"The Family Fortune" - читать интересную книгу автора (Horowitz Laurie)

Chapter 4 Jane makes a discovery

There was a pile of manuscripts on my nightstand and I wasn’t really in the mood to read them, but I picked one up and started to give it the quick once-over. By now I was usually able to spot a story’s potential within the first paragraph, certainly within the first page.

My hand tightened on the pages I was reading and I began to salivate. That was the sign for me. One writer I knew could tell if he had a good story because the hair on his arms stood on end. With me, finding a good story elicited the same reaction as good food.

I scrambled out of bed, sat at my desk, and finished reading. The story jumped off the page. It was full of characters who would remain with me long after I’d slipped the pages under my blotter. The story was called “Boston Tech,” after one of Boston’s tougher high schools, and was a version of Romeo and Juliet set in the time of busing and racial desegregation in Boston. A white family. A black family. Love. Violence. It was electrifying. My heart beat fast. The idea was simple, but brilliant in its simplicity. It was the type of story that could change a life. I flipped to the last page where all the writers who submitted to the Fortune Family Fellowship were asked to provide their basic information. The author’s name was Jack Reilly. Jack Reilly. He lived in Lynn, a rough working-class city north of Boston. There’s a rhyme about Lynn: Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin, you never come out the way you went in.

Lynn, the city of sin. Back in bed, I tried to picture Jack Reilly. Someone who could write like this would have to be remarkable. Lynn. Jack Reilly would frequent neighborhood bars. He would wear a black leather jacket and smoke nonfiltered cigarettes. His hair would be thick and slicked back from his forehead. His jeans would have a hole near the right rear pocket. He’d work in a factory and write with a pencil in a crumpled spiral notebook during his breaks. He’d be the guy other guys looked to for advice. He’d be a man who inspired love in women. He’d be dangerous. Maybe on parole. Jack Reilly. Lynn. Lynn.

Of course, he could be nothing like that. Max, the first winner of the fellowship, wasn’t the man I expected him to be. I expected a four-eyed geek with a leatherette folder, but the man who walked into Maison Robert to meet me and my coeditor, Evan Bentley, had an unusual beauty. His good looks should have made me dislike him. I was suspicious of beauty. Teddy and Miranda had taught me, by example, that some beauty was only skin deep, and I had come to believe that all beauty was only skin deep—that behind every handsome face lurked a shallow man.

None of that mattered when Max Wellman walked into the restaurant. I was immediately tongue-tied and I was afraid he would think me a dimwitted dilettante. I wasn’t much more than that at the time, but at least I’d thought to recruit Bentley to give the contest credibility. Bentley had been one of my literature professors at Wellesley. He had written one novel to critical acclaim but had been unable to repeat the performance. Since he was the only writer I knew at the time, I asked him to help me. The credibility of the whole enterprise was severely threatened that evening when Bentley got drunk and vomited on Max’s shoes in the men’s room. Max was wonderful. He insisted on going all the way out to Newton Highlands with me to take Bentley home.

We dragged Bentley up three flights of stairs. Max fished around in Bentley’s pockets for keys, found them, and let us into his apartment. Max turned on the hall light. We found Bentley’s bedroom and put him to bed. I wanted to leave him there, just tossed on the bed with all his clothes on, but Max removed Bentley’s jacket and shoes, and loosened his collar. He covered him up with a blanket from the foot of the bed.

There is an intimacy to putting a drunk to bed, like putting a child to sleep. Max and I stood across from each other. Bentley started to snore. I looked down at Bentley’s shoes. Max had lined them up next to the bed.

“You should take those,” I said. “To replace yours.”

“I could never take a drunk man’s shoes,” Max said. His voice was low and serious, but it made me want to laugh. He smiled up at me and we slipped out of the apartment.

In the cab, I apologized again for Bentley.

“I like a good fallen icon,” he said.

I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but I suspected that he had more compassion for Bentley than I did.

I could hardly wait to call this Jack Reilly and tell him he’d won the fellowship. I’d have to talk to my intern, Tad, and then to Bentley. We’d arrange to meet Mr. Reilly. What kind of restaurant would he like? Maybe something down on the waterfront.

Of course, I should read the other stories, if only in the interest of fairness, but I already knew “Boston Tech” would be the winner. I’d learned a little something in fifteen years and stories like “Boston Tech” didn’t come along every day.