Print the Legend: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  And even if he risked putting the questions to Mary in front of Lassiter, would it even work? What if Mary denied it all?

  And if he got his confession to Papa’s murder, Lassiter, or even Hannah, might deny it happened. He could imagine Lassiter maybe trying to protect his dead friend’s widow: “No, Dick, that’s not how it was, you lying cocksucker.” Lassiter would say it in that Texas baritone and some fucking hick-town jury would eat it up.

  Richard looked down and noticed something that caused him to jump slightly. He saw as he wrestled with it all he’d gone and done the deed and emptied the dropper’s contents into Mary’s gimlet.

  So, he was committed. Richard remembered now the man saying the stuff he’d been given wasn’t terribly fast acting.

  He looked again at the empty dropper.

  Done, either way.

  Thank God. Now he would just have to be careful. Get what he could get from Mary; try to get her away from Lassiter. Yes: get her alone, far from the intrusion of a pulp novelist and go for the jugular. He’d maybe say, “You don’t look well,” to Mary, then hustle Lassiter and Hannah away — all the while going back over whatever he’d pulled from her to that point. Then, armed for bear, he’d return alone and tear into the drugged widow liked she was an under-prepared grad student defending a flawed thesis.

  Richard saw there was a mirror running behind the bar above the counter. Although he’d put his back to Hector, Hannah and Mary, Richard was facing the damned mirror. The angle made it tricky to tell, but he thought Lassiter might be watching him in the mirror’s reflection.

  Maybe fucking Lassiter had seen him spike Mary’s drink.

  But maybe not: the mystery writer wasn’t raising an alarm, yet.

  No, Richard decided—Lassiter clearly hadn’t seen him slip the mickey into Mary’s gimlet.

  So far, so good…

  —Hector—

  Hector bit his lip, trying to decide whether to call the goddamn scholar on what he thought he’d seen—this possible poisoning of the Widow Hemingway’s drink.

  On the other hand, “whistleblower” had never been Hector’s style. And he was still casing the room and the cast—trying to get a handle on the dynamics and subtext of this collection of characters arrayed before him. In theory, he could maybe get closer to Mary; upset her tainted cocktail, then mix Mary a drink himself. Just the fact the bastard scholar knew Creedy made all of this seem sinister.

  But Hector was pretty sure Richard had seen Hector see what Richard had done. Hector figured it this way: if the stuff Richard slipped Mary was something that could really harm the last Mrs. Hemingway, Richard would now feel impelled to back off—maybe even spill the spiked drink himself.

  Still…

  Tough goddamn call.

  Hector bit his lip and decided to wait; watch some more.

  He sat down next to Hannah on the short, floral-print loveseat. Her attention seemed to be drawn to a crumpled scrap of paper on the floor. Hannah didn’t quite seem the type, but Hector knew that to the typical Hemingway enthusiast, every object in the house, even a used piece of paper with a few of Papa’s doodles or alcohol shopping lists, was of momentous value. Well, if the girl was some magpie, Mary deserved the loss, cavalier as she seemed to be with Hem’s leavings. He hated thieves as much as the next man—hell, maybe more—but better in this circumstance to be brazen: Take the goddamn thing boldly rather than fawn and suck up and inveigle, hoping for granted scraps like the woman’s egghead husband was doing.

  Then again, it just looked like a crumpled up piece of paper that had missed the wastepaper basket.

  Hannah pointed at the ball of paper. “Could you get that for me, Mr. Lassiter? I dropped it and…”

  She nodded at her belly.

  Well, what the hell? And he liked her sheepish smile. Hector smiled back and scooped up Mary’s discarded manuscript and folded it into Hannah’s hand, letting the touch linger. Pretty young woman…some real presence there.

  —Richard—

  Mary said to Lassiter, “You married presently, Lasso?”

  Lassiter shook his head. He seemed to bridle a little at Mary’s use of the nickname. The pulp novelist said, “Not presently. Focusing on the career for the moment. The long game, you know? Vetting unpublished manuscripts. Destroying what’s no good and finishing what is. Going over scraps from old days. Paris days. I don’t want loose ends or cast-offs of mine getting out there after I’m gone. Don’t want some fool fussing over my leavings and trying to foist them on readers as my top-shelf work.” Lassiter was looking hard at Mary now.

