Final Edit

by Robert A Carter

  She leaned closer to me, and almost as though they had a will of their own, the fingers of my right hand reached out and touched the fabric of her jacket, drew slowly down over the swell of her left breast, lingering briefly at the nipple, which hardened under my fingertips.

  She took a deep breath. “Certainly.” And as though I hadn’t heard her response: “Certainly, Nick.”

  “Well, then…”

  “Why don’t you walk me home?”

  We both rose to go. If he had not suddenly appeared at my elbow, I might have forgotten the waiter altogether, and the bill as well. We sat down again, and I produced a credit card. One transaction later, we were on our way.

  It was now dusk, that “enchanted metropolitan twilight,” as Fitzgerald described it, “the racy, adventurous feel of New York at night.” It is never quite dark, of course; there are no stars to be seen in the stone canyons, no moon; only that supernal glow of a million lights reflected in the heavens—and the constant roar of sound, an ocean of white noise.

  By the time we reached Park Avenue, Susan’s arm was linked in mine. At Third Avenue, she released my arm and claimed my hand.

  “Here we are,” she said. “Here” was an apartment building between Third and Second. 355 East 55th Street. I must remember the address.

  “Come in, Nick.” Her inflection made the command sound more like a question, as though she thought I might refuse her bidding. For one wild moment, I was ready to decline. Am I really ready for something like this? Something like what, you ninny? She could just plan to serve you a drink and send you on your way.

  Instead, I followed her into the lobby, which, like myriad other specimens of Manhattan lobbies, was small, but did its best to be grand: a towering ficus tree; black and white checkerboard tile; generic oriental art; and an obsequious doorman, who obviously doted on Susan.

  He undressed her with his eyes, I thought. Well, who can blame him?

  We were alone in the elevator, but Susan stood close to me, as though we had to make room for other passengers. Feeling more and more like a callow youth on his first date, I leaned over and kissed her.

  I cannot say the earth moved, only the elevator. Still, the taste of her lips awakened memories so old I thought they were buried for good, hungers I had almost forgotten. I shivered in anticipation.

  I had no preconceived idea of what Susan Markham’s apartment would be like, but I must say I was somewhat surprised at what I saw when she unlocked the door of 20-C.

  If I’d made a stab at predicting the decor, I would have guessed “feminine, antiques, lots of plants, a frilly bedroom.” What I found as we made the preliminary tour was a highly functional, rather austere living room with a dining ell, and a small eat-in kitchen. The furniture was Swedish modern, bright blond wood. Throw rugs on parquet floors. A bar on wheels and a wine rack. A grand piano, no less. The bookshelves were few, and from my first cursory glance, seemed to be filled entirely with popular fiction, some of the volumes, I suspected, book club selections. I found the whole effect not feminine at all, but oddly masculine.

  “Drink, Nick?”

  “No, not yet. You have quite a place, Susan.” I could not help but wonder how she managed it on an assistant editor’s salary. Family subsidy, perhaps? None of your business, Barlow.

  “Come this way,” she said, and opened the French doors at the end of the living room. I followed her out onto a wraparound terrace that overlooked both the Upper East Side and the East River. The view was a feast of lights and the silhouettes of massive towers.

  “Spectacular,” I murmured.

  “It is impressive, isn’t it?”

  She was standing in front of me, looking out over the river. I put my hands on her shoulders, and she leaned quickly back into my arms, her head tilted back slightly to be kissed. I obliged her. It was no ordinary kiss; it shook me all the way down to the soles of my shoes.

  When we finally broke apart, I knew there was no turning back. I felt that we were already lovers—that we had been lovers for some time and had only been waiting for the opportunity to consummate it.

  “Well,” I said. “Hello, Susan.”

  “Hello, darling,” she whispered. “There’s another room, you know.”

  “I somehow thought there would be.”

  No, the bedroom wasn’t at all frilly. The bed was king-size, and I saw at least two full-length mirrors and a mirrored closet door. That was all the inspection I had the time to make: I took in the rest—the furniture, the television set, the computer workstation—in one sweeping glance.

