by Ed McBain
By one-thirty-one, we were all unconscious.
* * *
I came to at three-fifteen.
I looked at the dial of my watch, and I rolled over, thinking there was still a lot of time before I had to be at the office. I rolled into something hard, and I reached under me for it and discovered it was an empty bottle.
I held the bottle up and tried to focus on it.
Bottle, bottle, now what the hell was a bottle doing in my bed? I got up and started to swing my legs over the side of the bed when I discovered there was no bed there at all. The walls were slanting peculiarly and somebody in the vicinity reeked like a distillery. I belched and realized I was the one who was doing the reeking, and that struck me funny, so I started to giggle. I got to my feet unsteadily and wobbled across the room.
Two guys were lying on the floor, and I figured, Man, this was one hell of a party, but it’s time to go home.
I looked for my hat, decided finally that I hadn’t come with one, and then went outside to the Buick.
Only the Buick wasn’t there, so I figured some dumb bastard had taken the car by mistake and left me his Olds. Same company, I thought. General Motors, so here we go, General. I climbed in behind the wheel, thankful that the dumb bastard had left the keys in the ignition. Well, we’d straighten it all out in the morning. In the meantime, I was really…
Party.
Party!
I was sober in a tenth of a second.
I slapped the car into reverse and gunned it back against the house. Then I rammed it into drive, let the hydramatic take over, and raced for Cam Stewart’s house.
10.
Gunsmoke Acres, the big white pillars said. Gunsmoke Acres, and I turned the nose of that Olds into the gravel driveway, rammed the accelerator down into Whirlaway, shooting around the curves, watching the greys and blacks and whites speed by in the darkness.
I pulled up outside the garage, and jammed on the brakes.
The house was dark.
I climbed out of the car and figured the party was now in its nude-in-the-swimming-pool stage, so I headed straight for the back of the house. There was still no light and no noise, and no nothing to give indication of a party. I began cursing myself for having missed the boat. I glanced at the luminous dial of my watch and saw that it was three-forty-eight. Hell, everybody was probably home in bed.
I walked around back and the place was deserted. The swimming pool glistened like black oil in the darkness. I stood at its edge and looked over the empty beach chairs, the empty patio, the empty everything.
“You planning on a swim, Josh?” the voice said.
I whirled abruptly.
She was sitting in the shadow of the house, sitting far back in a deep beach chair. Most of her was in darkness, with the moonlight gleaming on her long legs and leaving the rest of her in shadows, snug in the pocket of the chair.
“Cam?” I asked.
“The water’s cold,” she said. “I should know.”
“You been in?”
“Couldn’t think of a quicker way to sober up. Where were you, Josh? I missed you.”
I walked over to where she was sitting, watching the moonlight play on her long legs, wishing it would splash onto the rest of her. Cam Stewart in a bathing suit was something to see. I envied the warm pocket of the chair.
“How was the party?” I asked.
“Nice. Very nice. Everybody got drunk, and there was nary a rape.”
“Did you sign?” I asked anxiously.
“I signed.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Why?”
“I’ll have to sue. You, and Becker, and maybe even Rutherford, for handling the deal. You’re infringing.”
“Oh, infringement, nuts. That’s what your partner said, too.”
“When was this?”
“When he was up here. Before he got shot. I told him I didn’t even remember signing any damned agreement, and he told me I’d better remember fast because infringement, infringement, infringement.”
“He was right.”
“He was right.” Cam shrugged, or at least the movement in the darkness of the chair must have been a shrug. “Where were you, Josh? I thought you’d be here.”
“You don’t know, huh?”
“Why, no.”
“Well, someone sure as hell knows. If it’s not you, it’s Becker or Rutherford. I was kidnaped.”
“Oh, not really.” She began chuckling, and then she uncrossed her legs and pulled them close to her chest, leaving only her ankles and toes in the moonlight, the rest of her still cloaked in the deep blackness of the shadows and the chair.
“Yes, really.”
“Were you injured?”
“No. My abductors turned out to be two very nice guys who apparently had orders not to harm me. Their job was to keep me away from this party. They succeeded very well.”
“How?”
“We all got roaring drunk.”
“Well, good,” Cam said. She laughed again, stretching her legs into the moonlight. She sank further into the chair, and more of her legs showed, and I wondered just how brief that bathing suit was. “We got roaring drunk, too.”
“Sure, but you sobered up in the pool. I sobered by remembering your party. There’s a difference.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “Use the pool. No one in it now.”
“I haven’t a suit.”
“You don’t need one,” she said. And then, so softly that I almost didn’t hear it, “I seldom use one.”
I had risen and was heading for the pool when it registered. I wasn’t going to go swimming, of course. I just wanted another look at it. What she said stopped me short, and I turned to face her. She was sitting in the deep pocket of the chair, but she was leaning forward now, and her upper half was in the moonlight, too.
The moonlight slanted down and kissed her naked breasts, bathing the full curves of her body in molten silver. She was cleanly built, with full, flowing curves, strong and young. She tilted her head now, and the moonlight touched her face and her mouth and her throat.
