by Les Weil
"As a matter of fact, we've got one picked out for you, and I've been meaning to write you about it. How about Lawrence? That's a wonderful literary name, and affirmative, these days. We thought A. and F. would be interesting initials . . ."
He went on to consider the possibilities, over the two Manhattans, the soup, and the omelet; and Munson kept silence.
When they were leaving the restaurant, Wave lightly (and familiarly) touched Munson's shoulder, and said, "Well, A. F., how about it? Of course there'll be a few more little revisions here and there, I suppose; but then we don't have to talk about them for a while -"
"I'd like to see the East River," Munson said quietly. "Couldn't we take a cab, and go down there for a look?"
Wave looked serious for a moment, and perplexed. "The East River?" he said. "I don't think I get you-"
"It's a whim," Munson said. "Writers have them pretty regularly, I believe."
"Oh, well, sure," Wave said. "A whim. Okay. As a matter of fact -it's not generally known, but I was born down there... not far from the East River. I could show you a place where I used to swim when I was a boy-"
"That would be fine," Munson said.
4
Munson slept badly that night, because he expected the police to arrest him before morning. He had sunk the body with the sashweights, and been inconspicuous at all times, but he was a son of the middle class, and knew that the criminal does not escape the punishment. He was ready for the arrest, and, as his body moved restlessly on the bed, he meditated what he would say in his speech to the court.
"Ladies and gentlemen ..." (and they would be surprised at his urbanity).
"I admit the crime, and I affirm that it is a dreadful one .. (And they would hearken to the measured tones of paradox.)
"A dreadful crime to avenge a dreadful crime. . . an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
He got up the next morning disappointed that there had been no knock on the door, and then could think of nothing to do with himself. He bought all the morning papers, and searched them for notice that a body had been recovered out of the river (as in other days he had searched for the reviews of his books); and found nothing. Out of boredom he went to the public library, and in the days following, he made a habit of going there; he found some things to interest him in the French section.
For two weeks he waited silently, and then one morning he called Wave's home telephone number; the wife answered, he asked for Mr. Wave, and she said,
"Ben? He hasn't been around lately. I expect he's gone off with one of his friends. Who did you say this was?"
"It's Mr. Baldwin, from the office. There's a letter-"
"Business." The lady's voice was flat. "He must have told you that I don't like to answer the phone about business; -but don't go 'way. Aren't you that nice little one from Advertising? -that I met last Christmas at the party... you were standing right behind Santa Claus -"
"I don't really remember," Munson said. "I can't ..."
"Well, if it's you dear, don't you remember me? Why don't you come over this afternoon, for a drink? Where've you been?"
"Oh, I've been pretty busy," Munson said, unhappily. "Are you sure you haven't seen Mr. Wave? He hasn't been down to the office for several days, now."
"We don't care about Mr. Wave, dear," she said. "Surely they know down there how it is with Ben -he's probably in Europe now... Capri, maybe. Or Mallorca. He always said he wanted to live in Mallorca. Listen, Mr. Palmgren, why don't you stop by this afternoon, on your way home from the office? I'm sure I remember you--"
"All right, I'll try," Munson said, and felt a surprising shakiness in his voice . . .
"Ben won't bother us, dear. We have a civilized relationship -"
"Yes. Yes; I understand -"
"Mr. Palmgren, I'll be waiting ... is that all right dear?"
"Certainly, certainly," Munson said, and put the phone down. He was frightened -he could not master the loathing that his mid-American past had taught him as a response to such occasions. "Ugh," he said, and went in search of a cup of hot coffee. The next day, valiantly, he called the office of William Oblong, Inc., and asked for Mr. Wave; and he was told that Mr. Wave was out of town for a few days.
The thought then finally presented itself that his act might not be allowed to have its meaning; for there could be no trial if the murder passed unnoticed. Munson felt no duty to reveal himself -that was a task for the police, whom he trusted and respected; but he wanted to give the dead man every chance to be missed in an official way.
