Isaac Asimov: The Early Asimov. Volume 3

'My Reginald de Meister.'

'What do you mean, your Reginald de Meister?'

'My character, Reginald de Meister.'

June got up, indulged in some deep-breathing and then said in a very calm voice, 'Let's start all over.'

She disappeared for a moment and returned with an aspirin. 'Your Reginald de Meister, from your books, told you, in person, he was in love with Letitia Reynolds?'

'That's right.'

June swallowed the aspirin.

'Well, I'll explain, June, the way he explained it to me. All characters really exist - at least, in the minds of the authors. But when people really begin to believe in them, they begin to exist in reality, because what people believe in, is, so far as they're concerned, and what is existence anyway?'

June's lips trembled. 'Oh, Gramie, please don't. Mother will never let me marry you if they put you in an asylum.'

'Don't call me Gramie, June, for God's sake. I tell you he was there, trying to tell me what to write and how to write it. He was almost as bad as you. Aw, come on, Baby, don't cry.'

'I can't help it. I always thought you were crazy, but I never thought you were crazy!'

'All right, what's the difference? Let's not talk about it any more. I'm never going to write another mystery novel. After all' - (he indulged in a bit of indignation) - 'when it gets so that my own character - my own character - tries to tell me what to do, it's going too far.'

June looked over her handkerchief. 'How do you know it was really de Meister?'

'Oh, golly. As soon as he tapped his Turkish cigarette on the back of his hand and started dropping g's like snowflakes in a blizzard, I knew the worst had come.'

The telephone rang. June leaped up. 'Don't answer, Graham. It's probably from the asylum. I'll tell them you're not here. Hello. Hello. Oh, Mr. MacDunlap.' She heaved a sigh of relief, then covered the mouthpiece and whispered hoarsely, 'It might be a trap.'

'Hello, Mr. MacDunlap!… No, he's not here…Yes, I

think I can get in touch with him…At Martin's tomorrow,

noon… I'll tell him… With who?… With who???' She hung up suddenly.

'Graham, you're to lunch with MacDunlap tomorrow,'

'At his expense! Only at his expense! '

Her great blue eyes got greater and bluer, 'And Reginald de Meister is to dine with you."

'What Reginald de Meister?'

'Your Reginald de Meister.'

'My Reg-'

'Oh, Gramie, don't.' Her eyes misted, 'Don't you see, Gramie, now they'll put us both in an insane asylum - and Mr. MacDunlap, too. And they'll probably put us all in the same padded cell. Oh, Gramie, three is such a dreadful crowd.'

And her face crumpled into tears.

Grew S. MacDunlap (that the S. stands for 'Some' is a vile untruth spread by his enemies) was alone at the table when Graham Dorn entered. Out of this fact, Graham extracted a few fleeting drops of pleasure.

It was not so much, you understand, the presence of MacDunlap that did it, as the absence of de Meister.

MacDunlap looked at him over his spectacles and swallowed a liver pill, his favorite sweetmeat.

'Aha. You're here. What is this corny joke you're putting over on me? You had no right to mix me up with a person like de Meister without warning me he was real. I might have taken precautions. I could have hired a bodyguard. I could have bought a revolver.'

'He's not real. God damn it! Half of him was your idea.'

That,' returned MacDunlap with heat, 'is libel. And what do you mean, he's not real? When he introduced himself, I took three liver pills at once and he didn't disappear. Do you know what three pills are? Three pills, the kind I've got (the doctor should only drop dead), could make an elephant disappear - if he weren't real. I know.'

Graham said wearily, 'Just the same, he exists only in my mind.'

'In your mind, I know he exists. Your mind should be investigated by the Pure Food and Drugs Act.'

The several polite rejoinders that occurred simultaneously to Graham were dismissed almost immediately as containing too great a proportion of pithy Anglo-Saxon expletives. After all -ha, ha - a publisher is a publisher however Anglo-Saxony he may be.

Graham said, 'The question arises, then, how we're to get rid of de Meister.'

'Get rid of de Meister?' MacDunlap jerked the glasses off his nose in his sudden start, and caught them in one hand. His voice thickened with emotion. 'Who wants to get rid of him?'

'Do you want him around?'

'God forbid,' MacDunlap said between shudders. 'Next to him, my brother-in-law is an angel.'

'He has no business outside my books.'

'For my part, he has no business inside them. Since I started reading your manuscripts, my doctor added kidney pills and cough syrups to my medicines.' He looked at his watch, and took a kidney pill. 'My worst enemy should be a book publisher only a year.'

'Then why,' asked Graham patiently, 'don't you want to get rid of de Meister?'

'Because he is publicity.'

Graham stared blankly.

'Look! What other writer has a real detective? All the others are fictional. Everyone knows that. But yours - yours is real. We can let him solve cases and have big newspaper write-ups. He'll make the Police Department look silly. He'll make -'

'That,' interrupted Graham, categorically, 'is by all odds the most obscene proposal I have ever had my ears manured with.'

'It will make money.'

'Money isn't everything.'

'Name one thing it isn't…Shh!' He kicked a near-fracture

into Graham's left ankle and rose to his feet with a convulsive smile, 'Mr. de Meister!'

'Sorry, old dear,' came a lethargic voice. 'Cou'dn't quite make it, you know. Loads of engagements. Must have been most borin' for you.'

Graham Dom's ears quivered spasmodically. He looked over his shoulder and reeled backward as far as a person could reel while in a sitting position. Reginald de Meister had sprouted a monocle since his last visitation, and his monocular glance was calculated to freeze blood.

De Meister's greeting was casual. 'My dear Watson! So glad to meet you. Overjoyed deucedly.'

'Why don't you go to hell?' Graham asked curiously.

'My dear fellow. Oh, my dear fellow.'

MacDunlap crackled, 'That's what I like. Jokes! Fun! Makes everything pleasant to start with. Now shall we get down to business?'

'Certainly. The dinner is on the way, I trust? Then I'll just order a bottle of wine. The usual, Henry.' The waiter ceased hovering, flew away, and skimmed back with a bottle that opened and gurgled into a glass.

De Meister sipped delicately, 'So nice of you, old chap, to make me a habitue of this place in your stories. It holds true even now, and it is most convenient. The waiters all know me. Mr. MacDunlap, I take it you have convinced Mr. Dorn of the necessity of continuing the de Meister stories."

'Yes,' said MacDunlap.

'No,' said Graham.

'Don't mind him,' said MacDunlap. 'He's temperamental. You know these authors.'

'Don't mind him,' said Graham. 'He's microcephalic. You know these publishers.'

'Look, old chappie. I take it MacDunlap hasn't pointed out to you the unpleasanter side of acting stubborn.'

'For instance what, old stinkie?' asked Graham, courteously.

'Well, have you ever been haunted?'

'Like coming behind me and saying, Boo!"

'My dear fellow, I say. I'm much more subtle than that. I can really haunt one in modern, up-to-date methods. For instance, have you ever had your individuality submerged?'

He snickered.

There was something familiar about that snicker. Graham suddenly remembered. It was on page 103 of Murder Rides the Range:

His lazy eyelids flicked down and up. He laughed lightly and melodiously, and though he said not a word, Hank Marslowe cowered. There was hidden menace and hidden power in that light laugh, and somehow the burly rancher did not dare reach for his guns.