GHOST WRITER
By
Michael Mallory

Jim Lockridge eased his car up to the curb, making sure to engage the parking brake before getting out. No sense in having the car roll down the steep, winding drive. The place he was going was part of old Hollywood, perched on top of a hill, overlooking the L.A. basin. Below him, ten million lights glowed through the night fog. Above him, obscured by the darkness, was the Hollywood sign, from which at least one wannabe movie star jumped to her death in a gaudily public display of despair.

Hollywood was full of ghosts.

Lockridge smiled as he made his way to the entrance of the weathered Frank Lloyd Wright house. "Ghosts everywhere," he muttered, jabbing the doorbell.

"Coming," Burton Starkweather's voice called from behind the wrought iron door. A moment later he appeared, saying, "Hello, Lockridge, do come in." Starkweather was wearing charcoal grey wool slacks, a blue silk shirt with a pink ascot, and a maroon smoking jacket. With his manufactured tan and neatly trimmed gray moustache, Starkweather looked like he had stepped out of an amateur production of a Noel Coward play. This is what he believes writers are supposed to look like, Lockridge thought as he stepped past the older man, nearly gagging as he fought through the invisible wall of Starkweather's cologne, which hung inside the house like an ocean fog.

"Did you bring it?" Starkweather asked, closing the door.

Coughing from the cologne, Lockridge dropped a thick manuscript and three computer disks on the entryway table. "Hope you like it," he said.

"I'm sure I will," Starkweather replied. "Your sample chapters were excellent, better than usual. Burton Starkweather just keeps getting better and better with time, doesn't he?"

"No."

"Drink?"

"No."

"Refusing a drink? Good God, something must be weighing on your mind. Out with it, Lockridge."

"I was just wondering what your adoring readership would do if they learned that best-selling novelist Burton Starkweather was a complete fraud. What would they say if they knew you don't even write the titles of your books?"

Starkweather smiled as he splashed bourbon into a glass and swirled it. "We're playing this game again, I see," he said. "Very well, now it's my turn to say: And what would the police do if they learned that the hit-and-run driver they've been seeking for five years, the one who mowed down up-and-coming actress Martina Peluso with his car and then fled into the night like a scared rabbit, is none other than that one-time mid-list scribbler and currently respectable college professor James Lockridge?"

"Okay," Lockridge said, a tiny smile forming on his lips, "let's suppose the talentless TV hack who happened to witness a terrible accident years ago does go to the police. How does he explain his silence for all that time?"

Starkweather took a sip of bourbon and savored it. "Where does it say the witness has to identify himself? Or hasn't the high and mighty ghostwriter ever heard of an anonymous tip?"

The smile fell away from Lockridge's face. "Do you know how many times I've wished I had run over you instead?" he asked.

"I can guess," Starkweather said, draining his glass. "And for what it's worth, I'm sure poor Martina, wherever she is, wishes you had as well. At the time, however, you were so blotto I doubt you could have told us apart. That was your first Hollywood party, wasn't it? Most people drink too much at their first Hollywood parties and then attempt to drive home, though most don't kill someone in the process. Poor Martina. But that's ancient history. You've brought me the manuscript and since you won't have a drink, there's no reason for your continued presence here. Good night, please show yourself out."

Lockridge did not move.

"Something else is on your mind, then, I presume?" Starkweather said.

"I've been working on a new idea for a book, Burt."

"Great, send a treatment around and I'll take a look at it."

"It's not for you. It's for me."

"Indeed? Our agreement, as I recall, was that in return for my silence regarding your slight case of murder, you write for me, and me alone."

"You'll get your next book, goddammit," Lockridge spat, "but I need this one for myself. It's too good an idea to give away. I want a book of my own, something under my own name again. Do I have to say please?" The last word tasted like bile.

Starkweather sighed and shook his head. "Jim, Jim, Jim . . . when are you going to accept the fact that your career is over? Do you know what I was thinking just before you arrived? I was musing how I had spent fifteen miserable years mucking around in television, and hating every minute of it. But now I am a best-selling author and I love it. I love the attention, the interviews, the fan mail, the book tours, I love talking about my books -"

"My books, dammit!"

Starkweather smirked as he refilled his glass. "Since I'm in a generous mood, I'll say our books. But you are missing my point." He took a long sip of the bourbon. "What I love most of all is not having to face the drudgery of writing all those pages myself. That's what my little Jimmy-boy is for, and that is all he will ever be for. Now be a good boy and get the hell - "

Before Starkweather could finish the sentence Lockridge lunged forward and shoved the older man as hard as he could, sending him sprawling on the floor. In a flash Lockridge was on top of him, trying to grasp his throat, but Starkweather managed to roll out from under him, scramble to his feet and run for it. He got as far as the living room when Lockridge lunged again and grabbed him around the shins. Helpless, Starkweather toppled over like a sawn tree, slamming his temple loudly against the corner of the marble coffee table on the way down. He slumped onto the floor, limp and groaning.

