Herbert Poole presented himself bright and early at my office next morning. Though I still had misgivings about this little exercise, I had cleared my calendar in anticipation of his arrival, at least of any morning appointments. I could hardly expect Poole, nor want him, to spend the entire day with me. And Sidney had asked me to hold three o’clock open for our new female private-eye writer, Sarah Goodall, who was going to pay us her first visit.
“Good morning, Mr. Barlow,” said Poole.
“’Nick,’ if you please. Let’s drop the formalities, shall we?”
“Fine, Nick. And it’s Herbert, not Herb or Herbie.”
“After all, we’re going to be spending a fair amount of time together.”
“I do hope so,” said Poole. “I know I’ll want your editorial advice and the chance to see how an amateur detective operates.”
“An amateur detective?” I wasn’t sure I was happy about that designation.
“Haven’t you been involved in at least one real murder?” Poole said.
“I can’t take much credit for the solution of Jordan Walker’s murder.” I felt that modesty became me at the moment. After all, at times I feel that “amateur publisher” would be more appropriate to sum up my calling. “You’re referring to the murder that took place here in my offices,” I said.
“Yes. Your editor, Parker Foxcroft.”
“Well, I’m sure the police have that one under control. At least I hope they do.”
“Anyway,” said Poole, “I’m looking forward to working with you.”
Now that the formalities were over, I wondered where to turn next. Where did we start?
“Have you done any preliminary work on your mystery?” I said. “An outline, perhaps?”
“Is one necessary? Why not just plunge in headfirst?”
“Feetfirst, more likely,” I replied. “The outline, Herbert, is a life preserver, if you will. The detective novel is essentially a puzzle, but one which must be constructed backward. First, know who your victim is, who the murderer is, and why the victim was murdered—motive, in short.”
I went to one of my bookshelves and pulled out Kenneth Silverman’s biography of Edgar Allan Poe. Turning to a well-thumbed page, I read aloud: “ ‘No other kind of fiction illustrates so clearly the writer’s need to choose from the beginning some one outcome or effect, and to adapt every element of the narrative to it.’
“Right!” I said. “I think what Silverman wrote is so important that I commend it to you, too.”
“Does every writer prepare such an outline?” Poole asked.
“Not every mystery writer I know does. Ed McBain, for one, doesn’t, and his mysteries are as good as any being written today. So it takes all kinds.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Incidentally—”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you ever get tired of the company of writers?”
“Yes, once a year.”
“When is that?”
“The ABA Convention. You were there signing books. One of my favorite activities at the ABA is the Oblivion Press lunch.”
“Oblivion Press? What’s that?”
“Just a group of us publishing folks who get together at the ABA every year to let our hair down. Oblivion Press, of course, does not exist—that is, it’s not really a press, but an imaginary publishing house, created in the spirit of buffoonery and self-mockery. When you’re tired of booksellers, bookselling, publishing, and authors, you’re ready for Oblivion.”
“Oh,” said Poole. “Well.”
Actually what we do at Oblivion Press board meetings is to drink copiously, tell jokes, make up absurd titles and authors, and laugh uproariously at our own inside humor. A magazine writer who attended one of our sessions called us “a group of middle-aged cards.” Obviously it was a mistake inviting him to our meeting, but it also clearly wasn’t one of our best outings.
“So you do get tired of authors,” said Poole. “Sick and tired, perhaps?”
“Let me tell you a story about that, Herbert. It seems that a young author whose first novel had just been accepted by Simon and Schuster was taken by Peter Schwed, then e-in-c, to meet one of the original partners of the firm, M. Lincoln Schuster. Schuster was rather advanced in years then, but still kept an office at Ess and Ess, which he came to regularly, though he had nothing much to do there. Said Schwed (excuse me; an unintentional rhyme): ‘Mr. Schuster, I’d like you to meet Mr. So-and-So, whose first novel we’ll be publishing.’ The old man looked up and said: ‘Author, eh? Authors… they’re still writing books.’ A pause, then: ‘They’ll never learn.’”
Poole laughed, but I sensed that he didn’t really find the story funny. “Well, if you put it that way—” he said.
“I might tell you that some of my best friends are authors, but it wouldn’t be altogether true. I’d much rather hang out with painters, actors, even musicians, the least intelligent of all the artists. And cops, especially cops. Anyone with a good story to tell.
“So,” I wound up, “I’m sure you have a good story to tell. Will it make a successful mystery?”
