Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

Walt grinned and said nothing until Ben came back with the drinks.

“Well, Scotch on the rocks it isn’t,” he said then, taking a brief sip, “but it’s not bad.”

He gave a brief indifferent glance at the shifty little man with Burnside whiskers who had come back with Ben, carrying the glasses.

“To science and invention!” cried Walt. “To progress!” He drained half his glass. His face turned green, then white. He started to slide sidewise and was caught by the little man in Burnsides.

“Easy does it, cully,” said Mr. Rat Nolan, for it was he. “Dear, dear! I hope it’s not a touch of this cholera morbus what’s been so prevalent. Expect we’d better get him to a doctor, don’t you, gents?”

Major Hennaberry said that there was not a doubt about it. He walked painfully over to the elevator shaft, whistled shrilly. “Charley?” he called. “Larry? Oscar? Otto? Hennery? Get down here directly!”

Dusty emerged from his surprise at how neatly it had happened. He reached into Walter’s coat pocket and took out the paper with Elwell’s Equation on it. Now he was safe, and so was Canal Street, 1880. As for what would happen when Walter recovered from his strange attack — well, they would see.

The staff came out of the elevator cage with interest written large and plain upon their faces. Ben had evidently found time from his errand to drop a few words. Major Hennaberry gestured toward Walter, reclining, gray-faced, against the solicitous Mr. Rat Nolan, who held him in a firm grip.

“Gent is took bad,” the Major explained. “Couple of you go out and see if you can find a cab — Snow Ferguson or Blinky Poole or one of those shunsoaps — and tell them to drive up by the alley. No sense in lugging this poor gent out the front.”

Franz, Larry and Charley nodded and went out.

Otto stared. “No more vooden Indians, if he gets his vay,” he said dismally at last. “Ho, Chesus,” he moaned.

Dusty began, “Major, this is all so—”

“Now don’t be worriting about your brother-in-law,” said Rat Nolan soothingly. “For Dr. Coyle is a sovereign hand at curing what ails all pasty-faced, consumptive types like this one.”

Dusty said that he was sure of it. “Where is Dr. Coyle’s office these days?” he asked.

Mr. Rat Nolan coughed lightly, gazed at a cobweb in a corner of the ceiling. “The southwest passage to Amoy by way of the Straits is what the Doc is recommending for his patients — and he insists on accompanying them to see they follows doctor’s orders, such being the degree of his merciful and tenderloving care …”

Dusty nodded approvingly.

“Ah, he’s a rare one,” said R. Nolan with enthusiasm, “is Bully Coyle, master of the Beriah Jaspers of the Black Star Line! A rare one and a rum one, and the Shanghaiing would be a half-dead trade without ’m, for it does use up men. And they leave on the morning tide.”

There was a noise of clomp-clomp and metal harness-pieces jingled in the alley. Charley, Larry and Hennery came in, followed by a furtive-looking cabman with a great red hooked nose — Snow Ferguson, presumably, or Blinky Poole, or one of those shunsoaps.

“Ah, commerce, commerce,” Rat Nolan sighed. “It waits upon no man’s pleasure.” He went through unconscious Walter’s pockets with dispatch and divided the money into equal piles. From his own, he took a half-eagle which had been slightly scalloped and handed it to Dusty. “Share and share alike, and here’s the regular fee. That’s the spirit what made America great. Leave all them foreign monarchs beware… Give us a lift with the gent here, cullies …”

Charley took the head, Hennery and Otto the arms, while Larry and Ben held the feet. Holding the door open, the cabman observed, “Damfino-looking shoes this coffee-cooler’s got on.”

“Them’s mine,” said Rat Nolan instantly. “He’ll climb the rigging better without ’em. Mind the door, cullies — don’t damage the merchandise!”

Down the dim aisles the procession went, past the fly-figures, scout-figures, rosebuds, pompeys, Highlandmen, and Turks. The gas-jets flared, the shadows danced, the sachems scowled.

“If he comes to and shows fight,” Major Hennaberry called, “give him a tap with the mallet, one of you!” He turned to Dusty, put a hand on his shoulder. “While I realize, my boy, that no man can be called to account for the actions of his brother-in-law in this Great Republic of ours, still I expect this will prove a lesson to you. From your silence, I preceive that you agree. Your sister now — hate to see a lady’s tears—”

Dusty took a deep breath. The air smelled deliciously of fresh wood and paint. “She’ll adjust,” he said. Mary would be quite well off with the money from his investments. So there was no need, none at all, for his return. And if the WIS tried to follow him, to make more trouble, why — there was always Rat Nolan.

“Major Hennaberry, sir,” he said vigorously, “we’ll beat Demuth’s yet. You remember what you said when the catalog came out, about the power of advertising? We’ll run their metal monsters into the ground and put a wooden fly-figure on every street block in America!”

And they did.

Avram Davidson was a giant of a man. He must have stood at least five feet five inches in his stocking feet, and all of it solid muscle. He never backed down from a challenge (except to change his typewriter ribbon, and surely it was a bold man’s indifference to peril that led him to carry his typewriter to a friend who would change the ribbon cartridge for him). Avram was, to put it simply, a hero.

Those who say he was testy and irascible, who call him curmudgeon, who point to his impatience with editors as an example of his smallness and ordinariness, have perhaps never opposed the hideous fiends he did and never felt their sulphurous breath at that vulnerable junction where the fingertips meet the keyboard.

Avram doggedly defied a monstrous wickedness so powerful and depraved it would have sent a lesser man gibbering for the safety of a day job. “Author, Author” may have been written at a low point in this intrepid struggle: one can tell from the ambiguous ending that he very nearly despaired of conquering the loathsome creatures that, unobstructed, might transform even university libraries to best-seller racks. His tenacity sets an example for butlers and baronets everywhere.

RODNEY STIRRUP HAD ALWAYS taken care (taken damned good care! he often emphasized) not to get married; several former morganatic lady friends, however, frequently testified that the famous writer was Not A Very Nice Person. Perhaps even they might have felt sorry for him if they could have been with him that day at Boatwright Brothers, the publishers. And thereafter.

But then again, perhaps they might not.

Rodney stared at J. B. across the vast, glossy desk.

“With one hand you cut my throat,” he protested; “And with the other hand you stab me in the back!”

A slightly pained look passed across Jeremy Boatwright’s pink and widespread face, hesitated, and decided to stay. “Come now, Rodney…these professional phrases… Really, there are no other choices left to us, owing, ah, to Conditions In The Trade.”

Stirrup confounded conditions in the trade. “You reduce my royalties — I call that cutting my throat. And you demand a larger share in the secondary rights: reprints, paperbacks, television — I call that stabbing me in the back. If this continues I won’t be able to keep my car. It is bad enough,” he said, bitterly, “that I am confined to London in the winter. I always went to the South of France, the West Indies — or, at least , to Torquay. Next winter I shall not only shiver and cough in the damp, but I won’t even be able to drive away for a week end. I’ll have to go by train or bus — if you are good enough to leave me my fare… You aren’t giving up your car, are you?” he asked.