by Helen McCloy
“That’s why I hated his books. I hate fads and I hate frauds. Amos was perhaps unconsciously both a fad and a fraud who built a great reputation on one thing—sheer volume of production. And he made a hell of a lot of money out of it, while my own budget runs around a hundred and fifty a week and always will because I don’t have the knack of writing pastiches of all the popular novels of the last thirty years and doing it regularly once a year. If I could, I would!”
“Why does Lepton take Amos so much more seriously? Lepton seems intelligent.”
Avery grinned again. “Put it down to professional jealousy, but I think Leppy is the same kind of critic that Amos was a novelist. Leppy’s criticism is a pastiche of all the fashionable criticism of the last thirty years and I don’t think his fraud is unconscious. I think Leppy is completely cynical. He pans most books, because he can be very amusing when he does and that’s what sells his articles. But he’s shrewd enough to know he can’t pan every book that comes out, so—I suspect Leppy gets hold of a copy of Publishers’ Weekly when it prints advance spring lists, takes a pin, closes his eyes and sticks the pin blindly in the page. The first work of fiction he hits with the pin becomes the one book Leppy praises for that season. If the author grows in popularity, as Amos did, Leppy feels he’s committed and sticks with the guy. But if the author is lazy about producing books or loses his popularity, Leppy drops him with a little review saying that Mr. Inkblot has not fulfilled his early promise….
“Gosh, this scrapbook is fascinating!” Avery began turning pages. “To think of Amos solemnly pasting up all his reviews, good or bad. Listen to this, from Gus to Amos:
Dear Amos,
This review will appear in next week’s Chicago Tribune. It should make you very happy.
Regards, Gus
NEVER CALL RETREAT. A novel by Amos Cottle. Daniel Sutton and Co., $3.75. Reviewed by Mark Kitteridge
Here, believe me, is a book by a new writer that is not entirely without interest. Mr. Cottle has a sharp sense of the futility of the human predicament especially in time of war. Indeed it seemed to me that the war scenes were handled with vivid flashes of an almost intuitive perception of the causal relationship between bullets and fear.
On the other hand the book is far too long and extremely dull. (Typical Kitteridge: This book is brilliant, on the other hand it is damned dull. That boy never goes out on a limb!) The flashbacks that give us a glimpse of each marine’s life in peacetime are not up to the standard of the battle scenes. We suspect that Mr. Cottle, like so many authors today, had one eye on Hollywood when he wrote these glimpses of civilian life introducing several mawkish and irrelevant love scenes and one really pornographic episode, that seriously damage the unity and integrity of his tale.
Each marine involved is from a different part of the country and this obvious appeal to regional sentiment smacks of calculated commercialism. The title Never Call Retreat is inappropriate, since each man is quite ready to retreat at the end and only refrains from doing so because there is nothing to retreat to but the Pacific Ocean. The book should have had some stark, simple title like The Battlefield and it would have had far more general interest if it had concerned the infantry instead of a small, elite corps like the marines. It would have been more in keeping with the fact that the Japanese are now our allies against communism if at least one of the scenes had been told from the point of view of a Japanese soldier. The scene where the sergeant is shot in the belly is in questionable taste. War really does not have to be made quite so gruesomely unappetizing in fiction. The fighting man’s use of profane and obscene language is grossly exaggerated in the opinion of a reviewer whose memories of the Army go back to 1917. (Gosh, I didn’t know Kit was that old!)
Basil was beginning to feel as if he had strayed into a world as queerly inverted as anything Alice found on the other side of the looking glass. “Why on earth did Gus Vesey expect such a review to make Amos happy?”
“Oh, an agent always seems to think a writer will be pleased if a critic devotes a lot of space to him,” said Avery, “no matter how inimical the criticism contained in that space. And it’s not really a bad review for a first book. Look what good use Tony’s publicity department made of it.”
Avery held up the scrapbook so Basil could see the next page.
