CHAPTER 2

The clicking of typewriters in two of the offices almost drowned out the sound of the shot. It was just a faint zing, with a released-pressure kind of vibrancy about it. A ping-pong ball striking a metal screen might have produced such a sound.

It was strange and unusual enough to make Lynn Prentiss look up from the manuscript she was reading and wrinkle her brow. If a fly had alighted on her cheek she might have paused in much the same way, startled, incredulous—asking herself if it really could be a fly. A fly in an air-conditioned office, with all of the windows shut?

The zing puzzled and disturbed her more than a fly would have done, because the mystery could not be instantly solved with a quick flick of her thumb.

The angry impatience, the annoyance with trifles which she had been experiencing all morning—an impatience which hours of manuscript reading had done nothing to alleviate—turned even so trivial an unsolved mystery into an infringement on her right to work undisturbed.

She blew a thin strand of red-gold hair back from her forehead, and sat for an instant drumming her fingers on the desktop. Then her woman's curiosity got the better of her. She arose quickly, piled the unread manuscripts on top of the blue-penciled ones and strode out of the office.

The clicking of the battered typewriter in the office adjacent to her own stopped abruptly and Jim Macklin, his collar loosened and his tie awry, called out to her.

"When you get through taking out commas, Monroe, there's something here you can help me with. Or maybe you should be more of the Bardot type. With that sweater you're wearing, it's hard to tell."

"What is it this time?" she demanded, pausing in the doorway, but making no attempt to smile. Then, the way he grinned, the boyish impulsiveness which made him seem out of place in a briskly efficient magazine office at ten in the morning, caused her face to soften.

It was insane, of course—that she should think of him in an almost maternal way. There was a dusting of gray at his temples and he was almost twice her age. But he was such a big bear cub of a man, with such a lost-orphan kind of helplessness about him at times, that he ignited the maternal spark in her.

She hoped it wasn't too bright a spark and that it didn't show in her eyes. She had a feeling that he could ignite it in other women, too, and knew it only too well and perhaps even traded on it. A man could go very far, she told herself with more cynicism than she ordinarily felt, if he could do that to a woman and be exceptionally virile looking at the same time.

"I could be wrong," Macklin said. "But I've a feeling that if you'd just bend over and breathe on this manuscript something wonderful would happen to it. Just the whiff of a really beautiful femme would do the trick. The guy has all kinds of complexes and plenty of painful hungers and I'm not sure the right girl is sitting beside him in chapter three."

"I bet there's a wolf pack on every page," she said. "I wouldn't be safe anywhere near a story like that."

"Nope, you're way off base, gorgeous. Just one guy. He's slightly beat, sure. But basically he's a romantic idealist. He's the kind of guy it would be hard to separate from a room in Paris overlooking the Seine. Wine bottles on the floor, tubes of half-squeezed-out paint scattered around, everything in wild disorder. Being human, with the hungers and all, he's been out on the Boulevard looking for—I blush to say it—a pickup. He's found one, but, as I say, I'm not sure she's the right girl for him. But judge for yourself. It won't take a minute."

"Very amusing, Jim. But I just haven't time right now."

"Make time. You've got all afternoon to work down to the last of your manuscripts. And this is sure to interest you. She's right there beside him, sitting on a rumpled couch. Her long blonde hair is falling down and her lips are slightly parted—"

"Well—"

"Get the picture? Not a morsel of food has touched her lips for two days, and there's a tragic hopelessness in her eyes. But pallor becomes her. She's prepared to make any sacrifice, but she hopes she won't have to. It could develop into a great love, and she's hoping he'll have the strength to be understanding and wait. All right. He may look cynical, but he'd no more think of making a pass at that girl without encouragement than I would."

"You'll get no encouragement from me, you grinning ape!"

"A man can dream, can't he?"

"He can do other things as well. I've learned that much about men just in the short time I've been reading the stories you've passed on to me for final editing. Honest writing—stark realism. Brother! I should be the last to deny that most of it is very, very good. Brimming over with artistic integrity. Strong writing you'll never find me objecting to. But I hope you realize I couldn't read stories like that day after day and remain a naïve little girl from Ohio."

