The Shattered Raven (3 page)

If the writing languished, the rest of his life did not. He entered college, stayed there a year, then left and took a job with a small private detective agency in Westchester. It was not at all the type of thing he’d expected or the life he wanted to lead for the next forty years. Dull divorce cases, mainly. Not even the pre-dawn breaking into bedrooms, that he used to read about and imagine.

Five years later, he gave it up and went back to writing. The experience of being a private detective somehow glamorised him beyond all expectations. His first story sold immediately to one of the mystery magazines, and then his second, and his third. Another went to a men’s magazine. The money began to roll in, and a paperbound publisher even asked him for a novel.

It was about this time that he realised one of the big things going for him was his name. Although he spelled it H-A-M-E-T, he pronounced it exactly like Dashiell Hammett’s. And of course Dashiell Hammett had also been a private detective back in his early days. One editor started billing him as the second Hammett, but there was really no comparison. Despite the private-eye background, Barney did not write the tough type of realism at which Hammett had excelled. His stories were gimmicky little studies in paradox. Closer, some critics thought, to Chesterton.

If his writing never hit the big time in the field, he was now, at the age of thirty, in an enviable position in the profession. His peers had selected him as their executive vice-president. He appeared regularly on New York television, on all-night radio shows, and on panel discussions. He spoke occasionally to a writing class at Columbia University and had even been invited to teach a course at Fordham next season.

But all that was in the past Now his main concern was the MWA dinner. He paused on his way to the door and asked Betty, “You’re going to type up the final seating arrangements with those last-minutes corrections?”

She tossed her dark hair and nodded. “Of course. Don’t worry so much.”

“We can probably get you some help if you need it for this week—a girl from one of the temporary services. Or somebody’s wife.”

“I may need a typist, about Wednesday. We’ll see.”

“Okay, Betty,” he said. “I’m really going over to see Harry now.”

But again he didn’t quite make it to the door. Someone was coming up the narrow staircase, light footed and sure of himself. He knew, without even opening the door, that it was someone seeking him. It was that sort of a week.

The girl who appeared in the doorway, almost bumping into him before she saw him, was tall and slender, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She wore a neat looking blue-skirted suit, and carried a purse large enough to have concealed anything from a gun to a notebook. As it turned out, it concealed the latter, and she produced it almost at once.

“I’m Susan Veldt,” she said.

“Should I know you?”

“Susan Veldt, staff writer for
Manhattan
magazine. Didn’t they call you?”

He turned back into the office. “Betty, did anyone call from
Manhattan
?”

“Not while I was here.”

“Well,” the girl said, “that just shows what sort of efficiency there is in the world these days. Anyway, I’m Susan Veldt, and I’ve come to interview Barney Hamet. About the dinner, you know.”

“I’m Barney Hamet.”

“Good!”

“The interview’s for
Manhattan
?” It seemed like a great publicity break.

“Yes. I’m going to be there. I sent in my twelve-fifty for a ticket.”

“All right,” Barney said, indicating a seat. “Let’s talk it over. Always glad of the publicity—and you’ve got a good little magazine. What do you want to know?”

She sat opposite him, pencil out, calm and sure of herself. “Well now, let’s see … I guess first I’d better tell you what I’m doing. We’re running a series of six articles in
Manhattan
—perhaps you’ve seen some of them—on the various awards that are presented in New York every spring. We’ve covered the Grammys already, and the National Book Awards, and the Tonys. I guess you’re next, before the Pulitzers and the Emmys.” She pointed toward the bookshelf where an Edgar and a Raven stood side by side. “Is that one of the Edgars over there?”

“That’s right,” he said. “Bust of Edgar Allan Poe—ceramic.”

“How tall is it?”

“About nine and a half inches. Call it ten, if you want. They’re made for us by a gal down in Virginia, then shipped up here. The Edgar is a writing award, given each year for the best novel, best first novel, best short story, television show, screenplay—that sort of thing. The Raven is given less frequently, although we usually award one or two each year. It’s what might be called a non-writing honour, for people who have helped us in one way or another.”

“I understand there’s also a reader’s award given.”

