Wrong. He’d practically slapped the five-nut tarts and Vermont maple doughnuts out of my hand, barking that he never ate anything before, during, or after his lectures.
“Are you running a bookstore or a diner?” he’d snapped at me. “Water only. Just be sure there’s water.”
Okay, I admit it: Timothy Brennan wasn’t exactly the nicest author on the best-seller list. But I was willing to forgive his rudeness, his pomposity, his blustery impatience, even his quoting of Chandler without mentioning Chandler. Why? Because I myself was a huge fan of his books, purple prose and all. Maybe it was because Jack Shield could always say the sorts of things I wouldn’t. Do the sorts of things I couldn’t.
Whatever the reason, I enjoyed the Shield yarns as much as those old hard-boiled detective tales in the pulps of the twenties and thirties that my father had collected. Brennan himself hadn’t been published in Black Mask (the magazine that had launched writers such as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett), but he’d known some of the men who had, and he wrote in their tradition. That was good enough for me. So like a pathetic kid defending some sports hero caught strung out on steroids, a part of me was still looking for excuses to defend the bad-behaving Brennan.
“It was back when I was wet-behind-the-ears reporter that I first met and then knocked around with Jack Shepard,” Brennan continued to tell the audience. “The model for my fictional detective was a tough-talking, no-nonsense, street-smart private eye dedicated to uncovering the truth, no matter where it leads.”
Some members of the audience actually mouthed these familiar words right along with Brennan. They’d been part of the jacket copy for decades. Hoots and applause followed.
“Jack Shepard left me his case files. Changing the names to protect the guilty, I used them as the basis for my stories—”
A deep voice interrupted: You did what?! You “used” them for your stories? Then you stole them, you low-down, dirty grifter. No one “left” you those files.
Every muscle in my body froze in mortification. Some man had just heckled this beloved author. At my store! Brennan would never forgive me! And the crowd would tear the place to pieces!
I waited for the typhoon to hit.
But it didn’t.
Brennan simply continued his speech. Ignoring the heckler, the audience obviously followed Brennan’s lead.
“Lately, readers have been asking me if the real Jack Shepard was the equal of fictional Jack Shield,” said Brennan. “I tell them that truthfully Shields is Shepard with Timothy Brennan mixed in. Shepard wasn’t exactly leading-man material, y’know.”
Yeah. Right. Not like you, ya bloated, barstool raconteur!
Once more, I braced for impact. Surely there would be a reaction this time. . . .
But Brennan disregarded the man—and so did his audience.
I scanned the crowded room, desperate to locate this deep-voiced pest. He sounded very close. But the only people standing near me, in front of the refreshment table, were women—Linda Cooper-Logan and Fiona Finch, the sixty-year-old owner of Finch’s Inn, the only hotel in Quindicott.
“Shepard had a ton of weaknesses and sad problems—”
Oh, and you didn’t, ya degenerate, gambling ginhead!
What in heaven’s name is going on? I thought. Was I the only one hearing this?
“And, frankly, he wasn’t that smart,” continued Brennan. “It took me—my writing, my words, and my ingenuity—to make him a hero that would span nineteen best-sellers and inspire two television shows. You might say I’m responsible for adding the heroism to the antihero.”
No, Tim-bo. Sounds to me like you’re responsible for stealing my stories, my life, and making a mint on it!
With a nauseating abruptness, I knew why no one else was reacting to the voice. And why I was the only one hearing it.
That voice wasn’t in the room; it was inside my own head.
But how can that be? How? I asked myself. It wasn’t my voice. Or my thoughts. I’d never thought such crude things in my entire life!
Of course you haven’t, said the male voice. You’re one of those nice-thinking, fair-play Janes—gullible as a corn-fed calf and just about as defenseless.
“Where are you?” I rasped in a loud whisper, unable to understand how the man had answered me when I hadn’t spoken a word.
Linda and Fiona looked at me with puzzled expressions.
“Where’s who?” asked Linda.
I shook my head. “Forget it,” I whispered.
“Jack Shepard and I were both working the mean streets,” Brennan continued. “Jack as a detective and me as a reporter. We were just regular guys walking a thin line between the world of respectability and the underworld of crime.”
HA!
I inhaled. Then exhaled. Joan of Arc heard voices, right? But they were probably nice, gentle, inspirational voices. Saintly voices.
I was the one walkin’ that thin line, ya drunken bum. You were the one rackin’ up debts at the track, bangin’ poor workin’ girls then callin’ the cops on them to get out of payin’, and drownin’ your tonsils in so much suds I’d have to pick you up off the taproom floor.
I closed my eyes and opened them again. This voice was certainly no saint. And it really wasn’t mine—at least not a voice from my conscious self. This left me with one conclusion: I was cracking up.
Get a grip, Penelope, I told myself. Refocus your attention!
As applause echoed off the walls, I concentrated on the crowd, scanning the mix of Quindicott townies, Providence professionals, and college kids, as well as Newport yacht-club and old-money types. All appeared entertained enough to shell out $27.50 each.
Then came the “no sale.”
Unlike every other enraptured member of the audience, the middle-aged blond standing at the back of the room in a cream-colored cashmere sweater with white fox trim appeared to be suffering through the speech, her delicate features sculpted into an anguished grimace.
I remembered she’d arrived late and brushed me off when I’d offered to find her a seat, asking instead for the rest room. Her face actually seemed familiar. Suddenly I placed it:
Anna Worth, the Newport cereal heiress.
Worth Flakes and Nuts had been the family’s claim to fame—it tasted somewhat like Wheaties but had nuts and dried fruit mixed in. Years ago she’d been involved in a scandal—typical eighties nightlife stuff, as I recalled, with shots fired at a boyfriend, a big publicized trial, and drug use afterward. It was odd to see her here in our little store, I thought—and not enjoying Brennan’s talk very much, either, from the look on her face.
“Folks always ask me what happened to Jack Shepard,” Brennan continued, “and I always had my stock answer: Jack Shepard let his weaknesses and, sorry to say, his stupidity get the better of him—”
Why you stinkin’, stealin’ son of a bitch! shouted the voice. The only thing that got the better of me was you—if you’re tellin’ me you swiped my case files instead of gettin’ off your lazy ass to look for me!
(Clearly, refocusing my attention hadn’t helped.)
“But it’s finally time to reveal the truth,” continued Brennan. Then he paused, taking time to look meaningfully into the camera. The audience seemed to collectively lean forward.