Woman with a Blue Pencil (15 page)

Excerpt from chapter nine of
The Orchid and the Secret Agent
, a novel by William Thorne

Metropolitan Modern Mysteries, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1945

. . . At a quarter to five, Jimmy Park and his good friend Joe Lucas settled into an isolated booth at the far end of the Parkside Diner, across the street from Pershing Square. Since the outbreak of war, the square had ceased to be lit in the evenings, and so now, as dusk approached outside the big picture window, the square appeared as a large garden of shadows. Soon, the diner would draw its blackout curtains, eliminating the view of the square altogether.

“Get the chicken pot pie,” Jimmy suggested.

“It's a little early for dinner, don't you think, Jimmy?”

Jimmy shrugged an apology. “I wanted to see you, Joe. And the rest of my night is pretty booked up.”

“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Cole Porter. Thanks for fitting me into your busy social schedule.”

Jimmy sighed. “There'll be no social engagements for me tonight.”

Joe looked at his friend. After a moment, he acquiesced, making a show of picking up his menu. “You disappear for the whole day,” he said, scanning the daily special on the handwritten index card paper-clipped to the top of the menu. “You leave
me
to clean up that bloody mess at your place, which, incidentally, has been put down both in the papers and in the DA's office as an accidental death, and now you want to
tell me what to eat
?”

“Sorry,” Jimmy answered.

“Sorry for what, the mess you left me with or your dinner recommendation?” Joe pressed.

“I make no apologies for the chicken pot pie,” Jimmy said, smiling sheepishly.

But Joe was in no laughing mood. “And when I say ‘cleaning up,' I don't just mean the blood, you understand?” He took a sip from his water glass, his hand shaking just perceptibly.

“I appreciate your getting that wall painted so quick and carting off that sofa,” Jimmy said. “That's going above and beyond the call of duty, buddy.”

Joe shook his head. “I didn't pick up any paint brush. My nephew Tommy painted over the Jap scribbles,
after
the police photographers were done with it.” He stopped and swallowed hard.

Jimmy waited, letting his friend say what he needed to say.

“Oh don't worry, I did my part,” Joe continued, shaking his head in disgust. “Look, I played it exactly like your FBI guys asked me. You don't have to worry about that. I understand things are real complicated these days. The department understands that too. But hell, I'm your friend. It's time you told me what was going on here. And who took my .38 Special?”

Jimmy shrugged. “You know there are some things I'm not at liberty to say.”

Joe nodded. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to give his friend a hard time. “Well, don't think that paint job was a gift. You'll be getting a bill from my nephew any day now.”

“Good.”

“And he don't work cheap.”

“I would hope not,” Jimmy said.

“And
I
didn't cart off the goddamn blood-soaked sofa,” Joe continued. “The Feds took it this morning.”

“That makes sense,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, well . . . at least something makes sense.”

Jimmy said nothing.

Joe looked down at the table. “The worst part of it was my being asked to lie to that poor woman across the street about her husband having ‘fallen down and hit his head.'”

“Funny thing is . . .” Jimmy started. “The coroner said he
did
have a lump on the back of his head, suggesting he'd been knocked unconscious, but was still alive, when they slit his throat.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Jimmy looked away, sympathetically. He lowered his voice, though no one was seated near them. “There are some things that can't be allowed to get out to the public. Like what became of poor Tony Fortuna. The carnage. And the Jap writing in blood on the wall. You know as well as I do it'd panic people to know how truly evil our enemies are. And, worse, how nearby.”

“What did the Jap writing say?”

Jimmy shook his head.

“But you told the widow the truth? She's in on it?”

“No. That would have only endangered her.” Jimmy stopped.

Joe sighed. “Okay, national security. . . . But does that mean that Fortuna's widow isn't going to get to see her husband's body?”

“That slash across his throat would blow the ‘accident' angle, right?”

“Yeah,” Joe said, distractedly rubbing the side of his face with one hand. “But it don't seem right.”

“I agree, Joe. It's
not
right. But it's necessary.”

“So what'll our people do?” Joe pressed. “About the funeral?”

Jimmy tapped his fingers on the Formica tabletop. After a moment, he answered flatly, “There's going to be a ‘mix-up' at the mortuary. Sadly, her husband's body ‘inadvertently' will be cremated.”

Joe's jaw dropped. “Like some kind of Hindu?”

Jimmy looked away.

“Poor woman,” Joe said.

“I agree,” Jimmy answered. He turned and looked out the window, but now he saw more of his own reflection than the shadowy square. Nonetheless, he didn't turn back to Joe. “These weren't my decisions. They were made at the highest levels. And the stakes . . . well, they're even higher.” He looked at Joe. “You trust me?”

After a moment, in answer, Joe tapped his fist twice on the tabletop and nodded.

“Good,” Jimmy said.

“So why'd you pick this place for us to meet?” Joe asked.

“It's a clean, well-lighted place.”

Joe recognized the phrase. “That's a Hemingway story,” he observed.

Jimmy nodded.

“A story about death,” Joe added.

Jimmy didn't want to talk about that. “I just wanted a public place,” he said.

“Why?”

“Safe.”

“From who?”

Jimmy decided to give his friend more than he'd originally intended. “That's what my job is now. To find out.”

“What have you got yourself involved with?” Joe asked, his deep concern manifesting as lines on his forehead.

Jimmy chuckled as if it were nothing.