"Jesus," Lockridge muttered, climbing off of him, looking for blood, but finding none. Starkweather was still dazed, rolling back and forth and moaning. A red lump was starting to form on his left temple.

Lockridge knew there was only one thing to do. He had to finish it.

Lifting the limp figure onto his shoulder like a sack of dog food, Lockridge struggled up the house's main staircase. At the top, he let Starkweather drop onto the floor and then hefted him upright again. With a powerful shove, he pitched him face-first down the stairs. Almost no noise, Lockridge thought absently as Starkweather's body cartwheeled down the steps, not at all like the movies, where it always sounds like a drum solo. At the bottom, however, the crumpled figure of Starkweather was still moving. "Damn!" Lockridge cried, racing down to drag the man back up the steps.

It took two more stair-length tumbles before Burton Starkweather stopped moaning, stopped moving, stopped breathing. Lockridge then took his handkerchief and carefully wiped the banister, the coffee table, the entryway table, every place he might have touched, then mopped up the spilled drink before gathering up his manuscript and the disks and slipping out of the house. The street outside was deserted, and Jim Lockridge made his way down the steep, winding drive unseen.

Two days later, the news was everywhere. All the local stations carried it, rerunning the same quote from the police spokesman that Burton Starkweather's death was at present being ruled a tragic accident. The next issue of People Magazine had a banner across the cover reading: "Death of a Storyteller." If only they knew the truth, Lockridge thought, as he threw the rag into the trash.

After erasing all his Starkweather disks and deleting any remaining files, Lockridge similarly cleared his mind of all thoughts of a one-time parasite named Burton Starkweather. He began to immerse himself in his new book, working as never before, sitting at the computer eight, nine, sometimes ten hours a day. Pages and chapters were accruing at a rate that even he could not believe.

Rising early on a Saturday after a solid week of exhausting work, Lockridge had every intention of taking the day off. He could feel he was getting too tired, thinking about his work too much. Why else would he have been so convinced that he heard the sound of typing in the middle of the night? Unfortunately for his pledge, the solution to a troublesome problem of character motivation came to him while in the shower, and after toweling and quickly dressing, he raced to his computer and booted up. The comforting beeps and tones warmed him, and soon he mouse-clicked into his directory. Looking at the files, Lockridge blinked and muttered, "What's that?"

One file was titled "confessio.wpd." He did not remember creating it, nor could he say what was in it. "I have been working too hard," he told himself. Opening the file, Lockridge's mouth gaped as he read:

March 19, 2000

To Whom It May Concern at the Police Department:

I cannot stand it anymore. My conscience is preying upon me. I, James Lockridge, confess to being responsible for the seemingly accidental death of Burton Starkweather.

"Jesus!" Lockridge cried, his fingers fumbling all over the keyboard as he struggled to close the document. With shaking hand, he entered the delete command and the file disappeared. This was proof he had been overexerting himself. Maybe he had even fallen asleep at the computer and had let his subconscious take over for a while. But now a new terror struck him: what if he had planted, either subconsciously or unconsciously, a similar confession in the text of his novel?

Lockridge spent the rest of the day sifting through page after page, looking for anything that could be read as a product of subconscious guilt. He found none, but could he really be sure? He started through it again. Sometime after nine that evening he realized that he had not eaten anything the entire day, so he headed out for Belaggio's Coffee Shop.

Whether the food was good or bad, Lockridge could not have said. He ate mechanically while pretending to read a newspaper, but all the while he was thinking of the mysterious file. Had he gotten up out of bed and typed it out in his sleep? Maybe he should see a doctor. Sure, he thought, grimly, I'll see a doctor and tell him that the man I murdered is haunting me!

Returning home, Lockridge went over to his work desk to shut down the computer. He knew that any more work that night was impossible. He was about to switch off when he saw something that caused a ball of ice to form in the pit of his stomach: it was a new, unknown directory, one he had never created.

A directory titled "confess."

His pulse pounding in his head, Lockridge forced himself to open it. The directory was filled with dozens of files, maybe even a hundred, each one named "confessio." "Can't be, can't be, can't be . . . " Lockridge chanted. He started to open one of the files. He didn't want to, but it was as though something was guiding his hand. With terror-widened eyes he read:

Hi, Jimmy-boy.

I've been busy while you were out.