"Now who's doing the kidding," Macklin said, with mock solemnity. "There are no naïve little girls in Ohio any more—or in Indiana or Idaho. TV has taken care of that. But why should I deny your accusation? No punches drawn, baby. That's how Hemingway got his start, remember?"

Some of the levity went out of her gaze and she shrugged impatiently. "How would you expect me to remember? His first book was published twenty years before I was born."

Macklin's grin vanished and a hurt, almost accusing look came into his eyes. "I was pretty sure you'd read it anyway. That's the fourth time you've flared up at me in three days. Do you have to catch me up on everything I say? If you were like Lathrup I could understand it. She has a compulsion to cut people down to size, men especially. Three or four sizes smaller than they actually are. It's very bad. I'm not passing a moral judgment on her, understand? I'm just saying it's bad."

"What are you trying to say, Jim?"

"That you're not like Lathrup at all. You never had a terrible scare when you were eight months old—or three years old. You were never left alone in the dark, in mortal fear, crying out for food and warmth and not knowing if help would ever come to you. According to the psychologists, that's what makes people behave the way she does. A tragic accident in childhood, something parents can't always help or be held accountable for. You've never had any such scare. But the way you've been catching me up the past few days—"

Lynn tightened her lips and started to turn away, anger flaming in her eyes. Then, as if realizing that the rebuke had been merited, she swung back to face him again and said in a weary voice: "Sorry, Jim. I guess I've been driving myself too hard. Everyone feels they have to when Lathrup is in one of her moods. She's been practically standing over me with a whip for a week now. You can't do your best work when you're under that kind of pressure. If she could only realize—"

"She realizes," Macklin said. "She's cutting off her nose to spite her face, but she can't help it. She won't wreck the concern, no danger of that. She's too skillful a manipulator. What she loses in one direction, she'll make up for in another. She knows just how to prevent the really big blunders that could prove costly. If we publish a few stories and articles that just get by under the fence, because she's kept us from exercising our best judgment, it will all even up in the wash. Gawd, how I'm mixing my metaphors."

Lynn suddenly remembered why she had emerged from her office in such haste and the mystery of the strange sound began to trouble her again. It was neurotic, of course, a haywire kind of curiosity that she ought not to have succumbed to. But whenever she started anything she liked to finish it.

She thought of asking Macklin to accompany her down the corridor, but almost instantly thought better of it. He'd probably laugh her concern to scorn and she'd taxed his patience enough already.

It was her baby and she'd better carry it—as far as the reception desk anyway. She'd ask Susan Weil, and if Susan hadn't heard anything she'd know she was being foolish. She'd go back and sit down and finish the pile of remaining manuscripts. She said goodbye to Macklin and went on her way.

There were three offices to pass before she reached the end of the corridor and turned into the small, reception desk alcove.

Three offices to pass ... pigeons in the grass. It sounded like something from Gertrude Stein, or some nonsense rhyme from childhood.

She amused herself by repeating it over and over, as most people are prone to do with snatches of song or meaningless limericks when they're under tension.

"Why should that sound have disturbed me so much?" she asked herself and got no answer.

One of the offices, behind which she suspected that Fred Ellers would be sitting with his tie off, not just awry as Macklin's had been, presented to her gaze only a frosted glass exterior. The door was closed and probably locked, for Ellers had a habit of locking himself in when he was hitting the bottle.

The second office, from which the sound of another clicking typewriter issued, was occupied by Ruth Porges, trim and immaculate in the stiff, tailormade suit she customarily wore as if it were some kind of uniform.

The third door was ajar and a very distinguished-looking individual sat behind it. Allen Gerstle, white-haired and bespectacled, spent a lot of time over his exposé columns. He had a rare feeling for beautiful prose, wasted perhaps at times, but Lynn knew that a good style was an asset, even when only the cafe society set was prepared to take it seriously.

Lynn found herself at the reception desk almost before she realized that she had completely traversed the corridor. Susan Weil was answering the phone, but she cupped the mouthpiece with her hand and turned from it when she saw Lynn standing at her elbow.

"Is there something—?" she asked.

"I heard a funny sound a few minutes ago," Lynn said. "It sounded like ... like...."

"I know," Susan Weil said, helping her. "I heard it too."

"Where do you think it came from?"

"How should I know?" Susan asked, annoyed by a furious buzzing from the switchboard.

