101 Mystery Stories

10 Punishment to Fit the Crime Robert L. Fish

He was my best friend — damn him! But I got even...

I’d better begin at the beginning. Jack Burnham had been my best friend since we were little kids, since the day, in fact, when I stopped a bigger kid from beating Jack up in the schoolyard. It was true that Jack had swiped this kid’s pencil box, but that didn’t seem to me to be reason enough for the bigger kid to try to take Jack’s head off. But throughout our school careers that’s what other kids tried to do, usually for similar reasons. Jack never learned to respect other people’s property. It kept me busy keeping him from being murdered. But I suppose it wasn’t his fault if he hated to buy something he could swipe, or if he wouldn’s spend a dime if he could get someone else to spend it; it was just the way he was, the way he had been born. And people can’t help that; I understood that.

In college I was lucky enough to get a job after classes, something Jack didn’t happen to manage; so of course I had to cover most of the expenses when we ate away from the dormitory, or whenever we went out on a rare double-date. But I didn’t mind. After all, that’s what friends are for, aren’t they? And I certainly didn’t get angry with either Jack or Noreen when Noreen came to me after graduation and said she wanted to break our engagement, that she had decided Jack was a better bet than I was. Well, after all, you can’t dictate love, or desire for security, or anything else; I understood that well enough.

After that we sort of went different ways, Jack to New York and a job in the brokerage firm that Noreen’s father was president of, and me to the west coast and after a rather checkered career, into the TV writing business. We corresponded regularly, though, and we spoke on the phone whenever I felt flush enough to stand the phone charges — both Noreen and Jack loved to reminisce whenever I called. So, as I say, we kept in touch, and I still considered him my best friend — in fact, I considered the two of them my best friends.

And of course after I hit with the TV series, “Mugger’s Lane,” I was able to get to New York with greater frequency, and was able to take the two of them out to dinner, and to buy them a nice house-warming gift when they moved into the new big house on the sound in Mamaroneck next to the Yacht Club. I recall we would sit out on the wide porch and sip the Remy Martin I had brought as we remembered some of the scrapes we had got into as kids and remarked on how successful we had both become, but mainly Jack, who was now vice-president of the brokerage firm and slated soon to take over the top job on his father-in-law’s retirement.

I never told Jack about the novel I was trying to write. I guess all TV writers, TV producers, even the office boys and stenographers in TV studios, hope some day to write the Great American Novel, to launch them into a more respectable area of the communications sphere. But chiefly TV writers, even — or possibly — mainly the successful ones. They dream of the day when the world will grant them the accolades accorded the Hemingway s and the Faulkners, or even the Haleys and the Wallaces; the day when they can throw off the restrictive shackles and emerge into the light of freedom from the small dark cells where they pound out their lives on ancient Remingtons in some Ulcer Alley in one studio or another. They fantasize of the day when they can put their earnings into blue-chip stocks and gilt-edged bonds, rather than into providing those same earnings to some psychiatrist to help them maintain their sanity.

I didn’t tell Jack because I wasn’t sure the book would ever be published, assuming it was ever written. There is nothing quite as pitiful in this world as being asked what you do for a living and when you reply that you’re a writer, being asked if you were ever published. No, better to say nothing. But I could not help but picture the day when, a copy of my novel in one hand and a rave review from John Leonard in the other — and my name being written across the heavens by skywriters — I would appear at Mamaroneck and receive praise from those from whom it would mean so much more than from anyone else — my best friends.

Someone once said that everyone wants to have written a novel, rather than to write one, but in time I actually managed to finish the book, and it was even published. The critics gave it fine reviews — and it sold about 400 copies, as best I could determine. But that all meant nothing; I hadn’t written the book for money. The important thing was that I had written a book, that I held a copy in my hand, and that I was on my way to Mamaroneck with a copy for Jack and Noreen, expecting to be properly praised, if only for exhibiting the discipline necessary to complete writing a novel. And, if I must add my voice to those of the reviewers, it wasn’t a bad book.

The reaction I received was all more than I expected — high praise, back-slapping, a kiss on the cheek from Noreen, a hearty two-handed handshake from Jack, with all the sincerity in the world in his eyes. Jack even broke out a bottle of fairly decent Scotch to celebrate. The two of them kept congratulating me on the imagination and talent necessary to have written a novel, a thing Jack confessed he could never do. They leaned over me affectionately as I carefully inscribed the flyleaf with: “To Jack and Noreen Burnham, my oldest and best friends, and the best friends a person could have,” and signed it with a flourish. Noreen said the book would hold the place of honor on their book shelves; and I don’t believe I ever felt as good about writing the book, or about anything else, as I did that moment. Until my next visit, when I noticed the book was missing, and Jack laughed as he put his arm around my shoulder.

“Leave that book out where one of our thieving friends might hook it?” he said, and shook his head. “No, that book is in my safety-deposit vault. It’s too valuable to us to take any chances with.” Then, I think, I felt even better.

