“And you don’t know anyone named Sy Kramer, is that right?”
“What? Are you starting on me, too?”
“Do you or don’t you?”
“I don’t. I don’t even know Dean Kramer so hot. I sold him maybe half a dozen shots since the magazine started. He’s a very literary-type guy. He likes literary cheesecake.”
“What kind of cheesecake is that?”
“It’s got to have a story with it. A beautiful doll ain’t enough for Kramer. He needs a story, too. He thinks this way he fools his readers into thinking they ain’t looking at a beautiful doll, they’re reading maybe War and Peace, instead. Man, what a comedown this Lucy Mitchell was today. Why’s she wearing that old circus tent? Is she afraid somebody’s gonna whistle at her?”
“Maybe she is,” Hawes said thoughtfully.
“In the old days…” Blier paused, lost in his reminiscence. Then, very softly, almost reverently, he said, “Mister.”
7.
THE MAGAZINE HAD A very virile name.
It occurred to Hawes as he stepped into the office that there was not a single virile word in the dictionary that had not been affixed to the front cover of some men’s magazine. He wondered when they would begin choosing titles like:
COWARD, the magazine for you and me.
SLOB, for men who don’t care.
HE-HE, the magazine of togetherness.
He smiled and entered the reception room. The room was lined with oil paintings of bare-chested men doing various dangerous things, paintings that had undoubtedly been used for magazine covers and then framed and hung. There was a painting of a bare-chested man fighting a shark with a homemade dirk; another of a bare-chested man loading the breech of a cannon; another of a bare-chested man scalping an Indian; another of a bare-chested man in a whip duel with another bare-chested man.
A girl who was almost bare-chested sat behind a desk tucked into one corner of the reception room. Hawes almost fell in love with her, but he controlled himself admirably. The girl looked up from her typing as he approached the desk.
“I’d like to see Dean Kramer,” he said. “Police business.” He flashed the tin. The girl looked at the shield uninterestedly, and then lazily buzzed Kramer. Hawes was glad he had not fallen in love with her.
“You can go right in, sir. Room Ten in the middle of the hall.”
“Thank you,” Hawes said. He opened the door leading to the inner offices and started down the hall. The corridor was lined with photographs of old guns, sports cars, and girls in bathing suits—staple items without which any men’s magazine would fold instantly. Every men’s magazine editor instinctively knew that every man in America was interested in old guns, sports cars, and girls in bathing suits. Hardly an afternoon went by on patios across the nation when men did not discuss old guns, or sports cars, or girls in bathing suits. Hawes could understand the girls. But the only gun in which he was interested was the one tucked into his shoulder holster. And his concern for the automotive industry centered in the old Ford that took him to work every day.
There was no door on Room Ten. Neither were there true walls to the office. There were, instead, shoulder-high partitions that divided one office from the next. A wide opening in the partition which served as the front wall formed the entrance to the office. Hawes knocked gently on the partition, to the right of the opening. A man inside turned in a swivel chair to face Hawes.
“Mr. Kramer?”
“Yes?”
“Detective Hawes.”
“Come in, please,” Kramer said. He was an intense little man with bright brown eyes and a sweeping nose. His hair was black and unruly, and he sported a thick black mustache under his nose. The mustache, Hawes figured, had been grown in an attempt to add years to the face. It succeeded only partially; Kramer looked no older than twenty-five. “Sit down, sit down,” he said.
Hawes sat in a chair next to his desk. The desk was covered with illustrations for stories, pin-up photos, literary agents’ submissions in the variously colored folders that identified their agencies.
Kramer caught Hawes’s glance. “A magazine office,” he said. “They’re all the same. Only the product is different.”
Hawes speculated for a moment on the differences between the various products. He remained silent.
“At least,” Kramer said, “we try to make our book a little different. It has to be different, or it’ll get nosed right off the stands.”
“I see,” Hawes said.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Hawes? You’re not from the postal authorities, are you?”
“No.”
“We had a little trouble with one issue we sent through the mails. We thought our permission to mail the book would be lifted. Thank God, it wasn’t. And thank God, you’re not from the Post Office.”
“I’m from the city police,” Hawes said.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Hawes?”
“Did a woman named Lucy Mitchell come to see you today?”
Kramer looked surprised. “Why, yes. Yes, she did. How did—?”
“What did she want?”
“She thought I might have some pictures belonging to her. I assured her I did not. She also thought I was related to someone she knew.”
“Sy Kramer?”
“Yes, that was the name.”
“Are you related?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen these pictures of Lucy Mitchell?”
“I see cheesecake all day long, Mr. Hawes. I couldn’t know Lucy Mitchell from Margaret Mitchell.” He paused, frowned momentarily, and then said, “‘Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.’”
“What?” Hawes asked.
“The first line of Gone with the Wind. It’s a hobby of mine. I memorize the opening lines of important novels. The opening line of a book is perhaps the most important line in the book. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Sure,” Kramer said. “That’s a theory of mine. You’d be surprised how much authors pack into that first line. It’s a very important line.”
“About those pictures…” Hawes said.
“ ‘Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stair-head, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed,’” Kramer said. “Do you know what that is?”
“No, what is it?”
“Ulysses,” Kramer said. “James Joyce. It’s an example of the naming-the-character school of opening lines. Here’s one for you.” He paused and got it straight in his mind. “‘It was Wang Lung’s wedding day.’”
“The Good Earth,” Hawes said.
“Yes,” Kramer answered, surprised. “How about this one?” Again he thought for a moment. Then he quoted, “ ‘Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.’”