The following is a work of fiction.

Not Nick Nolte's Diary, Malibu, California
February 2, 2005

Threes

There's a stack of scripts in my study that became a coffee table of sorts over the years. Now I think of it as furniture first and a column of faintly-recalled opportunities-passed second. Anyway, someone cleared all the old copies of Photo and Paris Match that were atop it and I got a look at the stack again. Oddly, sitting on top was Victory. There was a time when I wanted the Jones role. Enough to pen some regrettable faxes to the powers that were. Another Joe Conrad sighting. If things really do happen in threes, tomorrow I'll find out Manolo bought an unpublished Conrad manuscript from that fruit vendor on Rampart. Stranger things have happened on Rampart Blvd., Diary. Ask the fruit if you don't believe me.