Voyage into Violence (29 page)

Almost instantly, bells rang and buckets banged and while the Norths struggled out of sleep, there was heavy knocking at the apartment door. “They've come for us,” Pam said. “Oh my goodness.” But “they” had not. Mr. Prentori had come, with aides, with buckets, with stepladders. He had come early; it was only seven-thirty when he came. The Norths fled—they fed Martini and put her in the kitchen, and left a note for Martha, and fled. They paused in flight at a near-by Schrafft's, and had accumulated newspapers by then. The newspapers were full of the death of Amanda Towne. There was in them also a good deal about Mr. and Mrs. North—Gerald North, head of North Books, Inc., and his “attractive wife.” The
Herald Tribune
reminded its readers that the Norths had been, before, involved in crimes of violence. The
Herald Tribune
had the discretion to add “innocently” but—rather unkindly, Pam thought—qualified with, “in the past.”

“All we're going to find out this time is what we read in the newspapers,” Pam said, and read in the
Herald Tribune
. And Jerry—after scanning the book page quickly, to make sure that the advertisement of
Look Away, Stranger
had appeared on schedule—went back to the front page of the
Times
, and read of violent death.

Amanda Towne, whose picture did her credit, had been found dead, under circumstances the police characterized as suspicious, in a hotel suite occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Gerald North who, however, had an apartment of their own in Manhattan. (Why they were not in it remained unexplained in the
Herald Tribune
, although Inspector O'Malley was freely mentioned and his views, which were rather guarded, were fully quoted. If he had passed on the reason for the Norths' presence at the Breckenridge, that did not appear. Which, Pam thought, was needlessly mean of him.)

The exact cause of Amanda Towne's death had not been determined when the
Herald Tribune
went to press. But the
Times
had “apparently of asphyxiation.” Miss Towne had a suite of her own on the same floor of the hotel—a corner suite, which the
Herald Tribune
considered “luxurious.” The
Times
withheld comment. What she was doing in the wrong suite, and doing there dead, was the core of the matter. On this mystery, the Norths—it was reported—had been able to shed no light. The Norths, according to their account, did not know Miss Towne. The Norths, according to the police, said that they had gone out to dinner and the movies, leaving their suite empty—except for a Siamese cat—and had returned to find Miss Towne's body. They had reported this to the police.

“If I were somebody else,” Pam said, when she had reached this point in the story, “I'd say those Norths are the ones who did it. A cooked-up story if I ever heard one.”

“You,” Jerry said, washing toast down with coffee, “you and Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O'Malley, in command of detectives, Borough of Manhattan. All they need is a motive.” He put his newspaper down briefly, so that he could look across the table at Pam. “You saw her show,” Jerry said, thoughtfully. “Some of the shows you see make a person feel like—”

“It is not,” Pam said, “anything to joke about. I don't see why we're not in jail.”

“Give us time,” Jerry told her, and went back to reading about Amanda Towne, of whom there was a good deal to write.

She had been in her middle forties, native of Arkansas, former newspaper woman in Chicago. She had been married, briefly, twenty years before, to Russell Barnes, then also a newspaper reporter—and now a copyreader (but copy editor in the
Times
) on an afternoon newspaper. According to Mr. Barnes, there had been no divorce; merely a friendly (and certainly protracted) separation. Mr. Barnes was shocked to hear of his wife's death. (And, therewith, more or less vanished from the picture.)

Amanda Towne had been living alone, and had resumed her maiden name, when she turned from newspapers to broadcasting. She had been first a newscaster on an afternoon radio program, her time period brief and her sphere news of interest to women. But she had not stayed there, or on the Chicago station which had given her a start. She went on to a half-hour period; to interviews as well as news—and to many glowing, dramatized, little reports on products of interest to women. She expanded further, became a network feature, and an institution and was an hour long and a nation wide. By this stage, her show had a name—“People Next Door”—originated in New York, where celebrities suitable to trial by interview are somewhat more easily come by.

