«And what about Murder at the ABA? Do you have all the local color you need?»
«Enough,» he said airily. «I won’t need much of it, I suppose.»
«Do you have it all plotted?»
«No. I never do. But I have enough to get started, and I have my gimmick, and I’ll make it up as I go along.»
«What happens if you get tangled up in the middle and can’t get out of the tangle?»
«Never happens,» he said cheerfully. «It always works out.»
I sighed inaudibly. I wondered if some of us couldn’t arrange to picket him.
About this time, the waiter filled the table with a dish of appetizers, and I knew that would be followed by the soup, and that by the main courses (very efficient, the waiters at these restaurants) with tea in between, so that there would be no use in continuing the conversation. Once food is on the table, Asimov is a spent force as far as social chitchat is concerned. His universe then consists of himself and food only. I ate quietly and made no attempt to keep up with him.
I said, as he speared and devoured the last bit of the pressed duck, «And who will you kill off at your version of the ABA convention. Giles?»
It was as though I had pulled the chain and turned out his light. Even the afterglow of a good lunch seemed to fade.
He said, «You know, I feel bad about Giles. I feel bad about him because I don’t feel bad about him. Do you know what I mean?»
«I don’t,» I said.
«Well, I do an awful lot of kidding with an awful lot of people. You, for instance. I can’t make myself say what people really mean to me; I just drown it in horseplay. Then when people die, you wish they were back so you could say what you really felt. If you, for instance—»
«I know,» I said, «you’d want me back to tell me that after all you never really noticed how short I was and that all your short jokes were not meant for me, but for someone else—for your friend Ellison, if that’s his name.»
He turned red. «Maybe something like that, Darius. But in Giles’s case, that’s not so. There’s nothing I want to say to him now that he’s dead. Darius, I didn’t really like him more than just a little bit.» He owned up to it as though he were confessing a crime.
I said, «No law against it. I didn’t like him, either.»
«But I don’t like not to like people.»
«You can’t always have everything you like. Does that mean you won’t use Giles in the book?»
«Not by name, of course. Not by anything identifiable. Who wants trouble with Eunice? Still, after making all necessary changes, it’s possible that I’ll let Giles inspire something. Of course, it would have to be murder, not accident.»
I thought: Well, let’s try once again. Aloud, I said, «I think it was murder, not accident.»
You would think that what the «it» in that sentence referred to was obvious but people fight off unpleasantness and Asimov held it off one conversational exchange by saying, «What was murder, not accident?»
«Giles’s death,» I said.
He stared at me for a long moment, then he said, in a voice half an octave higher than normal. «The police say he was killed?»
«Not the police,» I said. «They think it’s an accident, as far as I know. So does everyone else. I think it’s murder. As far as I know, only I think it’s murder. And I’m trying to find evidence to support it, and I want to talk to you about it.»
«To me?»
«Why not? You owe me a little help. Damn it, your final speech at the panel shook me up and made me uncertain of my own certainty of his murder. You made me think that perhaps he wasn’t killed.»
Asimov looked relieved. «Good. I’m sure he wasn’t. Drop it, Darius.»
«I can’t. I failed him night before last and I’ve got to find out that that didn’t contribute to his death. And even if I knew it didn’t, I’ve got to make up for that failure.»
«It won’t bring him back to life.»
«Oddly enough, Isaac, I realize that. Getting this settled, though, will help me continue to live with myself. Just a little, anyway.»
«Well, then, what do I do? Play the role of Watson?»
«Not unless and until I can be Holmes and, judging by what’s happened these last twenty-four hours, that will be never. No, I just want you to help me fill in the time between my last sight of Giles alive and my first sight of him dead.»
«How can I help you there? I saw him two nights ago briefly and then never again—except for the autographing session. And besides,»—he grew thoughtful—«I’m not dying of eagerness to get involved. Once you start being a witness, heaven only knows how many hours you have to waste with the police and the courts—and I’ve got deadlines to meet.»
It was the mention of deadlines and the knowledge that he had at most three months to write his mystery novel that impelled me to attempt a peculiar bribe. I said, «Look at it this way. If this turns out to be a murder, as I think it will, you may find yourself with a plot ready-made for your damned mystery.»
«But then you’ll want to write it.»
«I? Never. I have better things to do than write stupid puzzlers. You write it.»
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It’s the usual ploy of writers who aren’t clever enough to write good mysteries to pretend such productions are beneath them.
Isaac Asimov
I won’t even bother answering that ridiculous statement.
Darius Just
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I could see Asimov thinking quickly in the direction in which quick thought was his specialty—that of constructing a book. He said, «I could write it with you as first person and introduce myself in the third.»
I said, «Provided you don’t libel me.»
«I’d have to describe you as five feet two inches tall. That would be the most interesting thing about you.»
«Five feet five, damn it.»
«With elevator shoes.»
«Look. You do what you want within the bounds of good taste and let me see the manuscript first and argue it out with you and maybe add a footnote for clarification now and then. And we’ll put it in writing, both of us.»
«All right. But first let me call up my Doubleday editor. I don’t want to get involved in this if Larry Ashmead vetoes the idea.»
«Go ahead!»
He was gone for about three minutes—which I spent wondering whether I ought to get into this, and rather hoping that Ashmead would say no. I doubted that Asimov knew anything worth the bribe, and he probably would have been as helpful as he could be, without it (with a little coaxing), so why the devil had I offered it?
And then I thought—well, damn it, if it is murder and I can show it is, and work out the details, then why shouldn’t I get some of the credit for it? Asimov himself had wondered if I wanted him to be my Watson, and why shouldn’t he be?
Once I had convinced myself I was doing it all out of a respectable drive for self-aggrandizement, I was satisfied and began to hope that Ashmead would say yes.
He did. I could tell that from Asimov’s grin when he was still at the other end of the room. He said, «Larry’s out to lunch, but Cathleen says I can do it any way I want to and she’s sure Larry will feel the same. So now give me all the details and we’ll—»
«No!» I said sharply: «Nothing now. We have to see how it works out first. For now, I just want to discuss the autographing session.»
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Actually, the whole thing worked out better than I expected and, for the most part, Asimov did well enough with the book.
Darius Just