13 Suspense

by Parnell Hall

  “Yes, he can,” Maxine said. She got up, crossed behind his chair, put her hands on his shoulders, leaned in. “Sweetheart, I’m the one being threatened here. Then these killings. I’m scared. If this can possibly help, do it, please.”

  “Of course,” Winnington said. He looked up at me. “What do you want to know?”

  “Okay, I got what you said about writing in the first person. That it doesn’t work in suspense because you can’t deliver the ticking bomb. Besides that, what’s the difference between mystery and suspense?”

  “Okay,” Winnington said. “The basic difference is, a mystery is a whodunit. Generally speaking. There’s some private eye novels where this is not the case—the killer is known in advance, the problem is tracking him down. But generally speaking, when you talk about a mystery, you mean a whodunit. Which is your basic play-fair mystery, with a bunch of suspects with various motives, all who might be guilty. And. the killer is one of them, and his identity is revealed at the end of the book. At which time the protagonist enumerates the clues that led to the solution.”

  Winnington shrugged and smiled. “I know that’s rather simplistic, but that’s basically it.

  “Suspense is entirely different. Generally speaking, they’re not whodunits. Oh, you can have a suspense novel that is a whodunit, but it’s not at all necessary. In suspense, often the identity of the killer is known from the very start of the book.” He broke off, looked at me. “Didn’t we go over some of this before?”

  “Just generally, and not much more than that. I’d be grateful if you could elaborate.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, like I said, the identity of the killer isn’t particularly important. Even if it’s not revealed at the beginning of the book. Because the revelation, when it takes place, is not a real revelation. For instance, you have a book where women are being raped and murdered by a serial killer. The serial killer is not important in himself, he’s merely an instrument of terror. We don’t know who he is until the end of the book when he’s revealed, but it’s not a true revelation. Why? Because he’s not revealed to be anyone in particular.”

  Winnington frowned. “That’s not exactly what I mean. Let me give you an example. At the end of the book the cops find out the killer is Joe Blow from Brooklyn. Well, that’s not a startling revelation, because the reader has never heard of Joe Blow from Brooklyn. Joe Blow from Brooklyn is not a character in the book. It’s just a name. See what I mean? Revealing the killer is not a true revelation. Because we’re not showing him to be anyone in particular, we’re just giving him a name.”

  “Isn’t that cheating the reader?”

  “Not in suspense. It would be in mystery. The killer has to be someone we met before. One of the characters in the book. So the reader can go, Aha, I suspected him when he showed up at the party in Chapter Six.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. I was not happy. “So, if I understand what you’re saying, if for some cockeyed reason these killings represented someone acting out a suspense plot, there’s no reason to believe the killer would be anyone we know?”

  “Exactly,” Winnington said. He raised one finger, and there was a gleam in his eye. Rather than being troubled by what he was saying, he had slipped into full lecture mode. “Because in suspense, the killer is not a person so much as a force of evil. In this way, suspense is very similar to horror. Have you seen the movie Alien?”

  “Sure.”

  “There you are. Perfect example. The alien is a killing machine. A source of sure death. There’s people running all over the ship, if they find the alien they die.

  “A suspense novel is the same thing. Here’s a woman coming home from work, she goes into her apartment, starts switching on the lights. If the serial killer’s there, she’s dead. Is he there, or is this just a false alarm, a tease? See what I mean?”

  “Uh-huh. And the serial killer’s not necessarily anyone she knows?”

  “Right. Or even anyone the reader knows. See the difference? Because we’re not in the first person, we’re in the third person omniscient. And we’ve been describing events all over the place. And the serial killer isn’t anybody else except the serial killer.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “And why is he doing what he’s doing?”

  “That’s not important either. Oh, maybe it will come out in the end—he was abused as a child, he hated his third-grade teacher, he took too many drugs in the ‘60s or freaked out in Viet Nam. That’s not important. What’s important is the guy’s doing it, and he might do it to her.”

  “Her?”

  “The heroine, the protagonist, the woman in the book. She might be in danger.”

  As he said that, I couldn’t help looking at his wife.

  Neither could he.

  He frowned, looked back at me. “Now then,” he said. “The calls have stopped. We haven’t had one in two days. Not that you’d notice, what with everything going on. But the fact is, there hasn’t been a single call. Now what do you make of that?”

  I stopped to consider. What the calls meant to me was the next time we got one it would prove Sergeant Thurman wrong, so the fact that they’d stopped had been frustrating. But beyond that, I hadn’t given the matter that much thought.

  I did so now. “Well,” I said, “one possibility is he’s graduated from talk to action. For a while he got off on making threats. Then he killed. Now threats no longer satisfy him.”