  It’s amazing how quickly two people can shed all their clothes when there’s a bed nearby.

  “You are beautiful,” I said, hardly trusting myself to speak at all.

  “When you say that, I believe it.”

  Her body was before me, and then so near to me that my nostrils were full of her perfume, and then we were locked together and part of each other.

  When we finally separated, she said: “Were you pleased with me?”

  “Enormously. And you?”

  “It did happen rather fast, Nick.”

  I smiled, and touched her breasts with my fingertips. “I suppose I was more than ready. However, Susan, to use a cliché I would strike from any manuscript—”

  “Yes?”

  “The night is young.”

  And so it proved to be.

  Much, much later, she said: “First times are wonderful, aren’t they?”

  “’The apple tree, the singing, and the gold,’ “ I quoted.

  “What?”

  “Euripides on love.”

  “Oh. I like that.”

  “There was something Rollo May wrote in his book Love and Will about this moment, Susan—I wish I could remember it. It had to do with the moment of entrance…”

  “Forget books for now, darling. Forget Rollo May. We have the night ahead of us.”

  “I’m glad of that. And I will have that drink now.”

  Chapter 16

  “I know how busy you are, Nick…”

  “We’ll work something out, Susan. How does Friday evening look to you?”

  “Free and clear.”

  It was the following day. Susan had provided me with a brand-new toothbrush, a razor, also pristine, and shaving cream (clearly, overnight male guests were no rarity in the Markham flat—but what the hell, how could I complain?), and after I’d finished grooming myself, she served up a breakfast of juice, shirred eggs, bacon, a bagel, and a coffee strong in chicory. French roast, I decided. Patting my stomach in appreciation, I folded my napkin neatly, leaned over the breakfast table, and kissed her, hard.

  “Thank you,” I said when we’d come up for air, “for feeding me so well. I was ravenous.”

  “I’m not surprised. We forgot to eat any dinner.”

  “So we’ll get together Friday evening?” She nodded. “I’m planning to go out to Connecticut on Saturday afternoon, but I hope to provide you with as good a breakfast as you’ve given me.”

  She smiled. “Call me before Friday, won’t you, Nick? Let me know what you’re up to.”

  “Of course.”

  It occurred to me shortly after I had walked out of her apartment building and hailed a cab that I hadn’t really touched much on the subject of Parker’s murder, ostensibly my reason for seeing her in the first place.

  Ah well, so it goes. I haven’t given up advance planning altogether, but I have certainly given up expecting those plans to work out quite as I anticipate.

  When I was back in my library again, I took out the well-worn copy of Love and Will and quickly found the place I’d earmarked:

  The moment of greatest significance in love-making, as judged by what people remember in the experience and what patients dream about, is not the moment of orgasm. It is rather the moment of entrance, the moment of penetration. This is the moment that shakes us, that has within it the great wonder, tremendous and tremulous as it may be—or disappointing and despa
iring, which says the same thing from the opposite point of view.… This, and not the orgasm, is the moment of union and the realization that we have won the other.

  I couldn’t have expressed it better myself, not even if I were a psychologist.

  Once settled in my office, I figured it was about time for me to huddle again with Joe Scanlon.

  “Nick,” he said when I called, “I’ve been meaning to phone you. I’ve picked up some interesting information.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Within the hour, Scanlon was seated across from my desk, cradling a mug of coffee in his hands. A similar mug, bearing the profile of Mark Twain by David Levine, steamed away on my desk.

  “So what have you learned, Joe?”

  “First off, that Parker Foxcroft has been extremely flush lately. Dinners at the most expensive restaurants in town. Weekend trips to Atlantic City and a good deal of action at Belmont. At least one ten-day Caribbean cruise this spring. Running up sizable bills at Paul Stuart’s and Ralph Lauren.”

  “That’s nothing new,” I said. “Parker has always needed a lot of money to support his lifestyle, and he was known to borrow money from every conceivable source…”

  “That habit may have intensified in recent months, however.”

