Ed Lacy - Breathe No More My Lady

Thanking him, I walked and ran up the street, reaching Broadway in a blaze of sweat. Brown was making for the subway and I sprinted after him. He seemed to be in his late fifties, a slightly built little man, wiry and lean, walking with a neat stride. He was wearing an old tropical suit As I caught up with him his face surprised me. It was a thin face, the skin tight, a sort of owlish expression under a great deal of brushed gray hair. Only owls don't have broken noses and the Professor's nose had been broken sharply, probably a lot of years ago.

I touched his shoulder and he jumped as I said, “Prof. Brown? I'd like to talk to you. I'm—”

“I've nothing to say.” He didn't stop walking.

“But Professor, I only want to ask you...?”

“I told you, I have nothing to say!”

“I'm Norm—” I never finished the sentence for he actually dashed down the subway stairs.

Wiping my sweaty face I felt angry and bewildered. But I hadn't ran a block on a hot day for any brush-off. I raced down the steps and caught him at the change window.

He said, “Will you stop annoying me? I told you I—”

“Professor, I'm Norman Connor from Matt Anthony's publishing house. I only want to ask you some questions about Matt, and I can't understand your rude—”

“I'm sorry,” he said quickly. “I... eh... assumed you were somebody else. I was rude and I apologize.”

“Perhaps it was my fault, grabbing your shoulder. I was up to your hotel yesterday. Didn't the clerk tell you?”

“He merely said a man had been asking for me.” We stood there beside the subway change booth, awkwardly silent for a moment. Then I asked, “Shall we go into a bar for beers and talk?”

“No. We can go back to my room. I have beer there.” We walked up Broadway and over to the hotel without saying a word. The clerk waved merrily at us as we rode a dirty self-service elevator to the 6th floor. The Professor unlocked a door and took off his coat. What they had done with the 'hotel' was to take an old apartment house and make each room into a kind of unit. This one must have been the maid's room in the 'old days.' It was just wide enough to walk by the narrow bed. There was a small window, an improvised closet, a chair, and in one corner water was running slowly on something covered by a rag in the tiny sink.

Brown grinned at me as he said, “I imagine you must be puzzled by my performance on Broadway. I thought you were an FBI man. I've been stopped and harassed by them, and local agents, so often I've found the best policy is not to talk to them at all. In fact, I'd be more at ease this second if you showed me some identification, Mr.—eh—”

“Norm Conner,” I said, pulling out a thick envelope the efficient Miss Park had sent in the morning mail—a number of synopses of fall books. Brown glanced at these, as he motioned for me to take the chair. He sat on the unmade bed. When he handed them back he said, “I apologize, if you feel one is needed, Mr. Connor. Take off your coat. Beastly hot. I'm trying to rent a fan. What can I do for you?”

“I trust I'm not putting you out, Professor—”

“No point in calling me 'professor,' I haven't been one in months. You're not putting me out at all: Saturday is not a day for job hunting. Are you Mart's editor?”

“Oh, no. I'm the advertising manager of Longson and—”

“Hmmm. I'm not sure there is any real need for advertising in the world. Sets up false standards. But we won't argue the matter.”

I wiped my face, wishing he'd let me finish a sentence. “Mr. Brown, I'm going around interviewing everybody connected with the case. Longson feels they would like to help Mr. Anthony. We know he needs money and we're considering reissuing one of his old books. This would hinge on advertising. I feel I need a clear picture of what happened to work up the proper ad campaign.”

“Why? And take off your coat.”

“The 'why' is the reputation of the firm,” I said, hanging my jacket on the back of the chair. “I suppose you know the D.A. is asking for murder in the first degree?”

“I've followed the papers.”

“Then you must see our position. We publish a large list, including many textbooks. We can't jeopardize our textbooks by... well... bluntly by being too closely associated with a murderer—if he is one.”

“Young man, do you realize the nonsense you're spouting? Another form of guilt by association. Hell, you're merely trying to sell books. In this case, some of Matt's.”

“Perhaps my choice of words was wrong. The point is, everything depends upon the type of ad campaign we wage. We would like to make some money for Matt but—”

“And for Longson.”

“Professor... Mr. Brown, take it easy. I'd like to know from you exactly what happened out there, your opinion as to whether it was murder or manslaughter.”

“My opinion is that Matt didn't kill his wife.”

“You think it was a pure accident?”