  Maxine shuddered. “Jesus Christ.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. But that could be the case. It also could be he’s just too busy.”

  “To make a phone call?” Winnington said.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, “but it’s not just making a phone call. If he was calling from his own phone, sure. But he’s making the calls from pay phones around the city. So maybe he hasn’t had the time to go out and do it.

  “Or maybe ...” My eyes widened and I raised one finger. “Someone’s with him. Say the guy’s married, his wife’s around, and he can’t get away to make the call.”

  “He wasn’t having any problem before,” Winnington said.

  “Yeah, but we don’t know the circumstances. I’m making this up off the top of my head. Say that for some reason or other the situation has changed, and someone is around who inhibits the guy from making the call.”

  “But not from committing murder?” Winnington said, sarcastically.

  “I admit I don’t have it all worked out yet,” I said. “You asked for possibilities. Those are possibilities. If you want my opinion, I’d say that murder has made it a brand-new ball game. There may not be any more phone calls because we’ve upped the stakes, and were in a no-limit game.”

  “If the phone calls just stop ...” Maxine said.

  “Yes?”

  “We’ll never know who’s making them.”

  “If the caller is the killer, we will.”

  “Great,” Maxine said. “If someone kills me, you’ll know. That’s really comforting.”

  I frowned. “Have the police offered you protection?”

  “No.”

  “You might request it.”

  “You think that would do any good?” Winnington said.

  “There’ve been two murders. They might be willing to put a guard on your apartment.”

  “You think that’s necessary?” Maxine said. “You don’t think were safe in here?”

  “Great,” Winnington said. “Get her agitated over nothing.” He turned to his wife. “Yes, of course we’re safe in here. We have doormen and elevator operators. No one can get into the building.” He turned back at me. “Why did you put that idea in her head?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Yes, of course you’re safe in here. Don’t give it another thought.” I put up my hands. “I really should be going.”

  Winnington leaned forward, pushed a button on his desk. “David will show you out.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  I turned, headed for the door.

  The phone rang.
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  I stopped, turned, looked.

  It rang again.

  For a moment, we froze. All three of us, looking at the phone. Then Maxine got up, crossed over to it, pressed the button for the speaker phone.

  “Hello?” she said.

  A hoarse whisper filled the room.

  “The publicist was a warning. You’re next.”

  40.

  I LEFT THE WINNINGTONS TO call the police, and got the hell out of there. Not that I wasn’t interested and all that, and not that I wouldn’t have liked to be on hand to see Sergeant Thurman proved wrong. But, as it happened, I had other things to do.

  A phone call to MacAullif had traced the number on the Caller ID box to a pay phone on Broadway and 106th. Which was all I needed to know. I’d been afraid to do anything for fear of leading the killer to someone else. But if the guy was on Broadway and 106th Street, he wasn’t tailing me.

  The first order of business was the wannabe writers. Linda Toole was still an answering machine, but Wilber Penrose was home, and wasn’t at all reluctant to talk. When I told him it was about the Sherry Pressman murder, he told me to come right up.

  Right up turned out to be a second-story walkup over a butcher shop at Broadway and 108th Street. That gave me a bit of a turn, being only two blocks from the site of the phone call. And just when I was feeling so good about putting some distance between me and the killer. I had to tell myself that it was just coincidence, and the guy would not be hanging out on Broadway and 106th just on the off chance I should happen to come by. Even so, I must admit I drove up Amsterdam to 110th, and then down Broadway to 108th, just so I wouldn’t have to pass the corner.

  I left my car at a meter, found the address, and got buzzed in.

  Wilber Penrose was waiting on the landing. He was a little man with horn-rimmed glasses and a bald head ringed with a fringe of curly white hair. Though, I guess ringed isn’t quite right, since there was no hair on his forehead—it occurred to me a good editor would have taken that right out. Anyway, the guy seemed glad to see me.

  “Come in, come in,” he said. “This is a terrible thing. Just a terrible thing.”

  I agreed that it was, and allowed myself to be led into what proved to be a modest one-bedroom apartment, the living room piled floor to ceiling with manuscripts and books. Again, piled is the wrong word—most of the books were in bookcases. It was the manuscripts—or at least what I judged to be manuscripts, the five-hundred-page paper boxes—that were stacked in piles. The clue that these were manuscripts came in the form of titles scrawled on the ends of the boxes, such as, Three Who Fell, Date with Death, Kick Him When He’s Down, and, so help me, The Naked Secretary.

  Wilber Penrose seated me on the couch, then swiveled around his desk chair, and sat facing me.

  “So,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

  “I understand you were one of the last people to see Sherry Pressman alive.”

  His eyes widened. “Yes. Isn’t that incredible? It’s a case of real life copying art.”

  “Oh? How is that?”

