Final Edit (10 page)

Once back at the office, I sent for Sidney and gave him my considered editorial report on his new discovery.

“It needs work, Sidney.”

“Duh-don’t they all, though?”

I have long dreamt of the day when a manuscript would cross my desk in such perfect array that I could not imagine changing
a word of it, not even adding or eliminating a comma—a masterpiece, like some rare diamond fresh from the cutter’s bench.
I am still waiting, and I strongly suspect my dream will never come true.

“However, Sidney—
Iceman
is, even in its imperfect state, well worth a contract and a modest advance—say, ten thousand dollars. The usual split.”

“Fuh-five on signing and the rest on acceptance?”

I nodded. “And I’d like to meet the author as soon as you can arrange it,” I said.

“That muh-may be hard. She lives in Muh-muh…” He clenched his right fist tightly and grimaced.

“Minneapolis?”

“Right.”

“Well, then, whenever.”

Sidney returned to his office, and I turned to the day’s mail, which consisted largely of magazines and flyers, assorted
press clippings, and a couple of invitations to press parties. The invitations come from fellow publishers and are issued
not so much in the spirit of bonhomie as of curiosity, to find out what I’m up to. I go to them in the same spirit and to
pick up any gossip I can.

I withdrew the current issue of
Publishers Weekly
from the pile and was about to open it when my eye was caught by a distinctively feminine light green envelope—addressed
to me and marked “Personal.” I slit it open with a sudden sense of anticipation and read:

Dear Nick Barlow:

I have just learned about the terrible thing that has happened to Parker Foxcroft. I am shocked beyond measure by his murder,
and I know you must be too. How could such a thing have happened?

If there is any way I can help, I hope you will call on me.

Sincerely,

It was signed “Susan Markham,” and included both a home address and a phone number.

Sitting back in my chair, I put the note away in my inside coat pocket, not without first rereading it and giving it some
thought. Susan Markham… I had not expected to hear from her after the ABA, not after the cavalier way I had rebuffed her overtures,
if “overtures” wasn’t too strong a word to describe her conversation with me. It occurred to me that it might be useful—informative,
perhaps—to follow up on her offer to help.

Just then Hannah buzzed me.

“Lieutenant Hatcher is on the phone,” she said.

I picked up. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Mr. Barlow,” he said in the clipped, uninflected way he had of speaking, “we’d like you to come over to headquarters for
further questioning. If you don’t mind.”

“Well…”

“You’re free to bring your attorney, of course.” I got the distinct impression that he thought bringing a lawyer would be
a good idea.

“I thought I’d told you all I know,” I said in a futile appeal to Hatcher’s better nature.

He waited a couple of beats before replying. “There are still some… loose ends? You know… to tie up.”

I looked at my watch. “When would you like me to stop in?”

“How about eleven o’clock?”

“I’ll see if my attorney can meet me there, and let you know.”

“That’ll be fine.”

I got Alex Margolies on the line as quickly as Hannah could find him. Alex is both my lawyer and a friend; he has also been
trained as a CPA, which makes him useful on many fronts. Much as I rely on the good Mortimer Mandelbaum, I would not dream
of filing taxes without having the forms vetted by Alex.

“You’re lucky, Nick,” he said. “I was supposed to be in court this morning, but we got a postponement.”

“So you’ll meet me at the Thirteenth Precinct.”

“Sure thing.”

I gave him the address, hung up, and sat there, swearing under my breath. The last thing I needed was another of what Hatcher
called “interviews” and I was beginning to think of as inquisitions.

I asked Hannah to confirm my appointment with Lieutenant Hatcher and picked up the
Publishers Weekly
again. The first thing I turned to was the best-seller list, and I was
gratified to see that Herbert Poole’s
Pan at Twilight,
like Abou Ben Adam, still headed the list.

I met Alex Margolies in the anteroom of the Thirteenth Precinct house shortly before eleven. We looked around, taking in the
general shabbiness and congestion of the place. There were three sergeants at the reception counter—two male, one female—and
half a dozen assorted citizens either at the counter or seated on benches nearby.

