“Call me Gregg. And I’ll call you…”
“Asshole?”
He pushed the air with two palms, in a peacemaking gesture I didn’t believe for a split second.
“Let’s put that behind us,” he said, with his used-car dealer’s smile.
“Let’s. What do you want to straighten me out on, Gregg?”
“I cleaned up my act, Mallory,” he said. “Changed my image.”
If not his underwear.
“Look, I admit I pulled some… shady deals, from time to time. I’m a little guy. I gotta look after myself. You gotta give me credit for some good work-I got some stuff back in print that you like seein’ back in print, right?”
I admitted as much.
“I’m just a one-man show,” he said, “tryin’ to keep my little boat afloat. The mystery fan market isn’t any vast audience by a long shot-and you know it, or you’d dress better.”
Look who was talking.
“It’s a small market,” I said, “but you publish expensive books. On that slipcased set of Carroll John Daly’s Race Williams novels you had several thousand sales-chickenfeed for a mass-market publisher, but for a specialty guy like you? At two hundred bucks a set? You’re making a killing.”
He shrugged, less elaborately this time. “I couldn’t afford to publish nice books when I was starting out. And you know the quality of the stuff I do-the printing, the binding, the paper, all that crap, is top of the line.”
That was true: his books were every bit as attractive as he wasn’t.
“But Gregg, old buddy,” I said, “you’re not doing anybody any favors, turning out fancy expensive books. You may be providing a service of sorts, to mystery fans who’re into this stuff, but if you weren’t turning out high-quality merchandise, you couldn’t charge the high prices. So don’t bother bragging to me. It doesn’t cut you any slack, where I’m concerned.”
He waved a waitress over and asked for two beers (both for himself).
He said, “All I’m getting at is I wasn’t able to start out doing fancy schmancy books. I did these sorta oversize, trade-type paperbacks, remember?”
“I remember. The Raoul Wheeler books were paperbacks. You sold five thousand of each of those at eight bucks per and paid no royalties at all. You had a free ride on a guy dying of cancer. Brag about that.”
Gorman shrugged again. “I’m not proud of it,” he allowed. “By the way, I’m bringing those Wheelers back out again, hardback this time. You wanna do those intros we talked about way back when? With a credit on the covers? I’ll pay you. Make it up to you.”
“You’ll do me that little favor, now that I’ve published some books and have a name for myself. You’re a peach, Gorman.”
The beers came; Gorman put one away in a couple of chugs, then sipped at the other as he said, “I been tryin’ to make a point, but you won’t let me. I been tryin’ to say that a few shady-type deals I pulled, early on, that I’m not proud of having done, is what got me capitalized to the point where I could put together a little publishing company that’s giving mystery fans beautiful books. My Daly set won a special award from the Mystery Writers of America, y’know. An Edgar Allan Poe award. You ever win an Edgar, Mallory?”
“No,” I said. “But then my philosophy isn’t the Edgar justifies the means.”
“Eat your heart out, schmuck,” he said, grinning over the lip of the beer; foam rode the edge of his mustache.
“Wipe your face, Gorman,” I said, “before I wipe it for you.”
He snorted. “You read too many Gat Garson books, Mallory. Speaking of which… you oughta be grateful I’m bringing your idol’s books out, instead of givin’ me a bad time over it.”
So that was what this was about.
“Oh,” I said, “you didn’t like my comment about how Roscoe’s books’ll be more valuable to you, with him dead.”
“That’s a lousy thing to say. And not necessarily true. The few thousand extra copies we’ll sell, of each of ’em, is hardly grounds for…” He searched for the word in his beer; he didn’t find it.
So I gave it to him: “Murder?”
He looked up sharply. “Is that what you think, Mallory?”
“Is what what I think?”
“That Roscoe was… killed, or something.”
“What if it is?”
“I heard you… were up there, when…” He drank a little beer. Then: “I heard you found the body.”
It was getting around, finally.
“Maybe,” I said.
“So, uh… what do you think? Was it murder?”
“Why do you care? What’s your interest in Roscoe?”
“He was a friend. He was a buddy! I liked him.”
“You like money.”
“I like money, and I like people, too. Like Roscoe, I liked. Hell, I even like you, Mallory.”
“And you’re heartsick about Roscoe’s death.”
He shook his head sadly, side to side. “Tragic loss to the mystery community.”
“Jesus, Gorman, you ought to volunteer to do his eulogy. You’d have to wear a clean sweater, though.”
“Just don’t… don’t go implying what you implied before, in public, or maybe… maybe I will sue you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Implying I… that’s stupid. I loved Roscoe.”
“You used to just like him. Do you love me now, or is it still just ‘like’?”
“Screw you.”
“Must be love. Tell you what. I won’t accuse you publicly of murdering Roscoe; I won’t even imply it. Unless, of course, I find out you did it.”
He got huffily self-righteous. “Don’t be stupid. What motive would I have for that? To make the books of his I’m publishing sell a little better? Nobody’d kill anybody over that.”
“Where were you?”
“Where… where was I when?”
“When Roscoe was murdered.”
He swallowed. The red nose seemed to throb in the near-darkness. “You really do think it was murder.”
“I really do.”
“Have you told the cops?”
“I’ve tried.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And they don’t seem to be paying much attention. Yet.”
He smirked and waved for the waitress. “You don’t know that it was murder,” he said. “It could’ve been accidental.”
“Could’ve been,” I granted. “Like when Nixon’s secretary accidentally erased the tape.”
“I think you should leave this alone.”
“I think you should answer my question.”
“What question?”
“Where were you last night? When Roscoe was dying in the tub?”
The beers came, but he didn’t dig in; he sat looking at them and summoned a look of confidence up and tried it out on me. I didn’t think much of it. It accompanied the following declaration: “I was with my angels.”
Gorman being with anybody’s angels, let alone his own, was a little hard to picture.
“Your angels,” I said.
“Yeah, you know. My angels. My backers. The guys that invest in me. The guys that sign the checks.”
It was coming back to me now; I’d heard about this, from somebody-Sardini, I thought. Seemed Gorman’s financial backing, his working capital-that is to say, the working capital he didn’t generate himself, swindling innocents like me and old-timers like Raoul Wheeler-came from a pair of Chicago-area longtime mystery fans, guys in their forties who were partners in a chain of bookstores. Those bookstores were the kind with the windows painted out and lots of Xs on the front.
Pornographers is what Gorman’s angels were.
Or at least, pornography merchants. In bed with the mob, so rumor said; which made Gorman vaguely mob-dirty, too.
“You were with your angels,” I said.
“Yeah, having dinner at the Berghoff.”
The Berghoff was a popular German restaurant in downtown Chicago, and had been since the late Mayor Daley was in diapers.
“So a lot of people saw you,” I said.
He smiled. “A lot of people saw us.”
“Conveniently saw you.”
“No, damnit, just saw us! Leave it alone, Mallory. Leave it alone.”