Susan Veldt was twenty-seven years old, a sharp-tongued young lady with blonde hair and a good figure. She’d been writing successfully ever since college—poems, even one or two short stories published in the women’s magazines. But her biggest success had come with an expose piece she’d done for a now defunct morning newspaper, on a private club up in the Bronx. That had made her name around New York.
She’d always told her friends—and even her father, when he protested about her writing career—that a girl with looks and brains could get further than anyone else in Manhattan. She was proving it because she had both. Some called her the sexiest magazine writer in Manhattan, and perhaps that wasn’t very far from wrong. Unfortunately, with Susan herself, writer came before sexy. Considering the fact of her twenty-seven years, and the number of eligible men on the island of Manhattan, it remained a dour fact of life that she had never married.
She covered the Grammy Awards dinner at the end of February, jotting down notes between courses and glancing around at the top recording executives and the young long-haired singing stars. It was an experience, to say the least, and she wrote a good article on it. Arthur Rowe was pleased. He even raised her salary ten dollars a week.
The National Book awards was a bit different. Most of the writers tended to have beards that year, and they looked at her without really seeing her. All except one young hippie poet, who made a half-hearted attempt to seduce her at the bar. Then they went in and listened to the fellow who’d won the novel award bubble through a prepared speech and thank everyone in sight. Susan felt a discouraging lack of professionalism on his part, and said so in her article.
Things picked up a bit with the Tony Awards. She’d sat at home the night of the Oscar presentation, her eyes glued to the television screen, and it was amazing to see how the Tony show copied some of the best and worst features of the Oscar. It was held in one of the larger Schubert Alley theatres on a Sunday night, so everyone could attend. And again the television cameras were very much in evidence. She liked seeing the stars, and they had a bigger line-up of names than the other two award ceremonies.
The Tony Awards came the Sunday after Easter that year—only five days before the annual dinner of the Mystery Writers of America. She found herself on the street that sunny Monday morning, seeking out the second-floor headquarters of MWA on 48th Street. It was to be a big day in the life of Susan Veldt. It was to be the day she met Barney Hamet.
3 Barney Hamet
BETTY RAFFERTY, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY of Mystery Writers of America, looked up from her typewriter and called across the room to the tall, husky young man by the window. “Barney, what should I tell Max out in Los Angeles?”
Barney Hamet turned and stared at her. “What’s the problem with Max?”
“He’s not planning to come east for the Award Dinner, and he’s our novel winner.”
Barney walked over to the desk and glanced down at the tentative seating list for Friday night’s affair. No, Max Winters was definitely not on it, and that was odd. He’d made every dinner since Barney joined MWA, and there had been no thought that he’d miss this one.
Although the awards were not announced until Friday, and were kept more or less secret, Betty and Barney and a handful of others already knew the winners’ names. Max Winters had won the novel award for his medium-best-seller, THE FOX HUNT, a fairly successful attempt to blend the detective story with the mainstream novel. Although he was one of six nominees, all of them worthy, the novel committee had wasted little time in picking Max’s book as the winner. Barney knew Max and he was pleased with the choice.
Now, pondering the dinner list, he felt a pang of discontent. “What do we usually do in cases like this? Don’t we generally notify the winner and break the news to him in advance—tell him he’s won? It’s always good to have as many of the winners as possible at the dinner.”
“That’s been the practice in the past,” Betty agreed. “If there’s travel involved, if the person isn’t planning to attend, we do sometimes tell him that he’s won.”
“All right,” Barney said. “Get a letter off to him over my signature and drop a broad hint about it. Tell him I think it would be worth his while, and I hope to see him here for the dinner on Friday.”
Betty nodded and inserted a letterhead into the typewriter. She was MWA’s only paid employee, a pert little brunette she kept the office running, handling the extensive library, correspondence with members, and a thousand other chores.
The office itself was located on the second floor of a building just off Times Square. It was anything but fancy, with bookshelves lining two of its walls, filled to overflowing with mystery novels, mostly by members. The front window looked down on 48th Street, and if one stood close enough he could see the comings and-goings at the restaurant downstairs. Toward the back of the long, somewhat narrow room there was a storage area and a sink—and it was this part of the office which served as the bar during the group’s monthly cocktail parties.
Now, with only the two of them in the office, it seemed spacious and relaxing. When fifty or seventy-five members crowded in for the cocktail parties or monthly meetings, it took on more of the air of a Paris bistro or a rush hour subway car.
“The awards are all set, I suppose?” Barney asked her.
“All set.”
“The statuettes are up from Virginia?”
“Yes.”
The ceramic Edgar and Raven statuettes given as awards were produced in Lynchburg.
“Let’s see. What else? The programmes—the MWA Annual—all printed and delivered?”
“Right.”
He grunted and lit a cigarette. That seemed to cover it all. Another committee was handling the dinner arrangements at the Biltmore.
“Who’s the Reader of the Year award going to, again?”
“Craigthorn. Ross Craigthorn. You know, Barney! He’s on television every night.”
“I watch Cronkite,” Barney said.
He shuffled through the mail and glanced at some of the return addresses, looking for familiar names.
