The Man with the Lumpy Nose

by Lawrence Lariar

  “Then you mean that I should just take one of Winters’ drawings—copy it and then go on to the next one?”

  “Exactly. Copy one a day.”

  Raleigh whistled. “Gosh—where do I get all his stuff to copy?”

  “That’s easy. Go to a second-hand magazine store. There are lots of them on Sixth Avenue. Buy up all the old issues of The Country you can lay your hands on. They’re cheap enough, and you’ll find plenty of Lincoln’s work to keep you busy for a long time.”

  Raleigh was grinning when he stood up. “I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Simonson,” he said. “Would you—could I bring you some of my work as soon as I’ve got it under way?”

  “I’d be glad to look at it, Peters. But don’t be in a hurry. Practice makes perfect, remember.”

  “I’ll remember that,” said Raleigh. “So long.”

  “Goodbye, Peters.”

  Sim Simonson watched the sallow youth move toward the street. He lit a cigarette slowly. He leaned far back into the chair and blew smoke toward the ceiling. Such was fame, he reflected. For long years he had labored on his own comic style of drawing. He had perfected it laboriously, digging deep into ancient archives for a source of drawing that would burst upon the magazine markets and bring him meteoric success.

  He achieved the success for a brief spell. He was well started in the business. His work almost hit the top. It would have hit the top three years ago if an unknown artist hadn’t taken his style and revamped it for quick sale to The Country.

  This unknown artist was Lincoln Winters.

  The youthful Raleigh Peters sauntered along Sixth Avenue, a man with a purpose. There were dozens of secondhand magazine stores on Sixth Avenue. Raleigh fingered the coins in his pocket and wondered how much he would be charged for each back number of The Country.

  Sixth Avenue was almost asleep. Most of the stores were already closed, for the pedestrians on this street after dark weren’t the shopping type. Heavily painted chorines flounced on their way to their rooms. A shaggy-headed bum sprawled in a doorway. Raleigh paused to stare at the man, wondered whether it was quite professional to pass up so good a sketch. The man groaned. Raleigh moved on.

  When he crossed the next street a lit storefront attracted him. This was what he wanted—a magazine store.

  He entered the store and stood at the counter, thumbing an issue of The Country. The little man with the big glasses eyed him furtively from the corner of the store, approached him with a greasy smile.

  “Can I help you, sonny?”

  Raleigh held up the magazine. “How much for these?”

  “Nickel.”

  “How much for five?”

  Big glasses laughed. “Is that a way to ask, sonny? You want a bargain, you should know how to ask for it. The magazine is a nickel, no? For five magazines how much you think I charge? A quarter, naturally. Is this good business? For me, yes. For you, no, is not good business. Is good business if you ask me how much for six, you understand? You ask me for six, then I tell you all right, you want six, six you can have for a quarter!”

  Raleigh fingered the half-dollar.

  “And for a half?”

  “Ach—good!” said the storekeeper. “You catch on fast, sonny. I tell you what I do, for fifty cents I am giving you not twelve, but thirteen magazines. All right?”

  “Fourteen.”

  The man clapped a hand to his jaw. “Did I say you catch on fast? I’m crazy like a fool to teach you such things, sonny. You I think could give me a lesson, yet. All right, so it’s fourteen for a half, and good luck to you!”

  Raleigh took his package. “Save all the back numbers of this magazine you can lay your hands on,” he told the dealer. “I’ll be coming back for more.”

  “Fine. I save them for you at the same price—fourteen for a half, hah?” He winked a sly wink.

  Raleigh looked back through the open door. “Sure, fourteen for a half and thirty for a buck,” he said, and left the storekeeper shaking his head with his mouth open.

  Outside again, Raleigh turned his steps east toward Fifth Avenue.

  He dawdled between Sixth and Fifth. Raleigh always dawdled on side streets. It was pleasant, especially near restaurants with seats near the windows. Here he would gape inside and speculate.

  He paused before The Black Pig Restaurant.

