Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 104, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 633 & 634, October 1994

The Hit by Michael Z. Lewin

© 1994 by Michael Z. Lewin

When it comes to lively dialogue, Michael Z. Lewin is one of the best in the crime field. Not surprising when you learn that he has devoted a good part of his career to writing radio plays for the BBC. The following story could almost be a radio play, consisting as it does almost entirely of an exchange between two young people on a train...

The man walked slowly along the aisle and then stopped. “Excuse me,” he said.

The woman looked up from her book. “Yes?”

“Is this seat taken?” He pointed to one of two empty across the table she was resting her elbows on.

“No,” she said, without betraying her annoyance. The carriage was by no means full. Elsewhere there were empty pairs of seats, even another table. Oh well, it happens. She could always move to another seat herself. Unfair. A pain. A fact of life.

The woman picked her book up.

Inevitably the man spoke again. “Are you enjoying it?” The woman said nothing. The man, however, persisted. “The book. Is it good?”

“Fine,” the woman said without raising her eyes.

The man said, “It’s just that I have been waiting my whole career for this moment.”

Still not raising her eyes, and despite her expectations, the woman felt a flicker of curiosity as she digested what he had said. She said, “Oh yes?” in a way that could equally be the prelude for a go-away-and-leave-me-alone outburst.

“My whole career,” the man repeated easily. “It’s been sort of a dream. A career target. And now it’s happened.”

The woman put her book down. “What are you talking about?” she said.

“I wrote what you are reading,” the man said.

“You...” She looked at the cover of the book.

With a modest laugh, the man said, “I am Clive Kessler. I’ve always hoped that one day I would see someone reading one of my books on the train and now it’s happened. I suppose it’s a rite-of-passage event for a writer. A coming of age.” He grinned good-naturedly.

The woman smiled. “You’re Clive Kessler?” she asked, and once the question was out, she felt stupid to have asked it.

Kessler reached across the table, asking to shake hands. In a mock-American voice he said, “And you are my one millionth customer, so you win the grand prize.”

The woman shook hands. “What prize?”

“A cuppa coffee and a Briddish Rail donut. D’ya take sugar?”

“Yes,” the woman said.

“I’ll be right back,” the man said.

By the time Kessler returned with two coffees and two jam donuts the woman had read what little there was about the author on the cover of her paperback thriller.

“I didn’t know how much sugar to bring,” he said. “If one of these mingy little packets isn’t enough you can always scrape some off a donut. Here, use mine.” He began to scrape sugar onto a serviette. “No no,” she laughed. “This is plenty.”

“If you’re sure,” he said. “As my one millionth customer, I want to see you’re treated right.”

“I must say,” she said, “you’re younger than I would have expected, for having written eight novels.”

“And you’re younger than I expected my millionth reader to be,” Kessler said quickly. “No, in fact I am older than I look.”

“Are you?”

“Thirty-four. Do I look thirty-four?”

She shook her head. Although his hair was beginning to recede, she would have guessed late twenties. Not an unpleasant-looking man, and when he joked his face lit up.

“And you’re what? About forty-five?”

“Thank you very much.”

“Fifty? Fifty-five? It’s just that my publisher tells me I particularly appeal to the older reader.”

“Really?” she asked.

“So I was told.”

“I’m surprised.”

“I will fax my publisher immediately and have my image corrected,” he said. “Conductor? Conductor? I want to send a fax. Where is the conductor? They’re never around when you need one. So, how old are you? It’s not that I would ask on my own account, but if I am to prove my point with the publisher...”

“Twenty,” she said.

“Twenty,” he repeated. “And lovely with it. And did your parents give you a name, or do they just call you what mine used to call me. ‘Oy, you. Come here. Clean this mess. No, I don’t believe your brother did it.’ I was fifteen before I realised that my name wasn’t ‘Oy, you.’ ”

“Really?” she asked.

“All those years thinking I was Japanese. Sounds Japanese, doesn’t it? ‘Oy, you.’ People teasing me because I lost the war. I never understood.”

“You’re joking, aren’t you?” she said.

“Let’s just say that I lead a rich fantasy life. But of course I have to, don’t I?”

“Where do your ideas come from, then?”

“From the very air we breathe. They’re all around us.”

“No, really.”

“Really? Well, as you’re a prize-winning reader, I’ll tell you. They come from paying attention to what I see and what I read and what happens to me. And then I try to think of different ways it might have happened.”

