Corkscrew Read Online Free PDF Page B

return address on the envelope. 'Maybe I will, Jack, thanks,' he said.
    There was a Manhattan White Pages kept in the kitchen, under the phone. Wayne Prentice was in it, at the address on Perry Street. He dialed, listened to Wayne's voice on his answering machine, and after the beep he said, 'You'll meet her. Accept the invitation to
Low Fidelity.'
    That night, the pill worked. He slept through until morning.
     
4
     
    When Susan came home, Wayne kissed her, but he was distracted. 'I want you to hear something,' he said.
    'What?'
    She followed him into the kitchen, where they kept the answering machine, while he said, 'I went out to the deli to get some lunch, and when I brought it back there was one message.'
    He pressed
Play:
'You'll meet her. Accept the invitation to
Low Fidelity.'
    'That's Bryce Proctorr,' he told her. 'That's his voice.'
    'Play it again.'
    He did, and she listened with pursed lips, narrow eyes. 'He sounds arrogant,' she decided.
    'He isn't arrogant,' Wayne said. 'He could be, with his success, but he isn't, not really. He's just sure of himself.'
    'Play it again.'
    After the third time, she said, 'It isn't arrogance, it's nervousness. He's tense, and trying to hide it.'
    'He doesn't know if I'll do it or not. He should have
The Domino Doublet
by now, that'll tell him, at least, that I'm thinking about it.'
    'What's
Low Fidelity
?'
    'I looked it up in
New York,'
he said, and gestured at the magazine he'd left on the kitchen table, propped open with a carving knife. 'It hasn't opened yet, it's going to be in this neighborhood, over on Grove Street, opening next Thursday.'
    She stood over the magazine to read the pre-opening notice. 'A new comedy. Never heard of Jack Wagner.'
    'Around three-thirty,' he told her, 'I got a phone call from the theater. Nu-Arts, it's called.'
    That surprised her. 'They
called
you?'
    'I guess she was the cashier or a secretary, I don't know. She said I'd been added to the guest list for the opening night at the request of the author, and I'd be getting an invitation in the mail, but since time is short they wanted to be sure I knew about it.'
    'Bryce Proctorr waves his magic wand, and you get invited to the opening of a play.'
    'Off-Broadway.'
    'Still.' She looked at the notice in the magazine again, then gave Wayne a quirky smile as she said, 'Do you suppose that's
his
pen name? Jack Wagner?'
    'Who, Bryce?' Wayne laughed. 'No, why would he?'
    'It sounds like a pen name.'
    'Bryce Proctorr doesn't use a pen name,' Wayne said, certain of that. 'Besides, if it was something he wrote,
she
wouldn't be on the guest list.'
    'I suppose.'
    The pre-opening notice offered very little, no plot summary, no previous history of the author or anybody else connected with the play, but Susan kept going back to it, as though it contained the answer to a problem that was puzzling her. Wayne watched her, then gestured at the answering machine: 'Do you want to hear it again?'
    'No. You'd better erase it.'
    'Right.'
    That was a strange feeling. You always pushed the
Delete
button to get rid of old messages, but this time it felt different, like being in a spy movie. Or a murder story, getting rid of the evidence.
    Beep, said the machine: Your secrets are safe.
    She was still frowning at the magazine, but after that beep she transferred her frown to him. 'It's so weird,' she said, 'that he can just do that. Reach out and pluck someone.'
    'He knows people, that's all. Susan, we know people, too.'
    'Well… You told her you're going.'
    'We're going. The invitation's for the both of us, or, you know, I can bring a guest, so I said I would.'
    'Oh, no,' she said. 'You do this on your own. Next Thursday? I'll have dinner with Jill.'
    Jill was a long-time friend, now divorced, a sweet, rather vague woman, with many small unimportant problems. Whenever Wayne had to be away or wasn't available, Susan had dinner with Jill. Wayne's equivalent was a friend from college called Larry, who'd been a crotchety old