I wrote a second novel, not a very good one I’m afraid, that was never published, and after that I started TV writing-producing, rather than just writing, and there just didn’t seem to be time to do much of anything except my job. I slowly became reconciled to the fact that I was going to be a one-book author. But at least, I told myself, the one book had been a good one, even if it hadn’t sold; how many people hadn’t written any books at all in their lives? Many, many, many. The thought gave me a certain satisfaction, but not much; my major satisfaction remained in recalling the reception I had received when I gave Jack and Noreen their inscribed copy. Just remembering it always made me feel warm, made me grin.

I had to be in New York on a sudden call not long afterward, and after my business was completed I thought I’d drop in on Jack and Noreen. I started to phone them and then paused, thinking how much more fun it would be to drop in and surprise them; there had never been the slightest formality in our relationship. It was a lovely spring day, I had a rented car, and I figured the drive up to Mamaroneck would be pleasant, even if I found them out. So off I went.

To my disappointment they were out. Jack and Noreen, the housekeeper told me, were in Europe for a vacation and would not be back for about three weeks. So there I was in Mamaroneck with a full day ahead of me and with nothing to do. I drove back into the center of the small town, parked the car in front of a coffee shop, and got down to have a cup of coffee before starting back to New York. Then I paused, because next to the coffee shop there was a second-hand bookstore.

I must tell you why I paused. I’m not a collector of books, myself, but some of my friends are. In particular, I have a friend who lives in San Diego, a man named Ned Guymon who at one time had collected what was and is considered the finest and most valuable collection of rare first editions and original manuscripts relating to the mystery field that the world has ever seen, a collection that today is housed at the Occidental College in California. A book that Ned has often mentioned as being one he had never been able to even find, let alone own, is a book titled Andrewlina, by J. S. Fletcher, and I am sure that all of Ned’s many friends, whenever they are near a second-hand bookstore, drop in for the one-in-a-billion chance that they might run across a copy of the rare book and give it to Ned, for we all know how pleased it would make him. And so, being near a second-hand bookstore in a town where the chances were few collectors would normally seek rarities, I stopped in.

The place was large and well-lit as most second-hand bookstores are, quite contrary to the impression most people have of such places as being gloomy warrens ankle-deep in dust. The proprietor at the moment was not present and I set about examining the stock. The books, as in a few such stores, were not arranged in alphabetical order, but were set in shelves that ran the length of the store and up to the ceiling, on both sides of narrow aisles. Fortunately, fiction was separated from nonfiction, and I patiently began my search at the fiction shelves, my head turned to read the titles, and beginning to get a stiff neck as I inched my way along the aisle.

And then I suddenly smiled. A copy of my own opus was here! With a grin I withdrew the book and opened it the flyleaf to see what price the proprietor had placed on a used copy of my work. And got the shock of my life, my smile frozen on my face like an idiot rictus. There, before me in my own handwriting, were the words: “To Jack and Noreen Burnham—” and all the rest of the florid, insipid inscription. A bit of a shock, to say the least.

I carried the book to the front of the store and waited until the proprietor appeared from the basement, dusting his hands.

“This book,” I said, and my voice sounded strange to my ears, as if I were listening to someone else speak. “Is there any way you can tell where you bought it, or from whom?”

“At times, but rarely,” he said. “We buy from many sources, from bookstores with overstocks, from the libraries of estates, from garage sales, from church sales, or from people who just come in with a suitcase full of old books they’re sure are worth a fortune. And rarely are. However, sometimes we mark them. Let me see.”

He took the book from me and opened it to look at the inside of the back cover. A small mark there seemed to tell him something; he looked up, smiling.

“I remember this one, not because of the book itself, but because I bought quite a few at the same time at the same place, all of no particular value, although the way the man argued you’d have thought they were first editions of Poe. At a garage sale. One of those posh places down on the sound, next to the yacht club, as a matter of fact.” He shook his head in nonunderstanding. “You wouldn’t expect a garage sale at a place like that, would you?”

“No,” I said, and then wondered what made me say it. I bought the book for $1.25, the price marked on the flyleaf above my inscription.

That was two weeks ago. I have spent the time between then and now trying to think up a proper punishment for Jack Burnham, and it only came to me this morning. A simple recrimination would never do; I wanted a chastening, a retribution that was fitting, something that would do to him what he had done to me by selling my book for a paltry sum, probably a half-dollar or so. It makes me smile when I think of my solution to the problem, but there is little humor in the smile, and a good deal of bitterness.

Jack and Noreen should be home from Europe in about a week. And when he gets back he’ll find a letter from me. It will read:

And I signed with my fanciest flourish.

I wonder what he’ll do? Suicide is possible but unfortunately, not very probable. A nervous breakdown is both possible and probable. An ulcer the very least.

Jack should never have said he put the book in a safety-deposit box; a fire would have handled the problem if it had been kept on his bookshelf. Or a theft by a visitor. Or many things. But a fire in his safety-deposit box? Or a theft there? Hardly. Poor Jack, he really has little imagination.

But I have plenty. I’m a writer, remember, Jack?