Therefore he took up a vigil in the lobby of the building, (-) Madison Avenue, where Oblong had its offices; and after a few days he identified (by signs he knew) an editor; he then set about arranging a conversation, and on the fifth day managed it, in a nearby bar, late in the afternoon.
Munson introduced himself as Bill Baldwin, a touring editor for a Chicago firm (Roundelay and Ward) ; he listened to the other's name, Ralph Boston, and his firm, and then asked about his old friend Ben Wave, whom he had not seen for three years.
"Ben? That's funny," Boston said. "I haven't seen too much of Ben lately. He was in town yesterday, I heard . . . Are you a good friend of his, Mr. Baldwin?"
"Oh, no, no; just an acquaintance, is all. Years ago--"
"Ben was my mentor at Oblong," Boston said. "It's odd you should be asking about him, just when he's sort of dropped out of sight--"
"Dropped out of sight?" Munson said, and gasped.
"I'm afraid he may be having a little trouble with the old man," Boston said. "You know, Ben's one of the nicest men I ever met in the publishing business; and what a touch he has! I can't understand what they're thinking of. . . Well, there must have been some sort of scene yesterday; William (that's the old man) was very much upset. . . Ben didn't come up to the office at all; he met William at the Harvard Club, for lunch, I believe. Since the merger with Saltonstall House--
"Anyway, the word is that Ben flew to Mallorca last night (that's on the q.t., you understand). He's going to do some writing; finish a novel, I think; and do some at-home editing for a continental house . . . some Danish outfit, is what I heard, though that doesn't sound very likely-"
"It sounds kind of funny to me," Munson said.
"Yes, I know," Boston said. "I guess old Ben just got out while he could. . . you know. Tom Goad at Saltonstall may have taken an interest in our operation, somehow. But if they can do that sort of thing to Ben Wave--
"He perfected our committee system, you know. We have rotating chairmen and total membership; there's a decision under every chairman, until we get a kind of sense of the body. . . and then William likes to take a hand, sometimes... it's his business, after all.
"The devilish thing is that we haven't really missed Ben too much, yet. The revisions are coming in, and the title-changes -the prologues. . . everything. . ."
"It's extraordinary," Munson said, and got up to go.
"Isn't it?" Boston said. And then, smiling, "Stop by some time, at the office. We'll go to lunch; have you tried Colombo's yet?"
"Colombo's? Oh, sure -wonderful place!"
5
Then Munson was on his way again. Bernard Wave had vanished; and there was nothing to be done.
Munson felt discouraged, as if he were attempting the impossible; he was perplexed; and then he decided (over-night, as by a dream) that he must continue his attack, and so he elected to kill the publisher himself, William Oblong. The old man took tea in the afternoon (prepared by a venerable secretary), as Munson knew from Wave's stories, told in happier days, when Arthur Munson was a name that meant something in the literary quarterlies; and so it was possible to use poison.
Munson burglarized a drug store in Queens, and came away with potassium cyanide; he then bought a suit of coveralls, got pliers and a screwdriver from the trunk of the Hudson, and in that outfit made his way into the editorial offices of William Oblong, Inc.
He looked at things; he noted that the tea-room was a small office alongside Oblo
ng's private office. He left, at two o'clock, went to an automat, emptied a small salt-shaker, and measured into it a teaspoonful of the poison; then he went to a Newsreel theater until a little before four o'clock, at which time he went back to the Oblong office, and found the secretary absent from her desk.
He entered the tea-room without knocking, and found the secretary (a pleasant-looking old lady) busy over the sugar bowl; she stared at him, mildly and expectantly, and he said,
"Testing. There's a new circuit, and I'm testing it."
"Oh. I see," she said.
"Tea-time, is it?" he said.
"Yes. Mr. Oblong likes his tea at four-fifteen precisely!"
"Grand custom," Munson said, and turned out the room lights at the switch by the door. Don't be alarmed, he said. This won't take a minute. He moved to the table, felt for the pot, and dropped in his measure of potassium cyanide. Nervous, he bumped into the secretary, and apologized.
