“I have discovered that only this minute.”
Jerry mutters something.
You say, “Mike wouldn’t touch me, directly, Jerry. Neither would Anne. After all, Anne and I were once engaged. That was before I found out about what they were doing. The parties they were giving, the needles they were giving people, full of morphine.”
“They might try to stop the book, though, somehow.”
“I believe you. They already have. This box that came in the mail. Well, maybe they didn’t do it, but one of the other people, some of the others I mention in the book, they might take a notion.”
“Have you talked to Anne recently?” asks Jerry.
“Yes,” you say.
“And she still prefers that kind of life?”
“It’s a wild one. You see a lot of pretty pictures when you take some kinds of narcotics.”
“I wouldn’t believe it of her; she doesn’t look that sort.”
“It’s your Oedipus complex, Jerry. Women never seem like females to you. They seem like bathed, flowered, sexless ivory carvings on rococo pedestals. You loved your mother too completely. Luckily I’m more ambivalent. Anne had me fooled for a while. But she was having so much fun one night and I thought she was drunk, and then first thing I knew she was kissing me and pressing a little needle into my hand and saying, ‘Come on, Rob, please. You’ll like it.’ And the needle was as full of morphine as Anne was.”
“And that was that,” says Jerry on the other end of the line.
“That was that,” you say. “So I’ve talked to the police and the State Bureau of Narcotics, but there’s a fumble somewhere and they’re afraid to move. Either that or they’re being handsomely paid. A little of both, I suspect. There’s always someone somewhere in any one system who clogs the pipe. In the police department there’s always one guy who’ll take a little money on the side and spoil the good name of the force. It’s a fact. You can’t get away from it. People are human. So am I. If I can’t clean the clog in the pipe one way, I’ll clean it another. This novel of mine, needless to say, will be what will do it.”
“You might go down the drain with it, Rob. Do you really think your novel will shame the narcotics boys into acting?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Won’t you be sued?”
“I’ve taken care of that. I’m signing a paper with my publishers absolving them of any blame, saying that all characters in this novel are fictitious. Thus, if I’ve lied to the publishers they are blameless. If I’m sued, the royalties from the novel will be used in my defense. And I’ve got plenty of evidence. Incidentally, it’s a corking good novel.”
“Seriously, Rob. Did someone send you a razor in a box?”
“Yes, and there lies my greatest danger. Rather thrilling. They wouldn’t dare kill me outright. But if I died of my own natural carelessness and my inherited blood makeup, who would blame them? They wouldn’t slit my throat. That’d be somewhat obvious. But a razor, or a nail, or the edge of the steering wheel of my car fixed and set with knife blades... it’s all very melod
ramatic. How goes it with your novel, Jerry?”
“Slow. How’s about lunch today?”
“Fair enough. The Brown Derby?”
“You sure ask for trouble. You know damn well Anne eats there every day with Mike!”
“Stimulates my appetite, Gerald, old man. See you.”
You hang up. Your hand is okay now. You whistle as you bandage it in the bathroom. Then you give the little razor contraption a going-over. A primitive thing. The chance were hardly fifty-fifty it would even work.
You sit down and write three thousand more words, stimulated by the early morning events.
The handle of the door to your car has been filed, sharpened to a razor edge during the night. Dripping blood, you return to the house for more bandages. You gulp pills. The bleeding stops.
After you deposit the two new chapters of the book in your safety-deposit box at the bank, you drive and meet Jerry Walters at the Brown Derby. He looks as electric and small as ever, dark-jowled, his eyes popping behind his thick-lensed glasses.
“Anne’s inside.” He grins at you. “And Mike’s with her. Why do we wanna eat here? I ask.” His grin dries and he stares at you, at your hand. “You need a drink! Right this way. There’s Anne at that table over there. Nod to her.”
“I’m nodding.”