“Different ways?”

“If I do it the same way everybody else does it, then there’s no point, is there? If I write the three little pigs, who cares? But if I write a story called the three little wolves, then I’m on my way. See?”

“I think so,” she said.

“So,” Kessler said. “Do you have a name?”

“Catherine. But people call me Cat.”

“So, Cat, are you married? Do you have children?”

“Give us a chance!” she said.

“I keep forgetting. You’re not one of my typical readers. You’re my one millionth reader.”

“Am I? Really?”

“I hereby pronounce you Clive Kessler’s official one millionth reader. If you accept this official position, you must shake my hand again.”

They shook hands again but this time the man did not release the woman immediately. “You have nice hands,” he said quietly. “But I expect everybody tells you that.” He released her.

She said, “No, they don’t.”

“Well, they should. Because you do. And that’s official, too. But to make your hands official we must shake books on it.” He picked up her book. Instinctively she grabbed it, too. He shook the book up and down. “There,” he said, “we’ve shaken books on it, so it’s settled.”

“You’re weird,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t upset me,” she said.

“I was just a bit lonely. I saw you reading the book. And, well, the rest is history.”

“Lonely?” she said.

“A writer’s life is a lonely one,” he said. “You have to do it by yourself.”

“Oh, I see.”

“And you never meet any of the people you do it for,” he said. “They may buy the book, and eventually the publisher tells you how many you’ve sold. But normally you never meet anybody who ever reads them. The people who, after all, are the people you wrote the book for.”

“I never thought of that,” she said.

“Did you ever meet a writer before?”

“Only in school. They had a poet come in. It was in primary school and most of the kids thought her jokes were pretty naff. I kind of liked her, though.”

“And so you continue to read. And here you are, on the train today, reading one of mine. So, where are you going?”

“To Reading. I’m visiting my dad’s mum.”

“Do you like her?”

“Not much.”

“So, it’s a duty visit?”

“Yeah. I go about every couple of months.”

“You’re a very good granddaughter, Cat.”

She laughed. “Dad gives me a tenner and pays the train fare.”

“And you make an old woman happy.”

“She doesn’t usually know who I am, to tell the truth. But it’s a day out.”

“I’m going to Reading, too,” the man said.

“What for?”

“Research.”

“Oh.”

“For my next book. I’m going to have a look at Reading Gaol.”

“The gaol. What for?”

“Because famous people have been incarcerated there. Oscar Wilde, for instance.”

“Yeah?”

“And Stacy Reach. He’s an American actor. Played Mike Hammer on the tele.”

“What was he in gaol for?”

“Drugs.”

“Oh.”

“He’s out now, though.”

“Who’s Mike Hammer?”

“Mickey Spillane’s psychotic, misogynistic private eye.”

“Oh.”

“Not your thing, private eyes?”

“They’re okay, but I like books with more romance in them better.”

“And sex?”

She smiled. “Don’t mind.”

“Like my books?”

She hesitated.

“You haven’t got to the sexy bits then?” He nodded at the open book on the table between them.

“What sexy bits?” she asked.

“I don’t want to spoil them by telling you,” he said easily. “Surprise, unexpectedness... They make sex so much more exciting, don’t you think?”

She frowned at him across the table.

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you by referring to sex,” he said gently. “You said you didn’t mind. I didn’t mean to offend you. All I mean to do is chat.” He raised one of his hands and counted off on his fingers. “One, chat. Two, see Reading Gaol. Three, invite you for a meal after you see your gran. Four, walk around the park. Then, if we get to the thumb, then maybe we can talk about sex before the last train home. Something like that.”

The man spoke lightly, playfully. But the woman’s mood had become hard. He saw it, recognised it, and said, “What’s wrong, Cat?”

She picked the book up. “I’ve read this book before.”

“A real fan. That’s great. Do you want me to sign it?”

She pulled the book to her chest. “There are no sexy bits in it.”

“There aren’t?”

“None.”

“It’s hard to believe that someone can write a book, can spend all the time and energy it takes to convert blank sheets of paper into something interesting, and then not remember what he’s written.”

“Yes. It is hard to believe.”

“It happens, though.”

“So tell me the story of the book.”

“The story?”

“What is it about?”

“You can write a book,” the man said, “and then once you start on another you can’t remember a single thing about the first. Not a single thing.”

