Dear Valued Contributor:
You and a guest are cordially invited to attend a
celebration of Blue Devil Books’s new line of
original fiction, to take place
Saturday, June 7, 1947
at 7:30 P.M.
in the offices of Blue Devil Books
16 University Place
New York, NY
Dress casual. Refreshments will be served.
Thank you for joining us in this bold new venture.
Yours most sincerely,
Robin Llewellyn Elk, Esq.
Elk’s decision to host the festivities in the publishing house, with all the doors open to aid the flow, gave the occasion the air of an office Christmas party. People talked too fast and laughed too loud, drinks spilled without apology, and someone had squashed the shrimp from a cocktail into the carpet in Elk’s office like a cigarette butt. Blowups of the covers of the summer line (was it Jacob’s imagination, or was The Fence bigger than the rest, and the half-naked female model’s resemblance to Ellen more pronounced?) hung on every wall and the company mascot leered down from congratulatory banners printed on Long Island, blue pitchfork in hand.
“I inquired among the hotels about their banquet facilities, but the pleasant ones were too dear and the least costly looked like a Scarpetti cover,” the host told Jacob. “You’re not too disappointed, I hope.” As was characteristic when he was nervous, he touched his bow tie.
Elk’s idea of casual attire was a three-piece suit, blue gabardine, over an Oxford shirt with the collar buttoned down. Today he wore kid-leather slippers on his ruined feet, cunningly designed to look like loafers.
“Not at all,” Jacob said. “Those ballrooms are too big and intimidating, and you can’t hear what anyone’s saying.”
“Next year we’ll book the Plaza.”
He never knew when the Englishman was listening.
Ellen returned from the ladies’ room. She wore a blue silk dress with pumps and carried a shiny black clutch. Her eyes were incredibly blue and the ceiling globe in the private office found haloes in her strawberry blond hair.
“This is my friend, Ellen Curry. Ellen, Robin Elk.”
Hooking his cane on one arm, he took her hand and executed a smart bow, beaming like the blue devil; in that moment, Jacob recognized a chip off the old block.
“Charming. I see where Jack gets his inspiration.”
“I hope that’s a compliment. I haven’t read the book. I’m not in the habit of disrobing in pawnshops.”
“Haven’t read it! I hope you don’t disapprove of the subject matter.”
“How could I? Jacob keeps forgetting to show it to me.”
“Artists are absentminded. Fortunately, there is a solution. I wasn’t going to distribute these until after the toast; but I’m too weak a creature to make a lovely woman wait.” He plucked a glossy red gift bag from a forest of them on his desk. “Cheap trinkets, I’m afraid: perfume for the ladies, aftershave for the men, a shockingly small box of candy, and of course the Product.”
The sack contained the items named, including the first ten paperback-original novels ever, tied together with a ribbon—blue, naturally. The Fence was on top.
“That’s very generous, Mr. Elk.”
“Niggardly is the word, madam. As I was telling Jack, better things will come. There’s no sense lugging this about all evening. I’ll see it leaves with you.” He relieved her of the bag. “I must now do myself the injury of leaving your company. Parties don’t run themselves.”
As Elk mingled, propelling himself with his cane, the young bespectacled man who greeted visitors in the foyer approached with a tray of drinks; he and the pretty blond secretary had been drafted as servers. Jacob, grateful for the interruption, accepted a flute of champagne (domestic, no doubt) while Ellen took a glass of Chardonnay.
“There are celebrities all around you, not that you’d recognize them,” he said when the young man left. “I’ll introduce you to the ones I’ve met.”
“I can manage, thanks.” She opened her clutch and took out The Fence. “I’m going to catch up on my reading.”
He smiled painfully. “You’re a regular Houdini. I didn’t even see you untie the ribbon.”
“Neither did Elk. He was too busy spreading oil.” Her smile was full of mischief. “Go meet the ones you haven’t yet.” She curled up in one of Elk’s leather chairs and opened the book.
