MacDonald: Historically, all autocratic governments oppress writers. The dictator does not want to be told he is wearing no clothes. A lot of very good work has come out of such oppressions. I suppose it is reasonable for organizations of writers to complain as loudly as possible about their fellow writers in the gulags, prisons, and asylums. Sometimes it seems to do some good. But I far prefer the sort of activity the Authors’ Guild undertakes when they publish model contracts with publishers and recommend the abolishing of traditional unfair clauses therein. The Screenwriters’ Guild has used the strike weapon successfully to pry loose a share of the income from sale of tapes.
NBM: Early in your career, you wrote science fiction. Why did you stop?
MacDonald: I will probably write some more science fiction some day. I will come upon an idea which cannot be expressed as well in another form. Science fiction is particularly useful in making social comment without being dull.
NBM: A turning point in your career was your introduction of Travis McGee, who has now been the protagonist of some twenty novels. Does the time come when, despite your best intentions, you find that you have exhausted a character’s possibilities and you become bored with him?
MacDonald: Are you serious? How could I know if a time will come when I will become bored with McGee? I am not bored now.
NBM: You will be seventy in July. Have you contemplated retirement?
MacDonald: I haven’t given it a thought. I’d hate to have to pack it in. It’s too much fun.
Night Ride
John D. MacDonald
About “Night Ride,” John D. MacDonald says, “I wrote this story twenty-four years ago. I came upon it last year when I was grubbing around in the old files, looking for something else. I wondered why it had not been published. I cannot remember who thought it needed more work, my agent or I. I suspect that some other project got in the way and it fell through the cracks. So, I gave it a quick polish and sent it in, pleased to find it was not dated.”
The drove swiftly through the night, thinking of that last poker hand. God damn that Dev-Ian, suggesting raising the limit for the last hand. It was as though he knew he was going to get the case ace. It had been a long and very expensive hand. As he drove Harry Varney figured he had dropped four hundred dollars on that last hand. Poker seemed to be getting too rich for his blood lately. The disastrous last hand had left him with almost an eight-hundred-dollar deficit for the evening.
And that was too much. Way too much. He remembered with self-contempt the elaborate casualness with which, as the game broke up and as Dick Winkler was paying off the chip stacks from the bank, he had suggested to Devlan they cut high card for two hundred. Devlan, he knew, had not been deceived. But Devlan, as the big winner, couldn’t very well refuse.
Harry Varney remembered the bright light shining down on the green tabletop. The others were putting their coats on. He remembered his own hand reaching out, taking a thin cut, remembered the good hot feeling as he turned the stack just enough to catch a glimpse of the spade jack. But Devlan, almost contemptuously, had cut the remaining cards and flipped the heart king over. Harry Varney, taking the last four fifties out of his wallet, turned so that Devlan could not see the two remaining bills, a five and a one, left out of the thousand dollars he had taken to the club with such high hopes at eight o’clock.
“Guess you’ve had one of those nights, Harry,” Devlan said.
For a moment Varney was tempted to suggest another cut for two hundred. Devlan wouldn’t know the wallet was nearly empty. But should he lose, betting without a stake, they might bar him from the game. As casually as possible he said, “You boys bruised me a little tonight.”
Bruised, hell! Isobel, when she found out about it, as she inevitably would, was going to be merciless. “Oh, you have to be the big shot! Oh, you have to, don’t you? Swagger and brag and throw your money around. I hope you can remember what we owe.”
Last year he had won with reasonable consistency. Last year, of course, when he didn’t have to win. Now he played with scared money. And it had been damned foolishness to sign for the drinks. Six rounds was it, or seven? Seven by the way the yellow line down the middle of the two-lane highway kept turning into two lines. His vision was better if he kept one eye shut.
Losing the Taylor account had been the first blow’ For years it had accounted for almost half his income. Things seemed to be getting worse and Isobel seemed to become more shrill every day.
There was a slow, thick anger in him at the way things seemed to be closing in. The poker crowd could smell it, winning this year on bluffs he would have called last year — before the money got scared. He remembered what had happened to Stolts, remembered that night when Stolts had been the banker and had dipped into the bank chips so often that at the end of the session he couldn’t pay off all the way around. Stolts had given Devlan a check that bounced. Yes, Varney remembered last year, how he had told Dick and Devlan that if Stolts showed up again, they should tell him he wasn’t welcome.
The club bills were overdue, and the bill this month would be so fat there was a chance he and Isobel would be posted. He felt cold inside when he thought of the way things were going. The check he had cashed for a thousand took the balance down, way down, and he hadn’t dared enter it in the checkbook, not on the joint account with Isobel. He had cashed a counter check.
His face felt thick and sweaty, and the drinks had made him slightly nauseated. He was driving fast. He decided he would open the vent window on the driver’s side and turn it to direct the blast of cold air at his face. It was three in the morning and the commuter highway ahead was empty. He looked away from the road for an instant as he reached for the handle to open the vent. When he looked back at the highway he saw a flicker of motion so startlingly close he did not have time to swerve or hit the brakes before he felt the thick, sick, solid thud of metal hitting flesh at sixty-plus miles an hour. Then the brakes were on, but too late and too hard, so that the big expensive car swerved on the edge of control. He drove off onto the shoulder and stalled the engine. Far ahead, coming toward him, he saw the Christmas tree lights of a truck. With a sudden instinct for secrecy he turned his car lights off and sat in silence and darkness as the truck droned by, the engine sound dwindling in a descending Doppler key, his car rocking slightly in the after draft.
His instinct to drive away, fast, and not look back was almost too strong. But he took the flashlight from the glove compartment, got out of the car slowly. His brain had been shocked into sobriety, but his legs felt drunk and unwieldy.
He stood in the night for a few moments, a big man with a salesman’s face and a soft waistline. He went around in front of the car and listened for traffic sounds. There were none. He heard the faraway metallic honk of a diesel train in the valley. He aimed the light at his right front fender. It was smashed in, almost against the tire tread. The heavy bumper guard was canted back, and the bumper itself was bent inward. The headlight was smashed, chrome rim bent. Two-fifty or three hundred damage, he thought, realizing how incongruous that thought was. Staring closely at the damage, he could see no blood or fabric or hair on the crumpled metal. He straightened up and turned off the flashlight as he heard a car coming. It finally went by at a sedate speed, an old car with big tail fins. They had had one just like it, he remembered. How many cars since that one? Six? Eight? It was essential to keep up appearances. You couldn’t call on an account driving an old heap.