Free Mirror by Graham Masterton

Pour yourself a glass of Perrier. Do you want a grape?’
    Martin noisily dragged over a white-painted cast-iron chair, startling a white crested cockatoo that hung from the solarium ceiling in a white cage that Morris had brought back from Tangiers. The cockatoo screeched while Morris gave Martin one of his long old-fashioned looks and fed his mouth with grapes as if he were loading the chamber of a .38 with bullets.
    ‘Listen, Martin,’ he said at last, and then paused while the cockatoo let out one more screech. ‘This Boofuls thing, it’s going to do you some damage if you’re not careful. Yesterday evening I was having dinner at the Bel Air Hotel and June Lassiter came over and gave me a
very
difficult time about that dreck you tried to sell her. She said she doesn’t like to deal with writers direct, and more than that she doesn’t like to deal with projects like that. It’s a hoodoo, I told you. You’re going to embarrass everybody. You’ve already embarrassed me. What could I say, that I washed my hands of it? But in any case I apologized on your behalf.’
    Martin snapped, ‘You had absolutely no right to do that.’
    ‘Well, somebody had to.’ Morris smirked, shifting his weight on the ottoman. ‘You drag that idea around to one more major studio, my friend, and you will find that the drawbridge of opportunity has lifted and you are standing like a
shlemiel
on the outside. And let me tell you this: I’m not going to be the
nebach
who throws you a rope to get back across the moat.’
    Martin stood up, noisily scraping his chair back and setting off the crested cockatoo into a frenzy of whooping and screaming. ‘You’ve been watching too many old Burt Lancaster movies,’ he retorted. ‘And do you think I’d take hold of the rope even if you threw it to me?’
    ‘Calm down, will you?’ Morris told him; and then turned around to the cockatoo and bellowed, ‘Stop that
krechsing
, you dumb bird!’
    ‘Morris,’ said Martin, ‘this sounds crazy, but I think I’ve found him.’
    ‘Who? What are you talking about? Shut up, bird! You know what Alison calls that bird? Dreyfuss. She thinks it looks like Richard Dreyfuss.’
    ‘Boofuls,’ Martin told him, his voice unsteady.
    ‘Whunh?’ Morris frowned. ‘Martin, will you make yourself clear? I have sixty screenplays to go through here, sixty. Look at this one,
Scarlett O’Hara, the Early Years
. What’s the matter with these people? And you’ve turned into some kind of
nar
over Boofuls. All I hear from you is Boofuls, Boofuls, Boofuls. I would wish him dead, if he weren’t already.’
    ‘Well, that’s it,’ Martin interrupted. ‘I don’t think he is. I mean, not properly.’
    Morris picked another grape and ate it very slowly. ‘You don’t think that Boofuls is properly dead?’
    Martin nodded.
    Morris heaved himself up into a sitting position. ‘Martin, if I thought you could afford it, I’d send you along to Dr Eisenbaum. What is it, the heat? I’m giving you too many
A-Team
rewrites, what?’
    Martin took a deep breath. ‘I bought a mirror that used to hang in Boofuls’ house. In fact, it was supposed to be hanging over the fireplace the day that his grandmother killed him.’
    ‘Go on,’ said Morris, his voice low with apprehension. Whatever Martin was going to say, Morris definitely wasn’t going to like it.
    ‘Well – I’ve only had it a couple of days – I bought it Wednesday – just after I came out to see you – some woman on Hillside Avenue had it stored in her cellar.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘It’s pretty difficult to explain, Morris, but I think he’s in it.’
    ‘In what?’ Morris frowned.
    ‘In the mirror,’ Martin explained. ‘I think that, somehow, Boofuls is kind of – well, it‘s real hard to describe it, but he’s kind of
stuck
, you know, stuck inside the mirror. Maybe not him, but his spirit, or part of his spirit. Jesus, Morris, he was crying last night, he was crying for almost a half hour! I