Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41 (6 page)

 
          
 
Levine carried the notebooks over to the card
table, pushed the typewriter out of the way, sat down and began to skim through
the books.

           
 
He found what he was looking for in the middle
of the third one he tried. A description of Larry Perkins, written by the man
Perkins had killed. The description, or character study, which it more closely
resembled, was four pages long, beginning with a physical description and
moving into a discussion of Perkins' personality. Levine noticed particular
sentences in this latter part: "Larry doesn't want to write, he wants to
be a writer, and that isn't the same thing. He wants the glamour and the fame
and the money, and he thinks he'll get it from being a writer. That's why he's
dabbled in acting and painting and all the other so-called glamorous
professions. Larry and I are both being thwarted by the same thing: neither of
us has anything to say worth saying. The difference is, I'm trying to find
something to say, and Larry wants to make it on glibness alone. One of these
days, he's going to find out he won't get anywhere that way. That's going to be
a terrible day for him."

 
          
 
Levine closed the book,
then
picked up the last one, the one that hadn't yet been filled, and leafed through
that. One word kept showing up throughout the last notebook.
"Nihilism."
Gruber obviously hated the word, and he was also obviously afraid of it.
"Nihilism is death," he wrote on one page. "It is the belief
that there are no beliefs, that no effort is worthwhile. How could any writer
believe such a thing? Writing is the most positive of acts. So how can it be
used for negative purposes? The only expression of nihilism is death, not the
written word. If I can say nothing hopeful, I shouldn't say anything at
all."

 
          
 
Levine put the notebooks back in the dresser
drawer finally, thanked the cop, and went out to the Chevy. He'd hoped to be
able to fill in the blank spaces in Perkins' character through Gruber's
notebooks, but Gruber had apparently had just as much trouble defining Perkins
as Levine was now having. Levine had learned a lot about the dead
man, that
he was sincere and intense and self-demanding as
only the young can be, but Perkins was still little more than a smooth and
blank wall. "Glibness," Gruber had called it. What was beneath the
glibness? A murderer, by Perkins' own admission.
But what
else?

 
          
 
Levine crawled wearily into the Chevy and
headed for
Manhattan
.

 
          
 
Professor Harvey Stonegell was in class when
Levine got to
Columbia
University
, but the girl at the desk in the dean's
outer office told him that Stonegell would be out of that class in just a few
minutes, and would then be free for the rest of the afternoon. She gave him
directions to Stonegell's office, and Levine thanked her.

 
          
 
Stonegell's office door was locked, so Levine
waited in the hall, watching students hurrying by in both directions, and
reading the notices of scholarships, grants and fellowships thumbtacked to the
bulletin board near the office door.

 
          
 
The professor showed up about fifteen minutes
later, with two students in tow. He was a tall and slender man, with a gaunt
face and a full head of gray-white hair. He could have been any age between
fifty and seventy. He wore a tweed suit jacket, leather patches at the elbows,
and non-matching gray slacks.

 
          
 
Levine said, "Professor Stonegell?"

 
          
 
"Yes?"

 
          
 
Levine introduced himself and showed his
identification. "I’d like to talk to you for a minute or two."

 
          
 
"Of course.
I'll
just be a minute." Stonegell handed a book to one of the two students,
telling him to read certain sections of it, and explained to the other student
why he hadn't received a passing grade in his latest assignment. When both of
them were taken care of, Levine stepped into Stonegell's crowded and tiny
office, and sat down in the chair beside the desk.

 
          
 
Stonegell said, "Is this about one of my
students?"

 
          
 
"Two of them.
From your evening writing course.
Gruber
and Perkins."

           
 
"Those two?
They
aren’t in trouble, are they?"

 
          
 
"I'm afraid so. Perkins has confessed to
murdering Gruber."

 
          
 
Stonegell's thin face paled, "Ember's
dead?
Murdered?"

 
          
 
"By Perkins.
He
turned himself in right after it hapf>ened. But, to be honest with you, the
whole thing bothers me. It doesn't make sense. You knew them both. I thought
you might be able to tell me something about them, so it would make
sense."

 
          
 
Stonegell lit himself a cigarette and offered
one to Levine. Then he fussed rather vaguely with his messy desktop, while
Levine waited for him to gather his thoughts.

 
          
 
"This takes some getting used to,"
said Stonegell after a minute.
"Gruber and Perkins.
They were both good students in my class, Gruber perhaps a bit better. And they
were friends."

 
          
 
"I'd heard they were friends."