With a cry, Lockridge leapt up from his desk and ran from the computer. He was halfway to his bedroom when the sound of someone pounding on his front door froze him.

"Who's there?" he cried out.

"Police," a voice called from the other side of the door. "We're looking for James Lockrdige. Are you Mr. Lockridge?”

Lockridge raced for his back door in the kitchen, but upon pulling it open he saw two uniformed offers standing outside. Before he could slam the door shut, they were inside the house. While one kept watch over Lockridge, the other went to the front door and let in two plainclothes detectives. "Mr. Lockridge, I'm Detective Howard Ainsley, LAPD," the one in charge said as he entered the kitchen. "I'd like to speak to you about a letter that was faxed to us earlier today."

"Letter?" Lockridge asked, nervously.

"Yes sir," Detective Ainsley said, "a letter of confession."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lockridge said, attempting to sound casual. "I had nothing to do with Starkweather's death."

"Starkweather, sir?" Detective Ainsley asked, tossing a side glance to the other detective, whose expression betrayed confusion.

"Burton Starkweather!" Lockridge cried. "I don't care what that letter you got said, Starkweather's death was an accident, he was drunk and he fell down the stairs!"

"I don't know anything about Burton Starkweather, sir," the detective responded. "The letter we received is a confession for the 1995 hit-and-run killing of Martina Peluso."

"Mar . . . tina . . ." Lockridge did not even finish the name before collapsing on the floor.

By the time he had been revived, one of the investigating officers had discovered the directory full of letters of confession on his computer. Lockridge was immediately taken into custody and, on a hunch from Detective Ainsley, he was put on suicide watch.

The next morning Lockridge met with his lawyer. "Frankly, Jim, it doesn't look good," Ken Ripley told him. "I mean, after all those letters they found on your computer, what the hell kind of plea are we supposed to enter?"

"I didn't write them, Ken," Lockridge said, staring at his fingernails. "And I didn't write the confession to the cops."

"Are you going to tell me who did?"

"A dead man."

"Well, that's great," Ripley sighed. "That will sound terrific at your arraignment. One hundred and nineteen letters of confession on your computer - a hundred and nineteen, Jim! - all written by a dead man."

"You wanted the truth," Lockridge said, shrugging.

"Great. And I still don't know what the hell all this talk about you and Burton Starkweather is. You mind filling me in on that?"

"Am I being charged with Burt's death too?"

"No, not yet," Ripley said, "though you can bet your ass that the cops are over at his place right now tearing it apart for any evidence that puts you there the night of his death." The lawyer leaned so close that Lockridge could smell the coffee on his breath. "Are they going to find any, Jim?"

Lockridge leaned back in the wooden jail chair and sighed. "Burt knew I had killed Martina - "

"Oh, Jesus," Ripley moaned, burying his face in his hands.

"- and he was blackmailing me and I . . . I lost my temper and attacked him and he slammed his head on a table so I threw him down the stairs to make it look like an accident."

"And then you started writing confessions," Ripley responded.

"No, dammit!" Lockridge screamed with such sudden violence that it caused the attorney to jump. "How can I convince you that I didn't write those letters? Starkweather did. He came back from the dead, his ghost or something, and he wrote them!"

"Christ, Jim."

"And I know what you're thinking," Lockridge continued. "You're going to say that I really wrote those letters but I don't remember it because the guilt somehow blacked out my conscious mind. But that's bullshit, Ken, that's pure B.S." Lockridge stopped talking, started to laugh.

"What the hell's so funny?" the lawyer asked.

"I just realized that Burton Starkweather's initials are B.S.," Lockridge said, laughing louder and louder. "How fitting! Know what's responsible for those confessions, Ken? B.S.! Pure B.S.!"

Lockridge continued to laugh even after Ken Ripley had told him to stop. He was still laughing after Ripley left, complaining to a jail guard that he was feeling a little sick. He laughed all the way back to his cell and continued to laugh even after the biker who was in the lockup with him told Lockridge that if he didn't shut up, he'd kill him with his bare hands. After that, Lockridge was taken out of the jail and transferred to a psychiatric unit, where drugs were administered to control his laughing. They worked until a couple minutes before three o'clock the next morning, when a voice suddenly awakened Lockridge from a deep sleep.

See, Jimmy-boy? the voice said, despite what you thought, I really could write something without your help.

When the night guards finally responded to the hysterical, screaming laughter that was coming from inside Lockridge's room, or rather, to the sudden, gurgling cessation of that laughter, they discovered that James Lockridge had managed to swallow his tongue and had suffocated.

Only as the body was being undressed for examination by the coroner did anyone begin to wonder how the cloying scent of men's cologne got onto the prisoner's clothing.

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