“I was waiting for you, Josh,” she said. “I’ve been waiting all night.”
I stood on the edge of the pool for a moment, and then I walked to her slowly, and she came up out of the chair to meet me.
I took her hands, and we stood like that for a moment, just our hands locked. And then she lifted her face again, standing on tiptoe, and I took her into my arms.
Her flesh was still cold from the water, but her lips were warm and moist, and she moved closer to me, and her arms tightened around my neck. She moved her mouth gently, but there was an insistent pressure in her lips, and in the slim, cool length of her body pressed against mine.
I tangled my hand in her hair and I pulled her face back and kissed the dark hollow of her throat, her shoulders…
I lifted her, then, and carried her to the long chaise longue near the pool’s edge. I put her down on the soft cushions, and her body was a dull ivory against the deep blue of the fabric.
“I’m sorry about the agreement, Josh,” she said softly. “I’m sorry you lost out.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
“I’m truly sorry. Truly.” She paused, and then pulled me to her breast, holding me tightly, almost fiercely.
“I’ll make it up to you, Josh. I’ll make it up to you.”
11.
I left Gunsmoke Acres at noon the next day. I left Cam in her large bed, with satin sheets pulled to her throat, with the young firm lines of her body sculpting the sheets. She smiled up at me lazily, and then lifted one arm to wave, and the sheet fell free of one breast, and I sure as hell did not want to leave.
I tried to kiss her hastily, aiming for her cheek, but she pulled my face down to hers, and when she kissed me, it curled my toes, I left, though. I left because I still wanted to pull this deal out of the fire, and I wasn’t going to do that by dallying with Cam Stewart.
I thought
of the deal all the way back to the city. The rain had cooled things considerably, and there was a briskness in the air that was reminiscent of autumn. Perversely, I wished for the heat again. And I thought. I’d have to call Mike, of course. Still, I hated to drag this damned thing into the courts. Once that happened, there’d be calendar delays and haggling and waiting and I’d be sixty-five before a commission rolled into the agency.
I had a hunch they’d try to settle out of court if I could produce the agreement. They’d be crazy not to. But I didn’t have the agreement, and no amount of wishing would bring it back. Well, maybe Mike could figure something. He was on a retainer, and that’s what he got paid for. I’d have felt a lot better if Cam Stewart weren’t involved in the deal.
It’s one thing to take a perfect stranger to court, but it’s another to sue someone you know, and I knew Cam well, very well. She had been something to remember, all right. Something you lock away and pull out on rainy days. Something to mull over in the quiet of a room at dusk, when the shadows begin to lengthen and the city night noises begin outside your window. Yesterday’s gardenia, you know. That sort of thing. A perfect memory that you want to keep.
You wonder about things like that. A casual piece is a casual piece, and I’ve never been one to make it more than that. Christ only knew how many times Cam Stewart had rolled in the hay, and with how many men. Those scenes in her books weren’t all imagination, I decided.
But there’d been something else there, too, something more than a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. Maybe you’d call it love. That something where eyes speak, or the pressure of a hand. Where every motion sort of fits, like the intricate parts of a ballet. It happens sometimes, and it can happen with a slut in Panama, or with your wife, or with a casual pick-up in a Broadway bar. It can happen, and there’s honest love while it’s happening. Not just the physical drive, and not just the enjoyment, the animal enjoyment of body with body. Something more than that. Something that somehow separates two people from every other person in the world, for just a little while. It happens, and the two people are very rarely consciously aware of it, or grateful for it. They simply know within themselves that it’s happened, and they hold the memory gently, like a quietly shimmering ball of crystal.
Sometimes you can’t go back. Not with the memory fresh on your mind and body. The memory is so keen, so poignant, that everything following it is dull and commonplace in comparison. It might be that way with Cam, and I hoped it wouldn’t.
I hoped it wouldn’t because I’d liked her, and I’d loved her there a while back; I’d loved her very much.
And you don’t sue people you love, I thought. Unless a hell of a lot of money is riding on it. There was a hell of a lot of money riding on this.
I’d sure sue if I had to. I’d sue, and if the memory would be all I got out of it, that would be enough. I’d hold the memory, taking it out and cherishing it occasionally, remembering what could have been—or maybe what could never have been.
The things that never can be are sometimes more exquisite than those that can, and are, and always will be.
I drove slowly, with a great peace inside me, I smelled the clean air, and I felt the breeze on my face, and I was sorry when the drive was over and I came into the city. I left the car in a garage and walked to the office, trying to bring my mind back to what had to be done now. There was a lot that had to be done now, and I wanted Mike’s advice before I went ahead.
My first impulse was to call the papers, of course, and get them to splash the story all over their pages in heavy black print. Following Becker’s announcement, that would really come as a jolt. I’d have to ask Mike.
I walked into the reception room and straight over to where Jeanette sat behind her switchboard.
“Honey,” I said, “get Mike Solowitz for me, will you?”
“Yes, Mr. Blake.” She looked up, wide-eyed. “Oh, good morning, Mr. Blake.”
“Good morning, Jeanette. It’s afternoon, though, honey.”
