McNally's caper

I WAS HUNGRY

These deep, deep thoughts were interrupted by a very human need: hunger. I’m a big woman, and a chefs salad at noon really isn’t enough to see me through the day. I went into the kitchen to inspect the larder. Dismal. The best possibilities seemed a half-dozen eggs and a small, canned ham. Not the Four Seasons, but it would do.

The kitchen clock showed a few minutes to 8:00 so I called Dick Fleming.

‘Richard,’ I said, ‘am I interrupting?’

‘Nope. How are you, Jannie?’

‘Miserable. Eat yet?’

‘I was just looking in the fridge. How does a hunk of greenish cheddar and a few slices of gray baloney grab you?’

‘I can do a little better than that — ham and eggs. Want to share?’

‘Be right over,’ he said.

I met Richard J. Fleming at Sol Faber’s New Year’s Eve party, two years ago….

‘Listen, doll,’ Sol said excitedly, holding on to him, ‘you’ve got to meet this gorgeous guy, Dick Flemmer his name is, and he’s the new-’

‘Dick Fleming,’ the man said, smiling.

Sol snapped his fingers. ‘Right! Dick Fleming. He handles children’s books for Mayer, Markham. Dick, this beautiful lady is my favorite client, Jannie Shean.’

‘Jannie Shanahan,’ I said soberly.

‘What?’ Sol said, worried. ‘Oh, I get it! You’re putting me on. Right, doll? You’re putting me on?’

Dick was a few inches taller than I, and almost as skinny.

That helped. Also, it turned out, he was a quiet, sweet, amusing, un-pushy man, and he became my closest and dearest friend.

He was not gay, exactly, and he was not straight, exactly. He edited children’s books, and there was something childlike about him: sudden and brief enthusiasms, fits of stubbornness, an occasional tantrum. But generally he was smiling and serene, as if he had come to terms with himself and could live with what he was.

He spoke little of his background, but 1 gathered he’d been raised by a widowed mother and an unmarried aunt. He came from someplace in Ohio, and in the two years I had known him, had never returned for a visit.

He was lanky and loose-limbed, fair-headed, with pale, freckled skin. He moved gracefully and had a pleasing singing voice. He played a passable piano and guitar, and spoke three foreign languages. He was also an excellent cook and a marvelous host. He doted on parties.

Dick’s apartment was three blocks from mine, on East 74th Street, and we frequently dropped in on each other, but never without calling first. During the previous summer we had rented a place together in Easthampton, and it worked out very well. He was easy to live with: quiet, neat, self-effacing. He was there when you wanted him, and gone when you wanted to be alone.

When Dick came over, he volunteered to fix dinner. He scrambled the eggs with chives and found a can of pineapple slices in my cupboard to add to the baked ham. So that, plus an endive salad with a vinaigrette sauce, made a feast that we both tucked into with fervor.

While we ate, I told him what had happened to me during the day. He listened closely, asked very perceptive questions and, as usual, seemed genuinely interested in my problems.

We took our coffee and brandy into the living room and sprawled side by side on my chesterfield.

‘Well,’ Dick said when I’d finished my tale of woe, ‘sounds like you’ve had a full day.’

‘Yeah,’ I said sourly, ‘full of bullshit.’ I sometimes used words like that. Dick didn’t.

‘What are you going to do, Jannie?’

‘I don’t know. I’m about a hundred pages into a new book. I read those over, too. Just as bad. I’ll have to junk them, I guess. What did you think about what Binder and Faber said? About mystery-suspense novels?’

‘I don’t read that kind of thing,’ he said. ‘You know that. But I’m always suspicious about profound pronouncements. Maybe they’re right; I’m not saying they’re not. They could just as easily be wrong. But what disturbs me most is that you yourself think the book is bad.’

‘It’s bad, Dick. I read it over. I trashed it.’

‘All right. You’re entitled to a flop now and then. No one hits it all the time. But don’t let one turkey make you feel you’re a failure as a writer. Get started on something new, right away.’

‘That’s what Sol told me. But Binder told me I’ve lost contact. He was talking about reality. So how do I make contact with reality? I don’t know what to do. Spend the night?’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘You haven’t been shaving your legs with my razor, have you?

‘I bought new blades.’

‘Good. Jannie, I shouldn’t even venture an opinion on your books. You know I don’t read anything written for anyone over fifteen years old. But I’ve found a factor in children’s books that may be applicable in the detective-mystery-suspense field. Kids are hooked by adventure. Risk and adventure. Unknown lands. Unexplored continents. Seas no one has sailed, uncharted galaxies. I think the same holds true for adults. Men and women read crime fiction for the adventure, the risk.

‘Did you see the results of that poll where they asked people what they thought of their jobs? The huge majority said their jobs were dull, boring, and offered no satisfaction, no fulfillment. They didn’t ask me, but I’d have said exactly the same thing: dull, boring, unsatisfying.’

"I didn’t know you felt that way.’

