“So, Stevie,” declares the great journalist himself, in the same tone of voice what’s gotten him fired off newspapers up and down the East Coast, “I take it that in the end you, too, are going to prove a willing partner to the conspiracy of silence that surrounds the private horrors of American society.”
“Have a smoke, Mr. Moore,” answers yours truly, the unaware conspirator, “and think about what you just said. This is me, Stevie, the same what has gone on ungodly pursuits like the Beecham case with you since he was a boy.”
“That’s who I thought I was talking to,” comments my companion unsteadily, “but your tone led me to wonder if I might not be mistaken.”
“Light?” says I, whipping a match against my pants as Mr. Moore fumbles in his pockets. “It ain’t that you’re mistaken,” I go on, “but you’ve got to know how to approach people.”
“Ah!” says he. “And so now I, who have worked for the finest journals in this country, who currently comment on the greatest affairs of the day in the pages of The New York Times, now I do not know how to approach my public!”
“Don’t take on airs,” I answers. “The Times’s given you the sack twice that I know of, exactly because you didn’t know how to approach your public. The Beecham case was strong stuff, maybe too strong for your readers to take first horse out of the gate. Could be you should’ve eased them into it, started with something that didn’t involve talk about slaughtered boy-whores, cannibalism, and eyeballs in ajar.”
A smoky hiss comes from the great scribe, and the smallest nod indicates that he thinks maybe I’m right: maybe the story of a tormented killer who took out his rage on some of the most unfortunate young men in this city wasn’t the best way to acquaint people with either the psychological theories of Dr. Kreizler or the secret sins of American society. This realization (if I’m right and he’s having it) obviously doesn’t set Mr. Moore up much. A deep, whining groan that comes out of him seems to say: I’m taking professional advice from a petty criminal-turned-tobacconist. I laugh at this; I have to, for there’s more of a pouting child in Mr. Moore’s manner, now, than there is of an enraged old man.
“Let’s look back on it for a moment,” I say, feeling better now that his anger’s giving way to a bit of resignation. “Let’s think about all those cases, and see if we can’t find one that might be less of an out-and-out shocker but still suit the purpose.”
“It can’t be done, Stevie,” Mr. Moore mumbles, depressed. “You know as well as I do that the Beecham case was the first and best illustration of the things Kreizler’s been trying to say all these years.”
“Maybe,” I reply. “Then again, maybe there’s others as good. You always acknowledged that I had the best memory of all of us-it may be that I can help you think of one.” I’m being a little coy, here: I already know the case I’d put forward as the most puzzling and fascinating of all we ever worked on. But if I advocate it too fast and with too much vigor, well, it’ll just be the rag in front of the bull to a man in Mr. Moore’s condition. He produces a flask, is about to take a pull, then jumps a foot or so in the air when a flatbed Ford motor truck backfires like a cannon out in the avenue. Your old folks’ll react that way to such things; haven’t ever quite got used to the sounds of modern times. Anyway, after he settles back into his chair with a grunt, Mr. Moore allows himself a minute to think my suggestion over. But a slow shake of the head indicates that he’s come full circle to the same hopeless conclusion: in all our experiences together, there’s nothing as good, nothing as clear, as the Beecham case. I take a deep breath, followed by a drag off my stick, and then I say it quietly:
“What about Libby Hatch?”
My friend goes a little pale and looks at me like maybe the old girl herself’s going to appear from inside the shop and let him have it if he says the wrong thing. Her name’ll produce that effect on anyone who ever crossed paths or purposes with her.
“Libby Hatch?” Mr. Moore echoes quietly. “No. No, you couldn’t. It’s not-well, it-well, you just couldn’t…” He keeps on in that vein until I get enough room in edgewise to ask exactly why you couldn’t. “Well,” he answers, still sounding like a half-terrified kid, “how could you-how could anyone-” And then some part of his brain that hasn’t been clouded by drink remembers that the woman’s been dead for better than twenty years: he puffs up his chest and gets a little bolder.
“In the first place,” he says (and up goes a finger, with more at the ready to indicate that there’s a whole arsenal of points coming), “I thought you were talking about a story that wouldn’t be as gruesome as Beecham’s. In the Hatch case you’ve not only got kidnappings, but murdered infants, grave robbing-and we did the grave robbing, for God’s sake-”
“True,” I say, “but-” But there’s no buts-Mr. Moore is not letting reason get into this. Up bangs another finger, and he bulls on:
“Second, the moral implications”-he does love that little phrase-“of the Hatch case are, if anything, even more disturbing than those of the Beecham affair.”
“That’s right,” I chime in, “and that’s just why-”
“And finally,” he booms, “even if the story weren’t so damned horrifying and disturbing, you, Stevie Taggert, would not be the man to tell it.”
This point I find a little confusing. It hasn’t actually occurred to me that I am the man to tell the story, but I don’t much like the statement that I couldn’t be. Seems to imply something.
Hoping I’ve taken his meaning wrong, I ask straight out just what’s to prevent me from relating the terrible saga of Libby Hatch, if I so desire. Much to my disappointment, Mr. Moore answers that I haven’t got the education and I haven’t got the training. “What do you think?” he says, his stock of injured pride still not tapped out, “that writing a book’s like doing up a sales receipt? That there’s nothing more to the author’s craft than there is to peddling tobacco?”
At this point, I become a little less amused by the inebriate next to me; but I’m going to give him one last chance.
“Are you forgetting,” I ask quietly, “that Doctor Kreizler himself saw to my education after I went to live with him?”
“A few years of informal training,” huffs Mr. Editorial Page. “Nothing to compare to a Harvard education.”
“Well, you just catch me where I go wrong,” I shoot back, “but a Harvard education hasn’t done much to get your little manuscript out to the world.” His eyes go narrow at that. “Of course,” I continue, rubbing the salt in, “I’ve never taken to liquor, which seems to be the main requirement for gentlemen in your trade. But other than that, I figure I measure up okay against you scribblers.”
That last word gets some emphasis, being an insult my companion is particularly sensitive to. But I don’t overplay it. It’s a remark designed not so much to pierce as to sung, and it succeeds: Mr. Moore doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, and when he does open his mouth again, I know it’s going to be something to equal or outdo my slap. Like two dogs in a pit down in my old neighborhood, we’ve barked and nipped and sized each other up enough-it’s time to go for an ear.
“The cowardice and stupidity of New York publishers and the American reading public have nothing to do with any lack of ability on my part in telling the tale,” Mr. Moore seethes firmly. “And when the day comes that I can learn something about writing, about Kreizler’s work, or, for that matter, about anything other than tobacco leaves from you, Taggert, I’ll be happy to put on an apron and work your counter for one solid week!”