“Well … I guess maybe I’ll hop over to Harry’s.”
“Will you be back in case anybody’s looking for you?”
“Probably. Late this afternoon.”
People were always looking for Barney Hamet, especially this week, with the Awards Dinner coming up. Barney was executive vice president of MWA, and in the loose-knit structure of the organisation, he held perhaps the most important post.
The president this year was a recluse mystery writer from the wilds of Montana, who rarely came down to civilisation. He had accepted the honour and sent a brief telegram acknowledging it, but Barney doubted if he would ever venture into New York City, even for the annual dinner of the organisation.
Barney had started writing out of high school, contributing stories and even an occasional poem to the various little magazines around New York, graduating finally to a quite spectacular short mystery story, which was purchased for a thousand dollars by one of the leading women’s magazines.
Such a sale at the age of nineteen would have been remarkable in itself, but what made it all the more remarkable was the fact that the solution to Barney’s mystery hinged on a scientifically-impossible fact. Letters poured in to the editor. A lengthy explanation and apology was published two months later, and Barney Hamet’s writing career was almost over before it had begun. He wrote a couple of other things, but the editor was wary of them. They came back by return mail and Barney settled into the dull business of collecting rejection slips.
If the writing languished, the rest of his life did not. He entered college, stayed there a year, then left and took a job with a small private detective agency in Westchester. It was not at all the type of thing he’d expected or the life he wanted to lead for the next forty years. Dull divorce cases, mainly. Not even the pre-dawn breaking into bedrooms, that he used to read about and imagine.
Five years later, he gave it up and went ba
ck to writing. The experience of being a private detective somehow glamorised him beyond all expectations. His first story sold immediately to one of the mystery magazines, and then his second, and his third. Another went to a men’s magazine. The money began to roll in, and a paperbound publisher even asked him for a novel.
It was about this time that he realised one of the big things going for him was his name. Although he spelled it H-A-M-E-T, he pronounced it exactly like Dashiell Hammett’s. And of course Dashiell Hammett had also been a private detective back in his early days. One editor started billing him as the second Hammett, but there was really no comparison. Despite the private-eye background, Barney did not write the tough type of realism at which Hammett had excelled. His stories were gimmicky little studies in paradox. Closer, some critics thought, to Chesterton.
If his writing never hit the big time in the field, he was now, at the age of thirty, in an enviable position in the profession. His peers had selected him as their executive vice-president. He appeared regularly on New York television, on all-night radio shows, and on panel discussions. He spoke occasionally to a writing class at Columbia University and had even been invited to teach a course at Fordham next season.
But all that was in the past Now his main concern was the MWA dinner. He paused on his way to the door and asked Betty, “You’re going to type up the final seating arrangements with those last-minutes corrections?”
She tossed her dark hair and nodded. “Of course. Don’t worry so much.”
“We can probably get you some help if you need it for this week—a girl from one of the temporary services. Or somebody’s wife.”
“I may need a typist, about Wednesday. We’ll see.”
“Okay, Betty,” he said. “I’m really going over to see Harry now.”
But again he didn’t quite make it to the door. Someone was coming up the narrow staircase, light footed and sure of himself. He knew, without even opening the door, that it was someone seeking him. It was that sort of a week.
The girl who appeared in the doorway, almost bumping into him before she saw him, was tall and slender, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She wore a neat looking blue-skirted suit, and carried a purse large enough to have concealed anything from a gun to a notebook. As it turned out, it concealed the latter, and she produced it almost at once.
“I’m Susan Veldt,” she said.
“Should I know you?”
“Susan Veldt, staff writer for Manhattan magazine. Didn’t they call you?”
He turned back into the office. “Betty, did anyone call from Manhattan?”
“Not while I was here.”
“Well,” the girl said, “that just shows what sort of efficiency there is in the world these days. Anyway, I’m Susan Veldt, and I’ve come to interview Barney Hamet. About the dinner, you know.”
“I’m Barney Hamet.”
“Good!”
“The interview’s for Manhattan?” It seemed like a great publicity break.
“Yes. I’m going to be there. I sent in my twelve-fifty for a ticket.”
“All right,” Barney said, indicating a seat. “Let’s talk it over. Always glad of the publicity—and you’ve got a good little magazine. What do you want to know?”
She sat opposite him, pencil out, calm and sure of herself. “Well now, let’s see … I guess first I’d better tell you what I’m doing. We’re running a series of six articles in Manhattan—perhaps you’ve seen some of them—on the various awards that are presented in New York every spring. We’ve covered the Grammys already, and the National Book Awards, and the Tonys. I guess you’re next, before the Pulitzers and the Emmys.” She pointed toward the bookshelf where an Edgar and a Raven stood side by side. “Is that one of the Edgars over there?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Bust of Edgar Allan Poe—ceramic.”
“How tall is it?”
“About nine and a half inches. Call it ten, if you want. They’re made for us by a gal down in Virginia, then shipped up here. The Edgar is a writing award, given each year for the best novel, best first novel, best short story, television show, screenplay—that sort of thing. The Raven is given less frequently, although we usually award one or two each year. It’s what might be called a non-writing honour, for people who have helped us in one way or another.”
