The Early Asimov. Volume 3

'-Uh-yes.'

She nodded her head retrospectively. 'I remember distinctly. First, you got drunk and were sick. Then you got better, and told me the first few chapters. Then I got sick.'

She approached the glowering author. 'Graham.' She leant her golden head upon his shoulder and cooed softly. 'Why don't you continue with the de Meister stories? You get such pretty checks out of them.'

Graham writhed out of her grasp. 'You are a mercenary wretch, incapable of understanding an author's soul. You may consider our engagement broken.'

He sat down hard on the sofa, and folded his arms. 'Unless you will consent to read the script of my novel and give me the usual story analysis.'

'May I give you my analysis of Death on the Third Deck first?'

'No.'

'Good! In the first place, your love interest is becoming sickening.'

'It is not.' Graham pointed his finger indignantly. 'It breathes a sweet and sentimental fragrance, as of an older day. I've got the review here that says it.' He fumbled in his wallet.

'Oh, bullfeathers. Are you going to start quoting that guy in the Pillsboro (Okla.) Clarion? He's probably your second cousin. You know that your last two novels were completely below par in royalties. And Third Deck isn't even being sold.'

'So much the better - Ow!' He rubbed his head violently. 'What did you do that for?'

'Because the only place I could hit as hard as I wanted to, without disabling you, was your head. Listen! The public is tired of your corny Letitia Reynolds. Why don't you let her soak her "gleaming golden crown of hair" in kerosene and get familiar with a match?'

'But June, that character is drawn from life. From you!'

'Graham Dorn! I am not here to listen to insults. The mystery market today is swinging toward action and hot, honest love and you're still in the sweet, sentimental stickiness of five years ago.'

'But that's Reginald de Meister's character.'

'Well, change his character. Listen! You introduce Sancha Rodriguez. That's fine. I approve of her. She's Mexican, flaming, passionate, sultry and in love with him. So what do you do? First he behaves the impeccable gentleman, and then you kill her off in the middle of the story.'

'Hmm, I see - You really think it would improve things to have de Meister forget himself. A kiss or so -'

June clenched her lovely teeth and her lovely fists. 'Oh, darling, how glad I am love is blind! If it ever peeked one tiny little bit, I couldn't stand it. Look, you squirrel's blue plate special, you're going to have de Meister and Rodriguez fall in love. They're going to have an affair through the entire book and you can put your horrible Letitia into a nunnery. She would probably be happier there from the way you make her sound.'

'That's all you know about it, my sweet. It so happens that Reginald de Meister is in love wifh Letitia Reynolds and wants her, not this Rodriguez person.'

'And what makes you think that?'

'He told me so.'

'Who told you so?'

'Reginald de Meister.'

'What Reginald de Meister?'

'My Reginald de Meister.'

'What do you mean, your Reginald de Meister?'

'My character, Reginald de Meister.'

June got up, indulged in some deep-breathing and then said in a very calm voice, 'Let's start all over.'

She disappeared for a moment and returned with an aspirin. 'Your Reginald de Meister, from your books, told you, in person, he was in love with Letitia Reynolds?'

'That's right.'

June swallowed the aspirin.

'Well, I'll explain, June, the way he explained it to me. All characters really exist - at least, in the minds of the authors. But when people really begin to believe in them, they begin to exist in reality, because what people believe in, is, so far as they're concerned, and what is existence anyway?'

June's lips trembled. 'Oh, Gramie, please don't. Mother will never let me marry you if they put you in an asylum.'

'Don't call me Gramie, June, for God's sake. I tell you he was there, trying to tell me what to write and how to write it. He was almost as bad as you. Aw, come on, Baby, don't cry.'

'I can't help it. I always thought you were crazy, but I never thought you were crazy!'

'All right, what's the difference? Let's not talk about it any more. I'm never going to write another mystery novel. After all' - (he indulged in a bit of indignation) - 'when it gets so that my own character - my own character - tries to tell me what to do, it's going too far.'

June looked over her handkerchief. 'How do you know it was really de Meister?'

'Oh, golly. As soon as he tapped his Turkish cigarette on the back of his hand and started dropping g's like snowflakes in a blizzard, I knew the worst had come.'

