Эд Макбейн - Strangers When We Meet

“But he’s a factory worker?”

“Yes.”

“Sure,” Felix answered. “She’ll get lipstick on you because she’ll be getting tired of hiding. Isn’t her love as real as Eve’s? Why should she have to hide it? She’s a woman, Larry, a woman! And they’re all the same. I try to carry a clean shirt in the trunk of my car. Sometimes it comes in handy. Has she marked you yet?”

“What?”

“Marked you? Bitten you? Sent you home bruised for your wife to see?”

“No.”

“She will. It’s another way of claiming you. If you want to keep her, Larry, you’ve got to be careful for both of you. For your own protection.”

“She isn’t like that,” Larry said.

“She will be. Look, you’ve got this beautiful blonde who lives right here in this development, right?”

“Well...”

“She’s married, and she’s got a young son. That’s what you said, wasn’t it?”

Larry shrugged.

“Her husband’s a factory worker! And you’re an architect, probably the best thing that ever happened to her. She wants you. She’s going to do everything in her power to get you. Watch out.”

“You’ve got it all wrong.”

“Have I? Women are women. And I know women.”

“Well, I think you’ve got this woman wrong.”

“Have I? I know this woman pretty well.”

“Sure, sure,” Larry said, smiling.

“I can even tell you her name,” Felix said.

The smile dropped from Larry’s face. He sat speechless; but Felix wasn’t waiting for an answer.

“Margaret Gault,” Felix said, grinning.

March came in like a daisy.

White with mild snow flurries that touched the pavement, lingered gently kissing, and then were gone. Yellow with unexpected, unseasonably bright sunshine that seemed anomalous without forsythias in bloom. Green with anxious bulbs pushing their way through frozen soil. In the city, people shed their overcoats and walked with a jaunty perkiness in their step. It had been a short winter and a mild one, and soon it would be spring.

When the telephone rang, Roger Altar was in the shower. He mumbled something about it never failing, wrapped a towel around his waist, and then went dripping into the room which served as his office. Viciously he snapped the receiver from its cradle, and viciously he said, “Hello?”

“Rog?”

“Who’s this?”

“Bert.”

“What the hell do you want, Bert?”

“Nice greeting.”

Bert Dannerdorf was Altar’s agent, a small man with bright brown eyes and a stable of successful writers. Altar was number-two horse in the stable, number-one horse being a mystery writer who outsold even Hemingway.

Dannerdorf was a good agent in that he spoke, ate, drank and slept with editors and publishers. He talked of his clients while he was eating and drinking and perhaps even when he was sleeping. There was a time when Bert had been a sideshow barker at the World’s Fair. He was no longer selling Tanya the Snake Girl but he was still giving his spiel. Broken down, his spiel said, “My writers are the best in the world,” and Bert never let you forget it.

He particularly reminded you of it when you were ready to purchase’ a property. When that moment came, Dannerdorf became the meanest, shrewdest, toughest son of a bitch in the United States. Even if his client were a run-down Western writer who lived in a Wyoming shack, when it came time to close that deal Bert acted as if the man were — at that very moment, in the dust-swept Wyoming shack — preparing his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize.

Roger Altar didn’t particularly care for business. Bert Dannerdorf thrived on it. Like Jack Spratt and his wife, they made a formidable pair.

“What the hell do you want, Bert?” Altar said. “I was in the shower.”

“Dry off, and I’ll call you back later.”

“Call me back, my ass. The floor’s soaking wet already.”

“It’s nothing important anyway,” Bert said.

“What is it?”

“That assignment of copyright.”

“What assignment of copyright?”

“You know. On ‘The Mouse Trap.’ That short-short you had in Esquire? ”

“Well, what about it?” Altar asked impatiently, watching the spreading puddle at his feet.

“Nothing. We just got the assignment of copyright. In case we ever want to use it in a collection or something.”

“Great!” Altar said. “Call me sometime when I’m in bed with a girl and tell me I misplaced a comma. Do that, Bert.”

“Well, I’ll be talking to you,” Bert said, chuckling. He seemed ready to hang up. “Oh, yes, there was one other thing,” he said.

“What?” Altar asked wearily.

In a rush, unable to hold it back any longer, Bert said, “We just sold serial rights to The Fall of a Stone for fifty thousand dollars!”

“What!” Altar said.

“To Good House . A five-part serial. How does that sound? You glad I got you out of the shower?”

“Yeah, I’ll say.”

“Okay. Who’s the best literary agent in America?”

“William Morris,” Altar answered.

“Screw you,” Bert said. “They offered forty, and I jacked them up to fifty. That’s agenting.”

“Agenting is getting an assignment of copyright on ‘The Mouse Trap,’” Altar said. “That’s real agenting.”

“No gratitude,” Bert said jokingly. “Picked him up out of the gutter. Aw, no gratitude.”

“I love you,” Altar said. “Send the check.”

“It’s good news, isn’t it, Rog? Seriously.”

“It’s great news. Good work, Bert.”

“Any trouble on this check tax-wise? They’re paying it in two installments, but both’ll be this year.”

“So what can we do?”

“I can deposit part of it for you.”

“That’s illegal,” Altar said.

“You’re so legal?”

“I’m legal. I don’t want to be writing from Cell 21.”

“Okay. Go write another book. I want a new Cadillac.”

“How long a book?”

“Three hundred, four hundred pages.”

“When do you want it?”

“Tonight too early?” Bert asked.

“No, fine,” Altar said, “but first I want to finish my shower.”

Bert chuckled, and Altar chuckled, both men captured in the glowing camaraderie of just having made fifty thousand simoleons. At last they said goodbye, and Altar hung up.

He stood looking at the cradled receiver for a few moments, and then he stood looking at the puddle of water on the floor. In an exciting instant of sudden awareness, he thought, It’s started!

And then he went into the bathroom to finish his shower.

With the weather changing around them, they felt the need for more time together, more time to share. They had known autumn, and then winter, and now spring was rushing up to greet them, and they wanted to hold it close.

He told Eve that Altar wanted a sudden change in the plans, a change which might prove difficult now that the foundation had been poured. Allegedly, he was to meet Altar in the city for dinner and then thrash out the problem until it was solved — even if it took all night. Maggie told Don she was going to a dinner-baby shower in Brooklyn, and that she would not be home until very late. He’d offered to drive her, but she saw no need to pay for a baby sitter, especially when all the girls were meeting at the house of a girl in the next development who would drive them all to Brooklyn.

They met at five-thirty.

It was one of those days. It was just one of those days. The air was mild and balmy, and you wanted to say hello to strangers. You wanted to find a place where you could pick wild flowers. You wanted to kiss the air. It was just one of those days.