The Awful Truth About the Herbert Quarry Affair

by Marco Ocram

  ‘I honestly cannot say, Marco, but if anyone can do it, I am sure it will be you.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  In which we meet Barney—not for long, thankfully—and Marco explains himself.

  Como drove us to police HQ in the red ’74 Gran Torino with the white side darts. As I followed him to the basement, I wondered how he was going to handle Marty.

  “Hey Marty, how’s it goin’?”

  “Hey Como. You get a big case and I see you twice in a day. What’s all that about?”

  “Marty, I’ve only gone and left my stupid locker key at home again. Can I borrow that master if I take real good care of it?”

  “Hell sure. Take what you like.” Marty threw the entire bunch of keys at Como. “As long as I can talk to Mister Ocram here about tau muons, I’m happy.”

  Marty and I chatted contentedly about tau muons for several minutes. I was just explaining how a tau muon was a hypothetical cross between a tau and a muon, first proposed by me to account for unexpected transients in neutrino scattering coefficients, when Como came back. He tossed over the keys.

  “Cheers Marty. I guess I owe you another one.”

  “No, I owe you, Como. It’s not every day a humble janitor gets to talk tau muons with the great Marco Ocram.”

  We made our apologies and left, I promising to email Marty some papers on neutrino scattering.

  As Como drove us fast towards the complex where Flora Moran was waiting, I wondered about this latest twist. While I was talking with Marty, Como had substituted his own nightstick for Scoobie McGee’s, which was now on the back seat of the Gran Torino. Within minutes we would be back at Flora’s lab, and she would confirm whether Scoobie’s nightstick was one of the weapons that killed Bluther Cale—the whole mystery could unravel like a house of cards, a hundred pages short of the target. If only we had stuck to relying on DNA. I gnawed on the problem as Como drove through the heavy Clarkesville traffic.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked at last.

  “This business with the nightsticks. It seems too clean a way of wrapping up the mystery. We’ve worked so hard to tease out a mass of complex evidence, and now it seems that five minutes with a microscope could sort the whole lot out.”

  “That’s not my problem, Writer,” said Como. “But haven’t you overlooked the silver lining?”

  “What silver lining?”

  “The name of the patrolman. What was it?”

  “Scoobie McGee?”

  “Yes. And who does that remind you of?”

  “Scoobie Doo?”

  “No, stupid, the McGee part.”

  “You mean…you mean Chief McGee?”

  “Exactly. Scoobie McGee is Chief McGee’s nephew. We haven’t simplified the plot, Writer, we’ve added a whole new twist.”

  I was still puzzling over the significance of the whole new twist, when we got to the pathology center. Como left the Gran Torino on the street, so we didn’t have to go through the farce with the key codes, and eventually we found ourselves in Flora Moran’s lab. Of Flora Moran, however, there was no sign. We looked around and found a hand-written message on a piece of paper on one of the stainless-steel dissection tables.

  “What’s it say?” asked Como.

  “The darned microscope has gone on the blink,” I read, “so I won’t be able to do any more forensics until I can get a technician to look at it on Monday. In the meantime, why don’t you come around to my place with that big nightstick of yours and we can…”

  Como snatched the message out of my hands, finished reading it, then fed it to a shredder.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll drop you at Herbert’s on the way.”

  I woke the next morning before dawn and went for a brisk run into Clarkesville and back. There’s something special about an early morning run, the quiet, the freshness in the air, the expectancy of a new day, the fact that yours is the only car on the road. In the shower afterwards, I decided I needed a break from the case. It was the weekend, and there would be little chance of progress until Monday, so I decided to drive back to New York, as I had some catching up to do with my Bronx mom and with Barney. It was a while since I’d seen that tough face, and listened to that tough voice, a voice that had hammered out deal after deal, a voice that took no nonsense from anyone. It was even longer since I’d spoken with Barney, so I headed for his place first.