  “My book. Death in the Afternoon. We were just talking about it.”

  “Death in the Afternoon?”

  “Yes. It’s the last thing I talked to her about. And then she gets killed. Just like that.”

  “Just like in your book?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Wait a minute. You mean the plot from your book?”

  “The plot?”

  “You’re telling me the same thing happens in your book? A woman is strangled?”

  “Strangled?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “No, no, no. The killer in my book is a slasher.”

  “Slasher?”

  “Yes. He uses a straight razor. Cuts his victims up.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “So how’s the Sherry Pressman murder like your book?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, she was killed, of course.”

  I took a breath, raised my eyebrows. “That’s the only similarity?”

  “Well, isn’t it a fantastic coincidence?”

  “Unbelievable,” I said. “And when was the last time you saw Sherry Pressman?”

  “Monday afternoon.”

  “At what time?”

  “Between two and three.”

  “You went to her apartment?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What for?”

  “To discuss my manuscript. Death in the Afternoon.”

  “About a slasher?”

  “Right. But there’s a lot more to it than that.”

  “I’m sure there is. And that’s what you and Sherry Pressman talked about?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She had read your manuscript?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Because you paid her to do so?”

  “Yes. But not just to read it. To evaluate it. To offer criticism, ideas for a second draft.”

  “And that’s what she did?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Had you done this with her before?”

  “Yes, I had.”

  “How many times?”

  “You mean how many books had we discussed?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Three.”

  “Including that one?”

  “No. Three other books. Death in the Afternoon was the fourth.”

  “And how much did you pay her?”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  “Each time?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “For evaluating your books, and making suggestions on how to improve them?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you implement her suggestions?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you rewrite your manuscripts along the lines she suggested?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What then?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What happened to them then?”

  “Nothing happened to them. They’re right here.”

  “Yes, but if you paid, her to improve the books, and then you improved them as she suggested ...Well, wasn’t there some kind of follow-up? Wouldn’t she read your rewrite?”

  “Oh, yes, of course.”

  “So what was the next step? What happened then?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking this?”

  “I’m trying to get an idea about your relationship with the deceased. I trust this is just a business relationship?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I mean, you weren’t seeing her socially? You weren’t dating her or anything, were you?”

  “Good heavens, no.”

  “So your relationship was a business relationship?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You paid her to evaluate manuscripts that you had written. She offered you advice on how to improve them.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what happened after you improved them?”

  Penrose frowned. “Why do you keep asking this?”

  “Because I’m not getting an answer. You say this is the fourth book you discussed with her. What about the other three? After you fixed them up, what happened to them?”

  “She read them again and told me what she thought.”

  “What did she think?”

  “She felt they had improved, but not enough to warrant publication.”

  “Did you agree with that assessment?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you think she was right? That the manuscripts weren’t publishable.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “You mean you think they were publishable?”

  Wilber Penrose looked pained. “I find it difficult to discuss my work in this fashion. Yes, I think what I wrote was good, enough to be published. But that’s just my opinion. Unfortunately, my opinion doesn’t count.”

  “And hers does?”

  �
��To a certain extent, yes.”

  “So if she doesn’t like something, that’s the end of it?”

  Penrose took a deep breath, blew it out. “No, it’s not the end of it. Just because she doesn’t like something doesn’t mean I give up. I’ve tried elsewhere.”

  “Oh? For instance?”

  “I’ve tried to get an agent. So far I’ve been unsuccessful.”

  “But you’ve tried?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “I’d like to get the whole picture here. What agents have you shown your stuff to?”

  “Abe Feinstein.”

  I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ve shown my work to Abe Feinstein. He didn’t take it, but he seemed impressed,”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You’ve shown a manuscript of yours to Abe Feinstein?”

  “I most certainly have. And I’m not at all discouraged he didn’t take it. Being rejected by Abe Feinstein puts me in rather famous company,”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “Tell me, when did this happen?

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “When did you give your manuscript to Abe Feinstein?”

  “About a month ago.”

  “Really. Is this the same book you were discussing with Sherry Pressman?”

  “What, Death in the Afternoon? No, that’s just a first draft. I’m revising it now. I can’t wait till he sees that one.”

  “So what was the book you gave to Abe Feinstein? The one he rejected?”

  “One I wrote last year. Kick Him When He’s Down. Sherry didn’t think it was publishable, and I wanted a second opinion.

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Tell me something. How’d you get the book to Abe Feinstein? I wouldn’t imagine he reads everything that comes along.”

  “He doesn’t,” Penrose said. “I used Sherry’s name,”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, sure. After all, she was the one who brought it up.”

  “What?”

  “Abe Feinstein. She said if the manuscript improved enough, she’d show it to him.”