SOL FABER USHERED ME from the offices of Binder Publications holding my elbow as if he expected me to collapse with the vapors. He snapped his fingers at an empty cab and, remarkably, it stopped. He told the driver to take us to the Four Seasons.
“My treat, doll,” he told me grandly. “We’ll have a few drinks to repair our egos and then we’ll have some of those little sausages and shrimps on darning needles.”
“Thanks, Sol,” I said gratefully, “but I’ll split the check with you.”
“Okay,” he agreed immediately. “Listen, don’t let what El Jerko said about the manuscript put you in the pits. He was just running off at the mouth. What did you and Aldo talk about?”
“More of the same,” I said. “He just doesn’t want to publish the book. Says we’re free to try it elsewhere.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, looking out the cab window. “Well, we’ll talk about that while we eat.”
Sol wangled a table in the Grill Room, a section that’s almost wholly occupied during lunch by the book publishing crowd. He snapped his fingers for the waiter.
I usually drink white wine, but at the moment I needed a martini. Sol had something pink with tequila and shaved ice.
We weren’t exactly in a festive mood, and exchanged only a few words while gulping down the first round. Sol knew some of the people at nearby tables. He smiled, waved, told me who they were.
“You know a lot of people in the business, Sol.”
“The name of the game, doll; that’s how an agent operates. Personal contacts.”
“So you have contacts at other houses where we could send this Thorndike book?”
“Well, uh, sure. Lots of places.”
We ordered another round.
“Sol,” I said, “I seem to detect a lack of enthusiasm for sending the novel somewhere else.”
“No, no,” he protested. “No, no, no. Where’d you get that idea?”
“Because you just used five no’s. Sol, did you read the book?”
“Read it? Of course I read it.”
“All of it?”
“Well, listen, doll, maybe not all. I mean, I know your work; I know how professional you are.”
“How much of it did you read, Sol?”
“Oh … I don’t remember, exactly. Maybe the first fifty and the last fifty pages.”
“And what did you think of it? Tell me the truth now.”
“Jannie,” he said, turning sideways to look sincerely into my eyes, “I’ve got to level with you. I didn’t think it was up to your usual high standard.”
I laughed.
“Sol,” I said, “you’ve got more crap than a Christmas goose.”
“Yes,” he said happily, “that’s true.”
We ordered. I had the chef’s salad, and Sol got his shrimp and sausages broiled on skewers. While we were at it, we asked for another round. I was beginning to relax. The world wasn’t really coming to an end. Not that morning.
“All right, doll,” I said, “let’s have it—what’s wrong with the book?”
The poor dear really looked perplexed, blinking frantically behind his horn-rims as he tried to estimate how truthful he could be without losing a client.
“Look,” he said, “I read enough of the beginning to know what the caper was and who the main characters were. Then I read the last part to find out how it all came out.”
“And …?”
“Well, listen, Jannie, you know why people read books like this? Crime stuff, spy stuff? Because it’s neat.”
“Neat?”
“I mean, it’s like a package. Say you got this bunch of guys involved in a big crime. They plan it, then they pull it. And then there’s the end.”
“They get caught or killed, and justice triumphs.”
“Not necessarily. I read a novel last year where the bad guys got away with it, grew mustaches, and took the loot down to Rio to live happily ever after. It was a good read. A very satisfying book. You know why?”
“No. Why?”
“Because it has a neat ending. No loose ends. When it’s all over, readers want it finished, resolved. Because everyone is looking for something that just doesn’t exist in real life.”
“Form?” I said. “Everyone wants form and order?”
“My very words,” he said gratefully. “Everyone wants form and order. Either the law catches up with the crooks or they escape. Who cares? But what’s important is that the whole thing is resolved. That’s very fulfilling. Now I read the last fifty pages of your Thorndike thing and, Jannie, it just left me with my thumb up my ass. Two guys get killed, one guy gets caught, one guy commits suicide, and one guy—you never do say what happened to him. That ending is such a mishmash, the reader doesn’t know what the hell happened. Doll, this book doesn’t end; it just stops.”
I didn’t say anything. I forked away at my salad, thinking about what Sol had said.
Binder had said the modern fairy tale had to be built on realism. But how could you be “true to life” with Sol’s neat, tidy ending?
A puzzlement.
“I’ll think about it,” I told him.
We finished lunch with a vodka stinger. We left, feeling no pain, and Sol put me in a cab. I went back to my apartment, sharing the seat with Chuck Thorndike’s Murder for Breakfast. When I got out of the taxi I had a sudden desire to leave the manuscript behind. Maybe the next passenger would get a few laughs. But no, I lugged it upstairs.
The phone was ringing when I came in; I dashed to grab it. I had the wild hope that Aldo Binder had changed his mind. But it was only my brother-in-law, J. Mark Hamilton, burbling with happiness. It seemed that Laura was being kept in the hospital another twenty-four hours, and how about a replay of last night?
“Oh, fuck off,” I snarled. And slammed down the phone.
My apartment wasn’t palatial, but I thought it was great, with a lot of polished wood and green plants. It was a two-bedroom layout, but the smaller bedroom had been converted into an office den. I did my writing in there. It was much more cluttered than the rest of the apartment and maybe more comfortable.
I kicked off my loafers and settled back in a distressed oak swivel chair I had bought in a junk-antique shop for $29.50. It was comfortable enough and squeaked musically every time I turned.
Then I began to read Murder for Breakfast by Chuck Thorndike.
I rarely used to read or reread my stuff. I typed “The End,” then sent it off to Sol Faber, and after a while the checks began coming in. I really didn’t care if Binder Publications changed the titles and I wasn’t much interested in the covers they slapped on my books. I had done my job: the writing. The production, promotion, and selling were up to others. That may be a short-sighted attitude for a writer, but it was the way I felt. I had never been on a TV talk show and had never been interviewed by a newspaper or magazine. I couldn’t care less.
So reading Chuck Thorndike’s Big Caper was like reading something written by a stranger. I hadn’t looked at it for almost two months, and meanwhile I had been working on Buck Williams’ newest.
I didn’t have to read more than ten pages. I’ve never been so ashamed in my life.
It was a piece of cheese.
I mean it was bad. I started out squirming, and ended up laughing. It read like S. J. Perelman and Woody Allen collaborating on a classic put-on. I had everything in there, from the shifty-eyed villain to the whore with a heart of gold, from the Irish cop with his “Begorra” and “B’Jasus” to a private eye with snap-brimmed fedora and soiled trenchcoat.
I started reading about 2:00 P.M., determined to finish the damned thing. The outside light grew dim. I switched on the desk lamp and read on; I can endure pain. I finished at about 7:00 in the evening. Then I straightened the manuscript pages, tapped them neatly into a smooth bundle, and dumped the whole thing into the wastebasket. Then I felt my cheeks. I was blushing.
I went into the kitchen for a chilled, half-bottle of Gallo chablis and brought that and a glass back to my office. I peeled off my pantyhose and settled back in the swivel chair again. I poured a glass of wine, and sipped.