Special Delivery Read online

when Len came home to find Moira weeping overthe typewriter, with a half-inch stack of manuscript beside her.

  "It isn't anything. I'm just tired. He started this after lunch.Look."

  Len turned the face-down sheaf the right way up.

  Droning. Abrasing the demiurge. Hier begrimms the tale: Eyes undotted, grewling and looking, turns off a larm, seizes cloes. Stewed Bierly a wretch Pence, therefore tchews we. Pons! Let the pants take air of themsulves.

  * * * * *

  The first three sheets were all like that. The fourth was a perfectlygood Petrarchian sonnet reviling the current administration and thepolitical party of which Len was a registration-day member.

  The fifth was hand-lettered in the Cyrillic alphabet and illustratedwith geometric diagrams. Len put it down and stared shakily at Moira.

  "No, go on," she said, "read the rest."

  The sixth and seventh were obscene limericks; and the eighth, ninthand so on to the end of the stack were what looked like the firstchapters of a rattling good historical adventure novel.

  Its chief characters were Cyrus the Great, his jaunty-bosomed daughterLygea, of whom Len had never previously heard, and a one-armedGraeco-Mede adventurer named Xanthes. There were also courtesans,spies, apparitions, scullery slaves, oracles, cutthroats, lepers,priests and men-at-arms in magnificent profusion.

  "He's decided," said Moira, "what he wants to be when he's born."

  Leo refused to bothered with mundane details. When there were eightypages of the manuscript, it was Moira who invented a title and by-linefor it--_The Virgin of Persepolis_ by Leon Lenn--and mailed it off toa literary agent in New York. His response, a week later, wascautiously enthusiastic. He asked for an outline of the remainder ofthe novel.

  Moira replied that this was impossible, trying to sound as unworldlyand impenetrably artistic as she could. She enclosed the thirty-oddpages Leo had turned out through her in the meantime.

  Nothing was heard from the agent for two weeks. At the end of thistime, Moira received an astonishing document, exquisitely printed andbound in imitation leather, thirty-two pages including the index,containing three times as many clauses as a lease.

  This turned out to be a book contract. With it came the agent's checkfor nine hundred dollars.

  * * * * *

  Len tilted his mop-handle against the wall and straightened carefully,conscious of every individual gritty muscle in his back. How did womendo housework every day, seven days a week, fifty-two goddam weeks ayear?

  It was a little cooler now that the Sun was down, and he was workingstripped to shorts and bath slippers; but he might as well have beenwearing an overcoat in a Turkish bath.

  The faint whisper of Moira's monstrous new electrical typewriterstopped, leaving a fainter hum. Len went into the living room andsagged on the arm of a chair. Moira, gleaming sweatily in a floweredhousecoat, was lighting a cigarette.

  "How's it going?" he asked, hoping for an answer. He hadn't alwaysreceived one.

  She switched off the machine wearily. "Page two-eighty-nine. Xantheskilled Anaxander."

  "Thought he would. How about Ganesh and Zeuxias?"

  "I don't know." She frowned. "I can't figure it out. You know who itwas that raped Marianne in the garden?"

  "No, who?"

  "Ganesh."

  "You're kidding!"

  "Nope." She pointed to the stack of typescript. "See for yourself."

  Len didn't move. "But Ganesh was in Lydia, buying back the sapphire.He didn't return till--"

  "I know, I know. But he _wasn't_. That was Zeuxias in a putty nosewith his beard dyed. It's all perfectly logical, the way Leo explainsit. Zeuxias overheard Ganesh talking to the three Mongols--youremember, Ganesh thought there was somebody behind the curtain, onlythat was when they heard Lygea scream, and while their backs wereturned--"

  "All right. But for God's sake, this fouls everything up. If Ganeshnever went to Lydia, then he _couldn't_ have had anything to dodistempering Cyrus's armor. And Zeuxias couldn't, either, because--"

  "It's exasperating. I know he's going to pull another rabbit out ofthe hat and clear everything up, but I don't see how."

