The Early Ayn Rand (9 page)

I was half insane when I got back to New York. I walked around in a daze. “The Night King!” was the only name on my brain. It haunted me. Everything black and round, even shoe-buttons and raisins in bread-loaves seemed to me black diamonds that were tempting, mocking, torturing me.

For hours I sat in a dark corner, in some joint, racking my brain hopelessly over that unexplainable mystery, gnawing over and over again at the same questions: What had happened? Where had that stone been hidden? Where was it now, while I was eating my soul away for it? I drank like a sponge.

So if you have any imagination, imagine, for I can’t describe it, imagine my feelings when I saw the following headlines on newspaper extras:

Was I going goofy? I read the paper, hardly believing my eyes. It didn’t say much. It said only that the well-known young millionaire, Winton Stokes, had been robbed of his famous black diamond, “The Night King,” on his way to San Francisco. And that the police were looking for a certain notorious criminal who committed the robbery and whose name they were keeping a secret.

It was a long time before I gathered my senses and even then I couldn’t understand a thing. It occurred to me that Winton Stokes might have faked that news himself, to protect his diamond from further attempts. But I soon realized that I was mistaken: for Stokes was back in New York and didn’t start on another trip, and was reported seriously perturbed; besides, the police were in a big turmoil and really searching for some one.

And then the thought struck me: Mickey Finnegan! Yes, that must be it. How on earth had that big sap managed to do it when I had failed was more than I could understand. It was unbelievable. Yet, Mickey was the only human being that had been in on the secret.

I turned green with fury. Then, I thought it over. Then I almost felt happy.

The first thing I wanted to do was to learn something of Mickey’s present whereabouts. That evening I went to “The Hanged Cat” to try and get some information.

And whom should I see there, right before my eyes, sitting alone at a table in a dark corner, but Mickey Finnegan himself! Well, he was just enough of a dumbbell to do that. He was sipping slowly some booze and his face had a senseless expression, if any.

I walked to his table and sat down.

“Hello!” I said, amiably.

“Hello,” he answered, dark and surprised.

“Mickey, I have an offer for you: give me half of it.”

“Half o’what?”

“You know very well—half of the Night King’s price.”

He looked at me with open mouth and didn’t answer.

“I know you got it,” I said impatiently, “I know you have it. And it’s healthier for you to be partners with me, Mickey Finnegan, understand?”

“Whatcha talking about?”

“Aw, can that stuff! If you were so lucky as to get it, you owe it to me, for I gave you the tip. It’s only fair that we split now. And if you don’t—I’ll go straight to police headquarters and tell them who’s got the Night King and where to find him!”

“Listen, buddy, you’re cracked. How could I have gotten it when you grabbed it first? Yeh, I was on the train, an’ I figured to try it, but I was too damn tired an’ I fell asleep, an’ when I woke the Stokes guy was gone—so who pulled it?”

“I didn’t know you were such a good actor, Mickey Finnegan! But it’s no use, you can’t fool me. Now, do I get half of it or do I not?”

“I know you’ve got it yerself, an’ you’re lying, but I’ll be damned if I can understand why.”

“Mickey,” I said desperately, “Mickey! We’ve always been good friends. Give me that stone, Mickey! Show it to me! Let me see it!”

“You’ve been drinkin’, buddy.”

“For the last time, Mickey, are we partners?”

“Like fun we are!”

I got up. “All right,” I growled, “all right. So long, Mickey Finnegan. You know where I’m going!”

“Go to hell!” was Mickey’s answer.

There was but one feeling left in me and it was a blind fury against Mickey Finnegan. Forgetting everything else, I had but one thought now—revenge. I decided to go straight to headquarters. I hesitated for a moment, thinking that they were probably looking for me, too, after my attempted robbery. But I reassured myself with the thought that they wouldn’t know me, for Stokes never had a picture of me, and besides, I would be forgiven and maybe even rewarded for helping to catch the real thief.

I remembered the fist fight and all that I had suffered from Mickey Finnegan and my mad fury choked me. I went to headquarters.

