Final Edit (11 page)

If The Players is my second home, my pit stop, so to speak, then the Century is where I hold court. I am a member as my father
was a member, and probably for that reason; it was his favorite haunt. It is everything, I suppose, that people who don’t
care for private clubs, the populists, would despise. An imposing Stanford White building hardly two blocks from Grand Central
Station. A great many overstuffed leather chairs, in which occasionally a member may be found sleeping. A security system
at the door as good as any, probably, in the halls of government. Uniformed servitors, most of them African-American, who
seem to have been there since the Crash of 1929. It does not have bedrooms, like the Yale and Harvard clubs, though there
is a basement with a few billiard and pool tables—hardly any of them ever used these days—and a splendid library. The service
is prompt, efficient, and unobtrusive. I am not aware of any scandal connected with the club, and publicity is shunned like
a carrier of the HIV, although one brouhaha over the club’s sale of a $2-million painting in order to pay for much-needed
renovations did make the local papers, and the original refusal to admit one of my publishing colleagues—a woman—as a member
broke into print as well, along with a few very proper names.

We climbed the marble stairs to the spacious second floor, and soon were seated around a low coffee table in a large foyer
adjoining the Member’s Bar and facing the spacious
East Room, me with the usual vodka martini, Kay with a margarita, and Poole contenting himself with a club soda and lime.
I can be comfortable lunching with an abstainer, but I do prefer to feel that my guests, like me, are enjoying the quiet satisfaction
brought by that first drink of the day.

I was eager to get down to business, but mindful of the courtesies I owed my two guests, I made small talk for a while. Anyway,
the Century, like The Players, frowns on business discussions, which of course go on there all the time. As a consequence,
the club has had to admit women members, after a century of gentlemanly discrimination, though it had to be practically dragooned
into doing so. The sole ladies’ before “liberation” was on the ground floor somewhere near the coatroom. Several others have
since been constructed.

“Kay,” I said, “I have an author who’s looking for an agent, and I’ve already recommended you.” I told her then about Joe
Scanlon.

“Well,” she said, “I do have a fairly full stable of writers just now…”

“Couldn’t you squeeze in one more?”

“But, I was going to say, your man sounds interesting.”

“He is that, all right—and a good writer.”

“I’ll meet with him anyhow, and we’ll see what happens.”

While we were talking, I took the opportunity of looking over Herbert Poole, who showed a polite interest in the conversation
Kay and I were having. I made Poole out to be in his early or mid-thirties, just shy of six feet, lean, and good-looking in
a fashion-model way, the kind of looks I usually don’t pay much attention to. I like a face that shows more wear and tear,
a face that has been around the block a few times. His voice was deep and rather grave—with just a touch of the Old Dominion
in it—pleasing to my ear.

“Working with a real cop must be interesting for you,” he remarked when there was a brief silence.

“It is that,” I admitted, but I was thinking of Parker Foxcroft, not of Joe Scanlon’s book.

“It’s a novel?” said Poole.

“Yes, but not what you’d expect, a police procedural. It’s a novel about a criminal lawyer whose client is accused of murder—rather
like a latter-day Perry Mason.”

“As Kay has told you, Mr. Barlow,” Poole said, leaning in her direction, “I’m intrigued by the idea of writing a mystery.”

“It never ceases to amaze me how many mainstream writers are,” I said. “How many writers, period. What do you suppose the
fascination of the genre is?”

“I rather think that it’s the satisfaction of writing about something outside themselves and their egos, their ordinary or
extraordinary problems.” It was Kay who spoke, and I nodded in agreement. “In the straight novel, character is all-important;
in the mystery it’s story. There’s always a story, usually a strong one. It must always have a beginning, a middle, and an
end—and in the end, the criminal is caught, and the crime is solved. Q.E.D. Everyone is satisfied, the reader as well as the
writer.”

“That’s not to say that character isn’t important in a mystery,” I said. “What character in fiction is more memorable than
Sherlock Holmes, for example?”