“I hope so, Nick. You’ll know when you read my outline, which I intend to start writing this very day.”
“Good. What else can we talk about?”
“How about true crime?”
“Sure. Fire away.”
“Parker Foxcroft.” he said. “Do you have any idea who might have killed him?”
“You’re not the first person to ask me that,” I said. “Nor do I expect you to be the last. Anyway—”
I told Poole about my visit to Judith Michaelson. Somehow I felt she had the strongest motive I’d discovered so far. She hated Parker, and it would only have been poetic justice for her to murder him with the same gun her husband had used to kill himself. “Don’t you agree, Herbert?”
“At this point, I can’t say. I just don’t know enough.”
I ran down the list of suspects involved, winding up with Harry Bunter—which reminded me that at some point I ought to talk to his wife.
“Now you know just about everything I know,” I said to Poole. “If you get any bright ideas—”
“You’ll be the first to hear them,” he said.
That was the end of our conversation for that day. He left my office, promising to come back on Monday.
“I’m off to a house I have on Fire Island for the weekend.”
“The wages of Pan?”
“There’s nothing like a best-seller,” he said. “It’s a money tree for sure—as you well know.”
“Until Monday, then, Herbert.”
Three o’clock rolled around, and it was time for me to meet Sarah Goodall. I suspected that I would wind up editing Icepick, or whatever the name of her book was. Sidney Leopold, whose discovery she was, did not like to work on books in which victims were put to death in grisly and violent fashion, or in which the hero got badly beaten up, as in most P.I. mysteries; he turned that sort of thing over to me.
At any rate, promptly on the appointed hour, a knock came at my office door. It was Sidney and Sarah Goodall.
Not knowing what to expect, I cannot say that I was altogether taken by surprise by La Goodall—only a trifle taken aback.
She was of medium height, rather stocky, her hair cropped quite short. She was wearing a tee-shirt imprinted with the words “QUEER NATION.” That didn’t bother me particularly, but what I did find disquieting was the tiny gold earring dangling, not from her ear, but from her right eyebrow.
“Muh-meet Sarah Goodall, Nuh-Nick,” said Sidney.
“Happy to meet you,” she said, thrusting out her hand. Her voice was almost as deep as mine, and her handshake was strong enough to crack a few of my metacarpi. Well, I thought, unable to come up with anything original, it takes all kinds.
“My pleasure, Ms. Goodall,” I said. “Have a seat, please.”
Either spotting or suspecting my bewilderment at this apparition in my office, Sidney was quick to take charge of the conversation.
“Nuh-Nick has read your buh-book, Sarah,” he said. “And luh-likes it, right, Nick?”
“Oh, I most certainly do.”
“Surely you have some changes you’ll want made,” Good-all said, cocking her head while squinting her eyes, and leaning on every word.
“That’s true. We editors are never completely satisfied.”
“Editors? 1 thought you were the publisher.”
“That’s true—but like the general who has come up through the ranks. I still relish the heat of combat. The smoke of battle.”
This time her eyes narrowed, setting the ring in her eyebrow—should I call it an eyering?—to trembling.
“You make the editorial process sound rather like the Second World War,” she said.
Sidney obviously thought he’d better butt in to save my face. “Oh, Suh-Sarah, Nick is a great kuh-kidder. He doesn’t muh-mean we don’t get along with our authors. Nuh-not at all.”
At this, she subsided. “I hope not,” she muttered.
“Well,” I announced, “shall we talk contract? I understand that you have no agent, Ms. Goodall?”
She shook her head. “Knowing what I know about publishers’ advances,” she said, “I figured I couldn’t afford to give away fifteen percent. I sent the book directly to Mr. Leopold myself.”
I smiled—no, I beamed. An author without an agent is easy prey for an unscrupulous publisher—even a scrupulous one, such as me.
An hour later we adjourned, and I found myself wishing Sarah Goodall had an agent; we might have made a better deal. She was one tough cookie, that was for sure.
“Wh-what do you thu-think, Nick?” said Sidney, when we were alone. “Doesn’t she have an in-the-fuh-face face?” He started to giggle.
“Please, Sidney,” I said. “The joke is bad enough without you laughing at it yourself.”
“Suh-sorry, Nick.”
“We’ll do all right with this one, don’t you think, Sidney?”
“Oh—” He struggled to push the word out between his lips. It was coming, coming—there it was—“absolutely!”
Dear Sidney Leopold. I don’t know how I could possibly manage without him.