I walked right in, head high and with assured steps, like an honest, respectable citizen. I asked proudly and imperatively to see the Chief Inspector.

The cops were looking at me with the queerest looks I ever saw in human eyes. When I asked for the Chief Inspector, two or three of them rushed to his office much too hurriedly.

When I walked into the Chief’s office, he looked at me with bulging eyes.

“Well, for goodness’ sake!” he gasped.

“Inspector,” I said solemnly, “I know who stole the Night King and I know the man you’re looking for: it’s Mickey Finnegan!”

He looked at me silently for a long time, with the funniest expression on his face.

“You’re mistaken, Hawkins,” he said slowly at last, “it isn’t Finnegan we’re looking for—it’s you!”

“Me?! Me? W-why?”

“Because you’ve got the Night King.”

“What?!!”

“You’ve got it and what’s more, you’re going to return it.”

“Who the hell told you that?”

“Mr. Stokes did. And I’m going to get in touch with him at once and tell him that we’ve got you.”

“Mr. Stokes?!” I roared. “Mr. Stokes? Why, the guy’s gone bugs! Call him, call him at once! He knows it’s a lie! He ought to know!”

When I confronted Winton Stokes, he looked at me with that darned mocking smile of his twisting his mouth.

“What the hell does that mean?” I yelled. “You know damn well I didn’t get your sparkler! You know it as well as I do, don’tcha?”

“That’s just it,” he said, so very kindly, “that’s just the trouble: I happen to know a little more than you do.”

The cops around were grinning so that their mouths almost reached their ears.

“What’s the joke?” I asked furiously.

“Oh boy!” roared one of them.

“We owe the gentleman an explanation,” said Winton Stokes. “You fooled me, Hawkins, and it’s a compliment I don’t pay to people often. I believed you to be an honest, trustworthy servant and I chose you for a very important mission. You see, I had to carry the Night King with me and I had to hide it in a place where no one would think of looking for it. I knew it wasn’t safe anywhere on my person. By chance, you yourself gave me the idea for its hiding-place. But even though I trusted you, I didn’t want to take any chances and give you any temptations. So I made you serve my purpose without your knowing it. The only person I had to trust with the secret was a good old friend of mine who happens to be a dentist. Well, the whole thing turned out to be more unusual than I had expected. Open your mouth!”

In the next moment I uttered a yell, the yell of a mad beast, and if the cops hadn’t seized me in time, I would have jumped at Winton Stokes and murdered him on the spot: for I opened my mouth wide, he unscrewed something in it and there, in my teeth,
in my own false teeth
, was the Night King!

 

 

Editor’s Preface

This story was written a year or more after “The Husband I Bought,” probably sometime in 1927, when Ayn Rand was living at the Hollywood Studio Club, had obtained a position as a junior screenwriter for Cecil B. DeMille, and was just beginning to date Frank O’Con-nor, her future husband. The spirit of the story matches these auspicious events.

Miss Rand’s silent-screen synopses from the 1920s—about a dozen remain—are examples of pure, even extravagant Romanticism. Most are imaginative adventure stories, with daring heroes, a strong love interest, non-stop action, and virtually no explicit philosophy. “Good Copy” is one of the few works of this type that are not scenarios. As such, it represents a major change in mood from “The Husband I Bought.”

“The Husband I Bought” portrays the dedication of the passionate valuer, who will bear the greatest suffering, if necessary, rather than settle for something less than the ideal. “Good Copy” reminds us of another crucial aspect of Ayn Rand’s philosophy: her view that suffering is an exception, not the rule of life. The rule, she held, should not be pain or even heroic endurance, but gaiety and lighthearted joy in living. It is on this premise that “Good Copy” was written.

I first heard the story some twenty-five years ago, when it was read aloud in a course on fiction-writing given by Ayn Rand to some young admirers. The class was told merely that this was a story by a beginning writer, and was asked to judge whether the writer had a future. Some students quickly grasped who the author was, but a number did not and were astonished, even indignant, when they found out. Their objection was not to the story’s flaws but to its essential spirit. “It is so unserious,” the criticism went. “It doesn’t deal with big issues like your novels; it has no profound passions, no immortal struggles, no philosophic meaning.”