“I don't think he killed her.”

“But he's confessed it. There's no doubt about his—”

“No matter what Matt signed or said, I don't think he killed his wife. I've known Matt for a long time. For an intelligent man to kill takes a certain amount of courage. Matt's a coward. Even if I didn't know him, I could tell that from his writing, his preoccupation with violence.”

“But why would he sign a confession? Do you think he was third degreed into signing it?”

“I don't know why he signed. I don't think he was given the third degree—he's too well known to be subjected to that. It's allegedly against the law to rubber hose a prisoner. Yet it isn't against the law to lie to him, tell him, for example, his wife has informed upon him, that he might as well talk. To believe that your wife or friends have turned you in, is that any less torture than the lash of a hose?”

I felt I was drifting in a lot of talk, tried to pull myself together. “Wait a minute, Mr. Brown; you think he's a coward. From what I know of him, his sailing the ocean, his war record, his brawls—that's hardly the portrait of a coward.”

He laughed, showing old yellow teeth. “I have a theory—a man who talks a good fight is rarely a fighter. Take his bar fights—I've seen him in a few. A bar brawl is usually a one punch affair, it's quickly stopped. A man as big as Matt rarely has to fight, he merely threatens and his size wins for him. Have you ever noticed that most writers who deal in virility—which to their musclebound brains can mean only violence—are generally big men? They almost look the part of their heroes. I believe this is a form of sublimation—they are afraid to be matadors, boxers, private detectives, so they do their shooting and punching via the typewriter. It is always the coward who glorifies courage, per se. You'll find it in any field, the person with the shallowest talent talks the loudest.”

It seemed to me Brown himself was quite preoccupied with violence. But he was turning out to be an interesting little man. I said, “That's a strange idea. I take it you don't consider Matt much of a writer?”

“Matt and I almost got into an argument about this the other day. Let me put it this way: I think Matt had the capabilities of being a good writer. But we are a literate nation, everybody can write. With a little practice one can get the required skill of putting words together. It's what you write, based upon your insight and understanding, that makes for good writing. Lord, I'm wandering. You want to know what happened out there. Frankly, I can be of little help. I'd spent the night with a former student of mine in Hampton. I'm looking for a job and this man.... Anyway, I was out there and ran into Matt as I was walking toward the railway station. It was the first time we'd seen each other in... oh... at least ten years. He insisted I return with him to his home. I imagine he wanted to show off his wealth. I had a few hours before the next train, so I drove back with him. When his wife found out about my... eh... past, naturally she was upset I'm a kind of modern leper, being seen with me can mean loss of job or career. It's not improbable that some one will come knocking on your door after you leave here.”

He patted his pockets, looking for a cigarette, then said, “I was uncomfortable in Mart's house, refused to spend the night. Matter of fact, I had an appointment in town, about a job that—all this new publicity ruined that. All told, I suppose I spent a half hour out there before Matt drove me to the train. I was to phone him this weekend... he wanted me to spend a few days at his place, talking over 'old times.' I told him I'd let him know—my wife is in Chicago, waiting to hear if I land a job here before she joins me. Otherwise I shall return to Chicago where she has a job. As for the rest,” Brown spread his hands on his legs, “all I know is what I've read in the papers.”

“You don't think he could have punched his wife, hit her harder than he meant to?”

Brown gave me his yellow smile again. “Are you married, Connor?”

I nodded, almost said, “After a fashion.

“Have you ever slapped, much less punched, your wife?”

“No.”

“Neither have I ever hit my wife. Neither would Matt.”

“But Francine Anthony is dead. If Matt didn't kill her, who did?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. You asked my opinion—I refuse to believe Matt killed her.”

“This is a big new can of peas,” I said, trying to think of something else to ask. “What sort of a woman would you say Francine Anthony was?”

“I only saw her for a few seconds. I liked her... in a negative way she was a realist. You see, she understood exactly what it means to be publicly tagged a 'radical' these days. But, Matt, he was a lot of well-meant blustering and bragging about how he wasn't afraid to help me. Of course he was afraid. He said he'd try to get something for me at Long-son's—did he?”

“I wouldn't know. And he hardly had time to do anything.”

Brown nodded, “That's true.” He jumped to his feet, a very agile motion for a man his age. “Like some beer?”

“Beer would be fine.”

He shut off the water in the sink, removed the cloth covering two cans of beer. They foamed as he opened them. He handed me one and sat on the bed again.

