "Get two; they're cheap!"
"Kids," Hunter said. "You've got to expect a certain amount of excess from the young."
"Excess. Right." Confry swallowed, then nodded. Two families had been killed in ways that seemed like intentional recreations of the first mutilation scene in Banshee's Need. The press had called the killer Fan Boy. Then a third family had been killed in the same way, and a signature had been left in blood: Fan Man.
"I should've told you," Hunter said. "For the weekend, we've all got the handles of serial killers. Seemed like a fun idea for Halloween." He took a badge from his pocket and pinned it to his shirt. "See? I'm Nimrod." Hunter shook his head. "I forgot about the Fan Man until I saw him heading toward you."
"Fun. Yeah. I guess." Confry tried to smile, failed, then said calmly, "You think he believed using the name was funny?"
Hunter shrugged. "It bothers you?"
Confry shook his head as though shuddering. "No way. It's not my fault I have more imagination than a nut with a knife. The real Fan Man would use the Bible for inspiration if he had nothing else."
"And he'd be continuing a fine old tradition."
"Yeah." Confry breathed deeply, then laughed. "So, who'll I be? The Ripper? The Corinthian? The Boston Strangler?"
"You're our author guest. Everyone should know that." Hunter drew another badge from his pocket and handed it to Confry. The others in the lobby had been white, but Confry's was the red of drying blood.
Alone in his room, he picked up the phone to call Jan and ask about Meg's cough. After three rings, a male Southerner said, "May I he'p you?" His voice suggested the task was hopeless.
"I want to call--"
"Sorry. Line's down."
Confry heard a disconnecting tick. He listened to the empty song of the telephone for several seconds, then punched "O" again
.
"May I--"
"What's this about the phone line?"
"Can't make no outside calls. Ever' phone in the place is out. Sorry."
"For how long?"
"Monday aft'noon, most like."
"Monday. Thanks." Confry dropped the receiver into its cradle. He had often said he wanted privacy. Now he had a weekend's worth. He missed his office at the house he still called home. There, privacy had been a choice, enforced by the occasional yell at the girls to be quiet 'cause Dad was working. Writers wrote, right? No one resented fire fighters for putting out fires. He had thought himself one of the lucky ones, because Jan had encouraged him to write.
He whispered, "No matter how you choose, you lose." Then he smiled. A good line always pleased him, no matter how bad the circumstances. Jan hadn't understood that, either.
Feeling as though his hotel room had been cut adrift from the world, he clicked on the television. The world promised beaches, bikinied blondes, and beer. He clicked off the set. The world always made promises. Maybe he should see what the world delivered.
In the lobby, eyes turned toward his red badge, then away. Conversations grew quieter. He did not fit in here, but he was used to that. He did not fit in anywhere. Perhaps he should have stayed in his room until Hunter returned to take him to dinner. Perhaps he should have opened his notebook computer and begun creating a world in which purpose was defined by plot and a pure heart always prevailed, where love held true if you persevered and every path could lead to redemption, so long as you watched the signs.
He walked toward the convention area. A posterboard placard on one door identified the art show, so he stepped inside. A bearded man filling out forms at a table looked up in surprise, then shrugged and kept working. On his badge was written, "Fuck you."
Confry pointed at the badge. "Never heard of him."
The bearded man grinned. "No one knows the fuckin' best. Everybody's heard of fuckin' McDonald's."
Seven oil paintings had been hung in the place of honor before the door. "Who's the artist guest?"
"Haven't got a fuckin' one. We fuckin' got a fuckin' honored artist instead, 'cause he fuckin' couldn't get the fuck away."
Confry turned toward the seven paintings. The first showed a sleeping man writhing on a bed. A chalk white man leaned over the sleeper, whispering into his ear. In the dark room, furniture and shadow coupled like beasts.