“Yes. We’ve had some famous people named Reader of the Year. Eleanor Roosevelt won it one year—and a few other big names. Joey Adams, I believe, was one of the winners, too. This year, of course, you probably know it’s Ross Craigthorn.”

Betty snorted and shot him a glance. He’d been asking her about the award not ten minutes earlier.

“The actual announcement won’t be made till the dinner itself, of course, but we don’t keep it as secret as the writing awards. I think one or two of the gossip columnists have carried it already.”

“Craigthorn is an important person to have at your dinner.”

Barney smiled. “We like to think it’s an important dinner.”

“It’s at the Biltmore?”

“Right. The bar opens at six. Dinner at seven-thirty. Awards at nine. We’ve had it there for the last few years—ever since they tore down the Astor.”

Susan Veldt bit at her pencil. “Tell me something about yourself. You’re the executive vice president—right?”

“Right.”

“I’ve never read any of your stories.”

“That’s not surprising. A lot of people haven’t.”

“What did you do before you started to write?”

“I was a private detective up in Westchester. I caught a few shoplifters, caused a few divorces. Nothing as glamorous as in the books.”

“Married?” she asked.

“Divorced.”

“Was that one of the divorces you arranged while you were a private eye?”

“No. She arranged it.”

“Who’s the president of your organisation this year?”

Barney gestured toward one of the shelves. “See those twenty volumes? They’re all his. He lives in Montana, in a little cabin up in the woods. He writes a book a year, and nobody ever sees him.”

“So you’re going to be the top MWA executive at the dinner. You’ll be running the show.”

“I’ll be acting as MC, introducing the speakers. I wouldn’t really say I’ll be running the show. I’ve got a lot of big people coming. Rex Stout usually comes. Perhaps Charlotte Armstrong from California. Max Winters, I think, will be there—Kenneth Millar and his wife, Margaret. We get maybe 300 people for these things. Editors too, of course. All the mystery editors. Ernie Hutter from Hitchcock’s magazine is coming up from Florida, and we hope that Fred Dannay—he’s half of Ellery Queen—will be able to make it Clayton Rawson, of course, Hans Stefan Santesson—and some editors outside the mystery field, from magazines like
Argosy.
Bruce Cassidy on Argosy, of course, is one of our members. Who else? Oh … Lee Wright from Random House—lots of book editors.”

“And I’ll be representing
Manhattan
magazine. I feel quite honoured.”

Barney lit another cigarette. “Who’s your editor over there these days?”

“Arthur Rowe. Do you know him?”

“Never met him, but I’ve heard the name. He’s got a good reputation in the field. I wish he published fiction. I’d send him a few short stories.”

“No fiction for us. Just fact.”

“I’ve read a couple of things in
Manhattan.
Sometimes it reads more like fiction.”

“I hope you don’t mean my things,” she smiled. “Would it be possible for me to get over to the Biltmore and see the room before the dinner?”

“Perhaps. I’m going to call on somebody about the dinner right now. You can tag along, if you want.”

He called over to Betty, ignoring her frown of exasperation. “I’ll try to get back, or phone at least, late in the day. Then we’ll see if there are any other last-minute problems. Get that letter off to Max, though. That’s important.”

Barney strolled over to Fifth Avenue with Susan Veldt and then down a few blocks to a nondescript office building with an airline ticket office on its ground floor. They took the elevator to the top, which wasn’t very high, as Fifth Avenue buildings go.

“I want you to meet Harry Fox,” Barney told her. “He’s very active in the organisation, even though he’s only an associate member. Does just about everything except write mysteries. He’s on the planning committee for the dinner.”

“Oh?” She glanced at the door before which they’d paused. “Harry Fox Enterprises? Sounds mysterious.”

“Not really. A small time theatrical agent.”

They knocked and entered. There was no secretary—only one large room filled with filing cabinets in a general state of disarray. The walls were hung with framed photographs, most of them showing a jovial, youngish man with his arms around one or another small-time night club comedian or Hollywood starlet.

Harry Fox himself, in the flesh, sat behind a desk in one corner of the uproar. He was middle-aged, almost completely bald and shorter by a head than Barney’s six-foot-one. The photographs on the wall depicted a younger man, and it was obvious they had been taken a good decade earlier.