“I understand there’s also a reader’s award given.”
“Yes. We’ve had some famous people named Reader of the Year. Eleanor Roosevelt won it one year—and a few other big names. Joey Adams, I believe, was one of the winners, too. This year, of course, you probably know it’s Ross Craigthorn.”
Betty snorted and shot him a glance. He’d been asking her about the award not ten minutes earlier.
“The actual announcement won’t be made till the dinner itself, of course, but we don’t keep it as secret as the writing awards. I think one or two of the gossip columnists have carried it already.”
“Craigthorn is an important person to have at your dinner.”
Barney smiled. “We like to think it’s an important dinner.”
“It’s at the Biltmore?”
“Right. The bar opens at six. Dinner at seven-thirty. Awards at nine. We’ve had it there for the last few years—ever since they tore down the Astor.”
Susan Veldt bit at her pencil. “Tell me something about yourself. You’re the executive vice president—right?”
“Right.”
“I’ve never read any of your stories.”
“That’s not surprising. A lot of people haven’t.”
“What did you do before you started to write?”
“I was a private detective up in Westchester. I caught a few shoplifters, caused a few divorces. Nothing as glamorous as in the books.”
“Married?” she asked.
“Divorced.”
“Was that one of the divorces you arranged while you were a private eye?”
“No. She arranged it.”
“Who’s the president of your organisation this year?”
Barney gestured toward one of the shelves. “See those twenty volumes? They’re all his. He lives in Montana, in a little cabin up in the woods. He writes a book a year, and nobody ever sees him.”
“So you’re going to be the top MWA executive at the dinner. You’ll be running the show.”
“I’ll be acting as MC, introducing the speakers. I wouldn’t really say I’ll be running the show. I’ve got a lot of big people coming. Rex Stout usually comes. Perhaps Charlotte Armstrong from California. Max Winters, I think, will be there—Kenneth Millar and his wife, Margaret. We get maybe 300 people for these things. Editors too, of course. All the mystery editors. Ernie Hutter from Hitchcock’s magazine is coming up from Florida, and we hope that Fred Dannay—he’s half of Ellery Queen—will be able to make it Clayton Rawson, of course, Hans Stefan Santesson—and some editors outside the mystery field, from magazines like Argosy. Bruce Cassidy on Argosy, of course, is one of our members. Who else? Oh … Lee Wright from Random House—lots of book editors.”
“And I’ll be representing Manhattan magazine. I feel quite honoured.”
Barney lit another cigarette. “Who’s your editor over there these days?”
“Arthur Rowe. Do you know him?”
“Never met him, but I’ve heard the name. He’s got a good reputation in the field. I wish he published fiction. I’d send him a few short stories.”
“No fiction for us. Just fact.”
“I’ve read a couple of things in Manhattan. Sometimes it reads more like fiction.”
“I hope you don’t mean my things,” she smiled. “Would it be possible for me to get over to the Biltmore and see the room before the dinner?”
“Perhaps. I’m going to call on somebody about the dinner right now. You can tag along, if you want.”
He called over to Betty, ignoring her frown of exasperation. “I’ll try to get back, or phone at least, late in the day. Then we’ll see if there are any other
last-minute problems. Get that letter off to Max, though. That’s important.”
Barney strolled over to Fifth Avenue with Susan Veldt and then down a few blocks to a nondescript office building with an airline ticket office on its ground floor. They took the elevator to the top, which wasn’t very high, as Fifth Avenue buildings go.
“I want you to meet Harry Fox,” Barney told her. “He’s very active in the organisation, even though he’s only an associate member. Does just about everything except write mysteries. He’s on the planning committee for the dinner.”
“Oh?” She glanced at the door before which they’d paused. “Harry Fox Enterprises? Sounds mysterious.”
“Not really. A small time theatrical agent.”
They knocked and entered. There was no secretary—only one large room filled with filing cabinets in a general state of disarray. The walls were hung with framed photographs, most of them showing a jovial, youngish man with his arms around one or another small-time night club comedian or Hollywood starlet.
Harry Fox himself, in the flesh, sat behind a desk in one corner of the uproar. He was middle-aged, almost completely bald and shorter by a head than Barney’s six-foot-one. The photographs on the wall depicted a younger man, and it was obvious they had been taken a good decade earlier.
“Well, well!” Harry said, rising to meet them. “Always glad to see you, Barney, especially when you’re accompanied by a beautiful young lady. Pull up some chairs and tell me what’s on your mind.”
Barney held a chair for Susan Veldt and then took one himself. “The beautiful young lady is a magazine writer, Harry. She’s doing a piece on the MWA dinner. Susan Veldt, Harry Fox.”
Harry gave a little bow and reached out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Veldt—V-E-L-D-T … like in Africa?”
“That’s right,” she said, with a trace of a smile. “Like in Africa.”
Harry grunted. “Well, anyway, it’s good to have visitors today. I just sit here waiting for clients who never come.”
The Shattered Raven Page 2
