Ed Lacy - Breathe No More My Lady

Here's a bit we can use for publicity. I had to have permission to send this out of jail. I merely told 'them' it was a piece of fiction I was finishing up. They let it go after a fast reading of the first page! Of course, could be my handwriting discouraged them. (This entire chapter is worth a ton of shirts in any Chinese laundry! Told you I still have my corny humor.)

Maggie, if you should open this before the trial is over, please don't read the last chapter. You'll appreciate it more when things are finished here. Do what I ask, even as you shake your pretty head and mumble, “What is that idiot Matt Anthony up to now?” Be sorry for me, Maggie, jail has a cold loneliness to it, a reflection of man's insanity to man that...

My arm is numb with fatigue. Ah, if only I was allowed a typewriter in here. And the condemned man wrote a hearty last chapter. Well, my love, let us both hope this turns out to be the big one I've been fishing for all these years, the kind of bombshell seller I know it will be... if you get behind it.

Love and sleep comfortable,

Matt

The Last Chapter

July 25th was one of those hot summer days and May Fitzgerald was sweating as she dusted the living room. She heard Matt drive up and soon he stood in the doorway with another man, a stranger. He asked May where Francine was.

When May told him, “Mrs. Anthony is out back feeding cantaloupe to the poodle,” Matt noticed a faint smile on Henry Brown's thin face. Matt was annoyed.

Little smiles were very important to Matt Anthony. Usually he was the one who smiled, in fact he often set the stage for them. These faint (and meaningless) smiles were his 'secrets' and gave him the same false sense of superiority joining a 'secret' lodge gives other people. Matt needed to feel superior and his tiny smiles were his mystic rings and pins.

He would smile at the awe on a person's face when they found out Matt was a writer, was the Matt Anthony. Matt would grin slightly, eating up their astonishment when he told them he was also Daisy Action, and the rest of his many pen names. Or when he was called “Mad" Matt Anthony. Then Matt might not only show off his muscles, but often wrap a towel around his right fist and split a thin board with one punch. (He kept a supply of such boards on hand.) He would also make his favorite crack, “Only difference between Papa and myself—he's a far more successful hack.” And of course smile at the other person's reaction to Matt daring to call Hemingway a hack.

There was a special smile when Matt met a guest at the station and as they stepped into his Jaguar, Matt would say, “Off to the cottage,” and his big grin when they saw the large house carefully screened from the bay by a row of immense pines. Again the little smile when he casually said, “Oh, I own all the land around this end of the bay. Might call it my private bay.”

Now he turned to Brown and with a grin (of self-pity) said, “Guess that sums up my life, Hank; feeding the poodle cantaloupe. Still, it is a long way from being an English Lit instructor—only most times I can't figure in which direction it's a long way.”

“A comfortable way, at least,” Brown said, sitting in a pigskin camp chair, rubbing his broken nose. Matt was terribly envious of that busted nose.

“A 'comfortable' weight around my neck,” Matt said. “I need a minimum of twelve grand a year for living expenses. Means three books a year, unless I'm fortunate enough to have a movie or TV sale. And with my lousy luck, those have been few and far between.”

“Lord, three books a year? How many have you published, Matt?”

“Oh, I've lost count. Around 40. And a few dozen novelettes, and perhaps 500 stories. Although I haven't done much short fiction in recent years.

“How do you do it?”

Matt smiled. “The secret is to do 10 pages a day. Trouble with most writers is they're lazy. Stall themselves with crap about having to be in the mood, all that. No matter how much hell I raise, how crocked I get, I do my 10 pages a day, seven days a week. Rain or shine. Okay, Hank, don't look so damn horrified. It really isn't much. I dictate it in about two hours, then mail the tape to my secretary in New York. Hell, I once dictated a complete novel in three days. Listen, I'm a slow writer compared to a fellow like Simenon. I can't complain, where else could I make this sort of money for a 14 hour week? You know, Hank, I often think back to the old days when we'd argue for hours over a line, the right word, or—”

Francine Anthony came into the living room followed by a black poodle licking his chops, and the Hunters. The Hunters wore bathing suits. Wilma Hunter had a strong figure w ith sturdy hips and a great bosom. She had an average face, but intense eyes, and her very red hair was rough and kinky. Joel Hunter was slim and stooped. His face was flushed and in sharp contrast to his white-gray hair which was cropped very short—like a worn brush. He was smoking a corncob pipe and wearing thick black-shell glasses. He dropped into a chair with a decidedly feminine movement, stretching his thin legs. He said, “I've never seen a dog like that before, eating fruit like a pig.”

The poodle looked up, ran over and mounted one of Joel's legs. Joel yelled, “Matt, will you get this sexy mutt off me!”

Matt looked at Hank Brown and smiled.

Francine Anthony said sharply to the dog, “Come here, Clichy.” She walked over and kicked the poodle's backside, and he whined, then sat down and went back to licking his whiskers. Everything about Francine was small and compact. Her features were sharp and her shorts and striped blouse showed off a slightly scrawny figure. She could have been 40 years old, or 50. Her face was weather-beaten and her hair stringy and wild. She asked, “Anything in the mail, Matt?” as she ran her eyes over Brown's worn tropical suit.

“No checks; honey, this is Hank Brown. Prof. Hank Brown. We used to teach together at Brooks. Hell of a thing, haven't seen him for years, and I run into Hank in Hampton, of all places. Hank, these two slightly drunk inkers are Wilma and Joel Hunter. Perhaps you've read some of Joel's children's books, Hank. They sell faster than contraceptives.”

Joel waved as he said, “Oh, Matt, you always do that to me. ”

“I wish they did sell that fast,” Wilma Hunter said, nodding at Brown.

Francine said, “Glad to meet you, Professor. What were you doing in Hampton, Matt?”

“Out for a ride and there was old Hank waiting at the station. Must be at least 16 or 17 years since we last saw each other. Hasn't it, champ?”

“About that. I'm really an ex-professor, Mrs. Anthony,” Brown said as the poodle came over and sniffed him. Brown rubbed the dog's wooly head. The professor had big hands for a little man.

Francine lit a cigarette, blew thin clouds of smoke through her nose as she said, “Seems to me I've read something about you, Prof. Brown. A book out recently?”

Hank Brown glanced at Matt, who smiled. “I only published one book. That was quite some time ago.”

“A textbook, and a damn good one,” Matt added. “Joel, that's the racket we should be in, writing textbooks. The dough pours in, year after year.”

“But somehow your name rings a bell,” Francine said. “You can have the bedroom in the...”

“Thank you but I have to be back in New York tonight.”

There was a moment of silence which Matt enjoyed, then Francine asked him, “How many drinks did you have in Hampton?”

“I didn't even sniff a cork, my darling. I stopped to look at some new reels, glanced at the magazines,” Matt said, fingering the car keys in the pocket of his plaid shorts, certain the 'stuff' was safe in the trunk of the roadster. Brown said, “It's nearly one. I want to catch the 2:05 train.”