He said, «I met Teresa Valier downstairs and she said you were looking for me, Darius.»
Teresa didn’t quite trust me, then. She’d been searching on her own.
«Then sit down,» I said savagely.
At this point, Asimov, apparently deciding that the role of innocent bystander was notoriously too dangerous to play, rose and said, «If you don’t mind, there are some people over there I have to see.» He waved vaguely and was gone. His departure didn’t bother me.
Giles sat down and placed his big hands flat on the table, palms down, before him. He looked as though he were waiting for me to toss him a dog biscuit.
I said, «Congratulations on the new book.»
He shrugged. «Thanks, but it won’t go anywhere much with Prism Press.»
«You’re leaving them, I understand.»
«Yes. Writers have to find their level,» he added in his sissy tenor voice (which constantly gave rise to assumptions that he was gay—which he was not), «and Prism Press is not my level.»
«But it is mine, is it?» I asked.
«You are free to leave too, Darius—unless it is.»
Insufferable bastard!
«And what about Roseann Bronstein? I understand that you’re refusing to do an autographing session for her.»
«Has she been talking to you, too, Darius? No, I won’t. I can’t stand her.»
«You don’t have to stand her to sign some books in her store. Look, Giles, would you like some advice?» I was still holding my temper.
«Not really, Darius.»
«Then don’t like it, but you’ll have it just the same, Giles. Prism Press, even if it’s a small house, did your first book and did pretty well with it. Someone else might have done it better, but you don’t know that. You might at least stick with them long enough to see how this one goes. You owe them that much surely. And Roseann pushed your book when she didn’t have to and when it counted. Surely you owe her a favor in return.»
«Favors? There are no favors in this world, Darius. Prism Press did my first book, but what of that? They made money out of it, too. In fact, they made more than I did and they’ll make still more money out of my new book. They’ve had their return. And Roseann had her return, too. And what is it they want now? I’ll tell you. They want to ride my coattails for their own financial benefit. Is that high-minded of them? I want them off my coattails for my financial benefit. Why isn’t that equally high-minded of me? We’re all after the loot. Why is that noble for them and evil for me?»
I kept calm even then. Amazing that I did so, as I look back at it now. «And what was I after, Giles?» I asked.
He reddened distinctly. Then he said, «That’s different, Darius. I’m aware that I owe you something. And once I’m set with a better house, you can count on a good word from me. Anything that I can do, Darius, I will.»
Who the hell wanted his good word? I felt myself beginning to come to a boil. All the humiliations of the day were coming to a head, not the least the newly rankling remark of that pygmy public relations woman.
He was waiting for an answer, some sign I could give him to the effect that he was a kind, loyal person and would go to heaven when he died for this good deed he was offering me. I was trying to choose the words that would send him to hell, when there was a thin clatter of high heels and the distinct feel of a breeze as a woman rushed past.
«Mr. Devore,» she panted. «If we don’t leave now, we’ll be late.»
Giles’s pouting underlip seemed to tighten, a sign that his familiar mulishness was overtaking him. Perhaps the reminder of his debt to me worked upon him as his own damnable condescension worked on me.
And that was his manner of facing the world when he was angry. He never fought. He never struck out. He would merely become stubborn and refuse to budge. It might be over something world-shaking or something petty; it didn’t matter. The degree of stubbornness was the same and I never knew him to shake. Why Teresa Valier and Roseann Bronstein didn’t know that as well as I did, why they thought a word from me would make a difference, I couldn’t say.
«Can’t you get someone else?» he squeaked, and I bet myself a somber ten to one that whatever it was he was supposed to do, he wouldn’t do it.
And by then I had recognized the woman. She was the interview secretary of the convention—Henrietta Corvass.
She had been unperturbed when I had arrived too late to participate in the penny-ante press conference I was scheduled for, but she seemed a lot more concerned over Giles Devore. He was worth more than I was, obviously.
She said, «It’s a major taping, a network show, and they don’t want anyone else. We’re committed on this.»
«I’m not committed on anything,» he said, beginning to frown. «They’ll keep me up all hours and I’ve got to be doing an autographing session tomorrow morning.»
«It won’t take more than a couple of hours. I promise. I’ll see to it that they’re through as soon as possible. It’s only two miles away and a taxi will take us there in no time.»
I could have told her it was no use. No amount of reasoning would sway him. And for once in his life, he should have remained stubborn. Death was waiting in the wings and it might have vanished, if his wrongheadedness had remained true to him.
But he said, «Take Darius here. He’ll go.»
And that touch exploded me. All the spleen, and all the anger and all the suppressed rage that had been flooding and ebbing within me all day rose and overflowed and blew my head off. In one gigantic moment, I was going to strike back at everyone that had contributed to the failure at the press conference and at everyone who had helped irritate me that day from the man who stepped on my toe to the runtess who stepped on my ego.
I rose to my feet, and at the top of my voice said, «I won’t go you tower of flab. You poor half-grown novelist, don’t you know what your responsibilities are? One half-good book and a second that’s not so good, and you think that the shoulders you have been lifted on and the free lifts you have received will go on forever. They won’t. Even if they seem to, they won’t. You’re making enemies, you small man, and your soul is shriveling faster than your head is swelling and that’s damned fast. Do you think you’ve reached the point where you can ignore the world and coast along the Milky Way on the well-greased wheels of your own fatted ego? My God, you’ll come down with a crash that will deafen the world with the sound of its own laughter. Go!»
No, that’s not exactly what I said. It is certainly the essence of it, but I know I put it much more strongly and with a considerably more peppery admixture of expletives.
The exact words don’t matter. It was all scarcely what I would have said or done in return for the small provocation Giles had offered me—were it not for all that had been done to me that long afternoon.
Giles had gone dead white and Henrietta had turned red. I was, after all, shouting at the top of my voice and I was surely heard through most of the room—a room in which almost every other sound had died away. Even through my red haze of rage, I realized I was shouting into a sonic vacuum, but it didn’t stop me.
And what I did was to unseat Giles completely. I ripped him bodily out of the stubborn bog into which he had set his will and turned him about. I wouldn’t have thought anything could have, short of a gun, but nothing had ever made me release the full range of my fury at him in a public place. It was enough, and I had talked events back into the path to murder. The flagstones were shaping up well.
Giles was suddenly twenty-one again, and managed to look up at me from a point a head and a neck above me with the same suffering-canine look he had had when we first met.