The Return of the Black Widowers

by Isaac Asimov

  "She said, 'I had to wait for him to stop moving.’ There was a candle holder lying near him, a heavy wrought-iron piece.

  "I remained on the floor, trying to catch my breath. I gasped out, 'Have you killed him?'

  " 'I wouldn't care if I did,' she said, indifferently, 'but he's still breathing.'

  "She wasn't exactly your helpless heroine. It was her apartment so she knew where to find the clothesline, and she was tying both of them at the wrists and ankles very efficiently. The smaller man screamed when she tightened the ropes at his ankle, but she didn't turn a hair.

  "She said, 'Why the hell did you mess up the response in the bar when I asked you about baseball? And why the hell didn't you bring people with you? I admit you're a pint-sized windmill, but couldn't you have brought one backup?'

  "Well, I don't really expect gratitude, but—

  "I said, 'Lady, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know about the baseball bit, and I don't go about in squadrons.'

  "She looked at me sharply. 'Don't move. I'm making a phone call.'

  " 'The police?'

  " 'After a fashion.'

  "She went into the other room to call. For privacy, I suppose. She trusted me to stay where I was and do nothing. Or thought me stupid enough to do so. I didn't mind. I wasn't through resting.

  "When she came back, she said, 'You're not one of us. What was that remark about baseball?'

  "I said, I don't know who us is, but I'm not one of anybody. My remark about baseball was a remark. What else?'

  "She said, 'Then how—Well, you had better leave. There's no need for you to be mixed up in this. I'll take care of everything. Get out and walk some distance before you hail a taxi. If a car pulls up at this building while you're within earshot, don't turn around and for God's sake, don't turn back.'

  "She was pushing and I was out in the yard when she said, 'But at least you knew what I was telling you in the bar. I am glad you were here and waiting.'

  "At last! Gratitude! I said, 'Lady, I don't know what—' but the door was closed behind me.

  "I made it over very quickly to my friend's apartment. He said nothing about my being an hour late or being a little the worse for wear and I said nothing about what had happened.

  "And what did happen was nothing. I never heard a thing. No repercussions. And that's why it's an unsatisfactory story. I don't know who the people were, what they were doing, what it was all about. I don't know whether I was helping the good guys or the bad guys, or whether there were any good guys involved. I may have bumped into two competing bands of terrorists playing with each other.

  "But that's the story about my faking a knowledge of baseball."

  When Just was done, a flat and rather unpleasant silence hung over the room, a silence that seemed to emphasize that for the first time in living memory a guest had told a rather long story without ever having been interrupted.

  Finally, Trumbull heaved a weary sigh and said, "I trust you won't be offended, Mr. Just, if I tell you that I think you are pulling our leg. You've invented a very dramatic story for our benefit, and you've entertained us—me, at least—but I can't accept it."

  Just shrugged, and didn't seem offended. "I've embroidered it a little, polished it up a bit—I'm a writer, after all—but it's true enough."

  Avalon cleared his throat. "Mr. Just, Tom Trumbull is sometimes hasty in coming to conclusions but in this case I am forced to agree with him. As you say, you're a writer. I'm sorry to say I have read none of your works but I imagine you write w hat are called tough-guy detective stories."

  "As a matter of fact, I don't," said Just, with composure. "I have written four novels that are, I hope, realistic, but are not unduly violent."

  "It's a fact, Jeff," said Rubin, grinning.

  Gonzalo said, "Do you believe him, Manny?"

  Rubin shrugged. "I've never found Darius to be a liar, and I know something happened, but it's hard for a writer to resist the temptation to fictionalize for effect. Forgive me, Darius, but I wouldn't swear to how much of it was true."

  Just sighed. "Well, just for the record, is there anyone here who believes I told you what actually happened?" The Black Widowers sat in an embarrassed silence, and then there was a soft cough from the direction of the sideboard.

  "I hesitate to intrude, gentlemen," said Henry, "but despite the over-romantic nature of the story, it seems to me there is a chance that it is true."

  "A chance?" said Just, smiling. "Thank you, waiter."