  “Suggesting?”

  “Blackmail, perhaps,” said Scanlon. “He may have been dabbling in shakedowns of one kind or another.”

  “Do tell.”

  “It’s at least a strong possibility. So far, however, I haven’t come up with anyone who might have been feeding his kitty.”

  “How about your pal Sergeant Falco? Any leads there?”

  “Zip so far. But I’m working on him. We’ll see what turns up.”

  Then I told Scanlon about Judith Michaelson. “What do you suppose I should do, Joe?”

  He snorted, as though the question was just too asinine to take seriously. “Talk to the lady, by all means.”

  “Yeah, but by what means? How do I manage to meet her?”

  “Want to borrow my shield, Nick?”

  “Come off it, Joe. Be serious.”

  At once, Scanlon assumed the pose of Rodin’s Thinker. When he finally did speak, it was hesitantly, as though he was searching hard for the right words. I had the feeling he was giving me the benefit of his subjective processes.

  “You have access to Foxcroft’s Rolodex, yes, Nick?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “She wouldn’t have been at the funeral and done what she did if she didn’t know him well… Right?”

  “Right.” I felt I was beginning to sound like a parrot.

  “So her phone number is likely to be there. Use it. Tell her that you’re getting in touch with Parker’s authors and associates, and would she mind if you paid her a visit. Something like that. Okay? You’re a publisher, you were Parker’s boss. You have every reason to want to talk to her.”

  “Yes, Joe.” Not for the first time, 1 felt cowed by Joe’s professionalism. Who was I to think I am any kind of detective? Merely, after all, a publisher.

  Joe was quite right; Parker’s Rolodex, when flipped to the letter “M,” produced a Michaelson, but not a Judith—an Alexander. Interesting. Obviously husband of Judith, and also obviously a writer.

  “Hello.”

  “Mrs. Michaelson?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “I’m Nicholas Barlow. The publisher.”

  “I know what you are, Mr. Barlow.”

  Not a propitious beginning, but I soldiered bravely on. Couldn’t let Joe Scanlon down at this juncture.

  “I’d like to speak to your husband. A writer, I believe? One of Parker Foxcroft’s writers?” To the best of my knowledge as the publisher of Parker’s books, he had never mentioned an author named Michaelson, but he might have not offered the man a contract.

  Her voice suggested a temperature hovering around absolute zero. “My husband is dead, Mr. Barlow—”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “And he most definitely was not one of Parker Foxcroft’s writers.” No sign of a thaw in the Michaelson deep freeze.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, too.” Silence. Had I made another gaffe of some sort? This wasn’t going well at all.

  Plunging gamely on, I said: “I’m speaking to anyone who might know something about Parker’s murder—and well, your husband Alexander’s name was on his Rolodex, and—”

  “Why bother, Mr. Barlow? Why not leave all that to the police?”

  I was beginning to hyperventilate, so I went straight into overdrive. “I have a feeling, Mrs. Michaelson, that Parker Foxcroft may have done you and your husband an injury—”

  “To say the least.” That sounded encouraging.

  “—and my firm would like to redress the injury if possible. To make amends.”

  “Can you raise the dead, Mr. Barlow?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Can you bring my husband back from the grave?”

  Somehow I did not feel the question required a reply. The silence that followed was tomblike—on both our parts.

  Finally: “I’m sorry, Mr. Barlow. I’m sure you may not know about Parker Foxcroft’s treatment of my husband…”

  “No, madam, I did not. But I would like to find out.”

  “Well…” Now at last I felt I was reaching her. In for the kill—rather, close the sale, that sort of thing.

  “May I come and see you, Mrs. Michaelson? I promise not to take too much of your time.”

  “Time?” She sighed, one of those soft moans that seem to come from a soul in pain. “I have a lot of that these days, Mr. Barlow. Yes, you may come and see me.”

  “This afternoon? Four o’clock, perhaps?”

  “Why not? Let me give you the address.”