“But what Amanda never did,” her business manager, Mrs. Alice Fleming, assured the
Herald Tribune's
radio and TV authority (who had a separate story of her own, beginning on Page 1) “was to lose the common touch. She hated the word ‘folksy,' of course, but I'm afraid it was often used of her. It was what made her appeal so universal. All over the country, women felt she was just—well, I guess, just the next door neighbor who had come in to call.”

The transition from radio to television was somewhat difficult, and a good many—particularly among the women interviewers—fell between. Amanda did not; she kept a foot firmly on radio for longer than most, when radio dissolved under it, she was firmly on TV, from two to three, three afternoons a week, and was often asked, further, to give the woman's point of view on matters of world importance, Sunday afternoons being the most frequent times for this, since on Sundays television is most likely to think deeply.

“In recent years” (this was the
Times
' television commentator) “Amanda Towne became noted for the frequently penetrating quality of her questions, which sometimes drew forth revealing answers. In not a few cases, answers were somewhat more revealing than those interviewed realized. Her program was, through the years, often the source of news stories. The recent misadventure of Judge Roger Parkman is a minor example—although perhaps not particularly minor to Judge Parkman, whose political career, some think, has been jeopardized.”

The
Times
' radio and TV man did not go further into that. The writer of the
Herald Tribune's
lead story did.

“Miss Towne,” he wrote, “had a knack of making those she interviewed feel relaxed, as if they were talking with a sympathetic friend in privacy. It is said along Madison Avenue that some lived to regret what they had said in these relaxed moments, and to feel that Miss Towne had ‘led them on.' An example cited is the very recent case of Judge Roger Parkman who, in the course of an interview with Miss Towne, made a casual remark which has been widely, if unfairly, interpreted as reflecting adversely on certain minority groups.”

This, to the
Herald Tribune's
rewrite man, appeared to cover that, and he went to graze in other pastures. Pam read on, searching and not finding, and put her paper down on the table and said, “Jerry. This Judge Parkman?”

Jerry said, “U-mmm?”

“Parkman,” Pam said. “Isn't it in the
Times?
What did he say that was so awful?”

“‘—were varied,'” Jerry read. “‘From the climbers of new mountains, to winners of cooking contests, from best-selling authors to—'”

“Parkman,” Pam said. “Judge” (she checked) “Roger Parkman. Something he said has been widely interpreted.”

Jerry marked his place with a finger. He said, “What did you say about Mr. Dulles?”

“Really,” Pam said. “You never listen. Parkman. Judge Parkman. Something on Miss Towne's program. Isn't it in the
Times?
”

“Oh,” Jerry said. “Yes. Something about—” He paused. He remembered. He said he remembered. He said it had been chiefly in the
Post
. Because Judge Parkman was a Republican. He'd been talked about for lieutenant governor or something. The rest of the papers had followed it with little enthusiasm.

“What?” Pam said.

“It wasn't anything much,” Jerry said. “I do remember it was on Miss Towne's program. Perfectly innocent, anybody'd think. Only—” Pam waited while Jerry thought. “All he said,” Jerry told her, “was something like ‘people like you and me.' Or maybe, ‘You and I and people like us.'”

Pam shook her head. She said it must have been the context.

It had been, Jerry said. He couldn't remember the context in any detail. But—relaxed, possibly led on—Judge Parkman had allowed himself to be netted in a context which made a probably innocent remark appear to reflect on all who were not, as he and Miss Towne triumphantly were, white and Protestant and, presumably, eligible for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. “On the distaff side,” Jerry said, before Pam could say that a man couldn't very well be a daughter.

“Oh,” Pam said. “In New York City. A politician.
And
a Republican. Ouch!”

In a word, it had been “Ouch!” Judge Parkman had been saying that, in statements of considerable length, since the previous Friday, when he had spoken lightheartedly to the so sympathetic Amanda Towne—and to many thousands more, not all of them inclined to forbearance. There had been much pattering of little feet as Republicans from all around trotted forward to disavow Judge Parkman's implications; to say how deeply they, on the other hand, loved people of all races and all colors and all creeds. It had become entirely evident that Judge Parkman would not further be talked about for lieutenant governor. Or anything.

“The poor man,” Pam said. “People should be very clear in what they say, shouldn't they?”

