“My novels may indeed be inferior to my poetry — I am nothing if not brutally honest with myself where my literary prowess is concerned — but they are hardly ‘sex books.’ They are not gussied-up pornography, like Hecht’s Fantazius Mallare. Despite certain flaws, those novels sparkle with social satire and a genuine—”
“Whatever they sparkle with,” I said, “there’s a publisher willing to pony up a couple grand for the privilege of putting naked women on the covers.”
Ruth’s eyes were dancing with dollar signs, but Bodenheim was scowling.
“The last time I allowed a cheap pulp publisher... when was it, five years, eight years ago?... they bowdlerized the text, even while presenting my work with the sort of sensational gift-wrapping to which you refer. I won’t have my work simultaneously exploited and censored!”
I leaned forward. “I don’t know anything about that. I would guess the last thing this publisher would want to do is trim the dirty parts. So I wouldn’t worry about your literary integrity.”
Bodenheim froze, his sneering smile dissolving into a hurt, surprised near-pout. “Why, Heller’s Books — you don’t like me, do you?”
“I wasn’t paid to like you. I was paid to find you, and deliver this message.” I patted my chest. “I’ve got the contracts in my inside pocket, if you want me to leave ’em with you. The publisher’s right here in New York, you can talk with them, direct. Ben doesn’t want any finder’s fee, he just wants to see you make a buck or two off your ‘prowess.’”
“I don’t understand who you are,” Bodenheim said, bewildered, the murky eyes suddenly those of a hurt child.
“I’m a private detective.”
“I thought you were a literary man... your father...”
“Ran a bookstore. Me, like the man says on TV, I’m a cop. In business for myself, but a cop.”
“You deal in violence,” Bodenheim said quietly.
“Sometimes.”
Now a look of sadistic superiority gripped the ravaged face. He leaned forward, gesturing with the foul-smelling corncob. “Are you aware, Heller’s Books, of the close connection between the art of murder and the murder of art?”
“I can’t say as I am.”
“Artists are not killed overnight. They are murdered by being kept alive, as poverty, the unseen assassin, exacts from them one last full measure of agony.”
“Is that right.”
“When the arts go down to destruction, the artist perishes with them. For some of us, who do not sell our souls to Mammon, the final resting place is Potter’s Field. For others it is Hollywood.”
“Ben’s just trying to help you out, old man. Why in hell, I don’t know.”
“Why?” Fire exploded in those cloudy eyes. “Because I am the closest thing to a conscience that Ben Hack’t has or ever will have.”
I snorted a laugh. “What do you use for a conscience, old man?”
He settled back into the chair and the eyes went rheumy again; he collapsed into himself and said, very quietly, “My own crushed life sits beside me, staring with sharp, accusing eyes, like a vengeful ghost seeking retribution for some foul murder committed at a time of delirium and terror.”
“I don’t mean to barge in,” a male voice said.
He was a good-looking kid in well-worn jeans and a short-sleeve, slightly frayed white shirt; he had the open face, wide smile, dark-blond pompadour and boyish regular features of the young Buster Crabbe; same broad shoulders, too, only he wasn’t as tall, perhaps five eight at most. He only seemed clean-cut at first glance: then I noticed the scars under his left eye and on his chin, and how that wide smile seemed somehow... wrong.
“Joe,” Ruth said warmly, “sit down! Join us.”
“This is something of a business discussion,” Bodenheim said, tightly.
“Don’t be silly, Bodie,” she said. “Sit down, Joe.”
Joe sat down, next to me, across from Ruth. He was eyeing me suspiciously. I would have sworn the kid was looking at me through the eyes of a jealous boyfriend, but that would be impossible. After all, Ruth was married...
“Joe Greenberg,” he said, offering his hand, wearing that big smile, though the eyes remained wary.
“Nate Heller,” I said. His handshake let me know just how strong he was.
Bodenheim said, “Mr. Greenberg is a dishwasher here at the Waxworks. It’s a career he’s pursued with uncommon distinction at numerous establishments around the Village.”
“Nice to meet you, Joe,” I said. “If you’ll excuse me, I was just going...”
I began to rise but Ruth touched my arm. “Stay for just a little while. Joe, Mr. Heller has wonderful news. A publisher wants to bring some of Max’s books back out.”
Joe’s grin managed to widen, and words streamed out: “Why, Max, that’s wonderful! This is a dream come true, I couldn’t be happier for—”
“It is not wonderful,” Bodenheim said. “It is, like you, Joseph, possibly well-meaning but certainly insulting.”
“Max, don’t say that,” Joe said. “You and Ruth are the best friends I have around here.”
“Look,” I said, “do you want me to leave the contracts or not?”
“My old friend Ben is not aware,” Bodenheim said, with strained dignity, ignoring Joe, who was looking quickly from husband to wife to intruder (me), “that I am currently engaged in the writing of my memoirs for Samuel Roth, publisher of Bridgehead Books.”
“That’s swell,” I said. “Sorry to have bothered you...”
Again, I began to rise and Ruth stopped me, her brown eyes gazing up, pitifully beseeching. “Mr. Heller, what my husband says is true, he’s been going in and writing every day, but the pay is meager. We don’t have enough to even put a roof over our heads... we’ve been sleeping in doorways, and it’s a cold winter...”
Bodie seemed to be pulling down pay sufficient to afford whiskey.
Joe leaned forward, chiming in, “I told you, Ruth — you and Max are welcome to stay with me...”
Now it was Ruth leaning forward; she touched Joe’s hand. “That’s sweet, Joe, but you just have that one small room... it’s an imposition on you...”
Joe squeezed her hand, then with his other hand stroked it, petted it. His mouth was moist; so were his eyes. “I’d love to have you stay with me...”
“Leave her alone,” Bodenheim spat, “or I’ll kill you!”
Joe removed his hand and his face fell into a puttylike expressionless mask. “You hate me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” Bodenheim said, and withdrew his pint and refilled his coffee cup.
“What if I let you two take my room,” Joe said nobly, “and me move in with my friend, Allen.”
And he nodded toward a skinny redheaded busboy with glasses and pimples who was clearing a table across the room.
“I’ll pay the rent,” Joe said, “and when you get on your feet, and get your own place, I’ll move back in.”
“I once warned a girl named Magda,” Bodenheim said as if latching onto a stray thought just floating by, “against the possibility of falling into the hands of some degenerate in whom the death of love and the love of death had combined into a homicidal mania. She was strangled in a hotel bed.”
Joe was shaking his head. “What are you talkin’ about? I’m tryin’ to be nice...”
Ruth said, “Oh, Bodie, don’t you see? Joe’s our friend. Don’t say such cruel things.”
“Today,” Bodie said, patronizingly, “when the world is falling apart like scattered beads from a pearl necklace that once graced the lovely throat of existence, the bestial side of man’s nature is revealing itself... blatantly.”