  "Don't underestimate the waiter," said Trumbull, stiffly. "If he thinks there is a chance the story is true, I'm prepared to revise my opinion.—What's your reasoning, Henry?"

  "If the story were fiction, Mr. Trumbull, it would be neatly tied. This one has an interesting loose end which, if it makes sense, cannot be accidental.—Mr. Just, just at the end of the story, you told us that the woman remarked at her relief that you knew what she was telling you in the bar. What had she told you?"

  Just said, "This is a loose end, because she didn't tell me a damn thing. I could easily make something up, if I weren't telling the truth."

  "Or you could let it remain loose now," said Halsted, "for the sake of verisimilitude."

  Henry said, "And yet if your story is accurate, she may indeed have told you, and the fact that you don't understand that is evidence of its truth."

  "You speak in riddles, Henry," said Just.

  Henry said, "You did not, in your story, mention precise locations; neither the location of the bar, nor of the apartment complex in which your friend lives. There are a number of such apartment complexes in Manhattan."

  "I know," interposed Rubin, "I live in one of them."

  "Yours, Mr. Rubin," said Henry, "is on West End Avenue. I suspect that the apartment complex of Mr. Just's friend is on First Avenue."

  Just looked astonished. "It is. Now how did you know that?"

  Henry said, "Consider the opening scene of your story. The woman at the bar knew she was in the hands of her enemies and would not be allowed to leave except under escort. The two men in the bar were merely waiting for their large confederate. They would then take her to her apartment for reasons of their own. The woman thought you were one of her group, felt you could do nothing in the bar, but wanted you on the spot, near her apartment, with reinforcements.

  "She therefore flicked maraschino cherries at you—an apparently harmless and, possibly, flirtatious gesture, though even that roused the suspicions of the two men in the bar."

  Just said, "What of that?"

  Henry said, "She had to work with what she could find. The cherries were small spheres—little balls—and she sent you four, one at a time. You had claimed to be a baseball fanatic. She sent you four balls, and, in baseball parlance—as almost anyone knows—four balls, that is, four pitches outside the strike zone, means the batter may advance to first base. More colloquially, he 'walks to first.’ That’s what she was telling you and you, quite without understanding this, did indeed walk to First Avenue for reasons of your own."

  Just looked stupefied. "I never thought of that."

  "It's because you didn't and yet incorporated the incident into the account," said Henry, "that I think your story is essentially true."

  Return to Table of Contents

  Commemoration

  On the tenth anniversary of Isaac Asimov’s death and the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of the first Black Widowers story, Charles Ardai brought the members of the club back together for one last dinner . . .

  THE LAST STORY by CHARLES ARDAI

  T

  om Trumbull was the last to arrive. He flew through the doors of the Milano restaurant, clambered upstairs to the private room where the monthly banquets were held, and deposited his umbrella in the elephant-foot stand just inside the door. He was soaked from the knees down, and he shook each pant leg in turn in a vain attempt to stop them from clinging to his skin. "A scotch and soda—" he began, but a glass was pressed into his h
and before he could finish his request.

  "Scotch and soda, Mr. Trumbull," said Henry, the Black Widowers' peerless waiter. "For a dying man."

  "Come on, Tom," said Emmanuel Rubin, his sparse beard quivering with annoyance. "Sit down. You've kept us all waiting long enough."

  "Let him dry off," said Mario Gonzalo, the club's artist member, who was putting the finishing touches on his caricature of the evening's guest. "At his age, catching a cold could be dangerous."

  "You're the same age, Mario, and I don't see you worrying about catching a cold," Rubin said.

  373 "That's because I arrived on time, before the rain started," Gonzalo said, "which is more than I can say for you and your guest. Pay no attention to his outbursts, Tom."

  "Do I ever?"Trumbull hung his suit jacket over the back of his chair and took a long swallow. To his left, patent attorney Geoffrey Avalon sat stirring the ice in his glass with a long index finger. Avalon took a careful sip, bringing the glass to exactly half full, then set the remainder aside.