‘Well … sure. But what else can I do? The salary isn’t great, but it’s okay. I suppose someday I might get a similar job in some other house at more money. Or even become an editor-in-chief. So what? It’s all such a drag. I try not to look ahead because it depresses me so much. But that’s my point: If you can get a feeling of risk and adventure in your books, I think you’re home free. Readers have a longing to experience what life denies them.’

‘Bed?’ I asked.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s take the brandy.’

That suited me fine.

Dick fell asleep, head on my shoulder, his fine hair tickling my nose. But I couldn’t sleep. My brain was churning. I went over again and again what Aldo Binder had said, what Sol Faber had said, what Dick Fleming had said. What I should do and not do, write or not write. A woman’s curse: worrying unnecessarily about what men think.

Dick was sleeping soundly. I kissed the tip of his nose. I moved his head off my shoulder as gently as I could. I disentangled arms and legs, pulled away and slipped out of bed. I pulled the sheet and blanket up and tucked him in. Then I went padding naked into my office, snapped on the goose-neck lamp, closed the door.

It was warm in there, toasty enough so that I didn’t need a robe. I sat down in the swivel chair, trying to keep it from creaking. I wondered if the seat cushion would leave button marks on my bare ass. I got out a long, yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen. But I didn’t write down a word.

It started out as something wild, ridiculous, nonsensical. Then harebrained. Then merely insane.

How long I sat there, brain-storming. I don’t know. At some point the door opened. Dick stood there, naked as a pin, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

‘Dick,’ I said excitedly, ‘sit down and listen.’

‘What time is it?’

‘How the hell should I know? Two, three in the morning. Sit down and listen to my great idea.’

Grumbling, he folded himself into the armchair on the other side of the desk. He shook his head from side to side, trying to clear the sleep away.

‘Okay,’ he sighed patiently, ‘I’m awake. Go ahead; what’s your sensational idea?’

I told it to him.

‘How’s that for making contact with reality?’ I said, laughing excitedly when I was done. ‘How’s that for getting back to “true-to-life” details? I can’t make my next book any more realistic than that, can I?’

He looked at me queerly.

‘And get caught and do twenty years?’

‘I’m not going to commit the crime,’ 1 said, ‘I’m just going to find out how to plan it. At the final step, just before the breaking-and-entering, I’ll bring the whole thing to a screeching halt. I can imagine the rest of it; the actual crime will write itself. Don’t you see what I’m doing? I’m going to put myself in place of my chief villain. I’m personally going to go through everything he’d have to go through: all the problems, difficulties, fears, delays. I’m going to experience everything I’ve been writing about and didn’t know about. My God, Dick, I’m going to become a Master Criminal!’

He took a deep breath and blew it out, staring at me with that same look I couldn’t fathom, as though he thought I had flipped.

‘You’re going to recruit an actual gang?’

‘Right,’ I said, nodding. ‘Bad guys. Bent noses with a lot of experience. Felons.’

‘And how are you going to find them — put a want ad in The Christian Science Monitor?’

‘Dick, that’s just the point — don’t you see? I’ve got to find out how you’d go about recruiting a gang. Who you’d have to contact. How you’d find him. For instance — a gun. If I’m going to be a modern Ma Baker, I’ll need a gun. How do I go about getting a gun in New York City? I’m sure it can be done, but howl That’s the kind of problem I’ll have to solve. But look at what I’ll be learning!’

‘Jannie, are you serious about this?’

‘Of course I’m serious!’

‘Do you know what you’re getting into, getting a gun and hiring a gang of crooks? What happens when you hire your thugs and rehearse them for your Big Caper, and then call it off at the last minute? What do you think their reaction will be?’

‘Oh hell, Dick — I can handle that. They’re all morons. I’ll just tell them it’s off and disappear. If I pay them for a week or two of rehearsals, I’m not hurting them, am I? But that’s just a minor detail. I haven’t yet figured it all out. I’m just drafting the grand concept. What do you think?’

‘Jannie, there may be danger. Real-life danger, not pretend.’

‘Of course there will be danger! There has to be danger. How else can my Big Caper be realistic? How can it ring true? I want to learn about the danger. I want to be afraid. That’s what the whole idea is about. Where are you going? Back to bed?’

He had uncoiled his naked length from the armchair and was starting for the door.

‘Be right back,’ he said.

He returned in a moment with the brandy bottle and our two glasses. He set the snifters on my desk blotter and poured us hefty shots.

‘Jannie,’ he said, ‘I want in.’

‘What?’

‘I want in. I want to be the first member of Jannie’s gang.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘No crazier than you. How about it?’

I stared at him, trying to understand.

‘Dick, this has nothing to do with misguided chivalry, does it? The macho male joining up to protect the weak, defenseless woman from the big, bad men?’

‘Do I look like a macho male?’ he asked reasonably. ‘Use your brain, Jannie; what do I know about guns, knives, or physical combat?’

‘Then why?’

‘The adventure,’ he said. ‘The risk.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’