The Shattered Raven (4 page)

“Okay,” Barney said. “Let’s go.”

T
HE NEXT DAY WAS
rainy in Manhattan—one of those heavy April rains that seems to pick up the Atlantic Ocean and throw it down with force on the island.

Susan came out of her apartment opposite Central Park and decided it would be foolish waiting in the rain for one of the buses on the Avenue. She was lucky in grabbing a cab, though, and before long she had settled back somewhat damply onto the smelly leather seats. When she’d managed to compose herself a bit and wipe the dampness from her face, she opened her flowery attaché case to peer at the notes she’d made of yesterday’s activities.

The day before had gone well and she found herself actually liking Barney Hamet in a strange sort of non-romantic way. He was all bulges and bristles in the right places, and gave the impression of being the sort that got a job done.

After the tour of the Biltmore with him and that other strange man, Harry Fox, she’d gone last night to the 8th Street Book Store, where she occasionally found titles difficult to locate elsewhere. She’d pondered over their paperbound mystery section, stuck way up on the highest level, and found there—right ahead of Dashiell Hammett—two of the novels that Barney Hamet had turned out.

She read one late that night, snuggled deep within the blankets of her bed, trying to imagine herself as the heroine, and Barney as the hero. But it didn’t work out, because the hero, a slick sort of police detective, was exactly the type she imagined most of the men in the world to be, and if this was Barney, she wanted no part of him.

She had to admit, though, that the book had a certain pace, not bad for its sort, and she’d stuffed it into her attaché case, along with the unread one, thinking that they might provide useful research in the later stages of the article.

When on a long story, she had a habit of typing up a rough draft and leaving it in Rowe’s
In
box for further discussion before the completed article was attempted. She did this when she reached the office, typing fast, with little thought to style, getting down the facts about Hamet and the interesting visit to Harry Fox’s cluttered office. She went into the arrangements at the Biltmore a little, but not too much, preferring to save them for a description of the dinner itself. Rowe was out, and she left the rough draft in his box.

After lunch she phoned Barney Hamet at MWA headquarters. “Remember me? Susan Veldt, from yesterday?”

“How could I forget?”

“I was wondering how things were coming.”

“Pretty well. Everything usually falls into place at the last minute.”

“You said something yesterday about Craft Sessions—some panel discussions of editors and such that precede the dinner itself …”

“Yes. Those will be Thursday night and Friday afternoon. We have some people flying in for them. Editors and such.”

“Would it be worth my while to come over for them?”

“I don’t think so. They’re not really a part of the actual awards event, and that’s what you’re interested in, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” she said.

There was a pause, and she waited for him to say something. But when it came, she was disappointed. “Look, I’ve got to rush now. A million things to take care of. Phone me later in the week, and we’ll make arrangements for you. You said you bought a ticket. Is one enough? Your editor doesn’t want to come, does he?”

She tried to picture Arthur Rowe among the denizens of the mystery-writing world. “No.” She chuckled a bit “I don’t think so.”

She put down the phone and stared out the window at the rain, feeling oddly empty, disjointed. The conversation had been unsatisfactory, but then, what had she expected? She was a gal who hated most men, and there was no reason for her to feel otherwise about Barney Hamet.

O
N THURSDAY MORNING, QUITE
early, Barney drove out to Kennedy Airport, through a disjointed web of Long Island highways. Max Winters had agreed to come, and was flying in from the Coast. This year, with the best-novel Edgar in the offing, Max was the most important guest the dinner would have, with the possible exception of Ross Craigthorn. Barney felt, through friendship and duty, that it was his place to meet Max at the airport.

He arrived early and paced the floor of the airline waiting-room until, at last, Max came through the swinging doors, all bushy beard and scraggly hair, looking as if he’d flown from the Coast in a little one-seater plane with an open cockpit.

“Barney, my boy! I’m glad to see you! What’s been going on back east? Have I missed much? Are you gonna give me an award, after all these years?”

