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:
They went to dozens of hallowed places where famous writers had agonized over just the right word, famous poets over just the right rhyme. And though it took awhile for the fumbling innocents to grope their way through the sexual labyrinth, they finally found earthshaking fulfillment on a starry night in a bed-and-breakfast in the little Cornish town where Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca met her doom.
It is now 1997. Helen and Steve are still on cloud nine, in the penthouse high above the blue Atlantic. Ginny Barnes bounced back, marrying the new editor. The library has a new roof, a fine new bookmobile, and an addition devoted to children’s books, all provided by Mrs. Walter Foster in memory of her beloved father. Martha used her inheritance plus the seventy-five thousand dollars Mike Wilson insisted she take for having given up Appalachian Elegy, which, by the way, zoomed to the top of the bestseller lists, stayed there for over two years, and made lots of money for Meadows & Berkshire.
Martha not only experiences conscience pangs every now and then, but she occasionally has a funny dream in which she contacts The National Beacon, offers proof that she wrote Appalachian Elegy. Nevertheless, she tells herself she would do it all over again. She is so, so happy.
Thomas W. Reardon retired to a little town in Vermont where he is a library volunteer, the town’s good Samaritan. Yes, he heard the rumors circulating when Appalachian Elegy came out. But he was in no position to ask Mike if they were true. His daughter still needed him. Now, his daughter happily married and the foundation on solid financial ground (the inheritance from Baxter helped bring in more money), it would serve no purpose to investigate, maybe ruin the good work being done by The Media’s Conscience. He also has conscience pangs; maybe that’s why he spends all his time doing good works.
Scott Henry is still at Meadows & Berkshire, the publisher proud of him. Back in the summer of 1991 Scott had hoped to confront Mike Wilson and demand to be told who really wrote Appalachian Elegy. It was a great book, but it wasn’t Harry Baxter’s. He had a good idea who the author was, but he too kept quiet. His wife, the sole breadwinner, had been downsized at the library on Long Island in late 1990, and they still have a daughter in college.
We all have our price, he told himself forlornly.
Mike Wilson is holding his own. He still has that vile reality, the alimony. But he’s acquired new writers, sales are going well, and the Murder on the Route series — the fourth book is due this month — is catching on. He kept his word about going back to church. That was a lucky move; he met Mary Anne there, an usher, a widow. She became his secretary. Although they are living in sin, they are in their own seventh heaven and plan to get married one of these days.
Thelma went into a decline after Ginny Barnes sold her house to a retired older couple whose most scandalous behavior was holding hands — to keep each other from falling — when they went for their morning walk.
But the poor dears are now in a nursing home. Thelma is therefore perking up and keeping an eye peeled across the street. The new owner, “one o’ them dyed-haired hussies, claims she’s a psychic. Funny thing, Emily, the only ones she psychics is men. There hain’t been a woman go in there yet.”
Martha sold the house on Chestnut Street, she and Helen sharing the money, and Martha moved into Walter’s house, gave up manuscript typing, and retired from the agency. J. L. barely held back the tears.
Walter will retire in two years. In the meantime he and Martha work together on Murder on the Route. When he retires, she’ll devote all her time to her own writing. They are still madly in love. They hug one another at every opportunity; they have hundreds of books; they write, read, talk, laugh, are — as Walter had so often visualized — “doubly blessed.”
Lil’s hasn’t changed, gossip still reigns. Cathy and Linda are still there, still irritated about the puny payment from The National Beacon. One of the publishers who lost out on Appalachian Elegy thought he smelled a rat and contacted the editor of the tabloid, claiming Baxter didn’t write the book.
“Forget it,” the editor said. “We used that story once. It’s stale news now.”
It seems appropriate to end this tale with a few more adages, to wit:
“Life ain’t all beer and skittles” (George du Maurier).
“Life is made up of marble and mud” (Nathaniel Hawthorne).
“Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all” (Shakespeare).
On the Way to the Store
by Anne Weston
Efrain pulled off his boots and pants and waded into the river. With one hand he held the clothes above water. In the other he carried his old rifle and machete. The plantains were slung on his back in the large bag that Catalino the Indian had woven for him.
The crossing was easy today, the clear water only thigh-deep. On the other side Efrain dressed and continued along the faint trail through the rain forest.
He paused to study the turkeylike tracks of a pavón. On his way back from the store this afternoon he would hunt around for the bird and take it home for Sulema to stew. Should he leave his rifle here by the trail so as not to have to carry it all the way?
Efrain thought of the time a few months ago when the peccaries had treed him. He hadn’t had the gun with him then. He’d been in this same area, going to see how his new neighbor Olmedo was getting along. With his eyes fixed on his feet to avoid stepping on a fer-de-lance, Efrain had come face to face with a white-lipped peccary. He had leaped for the nearest tree, a flimsy sapling, and shinnied up as fast as he could. Forty peccaries had encircled him, snorting and clacking their tusks. The sapling was so weak that Efrain had been afraid to climb higher where its branches would give him a better perch. For hours he clung with arms and legs wrapped tight around the narrow trunk, wishing he had the sharp digging-in claws of a tree sloth. Finally he saw a flash of yellow dress through the trees.
Sulema, worried by his long absence on a short errand, had come to look for him. She carried the rifle. He wanted to scream to her to stop, but fear had choked him, fear that the peccaries would turn and see this new, easy target. He took all his weight on his legs, let go with his arms, and waved them wildly to keep the peccaries’ attention on him.
But Sulema had already seen them. She stepped behind a big tree and fired the rifle into the air. The peccaries had squealed and run.
Yes, he’d better keep the gun with him, though he had only one shell for it. At the store he would trade the plantains for a few more shells as well as salt and sugar. They wouldn’t bring enough to pay for all that, but the storekeeper would give him credit against his next harvest. Efrain would fill the extra space in his woven bag with coconuts from the beach. At home Sulema would squeeze cooking fat from the coconut meat and make candy with milk from their cow, sugar, and the remaining coconut.
The most important reason he was going to the store, however, was to find out what year this was. Efrain was fairly certain it was still the old year. New Year’s Day was about now, though, and might already have passed. Being sure of the year had never mattered much before, but the baby had been born eight days ago and Sulema said it was important to know the exact year of his birth.
Olmedo had brought his stolid wife Nydia over the night the baby was born. Nydia delivered the baby while Efrain and Olmedo stood outside. Efrain had shivered when a jaguar split the night with its cry, like the sobs of a great bull.