More Tales of the Black Widowers (The Black Widowers 2)

Introduction

I don't think there's much more to say about the Black Widowers than I've already said in Tales of the Black Widowers. That was the first book in this series and the one you're now holding is the second.

In that first introduction, I explained that the Black Widowers was inspired by a real club, to which I belong, which is called the Trap Door Spiders. I won't tell you any more about that here because if you've read Tales of the Black Widowers you'd just be bored by the repetition, and if you haven't read it I'd rather leave you in the agony of curiosity so that you will then be driven to buy the first book and repair the omission.

Once the Tales was published, by the way, I handed a copy to each member of the Trap Door Spiders. One and all carefully masked their real feelings under the pretense of pleasure, and naturally, I accepted that pretense at face value.

That's all I have to say now, but lest you rejoice too quickly at being rid of me, I must warn you that I will appear again in a short afterword following each of the stories.

1 When No Man Pursueth

Thomas Trumbull scowled with only his usual ferocity and said, “How do you justify your existence, Mr. Stellar?”

Mortimer Stellar lifted his eyebrows in surprise and looked about the table at the six Black Widowers whose guest he was for that evening.

“Would you repeat that?” he said.

But before Trumbull could, Henry, the club's redoubtable waiter, had moved in silently to offer Stellar his brandy and Stellar took it with an absently murmured “Thank you.”

“It's a simple question,” said Trumbull. “How do you justify your existence?”

“I didn't know I had to,” said Stellar.

“Suppose you did have to,” said Trumbull. “Suppose you were standing before God's great judgment seat.”

“You sound like an editor,” said Stellar, unimpressed.

And Emmanuel Rubin, host for the evening, and a fellow writer, laughed and said, “No, he doesn't, Mort. He's ugly but he's not ugly enough.”

“You stay out of it, Manny,” said Trumbull, pointing a forefinger.

“All right,” said Stellar. “I'll give you an answer. I hope that, as a result of my stay on Earth, I will have left some people a little more informed about science than they would have been if I had never lived.”

“How have you done that?”

“By the books and articles I write on science for the layman.” Stellar's blue eyes glinted from behind his heavily black-rimmed glasses and he added with no perceptible trace of modesty, “Which are probably the best that have ever been written.”

“They're pretty good,” said James Drake, the chemist, stubbing out his fifth cigarette of the

evening and coughing as though to celebrate the momentary pulmonary release. “I wouldn't put you ahead of Gamow, though.”

“Tastes differ,” said Stellar coldly. “I would.”

Mario Gonzalo said, “You don't write only about science, do you? It seems to me I read an article by you in a television weekly magazine and that was just humor.” He had propped up the caricature he had drawn of Stellar in the course of the meal. The black-rimmed glasses were prominent and so was the shoulder-length, fading brown hair, the broad grin, and the horizontal lines across the forehead.

“Good Lord,” said Stellar. “Is that me?”

“It's the best Mario can do,” said Rubin. “Don't shoot

him.”

“Let's have some order,” said Trumbull testily. “Mr. Stellar, please answer the question Mario put to you. Do you write only about science?”

Geoffrey Avalon, who had been sipping gently at his brandy, said in his deep voice which could, whenever he chose, utterly dominate the table, “Aren't we wasting time? We've all read Mr. Stellar's articles. It's impossible to avoid him. He's everywhere.”

“If you don't mind, Jeff,” said Trumbull, “it's what I'm trying to get at in a systematic way. I've seen his articles and Manny says he has written a hundred-and-something books on all sorts of subjects and the point is why and how?”.

The monthly banquet of the Black Widowers was in its concluding phase—that of the grilling of the guest. It was a process that was supposed to be conducted along the simple, ordinary lines of a judicial cross-examination but never was. The fact that it so often dissolved into chaos was a matter of deep irritation to Trumbull, the club's code expert, whose dream it was to conduct the grilling after the fashion of a drumhead court-martial.

“Let's get into that, then, Mr. Stellar,” he said. “Why the hell do you write so many books on so many subjects?”

Stellar said, “Because it's good business. It pays to be unspecialized. Most writers are specialists; they've got to be. Manny Rubin is a specialist; he writes mysteries—when he bothers to write at all.”

Rubin's sparse beard lifted and his eyes widened with indignation behind his thick-lensed glasses. “I happen to have published over forty books, and they're not all mysteries. I've published”—he began ticking off his fingers—”sport stories, confessions, fantasies—”

“Mostly mysteries,” amended Stellar smoothly. “Me, I try not to specialize. I'll write on any subject that strikes my fancy. It makes life more interesting for me so that I never go through a writer's block. Besides, it makes me independent of the ups and downs of fashion. If one kind of article loses popularity, what's the difference? I write others.”

Roger Halsted passed his hand over the smooth balding forepart of his head and said, “But how do you do it? Do you have set hours to write in?”

“No,” said Stellar. “I just write when I feel like. But I feel like all the time.”

“Actually,” said Rubin, “you're a compulsive writer.”

“I've never denied it,” said Stellar.

Gonzalo said, “But steady composition doesn't seem to be consistent with artistic inspiration. Does it just pour out of you? Do you revise at all?”

Stellar's face lowered and for a moment he seemed to be staring at his brandy glass. He pushed it to one side and said, “Everyone seems to worry about inspiration. You're an artist, Mr. Gonzalo. If you waited for inspiration, you'd starve.”

