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you ought to know, if you have read the literature, that Richard Ellmann’s biography is monumental, and will not be superseded in our lifetime, not by plodding academic hackwork such as you have produced.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.”
“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.”
“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.