Jerry looked at her. He swallowed coffee. After consideration, he said, “Yes, Pamela.”

“His career in shreds,” Pam said. “And I suppose, nobody to sue? Since he said it himself. He must have been very annoyed at Miss Towne.” She paused. “Very,” she said. “Particularly if she led him on, as the papers say. Wove the context.”

“Wove the—” Jerry said and paused to consider. Perhaps, on second thought, a context could be woven, and a career reduced to shreds thereby. It occurred to him, on third thought, that that, or part of it, might be precisely what Pam was doing.

“Listen,” Jerry said. “He'd hardly be that annoyed, if that's what you mean.” He lighted a cigarette and looked at it. “As,” he said, “I suppose it is.”

“Well,” Pam said.

“What good would it do him?” Jerry asked. “The damage is done, presumably. Probably he can live it down. Anyway—”

Pam said she knew the one about frying pans and fires. To say nothing of least said soonest mended, and the rest. All the same—

“Suppose,” she said, “he tried to get her to have him on the program again? So he could straighten things out? Say how much he loved minorities with votes? And she wouldn't do it? And he got mad and—”

“No,” Jerry said.

“Somebody got mad,” Pam pointed out. “Or frightened. Or stood to profit. I wonder if—”

“No,” Jerry said. “This time, we won't try to help. All right? We sit this one out.”

“If we're let,” Pam said.

It was not precisely a promise. It would have, Jerry decided, to serve. He went to his office and Pam went back to the apartment, where the men of Prentori sized.

At a quarter of eleven, Jerry was talking, on the telephone, with an author about a bug, and being firm in his insistence that the bug would not go away no matter how little you looked at it. Miss Prentice, who received, came to the door of his office and her eyes were bright. “Try to think of something, Clem,” Jerry said to the author. “Before we send it to the printer,” and hung up and said, “Yes?” to Miss Prentice, who was clearly pleased and excited—as if the Book-of-the-Month had called in person, with entreaties.

“Mr. Kingsley would like to see you,” Miss Prentice said, as one who imparts tidings almost too joyous for belief.

“Fine,” Jerry said, and said thank you, and to ask Mr. Kingsley to come in and, to his secretary, “Better get the latest sales reports out, hadn't we, Jane?” Jane Whitsett thought they had indeed, and went for them.

They would, Jerry supposed, be what Byron Kingsley had come to see—to look at with that odd combination of pride and modesty and wonder which was so much part of him; to say, with that diffidence which, in spite of everything, was still so charming, that the figures were pretty good, weren't they, Mr. North? (Not quite saying, “Mr. North, sir,” but somehow implying it.) He might also, of course, wonder whether it would be quite convenient to have a little further advance against royalties. Which would be all right. For the moment there was almost nothing Byron Kingsley could ask of North Books, Inc., which would not be all right. Mr. Kingsley was, to put it shortly, a publisher's dream. There had been no brighter dream since the man from Macmillan's took the manuscript of
Gone With the Wind
home in a trunk.

Byron Kingsley was, to put it even more shortly, the author of
Look Away, Stranger
. Gerald North (president, editor-in-chief, of North Books, Inc.) still pinched himself awake when he looked at the sales figures of
Look Away, Stranger
. (Two other editors, who had turned it down, took Miltown tablets when they remembered.) It was that sort of thing, that sort of novel, and the whole business was still, Jerry admitted to himself at intervals, and to Pam now and then, entirely unaccountable. Lightning had struck. That was what it came to.

The manuscript of
Look Away, Stranger
had come, looking rather like a bale of cotton, out of Arkansas. It showed signs, already, of other journeys. Somebody had laid a cigarette, briefly, on page 6. Pages from 105 on were suspiciously fresh. No agent had intervened—there was the murky aura of amateurism plain around
Look Away, Stranger
, which was also something over six hundred pages in length.

Jerry had passed it down almost two years ago—passed it down as far as it would go, which was no great distance, since North Books, Inc., is not a Macmillan for size. “Have a look at this,” Jerry had said, and the reader had sighed and said, absently, that he hoped it was typed on one side of the paper only.