“Well, well!” Harry said, rising to meet them. “Always glad to see you, Barney, especially when you’re accompanied by a beautiful young lady. Pull up some chairs and tell me what’s on your mind.”

Barney held a chair for Susan Veldt and then took one himself. “The beautiful young lady is a magazine writer, Harry. She’s doing a piece on the MWA dinner. Susan Veldt, Harry Fox.”

Harry gave a little bow and reached out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Veldt—V-E-L-D-T … like in Africa?”

“That’s right,” she said, with a trace of a smile. “Like in Africa.”

Harry grunted. “Well, anyway, it’s good to have visitors today. I just sit here waiting for clients who never come.”

“You’re not a writer yourself?” Susan asked him.

“No such luck. Not at fiction at least. I’ve done a couple of articles for some fan magazines.”

“But you know a lot about mysteries?” she asked.

Barney interrupted to explain. “Harry knows a lot about everything, especially the beginnings of the mystery story. He’s pretty much of an expert on nineteenth century stuff—Poe and the like.”

“Poe?”

“Ask me something,” Harry said, “so I can impress you with my brilliance.”

“I guess I don’t know what to ask,” Susan replied.

“Well…” Harry leaned back in his chair, his mind wandering over the card files of facts behind his deep brown eyes. “How about Poe’s first detective story,
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
? Ever wonder where he got the name of his detective—Dupin? It seems that Poe was a book reviewer for various publications, and he had just reviewed a book called
Conspicuous Living Characters of France.
Well, one of the conspicuous living characters was a French politician named Dupin. He was described as a person of antithetical qualities, a living encyclopaedia and a believer in legal methods. That seemed to impress Poe enough so that he named his detective after the man—though of course they never met.”

Susan held up her hands in mock surrender. “All right. You’re a walking encyclopaedia and I’m the first one to admit it. I guess I’d better do something on the dinner, though, and that’s what I need the facts for.”

“Anything I can tell you,” Harry offered.

She thumbed through her notebook pages, reading. “The Edgars are named in honour of Edgar Allan Poe, and the Raven awards, those ceramic black birds, are named for his most famous poem.”

“Correct,” Barney said. “Harry, why don’t you run over the line-up and tell her what’s what?”

“Gladly,” Fox said, clearing off a space on his desk where he could flip through the schedule of awards presentations. “I don’t want to get too specific about who won the awards and such, but we’ll start out with a little opening speech, which, oddly enough, I’m going to give myself this year, just because there has to be someone to introduce Barney. Then Barney takes it from there, runs through the various awards. He’ll give book jackets first, then television, then movies. Before the actual writing awards we’ll take a break and give our Reader of the Year award to Ross Craigthorn. After that we get to the juvenile, short story, true crime, best first novel and best novel. That’s about it. Each winner comes up, at least the ones that are present come up. They say a few words, take their award …”

“What about these scrolls Barney mentioned on the way over?” she asked.

“Well, we usually have several nominees in each category. Occasionally we only have one, but sometimes there are as many as six. Each nominee gets a scroll, whether they’re an Edgar winner or not. We have ushers stationed around the room to deliver the scrolls personally to the tables, so it’s not necessary for the nominees to come up to the podium; After the scrolls are distributed, we read off the name of the winner and he comes up—or whoever is to accept the award comes up in his place. It runs quite smoothly.”

“How long does it last?”

“Well, the dinner is timed pretty carefully to be over about nine. The awards take a bit over an hour, depending on how long-winded our principal speaker is. Generally, they talk for fifteen, twenty minutes or so. It’s hard to tell how long Craigthorn will talk. He’s no comedian, but he might get into personal reminiscences.”

“Would it be possible for me to see the dining-room before the dinner?”

Harry Fox glanced at his watch. “Actually, I was going to go over there and talk to the assistant manager about arrangements. You’re welcome to come over with me if you want. Barney, I think you should be there, too, since you’re the exec V.P. I’m only an associate member and I hardly feel free to spend the organisation’s money myself.”