  “Marco!” He gave me a great bear hug and slapped me on the shoulder. “Am I glad to see you. Champagne?”

  Barney gestured towards a bottle of vintage Krug in a cooler on his huge desk.

  “No thanks, Barney. You know I never drink between 12:13 and 12:22.”

  “Your funeral, Markie. So, what’s happening with that crazy pedophile bastard Quarry?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk about him like that, Barney.”

  “Why not? That’s what everyone else calls him.”

  “Christ, Barney, what happened to loyalty? You’re his agent—aren’t you supposed to be looking after his interests?”

  “Not anymore, kiddo.” Barney nodded at an overturned picture frame in a wastebasket next to his desk. I fished it out and wiped the dust from the glass. It was a photo of Herbert with an arm around Barney’s shoulder. “I can’t be associated with a child-killer—it’s bad for business.”

  “A child-killer?” I thought back to the many times Herbert and I had discussed his Buddhist faith, the many times he had lectured me about the sanctity of life, the many times he had stayed my hand as I’d been about to crush some bug or other. All creatures have a right to life, he would say. “Jesus, Barney, Herbert’s no killer. How can you think it for even a second?”

  “It’s not a question of thinking it—the cops caught him red handed. Every paper’s got the story.”

  “Yes, but they’re wrong, and I intend to prove it.”

  “Wrong? Whaddaya mean wrong? I’ve got a five-million-dollar advance for your book because everyone thinks you’re gonna expose that pedo bastard and prove he sliced up a fifteen-year-old kid. Don’t tell me wrong for Chrissakes.”

  “But Barney...”

  “Don’t you but Barney me. Quarry deserves all that’s coming to him. And we deserve all that’s coming to us, all five mil’ of it, and you can’t go ruining all that now.”

  I threw my hands in the air in a gesture of defeat. Barney continued:

  “Now where are those sample pages you promised me? I need to hand them over to Templeman and Newie by noon on Monday.”

  I dug into my satchel and handed over the sample pages for Barney to show to the publishers. Barney put them in a drawer in his desk.

  “Aren’t you going to read them?” I asked.

  “Not now, Markie, not now. Listen, I’ve set you up with that interview, with Adaora Eze at the New York Times.” He checked his watch. “You need to get those skates on, Kid, or you’ll be late.” He put an arm over my shoulder. “Keep her focused on Quarry, and what he’s been up to—don’t go wasting the interview talking about that mold-breaking crap. What the world wants is a good story, not your crazy theories about literature. Eze used to date Quarry but he two-timed her, so she’ll lap up all the scandal. Button your cardigan right and get your tie straight for any photos. That’s better. Here’s the address. Now you run along like a good kid. I got AJ and Paulie coming over.” The doorbell rang. “That’ll be them.”

  AJ and Paulie were two of Barney’s many godsons who were always popping in to give him money. I often wondered about that, especially since some of the godsons were way older than their godfather. Barney said it’s a tradition in the part of Italy he comes from. I high fived them on the way out.

  LESSON TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘Herbert, what can a writer do to appear more intelectual?’

  ‘Learning to spell intellectual would be a start, Marco.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Herbert. Aside from learning the correct spelling of intellectual,
is there anything else a writer can do?’

  ‘The most intellectual literary tradition is that of France, Marco. Camus, Sartre, Gide, Duras, Sarraute, Perec—the list of great French authors is as long as that of the iconic characters they created.’

  ‘Should I try to copy some of the truly great characters of French literature, Herbert, like Maigret, Asterix, and Tintin?’

  ‘Tintin was Belgian, Marco. No, you do not want to appear merely derivative. You should refer to the French literary tradition in a subtle way, without being obvious about it.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  In which Marco makes unsubtle references to the French literary tradition.