It was entirely covered with a half-page ad cut from a newspaper. A picture of a giant bugler in marine’s uniform with a bugle at his lips towered above a vague suggestion of shadowy palm trees and the minute figure of a bearded man in rags holding his stomach in both hands while blood trickled through his fingers.
Below came the big, bold letters:
NEVER CALL RETREAT
By AMOS COTTLE
Daniel Sutton and Co., $3.75
Mark Kitteridge in the Chicago Tribune:
“Here, believe me, is a book…”
Avery turned a page and Basil read the next ad.
Catamount Pictures Proudly Presents
The Picture That Has Everything
STUPENDOUS, COLOSSAL, FABULOUS!
SPENCER TRACY AND RITA HAYWORTH
on the widest screen in the world
in
NEVER CALL RETREAT
Scenario by Len Gumroot
(from a novel by Amos Cottle)
See the beautiful Japanese geisha dying for love of an American marine!
See the luscious siren of the San Diego waterfront stealing the marine’s last dollar before he sails into the fiery hell of war!
See the beloved chaplain (Spencer Tracy) giving the last rites of the Church to an atheist, a Protestant and a Jew!
See the flame-throwers! The tanks! The napalm bombs! A picture that will inspire a whole generation of Americans!
Mark Kitteridge in the Chicago Tribune: “One really pornographic episode …”
Opening tonight at 8:00 p.m. Continuous performance tomorrow from 1:00 p.m. Tickets $2.95, $2.45, $1.90, $1.50 at the Pinchbeck Theatre…
“I believe we didn’t have napalm until Korea,” said Avery. “But who in Hollywood cares?”
Painted flames encircled the next of the advertisements like an inky inferno, with a glimpse of a writhing body here and there.
Basil turned his head suddenly. “It may be suggestion but—do you smell something burning?”
Avery put down the scrapbook. “I believe I do.”
Both men looked around the room. The sky had darkened. It was not quite a night sky yet, but it was too dark to see anything but their own reflections in the great sheets of glass on the garden side of the house.
“You must have been mistaken,” said Avery.
“I think not.” Basil was on his feet. “Look.”
Avery looked toward the open door into the bedroom. A thin coil of smoke was rising from the crack between two floorboards.
“Where would the door to the cellar be in a house like this?” demanded Basil.
“Kitchen probably.”
Basil led the way. There were two doors in the kitchen. Avery jerked at one and it opened on the fresh, cold, winter night. Basil snatched at the other door. Avery had a second’s glimpse of towering black smoke shot with scarlet flame before Basil slammed it shut again.
“Call the Fire Department. Then help me get Amos Cottle’s papers out of here.”
Avery ran to the phone in the bedroom as Basil began pulling drawers out of the filing cabinet. Carbons—all carbons of books already published.
When Avery came back he looked frightened. “Do Cottle’s papers really matter now? The bedroom floor’s on fire and there’s smoke even in here.”
“Get out if you want to,” said Basil. “I’m going to save what I can.”
“You’re nuts!” protested Avery. “Tony or Gus will have another carbon of that unpublished book and copies of all the contracts.”
“What about the rough drafts and short stories and notebooks Tony and Gus want to publish posthumously?”
“Why should you care? You’re not
a stockholder in Sutton, Kane and this room is going up in flames in another moment!”
It was true. Basil could feel the heat of the floor through the soles of his shoes. Smoke pervaded the room, not in sudden gusts or coils, but invisibly. It had seeped slowly from every crack until it became a part of the air in the room, bringing water to the eyes, rasping nose and throat and lungs with the threat of suffocation.
Basil took one last look around the room. He had searched the desk and the filing cabinet—in vain. Where did a writer keep his rough drafts? He had a vague recollection of Meg Vesey having said something about Gus keeping TV scripts in the kitchen salad bowl.
Suddenly, silently a wicked tongue of fire shot up from the ‘floor and licked the edge of a nylon net curtain. With a flash and a sigh, the curtain became a sheet of flame.