  Richard was curious about the author’s rather caustic, unexpected remarks—wanted to know more about what lay behind them.

  Mary said, “Well, these next few days will be a pain in my ass. Have to lay low and stay shut in with all these scholars skulking around. Present company aside, academics are just sad ass. You agree, Hector?”

  Lassiter leaned back and wrapped an arm across the back of the loveseat, his arm brushing Hannah’s shoulder. Richard saw. He wondered again if the mystery writer had seen him in the mirror and was daring him to a confrontation by being so flirty with Hannah. He couldn’t fall prey to Lassiter’s baiting him. Hell, he could withstand letting the old bastard cop a few feels of his wife in service to this greater goal. Richard suppressed a smile: He had contacts. Maybe down the road, when his book was done, he’d call up the editor of The New York Times Book Review. He’d offer to review one of Lassiter’s mystery novels and then skewer the son of a bitch in print. Then he’d see what Lassiter had to say about academics.

  The mystery novelist stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankles. Taking his time, Lassiter responded to Mary, but his pale blue eyes remained focused on Richard:

  “Academics can be their own kind of problem. Poison to a writer. Worse still—more dangerous to a writer and his legacy—can be a poorly chosen literary executor. Or executrix. I re-read A Moveable Feast on the drive up from New Mexico. Have to say, it reads different to me than it did in typescript in Cuba. I mean, it was fringing brilliant there. Now? Sentimentality’s crept in. Chapters out of order from what I read in ’fifty-nine. And some of that stuff in that last chapter—which wasn’t even there before—hell, some of that stuff reads like someone else’s writing.”

  Richard looked up sharply; God, there might be something in there for him—a paper, at least, for The Review. If only he weren’t so goddamn distracted at this moment. If he could just pursue that a bit more with Lassiter.

  “That’s why you look so good,” Mary said, ignoring Hector’s remark. “Because you’re single again, I mean. That’s why you look so much better.”

  Lassiter just shook his head.

  God, that’s all he needed now—for Mary to derail and go off on some horny tangent after this famous skirt-chaser, Lassiter. Richard called from behind the bar, “Mary was telling us about her pregnancy disaster back in ’forty-six, Hector.”

  Richard knew the story well and so didn’t have to listen too hard—could focus on his now-more-dangerous gambit…martial his tropes while Mary nattered on:

  The newlywed Hemingways were traveling cross-country to Sun Valley in August of ’forty-six. Mary, a few months pregnant, began hemorrhaging internally from a tubular pregnancy.

  An egg had become fertilized and lodged in Mary’s Fallopian tube instead of the uterus. The tube gave way and Mary began bleeding like crazy. The doctors wrote Mary off when her veins collapsed and they couldn’t find a pulse or feed her plasma. They told Papa to say goodbye to Mary. Papa said that was useless since she was unconscious. It was a moment right out of A Farewell to Arms.

  But Papa rose to the occasion; there was never a time when Hemingway was better to have by your side than when the chips were truly down.

  Richard caught himself smiling as he fumbled with the ice cube trays: Papa was undeniably the best man in any crisis. Told to tell his wife farewell, Hem instead had taken charge. The chief surgeon was away
on a fishing trip. Those left behind weren’t up to the task. They wrote Mary off for dead. So Ernest put on a gown and mask and ordered the intern to cut for a vein. Ernest inserted the needle himself and made sure the plasma fed correctly. Ernest milked and tipped the line to get out all the air bubbles that were blocking the plasma’s flow. Papa really saved Mary while the intern just looked on like some star-struck idiot. Richard looked at Hannah: Alas, the Scot was too robust to afford Richard a chance to save her in faltering childbirth….

  Mary said, “Five bottles of plasma, two transfusions and a long time in an oxygen tent, but I pulled through. Papa was a hero to all the nurses afterwards! And of course he ate it up! Mostly though, Papa took it as heartening proof that once in a very very great while, in never giving up or quitting, fate can indeed be ‘fucked’ as he put it. He said he never saw anybody—anybody ever—come closer.”

  Hannah said, “Sounds like he was a great man to have around in an emergency. Taking charge. Knowing just what to do to care for his woman.”

