Murder at the ABA
TO HARLAN ELLISON,
whose brightness of personality is exceeded only by his height of talent
NOTE:
Despite my way of writing this book, all of the speaking characters in it (except myself, of course) are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, and can only exist despite my best efforts to prevent it. In this connection, please see the note at the end of the book, but only after you’ve read the book.
Cast of Characters
(in order of appearance)
Darius Just writer and narrator
Martin Walters historian; friend of Darius
Henrietta Corvass in charge of the interview section of the American Booksellers Association (ABA)
Michael Strong hotel security guard
Thomas Valier of Prism Press; Darius’ publisher
Giles Devore writer; ex-protege of Darius
Teresa Valier of Prism Press; wife of Thomas Valier
Roseann Bronstein bookseller; friend of Giles Devore
(unnamed) ticket seller at party
Isaac Asimov prolific writer and self-esteemed wit
Sarah Voskovek in charge of public relations for the hotel
Shirley Jennifer writer; good friend of Darius
Mary Ann Lipsky secretary of Teresa Valier
Harold Sayers bookseller from Bangor, Maine
Hilda cloakroom attendant
Anthony Marsogliani chief of security for the hotel
Herman Brown plainclothesman
Joseph Olsen policeman
(unnamed) art director for the hotel
Eunice Devore wife of Giles Devore
Gwyneth Jones woman working in the interview section of the ABA
Ginger receptionist for Sarah Voskovek
Gordon Hammer man working in the interview section of the ABA
Nellie Griswold woman working for Hercules Books
Dorothy another cloakroom attendant
(unnamed) would-be assassin
Part One
SUNDAY, MAY 25, 1975
1 DARIUS JUST (narrator) 1:30 P.M.
Trace back the violent death of a friend and see how it happened.
It wouldn’t have happened if A hadn’t happened first, and that wouldn’t have happened if B had not taken place before it. And so on, all the way back to the primordial mists of time.
In the particular case in which I was involved, however, we can limit the direct causes to a specific, limited series of events, all of which had to have happened for violent death to have its chance. If any one of them had not taken place, someone now dead would be alive; or if dead, at least not then, not that way, not murder.
And I was at the center of so many of those events.
Unwittingly, of course, but there.
I trace it back to Sunday, May 25, 1975, which was the first day of the 75th annual convention of the American Booksellers Association (ABA) at a scattering of hotels in midtown, and to a woman whose turn it was to push her book at a press conference.
She was scheduled to face the members of the press at 4 p.m. and she had to decide what to wear. There, it seems to me as I try to reconstruct her motives in my own mind, she was faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, she was young and good-looking and had a body in which all parts fell smoothly into place, so that she had the natural desire to display said body to the world. On the other hand, she was a feminist, and the book she was pushing was feminist, and there was the possibility that to use the lure of the body to promote the book would be a non-feminist thing to do.
I don’t know whether she hesitated at all; or if she did, how long. I don’t know if she tried on different dresses or settled the matter by pure reason in her mind.
The point is that she ended with a white dress which, above the waistline, was made up of generous swatches of open network, and under it she had above the waistline nothing at all but her own gorgeous self. When she remained in repose, her breasts remained safely behind the small, strategically placed opaque sections. When she raised an arm, as she might, the dress hiked up on that side and one nipple went peek-a-boo.
All this, it happens, I pieced together later. I was not there when it happened; I had nothing directly to do with it. That, too, was a link in the chain of events.
When our feminist friend decided to peek-a-boo at the world, she put down the first flagstone of what became a pathway to death. The fact that I was not in the interview room at the time was another flagstone.
Had she chosen to come down in a role of blushing modesty, none of it would have happened (perhaps), whether I was there or not. Had I been there, none of it would have happened (perhaps), even if she had come down in the nude.
But she wore what she wore, and I was not there, and it all came to pass.
And where was I that I was not there?
I was en route. I had left at 1:30 p.m., and I was aiming for the ABA Convention.
My editor felt it would be a good thing for me (a writer, but not particularly a superfluously successful writer) to show up and get a little publicity, and grin a little at the assembled booksellers. I had no objection to this. Everything about it would be deductible as a business expense and it would make an excellent excuse to stay away from the typewriter for a few days.
Originally, I had been aiming for Monday, the 26th, which was Memorial Day, and had decided to let the first day go by.
A couple of months before I had agreed to give a morning talk, you see, at some temple on the 25th, at a site some hundred miles from the city. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t let them feed me afterward (I have a long-standing love affair with lox and cream cheese on a toasted bagel, especially with a slice of Bermuda onion pushed in when no one is looking) and make a day of it. Time for the convention the next day.
But then a historian friend of mine, Martin Walters, called me a week before and asked me if I could help out in a little bit of public relations at the ABA Convention. He was under the impression that I was a staunch supporter of learned writings and had the even more curious notion that my name meant something to the world of scholarship and could be used to good effect.
Both assumptions seemed to me to be in the highest degree wrong, but he was a friend and you help out friends, and besides it did not seem to me that I was required to tell him the truth—that my knowledge of history was spotty and that the world’s knowledge of my attainments was even spottier.
I said, «When would you need me?»
«It’s scheduled for four-twenty p.m. on Sunday,» he said.
I did some rapid mental calculations, and decided I could eat my bagels and still make it.
«I’ll be there,» I said, adding cautiously, as I always do out of a spot of irrationality within my rational self, «barring acts of God.»
But the act of God had already taken place. It was another flagstone in the path. In fact, since the request for my presence came a week before our feminist friend swirled before her hotel-room mirror and decided she looked too appetizing to be believed, my own statement «I’ll be there» might be looked upon as the real beginning.
I gave my talk, explained politely that I would have to eat and run. I then ate, at 1:30 p.m., ran for my car, and drove to the city at a moderate clip, feeling no doubt that I would make it.