The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [20]
Hugh Markarian was halfway through his drink of Grant’s and water when a voice sounded in his ear. “Why are you not at your typewriter?”
He turned around, then smiled up at Warren Ormont. “Why aren’t you at the Old Vic?” he countered.
“Ah, but I didn’t ask why you weren’t writing the Great American Novel. I merely inquired as to why, rather then write anything at all, you had chosen to visit this snake pit. I hope you didn’t eat here?”
“I ate here once.”
“Everyone ate here once. How are you, writer? You look good.”
“I feel good. And you, Warren?”
“Never better, although God knows I’ve been in better things. Why don’t you grab your socks and join us? I’m telling some dear friends the awful truth about Arthur Miller.”
“Which is?”
“That he’s either Rod Serling in drag or Paddy Chayefsky rolled into one. Possibly both, but one can’t be sure.”
Hugh laughed. “That’s a good line.”
“And it’s delivered with the full force of my rapierlike wit. Come join us. Solitary drinking is nothing but alcoholic masturbation.”
“I might. Who’s in the party?”
“Let me see. There’s Bryce Meredith, who’s directed this little gem. He actually likes Miller, no doubt because he directs him as well as anyone I’ve ever worked with. I think you know Bryce.”
“Not well, but we’ve met.”
“There’s also a very pleasant couple named John and Rita Welsh. Or it may be Walsh. Friends of Bryce’s from Baltimore. I gather Bryce knew John in college. They came up to see the play and they’re putting up overnight at the Logan, I think they said. He’s a dermatologist but he has the good grace to keep it to himself. He’s also a fan of yours, by the way.”
“I don’t have fans. I have readers, but no fans. People apologize for enjoying my stuff.”
“He didn’t sound apologetic. There’s also Peter Nicholas, who is Gretchen Vann’s current thing, and lucky little her. A face like the little Belgian boy who pisses into the water in those plaster monstrosities people bring home from Europe. And an adorable little ass.”
“You sound proprietary. Isn’t Bert with you tonight?”
Warren rolled his eyes. “Gawd,” he said. “I turned queer to escape from all that, Hugh. I’ve been getting ‘Where’s Bert?’ since I walked in here. I feel like a philandering husband who keeps running into all his wife’s best friends. It’s damned annoying.”
“Where is Bert, anyway?”
“Bless your heart, you rug peddler. Bertram is auditioning at Upper Black Eddy. He thinks it may lead to Something Good.”
“Isn’t he happy at Mignon’s?”
“That’s just Fridays and Saturdays. The people up the river have the weekends covered with a jazz trio and thought Bert’s brand of Bobby Short cocktail-piano-cum-torching might be the cat’s nuts during the week. Or a couple nights thereof. Which I have just explained for the last time this evening. The next person who asks after Bert is going to be told some positively outrageous lie. ‘Bert has terminal acne,’ I’ll say. ‘Bert is in Egypt buggering a camel.’ Coming, Hugh?”
“Let me get a refill first.”
“We’re over on the rail where we can throw things to the ducks. It’s fun watching the mother duck and the father duck push the cunning little ducklings aside and hog the food themselves. A graphic lesson in the perfidy of parents, avian division.”
Hugh finished his drink, motioned to Sully for another. He hesitated for a moment. That John Welsh (or Walsh) was a fan of his had an effect opposite to Warren’s intention. It was not by any means an inducement for him to join the table. Any fan, however well intentioned, sooner or later wondered aloud when Hugh would write another book of the stature of One If by Land. Not that they didn’t enjoy all his books, of course. Not that they didn’t feel the work he was doing now was as good as anything he had done in the past. But there was something about One If by Land—
Hugh had just turned twenty-three when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor. He enlisted in the Army the next morning, was tabbed for OCS, and spent the next three and a half years commanding