  Someday, soon, he would be eating in atmospheric eateries like The Black Pig regularly so that the owner of the place would meet him at the door with a smile and conduct him to a special table—to Raleigh Peters’ regular table! He would appear at The Black Pig on certain nights and always with a different girl—a beautiful girl like, say, Hedy Lamarr or Joan Blondell. Or a girl like the pretty blonde in the corner with the good-looking escort.

  Raleigh paused in his meditations. That girl—hadn’t he seen her before?

  He studied the couple, leaning forward until his nose almost touched the window. Wasn’t she Marcia Prentiss—Dino’s girl? And the man—he looked like the famous editor Earl Chance.

  He sucked in his breath sharply. What to do now? Dino might want to know that his girl was out with Chance. An irresistible impulse turned him slowly back toward Sixth Avenue—back toward the hotel. After all, Dino was the first professional to lend him a helping hand. He owed a debt to Dino. They were old friends, almost. He could drop the information casually, innocently. It would be enough to cement their friendship forever. It would be enough to make Dino Bragiotto his pal. After that it would be quite all right for Raleigh Peters to drop in on Dino at his studio and discuss problems of cartooning.

  When he reached Sixth Avenue he had made up his mind.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Black Pig was feeding its early evening gathering of gourmets. The little restaurant was crowded with the lovers of rare and pungent stews, brews, broths and sauces. A heavy cloud of cigarette smoke hung from the painted rafters and added weight to the smell of broiled meat rampant. Doria Martez, the chubby proprietress, hovered over the checkered tables, her eyes agleam with a cook’s pride. Dishes clanked and tinkled in the kitchen. And the till was full.

  Homer Bull led Hank MacAndrews to a table.

  Hank said, “The smell of this joint makes a hungry cartoonist gent like me drool. Is this my reward for getting ahead on your comic strip?”

  “All this and a free cigar,” said Bull. The little fat man stared across the room.

  “Don’t stare, Homer. Haven’t you ever seen the great Earl Chance before?”

  “Is he really great? Of course I’ve never seen him—I’m no itinerant cartoonist—and I wasn’t staring!”

  “Your eyes were popping. What do you think of the great Chance?”

  “Looks more like a college crew champ than the editor of a world-renowned magazine. You know him, Hank?”

  MacAndrews tittered at his soup. “You’re confusing me with other great cartoonists, Homer. I couldn’t begin to hope for a chance at Chance. I’m too comic for floozy magazines like The Country.”

  “Balderdash. Aren’t cartoons supposed to show funny people doing funny things?”

  Hank shook his head sadly. “Not any more. Earl Chance seems to think that a good. cartoonist must first be a good illustrator. Then, by combining illustrating with cartooning, he can crash the pearly gates of, quote, The Magazine for Smart People.”

  Homer nodded toward Chance’s table. MacAndrews turned his head again. Homer said, “The little blonde—is that one of Chance’s contributors or his wife?”

  The little lady was beautiful, blonde and bent like a flower toward the sun—which was Earl Chance.

  “Great jumping ginch!” said Hank. “That’s Marcia Prentiss! No, Earl Chance isn’t married, Homer. Earl is the town’s most eligible bachelor, or haven’t you been reading the gossip columns?”

  “I have astigmatism. Why all the excit
ement about Marcia Prentiss? Another little girl you’ve frightened to death with your Goya etchings?”

  “Marcia?” Hank laughed into his beer. “Not Marcia. Marcia’s one of the younger female cartooning set.”

  “You’re feigning modesty, MacAndrews.”

  “I couldn’t if I wanted to. No, that little girl is reserved for Dino Bragiotto.”

  “And little Marcia dines with handsome editors while Dino eats alone?”

  “Marcia knows what she’s doing.”

  Homer Bull opened his left eye and closed his right. Marcia was a morsel.

  “Probably a business talk with Chance,” said Hank. “You know how anxious most young cartoonists are to crash the gates of The Country. She’s got plenty of what it takes to get places.”

  “Very smooth,” said Homer absently. He was watching the pretty girl with the blonde hair. Marcia looked away from Earl Chance for a moment and her eyes roved the room. Were those eyes frightened? Her glance flickered past their table, flickered back and then she saw Hank. When she looked back at her coffee cup the color mounted on her cheeks. Then her head turned back to Chance.