  After Barney shooed me out of his office, I drove over to the New York Times building at 225b Fleet Street, rehearsing answers to the questions I might be asked at my imminent interview. There was a free parking slot right alongside the main entrance—yet another brilliant demonstration of the power of the Pollock technique. Imagine if I’d been one of those realist writers instead. Right now we’d be circling the same blocks over and over looking for a space, then spending five minutes rooting under the seats of the car for change, then squeezing along a congested sidewalk stuck behind a couple of hedge-fund managers boring us all to death with their boasts about the deals they’d struck before breakfast, then finding I’d left my iPad in the car and having to walk all the way back to get it, and having to stop every few yards to sign copies of The Tau Muon, and getting distracted by the window displays in the shops, and…I mean, who wants to read rubbish like that?

  I blipped the car shut and pushed my way through the revolving doors into the offices of the famous newspaper, where the air was thick with the smell of cheap cigars, the clack of typewriters, the clamor of reporters yelling for the front page to be held, and the noun that means the noise of hundreds of pencils being sharpened. At reception, I learned the disappointing news that glamorous society editor Adaora Eze had been called away, and I was to be interviewed instead by Denis Shaughnessy, the literary sub-editor known in publishing circles as Mister Panoramic because he had views on everything. So much for all my wasted tie straightening. But as I was led to Shaughnessy’s basement office, I reflected that every nuage has a silver lining, as the French say—at least Shaughnessy might be more interested in my literary aims than in scandalous accusations hurled at Herbert.

  Office turned out to be rather a grand word to describe the cubicle in which the unpopular literary critic turned out his opinionated reviews, its door being so narrow that Shaughnessy’s nameplate was affixed to it vertically. I edged inside and was invited to perch on his half-width desk.

  “Sorry, we’re a bit cramped. Perhaps if I move these.”

  Shaughnessy shunted a couple of stacks of books to give me an inch or two of extra space—they were French paperbacks. I picked up one of them—Les Gommes, by some hopeful called Robbe-Grillet.

  “I suppose it must be one of the hazards of the job, being sent books in foreign languages.” A blank look was the response to my Dale Carnegie attempt to create empathy. “Some authors are such dummies.”

  “I can imagine. Thank you.” He took the book off me, no doubt to return it to the sender with some polite note of explanation: Dear Author, I am afraid the New York Times is able to review only those books published in English. We wish you every success in seeking reviews elsewhere. Yours etc.

  “Mind you, you can’t blame them for trying. Everyone likes a nice review.” I would have underlined the hint with a subtle nudge to his ribs, but there wasn’t enough room to move my arms.

  “Your agent tells me you’re Quarry’s protégé—I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “You know Herbert?”

  “We were at the Sorbonne together.”

  “Never been there, I’m afraid. Good meal?”

  “It’s not a restaurant, Mister Ocram—it’s a French university.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Talk about pedantic! Mind you, to be fair, I suppose nitpicking goes with the job when you’re a literary critic. I spotted an opportunity to atone for my blunder with a witticism.

  “Herbert said he’d taught at a university in Paris, but I wasn’t sure if he meant Paris Texas. Ha ha.”

  Shaughnessy’s eyes swiveled up and to the right somewhere.

  “There isn’t a university in Paris Texas—the nearest is in the neighboring city of Commerce, forty minutes to the southeast.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  I was beginning to see why he wasn’t invited to many parties. I decided to ditch the attempts at ice breaking and get down to business.

  “Herbert wants me to break the mold of literature.”

  That got a response. He frowned, put his palms together, crossed one leg over the other, and slid his hands between his thighs.

  “Fascinating. Tell me more.”

  “Herbert says all books ever written have the same basic ingredient: thought. He says someone should break the mold by writing a book without thinking. He’s coached me to do it because he says I’m naturally gifted in that direction. I’m on Chapter Twenty-Nine already, and I only started a few days ago.” I hoped he didn’t think me boastful.

  “Yes, yes, I see. That makes sense.” His eyes swiveled even further to the right, or at least one of them did, as he withdrew into his memories. “Herbert used to rage about the conservative nature of literature, about the need to abandon the idée reçue, to go so much further than the authors of nouveaux romans had ever dared. The ideal book, he used to joke, would be written by an articulate imbecile.”

