Stuart Kaminsky - Never Cross A Vampire

“Consider the alternative,” he continued. “It is either that or else I have gone mad, which is certainly a possibility, given the state of the world, though I doubt my madness would manifest itself as an attack on an agent. I would be much more likely to attack a publisher. May I suggest we sit down?”

I nodded, and he sat in the chair across from the desk, leaving me Phil’s chair in which I was forbidden to sit on pain of decapitation. I sat. It helped establish a client-professional air in the rancid room, and it gave me a little extra to worry about. Faulkner crossed his legs and examined the back of his right hand. My feet started to go up on the desk. I resisted and planted them on the wooden floor.

“My tale is simple,” Faulkner began with clear distaste for the task. “I met Jacques Shatzkin but once, for lunch at that restaurant with the aquarium window on Sixth Street.”

“Bernstein’s Fish Grotto,” I supplied. “Why did you meet?”

Faulkner shifted the ashes in his pipe with a thin finger, cleaned his finger on a handkerchief from his tweed jacket pocket, made sure his tie was in place, and spoke softly.

“He called me and said he wanted to discuss a business arrangement that might be reasonably lucrative for me. I have an agent, but Mr. Shatzkin has-had-a good reputation, and I am somewhat in need of money.”

“May I…” I started, but stopped when I looked at Faulkner’s face. It had turned slightly red.

“I do not suffer from false humility,” he said, “or at least I so delude myself. I earned less than thirty-two hundred dollars last year. I have a home and a family, and I carry the burden of assumption on the part of the public that I am financially solvent as the result of a family estate that does not exist and enormous royalties that have never existed. I have had but one economic success.”

“Pylon,” I tried. I had fond memories of the book. I had once hidden evidence, a pornographic photograph, in my copy.

“Sanctuary,” Faulkner corrected. “And the money from that has been long dispersed. I am in Los Angeles to seek employment from Warner Brothers with the help of my agent and Mr. Howard Hawks. Mr. Warner, so far, has not seen fit to make me a generous offer, or a firm offer of any kind. I am inclined to accept whatever offer I may get. So, when Mr. Shatzkin called.. ”

“Where did he call you?” I asked.

“At my hotel, the Hollywood,” said Faulkner, finding a match and getting his pipe going.

“He called you and you met at the restaurant?”

“We met at Mr. Shatzkin’s office building,” Faulkner puffed, “and then went to the restaurant where I had lobster naturale and he had a large shrimp salad. You have that?”

I wrote it down. In spite of Faulkner’s sarcasm, it might be something to check. It might not be, probably wouldn’t be, but you took what you could get and carried it. I was tempted to tell Faulkner to stick to his writing and let me stick to my job.

“Mr. Shatzkin offered me the rings of Saturn, the moon, and Biloxi,” Faulkner went on. “I told him I would check with my agent and get back to him. We parted amicably outside the restaurant, and he promised to call me. He never did, and I never saw him again.”

“And you never met Mrs. Shatzkin?”

“I never had that pleasure,” he said sarcastically. “How did Shatzkin seem?” I went on.

“Seem,” Faulkner repeated, making it clear I had chosen the wrong word. “A bit too earnest, too fawning, too false, exactly what I expected in and of Hollywood.”

“You own a gun?”

“Yes, several; they are all in Oxford, Mississippi, in my study at Rowan Oak. They are locked securely away; I have an eight-year-old daughter. I brought none with me. I did not expect to be attacked, nor to commit murder or robbery.”

That did it. I put down the envelope I was writing on and looked up at him. I noticed that my legs had made their way up to the desk when I wasn’t looking. The hell with it.

“Look, Mr. Faulkner, I’ve got a job to do and you want to stay alive and out of jail and the newspapers-at least I think you do. We’re in the same boat. I need the money for this case. I’m reasonably good at what I do, but I’m also somewhat human. If you tickle me and don’t hit scar tissue, I laugh. If you torture me and hit an old wound, I cry.”

“I recognize the allusion,” Faulkner said, “and appreciate the point. I will try to be more civil, but the circumstances do affect my behavior. It is not just my life, but the world that is bitched proper this time, isn’t it? I’d like to be dictator now. I’d take all Congressmen who refused to make military appropriations and I’d send them to the Philippines. On this day a year from now I don’t think there’ll be one present second lieutenant alive. And here we are playing games with a meaningless murder, and I sit a helpless… forgive me, Mr. Peters, but perhaps you can better understand my emotions.”

“Apology accepted,” I said. I didn’t exactly like him now, but at least he seemed like a human being instead of a Southern imitation of George Sanders. “The shooting took place at nine or so last night. Where were you?”

“As I told the officer who brought me in here,” he said, drawing on his pipe to regain his calm exterior, “I was working with a writer named Jerry Vernoff. We were in my hotel room. My agent, Bill Herndon, and I had agreed to try to work up a story treatment for Warners as a preliminary step to possible employment. Mr. Vernoff has worked extensively on story treatments for various studios and has a reputation for working quickly and commercially. I believe someone at Warners suggested the possible collaboration. We ate dinner at the hotel.”

“Which makes it unlikely that you would have had a dinner appointment with Shatzkin,” I concluded. He nodded in agreement. I didn’t have a pinhead of an idea what was going on, but I had some names to work with. I put the notebook and envelope in my pocket and was about to order my feet off the desk when the door came open. If I had been listening to the waves of voices and sounds in the outer squad room instead of getting absorbed in my job, I might have heard Phil’s Frankenstein tread, but such was not to be.

Phil looked at Faulkner and then at me, and he turned as red as the ketchup stain on his shirt. Behind him, Cawelti stood in anticipation of something he could see expanding in my brother like a berserk balloon, something that had to come out or explode. My right foot had fallen asleep or I would have forced it down, but I couldn’t move it. Phil took the one step from the door to the desk, his double-ham of a hand descending in slow motion. I watched in fascination as it hit my right knee, spinning me out of the chair and against the wall. I sank to the floor with Phil taking another step toward me, and then Faulkner’s voice broke over his shoulder.

“Pardon me, Lieutenant,” he said, “but you seem to have the scenario wrong. I was under the impression that the police beat up the suspects, not their lawyers’ representatives.”

Phil paused and looked back at Faulkner, who met his eyes and held them. That lasted long enough for me to scramble to my feet, but my knee was sore and almost gave way. Cawelti stood in the door with a touch of smirk on his face. Phil caught the look out of the corner of his eye and realized he was surrounded by adversaries. Normally, he would have bulled his way through all three of us, breaking Faulkner first like a twig, stomping on Cawelti, and saving me for something special, but time had mellowed Phil and he settled for, “Get your asses out of here, fast, all of you.”

I hobbled to the door as Phil bumped past me, sat down in his now-contaminated chair, and stuck his head into the Faulkner file. Faulkner followed me slowly, and Cawelti closed the door behind us.