  Hannah would go there, wouldn’t she? Richard cut in, “After the incident in Casper, you couldn’t have children, right?” He was keenly aware that Lassiter watched him as Richard made the pulp author’s drink and Hannah’s—they went un-tampered with, of course, but Richard’s hands shook a little to be watched so intently.

  Mary shook her head, scooting a small African fetish/cum ashtray to the side of the table to prop up her feet. She winked at Hannah. “That’s right. After the ‘incident,’ the remaining tube was ‘occluded.’”

  “Papa was bitterly disappointed by that,” Richard called from the bar, “wasn’t he?”

  “It caused…a rift,” Mary said. “You know, we even had a name picked out for our baby—Bridget.”

  “Very pretty name,” Hannah said. “Goes well with the last name.”

  “Yes, but what a burden that last name would have been for poor little Bridget,” Mary said. “Of course Bridget wasn’t destined to be. She died before she was ever alive and then Ernest died before he was truly dead and now they are both just dead. As the father of three boys, Papa always wanted a daughter.”

  Hannah said, “Martha and Papa never had children together, did they?”

  Mary turned to Hannah. “Martha lied to Ernest,” the widow said. “Knowing Papa wanted a little girl as badly as he did, Martha went ahead and married Papa knowing she was barren from a botched abortion. Or abortions.” Richard finished preparing the drinks. God, he’d made a bit of a mess. He looked around for a towel to clean up. Between his nerves, his own buzz, and fucking Lassiter giving him the evil eye all this while…well, it was a miracle he’d pulled it off. He looked around for a tray or something to place the drinks on.

  Hannah asked Lassiter, “Do you have children, Mr. Lassiter?”

  Lassiter said, his voice thick, “Had a daughter. She died at the age of three. Heart problem.”

  Lassiter was standing now; striding to the bar, goddamn him!

  Before Richard could react, Lassiter grabbed Mary’s gimlet, and his own iced tea. “I’ve got these, amigo.” Smiling, Lassiter actually sniffed Mary’s drink, said softly to Richard, “You’re a hard pourer, fella.”

  Richard just looked up at him, trying to keep his legs from shaking…willing himself not to flush, but feeling his pulse in his ears.

  Lassiter smiled and then walked over and handed the glass to Mary. They briefly tapped glasses. Richard handed Lassiter the other glass of iced tea for Hannah and then quickly moved for Papa’s former chair before the pulp novelist could claim it.

  Mary smiled as Lassiter handed her the gimlet.

  Lassiter sat down again alongside Hannah and clicked glasses with her. He said, “To a beautiful baby and a fast delivery.”

  Richard Paulson raised an eyebrow, about to take that seat next to Mary’s. She held up a finger, then tipped her glass. Richard watched as Mary drained her drink at a pull and held the glass out for him. “Again?”

  ***

  The stuff had been in the widow’s veins for nearly half-an-hour. She seemed groggy, but hell, that could be all the gin. Richard kept trying to put questions to her, to lay the groundwork for his later, solo assault. But Hannah kept interrupting with busy-body questions related to domestic matters that bored and annoyed Richard.

  And Lassiter? He seemed to have his own strange and bitter agenda. He kept returning to the issue of Papa’s unfinished manuscripts, all his queries peppered with portent and bombast.

  But the stuff had a hold on Mary now—something in her eyes. And she was quicker to talk; almost manic in the speed of her answers. There was an uncensored frankness to her responses now, and she was given to sliding into monologues of intense self-exposure.

  “About time someone finally got around to me,” Mary said suddenly, stubbing out her cigarette. “Frankly, I don’t know if Dickie here is the best one to tell my tale, but at least he appears truly interested in the gen. And he’s shown insight for Papa’s work. Not like so many of the others who want to warp the man and artist to suit their narrow little theses, which rhymes with feces. And it’s goddamn well my turn. Lord knows that bitch Martha can write her own story about life with Papa if she ever maneuvers around her own elephantine ego to do it—which she never will. One book is already being done on Hadley, the Saint, and another is coming, I hear. Pauline has had her time in the sun.”

