Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998
- Автор: Alexander Gary, Crawford Dan
- Год: 1998
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- ISBN: ISSN: 0002-5224
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998». Краткое содержание книги:
Inside again, Martha, throbbing and glowing and crying at being called wonderful, took off her coat, sobbed that we are made for each other, I will not lose him to that crude, vulgar, shameless creature, I won’t. Come what may, I’ll give Ebb and Flow to Mr. Wilson and ask him to lend me thirty-five thousand dollars, which I’ll promise to pay back from my manuscript typing. Then with Mother gone I’ll tell Walter I love him. I will, I will. And I’ll give Mr. Wilson my manuscript to sell. After all, that’s his business. And why didn’t I do it long ago? Because I’m a mealy-mouthed mollycoddle who didn’t want to impose on our relationship. Mother’s been right; it’s a dog-eat-dog world. If you don’t look out for yourself, you don’t deserve any reward.
Monday produced a raw, rotten, rainy night, which made no difference to the faithful bingo players at the K of C. Martha had insisted that Mike take an umbrella away with him. And at the very last minute she’d asked again if he shouldn’t leave a copy with her.
Mike, afraid that she would change her mind and mail a copy to Baxter, said that wasn’t necessary. He had everything in the manuscript box, had watched her, fingers trembling, delete the computer file, obliterate Ebb and Flow.
“I am now a full-fledged criminal,” she said almost tearfully.
Mike quickly changed the subject.
“About your manuscript, Martha. You said you’ve had six rejections. Do you have the names of those publishers handy?”
She did, and she also had the last rejection slip wherein the editor praised her manuscript as “a splendid effort.”
“Hey,” said Mike, “I know this editor. He doesn’t pass out that kind of praise unless he means it. You might have something, Martha. I’ll start reading it on the plane.”
“Oh, would you? That would be wonderful. But you may be disappointed. It might appear that I was deliberately attempting to imitate Mr. Baxter’s style. I wasn’t. Or at least I didn’t intend to.”
“Don’t let that bother you. In fact, it could be a plus. Now I have to go if I want to catch the last plane to LaGuardia.”
“But what if Mr. Baxter kept a copy?” Martha asked. “All this would be in vain, wouldn’t it?”
Boy oh boy, thought Mike, this is a battle.
“I doubt he did. I’ve needled him in the past, but he always claimed it was too much work getting those legal pads reproduced. And between us, I believe the poor man was always so plain sick of each manuscript that he could hardly wait to send it to you. I’ll still sue him, tie things up for months. One more thing, Martha, you’re sure you won’t let me give you the thirty-five thousand? I brought a blank check.”
“No, no, I’ll wait until the auction. I hope it’ll be soon. Besides, I might win the lottery. After all, the odds are only twelve million to one.”
“Now, don’t be so gloomy. This is going to work out. And nobody will be hurt, least of all Harry Baxter.”
“I don’t know. But it’s too late to back out. Please be careful, it’s a terrible night. I’ll hold the door open. And... thank you.”
“Thank you, Martha,” Mike replied, a manuscript box under each arm, the umbrella in his left hand. He went out into the dark and stormy night, and as the door closed behind him, he said reverently, “Holy smoke, I made it. I made it. The worst is over. It’s smooth sailing from here on.”
Walking swiftly to where he’d left the car, fighting the umbrella, he thought about how different Martha Ainsley was from the smalltown spinster type he and Scott Henry had originally envisioned. At a guess, she must be close to forty, but she wasn’t a bad looking woman. Then he remembered something she’d said in the phone conversation on Friday. She needed the money for the condo for her mother and for “another reason.”
Ten to one, thought Mike, bracing himself against the rain, it’s the old affaire d’amour, with her mother representing an obstacle to the happy ending. It has to be something like that, a real crisis for her... then he slipped.
He didn’t read any of Martha’s manuscript on the plane. He sat stunned, sunk in a terrible daze, unable to believe what had happened. He spent an awful night, got about two hours’ sleep. But he awoke as usual at six forty-five. He staggered out to the kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice, went back to the front room, drank the orange juice while wondering if Socrates had sipped the hemlock or gulped it down.
“God help me,” he moaned. “Unless the world has come to an end, and even more unlikely, unless Harry Baxter kept a copy, I am on my way to jail. And what about that poor, fine, innocent woman. This is a calamity of... of...”
He searched for the remote control to turn on the TV. Maybe the world had indeed come to an end.
The world hadn’t come to an end, but Harry Baxter had.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Mike yelled at the announcer. “Repeat that... go on...”
“To repeat,” said the announcer in an end-of-the-world voice, “Harry Baxter, the famous novelist, died in an early morning fire at his Connecticut home. It’s suspected that the fire began with a cigarette. Mr. Baxter was known to be a heavy smoker. We expect more details on the noon news. Now to international news. Reports from the Ethiopian capital of...”
Mike hit the remote control.
“Oh my God,” he yelled as he leaped from the couch, “maybe I’m being saved by the bell. Maybe he did keep a copy.”
He phoned for a limousine and left a message on the office answering machine saying he’d be in the office early that afternoon and if anyone called he would call back.
If Baxter had kept a copy of Ebb and Flow, it wouldn’t have made any difference. The house was a mere shell, the interior totally destroyed.
“And the pathetic thing is,” a fireman told Mike, “if the sprinkler system had been working, there’d have only been a little water damage. Some people spend thousands on the system and then forget to have regular inspections.”
“The remains?” said Mike with a lump in his throat, thinking of poor, tortured Harry, nothing now but “remains.”
“At the morgue,” said the fireman and gave Mike directions.
“You don’t want to see him,” the medical examiner said. “Not much left. You couldn’t identify him. We’re checking dental records. But it’s cut and dried. It has to be Baxter.”
The limousine was approaching Norwalk on the way back before Mike could wrench his mind from the horror of Harry’s death. What now, he thought hopelessly. Sure, I can clear Martha and myself of any illegality by simply saying that Ebb and Flow was destroyed in the fire, Baxter was still working on it. But that doesn’t pay the piper.
And how about Martha and her need for money? Hell, that’s simple. I fouled up, botched a foolproof scheme. God, how could it have happened? But it did. I’ll have to tell her. And then when she recovers from her hysteria — justifiable hysteria — I’ll hand her a check, make her take it. Then I’ll slink away like the miserable bungler I am, close the agency, head for California, and get a job in a pizza shop.
Such thoughts weren’t helping. He tried another tack. Think, man, think. There must be some way out of this mess. Then... wait a minute. What was that Martha said about her manuscript? That it might appear she was deliberately imitating Harry’s writing style?
He didn’t go to the office. He had the driver drop him off at the apartment. He phoned the office. Were there any messages? Yes, Martha Ainsley had telephoned twice. A reporter from the Times had called and a Mr. Yardley, who said he was Mr. Baxter’s attorney, also phoned. They all wanted him to call as soon as he returned. Mike thanked her and instructed her to tell anyone else who called that he would phone in the morning.