 
          
 
"There was a friendly rivalry between
them," said Stonegell. "Whenever one of them started a project, the
other one started a similar project, intent on beating the first one at
his own
game. Actually, that was more Perkins than Gruber.
And they always took opposite sides of every question, screamed at each other
like sworn enemies. But actually they were very close friends. I can't
understand either one of them murdering the other."

 
          
 
"Was Gruber similar to Perkins?"

 
          
 
"Did I give that impression? No, they
were definitely unalike.
The old business about opposites
attracting.
Gruber was by far the more sensitive and sincere of the two.
I don't mean to imply that Perkins was insensitive or insincere at all. Perkins
had his own sensitivity and his own sincerity, but they were almost exclusively
directed within
himself
. He equated everything with
himself, his own feelings, and his own ambitions. But Gruber had more of the
—oh, I don't know —more of a world-view, to badly translate the German. His
sensitivity was directed outward, toward the feelings of other people. It
showed up in their writing, Ember's forte was characterization, subtle
interplay between personalities. Perkins was deft, almost glib, with movement
and action and plot, but his characters lacked substance. He wasn't really
interested in anyone but himself."

 
          
 
"He doesn't sound like the kind of guy
who'd confess to a murder right after he committed it."

 
          
 
"I know what you mean. That isn't like
him. I don't imagine Perkins would ever feel remorse or guilt. I should think
he would be one of the people who
believes
the only
crime is in being caught."

 
          
 
"Yet we didn't catch him. He came to
us." Levine studied the book titles on the shelf behind Stonegell.
"What about their mental attitudes recently?" he asked.
"Generally speaking, I mean. Were they happy or unhappy, impatient or
content or what?"

 
          
 
"I think they were both rather depressed,
actually," said Stonegell.
"Though for somewhat
different reasons.
They had both come out of the Army less than a year
ago, and had come to
New York
to try to make their mark as writers. Gruber was having difficulty with
subject matter. We talked about it a few times. He couldn't find anything he
really wanted to write about, nothing he felt strongly enough to give him
direction in his writing."

 
          
 
"And Perkins?"

 
          
 
"He wasn't particularly worried about
writing in that way. He was, as I say, deft and clever in his writing, but it
was all too shallow. I think they might have been bad for one another,
actually. Perkins could see that Gruber had the depth and sincerity that he
lacked, and Gruber thought that Perkins was free from the soul-searching and
self-doubt that was hampering him so much. In the last month or so, both of
them have talked about dropping out of school, going back home and forgetting
about the whole thing. But neither of them could have done that, at least not
yet. Gruber couldn't have, because the desire to write was too strong in him.
Perkins couldn't, because the desire to be a famous writer was too
strong."

 
          
 
"A year seems like a pretty short time to
get all that depressed," said Levine.

 
          
 
Stonegell smiled. "When you're young,"
he said, "a year can be eternity. Patience is an attribute of the
old."

 
          
 
"I suppose you're right. What about girl
friends, other people who knew them both?"

 
          
 
"Well, there was one girl whom both
were
dating rather steadily.
The rivalry
again.
I don't think either of them was particularly serious about her,
but both of them wanted to take her away from the other one."

 
          
 
"Do you know this girl's name?"

 
          
 
"Yes, of course. She was in the same
class with Perkins and Gruber. I think I might have her home address
here."

 
          
 
Stonegell opened a small file drawer atop his
desk, and looked through it. "Yes, here it is," he said. "Her
name is Anne Marie Stone, and she lives on
Grove Street
, down in the Village. Here you are."

 
          
 
Levine accepted the card from Stonegell,
copied the name and address onto his pad, and gave the card back. He got to his
feet. "Thank you for your trouble," he said.

 
          
 
"Not at all," said Stonegell,
standing. He extended his hand, and Levine, shaking it, found it bony and
almost parchment-thin, but surprisingly strong. "I don't know if I've been
much help, though," he said.

 
          
 
"Neither do
I
,
yet," said Levine. "I may be just wasting both our time. Perkins
confessed, after 2dl."

 
          
 
"Still — "said
Stonegell.

 
          
 
Levine nodded. "I know. That's what's got
me doing extra work."

 
          
 
"I'm still thinking of this thing as
though —as though it were a story problem, if you know what I mean. It isn't
real yet. Two yourtg students, I've taken an interest in both of them, fifty
years after the worms get me they'll still be around —and then you tell me one
of them is already wormfood, and the other one is effectively just as dead. It
isn't real to me yet. They won't be in class tomorrow night, but I still won't
believe it."

 
          
 
"I know what you mean."

 
          
 
"Let me know if anything happens, will
you?"

 
          
 
"Of course."