I didn’t need to fill Alex in on why were there; he is as avid a reader of the crime reports as I am.

“Other than your finding the corpus delicti,” he said to me, pitching his voice lower than usual, “what reason have the cops
to suspect you?”

I told him about the quarrel and about my decision to get rid of Parker.

“But I didn’t mean to get rid of him
that
way.”

“Well,” he said, “we’ll see what this Lieutenant Hatcher has to say for himself.”

Suddenly, as though summoned by the mere mention of his name, Hatcher appeared, virtually at my elbow.

“Mr. Barlow,” he said, “I appreciate your coming.” He turned to Alex. “And you’re…”

“Alexander Margolies, attorney-at-law.”

Hatcher nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Counselor. Won’t you both come in my office?”

We followed meekly after him, through a hallway with a water fountain and a pay phone, both in use at the moment by uniformed
patrolpeople. There were also posters on a bulletin board—the ten most wanted, perhaps? The walls were painted in what we
call “men’s-room green,” a shade both bilious and antiseptic.

Hatcher’s office was private if not what I would call
inviting. His desk and chair; a couple of well-worn visitors’ chairs; several file cabinets; a computer terminal and printer;
and nothing hanging on the walls but a Sierra Club calendar. I don’t know what I expected Hatcher’s desk to look like; it
was actually rather neat: an in-box, an out-box, a blotter, and a phone—nothing else except a file folder, which he now opened.
Alex and I took our seats and waited. After a long few moments of leafing through the file, he finally arrived at what appeared
to be my dossier; at least, I assumed that’s what it was.

“A few routine questions, Mr. Barlow,” was his opening line. I braced myself. Is there anything routine about a murder investigation?
Yes, I suppose so. And yet every murder is different, and every murderer. There are an infinite number of changes to be rung
on the original crime, which started, after all, with Cain and Abel.

“For starters,” said Hatcher, “I’d like to know more about your relationship with the victim.”

“I’ve already told you what our business arrangement was.”

Hatcher sighed with evident weariness. “I mean how did you get along?”

“Well enough to work together,” I said.

“Yet I’ve learned from interviewing your staff that you have had a number of run-ins with Foxcroft. That doesn’t sound to
me like you were able to work with him all that well, does it?”

He apparently expected an answer to his question; I merely shrugged.

“You were thinking about getting rid of him, weren’t you?”

“That would give Foxcroft more reason to kill me than the other way around, Lieutenant.”

“Just what kind of financial troubles is your company having, Mr. Barlow?”

I looked at Alex Margolies, who shook his head. “That’s privileged information, Lieutenant, and I’m advising my client not
to answer your question.”

“Okay,” said Hatcher, visibly shifting gears. “Do you own a gun, Mr. Barlow?”

“No, I do not.” I was going to add that I despise guns and the havoc they wreak in our society, that if I could wipe them
all off the face of the earth by a wave of my hand, I would do it in an instant, and while I was being godlike, I would also
dissolve the National Rifle Association, like this:
Bang! You’re dead.
However, looking at the police special in Hatcher’s shoulder holster, I thought it better to keep my opinions to myself.

“But you are familiar with firearms.”

“Only what I read in mysteries and crime novels, Lieutenant. And as I’ve already told you, I was in Air Force Intelligence,
so of course I had to know how to handle a forty-five.”

Hatcher pressed on, looking occasionally at his file. What did I know of Foxcroft’s relationships with other members of the
firm? With this Harry Bunter, for example? With Lester Crispin? With Sidney Leopold? I was noncommittal in every instance.

Finally Alex rose to his feet and said: “Lieutenant, I’m
going
to advise my client not to answer any further questions, especially those concerning other members of his firm. Those questions
are not relevant. I assume,” he added, “that my client is not being charged with any offense?”

“Not at this time,” said Hatcher, also rising from his chair.

Not at this time?
I thought.
Why, you son of a bitch!

“Anyway,” Hatcher added, “have a nice day.”

I might have known his tag line would be that dreary cliché.

Once Alex and I were free of the cozy atmosphere of the station house, I turned to him and said: “He’s not going to let up
on me, is he?”