  Mary glanced over her shoulder at a framed black-and-white photograph of herself with President Kennedy. “I’m the one left to carry the cross and fight all Papa’s fights. Coping with the lawyers and the publishers. Seeing Scribners does right by us. Getting the last of the printable works in print. Nurturing Papa’s reputation—that’s reputation with a capital R. I had to negotiate with Castro to get the last of our manuscripts out of Cuba. That cost us the Finca and the Pilar. And then there are the so-called scholars. Creeping Christ. All the scavengers circling, wanting to see the letters and poems. Self-gutting hyenas begging for glimpses of the unpublished manuscripts—The Garden and the Africa book—and the other odds and ends. Jackals sniffing for some unplumbed scrap they can parlay into tenure or some hulking-ass psychological mumbo jumbo disguised as literary criticism. Bug-eating, cocksucking parasites.”

  Richard ground his teeth, thought, Fuck you, you old whore! And to attack his profession in front of a fucking pulp writer like Lassiter? In front of Hannah, his student? Strike that—wife. Whatever… Fucking unacceptable. Unforgivable. Well, he’d seen Mary up close, now. He knew what he was up against. And Lassiter seemed to be dug in for a time.

  He’d come back—get Mary alone and hit her with a bigger dose of the stuff. He looked at Hannah, sitting there next to Lassiter who had his arm around behind her again—looking like they were the couple. Hannah probably was enjoying his flirting. And probably enjoying Mary’s attack on his profession as it mirrored some things Hannah had said herself recently, albeit in subtler form. Maybe, if he had extra of the drug, he’d try a little on Hannah at some point. Find out what she really thought about him….

  It was a notion…

  —Hector—

  He sipped his iced tea, watching the professor over the rim of his glass and savoring the effect Mary’s crazy diatribe was having on the egghead.

  Though Richard was trying hard to mask it—grinning like a death’s head, now—it was clear each of Mary’s flippant and salty remarks was landing home like kidney punches to the academic’s soul. Richard seemed on the verge of a grand tirade. And it was clear his anger encompassed not just Mary, but his pretty young wife.

  It wasn’t the way he looked at Hannah that made Hector think that. No, it was in the way he didn’t look at his wife: Richard seemed to be letting it swell inside him; storing it up to launch back at his wife later, in private. Hector feared for Hannah a bit.

  Hector watched Hannah watching Mary: Gal was out pretty far on the limb with this professor husband of hers. Her ears did seem to perk up at some of Mary’s nastier but hard-t
o-deny digs. Like they maybe validated things the comely blonde also couldn’t let go of. Hector had the sense that Hannah might not be in agreement so much, but also storing up…arming for bear for some later, private confrontation.

  He hoped Hannah could hold her own. Richard Paulson was slovenly, egocentric, and clearly an alcoholic. Paulson was bitter and used up and obviously corrupt if he was tied in some way to Donovan Creedy. But Richard also seemed a mean drunk.

  Yet Hector thought in a confrontation for the title, he might just put his money on Hannah to deliver the KO—to throw everything she had and knock the drunken Hemingway scholar on his ass for all day. Maybe.

  Then Hector smiled inwardly and shook his head. Jesus, here he was again—getting distracted by a pretty face and beguiling accent. Long legs and eyes a man could lose himself in. He was here to deal with Mary, and the professor’s corrupt antics aside, it was clear it was going to take Hector’s full concentration—particularly with Mary in this strange, addled state.

  Richard handed Mary another gimlet, then pulled the chair over closer to the widow, cozying up like some lamprey eel—clamped tightly to Mary as she thrashed around.

  Richard Paulson raised an eyebrow, sitting down next to Mary. “What were you saying?”

  Mary beamed at him. “I was saying I think I’ve found in you my own most goddamn wonderful parasite.”

  Richard clearly didn’t like that one—not a bit.

  Hannah? How did she feel to have her husband likened to a leech or a tick? Another hard call—Hector just couldn’t read her expression, now. He wondered if she was an academic in the purest sense. He said softly, “When you’re not watching the professor here ply his trade, what do you do, sweetheart?”

  Hannah said, “I write.”

  “Grad student? Another…academic?”

  She smiled. “No, fiction. Short stories, mostly.”

  Well, well. Now Hannah interested him even more. As a rule, Hector tried to steer far clear of married women—had never really added that sin to his long list of vices. And Hannah’s being pregnant was a double stop sign. Hector wasn’t sure he was even drawn to her romantically…but he felt something for her building inside him. Maybe it was just the fact she was clearly badly married and perhaps in real jeopardy from this sorry son of a bitch husband who’d apparently cast his lot with Creedy.