  Across the table, James Drake and Roger Halsted were embroiled in a heated discussion about science education. It was a topic about which both had strong opinions. As an organic chemist, Drake felt more emphasis on scientific curricula was needed at the precollege level, and as a junior high school math teacher, Roger Halsted passionately agreed. That both men were on the same side of the argument didn't seem to interfere with their ability to carry on about it as though fighting to the death.

  To their right and to Manny Rubin's left—which is to say at the head of the table—sat a slight man with a prominent chin and rather less hair than he'd had the first time he'd attended one of the Black Widowers' dinners as a guest. Both of these characteristics were highlighted in the finished caricature Mario Gonzalo now held up for inspection and then pinned to the wall next to his first sketch of Gary Nemerson, completed a dozen years earlier.

  "Manny," Trumbull said, his voice rumbling ominously, "I never put it past you to demonstrate ignorance of the rules under which our group operates, but even you must have noticed that not once in thirty years has a guest been invited back for a second dinner."

  "That's not a rule, it's just happenstance," Rubin said. "None of your guests has ever merited a second invitation. Gary did."

  "Why? Because as one of your fellow writers he's hungrier than our other guests and less well equipped to purchase his own meals?"

  "No, because as one of my fellow writers he's got more interesting things to say than any ten of the government types you work with." Rubin turned to his guest. "Tom's just upset because his guest canceled on him the last time he hosted. He's been taking it out on the rest of us ever since."

  Nemerson smiled briefly but said nothing. He looked purposeful, even impatient to get on with the evening's grilling. But before it could begin, there was the small matter of the meal.

  Henry moved to the far end of the table, opposite Nemerson, and cleared his throat. Looking down, each of the Black Widowers saw that a plate containing an appetizer of ceviche with capers and julienned chilies had, silently and as if by magic, appeared before them.

  "Gentlemen," Henry said, "dinner is served."

  The main course continued the Latin American theme with grilled strips of pork loin and chorizo on a bed of wilted baby spinach and was followed by a dessert of fresh churros. While everyone else was preoccupied with sampling the dark chocolate and duke de leche dipping sauces, Drake said to Gary Nemerson, "I'm curious—the umbrella you brought tonight, is it the same one that caused you so much trouble the last time you were here?"

  Nemerson blushed pinkly, all the way up to his rapidly retreating hairline. "No, as fine an instrument as it was, that umbrella wasn't well enough constructed to outlast a decade of New York winters. I have never found its equal, and the one I brought tonight is nothing special."

  "That first umbrella," Drake continued in his hoarse smoker's voice, "the one that almost broke up your engagement until Henry helped you find it, did you ever mislay it again?"

  "I protest!" Rubin's beard shook with the force of his exclamation and his eyes, magnified to the size of golf balls behind his thick lenses, strained with indignation. "We haven't finished eating, and he's already starting the grilling!"

  "Nonsense," Drake growled. "I'm just making conversation." "You're in no position to protest, Manny," Trumbull said, "given the breach, if not of rules then at least of tradition, that you've committed tonight."

  "Breach?" Manny could barely contain himself. "At least my guest showed up!"

  "It's all right, Manny," Nemerson said. "I'm happy to answer the question. No, Mr. Drake, I can't recall another occasion when I mislaid my umbrella, or at least not so completely that I couldn't promptly find it again. I am a careful person, and one of the matters I take particular care about is where I put things, so that I can find them again. I wish other people were half as careful, frankly."

  "It's interesting," Roger Halsted said, softly and with a slight stutter, "that people generally take greater care with where they put things when they don't want them found than when they do."

  "Oh, I don't think that's true," Avalon said. "It's just that those are the cases you hear about, because they're more interesting. No one would read a Manny Rubin mystery story about someone who carefully puts his valuables in a safe-deposit box and whose heirs find them there, safe and sound, when they go to look. A

  J o

  story about a miser who hides his valuables in an old tree stump, on the other hand . . ."

