Blackmailer

Chapter Fifteen

I walked into Pat’s office two days later and (in reality, not in a daydream) casually tossed the manuscript, all three hundred and forty-seven photostated pages of it, on his desk.

“What’s this?” Pat asked.

“Oh,” I said. “A book.”

“What book?”

“The new Anstruther,” I said casually. “If we rush it into galleys we can have it for late spring.”

Pat was aghast.

“You’re drunk,” he said.

“You’re right,” I said. “But there’s the book.”

“Come back here,” he said. “Where are you going? You’re drunk. You look terrible.”

“You’re right,” I said. “And now I’m going to get drunker and look worse.”

I left the office and went for a long walk. Then I went to the movies. I spent the whole afternoon and part of the evening in the moldy theatre on Sixth Avenue, watching the movie over and over again.

Then I walked back up Sixth Avenue, stopping in each bar along the way.

The last place I went into was the one on Forty-eighth Street.

I wanted to take a last look at the new photograph.

But I was too late.

They’d already taken it down.