Joe looked Jimmy in the eye. “Wait a minute . . .” The wheels of his mind were turning. “It's not the FBI you're working for. And it's not Army or Navy Intelligence either. It's some other kind of organization that calls the shots for all the others. Some government group that I don't even know the name of.”

Jimmy wasn't going to lie to his friend. “The group doesn't really even have any name, yet.”

Joe sat back in the Naugahyde booth. “Yeah, that's how you get away with covering up murder,” Joe said, a note of bitterness slipping into his voice.

Jimmy understood. Joe Lucas was a good cop. He only wanted the best. “Look Joe, we're going to get the killers. That's the whole idea.”

Just then, the waitress, a good-looking kid in a mustard-stained uniform, arrived at their booth. She looked at Jimmy. “Sorry, but we don't serve Japs anymore.”

Jimmy started to give his usual answer, but Joe stopped him with a wave of his hand.

“Look, I'm LAPD and this man's name is Jimmy Park.” Joe spoke with the brusque manner of a motorcycle cop giving a speeding ticket. “And he's of
Korean
ancestry.”

She looked doubtful. “What's with cops bringing Orientals into my station today?”

They didn't follow.

Joe removed his badge from his suit jacket pocket and showed it to her. “You can trust me.”

“Oh, well, that's OK then.” She removed her order pad from a large, hip pocket on her uniform and a pencil from within her nest of blonde hair. “What can I get for you and your Korean friend, Officer?”

“Chicken pot pies for the both of us,” Joe said, folding his menu and handing it up to the girl.

The girl turned and started away.

When she was out of earshot, Joe turned to Jimmy. “So, can I help this no-name organization?”

Jimmy looked at Joe. “There may come a time that we need a friend on the inside of the LAPD, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about tonight.”

“Oh, I see. You wanted to talk baseball,” Joe snapped, sarcastically.

Jimmy reached inside his suit coat pocket and removed a sheaf of five handwritten pages, folded vertically. He dropped it on the tabletop between them.

Joe picked it up. “What is it?”

“My last will and testament,” Jimmy answered.

Joe said nothing.

“You're in it,” Jimmy said, brightly.

Joe didn't smile back. “Why do you need to give this to me now?”

Jimmy didn't hesitate. “You know why, Joe.”

“Does Sun know about this?”

Jimmy shook his head. He knew his girlfriend would take it hard. “She'd just worry.”

Joe nodded. He picked up the folded sheets and slipped them into his own jacket pocket.

For a moment the men were silent.

“This chicken pot pie better be as good as you say,” Joe said at last, slapping his hand down on the table.

Jimmy shrugged. “How would I know? I've never had it!”

Excerpt from a letter dated December 19, 1942:

. . . more balls to keep up in the air than any juggler would dare attempt. But that's the nature of the novelist's task. With that in mind, it occurs to me that, while your original, discarded submission (Sumida, Czernicek, etc.) had plenty of sexual motivations, including the murder, this revision has very little. Of course, the nature of the new book, being a novel of espionage, somewhat excuses this, exchanging international stakes for personal ones; also, we're going to meet the Orchid soon enough and she will bring tremendous
femme fatale
power. But in your latest submission to me, with Jimmy and Joe in the diner, I found myself both delighted by the complexity and warmth of the men's friendship and also a little worried. I'm sure you'd agree that the last thing we want is for readers to suspect that there is any queer aspect to the Jimmy/Joe relationship. Yet in your manuscript there have been, as yet,
no
mentions of women by either man. As we've been crackling along at an excellent action pace, I understand that there's been little attention paid to Jimmy's personal life at all. However, I'm wondering if you can include some sort of brief reference to Jimmy's having a girlfriend in this scene to assuage any suspicions your readers may develop regarding this otherwise quite moving moment of male bonding. (Please understand that here in New York I have more than one discreet homosexual friend and that I hold a live-and-let-live attitude in my personal life,
but
remember you are writing for a general and very broad readership.) Besides, I'm sure the idea of Jimmy and Joe's closeness as being anything but good, old-fashioned friendship has never even occurred to you. That's what you need a jaded New York editor for, right? So, even a slight reference in this scene to a girlfriend will do in your revision. And perhaps a reference in an earlier chapter (back at Jimmy's house?) about Jimmy's girlfriend and maybe Joe having a wife, too.

Sincerely,

Maxine Wakefield

Maxine Wakefield,

Associate Editor,
Metropolitan Modern Mysteries, Inc.

THE REVISED—CHAPTER SIX cont'd.

By the time Sumida had trekked across downtown, avoiding any groups of men he saw coming along the sidewalk in his direction, the last rays of the winter sun cast shadows about the Little Tokyo streets, which were uncharacteristically empty of pedestrian traffic. Many of the shops that ordinarily stayed open late were already closed. Almost all displayed in their plate glass windows either American flags or signs that read “WE ARE AMERICANS.” A few windows had been boarded up, shards of their shattered glass swept from the sidewalk into the gutter, and a five-and-ten-cent store in the middle of a block of brick storefronts had been burned out. The cigar stands and little candy shops were gone. Things had changed. Still, Sumida felt the old ache in the pit of his stomach when he ventured onto these streets, where he'd shared happy hours with Kyoko. Of course, he knew that global events—war—dwarfed his loss. But that knowledge didn't diminish the ache he felt for his wife. It only added a sense of selfish shame to it.