Relieved, I punched him lightly on the shoulder. “I can only say that so far, so good.”
We then got on the subject of what Susan had told me about Parker.
“Irving,” murmured Tim. “Irving.” He scratched his head. “Let’s think publishing first. Who are the Irvings? Irving Stone?”
“Irving Wallace,” I chimed in.
“Clifford Irving?”
“How about the Irving Trust?”
Tim brightened. “That may well be it. The Irving Trust Company…”
“Parker mentioned an annuity.”
“The two could be connected,” said Tim, spinning his wheelchair around until he faced the wall, something he frequently did when he was into hard thinking.
“Do you suppose,” he went on, “that Joe Scanlon or one of the cops on the case could find out if Parker had an account at the Irving Trust?”
“More likely a safe-deposit box, don’t you think?”
He nodded. “Yeah—and to get into one of those—”
“You need a court order, which, Parker having shuffled off this mortal coil, shouldn’t be a problem to get.”
“It’s worth a phone call on your part, anyway, Nick.”
We turned next to the problem of the Widow Michaelson.
“I have a suggestion,” said Tim.
“Shoot.”
“I gather you’re pretty upset about that letter of Parker’s…”
Upset? Too mild a word. Goddamned angry about it.
“Parker ticked me off enough when he was alive,” I said, “but now that he’s dead I’m finding even more reasons to hate his guts. Virtually every day brings a new indictment of his character.”
“My suggestion, then, is that you talk to Judith Michaelson and offer, in her husband’s memory, to publish his novel posthumously. Remember A Confederacy of Dunces?”
“The O’Toole novel? Of course. Like Michaelson, he killed himself because no one would publish it. At least that’s the conventional wisdom.”
“But,” I added, “suppose the book isn’t worth publishing?”
“That was only Parker Foxcroft’s opinion, Nick. Why don’t you ask the lady for a copy of the manuscript so you can read it for yourself?”
Which is exactly what I did on Monday morning, when I got back to New York.
Judith Michaelson was hesitant when I asked her if I might drop by for another talk, but I persisted, and she finally relented. I had the feeling that she didn’t have too many visitors—not just because she had lost her husband or was antisocial, but because most writers, as I well know, are often lonely when they’re not writing—and even when they are.
It seemed to me that when she greeted me at the door of her apartment, she was wearing the same housedress she’d had on the first time I called on her. Not that I expected her to get gussied up just for me—but she had made one concession to vanity today: she’d put on makeup.
When we were settled, once again with the tea things out and in service, I explained to her what I had in mind.
“So if you would let me have a copy of your husband’s book, Mrs. Michaelson—”
“Oh, but that’s not possible, Mr. Barlow.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t mean to sound as though I don’t appreciate your kind offer, and if I had a copy of Alex’s manuscript, I’d be glad to let you read it. But, Mr. Barlow, there aren’t any copies.”
“No copies, Mrs. Michaelson?
“None.”
“No computer disks, perhaps?”
“My husband didn’t use a computer. He wouldn’t even use an electric typewriter, only the old Olivetti portable he got as a present from his family when he graduated from college.”
An Olivetti portable, no less.
I sighed, deep inside my being. If only all authors worked on computers, how much easier the preservation of the written word would be! No, no, there are some writers who even write with pens or pencils—or in longhand, for God’s sake. And only too often manuscripts are lost. Remember Hemingway’s suitcase?
Not that we publishers are much better. I have had more than one author ask me if I’d rather deal with his floppies than hard copy—and I have always had to smile sadly, bow my head in shame, and admit that Barlow & Company is only just creeping into the electronic age. All over America, enterprising authors are composing their books on computer terminals, running off type for them on their laser printers, and shipping the pages off to a printer; five weeks later they have bound books, while we supposedly “mainstream” publishers take anywhere from nine to eighteen months to bring a book to market. It is to laugh. So why aren’t we au courant? Why are we dragging our feet? Force of habit, I suppose; that’s the way it has always been done. Ever since Gutenberg.
It must have been evident that I was in a state of reverie, for Judith Michaelson cleared her throat and said: “Mr. Barlow?”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
“Perfectly. I was just thinking… your husband did leave a manuscript behind—somewhere?”
“Yes. I did have a copy.”
“What became of it?”
She paused and held out a plate of cookies for my inspection. I declined to take one, toothsome as they looked.
“I gave it to a mutual friend of Alex and mine,” she said. “Another writer.”
“Oh? And what did this friend say?”
“He told me that while it was undeserving of Parker’s destructive criticism, the book was essentially mediocre at best; he recommended that it be destroyed.”
“Destroyed? Surely you didn’t…”
“Not exactly,” Michaelson said. “I thought we ought to have a second opinion. My friend agreed. He suggested Peter Jensen, the critic.”
I nodded. “A sensible idea. I know Jensen—not well, but I respect his judgment.”
“At any rate,” she continued, “my friend said he would send the book to Jensen by messenger. But the messenger never arrived at Jensen’s office; he was hit by a car on the way—and somehow the manuscript disappeared. At least it was never found.”