  "Listen to you, 'an old tree stump.' Your concept of mystery plotting stopped with the Hardy Boys," Rubin said. "As it happens, I agree with Roger. People take it for granted that they'll be able to find things when they put them down, and that's how so many things get lost. It's when you want something to be hard for other people to find that you take pains to place it carefully."

  Nemerson chose this moment to weigh in, and from the expression on his face it seemed he had more on his mind than idle conversation. "Unfortunately," he said, "my experience is that things can get lost either way, and when you're looking for them it doesn't much matter whether they were hidden on purpose or by accident. I'm dealing with a situation of this sort right now, in fact, and I was actually hoping you might help me with it." Silence greeted this remark from all corners of the room, but Nemerson

  soldiered on. "Seeing as how you were able to help me so successfully the last time."

  "So that's why he merited a second invitation," Trumbull roared. "You brought him because he's mislaid something else— maybe his galoshes this time, or is it his keys? What are we, his personal lost-and-found?"

  "Hear him out," Rubin said, with an uncharacteristically conciliatory tone. "I have, and I think you'll find it interesting."

  Avalon's luxurious eyebrows crept upward. "I guess the grilling will begin now," he said.

  Rubin rattled his teaspoon against the side of his water glass to signal the formal start of the evening's proceedings. "Gary," Rubin said, "as you know, we would normally start by asking how you justify your existence, but you answered the question the last time you ate with us, so I think we can dispense with that bit of tradition this time." He shot a small dirty look in Trumbull's direction, then aimed an index finger across the table at Jim Drake. "Dr. Drake, since you couldn't contain yourself earlier, would you like to do the honors?"

  Drake took a pull on the cigarette he'd just lit and balanced it on the edge of his ashtray. "Mr. Nemerson," he said, "would you be so kind as to let us know what you're missing this time?"

  "I’m not missing anything, exactly," Nemerson said, "or at least not something of mine. Believe me, I wouldn't have come here to waste your time with something petty like galoshes or car keys."

  "Or an umbrella," Trumbull said. •

  "What's happened is this: I've been hired by Singleman & Sons, the publishing company, to finish editing Abraham Beard's last, unpublished anthology of science fiction short stories, F
arthest Frontiers. You know Beard died recently, I assume?"

  "I don't even know who he is," Drake said. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

  Nemerson took a deep breath and a moment to compose his thoughts. "As Manny could tell you, Abraham Beard was a major figure in science fiction publishing. He started as a writer in the pulp magazines back in the forties. He was good, but not great, and, competing with giants like Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke, he never rose to prominence as a writer. Where he really shone was as an editor, first of a magazine called Astonishing Science Stories and then, later, of a line of paperback original novels for Random House. He fell out of sight in the sixties and seventies, when the field became more literary and experimental, but he came back with a vengeance in nineteen seventy-nine when he published an anthology of new stories called Far Frontiers.

  "Far Frontiers was a landmark, and its publication was one of those milestone moments in the field. Later, everyone talked about 'before Far Frontiers' and 'after Far Frontiers.' Basically, every top science fiction writer of the time had a story in the book, and the quality of the stories was just staggering. As a writer, Beard may have been just average, but as an editor, he was the best in the business, really able to pull amazing work out of his contributors.

  "The publishing business being what it is, you won't be surprised to learn that Beard's publisher quickly commissioned a sequel. And in due course the second book came out, under the name Farther Frontiers, and it was every bit as good as the first one—but 'due course' in this case was ten years. Beard worked on that book so long that no one believed it would ever be finished. It became a joke in the eighties: If someone asked you how you were doing, you'd say, 'The good news is I sold a story, the bad news is I sold it to Farther Frontiers.' When the book finally came out in nineteen eighty-nine, it was a huge event, and part of the reason was that everyone had given up on it— and, frankly, on Beard himself. But he showed everyone. On top of everything else, he'd put one of his own stories in the book, and, okay, it wasn't the best story in the book, but it was better than anything he'd written before and it held its own with stories from some really great writers. And privately everyone figured that's why the book had taken so long, because he was waiting till he'd written a story good enough to include. Which was certainly his privilege, God knows."