“Sometimes I starve even when I don't,” said Gonzalo.

“I just write,” said Stellar, a bit impatiently. “It's not so difficult to do that I have a simple, straightforward, unornamented style, so that I don't have to waste time on clever phrases. I present my ideas in a clear and orderly way because I have a clear and orderly mind. Most of all, I have security. I know I'm going to sell what I write, and so I don't agonize over every sentence, worrying about whether the editor will like it.”

“You didn't always know you would sell what you wrote,” said Rubin. “I assume there was a time when you were a beginner and got rejection slips like everyone else.”

“That's right. And in those days writing took a lot longer and was a lot harder. But that was thirty years ago. I've been literarily secure for a long time.”

Drake twitched his neat gray mustache and said, “Do you really sell everything you write now? Without exception?”

Stellar said, “Just about everything, but not always first crack out of the box. Sometimes I get a request for revision and, if it's a reasonable request, I revise, and if it's unreasonable, I don't. And once in a while—at least once a year, I think—I get an outright rejection.” He shrugged. “It's part of the free-lance game. It can't be helped.”

“What happens to something that's rejected, or that you won't revise?” asked Trumbull.

“I try it somewhere else. One editor might like what another editor doesn't. If I can't sell it anywhere I put it aside; a new market might open up; I might get a request for something that the rejected article can fill.”

“Don't you feel that's like selling damaged goods?” said Avalon.

“No, not at all,” said Stellar. “A rejection doesn't necessarily mean an article is bad. It just means that one particular editor found it unsuitable. Another editor might find it suitable.”

Avalon's lawyer-mind saw an opening. He said, “By that reasoning, it follows that if an editor likes, buys, and publishes one of your articles, that is no necessary proof that the article is any good.”

“None at all, in any one case,” said Stellar, “but if it happens over and over again, the evidence in your favor mounts up.”

Gonzalo said, “What happens if everyone rejects an article?”

Stellar said, 'That hardly ever happens, but if I get tired of submitting a piece, chances are I cannibalize it. Sooner or later I'll write something on a subject that's close to it, and then I incorporate parts of the rejected article into a new piece. I don't waste anything”

'Then everything you write sees print, one way or another. Is that right?” And Gonzalo shook his head slightly, in obvious admiration.

“That's about right.” But then Stellar frowned. “Except, of course,” he said, “when you deal with an idiot editor who buys something and then doesn't publish it.”

Rubin said, “Oh, have you run into one of those things? The magazine folded?”

“No, it's flourishing. Haven't I ever told you about this?”

“Not as far as I remember.”

“I'm talking about Bercovich. Did you ever sell anything to him?”

“Joel Bercovich?”

“Are there likely to be two editors with that last name? Of course, Joel Bercovich.”

“Well, sure. He used to edit Mystery Story magazine some years ago. I sold him a few items. I still have lunch with him occasionally. He's not in mysteries anymore.”

“I know he isn't He's editing Way of Life magazine. One of those fancy new slick jobs that appeal to the would-be affluent”

“Hold it. Hold ill” cried out Trumbull. “This thing's degenerating. Let's go back to the questioning.”

“Now wait,” said Stellar, waving his hand at Trumbull in clear annoyance. “I've been asked a question as to whether everything I write sees print and I want to answer that because it brings up something I'm pretty sore about and would like to get off my chest.”

“I think he's within his rights there, Tom,” said Avalon.

“Well, go head, then,” said Trumbull discontentedly, “but don't take forever.”

Stellar nodded with a sort of grieved impatience and said, “I met Bercovich at some formal party. I don't even remember the occasion for it, or very much who was involved. But I remember Bercovich because we did some business as a result. I was there with Gladys, my wife, and Bercovich was there with his wife and there were maybe eight other couples. It was an elaborate thing.

“In fact, it was very elaborate, and deadly. It was formal. It wasn't black tie;

they stopped short of that; but it was formal. The serving was slow; the food was bad; the conversation was constipated. I hated it —Listen, Manny, what do you think of Bercovich?”

Rubin shrugged. “He's an editor. That limits his good points, but I've known worse. He's not an idiot.”

“He isn't? Well, I must admit that at the time he seemed all right I had vaguely heard of him, but he knew me, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” said Rubin, twirling his empty brandy glass.

“Well, he did,” said Stellar indignantly. “It's the whole point of the story that he knew me, or he wouldn't have asked me for an article. He came up to me after dinner and told me that he read my stuff and that he admired it, and I nodded and smiled. Then he said, 'What do you think of the evening?'

“I said cautiously, 'Oh well, sort of slow,' because for all I knew he was the hostess' lover and I didn't want to be needlessly offensive.

“And he said, I think it's a bomb. It's too formal and that doesn't fit the American scene these days.' Then he went on to say, 'Look, I'm editor of a new magazine, Way of Life, and I wonder if you couldn't write us an article on formality. If you could give us, say, twenty-five hundred to three thousand words, that would be fine. You could have a free hand and take any approach you want, but be lighthearted.'

“Well, it sounded interesting and I said so, and we discussed price a little, and I said I would try and he asked if I could have it in his office within three weeks, and I said maybe. He seemed very anxious.”

Rubin said, “When was all this?”

“Just about two years ago.”

“Uh-huh. That was about when the magazine started. I look at it occasionally. Very pretentious and not worth the money. I didn't see your article, though.”