“What a pity,” I murmured. “You didn’t read it first? Before sending it to your friend?”
“Oh no.” She gave a fleeting grimace. “Alex and I made a practice of never reading each other’s work. He felt it might threaten our marriage.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Either we might be too critical, and wound the other, or we might praise poor writing for fear of hurting the other person’s feelings. And you see, Mr. Barlow, we didn’t write at all alike.”
So that was that: a washout.
When Herbert Poole showed up at my office that afternoon, I told him about my two meetings with Judith Michaelson and how disappointed I was at the outcome.
“Would you really have published the man’s book?” Poole asked. Once again, I was struck by how he drawled out his question.
“Almost certainly. Even though the lady is, in my opinion, a suspect in our murder.”
“Do you really think so?” Poole—who was sitting on the visitor’s chair in my office—rose, walked over to one of my mahogany bookcases, took out a volume, and began idly leafing through it. I saw that the book was Bloody Murder, by Julian Symons.
“My view,” he continued, “now that I’ve given it some thought, is that the lady has probably suffered enough. She did lose a husband, after all, and in the most brutal fashion imaginable. Self-murder is always shocking. Hard for the survivor to bear.”
I considered this for a moment. “You’re probably right about the suffering—”
“As for killing Parker Foxcroft, do you suppose she would turn up at his funeral if she was responsible for his death?”
“Well—no, I guess not.”
“Hardly,” said Poole emphatically.
That seemed to end the matter, at least for now. Changing the subject, I said to Poole: “Have you finished your outline yet?”
“Not qui
te. However, it’s coming along.” He replaced the Symons in its proper niche on the shelf.
“One thing I’d like you to remember, Herbert,” I said, assuming my professional mien. “When you write a mystery, you are essentially writing a fantasy.”
“How so?”
“A realistic detective story is probably a contradiction in terms. Private eyes in the real world do not get mixed up in murder cases. They collect evidence for lawyers, they do marital surveillance, insurance fraud, or missing-person cases. Amateur sleuths do not solve murders where the police cannot. And even police procedurals rely on strong fictional elements. If they didn’t, they’d make damn dull reading. Mystery depends on the bizarre to be convincing. On the fantastic, in short. End of lecture.”
“I see what you mean,” Poole said. “Go off the wall.”
“Exactly.”
“By the way,” I said, “Parker’s office has now been unsealed by the police. Tomorrow you and I might start going through the Foxcroft legacy—his papers and computer disks. If you’d like to do it, that is. What do you say?”
“Are you sure I can be helpful?”
“Let’s say you can provide a useful second opinion.”
“Then I’ll be happy to lend a hand. What are we looking for?”
“I wish I could say we’re looking for his murderer, but I doubt it. This is the real world, not fiction. I suspect we’re looking to see if we can tell what made Parker tick.”
Poole started toward the door and then turned, his hand on the doorknob. “Oh, Nick—” he said. “There’s something else I meant to tell you. About Foxcroft.”
“What is it?”
“Something my former agent—before Kay—told me. You know Finlay Norton, don’t you?”
“We all do,” I said. “I’m glad you switched agents.” Finlay Norton was notorious along Publishers Row for forcing the prices he put on books unreasonably high.
“He as much as accused Parker of blackmail,” said Poole.
“Isn’t that interesting,” I said. “How so?”
“Apparently Parker caught Finlay out in a shady deal of some kind—he wouldn’t say what it was for sure, but that’s what I suspect it was. Unethical behavior in an auction, I believe. Anyway, Parker was forcing Norton into giving him exceptionally favorable terms with his clients.”
“If you ask me,” I said, “they deserved each other.”
Poole smiled and opened the office door. “Quite so. Which is one reason why I changed agents. See you tomorrow, Nick.”
Chapter 21
The following morning, Tuesday, found Herbert Poole and me ensconced in Parker Foxcroft’s office, glumly going through reams of paper.
The Foxcroft correspondence consisted largely of letters to agents, letters to authors, letters to would-be authors, and an occasional letter to a reviewer, complaining about an unfavorable notice of one of Parker’s books.
“Hardly the sort of stuff to interest the National Archives,” I said to Poole. “Or even Parker’s alma mater, which I believe was Duke.”
As we dug deeper, however, and particularly when we tackled the computer files, a picture of Parker Foxcroft as an editorial Vlad the Impaler began to emerge.
“You have shown the unparalleled effrontery to attempt a life of James Joyce,” he wrote one scholar, “when you ought to know, if you have read the literature, that Richard Ellmann’s biography is monumental, and will not be superseded in our lifetime, not by plodding academic hackwork such as you have produced. It’s not even a creditable rip-off of Ellmann.”
And:
“Do not have the audacity to dream that I would put my imprint on a shoddy piece of keyhole-peeping such as this one,” he scolded an impertinent journalist who had turned out an exposé of Hollywood flimflam. “I suggest you try a vanity press.”
“That one became a modest best-seller,” I remarked, rather glumly.