  “And very nervous, it seems to me,” added Homer. “The little lady is very sorry that you’ve seen her.”

  Marcia Prentiss was on her feet and walking toward the door. Hank followed her with his eyes, saw her pause at the cashier’s booth to scribble a note, saw her hand the note to Doria Martez, saw Doria waddle toward his table.

  Doria placed the note before him with a sly wink. “For you, señor—from the little muchacha with the beautiful yellow hair.”

  “Thank you, Doria.” He read the note and passed it across the table. “You win, detective, but don’t ever tell me again that you’ve got astigmatism.”

  Bull put on his glasses and whistled a thin, tuneless melody between his teeth. The note was simple, scrawled in a lettered cartoon script:

  Dear Hank

  Please, for heaven’s sake, don’t ever mention to Dino that you saw me here with Earl Chance.

  Marcia

  I can explain, but not to Dino.

  Homer stirred his coffee lazily. “The little lady is a good friend of yours then?”

  “I’ve known her a long time. We went to school together, all three of us, Dino and Marcia and I. Those kids have been in love with each other so long it’s a habit with them.”

  “Very sweet. And what happens when Dino finds out that his little dove has been dining with handsome editors?”

  MacAndrews shrugged, then scowled. “Who knows? The guy is full of hot Latin corpuscles. I’ve seen him bloody up lots of guys who tried for a pass at Marcia.”

  “A hard-hitting Latin, eh?”

  “Hard-hitting and fiery, Homer. Given the right provocation, that guy is murder.”

  When Earl Chance left The Black Pig he crossed the street and entered a drugstore. He went immediately to the phone booth and dialed the operator.

  “I want police headquarters,” he said.

  Cassidy’s yawny voice greeted him. “Police Headquarters, Central Office.”

  “I want to talk to the Chief of Detectives.”

  Cassidy opened his eyes. “He ain’t in, mister. What’s on your mind?”

  “Let me talk to someone in his office. This is important.”

  “Listen, mister, I’m sorry, see? I’m here to take all his messages.”

  “Take this down, then,” said Chance. “My name is Earl Chance. I live at 2709 Beekman Place. My life has been threatened and I want to tell your Chief the circumstances. Tell him to come to my apartment sometime this evening, after ten o’clock. No—no hurry at all. But it is important that I see someone tonight, do you understand?”

  “Why don’t you come down here now, mister?”

  “I have an engagement I don’t want to break.”

  “Yeah, I know. But we can send a cop over to take care of you right away.”

  “It isn’t necessary. I’m quite sure nothing will happen tonight.”

  “I know, but—”

  “You’ll send the Chief over after ten, then? Thank you.”

  Cassidy put down the telephone and clucked sadly. The city was full of frightened people. Some were afraid of the neighbor’s dog. Others heard funny noises in their basements. Still others feared dark streets, dark closets; dark strangers. He ripped his notes off the pad and called to Burtis. “Maybe you better take this note down to the Chief, Charlie. I got an idea you’ll maybe find him over at The Eight Ball. The way he looked when he left this place I figure he was headin’ for the suds.”

  “Suppose he ain’t there?”

  “He’ll be there!”

  The meeting of The Comic Arts Club at the Danton was a big event. This was because Earl Chance was the guest speaker and most of the cartoonists had come only to hear him. The organization was swiftly called to order, the usual reports made, committees formed, resolutions drafted. Then the business meeting was officially closed. A hush fell over the smoky room.

  The door to the main corridor opened. Tinnover, the president of the group, met Earl Chance at the door and led him through the tight knots of tables to the makeshift speaker’s stand. Somebody applauded and the handclapping grew in volume until Chance stood behind the speaker’s table. Tinnover made a faltering introduction in a sudden gasp of quiet. The applause rose again and died.

