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Page 19.
Chapter 15.
 "You asked to see me?" Albert Beering glared over his desk.
Jeff swallowed. "Yes." The room smelled of cigar smoke and money. Hadn't Beering offered him a virtual open door?
"Of course," Beering said relenting. "Sit down, Maxxon. Cranberry juice?"
"I believe I might," Jeff said.
Beering moved about deliberately, slamming ice into glass, juice over ice, and the ice cried out. He asked: "How is the Project coming along?"
"Fine. I'm in the research phase. It's coming along fine. I visited the City Museum Saturday."
"Good," Beering said heartily. "That's what I like to hear. Fine educated man like yourself, you should be on a schedule. Research maybe three months, write a rough draft fourth month, check things out the fifth month, go for final the sixth month. Right?"
Jeff sipped, and the sourness turned his lips into multiple W's. "Yes, that's what I had in mind." Actually, he figured he'd need five months to do the research, and the sixth month to write like hell. "What I had in mind was to ask you for an extra month."
Beering's face looked suddenly like a marble statue on a frosty day. With lemons raining out of the sky.
Jeff continued: "Detective Sergeant Vince McCarthy has asked me to help him figure out what's going on with the dead editors."
"They are dead," Beering said flatly.
"I know they are, sir. What I mean is, he's being kind of persistent. He seems to feel I can be of some real help in cracking the case. He says it's important to you personally. Do you want me to help him? To be honest, I find the case intriguing. Not only that, but as an editor, I'm certainly quite curious as to why someone would be out there killing editors. Makes sense, right? I'm an editor, I may get killed?"
Beering put a cigar into his mouth. He took out a black revolver, pointed it at himself, and pulled the trigger. A tiny flame flicked on. He lit the cigar. And stared at Jeff.
Jeff had a feeling akin to watching his life flash before him. Why have I talked myself into this?
Beering spoke: "You are feeling the call of civic duty." It was a rhetorical question.
"I suppose that's it," Jeff said.
"This McCarthy," Beering said.
Oh God, Jeff thought, there goes McCarthy's career. Me and my big mouth. Or is it 'my big mouth and I?'
"A great detective," Beering said, biting off a nip of the cigar and spitting it aside. "Very well. One month."
Could it be that easy? Jeff wondered. He ventured: "You asked me to keep an eye out for a certain fellow. Louis, I think you said his name is. Could he have anything to do with this?"
Beering's eyes were like those of a cobra. He stared at Jeff for a minute. "There is a faint, faint chance, Maxxon. I can't say more than that. Let's say this. He might have some remote connection. I'm NOT saying he does. But IF he does, I want to contact him before he, er, makes any more mistakes. You understand, don't you? Sometimes a relative makes a mistake. One wants to help that relative avoid getting in any deeper."
"I sort of vaguely think I understand," Jeff said. "One other thing, Mr. Beering. I was in the museum on Saturday. I met Mr. Stavros. Very helpful fellow." As he spoke, he looked for a reaction in Beering, and didn't get a reading. "He showed me the family yearbooks, if that's what they're called. Oddly, one was missing, and I would like very much to have that one."
Beering frowned. "Missing? Which one?"
"The second yearbook, that gives your family history from 1900 to 1962. It's not there, and there is no record of withdrawal."
Beering's skin color changed from chalky white to plum as Jeff spoke. "I'll have it looked into."
Jeff waited, and Beering said no more, so Jeff said: "Well, that's it for now. I'd appreciate if you could dig up a copy of that yearbook, and thank you for humoring my request for an extension."
Beering banged his cigar on the ashtray. "We'll get to the bottom of these things, Maxxon. With your help. You're doing a bang-up job. By the way, my granddaughter is getting married soon, and we're going to throw a family barbecue. First one in thirty years. Wonder if you'd like to attend. Meet her and her fiancé."
"That would be a pleasure," Jeff said.
Beering stuck the cigar back in his mouth, sat back, and puffed satisfyingly. "Wonderful couple, Lexa and Arthur. You should write about them in your book. They are the future!"
"Oh yes," Jeff said, "I can't wait to meet them." And inwardly, he thought: I can't wait to get out of this office.
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