If the ghosts of Woody Allen and David Mamet were available (at this early date) to float through the fiction of one writer, that writer would have to be Stan Rogal. In linked short stories imbued with wry humor, brutally frank honesty and caustically banal dialogue, women and men argue, make love and taunt each other mercilessly. Parents and kids don't get along: ''We love you ...'' says a character in ''Hard Line'' to which his father responds: ''Bullshit. I'm going to kill myself tonight.'' And the son's response? A deadpan, ''You've said that before.'' People on the cusp of middle age, who should know better, play dangerous drinking games, as in ''Friends.'' And more than anything, the middle-aged narrator - just over a bad marriage and taking university-level drama classes to ''get over it'' - always seems to be surrounded by women willing to comfort him when he needs it: ''If you need me,'' says one of these women in the story ''Family,'' ''Come over. Anytime. I'll do anything you want. Anything.''.