“I wonder,” said Poole, “if anyone has ever written a mystery in which the criminal is
not
caught, and the crime has not been solved.”

“It’s been done,” I said, “and there are crime novels in which the criminal is sympathetic—the hero, in fact. Patricia Highsmith’s
hero Ripley, for one. Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder, for another. But it would probably prove frustrating
for the reader in most cases. I speak as one myself. I don’t like loose ends; I want things neatly tied up.”

“I’m not saying I’m going to write one like that,” Poole said in his limpid drawl. “Like most authors, I write of what I know
best.”

“In the case of your current best-seller,” I said, “sex.”

Poole smiled. “I prefer to think of it as love, Mr. Barlow.”

“Please—call me Nick. And I stand corrected.
Love,
certainly.”

At this point Kay interrupted us. “Herbert has an idea which I think may appeal to you, Nick.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“What I would like to do,” Poole said, “is spend some time in your office, like a fly on the wall, so to speak. I’d like to
meet and talk with your Joe Scanlon, for one—and any other mystery writers who might show up. I’d like to know how you managed
to crack the Jordan Walker murder case, too.”

“Well…”

“I promise I won’t get in your way, or interfere with any of your normal business days. When you want me out of the way, I’ll
make myself scarce. And meanwhile I’ll be making notes and writing.”

Kay was wrong; I did not cotton to the idea. I like authors well enough—in their place. In mine, however, only when necessary.
“Well…” I said, doing my best to think of a way to soften my refusal, “at the moment…”

“You’d rather not,” Poole suggested.

“Precisely.”

“Perhaps at a later date?” said Kay.

“We’ll see.”

Meanwhile, as I reminded Kay, there was the little matter of the contract.

“Ordinarily we’d go to auction, Nick, but this is quite unusual. We’ll take into account the fact that Herbert has never written
a mystery, and will need editorial guidance and help from you. The advance I’ll ask for is lower than we’d usually expect
to see. However, we’ll want ninety percent of the paperback rights as well as the usual foreign and domestic rights.”

I knew what Kay meant by that. One hundred percent of the performing rights, first and second serial rights, book club edition,
large-print edition, library edition, abridgment, condensation, digest—

“Data storage transmission and retrieval,” I said aloud.

“And electronic publishing in the teletext, video text, or any other form whether now in existence or hereafter developed.”
Kay finished the sentence for me. We both spoke the language of contract fluently.

“Only ten percent of the paperback money,” I said. “I wonder if I’ll be able to live with that.”

“Tell you what,” said Kay. “You go back to your office and figure out what you would expect to make from hardcover sales alone,
and give me
your
suggested advance figure based on that number—and a straight fifteen percent royalty from the sale of the first copy.”

“Fair enough, Kay.”

“We ought to be able to come up with a mutually satisfactory offer by this afternoon.”

“I would like that.” I glanced down at the three empty glasses on the table. “Another round?”

“Not for me,” said Poole, and Kay also shook her head.

“Then let’s lunch,” I said, and led the way through a set of double doors into what is called the Library Dining Room. The
walls are, in fact, lined with books of all kinds, vintages,
and imprints—rather like what you would expect to find in the library of a well-stocked country house.

We put in our orders; all three of us chose the fish of the day, which was blackened catfish. The sommelier brought a bottle
of a good Montrachet, and while we wined and dined, Herbert Poole enlightened me on how it felt to go from obscurity to fame
in one giant leap.

It felt, he said, “like winning the lottery. I don’t think any of my earlier books ever sold more than five or six thousand
copies. The first one sold even fewer than that.”

“But this one—?”

“Is completely different in style and subject matter—and that has apparently made all the difference.”

I raised my wineglass. “I congratulate you,” I said. We touched glasses lightly and drank.

“To the muse of mystery,” said Poole, and we toasted that as well.

Nor was Herbert Poole displeased when at least two of the members recognized him on the way out—whether from his jacket photograph
or an appearance he had put in on the “Today” show, we did not know.

Kay proved to be right. What we came up with later that day was an advance Barlow & Company could live with, and one that
Herbert Poole would not be ashamed to see on his income tax forms.