Alex nodded. “It would appear that at the moment, you’re the only suspect he has.”

I knew what I was going to do when I got back to the office. Call Joe Scanlon with an SOS.

“Look, Nick—I don’t know if I can help you or not.”

Lieutenant Joseph Scanlon opened his hands in the classic gesture of “coming up empty.” He had been in my office that Friday
morning for almost an hour, while I had run through everything I could tell him about Parker Foxcroft and the events leading
up to Parker’s murder. He leaned forward in his chair, hunching his shoulders, his forehead creased in a frown that quickly
slipped into a wicked grin.

“Here you go again, Nick, as a recent president was fond of saying.”

“Hey, Joe—man, this is definitely
not
the way I like to spend my time—or yours. I didn’t choose to be mixed up in this business. But I do need help.” Did I protest
too much? I don’t think so. I
was
beginning to feel beset, even paranoid. But as Sam Spade would have said if he’d been in the book business, when someone
kills your editor, a publisher’s supposed to do something about it…

“I can see that. However, I can’t really stick my nose into a murder in another precinct than my own. Especially when I’m
on leave.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do?”

He was silent for a few moments. Then: “Well, maybe I can get some information for you, if that would help. Sergeant Falco
was with me at the Police Academy, and I’ve sort of kept in touch. Given him a call every so often—had a drink with him once
in a while—that sort of thing. He might be willing to share what he knows. After all, I’m still more of a cop than a civilian.”

“Make that ‘author,’ Joe.”

“If you say so, Nick. And I suppose I might do a bit of digging into the life and times of Parker Foxcroft, if that would
help.”

I felt an immediate surge of relief. It seemed to me that if not home free, at least I was no longer alone, I had help. And
I couldn’t help but also feel elated that I was once again faced with a real mystery, and not just another paper puzzle.

“By the way, Joe—have you done anything about getting representation?”

“No, not yet.” I had suggested more than once, since Scanlon had turned in the first draft of his book, that he ought to have
an agent. I know—even Shakespeare had something to say about them: “Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.”
However, when it comes to the publishing business, I cannot help but think of Joe Scanlon as a naïf among rogues, a true babe
in the woods. I am not implying that
I
would cheat him, heaven forfend—but I want him to make as much money from his book as possible, and that means a whopping
paperback reprint deal, movie and television sales—all beyond my power to generate, but always possible with an accomplished
agent.

“Have you got anyone in mind?” Scanlon said.

“Yes. Kay McIntire.” Actually I didn’t have anyone in mind, but hers was the first name that popped into my
mind, I suppose because I had a lunch date with her in two hours. “I’ll speak to Kay about representing you.”

“I’d appreciate it, Nick.”

God, how wonderful! Scanlon was still appreciative. That is because publication—and possibly fame—still awaited him. In this
virginal state, authors are almost always grateful for whatever favors are done them, and so they should be. After all, no
one
asked
them or any other author to write their first novel. As Thomas Wolfe put it: “Nobody discovered me. I discovered myself.”

Scanlon and I parted with his promise to report to me as soon as he had information from Falco—though not before I reminded
him that his revised manuscript was due on the first of August.

“I’m on schedule, Nick,” he said.

I took his elbow and steered him toward the door. “Good man,” I said.

Some observers of the publishing scene have argued that lunch is the most important part of anyone’s day, and that nothing
either preceding or following the midday meal is of any consequence. I have myself divided publishing folk into two types:
those who must be pressed for decisions before they have gone to lunch, and those who are best approached
after
lunch. Which type am I? Definitely the former. After the wine has been poured, I do not trust myself to be a hardheaded businessman.

Lunch that Friday, however, was an exception. After it was over, I could hardly wait to get Herbert Poole to ink a contract.

The three of us—Poole, Kay Mclntire, and I—met in the waiting room off the front door of the Century—more exactly,
the Century Association. The club was given its name because its progenitors, in the year 1847, invited an even hundred gentlemen
engaged in or interested in letters and the fine arts to join; forty-two accepted and became Founders; another forty-six joined
during the first year. Nowadays there are many times one hundred—up to twelve hundred, to be exact—on the membership roster.