Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe,
had his office. Vernon Klein . . . Peoria Smith . . . and Clyde Umney, of course. That was the name of the lawyer in
Playback.”
`Ànd you call those things hommages?”
“That’s right.”
`Ìf you say so, but it sounds like a fancy word for plain old copying to me.” But it made me feel funny, knowing that
my name had been made up by a man I’d never heard of in a world I’d never dreamed of.
Landry had the good grace to flush, but his eyes didn’t drop.
`Àll right; perhaps I did do a little pilfering. Certainly I adopted Chandler’s style for my own, but I’m hardly the first;
Ross Macdonald did the same thing in the fifties and sixties, Robert Parker did it in the seventies and eighties, and the
critics decked them with laurel leaves for it. Besides, Chandler learned from Hammett and Hemingway, not to mention
pulp-writers like–”
I held up my hand. “Let’s skip the lit class and get down to the bottom line. This is crazy, but–” My eyes drifted to
the picture of Roosevelt, from there they went to the eerily blank blotter, and from there they went back to the haggard
face on the other side of the desk. “–but let’s say I believe it. What are you doing here? What did you come for?’
Except I already knew. I detect for a living, but the answer to that one came from my heart, not my head.
`Ì came for you.”
“For me.”
“Sorry, yes. I’m afraid you’ll have to start thinking of your life in a new way, Clyde. As . . . well . . . a pair of shoes,
let’s say. You’re stepping out and I’m stepping in. And once I’ve got the laces tied, I’m going to walk away.”
Of course. Of course he was. And I suddenly knew what I had to do . . . the only thing I could do.
Get rid of him.
I let a big smile spread across my face. A tell-me-more smile. At the same time I coiled my legs under me, getting
them ready to launch me across the desk at him. Only one of us could leave this
office, that much was clear. I intended
to be the one.
`Òh, really?” I said. “How fascinating. And what happens to me, Sammy? What happens
to the shoeless private eye?
What happens to Clyde–”
Umney, the last word was supposed to be my last name, the last word this interloping, invading thief would ever hear in
his life. The minute it was out of my mouth I intended to leap. The trouble was, that telepathy business seemed to work
both ways. I saw an expression of alarm dawn in his eyes, and then they slipped shut and his mouth tightened with
concentration. He didn’t bother with the Buck Rogers machine; I suppose he knew there was no time for it.
“ `His revelations hit me like some kind of debilitating drug,’ ” he said, speaking in the low but carrying tone of one
who recites rather than simply speaking. “ Àll the strength went out of my muscles, my legs felt like a couple of
strands of al dente spaghetti, and all I could do was flop back in my chair and look at him.’ ”
I flopped back in my chair, my legs uncoiling beneath me, unable to do anything but look at him.
“Not very good,” he said apologetically, “but rapid composition has never been a strong point of mine.”
“You bastard,” I rasped weakly. “You son of a bitch.”
“Yes,” he agreed. `Ì suppose I am.”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you stealing my life?”
His eyes flickered with anger at that. “Your life? You know better than that, Clyde, even if you don’t want to admit it.
It isn’t your life at all. I made you up, starting on one rainy day in January of 1977
and continuing right up to the
present time. I gave you your life, and it’s mine to take away.”
“Very noble,” I sneered, “but if God came down here right now and started yanking your life apart like bad stitches in