"They don't train us to see in the dark, unfortunately!"
Then he switched on the light, and the secretary was smiling at him.
"Thank you," she said, as he went out.
That night, the news made the late editions of the Mirror, and Munson saw it there, something he could not quite believe.
The dean of American publishers....dead in mid-Manhattan....of a heart attack!
Mr William Oblong, publisher... his personal physician, called to the scene, had explained that Mr Oblong had long been sufferig from an inoperable heart condition, brought on by the cares of his work; and Munson read with a sense that he no longer quite controlled his sense of the external world -something had gone wrong out there.
Nonetheless he settled down grimly in his hotel room, so that he could be available for the police if they should come seeking him; he was resolved not to run away; but they did not come that day, nor the next.
On the third day, the morning papers carried a notice of the funeral, to be held at three o'clock that afternoon in one of the great Episcopalian Churches of the city, and Munson felt obliged to to. He had no feeling for the dead old man, beyond a cold respect for the power he had wielded successfully in life; but he wanted to see a consequence of one of his own actions, for he was beginning to feel unreal.
The church was of massive, darkened stone, rising above the sunny boulevard; visible in its Gothic tower were the black shoulders of the bells in the carillon.
Wide steps led up to four tall oak doors, of which the middle two were open wide, to admit the mourners. It was two-thirty when Munson arrived; beyond the doors was a kind of lobby, and in it was a little group of prosperous-looking old men -six in all.
Munson pushed on; he entered the huge room that was the church, and saw, far away down the center aisle, a casket dully gleaming In the color of old silver, raised on a table masked with a black velvet cloth.
The great room was empty, the pulpit headless, and there was a bank of scent from the flowers at the coffin and the altar rail.
Munson advanced. Half-way down the aisle he could see that the coffin was open -William Oblong was lying in state; and he could just make out an arc of pink flesh (in the cheek, doubtless) above the white bosom of a shirt. Munson turned back, motiveless, and returned to the lobby, where he noticed two policemen, in uniform, on the other side of the lobby, and a nervous-looking, rather shabby man standing just inside the great entrance doors.
Immediately Munson recognized something -he could not define it, though it was familiar. The man looked seedy, as a defrocked priest might be expected to look; and his face was white, leached inwardly.
Munson wanted to speak to him: he recognized a brother; he took a step; and then he saw that the policemen had grown attentive. Heavy men, their weight was forward now -
Then the white-faced man scratched himself under the left armpit, and began walking, crookedly; he passed Munson in perfect silence, though his lips were moving.
At the head of the aisle, he paused, seeing the coffin, and then he hurried on, his shoulder-blades working against the back of his coat.
Halfway down the aisle, he paused, and then shouted, eerily, in that air made numb -with the scent of lilies;
"Ah-h, you old bastard, I swore it! I swore it! -"
Then he began to run down the aisle, awkwardly, dragging his right leg - and the policemen were after him, thunderously striding.
Munson held his ground, and saw the white-faced man reach the coffin, and scramble up beside it, so that he was kneeling on the table and glaring down at the powdered eyelids. He leaned forward; he seemed to be clutching himself, under his coat; he lurched clumsily--
And then the policemen got to him, and dragged him down, and began moving him up the aisle, dragging him and lifting him so that only the toes of his shoes kept to the floor, bumping and clattering.
As they passed Munson, one of the policemen said,
"Why, I'm wet. The son-of-a-bitch must have wet all over me -"
The obscene prisoner hung his head, and was weeping now.
Munson recognized him at last -who but another writer, in trouble with his publisher? -and be stepped toward him, to offer consolation; but one of the old men waiting in the lobby (as if for just such an emergency), got there first, with beckoning gestures to the policemen, and a look of peremptory command.
"Officer! Officer!" he said -(and it was plain that he bad said this same thing on other occasions). "Hold up a moment; we want to speak to you; I know this man -the prisoner ..."
