Эд Макбейн - Strangers When We Meet

Altar blinked at the girl. “Are you still here?” he asked. “I thought you’d left.”

“I want to see how long your spurt lasts.”

“Bad way to write,” Altar said to Larry. “By inspiration, I mean. A pro sits down and bangs it out whether he’s inspired or not. Only way to make this crazy racket pay off.” He wiped a hand across his mouth. “This is the first time this has ever happened to me. I’m winding up the first draft of the new book. All of a sudden I had to get up in the middle of the night and get to the typewriter. How do you like that? Has that ever happened to you?”

“No.”

“It’s the goddamnedst feeling. I must have batted out sixty pages since last night, and I’m still going strong. It’s going to be a great book, great! Have you had breakfast yet?”

“ And lunch,” Larry said.

“Yeah? What time is it, anyway?”

“It’s past three.”

“No kidding? How do you like that?” Altar rubbed his hand across his chin lazily. He looked very contented and very weary and almost out of touch. “I need a shave,” he said. “I’m also hungry.” He seemed to discover that he was wearing a pajama top with his trousers, and he began unbuttoning it. “Turn your back, honey,” he said to Marcia and then began chuckling. “A great book, Larry, best I’ve ever done. I can feel it right down in my bones, where it counts. Oh, Jesus, it’s going to be magnificent!”

“You look excited,” Larry said.

“I am excited. The words are running off me like sweat in August. I can’t believe I’m writing them, they’re so terrific. I’m not that good.”

“See?” Marcia said. “He admits it.”

Altar looked at her steadily, wearily, his eyes taking in the black costume. “Who’s she playing?” he asked Larry. “The Flowers-for-the-Dead Vendor in Streetcar? ”

“He thinks he’s literate,” Marcia said. “He’s the most ignorant genius I ever met.”

“Oh, baby, go fly a kite,” Altar said gently, as if he didn’t have the energy to argue.

“He was lucky with two books, so he thinks he’s an important American writer.”

“I am an important American writer,” Altar said, as if the question didn’t even need discussion.

“The critics blasted both your books,” Marcia said. “I know. I read the reviews.”

“Critics,” Altar said, shrugging.

“They said you wrote commercial tripe.”

Altar shrugged and said nothing.

“They said you wrote for the Hollywood machine.”

Again Altar shrugged, but he no longer seemed to be shrugging from weariness. He seemed instead to be withering before the onslaught of Marcia’s quotations. Altar did not deny the accuracy of the quotations, and Larry instantly realized the girl was not inventing the reviews. But he had not expected Altar to shrink before them. He kept waiting for Altar to strike back at the girl, but he was seemingly quite defenseless in the face of her verbal barrage. He had taken off the pajama top, and he stood now like a shaggy giant dancing bear being whipped by an irate owner.

“One review said, ‘Roger Altar has set the wheels of his fiction factory turning to produce a new vehicle for Tab Hunter.’ Do you remember that one? I got a kick out of that one.”

“Well, critics,” Altar said, retreating still further.

Larry watched him. All of the man’s enthusiasm seemed to have vanished. He had come out of his office feeling confident and sure and excited and weary with honest sweat. The girl had punctured all that, and he stood deflated and unsure now, and he seemed to have completely forgotten that Larry was in the room.

“The one I love the best,” the girl said, as if she were telling a favorite joke, “is the one that started ‘ The Debacle is aptly titled.’ That was priceless! A classic!”

“Critics don’t know,” Altar said quietly. “What do they know?” He shrugged aimlessly.

“They said you wrote with facile ease, but they don’t think you have anything to say. Not a thing to say.”

“I have things to say,” Altar said.

“They don’t think so.”

Altar kept staring at the girl. “I have things to say,” he said more firmly.

“Then why don’t you say them?” Marcia goaded. “Why do you write commercial tripe?”

“I don’t write commercial tripe,” Altar said, and he seemed at last to be getting angry. “The critics don’t know. If you believe them, you go nuts. I don’t listen to the critics.”

Fight her back, Larry thought. Come on. Altar, fight her.

“The critics know what they’re talking about,” Marcia said, grinning. “They’re trained to—”

“They don’t know anything!” Altar said angrily.

“You’re dying because the critics pan your books,” Marcia said. “It kills you. It’s destroying you!”

Altar pulled back his shoulders and thrust out his unshaven jaw. Give it to her, Larry thought. Tell her!

“I cried all the way to the bank!” Altar shouted.

Larry blinked at him, disappointed. And then he realized that Altar had picked up the only weapon available to him. Success was lying at his feet, and he had picked up Success and wielded it like a club. And having used it, he seemed embarrassed by the ineffectiveness of his ultimate weapon. He would not meet Larry’s eyes. He turned his back to Marcia and, with a great show of bravado, stamped barefooted to the refrigerator. He pulled out a package of sliced American cheese, tore off the cellophane wrapping, folded six slices of cheese in half, and stuffed them into his mouth.

“Critics,” he said. “I eat them like the pieces of cheese they are!”

The room was silent. Altar chewed his food. The girl went to the bar and poured herself another bourbon.

“I brought you some rough sketches,” Larry said.

“Oh, yeah.”

“We had an appointment for three, remember?”

“I’m sorry. I forgot.” Altar opened a bottle of milk, tilted it to his mouth, and began drinking. He wiped away the milk mustache with the back of his hand and then said, “I can’t talk sketches today. I’m too busy.”

“Okay,” Larry said. “Look them over and we’ll discuss them when I get back.”

“Back from where?” Altar asked, interested.

“My wife and I are going to Puerto Rico.”

“What the hell for? That’s the asshole of the Antilles.”

“Business,” Larry said. “I’m on my way now to pick up the plane tickets.”

“Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Altar turned to the girl. “Listen, Critic,” he said, “instead of guzzling my booze, why don’t you clean up the place a little? It looks like a pigsty.” He turned back to Larry. “She’s trying to make me live like her goddamn stereotype of a writer. She knows too many Greenwich Village phonies.”

“I’ll get around to cleaning it,” she said.

“Oh, forget it,” Altar said. “Pack a bag and go live with a reviewer, why don’t you?”

“I like it here.”

“You’re the most unimaginative, insulting bitch I’ve ever met in my life,” Altar said.

“I inspired your creative spurt,” Marcia said.

“Sure. There isn’t a woman alive who doesn’t believe her body is a deep soulful well from which a terribly stupid man grabs a handful of divine inspiration. Well, baby, I hate to disillusion you, but—”

“Don’t,” Marcia said.

“I’m going,” Larry interrupted. “I’ll call you when I get back.”

“Okay,” Altar said. He led Larry to the front door, and then added, “Give my regards.”

“To whom?” Larry asked.

And Altar, remembering the joke, suddenly kicked Larry in the seat of his pants and shouted. “Why, the governor!”