Avery was running for the glass door. Basil followed him.
They were just in time. Outside, on the lawn, every window was a red blaze. They drew the pure, outdoor air into their tortured lungs, thankful even for its coldness.
Avery looked at Basil shrewdly. “Was this an accident?”
“I wonder…” murmured Basil. “I told Gus and Tony that I was coming to this house this afternoon to look over Amos’s unpublished work.”
“And I told Tony and Leppy that I was going to meet you here,” added Avery. “What was the big idea? To kill two birds with one stone?”
“No. Whoever did it must have known we would probably get out in time.”
“What then?”
“Somebody didn’t want us to find something that was there and could not be removed.”
“Such as…?”
“Perhaps Amos Cottle’s rough drafts and notebooks. Or perhaps these.” Basil put his hand in his pocket and drew out the pathetic trinkets he had found in Amos’s desk. The incised and pocked gold of the thimble glittered brightly in the red glare of the fire.
“They could have been removed,” said Avery. “So could the rough drafts.”
“Not if they couldn’t be found,” retorted Basil. “These trinkets were in a little purse stuck in the groove of a desk drawer. A hasty search might not have discovered them. And I wasn’t able to find the rough drafts myself. Did someone know they were in the house and, failing to find them, leave an incendiary device in the cellar so that they would be consumed along with the house and no one else would ever read them?”
“Why would anyone care if you found Amos’s rough drafts or somebody’s old thimble and ring?”
Basil seemed to be thinking aloud as he went on: “It’s possible that the house was burned for an entirely opposite and even more surprising reason.”
“Opposite? Am I supposed to understand that?” asked Avery.
“No. Though something you said this afternoon gave me the idea.”
“What did I say?”
Basil was spared the necessity of answering as the fire truck roared up the driveway with its siren at full blast.
CHAPTER TEN
When Vera woke Tuesday morning, the sky was gray again. She had no inner strength to resist the impact of a gloomy day. She looked at the bleak scene outside the window as if the weather were a personal insult designed especially to annoy her by malignant nature. She had no eyes at all for the luxury of the hotel bedroom. For the last three years she had taken luxury for granted and she had no intention of losing it now.
She slipped her narrow, corded, old-looking feet into satin mules with frivolous frills of ostrich feather. She covered her lacy nightdress with the furred gown of polished, ice-blue satin and called room service for orange juice and coffee.
In the sitting room of her suite, she turned on the TV set and caught the eleven o’clock news on Channel 5.
“…the latest development in the Amos Cottle case was the burning of Cottle’s palatial house at Weston, Connecticut early yesterday evening. Everything in the house was destroyed, except a few documents rescued by Dr. Basil Willing, psychiatric assistant to the District Attorney of New York County, and Emmett Avery, the well-known critic. Connecticut State Police have evidence that the fire may have been of incendiary origin, but they are unable to identify the arsonist. And now for the stock market. It opened with…”
Vera switched off the set and sat plunged in thought. The house must have been worth at least fifty thousand. No doubt there was adequate insurance, but would it cover a fire of incendiary origin? And could she…
The telephone rang.
“Sam? About time you called me! Come right on up. I’m just having coffee.”
Sam and the waiter arrived at the same time. Sam stood aside as the waiter wheeled a table on castors into the sitting room. Like so many modern waiters, his manner was compounded of insolence overlaid with tongue-in-cheek civility. His cynical eyes took in every detail of Vera’s appearance and Sam’s as if he were cataloguing their ages, their financial and social standing and their hidden vices. The coating of civility wore transparently thin when Vera gave him a niggardly tip and told him to bring another cup for Sam. Poor Sam, who liked to be liked by everyone, even waiters, was so embarrassed that he slipped a folded dollar bill into the man’s hand surreptitiously.
Vera sat down at the table and poured coffee. It was characteristic that she appropriated the single cup for herself. Sam would have to wait until the waiter came back and the waiter would probably never have come back at all if Sam had not augmented his tip. It was one of those rare cases where a disinterested impulse paid off immediately. Sam was quite impressed with the moral lesson.