Then the irritation suddenly went out of her eyes and she replied cooperatively. "From either Eaton's office or Lathrup's office. I didn't pay much attention to it. It wasn't the only funny sound I've heard around here. When Lathrup—no, I guess I'd better skip it."

"Why, Susan, for Pete's sake?" Lynn asked, smiling a little. "You know I wouldn't repeat it. You've as much right as we have to say what you think. With that graduate major in anthropology you're using as an excuse to spend the summer at a switchboard when you could just as easily—oh, well."

"It's simple work and I like it," Susan replied. "I could spend the summer on Cape Cod and just about squeeze by. But why do it? I like New York in summer and I can use a little extra dough, and I don't feel like secretarying for a stuffy old professor of anthropology. That answer you? When they give out prizes for curiosity—"

"Like Alice in Wonderland, you mean? Curiouser and curiouser. Okay, I plead guilty. I just happen to be interested in people."

"It's forgotten. I forgive you. About that sound—"

"Let me find out for myself. I've gone too far to turn back now. I may as well pull out all the stops and make an absolute fool of myself."

A moment later Lynn was standing before the closed door of Helen Lathrup's private office, wondering if she should knock and announce herself before entering.

She decided not to knock. Either way, Lathrup was sure to be furious and she didn't want to be told to go away.

She took firm hold of the knob and opened the door.

The first thing she saw was the glistening red stain on the floor immediately in front of Lathrup's desk, where blood from the wound in Lathrup's right temple had trickled down over the front of the desk to the floor.

Then she saw the blonde head resting on the desk, and the wound itself and the limp white hand dangling over the edge of the desk.

Lynn Prentiss screamed.

Frederick Ellers had locked the door of his office and was pouring twelve-year old Bourbon from a private-stock fifth into a paper cup when he heard the scream.

The glass door was thin, and he could hear the scream distinctly. But he could not identify the voice, even though it made him sit bolt upright in his chair, dead sober for an instant.

I'm not the only one, he thought. Someone else has stumbled on agony.

Then the mist came swirling back and his thoughts became chaotic again.

Fire me. Just like that ... snap of her fingers. You'd better stay away from me. That's what I told her. When I go out of here I'm through. Told her that too. Just because she was so damn mean ... so cold rotten mean.

Feelings? You'd search a long while ... never find ... woman so goddam.... Told her I was sorry. How about that? What'd she expect? Go down on my knees? Listen, wait a minute. Before I'd do that—

Fifty-seven years old. Look at me, I said. Fifty-eight after the next fifty drinks. Fifty-eight and a fraction. Old, old, old.

Fire me. Didn't get the facts straight. Little straight facts in a big important article. Facts ... facts. What are a few frigging facts anyway? I can still write well, can't I? Can't I? Good strong ... strongstraightforward writing.

Drink too much. Drink all the time. Always polluted. Who am I to deny it? I'll tell you who I am. Graduate Columbia School of Journalism. Twelve years on the New York Times, seven Herald Tribune, five....

Sish to all that. Switch to magazines. Big mistake. Big mistake ever to switch. Newspaper man. First, foremost and always. Should never have switched.

That guy down in Florida. Miami? No, hell no. Somewhere in Florida. Palm Beach? No, no, no. Where then? What's it matter?

Important writer, wonderful guy, Pulitzer Prize winner. Think of it—Pulitzer Prize winner. Older 'n I am. Sixty-five, maybe seventy by now. Couldn't keep away from the stuff. Drank, drank, drank—always polluted. Now he's asking for handouts. Sitting by yacht basin. Watching the big ones—half-million-dollar yachts. Never own a flat-bottomed skiff. Neither will I....

Ellers got swayingly to his feet, pushing the chair in which he'd been sitting back so violently that it toppled over with a crash that caused him to shudder and cry out, as if a leather thong had bitten cruelly into his flesh.

He grasped the desk edge with one hand and with the other made circling motions in the air.

All her fault! Vicious inhuman.... "Don't! Don't come near me, you bitch. Don't touch me!"

He continued to sway and gesture, his voice rising shrilly. "Bitch, bitch, bitch!"

Ruth Porges heard the scream and stopped typing. She sat very still, her hands tightening into fists. After a moment she swayed a little, but she made no attempt to rise. The old fear of facing anything even possibly harsh kept her glued to her chair.