The woman was not impressed with this insight about writers. She and the man looked at one another for a number of seconds.

Then the man said, “I am a writer.”

“Congratulations.”

“My name is John Leith. I’m twenty-seven years old. I’ve written three novels, and finally one of them got published last summer. Actually published. That’s quite a big deal these days. It was called Winter Rain. It came out in June. It went back in again in July. I’ve written another novel since then, but the publishers don’t even want to read it. I have always wanted to be a writer, since I was about twelve. I have always wanted to be on a train or a plane and see a beautiful woman reading one of my books. I’ve wanted to know what it would be like to introduce myself and to see what she felt about what she was reading. Because when I write, the way I do it is by writing as if it’s a letter to a woman I love, by writing as if I am making love to her.”

So you lie to the women you make love to, the woman thought. She said, “And so you made all that stuff up.”

“Yes. To find out what it would feel like. To see if it was worth my continuing to write. To see if it was worth keeping on trying.”

“And is it?”

“It was very nice while we were talking, while we were getting along. Extremely nice. I liked it.”

“Even though you were lying through your teeth.”

“You wouldn’t have talked to me otherwise, would you?”

“No.”

“I have no regrets,” he said.

“How did you know there was nothing in the book about the real Clive Kessler?”

“I study the book racks in railroad stations. I make a list of books with no picture of the author and nothing saying he’s sixty-five, gay, and a leper.”

“You make a list?”

“I’m a very organised person.”

“Did you really write a book called Winter... whatever it was?”

“Winter Rain.”

“Yeah.”

“No,” he said. “I’ve never written a book. But I’m only twenty-four. I have time.”

“Never written a book,” she said, “but you have picked up girls this way before.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Really?”

“No,” he said. “In fact, this is the first time I’ve tried it. I was in Taunton station and I saw you buy a copy and so I looked at another copy and there was nothing about the author, and then I saw you sitting alone.” His voice trailed away.

She smiled and raised one eyebrow as she watched him think.

“You said you’d read it before.”

“Yes.”

“But you bought a new copy.”

“I read a library copy,” she said, “but I wanted one of my own.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Or I read a mate’s copy, and wanted one of my own. Or I lost my first copy. Or I just wanted two.”

He stared at her.

“No more questions? I thought authors were always full of questions.”

“Have you read it before?”

“Of course not.” She laughed.

“Oh,” he said.

“And I don’t have a grandmother.”

“You don’t?”

“I am going to Reading to meet my boyfriend.”

“You are?”

“To tell you the absolute truth,” she said, “he and I are going to sort out how we can get rid of his wife.”

“I don’t believe you,” the man said. “You’re just getting back at me.”

“It is the truth,” the woman said. “And it’s such an exquisite relief to be able to tell someone, someone who can’t possibly hurt me.”

“I can’t?”

“For one thing, you’re a complete stranger. For another, you’re a liar and a fantasist. Nobody would ever believe you. I feel really good for having said it out loud now. Not that I am getting cold feet. I’m not. My boyfriend — well, he’s a little old to be called that — but he’s exactly what I have always wanted in a man. He’s mature. He’s exciting. And he is extremely rich, or at least he will be if his wife dies by accident. My only worry is that he’ll chicken out, so chances are I’ll have to do it myself. I won’t mind that. She’s a bitch and a ball-breaker. She deserves to die. I figure I’ll run her over. She jogs, so it shouldn’t be hard. God, I hate joggers. Don’t you?”

“You’re making all this up,” he said.

Her look at him was the coldest he’d ever seen. “Yeah,” she said. “Making it all up. Just don’t read the papers for the next few days.”

“That’s awful,” he said.

“That’s what I hate about men,” she said. “Under the bluster they’re so soft. You only go round once in this life, right? Well, this is my chance to get the gold ring.”

The man sat staring at her, silenced.

The woman said, “Hey, talking about finally being rid of her is making me prickly. You fancy a quickie? We could do it in the toilet at the end of the carriage. You’re not HIV positive, are you?”

“No,” he said.

“I didn’t think so. I can usually tell by looking.”

The man said, “Come on, it’s a joke, right?”

“You go first. I’ll knock twice when I want to come in.”

The man rose unsteadily. He left the carriage without looking behind him.

At his fleeing back the woman made a heartfelt V sign. She finished her coffee. She picked up her book.