  Earl Chance’s speech was powerful. He approved of organizations that assembled creative groups and controlled their social policies. “Artists,” he said, “seem to have been born to be milked dry of their talents and expire in attics, lonely and disillusioned men. I’m very much pleased and a little bit excited by this showing of brotherhood in a business that used to thrive on petty jealousies and adolescent hatreds. I can assure you of my full cooperation and beg you to call on me whenever you feel that my editorial opinion may be of help to you. Remember, fellows, that editors are for the most part friendly people. I know—some of my best friends are editors. And I also know that these best friends of mine will endorse your organization as heartily as I do. Good luck and Godspeed!”

  He stood for a while, shaking the many hands that were thrust upon him. A great hum of noise swept the meeting room. They were excited. Here was an editor who ranked high among the select group that ruled the pages of the best magazines in the country. Earl Chance had become almost one of them at last. They watched him with awestruck eyes as he waved to the crowd and made his way toward the door.

  Raleigh Peters was at the exit, his eyes bright with a new hero to worship. He seized Earl Chance’s sleeve and tugged tentatively.

  “That was a marvelous speech, Mr. Chance,” he said. “I’ve never heard anything like it. I’m only a newcomer in the ranks of—”

  Earl pulled his arm away to light a cigarette. “Thank you, son.”

  Herb Merritt, always the salesman, whispered a bit of patter in the editor’s ear. Earl Chance forced a wry smile and moved through the doorway.

  In the far corner of the room, Homer Bull opened his eyes when MacAndrews nudged him.

  “What did you think of it, Homer?”

  “Umm—marvelous, old man. That fellow Chance should have been president. He has the happy faculty of holding an audience. Did you catch some of the faces in this room when he approached his wind-up? They were excellent material for comic drawings. Daumier would have loved this meeting, I’m sure.”

  Dino Bragiotto took a seat near Hank. “Did I hear somebody mention Daumier?”

  Hank introduced Dino to Homer. “Dino is one of the two or three men in the organization who knows Daumier.”

  Dino made a face. His every speech was illustrated by a facial contortion. Dino was a serious man. He spoke slowly, emphasizing each thought with another expression. “Don’t be such a damn high hat crumb, Hank. Daumier is well known to all of these bo
ys—most of them have studied his work.”

  Bull chuckled. “A lover of humanity, eh, Dino?”

  “Rot!” spat Dino. “I can’t stand the state of mind that tolerates, and only tolerates, brother artists. Cartoonists are full of petty jealousies. They look down their noses at everybody else in their business. They are the first to gossip, malign and injure their colleagues by cheap, feminine slander. They act like a bunch of old-maid schoolteachers on a picnic, always going off into corners and biting each other’s ears off!”

  Hank knew his friend’s moods. He slapped Dino on the shoulder playfully. “I didn’t mean to arouse your spirit of brotherly love tonight.”

  “Forget it.”

  Hank bowed low. “Pardon me, Mr. Missionary.”

  “This time, all right.” Dino managed a half smile. “But in the future, confine your knife throwing to editorial targets when I’m around.”

  “Mr. Missionary doesn’t like editors?” asked Bull.

  “He’s human that way, Homer. All cartoonists hate editors.”

  “Even that remark is a generalization,” snapped Dino, serious again. “You can’t judge all editors by the sample we had tonight.”

  “Then Earl Chance isn’t the standard for editors?” Homer began to enjoy this surly creator of funny pictures.

  “Earl Chance isn’t the standard for anything! He’s the sort of editorial worm who feasts on public acclaim. He’s a banquet editor—a ladies’ club editor. If you think for one minute he meant any part of that frilly speech he muttered tonight, you’re nuts. Earl Chance came down here because he knew that a man from The Times was sitting in the back of the room. Earl has been slipping lately in the gossip columns. His blood is thinning from lack of publicity. Tomorrow morning he will open his newspaper and cure his anemia by reading a long column in The Times under the headline: NOTED EDITOR SPEAKS TO CARTOONIST GROUP. This will act as a blood tonic for a week or two. When his blood thins again he will appear at a meeting of The West Hempstead Ladies’ Book Club and watch his corpuscles redden in the news columns the next day!”