He wandered into the press of bodies in the hallway, accompanied by a sense of impending doom.
A hand touched his shoulder. It was Phil Scarpetti, dressed pirate-fashion in an open-necked white shirt with a red scarf loosely tied around his neck. His eyes were muzzy. Jacob’s nose told him it was bourbon in his glass.
“Congratulations. It’s a hell of a book.”
“I’m not sure it’s worthy of its cover.”
“Can the act. If it’s trash, say it. Don’t duck your head and stick your toe in the dirt waiting for the world to tell you you’re a genius.”
Evidently the artist was a belligerent drunk. Jacob switched subjects. “I sent the galleys to Mickey, like he wanted. I never heard back, so I assume he approved.”
“You don’t assume with that crowd. He might’ve got it mixed up in a shipment of French pornography.”
They were separated by the boil of the crowd. Jacob found himself uncomfortably close to Phoebe Sternwalter, who as P. B. Collier was the only female writer in Elk’s stable.
“It’s to be our secret,” she said, sipping something green from a narrow glass. “According to market research, women tough-guy writers appeal only to lesbians, who apparently don’t buy books.”
“I liked Guns at Diablo.”
“My only oater. We’ve got Cliff Cutter now, so what’s the point?”
She was a little wren-like woman in a tweed suit, with steel-rimmed glasses, no makeup, and her hair dragged back in an untidy ponytail. He wondered if she was playing up the lesbian angle, either out of contempt or for her own amusement, or if she was the genuine article.
“Why Collier?” he asked.
“It was Ladies’ Day at the Staghunters Club, and Collier’s was on the magazine table. I could as easily have been P. B. Saturday Evening Post.”
In Reception he met Burt Woods and Paul Arthur, who as Arthur Burt wrote a cerebral detective series that Elk had snatched from Runson & Sons, an old Boston concern.
“We worked it out scientifically,” Woods explained. “‘Burt’ is second in the alphabet, and customers’ eyes start at the top of the rack.”
“Why second?” Jacob said. “Why not Burt Arthur?”
Paul Arthur smiled, fingering a curve-stemmed pipe that might or might not have been a prop. “I suggested it; but Burt pecked away until I quit. It’s what he does best.” Was there just a hint of acid in that Mayfair drawl?
The two men were separate and distinct. Woods was a broad-shouldered Midwesterner with a Henry Fonda accent, wearing a checked flannel shirt and pleated slacks, baggy in the knees. His collaborator was small and narrow in an out-of-season houndstooth suit with patch pockets, round tortoiseshell glasses, and of course the pipe. His speech dripped West End. Woods munched on shrimp the whole time.
“How does it work?” Jacob said. “How do you keep from stepping on each other’s toes all the time you’re writing?”
“Oh, this is the first time we’ve been in the same room since we signed the contract,” Arthur said. “I mail the plots to Burt, who adds the narrative and dialogue.”
Woods swallowed the last shrimp and wiped his hand on his shirt. Jacob guessed then who was responsible for the mess on Elk’s carpet. “I’m on the West Coast, and Paul’s here. There’s barely enough continent for the both of us. We don’t exactly get along.”
“Quite so. Burt’s a shit.”
“Paul’s what I shit.”
Alice, the blond secretary, came up. She’d traded her platter of canapés for a Speed Graphic camera with a flashgun attached. “Hold still, please, gentlemen.”
“Arthur Burt” stood shoulder to shoulder smiling while the bulb spent itself with a flare and a plop. Then they sprang apart.
Alice replaced the bulb. “You’re my next victim, Mr. Holly. Wait here, please. Cocktail dresses don’t come with big enough pockets to carry photo plates.” She left.
The lesson of Paul Arthur and Burt Woods wasn’t lost on Jacob. For all his show of self-effacement, when Robin Elk cracked the whip, the people who cashed his checks put aside all other considerations.