The policemen stopped; and the old man said,
"He's some kind of neurotic, officer -that's all. We don't want an incident. Perhaps you could just keep him down at the car until after the funeral is over
"He was trying to ... he was -" one of the policemen began.
"I know, I know ....he's emotional! But we" (and he gestured at the other old men, his companions, now gathering near) "We don't want an incident, something that would get in the papers . . .
"He was trying to wet on the deceased, by the Good God!"
"He's a writer," the old man said, "and a writer will do almost anything. . . but who cares? It never really matters in the end. That's been my experience." And he stepped near to the policeman; money passed from hand to hand.
"Whatever you say, Sir," the policeman said quietly; then, to the prisoner, he said, "Come on, you creep," and to the other policeman, "We can cuff him in the back seat, and leave him there until the service is over."
They moved away, the prisoner tugging lightly against restraint, as he tried to restore his dignity; but his dignity was gone.
One of the policemen snapped a handcuff down over his wrist, and the prisoner flinched away from it, in horror.
Munson went out onto the steps, and looked at his watch; it was almost three o'clock; and a great black Cadillac limousine appeared out of the boulevard traffic, gliding in to the curb.
It stopped; a chauffeur appeared, and he helped an old woman out onto the sidewalk. She was wearing black-deep mourning. A man about Munson's age got out, and took her arm, and slowly that couple made their way toward the church steps.
They were the survivors and heirs; and Munson looked at them dryly and cheerlessly.
He lowered his head and started down the steps -above him, the carillon immoderately sounded, bells tumbling like leaves in a wind.
After a moment, he recognized the aloof, distinguished melody of Adeste Fideles, and for a few steps he knew the experience of despair.
6
Not for long, however. His work as a writer had hardened him. Bemused a thousand times after labor ambiguous and exhausting, he had learned to wait upon the next day for a remedy -revision, or a fresh start. His powers lived to a short term, and were re-born with each new enterprise; he knew how to accommodate a blow - he bent close upon it, and thereby learned its secret.
His will was hardy; the next morning he was ready to take up his burden -he went looking for dynamite in large quantities.
His
search took him, in the Hudson, through a large part of Connecticut before he found what he was after. Late in the afternoon he heard the muffled, rolling thump of an explosion, and he went for that; and he found an expressway project whose pioneers were blasting their way through the flank of a rocky hill.
He searched for the contractor's storage sheds, and found them in a nearby town: they were a pair of abandoned barns, shored up and patched, and newly doored, with signs which warned of high explosive.
Satisfied, he drove away, to another town, where he bought fuse and caps.
Then he rented a room at a motel, left a call for four-thirty, and went to sleep.
He got up to the ring of the telephone, and drove to the road on which the dynamite truck would have to travel; at a little before six, he parked, a few hundred yards from the storage sheds, and settled down to wait.
Now and then he touched the butt of the .38, where it projected above his belt buckle.
At a little before seven, there was activity along the front of the sheds; at seven a big door opened, a two-and-a-half ton truck appeared, and Munson knew instantly that this was the truck he had been waiting for.
He watched the truck pass, and saw the driver's face -pale, with a narrow chin, shaded by the bill of a striped Railroader's cap.
Then he fell in behind the truck, followed it for a mile, and swung out as if to pass; and then he pulled in, sharply, striking the horn; he heard the enormous squeal of the truck's brakes, and for a moment, grimly, he thought that he had at last miscalculated, as the massive oblong of the truck's silhouette swayed up and darkened in the rear view mirror.
The Hudson stopped, and was bumped from behind; and then Munson was out of the car, running for the truck, where he found the driver looking down at him as if at a madman.
Munson drew his .38, aimed it carefully at the driver's left eye; and his arm was steady.
"Back up," he said.
The driver's tongue appeared, to moisten his lips, and then his head nodded, emphatically.
There was the sound of the truck's motor being turned over, starting; and the rasping sound of gears being engaged. The truck backed off.