Miss Rand replied, in effect: “It deals with only one ‘big issue,’ the biggest of all: can man live on earth or not?”

She went on to explain that malevolence—the feeling that man by nature is doomed to suffering and defeat—is all-pervasive in our era; that even those who claim to reject such a viewpoint tend to feel, today, that the pursuit of values must be a painful, teeth-clenched crusade, a holy but grim struggle against evil. This attitude, she said, ascribes far too much power to evil. Evil, she held, is essentially impotent (see
Atlas Shrugged
); the universe is not set against man, but is “benevolent.” This means that man’s values (if based on reason)
are
achievable here and in this life; and therefore happiness is not to be regarded as a freak accident, but, metaphysically, as the normal, the natural, the to-be-expected.

Philosophically, in short, the deepest essence of man’s life is not grave, crisis-ridden solemnity, but lighthearted cheerfulness. A story reflecting this approach, she concluded, a story written specifically to project pure “benevolent universe,” should be written as though all problems have already been answered and all big issues solved, and now there is nothing to focus on but man acting in the world and succeeding—nothing but unobstructed excitement, romance, adventure.

In
Atlas Shrugged,
Dagny hears Francisco laughing: “it was the gayest sound in the world. . . . The capacity for unclouded enjoyment, she thought, does not belong to irresponsible fools . . . to be able to laugh like that is the end result of the most profound, most solemn thinking.” In these terms, we may say that if her more philosophic works represent Ayn Rand’s profound thinking, then “Good Copy” is like the unclouded laugh of Francisco.

The story, of course, is still very early, and must be read in part for its intention, which is not consistently realized.

Laury, the young hero, is but a faint, even humorous suggestion of the heroes still to come. Reflecting the primacy of women in the early works, Jinx, the heroine, is the more mature character, and the one dominant in the action. She is ahead of Laury all the way. Yet, as one would expect from Ayn Rand, Jinx’s feeling for Laury is one of the most convincing elements in the story—and she is the opposite of a feminist. “Women,” she tells Laury warmly at one point, “are the bunk.”

As a piece of writing, “Good Copy” represents a major advance over “The Husband I Bought.” The author’s command of English, though still imperfect, has increased substantially. The originality of certain descriptions and the sudden flashes of wit begin to foreshadow what is to come. The dialogue, especially the use of slang, is still not quite right; and the tone of the piece is unsteady, verging, I think, on being overly broad. But despite these flaws, the story as a whole does manage to convey a real exuberance of spirit.

Decades later, after she had completed
Atlas Shrugged,
Ayn Rand occasionally said that she wanted to write a pure adventure story without any deep philosophical theme. (At one point, she had even chosen the hero’s name—Faustin Donnegal—and his description; like Laury McGee, he was to have dimples.) But she never did write it.

“Good Copy,” therefore, though early and imperfect, is all we have from her in this genre. It reflects a side of Ayn Rand that her admirers will not find isolated in this pure form anywhere else.

A note on the text: In the 1950s, for the reading to her class, Miss Rand modernized some of the period expressions in the piece, substituting “sports car” for “roadster,” “panties” for “step-ins,” and the like. I have retained these changes in the following.

—L. P.

“I wish there was a murder! Somebody chopped to pieces and blood all over the pavements. . . . And I wish there was a fire, an immense fire, so that the gas tank would bust like a peanut and half the town’d be blown up! . . . And I’d like to see somebody stick up the bank and sweep it to the last nickel, clean like a bald head! . . . And I wish there was an earthquake!”

Laury McGee walked fast, fast, so that each step struck the pavement furiously, like a blow to an enemy. His shirt collar thrown open, the veins in his sunburnt neck trembled and tensed as he tried to draw his lips into a grim, straight line. This was very difficult, for Laury McGee’s lips were young, delightfully curved, with tempting, mischievous dimples in the corners that always looked as though he was trying to hold back a sparkling smile. But he was very far from any desire to smile, now.