Max had been standing outside a courthouse on the steps in Murfreesboro, having just won an obscenity case, and was boasting to the press about it, and telling how his empire was about to expand into more publishing and film production when Clovis Applewhite burst through with his .38 and his moral outrage. The assassin went down in a hail of ex-biker bodyguard bullets, but the editor and publisher of Climax Magazine took until early the next morning to die.
Like I said, gut shots kill so fucking slow.
Three months and a few days later, Mavis Crosby died of a heroin overdose in the alley behind a Florida club where she was dancing. The only national publication that noted her passing was Climax Magazine.
And not much at that.
In 1976, one of the last jobs I did for the Broker took me to the South again, and I broke a major personal rule, after the gig, making a side trip back to Memphis.
A new restaurant was going in under what had been Boyd’s and my stakeout pad on the Highland Strip. And across the street, the Climax Club was no more. A fresh new brick facade had been put on, with only a few windows, and when I approached what had been the door to the club I saw written there in black-trimmed gold:
which seemed like the caption on a cartoon in the magazine.
I went in and found a businesslike brunette, attractive with dark-rim glasses and subdued make-up as well as a gray suit, seated at a yacht of a reception desk. It was difficult to make this space be part of what had been the Climax Club, but it was.
“Is Ms. Climer in?” I asked.
The receptionist looked at my casual attire, granted me a minuscule smile and said, “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but I’m a personal acquaintance. She’s in?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“Tell her it’s Jack Quarry.”
I took a seat and, while the receptionist quietly passed my presence along, looked around. Wood paneling, black curtains — this was Climax Publications, wasn’t it? Why weren’t the curtains pink? And why were the magazines on the end tables Time and Newsweek and Sports Illustrated? Not a one carried split-beaver shots.
Very soon, Corrie strode out with a smile from a door behind and to one side of the reception desk. She was in a plaid sport-coat over a butter-yellow blouse with new denim flares and platforms; she was wearing glasses, big round lenses with barely visible frames. She offered a hand for me to shake, like I was an old business acquaintance. But I knew where that hand had been.
“So glad you dropped by,” she said, the smile a little stiff and the words, too. “Let me show you around. Things have changed.”
They had. A nest of cubicles where worker bees were typing took up both the audience area and the runway/stage space, though the bathrooms were still where they’d always been, as were the stairs to the second floor. She led me up and I enjoyed the view. That much of her hadn’t changed.
The magazine floor was divided into offices with pebble-glassed doors, with an open area where artists worked on layouts and paste-up and such, the only thing vaguely like before. Corrie was about to show me into the office with cordelia climer, president on it, when she changed her mind.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she said.
And soon, eerily, I was seated at that orange table again, this time with Corrie. She still had coffee left from breakfast and poured herself a cup. I settled for a caffeine-free Tab, which tasted just like Coke, if you poured it through a gym sock you found in a gutter.
I sipped the stuff as penance. “The glasses are new.”
“Used to have contacts,” she said, her smile a little embarrassed now. “These make for a better image, I guess.”
“I, uh... apologize for dropping off the edge of the earth like that.”
Her smile betrayed some of the hurt. Despite the businesswoman makeover, she still had the same pretty college-girl features, big brown eyes, button nose, pouty mouth; part of the current feminist schtick was no bra, so the perky boobs were reporting for duty, sir.
She said, “You really did just disappear. What was that about?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Bad judgment. Immaturity. We were just getting to know each other and I didn’t know how you’d take having a tragedy, like the loss of your father, you know, just... drop down in the middle of things. How that would play out. I guess I choked. And I really did have another job come in that I had to report to immediately.”
She gave me a skeptical half-smile. “And in six months, you weren’t anywhere around a phone?”
I lifted a shoulder and set it down. “I thought maybe an in-person visit would be better. Was I wrong?”
She shook her head. Her hair was blonder now, and that feathered Farrah Fawcett look had gotten to it. I didn’t mind.
“It was a rough time,” she admitted. “Someone as sensitive as you would have been nice to have around.”
I managed not to do a Tab spit take. “You mean, Mr. Sensitivity who left you dangling? I am sorry. But you seem to be doing very well. Not to be crass about it... but it looks like you inherited everything.”
She nodded, sipped her coffee. “From Daddy and from Uncle Max. I’ve made some changes.”
“So I noticed.”
She opened a hand. “Oh, there’s still a Climax Club in town, and there will be half a dozen more around the country by the end of the year. But they’ll be classy, lots of chrome and mirrors, first-rate food, pretty girls, no bottomless dancing, no—”
“Miner’s hats?”
Her smile crinkled her chin. “No miner’s hats. Do you still read the magazine? You claimed you did.”
“Proud subscriber.”
“Notice any difference?”
“Last few issues, the girls... that is, young women... are still quite naked, their thighs in no way glued together, but the photography is much better. Not so gynecological, but still outdoing Playboy and the rest of the competition. No Vaseline smeared on the lens, like Penthouse.”
“And the politics?”
“A definite left-wing slant. Even a feminist one.”
“Does that work for you, Jack?”
“Sure.” Didn’t exactly. To me they were trying to eat their pussy and have it, too.
She sat forward. “The political point of view is going to stay strong, Jack. And the sexual aspect will play up the equality of the sexes. More men in the photo shoots, erections and all.”
I think she said “erections.” With all this political talk, it could have been “elections.”
“I’ll give you a tour,” she said. “Over half of our staff is female now. Our cartoon and photography editors are both women. The level of the writing, both in-house and from leading authors, is going to rival what Hefner produces, without losing our magazine’s cheeky attitude.”
Cheeky was right.
She folded her hands and leaned toward me with a pixieish smile. “So, Jack. As a reader... and an old friend... do you think my late uncle would approve of this new direction? He really was evolving politically, you know. And my father, I like to think, would applaud my professionalism. Do you agree?”
“I think so.”
And I really did. She reached across and touched my hand. “I told you I wasn’t a prude.”