But the waiter didn’t hurry and by the time he came back the coffee was lukewarm. Sam sipped it without relish while Vera continued to unburden herself of all her many grievances. Sam was plump and bald and swarthy and his hooded, deep-set eyes had a look of ancient, immutable sadness. They were eyes steeped in wisdom, but it was not the kind of wisdom that brings happiness. Even Vera had a strange feeling that Sam’s eyes had looked at too many unspeakable things.
“So there it is.” Vera finished her coffee and lit a cigarette with a toss of her brassy hair. “Tony and Gus are sitting on the driver’s seat. ‘Literary executors,’ they call themselves. All I know is this. If I can’t get another agent and another publisher to handle Amos’s posthumous work, I want my rightful share of the money from Tony and Gus. I want Gus to take only ten percent as his commission and I want Tony’s share cut to only fifteen percent of subsidiary rights. I’d rather it was ten. And I want to see Amos’s will.”
Sam sighed. “What you need is a lawyer, baby, not an agent.”
Vera was furious. “But you said…”
“Look, baby. The situation has changed. Amos is dead. If he were still alive, I could steer him to another agent and another publisher. Even then Gus would still have been the agent for all the old books and Tony, the publisher. Leaving an agent and a publisher is like getting a divorce. It changes the future, but it doesn’t change the past. See? As things are—well, the minute a guy’s dead all his assets are frozen anyway until his estate is settled.”
Vera fumed. “You mean I’m stuck with this?”
“Looks like it. Tony and Gus will pay you what they would have paid Amos if he were still alive and that’s that. You can’t change their contract with Amos now Amos is dead. A corpse can’t sign a contract.”
“Damn!” Vera looked like a thwarted tigress. “Is there no way I could sue them and get more money?”
“Well, you can sue anybody for anything, but it’s another thing to win your case. What grounds you got for suing?”
“You said it was monstrous that Gus should get twenty-five percent and Tony fifty. Couldn’t you call it extortion?”
“Darned hard to prove.” Sam shook his head dubiously.
“Then why did Tony and Gus get so much more than is usual? If it isn’t extortion, what is it?”
Sam shrugged. “Amos was no businessman. What author is? Most authors like to think of themselves as being pretty dumb about business
. That’s a sign that they’re artists or gentlemen or something quite above anything as sordid as business. Naturally some publishers take advantage of this. And then most authors are so darn glad to get a first book published in real, honest-to-God print that they’ll sign anything. This was seduction, not rape. Amos had reached the age of consent. You know,” went on Sam, pleased with his own felicitous metaphor, “an author with a first book is awfully like a virgin and a publisher is awfully like an old rake. He knows what he’s doing and he knows the author doesn’t know, but that’s not his business—that’s the author’s business. Is he responsible for the author? Certainly not. He doesn’t force the author into anything, he, just woos him a little. All publishers have printed contracts. That’s what they try on first. If the author, or his agent, knows his way around, he takes a pen and scratches out half the print and writes in something that gives the author what the traffic will bear. Some publishers don’t really mind this too much. On the contrary I think they have more respect for an author who knows what he’s worth, just as a rake has more respect for a woman who knows her way around. But if the author is new and dumb or innocent, and falls into the hands of an unscrupulous publisher, then said publisher just takes him, same as the rake takes the virgin, quite without any personal malice or hostility but quite without respect or consideration either. I guess that’s what happened to Amos, only he had worse luck than usual because his agent was crooked, too.”
“Crooked?” Vera snatched at the word. “Then…”
“Well, in this case,” amended Sam hastily. “Look at it from the agent’s point of view. He’s a middleman. He’s got to live on good terms with authors and publishers both. But, of the two, publishers are more important to him. They’ll be around a lot longer than most authors. As a rule an author has only one book to sell at a time, but an agent has a dozen or more. He may want to offer the same publisher a book tomorrow, so…”