  My eyes swiveled too at the phrase he had just used. Nouveaux romans. Surely there was a pun to be made about Romans.

  Shaughnessy droned on about subjects he and Herbert had debated when they were teaching in the French version of Paris. It was scriptable this and lisible that, and logocentrism versus phonocentrism, and a whole pile of other words that freaked-out the spellchecker. I let him get on with it and made a huge effort to work out a pun on nouveaux romans. I went through all the well-known phrases: Go tell it to the nouveaux Romans, or was that the Spartans? When in Rome do as the nouveaux Romans. Friends, nouveaux Romans, Countrymen. None of them worked.

  Ten minutes later I was still puzzling over potential nouveaux Romans puns when I realized Shaughnessy had stopped droning and had extended his hand towards me. I took it and shook it.

  “Thanks for a fascinating discussion,” he said. “If I have any other questions, I’ll follow them up through your agent.”

  Other questions? He hadn’t asked any! I never had a chance to answer the ones I’d rehearsed—When was my favorite time to write? What books did I like best? What was my favorite letter? I thanked him anyway, and said I’d send him a review copy of my book. He led me back upstairs.

  “Don’t you want to know why Herbert’s in prison?” I shouted over the clack of the typewriters.

  He shook his head. “I’m strictly fiction. True crime’s not my department. Ha ha.”

  “Ha ha ha ha ha.”

  LESSON TWENTY-NINE

  ‘Why do authors write prequels, Herbert?’

  ‘Authors write prequels opportunistically, Marco, to exploit the popularity of a series when they have run out of ideas for sequels.’

  ‘Might an author write a prequel for some other reason—perhaps to provide an explanatory backstory for certain aspects of a book that mystified its readers?’

  ‘Perhaps, Marco, but a book would have to be exceptionally confusing and poorly conceived to require a prequel to be written for that purpose.’

  ‘Are there golden rules for the writing of such a prequel, Herbert?’

  ‘Only one, Marco. If you are writing a prequel to clarify the meaning of existing books in a series, then you must ensure it does not increase the sense of confusion already inflicted upon the unfortunate reader.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  In which Marco continues to brea
k the golden rule of prequel writing and makes the world’s least credible excuse to escape his caricature Bronx mom.

  Imagine, if you will, a face bearing an expression of utter perplexity, a face framed with the unruly locks of an Afro escaping the hood of an unfashionable anorak, a face with eyes that stare at nothing, possibly two separate nothings, through the windscreen of a Midnight Black Range Rover. Yes, dear reader, the face was mine, as I tried, and failed, to think of a quip about nouveaux Romans until a kindly policeman tapped on my tinted window and asked if I was going to be there all day. Emerging from my creative reverie, I headed across town, or downtown or uptown, to wherever the Bronx is, having promised my mom I’d call in to see her.

  En route, I reflected upon the unfairness of Shaughnessy making a crass crack about true crime when the charges brought against Herbert were anything but true. Perhaps I could forge a new literary genre—untrue crime—populated exclusively by my mold-breaking untrue memoirs, each ironically entitled The Awful Truth about this that or the other.

  As I neared my Bronx mom’s place with all my mental distractions still in play, my Pollock technique let me down: I found no free parking space. Instead I circled the same blocks over and over looking for a spot, then spent five minutes rooting under the seats of the car for change, then squeezed along a congested sidewalk stuck behind a couple of hedge-fund managers boring everyone to death with their boasts about the deals they’d struck before breakfast, then found I’d left my iPad in the car and had to walk all the way back to get it, having to stop every few yards to sign copies of The Tau Muon. With all that and getting distracted by the window displays in the shops, it was almost an hour before I reached the building in the Bronx in which I’d spent so many unhappy days in my teens. I climbed the familiar stairs to the familiar landing and rang the familiar bell of our familial apartment. My Bronx mom opened the door.