Barney smiled slightly, as he took the great paw of a hand that Max offered. “It’s always good to see you, Max. I should be asking you how things are on the Coast. That’s where all the action is these days. Do you realise how many nominees we’re getting from out that way?”

“We’re vital, Barney! Vital! I was up to Berkeley the other day. Wild things going on there!”

“Demonstrations?”

“No … not demonstrations. Just thinking. We live in such a massive bone-busting time, I just wish we could get some of this energy on paper! You know, the mysteries we’re writing today, if we’re going to preserve the unity of the form, have got to appeal to the young. We’ve got to reach the kids, and how are we gonna do that?”

“Save it for the craft session tonight. I’ll put you on first.”

“Still the same old Barney, aren’t you? The tough private eye image. I thought maybe being exec V.P. had mellowed you a bit.”

“Max, nothing’s ever going to mellow me.”

“Find a good woman, and she’ll do it.”

“When are you going to shave off that damn beard, anyway?”

“It’s my image, Barney! My image! I got it on the backs of the book jackets and, you know, they have me on these panel discussion shows out on the Coast—and everybody expects me to have a beard. Without the beard, what am I? A weak-chinned middle-aged man. Beards are in, Barney. I might even write an article about it.” Max chuckled and slapped Barney on the back. “You got your car outside?”

“Yeah, I’m going to give you a real treat, drive you in to New York myself, right to the hotel.”

“Where you got me staying? One of those new places with all chrome and sealed windows you can’t even open?”

“That’s right. Just the place for you, Max.”

They chatted on the ride in, and Barney found that his liking for Max had not dimmed in the year or so since he’d seen him last. Max was a good friend, a good writer, a good talker.

He saw him to his room, explained about the craft session that evening and then left him to make his way around the city as best he could. It was Thursday, the day before the dinner, and Barney had other chores.

One of them was to telephone Ross Craigthorn at Amalgamated Broadcasting. He called from a phone in the hotel lobby. It took him a while to get through to the man, and when he did, the voice on the other end was just a little bit testy. “I’m preparing the script for my afternoon taping,” Craigthorn said. “I don’t have too long.”

“This is Barney Hamet.”

“I know. The secretary told me who you were.”

“I’m helping with arrangements for tomorrow night’s dinner; and I just want to make sure you’re clear on everything.”

“I’ll come around seven or so.”

“Will your wife be joining you?”

“No. My wife is …” The pause lengthened before he finished the sentence. “Away.”

“All right,” Barney said. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, then.”

He hung up the telephone, walked briskly through the hotel lobby to the street. There were other people to be contacted, but he’d have to wait for most of them until the dinner itself.

I
T HAD NOT BEEN
difficult to gain admittance to the nineteenth floor of the Biltmore Hotel, where the ballroom, that Thursday evening, was housing the final stages of a hardware convention. The layout of the place lent itself well to an intruder. Victor Jones had simply strolled in, mistaken by the waiters for a tardy guest, and by the guests for some management functionary checking on the proceedings.

He knew a visit the following day was in order because the rostrum might be in a different position—but still, this gave him an overall view of the ballroom, and it was necessary before he could proceed with the final phase of his plan.

He’d called Ross Craigthorn one more time, but the conversation had been unsatisfactory to both of them. He knew now there was no hope, that he would have to act.

Later that night, he spent some time in a little home workshop he sometimes used. He had a number of things there, but the ones that most interested him at the moment were the transmitting and receiving units from a cheap citizens-band radio outfit, a piece of narrow metal tubing, and some thirty-eight calibre bullets. He had a quantity of copper wire, also—and a tiny drill which he used along with a soldering iron to carefully attach the wire to the cartridge case of the bullet. The wire had to go through a minute aperture in the back of the cartridge case—then almost, but not quite, connect with another wire. There had to be a bridge there—a bridge just the right distance for a spark to jump. That spark would set off the powder in the cartridge and propel the bullet forward. He tried it three times before it worked to his satisfaction. Then he packed up the gear very carefully in a small suitcase, ready for tomorrow night’s dinner.

