The Early Asimov Volume 3 Read online

Chapter Five

  'My heart!' said MacDunlap, and fumbled for his liver pills.

  'Don't die there,' suggested Graham, courteously. 'The management won't permit me to drop human flesh into the incinerator. '

  'Graham, my boy,' MacDunlap said, emotionally, 'no more ultimatums! No more threats! I come now to appeal to your finer feelings, Graham' - he went through a slight choking interlude - 'I love you like a son. This skunk de Meister must disappear. You must write more de Meister stories for my sake. Graham - I will tell you something in private. My wife is in love with this detective. She tells me I am not romantic. I! Not romantic! Can you understand it?'

  'I can,' was the tragic response. 'He fascinates all women. '

  'With that face? With that monocle?'

  'It says so in all my books. '

  MacDunlap stiffened. 'Ah ha. You again. Dope! If only you ever stopped long enough to let your mind know what your typewriter was saying. '

  'You insisted. Feminine trade. ' Graham didn't care any more. Women! He snickered bitterly. Nothing wrong with any of them that a block-buster wouldn't fix.

  MacDunlap hemmed. 'Well, feminine trade. Very necessary. - But Graham, what shall I do? It's not only my wife. She owns fifty shares in MacDunlap, Inc. in her own name. If she leaves me, I lose control. Think of it, Graham. The catastrophe to the publishing world. '

  'Grew, old chap,' Graham sighed a sigh so deep, his toenails quivered sympathetically. 'I might as well tell you. June, my fiancee, you know, loves this worm. And he loves her because she is the prototype of Letitia Reynolds. "

  'The what of Letitia?' asked MacDunlap, vaguely suspecting an insult.

  'Never mind. My life is ruined. ' He smiled bravely and choked back the unmanly tears, after the first two had dripped off the end of his nose.

  'My poor boy!' The two gripped hands convulsively.

  'Caught in a vise by this foul monster,' said Graham.

  'Trapped like a German in Russia,' said MacDunlap.

  'Victim of an inhuman fiend,' said Graham.

  'Exactly,' said MacDunlap. He wrung Graham's hand as if he were milking a cow. 'You've got to write de Meister stories and get him back where, next to Hell, he most belongs. Right?'

  'Right! But there's one little catch. '

  'What?'

  'I can't write. He's so real now, I can't put him into a book. "

  MacDunlap caught the significance of the massed drifts of used paper on the floor. He held his head and groaned, 'My corporation! My wife!'

  'There's always the Army,' said Graham.

  MacDunlap looked up. 'What about Death on the Third Deck, the novel I rejected three weeks ago?'

  'That doesn't count. It's past history. It's already affected him. '

  'Without being published?'

  'Sure. That's the story I mentioned his draft board in. The one that put him in 1 -A. '

  'I could think of better places to put him. '

  'MacDunlap!' Graham Dorn jumped up, and grappled MacDunlap's lapel. 'Maybe it can be revised. '

  MacDunlap coughed hackingly, and stifled out a dim grunt.

  'We can put anything we want into it. "

  MacDunlap choked a bit.

  'We can fix things up. '

  MacDunlap turned blue in the face.

  Graham shook the lapel and everything thereto attached, 'Say something, won't you?'

  MacDunlap wrenched away and took a tablespoon of cough syrup. He held his hand over his heart and patted it a bit. He shook his head and gestured with his eyebrows.

  Graham shrugged. 'Well, if you just want to be sullen, go ahead. I'll revise it without you. '

  He located the manuscript and tried his fingers gingerly on the typewriter. They went smoothly, with practically no creaking at the joints. He put on speed, more speed, and then went into his usual race, with the portable jouncing along merrily under the accustomed head of steam.

  'It's working,' he shouted. 'I can't write new stories, but I can revise old, unpublished ones. '

  MacDunlap watched over his shoulder. He breathed only at odd moments.

  'Faster,' said MacDunlap, 'faster!'

  'Faster than thirty-five?' said Graham, sternly. 'OPA* forbid! Five more minutes. '

  'Will he be there?'

  'He's always there. He's been at her house every evening this week. ' He spat out the fine ivory dust into which he had ground the last inch of his incisors. 'But God help you if your secretary falls down on the job. '

  'My boy, on my secretary you can depend. '

  'She's got to read that revision by nine. '

  'If she doesn't drop dead. '

  'With my luck, she will. Will she believe it?'

  'Every word. She's seen de Meister. She knows he exists. '

  Brakes screeched, and Graham's soul cringed in sympathy with every molecule of rubber frictioned off the tires.

  He bounded up the stairs, MacDunlap hobbling after.

  He rang the bell and burst in at the door. Reginald de

  * The Office of Price Administration was in charge of gasoline rationing at this period. Remember 'A' stickers? D. R. B.

  Meister standing directly inside received the full impact of a pointing finger, and only a rapid backward movement of the head kept him from becoming a one-eyed mythical character.

  June Billings stood aside, silent and uncomfortable.