  Len brooded. "It beats me. It had to be either Ganesh or Zeuxias. OrPhilomenes, though that doesn't seem possible. Look, damn it, ifZeuxias knew about the sapphire all the time, that rules outPhilomenes once and for all. Unless--no. I forgot about that businessin the temple. Umm. Do you think Leo really knows what he's doing?"

  "I'm certain. Lately I've been able to tell what he's thinking evenwhen he isn't talking to me. I mean just generally, like when he'spuzzling over something, or when he's feeling mean. It's going to besomething brilliant and he knows what it is, but he won't tell me.We'll just have to wait."

  "I guess so." Len stood up, grunting. "You want me to see if there'sanything in the pot?"

  "Please."

  Len wandered into the kitchen, turned the flame on under the silex,stared briefly at the dishes waiting in the sink, and wandered outagain. Since the onslaught of The Novel, Leo had relinquished hisinterest in Moira's diet, and she had been living on coffee. Smallblessings....

  * * * * *

  Moira was leaning back with her eyes closed, looking very tired."How's the money?" she asked without moving.

  "Lousy. We're down to twenty-one bucks."

  She raised her head and opened her eyes wide. "We couldn't be! Len,how could anybody go through nine hundred dollars that fast?"

  "Typewriter. And the dictaphone that Leo thought he wanted, till abouthalf an hour after it was paid for. We spent less than fifty onourselves, I think. Rent. Groceries. It goes, when there isn't anycoming in."

  She sighed. "I thought it would last longer."

  "So did I. If he doesn't finish this thing in a few days, I'll have togo look for work again."

  "Oh. That isn't so good. How am I going to take care of the house anddo Leo's writing for him?"

  "I know, but--"

  "All right. If it works out, fine. If it doesn't--he must be near theend by now." She stubbed out her cigarette abruptly and sat up, handsover the keyboard. "He's getting ready again. See about that coffee,will you? I'm half dead."

  Len poured two cups and carried them in. Moira was still sittingpoised in front of the typewriter, with a curious half-formedexpression on her face.

  Abruptly the carriage whipped over, muttered to itself briefly andthumped the paper up twice. Then it stopped. Moira's eyes got biggerand rounder.

  "What's the matter?" said Len. He looked over her shoulder.

  The last line on the page read:

  TO BE CONTINUED IN OUR NEXT

  Moira's hands curled into small helpless fists. After a moment, sheturned off the machine.

  "What?" said Len incredulously. "To be continued--what kind of talk isthat?"

  "He says he's bored with the novel," Moira replied dully. "He says heknows the ending, so it's artistically complete; it doesn't matterwhether anybody else thinks so or not." She paused. "But he says thatisn't the real reason."

  "Well?"

  "He's got two reasons. One is that he doesn't want to finish the booktill he's certain he'll have complete control of the money it earns."

  "Yes," said Len, swallowing a lump of anger, "that makes a certainamount of sense. It's his book. If he wants guarantees...."

  "You haven't heard the other one."

  "All right, let's have it."

  "He wants to teach us--so we'll never forget--who the boss is in thisfamily."

  * * * * *

  "Len, I'm awfully tired," Moira complained piteously, late that night.

  "Let's just go over it once more. There has to be some way. He stillisn't talking to you?"

  "I haven't felt anything from him for the last twenty minutes. I thinkhe's asleep."

  "All right, let's suppose he _isn't_ going to listen to reason--"

 
; "I think we'd better."

  Len made an incoherent noise. "Well, okay. I still don't see why wecan't write the last chapter ourselves. It'd only be a few pages."

  "Go ahead and try."

  "Not me. You've done a little writing. Damned good, too. And if you'reso sure all the clues are there--Look, if you say you can't do it, allright, we'll hire somebody. A professional writer. It happens all thetime. Thorne Smith's last