He turned on the television news at 1.00 a.m. on Amalgamated. Ross Craigthorn was long gone from the studio, but they had a taped replay of an earlier interview of his. Victor Jones sat and looked at the man he was going to kill, remembering those days long ago when they’d sworn that nothing could ever come between them. Something had, of course. Life had.

F
RIDAY WAS SUNNY, A
good day for the visitors who would be coming from out of town. The weather would not interfere with the dinner’s attendance, and that made Barney happy.

He was up early, because there were people to meet, things to do. He’d had a few drinks with Max Winters the previous evening, after the craft session, and although they’d parted before midnight, Barney still felt sleepy. The bed in his furnished uptown apartment was not the most comfortable in the world.

Barney went first to the Fifth Avenue office of Harry Fox. Surprisingly, for the early hour, Harry was not alone. He was using his publicity ability on a sleepy gentleman that Barney knew slightly. Harry introduced them again, just for the record. “Barney, you know Skinny Simon, don’t you?”

Barney had met Skinny Simon once or twice before, but knew the man mainly by reputation, as did almost everyone else in New York. Skinny Simon was not really skinny, being tall, with a fairly medium build, and whether his name truly was Simon, perhaps only his mother could say. But he had a reputation. He conducted an all-night radio show that made his name a household word within listening distance of New York. Once a week he also did an hour-long television show, but it was with the radio show that he had really achieved the sort of instant fame possible only in the media of modern American entertainment.

He actually was following in the footsteps of a number of other personalities who attracted the weird, the controversial, the interesting, and managed to keep a good many New Yorkers awake from twelve to five every morning. The shows had been going on in Manhattan and Los Angeles for years, and seemed as popular and as exasperating as ever. Skinny Simon had survived longer than most. He wore a fashionable brown beard and close-cropped hair, that gave him an air of timelessness. He might have been thirty, or forty, or even older. No one exactly knew. Nor did they know where he had come from. They only knew where he was going—to the top. He had tended, in recent seasons, to be more and more controversial, attracting political figures, smalltime fascists, black nationalists and the like. They got a little kidding from Skinny, but generally they accepted it. It was exposure to them, and exposure was what they usually wanted.

“Glad to meet you again, Skinny,” Barney said, extending his hand. The bearded man accepted it.

“Just who I wanted to see! You know, I was up here talking to Harry about a show I want to do over the weekend. I know I should have planned it sooner, but a panel I had for Sunday night sort of fizzled out. I’m looking for something to replace them and it occurred to me that with your dinner tonight, you probably have a lot of mystery writers in town. I could get together a show …”

Barney interrupted. “Sunday night—it’s a little bad. A lot of people will be leaving Sunday morning for home. You see, the dinner’s tonight and we have a cocktail party at MWA headquarters tomorrow night, but after that the festivities are pretty much over.”

Skinny Simon nodded. “Barney, I still think it’s a good idea if we can swing it. I was talking to Harry, here, and he’s agreed to come on the programme. I’d like to get five writers in all. One or two big names—maybe Rex Stout or half of Ellery Queen.”

Barney raised a hand. “Those people would be pretty tough to get for an all-night show. They don’t need the publicity, and those things are sort of wearing after the first few hours.”

“You could try, couldn’t you, Barney? Tell them it’s for the good of the organisation.”

“I could try,” Barney agreed.

Skinny took out a little pocket notebook covered in tan morocco leather and began jotting down names. “All right, I’ve got Harry Fox for sure. Then let’s figure a big name like Stout or Queen. Who else is around?”

“Mike Avallone, perhaps,” Barney suggested. “Jean Potts? She’s a nice gal. Give you a little feminine interest, if she’ll go for it.”

“How about this year’s award winners? That would be timely.”

Barney thought of Max Winters. “Well it’s a possibility. I don’t want to mention any names yet, but I can talk to them at the dinner tonight and see if they’d be interested.”

“See what you can do,” Skinny said.

“You want five?”

“I’d settle for four. I’d like five. It would be Sunday night. The show starts at midnight—runs till five in the morning. We take a break, have a little food in the middle. See what you can do, huh?”