She smiled prettily. “I’ll get Mr. Solowitz for you, sir.”
I went into my office and waited for Jeanette to buzz me with the call. I lighted a cigarette, made myself comfortable, and then lifted the receiver.
“Hello, Mike. This is Josh.”
“Afternoon, Josh. What can I do for you?” Mike Solowitz was a dyspeptic kind of guy whom I’d never seen smile. He had a long face and a carefully trimmed mustache. His eyes were shrewdly intelligent, and there was a bullying look about his mouth that scared juries into casting their votes his way.
“The Cam Stewart mess again,” I said.
“I saw the papers, Josh.”
“Well, what now?”
“That’s a good question. Why didn’t you show them the agreement?”
“It’s gone, Mike. Both copies. That’s why.”
“Mmm.”
“So?”
“So you’re up the creek without a paddle.” I could picture Mike grimacing on the other end of the line. “If you want me to start suit, I will. Maybe the agreements will turn up before the thing gets to court. You can’t hope for any kind of quick settlement without them, though.”
“I was thinking of scaring them into settlement, Mike.”
“How?”
“Release the story to the press.”
“What good will that do?”
“Well, they’ll realize we’re not playing games. They’ll…”
“Josh, if the thing has gone this far, they’re not playing games either. They obviously think you haven’t got any agreement. Or else they don’t give a damn. This can be honesty on their part, or it can be a squeeze play designed to force you out of the picture. Either way, I’m sure they’re not playing games either, Josh.”
“You’d advise against giving the newspapers the story, Mike?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It won’t help your case any. The only thing it’ll do is give them extra publicity. You should see the spread they got this morning. That first movie is getting more publicity than Pearl Harbor did. If you want to help their cause along, go ahead.”
“You’re forgetting, Mike.”
“What?”
“That I get twenty-five percent of the movie proceeds if we can salvage this one.”
“If. If we lose, you’re left with a dirty stick, and they still get the free publicity.”
“That’s a calculated risk, isn’t it?”
“It’s a risk, but I don’t know how calculated it is. Look, Josh, face the situation. As long as you can’t get your hands on that agreement, you haven’t a leg to stand on. All we can do is stall around until the agreement shows up. Damn it, you should have taken better care of it.”
“Christ, we had a stat made!”
“You should have had ten made! On something like this, you don’t take foolish chances.”
“All right, I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Good.”
“But I think even ten stats wouldn’t have made any difference. I think Del was killed for the original of that agreement, Mike.”
“Oh, horse manure.”
“That’s what I think.”
“Maybe you’re right. I’ve prosecuted murder cases in my day, though, and it all sounds too complicated. Most murders aren’t so scientifically motivated, Josh. Simple motives, usually.”
“You sound like someone I know.”
“He must be a very smart man,” Mike said drily.
“So what do we do?”
“I’ll start suit. Then we pray that the agreement turns up. If it doesn’t, you’ll have to sell a million pulp stories to make up the lost commission on this one.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Yeah. Okay, Josh, anything else?”
“Nothing I can think of.”
“Send one of your kids over with all the information I’ll need. Names, dates, all that. I’ll contact their lawyers and maybe we can work something out, I doubt it, tho
ugh. I’ll probably have to sue.”
“I’ll leave it to you, Mike.”
“Fine. So long Josh, I’m piled up.”
“Right. So long, Mike.”
I hung up, and then I stubbed out my cigarette and leaned back in the chair. Mike was right, of course. We should have had ten stats made of the agreement. Hell, we should have had ten dozen made. We should have thought of it. Del or I, or both of us. We hadn’t, and that was tough, but the agreement was gone, and I could whistle now.
The buzzer on my desk sounded, and I clicked the toggle.
“Yes.”
“Are you taking calls, Mr. Blake?” Jeanette asked.
“Who is it, Jeanette?”
“Mr. Phelps at Tarrance.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Phelps.”
“Okay, I’ll take it. What’s he on?”
“Eight, sir.”
“Thank you.”
I pressed the extension button, lifted the receiver, and said, “Hello?”
“Mr. Blake?”
“Yes.”
“This is Jim Phelps at Tarrance. I don’t believe we’ve ever talked to each other, Mr. Blake.”
“No,” I said.
“I’ve just been taken on, and I’ll be doing a lot of the preliminary science-fiction reading, I thought we might get better acquainted.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. I was instantly on guard. I sure as hell did not want to have lunch with a snot-nose straight out of Harvard.
“How about lunch some time next week?”
“Well, just a moment, let me check my calendar.” I covered the mouthpiece with one hand and then leaned back in my chair while I went through an imaginary calendar. After a few minutes, I uncovered the mouthpiece and said, “Nope, I’m afraid next week is out. Just a moment.” I paused while I leafed through some more imaginary pages. “Gosh, I seem to be tied up for the next three weeks. We’re in the middle of a rather big movie deal, you see.”
“I see,” Phelps said.
“I would like to get together, though. Very much,” I lied. “Suppose I give you a call as soon as this deal is concluded, and we can make an appointment then?”