  'Reginald de Meister,' growled Graham, in sinister tones, 'prepare to meet your doom. '

  'Oh, boy,' said MacDunlap, 'are you going to get it. '

  'And to what,' asked de Meister, 'am I indebted for your dramatic but unilluminatin' statement? Confusin', don't you know. ' He lit a cigarette with a fine gesture and smiled.

  'Hello, Gramie,' said June, tearfully.

  'Scram, vile woman. '

  June sniffed. She felt like a heroine out of a book, torn by her own emotions. Naturally, she was having the time of her life.

  So she let the tears dribble and looked forlorn.

  To return to the subject, what is this all about?" asked de Meister, wearily.

  'I have rewritten Death on the Third Deck. '

  'Well?'

  'The revision,' continued Graham, 'is at present in the hands of MacDunlap's secretary, a girl on the style of Miss Billings, my fiancee that was. That is, she is a girl who aspires to the status of a moron, but has not yet quite attained it. She'll believe every word. '

  'Well?'

  Graham's voice grew ominous, 'You remember, perhaps, Sancha Rodriguez?'

  For the first time, Reginald de Meister shuddered. He caught his cigarette as it dropped. 'She was killed by Sam Blake in the sixth chapter. She was in love with me. Really, old fellow, what messes you get me into. '

  'Not half the mess you're in now, old chap. Sancha Rodriguez did not die in the revision. '

  'Die!' came a sharp, but clear female voice. 'I'll show him if I died. And where have you been this last month, you two-crosser?'

  De Meister did not catch his cigarette this time. He didn't even try. He recognized the apparition. To an unprejudiced observer, it might have been merely a svelte Latin girl equipped with dark, flashing eyes, and long, glittering fingernails, but to de Meister, it was Sancha Rodriguez - undead!

  MacDunlap's secretary had read and believed.

  'Miss Rodriguez,' throbbed de Meister, charmingly, 'how fascinatin' to see you. '

  'Mrs. de Meister to you, you double-timer, you two-crosser, you scum of the ground, you scorpion of the grass. And who is this woman?'

  June retreated with dignity behind the nearest chair.

  'Mrs. de Meister,' said Reginald pleadingly, and turned helplessly to Graham Dorn.

  'Oh, you have forgotten, have you, you smooth talker, you low dog. I'll show you what it means to deceive a weak woman. I'll make you mince-meat with my fingernails. '

  De Meister back-pedaled furiously. 'But darling
-'

  'Don't you make sweet talk. What are you doing with this woman?'

  'But, darling -'

  'Don't give me any explanation. What are you doing with this woman?'

  'But darling-'

  'Shut up! What are you doing with this woman?'

  Reginald de Meister was up in a corner, and Mrs. de Meister shook her fists at him. 'Answer me!'

  De Meister disappeared.

  Mrs. de Meister disappeared right after him.

  June Billings collapsed into real tears.

  Graham Dorn folded his arms and looked sternly at her.

  MacDunlap rubbed his hands and took a kidney pill.

  'It wasn't my fault, Gramie,' said June. 'You said in your books he fascinated all women, so I couldn't help it. Deep inside, I hated him all along. You believe me, don't you?'

  'A likely story!' said Graham, sitting down next to her on the sofa. 'A likely story. But I forgive you, maybe. '

  MacDunlap said tremulously, 'My boy, you have saved my stocks. Also, my wife, of course. And remember - you promised me one de Meister story each year. '

  Graham gritted, 'Just one, and I'll henpeck him to death, and keep one unpublished story forever on hand, just in case. And you're publishing my novel, aren't you, Grew, old boy?'

  'Glug,' said MacDunlap.

  'Aren't you?'

  'Yes, Graham. Of course, Graham. Definitely, Graham. Positively, Graham. '

  Then leave us now. There are matters of importance I must discuss with my fiancee. '

  MacDunlap smiled and tiptoed out the door.

  Ah, love, love, he mused, as he took a liver pill and followed it up by a cough-syrup chaser.

  I might make two points about 'Author! Author!' It seems to me that I was rather easier about handling romance in this story than in any previous one. Perhaps this is a reflection of the fact that it was the first story I ever wrote as a married man.

  Secondly, there are the very dated references to rationing, the draft, and other social phenomena much on the mind of anyone living through Worjd War II. I had warned Bensen of the existence of these references and of the inability of getting them out of the story by revision since they were integral to the plot. Bensen, however, shrugged them off and in his short introduction to the story said to. the readers, 'And don't worry about the references to the OP A and Selective Service - consider them as part of the historical setting, just as you would a bodkin or a furbelow in a story of an earlier time. '

  And I second that statement here.

  Had I rested on the pink cloud of gratification that came with the sale of 'Author! Author!' for a few months, the death of Unknown might have disheartened me. It might have seemed to prove that I was not fated to reign ite my career after all, and perhaps - again - everything would have turned out differently.

  However, within three weeks of the sale I was at the typewriter again. The new story was 'Death Sentence' and it was science fiction. Writing was still slow work; seven weeks to do a 7,200-word story. On June 29, 1943, however, I sent it off to Campbell, and on July 8, it was accepted - one and a quarter cents per word again.

  This meant that when the news of Unknown's demise arrived, it was cushioned by the fact that I already had another story written and sold.