And I could go out to Connecticut for the weekend with a modest triumph to my name as well as a disaster. Scratch Parker Foxcroft
and add Herbert Poole.

I know of few places I would rather be on a summer weekend than Connecticut—more precisely, Weston, Connecticut, where my
family has lived for at least six generations. Before that, the Barlows were Virginians, and before that—well, like everyone
else, I have a family history, and even a family tree, but I’m firmly convinced that if patriotism is the last refuge of a
scoundrel, as Samuel Johnson observed, then ancestor worship is the last refuge of a snob—and I refuse to indulge in it.

Refuge, however, is not a bad way to describe the Casa Barlow in Weston. It is where I go to recharge my batteries, as well
as to touch base. By now I think I’ve made my point: nothing is more satisfying after a week or two in New York City than
to get the hell out of town.

I’ve been asked why I don’t live in Connecticut full time and commute to New York; many of my colleagues do it without too
much complaint. Certainly my father did it for years—but I have always felt that he who is tired of Manhattan is tired of
life, to paraphrase the good Doctor Sam once more. Forgive me if I sound like
Bartlett’s Quotations.

I sometimes have Oscar drive me out to the country, but I usually take the Metro North train from Grand Central, that fabulous
cathedral for wayfarers. First I pick up a
New York Post,
to find out what is going on in the underbelly of the city. “Headless Corpse in Topless Bar.” No one will ever top that famous
old
Post
headline. There is a bar car available, and I usually get one for the road. Sometimes I have company, sometimes I travel
alone.

This trip I was startled to run into Harry Bunter on the train. There he was, slouched on an aisle seat, one of those seats
that have no headrest, looking quite miserable. He was clutching a paper cup filled with what I assumed was Scotch.

“Harry,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

“I suppose I’m taking a fucking train ride,” he replied. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“I mean, Harry, what brings you to Connecticut?” I knew that Harry and his wife, Claire, lived on Jane Street, in Greenwich
Village.

“I’ve moved to Stamford.”

“Since when?”

“Oh, couple of weeks now.” He began to fidget, shifting back and forth in his seat. He appeared desperate for a cigarette,
which of course is a no-no these days on Metro North. Gone, thank God, are the days when certain smoke-filled cars took on
the aroma of army latrines, although I admit to being nostalgic for the occasional good panatela.

I looked at him with inquiry written in my features; he had used the singular noun in describing his relocation. What about
Claire?

He read my inquiring look and said: “Claire and I have separated.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Harry. Want to talk about it?”

He shrugged. “Not particularly.” He apparently felt that he might have hurt my feelings, because he quickly added: “Well,
why not? You’ve been a good friend, Nick.”

I’d known Harry Bunter for more than ten years, even longer than he’d worked for me. In fact, I wooed him away from William
Morrow because I had seen him in action at Frankfurt, and knew how good a salesman he was.

“Let’s see if we can find a seat built for two,” I said, and led the way up the aisle, toward the doors at the end of the
car, past the customary assortment of homebound travelers, some reading, others sleeping, not a few staring into space with
expressions void of any interest in the passing parade. There were bags galore in the overhead racks, bags in the aisle and
stacked in front of the doors in the center of the car—all the impedimenta and confusion of a Friday rush hour. Meanwhile,
the conductor threaded his way through the hapless standees, uttering his familiar mantra, “Tickets, please. Tickets?”

We finally found an empty double, several cars forward, and just past Mount Vernon. Harry’s cup was pretty well drained by
now, and I was somewhat surprised to see him rattle the ice cubes and then pull a couple of miniatures out of his pocket and
replenish it.

“Okay, Harry, give.”

The intimate confidences of men who are estranged from their wives are all too familiar these days, are usually couched in
threadbare phrases and marred by obvious omissions. Harry’s tale of woe was no exception, but because of auld lang syne, I
felt sympathy for him. I understand well enough the pain of a man who still loves a woman who has fallen out of love with
him. This was Harry’s plight, compounded by her having fallen in love with someone else.