“Here’s another dilly,” said Poole, and he read: “There are at least five hundred and ninety-nine different writing courses in America, and your unfortunate prose would indicate that you have taken all of them and learned from none. I would respectfully suggest that, if you have a paying trade of some kind, you stick to it with all the undoubted energy it took you to scribble these interminable pages.”
Or:
“Dear Sir: Because you have enclosed a stamped, self-addressed return envelope, I am returning your manuscript, although, if lost in my office or in the mail, it would be no loss whatever. The device of enclosing a ten-dollar bill in the second chapter to see if the reader has really read it is so hoary that it is beneath contempt. I had only to shake the manuscript and the bill fell out. The bill I am keeping.”
To be completely fair, Parker’s acceptance letters were as effusive as his rejections were withering. To one poet he wrote: “As a moth may not venture too close to a flame, so might a reader be wary of approaching so much brilliance as you display in your work. Talent such as you possess is granted to only a few writers in any generation. Welcome to that pantheon.”
“Had to have been a woman,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Forget it.”
On and on we read, until my eyes began to swell in their sockets.
“I think I’ve had enough for one day,” I said to Poole.
He looked up and winked at me. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “Let me go on reading them. I’m sure you have other things to do.”
“Okay, but don’t strain your eyes.”
“I’ll read for just a while longer and then take off,” he said. “See you tomorrow?”
I nodded, and returned to my own office.
The picture I had now of Parker Foxcroft was essentially complete. I did not believe we would find any other pieces to fit into the jigsaw puzzle—except one: who hated him enough to want him dead? Here was a man whose brilliance was equaled only by his savagery and, as it turned out, by his mendacity. I found it rather amazing that none of these rejected authors thought to sue him for libel—but what would they gain, and how could they expect to win, given Parker’s impeccable editorial credentials? No third person can possibly evaluate or second-guess an editor’s judgments. The editor is judge and jury all in one.
Conceivably one of these hapless victims of Parker’s spleen might like to do him in; more likely they might follow Alexander Michaelson and turn their guns on themselves.
Anyhow, it was time to get back to work. I had an important call to make.
“Claire Bunter speaking.”
“Oh good, I found you in. It’s Nick Barlow, Claire.”
“Nick.” Her voice fell off perceptibly. Apprehension? Suspicion, perhaps?
I had already prepared my script.
“If you’re calling for Harry—”
“No.”
“—or about Harry—”
“Neither, Claire. I’m calling about you. Your work.”
“Okay. Go ahead, Nick.”
“Look,” I said, “your personal life is really none of my business, but you were one of Parker Foxcroft’s authors, after all, which makes you one of Barlow and Company’s authors.”
“And?”
“Parker wasn’t our only editor. I have at least three people on staff, starting with Sidney Leopold, who would love to do your next book. Won’t you at least talk with me about it?”
“Well?” I could detect a gradual warming of the atmosphere at her end of the phone.
“Have you,” I asked, with just a touch of wistfulness, “signed with any other publisher?”
“No, not yet. Though I’ve been thinking—”
“So you do have a new book?”
“Or will—soon, Nick.”
“I’m delighted to hear that. We did well with” (what the hell was the name of that book?) “Newport Nights” (that was it!).
“I know.”
“So would you let me lunch you, Claire, so we can talk about your next book?”
“I don�
��t do lunch much, Nick. Not when I’m writing.”
“I understand. The work always comes first. But you must break at the end of the day…”
“Usually.”
“So,” I said, not one to take no for an answer—or even maybe—“would you meet me for a drink at The Players?”
“When?”
“Just a moment, Claire.” I ran down my appointment calendar. No parties, no dates. Even Susan wasn’t on the calendar. We had agreed to hold off a few days before meeting again. “Anything wrong with tomorrow?”
“That’s Wednesday?”
“Right.”
“Well…” The word trailed off into a sigh. “All right, Nick. But please don’t try the hard sell, okay?”
“I? The hard sell?”
“Don’t try the soft sell, either. Let’s just have a pleasant drink.”
“My pleasure, too. Six o’clock?”
“Six-fifteen,” she said, and rang off.
Quite some time later, I looked at my watch and saw that it was well after closing hour.
Walking down the hall, I saw no one, not even Sidney, who almost always works late. I peeked into Foxcroft’s office. It was dark. Poole, too, had left.
Some people, I believe, find an empty office ominous. I rather like the peace and quiet. All those computers sleeping soundly in their stations; the phones and fax machines gone silent; the occasional squawk as our night answering machine kicks in to tell some importune caller what our business hours are; these things impart a sense of shutting down, like the ceremony of tattoo in the military service, or as nature shuts down when twilight slides almost imperceptibly into darkness.
It was getting dark. I was about to switch on a light when I heard the click of a lock snapping open. Crack. The lock I had installed after Parker Foxcroft’s murder. The lock that was supposed to keep anybody out there out.
“Jesus,” I whispered. I backed up, ever so slowly, seeking the darkest corner of the hallway.
Suddenly the hall was flooded with light, almost blinding me, and I was looking into the mean black mouths of a double-barreled shotgun—and above it a hulking figure in a fatigue jacket and a black ski mask.
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