The beer was pathetically warm. Brown said, “If you subscribe to the rather dubious notion that the English like their beer warm, then we are being quite British at the moment.”

“It tastes fine,” I lied, suddenly liking the old boy very much. “Tell me, if you don't mind, what sort of trouble are you in, Prof.—Mr. Brown?”

“Be simpler if you call me Hank. I wouldn't say I was in trouble, rather that I'm caught up in the hysteria of the times. I suppose if I had to be classified I would be considered a retired liberal. In my time I've been a number of things, ranging from a member of the I.W.W. to a New Dealer. Brooks University is so well endowed it can afford to be liberal, to a point. However, because of that it has always been a target for the reactionary ward heelers who pose as educators. I called myself a retired liberal because I've been quiet the last few years. Maybe a desire to protect my old age, without my entirely realizing it. In my time I've signed any number of petitions, some of them quite radical I suppose. However, last winter I signed a petition put out by some antivivisection group against the brutal manner in which certain slaughter houses killed livestock. Evidently it offended somebody in power and with my progressive background... well, I found myself before a state subversive committee. Naturally I took the Fifth as a matter of principle. So you see the situation: The University being under attack on other fronts, backed down. Thus two years before I am due to retire I find myself unemployed. It would all be a comical tempest in a tea cup if I wasn't so strapped for money.”

“Any job offers?” I asked, forcing myself to finish the beer.

“I can't get anything in teaching. I had an offer to ghost a series of general mathematics textbooks, but now that's out. At my age I can't get anything but a job as a messenger and—”

“That's ridiculous.”

He shook his head as he wiped beer foam from his mouth. “I may not even get that until this new publicity dies down. It pays about $45 and my wife can get a clerk job, so we'll be comfortable. In two years I'll start drawing my pension from Brooks.”

“There must be something a man of your intellectual background can do. Let me speak to Bill Long, my boss, and see—”

Brown smiled as he shook his head again. “If Longson is afraid of an ad backfiring, they'll never consider me. I doubt if I would either, if the positions were reversed. Of course, I'm willing to do ghosting, but even that makes hiring me a risk.” He got off the bed to drop his empty beer can in a waste basket. “Well, Mr. Connor, have I been of any help to you, re: Matt Anthony?”

“I don't know, your picture of him is an entirely new one.”

“Take pity on Matt Anthony, he's a lost soul, an intellectual fourflusher—like so many others these days. But he's no killer.”

“If he's a phony, why were you two friends?”

“Friends is a meaningless word. In the last dozen years we saw each other maybe two times—for a few minutes. Oh, Matt has a lively sense of humor and... a kind of charm-Even his blustering is interesting. Of course when I first met him, as an instructor at Brooks, he was a rather earnest young man. I even liked a few of his earlier stories. There was one about a young Mexican kid who can drop-kick a milk carton, a remarkable feat—although no one can understand how remarkable except the kid who—”

“I read that. It's the boy's sole claim to being somebody. It was a terrific story.”

“No, it wasn't. It was veneer stuff but a good beginning. In those days I saw a great deal of Matt. We not only taught in the same school but Matt spent much time in our house. He became, well, interested in me when he learned I'd once been a professional fighter.” Brown tapped his broken nose with a long finger. “The badge of the trade.”

“You really were a pro pug?”

“Really,” he said, faint sarcasm in his voice. “You sound like Matt.”

“Come on, now, Hank, you must admit a professor who's been a leatherpusher is unusual.”

“Unusual as what? Fighting is only a job, and a bad one at that. I had about a dozen bouts when I was 19— which was a very long time ago. I wasn't working my way through college or anything like that. I enjoyed boxing, hit hard for a bantamweight. You've never heard of Al Nelson but he became a contender, went on to fight Lynch and Herman, the other top man. I kayoed Nelson in two rounds. I suppose I had dreams of being a champion myself. My manager was a very wise and worldly man named Danny Bond. He died a number of years ago. He was broke and I buried him. A sentimental gesture. Danny wouldn't let a boy go on if he didn't have true ability. I didn't have it—I was never hungry enough.”

“What's that mean?” I got up to throw the beer can away and sat down quickly—there wasn't enough room for the two of us to move about.

“You have good shoulders—are you a fight buff, Mr. Connor?”

“Norm is the name. No, I'm a handball player, of sorts.”