Small Town

“I hate when that happens,” Reade said.

“I imagine most people do. You know, this is pleasant enough, but do you want to give me a hint what this is all about?”

“Just a few questions, John. Or do people call you Blair?”

“It depends how long they’ve known me.” And you’ve barely known me long enough to call me Mr. Creighton, he thought. “Say, do you mind if I smoke?”

“It’s your house, John.”

“It bothers some people.”

“Even if it did,” Slaughter said, “it’s your house. You do what you want.”

He patted his breast pocket again, and of course it was still empty, cigarettes hadn’t mysteriously appeared in it since he last checked. He walked over to the desk and shook a cigarette out of the pack and lit it, relaxing as the nicotine soothed the anxiety it had largely created. That was all smoking did for you, it poured oil on waters it had troubled in the first place, and what earthly good did it do him to know that? He’d known that for years, and he went on smoking the fucking things all the same.

“A couple of questions,” he said.

“Right, we’re taking up enough of your time as it is, John. So why don’t you tell us about the last time you saw Marilyn Fairchild.”

“Marilyn Fairchild.”

“Right.”

“I don’t know anybody by that name.”

“You sure of that, John?”

“It has a familiar ring to it, though, doesn’t it? Isn’t there an actress by that name?”

“You’re thinking of Morgan Fairchild, John.”

“Of course,” he said. “Well, I don’t know either of them, Morgan or Marilyn. I wouldn’t mind knowing Morgan, though. Or Marilyn, if she looks anything like her sister.”

“They’re sisters?”

“That was sort of a joke. I never heard of Marilyn Fairchild until you mentioned her.”

“Never heard of her.”

“No.”

Reade took a step toward him, moved right into his space, and said, “Are you sure of that, John? Because we understand you went home with her the other night.”

He shook his head. “If that’s what this is about,” he said, “I think you have the wrong guy.”

“You do, huh?”

“There used to be a John Creighton in the phone book,” he said. “Lived somewhere in the West Seventies, and I’d get phone calls for him all the time.”

“So maybe it’s him we should be looking for.”

“Well, maybe he’s the one who got lucky with Marilyn Fairchild.”

“Because you didn’t.”

“Never even met the lady.”

Slaughter said, “You mind telling us what you were doing the night before last?”

“The night before last?”

“That’s right.”

“That would be Monday night? Well, that’s easy. I was teaching a class.”

“You’re a teacher, John?”

“I conduct a workshop once a week at the New School,” he said. “Wannabe writers. They critique one another’s work and I lead the discussion.”

“You enjoy it, John?”

“I need the money,” he said. “Not that it amounts to much, but it keeps me in beer and cigarettes.”

“That’s something.”

“I guess it is. Anyway, that’s what I was doing Monday night.”

“From when to when, John?”

“Seven-thirty to ten. You can check with the school and they’ll confirm that I was there, but don’t make me prove it by telling you what the stories were about. I forget all that crap the minute I leave the classroom. I’d go nuts if I didn’t.”

“They’re pretty bad, huh?”

“I don’t like being read to,” he said, “even if it’s Dylan Thomas reading A Child’s Christmas in Wales. But they’re not all that bad, actually, and some of them are pretty good. I don’t know that I’m doing them any good, but I can’t be doing them much harm. And it gives them a structure, keeps them writing.”

“Must be a good place to meet women,” Reade said.

“You know what’s funny? I’ve been doing this for three years now, and when I started I had the same thought. I mean, a majority of students are women, a majority of everything is women, and these are women with an interest in literature and I’m up there, the designated authority, and how can you miss, right?”

“And?”

“Somebody, I think it was Samuel Johnson, read another writer’s book. And he said, ‘Your work is both original and excellent. However, the parts that are original are not excellent, and the parts that are excellent are not original.’ ”

They looked puzzled.

“In the classroom,” he explained, “the women are both attractive and available. However, the ones who are available are not attractive, and—”

“And the ones who are attractive aren’t available,” Slaughter said. “Was Marilyn Fairchild one of your students?”

“You know,” he said, “I don’t recognize the name, but I don’t know all their names. It’s not impossible. I have a list of them someplace, hang on and let me see if I can find it.”

It was where it was supposed to be, in the New School file folder, and he checked it and handed the list to Slaughter. “No Marilyn Fairchild,” he said. “There’s a woman named Mary Franklin, but I can’t believe anybody went home with her Monday night. She’s writing her memoirs, she was a WAF in the Second World War. The last person who got lucky with her was Jimmy Doolittle.”

“So I guess it’s not the same woman.”

“Evidently not.”