  I damn near told her I wouldn’t need it—but thought better of that. The lady must never know that the great Barlow tailed her like some common peeper.

  When I arrived at Judith Michaelson’s apartment at four, give or take a few minutes, she had tea ready for us, and a tray of what appeared to be tiny cucumber sandwiches.

  “Or would you prefer a drink, Mr. Barlow? Sherry, maybe?”

  I raised my hand, palm out. “Tea will be fine.”

  Judith Michaelson was a woman in her early forties, I surmised, probably about my own age—but she appeared to be at least a decade older. Her face was almost devoid of color; there were dark circles under her eyes—but her bones were good, as they say, and her hair was perfectly composed in a style that used to be called “pageboy.” She was wearing a silk housedress, green and maroon, in a flowered pattern. Altogether a woman one would call handsome.

  “I’m sorry if I was so difficult on the phone, Mr. Barlow.”

  I dismissed this with another wave of the hand. “I can’t blame you for being wary.”

  “It’s not that so much—it’s—well, it’s that I don’t really give a damn that Parker Foxcroft was murdered. In fact, I think whoever did it ought to be congratulated. I’m sure that sounds harsh, but—”

  “Many others would agree with you, Mrs. Michaelson. And, as you may have gathered from his obituary, others would disagree.”

  “Ha,” she murmured. Just “ha.”

  “If it’s not intrusive of me to ask, Mrs. Michaelson, just why did—I mean do you dislike Parker so much?”

  “I’d be quite happy to tell you.” She leaned forward and refilled my teacup. I smiled gamely. Tea is definitely not—well, not my cup of tea. “My husband was a writer, Mr. Barlow. A damn fine writer.” She shook her head back and forth a few times, as though to clear it, or to shake the memories loose. I could tell she was also struggling to hold back tears.

  “I’m sure he was, Mrs. Michaelson.” Another fib, since I had no idea what kind of a writer the man was, but excusable in the circumstances. “Go on.”

  “I also write, Mr. Barlow—under the name of Judith Simon Michaelson.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t
know your work.”

  She made a rather poor effort to smile. “No reason why you should. I write romantic short stories for the kind of magazines women usually read under the hair dryer.”

  “Oh.”

  “My husband, on the other hand, was a literary writer. I’m told there are only two reasons for writing, Mr. Barlow—fame and money. My work paid the bills, his was going to make him famous—or so we both thought.”

  “Anyway,” she continued, “to make a long story short—and where have I heard that before?—Alex spent twelve years working on one manuscript, writing, rewriting, polishing it until he finally deemed it ready to go out. He believed it to be a masterpiece. Having heard about Parker Foxcroft and his literary protégés, my husband sent his manuscript directly to the celebrated editor.” She put a decided spin on the word “celebrated.” “Foxcroft returned the book with a three-page letter that left no doubt whatever as to what he thought of Alex’s effort. ‘A puny piece of work,’ he called it. ‘Paltry in concept, and anile in execution. I suggest you put this manuscript to some useful purpose, such as starting a good blaze in your fireplace.’ Those were among the less objectionable phrases in his letter, Mr. Barlow.”

  I confess I did not know what to say. I was shocked, at least mildly so. God knows there are a lot of puerile writers out there, but we usually let them down easy. Easier, anyway. What’s to be gained by savaging a manuscript that already has its death warrant written all over it?

  Judith Michaelson saved me the trouble of finding words that might be adequate to the situation. She went on, in a voice trembling with controlled fury: “Alex was devastated. He fell into a depression that lasted for days. I really feared for his sanity.”

  “I understand how you might.”

  “How can you possibly understand?” she said. “And then—”

  “Yes?”

  “—and then—” She bowed her head and hunched her shoulders forward. Her hands were clenched together, her eyes tightly shut. “He killed himself. Just a month ago, Mr. Barlow. On May the third.”

  Oh my God, I thought. My God.

  “He had a gun, and—” She could not, did not, finish the sentence. There was no need.