The telephone rang. June leaped up. 'Don't answer, Graham. It's probably from the asylum. I'll tell them you're not here. Hello. Hello. Oh, Mr. MacDunlap.' She heaved a sigh of relief, then covered the mouthpiece and whispered hoarsely, 'It might be a trap.'

'Hello, Mr. MacDunlap!… No, he's not here…Yes, I

think I can get in touch with him…At Martin's tomorrow,

noon… I'll tell him… With who?… With who???' She hung up suddenly.

'Graham, you're to lunch with MacDunlap tomorrow,'

'At his expense! Only at his expense! '

Her great blue eyes got greater and bluer, 'And Reginald de Meister is to dine with you."

'What Reginald de Meister?'

'Your Reginald de Meister.'

'My Reg-'

'Oh, Gramie, don't.' Her eyes misted, 'Don't you see, Gramie, now they'll put us both in an insane asylum - and Mr. MacDunlap, too. And they'll probably put us all in the same padded cell. Oh, Gramie, three is such a dreadful crowd.'

And her face crumpled into tears.

Grew S. MacDunlap (that the S. stands for 'Some' is a vile untruth spread by his enemies) was alone at the table when Graham Dorn entered. Out of this fact, Graham extracted a few fleeting drops of pleasure.

It was not so much, you understand, the presence of MacDunlap that did it, as the absence of de Meister.

MacDunlap looked at him over his spectacles and swallowed a liver pill, his favorite sweetmeat.

'Aha. You're here. What is this corny joke you're putting over on me? You had no right to mix me up with a person like de Meister without warning me he was real. I might have taken precautions. I could have hired a bodyguard. I could have bought a revolver.'

'He's not real. God damn it! Half of him was your idea.'

That,' returned MacDunlap with heat, 'is libel. And what do you mean, he's not real? When he introduced himself, I took three liver pills at once and he didn't disappear. Do you know what three pills are? Three pills, the kind I've got (the doctor should only drop dead), could make an elephant disappear - if he weren't real. I know.'

Graham said wearily, 'Just the same, he exists only in my mind.'

'In your mind, I know he exists. Your mind should be investigated by the Pure Food and Drugs Act.'

The several polite rejoinders that occurred simultaneously to Graham were dismissed almost immediately as containing too great a proportion of pithy Anglo-Saxon expletives. After all -ha, ha - a publisher is a publisher however Anglo-Saxony he may be.

Graham said, 'The question arises, then, how we're to get rid of de Meister.'

'Get rid of de Meister?' MacDunlap jerked the glasses off his nose in his sudden start, and caught them in one hand. His voice thickened with emotion. 'Who wants to get rid of him?'

'Do you want him around?'

'God forbid,' MacDunlap said between shudders. 'Next to him, my brother-in-law is an angel.'

'He has no business outside my books.'

'For my part, he has no business inside them. Since I started reading your manuscripts, my doctor added kidney pills and cough syrups to my medicines.' He looked at his watch, and took a kidney pill. 'My worst enemy should be a book publisher only a year.'

'Then why,' asked Graham patiently, 'don't you want to get rid of de Meister?'

'Because he is publicity.'

Graham stared blankly.

'Look! What other writer has a real detective? All the others are fictional. Everyone knows that. But yours - yours is real. We can let him solve cases and have big newspaper write-ups. He'll make the Police Department look silly. He'll make -'

'That,' interrupted Graham, categorically, 'is by all odds the most obscene proposal I have ever had my ears manured with.'

'It will make money.'

'Money isn't everything.'

'Name one thing it isn't…Shh!' He kicked a near-fracture

into Graham's left ankle and rose to his feet with a convulsive smile, 'Mr. de Meister!'

'Sorry, old dear,' came a lethargic voice. 'Cou'dn't quite make it, you know. Loads of engagements. Must have been most borin' for you.'

Graham Dom's ears quivered spasmodically. He looked over his shoulder and reeled backward as far as a person could reel while in a sitting position. Reginald de Meister had sprouted a monocle since his last visitation, and his monocular glance was calculated to freeze blood.