It was a fact, a hard fact, that most men found Ruth Porges difficult and cold and thought of her as unemotional. But she wasn't that way now and hadn't ever been and never could be that way.

It was a lie, a falsification which she had never quite known how to refute. She had seen Lathrup refute it for herself when she was not in one of her moods, when she wanted a man to grab hold of her and bring his lips down hard on hers.

How often Ruth Porges wanted that too—and more. How often she'd wished herself dead, not having that, being forced to pretend that it wasn't important, to lie to herself about it and go on, day after day, living a lie. To go on knowing how men felt about her, and how horrible it was that they should feel that way, and how deeply, sincerely, terribly she wanted them not to look upon her as a reluctant virgin with ice in her veins.

She wasn't, she wasn't, she didn't want to be. Why couldn't they see that and understand? Why couldn't they see that she was a woman with a great wealth of understanding to offer a man, a woman with the blood warm in her veins, a woman who could free herself to....

A wave of bitterness, or returning rage almost impossible to control, searing, destructive, hardly to be endured, swept over her and she buried her face in her hands.

If only Lathrup hadn't—

Roger Bendiner. The only man who'd refused to be angered by her shyness, by her panic when the moment actually came and she knew that there was no escape and she'd have to—

Let him undress her. Yes ... yes. She could let herself remember it now, she could begin to bring it out into the open, with no fear of being laughed at and misunderstood. His rough hands on her shoulders and that look in his eyes....

It was like a night of lightning and thunder and you fled into the dark woods and you fled and were overtaken and stuck down.

But it was what she had always wanted, always longed for, a bursting wonder and you didn't care about the cruel, dark shafts of pain.

But with Roger alone. Because Roger wasn't just any man. He respected her and loved her and was not afraid to frighten her because he knew that there was nothing for her to fear.

Oh, why was she lying to herself, even now? She would never see him again. Even if he came back to her, and begged her forgiveness for what he had done, even if he swore that Helen Lathrup meant nothing to him, she could never forgive him. It was too late, too late now, too late for—

The desk shook with her sobbing.

He stood by the down elevator with a bulging briefcase under his arm, a pale, hatless young man with unruly dark hair and deepset, feverishly bright eyes. His features were gaunt, the cheekbone region looking almost cavernous beneath the heavy overhang of his brow. A strange face, a remarkable face, not unappealing, but different somehow—a young-old face with bony contours, strange ridges, and depressions, a shadowy ruggedness of aspect which some women might have greatly liked and others looked upon with disfavor.

He was staring now at the double glass door with its gilt lettering—hateful to him now. EATON-LATHRUP PUBLICATIONS. He had come out of that door for the last time, he told himself, with a sudden trembling which he was powerless to control. He was free of her at last and he'd never go back again.

If a man is born with just one kidney or a right-sided heart how can he hope to operate on himself and make himself resemble the general run of people?

She'd encouraged him, hadn't she? Given him the feeling that she did understand, did sympathize. She'd acted at first like another Thomas Wolfe had walked into the office.

Could he help it if he was one of the few, one of the chosen, a really great writer? It was tragic and terrible perhaps and people hated him for it, but could he help it?

If she felt that he had no talent why had she built him up at first? It didn't make sense. Why had she built him up and then tried to tear him down? Why had she attacked him with pages of criticism, carping, unreasonable, tearing the guts out of his manuscripts?

She'd made him feel like a high school boy flunking an exam in English composition. And what had happened once between them didn't mean anything. How could it have meant anything when she'd turned on him like that?

He closed his eyes again, remembering, and the torment within him increased. He could see her eyes again, level with his own, and feel the softness of her body pressed so close that it seemed to mold itself into his own flesh, and he could smell again the perfume she'd worn, and taste the sweetness of her lips....

The elevator door swung open, startling him. He moved quickly past the operator and stood behind the one other passenger—a stoutish woman with a briefcase very similar to his own—and waited for the door to close again with a sudden look of panic in his eyes.

At any moment now his nerves would start shrieking again. He had to get back to the street and into the subway before his heart began to pound and his temples swelled to bursting, had to bury himself in the anonymity of a crowd that knew nothing about him and—because they didn't know—couldn't turn on him and bare their claws as she had done.

He had to get away before the inward screaming began again.