“What?”
The cadaverous fellow extended a bony hand and said again, “Poe. The name’s Poe. Edgar Allan Poe. And you, sir?”
Stark jabbed the top of the first page of the guy’s notebook. “If your name’s Poe, why’d you write, ‘Ravings,’ a Short Story by E. P. Allan?”
“Allan’s a nom de plume.”
“Huh?”
“A pen name. I had to change my name to sell my stories.”
Stark nodded. He, too, had changed his name. This morning. Owing to the mismanaged bank job on the East Side. The connection pleased him, and an unusual sense of human fellowship warmed him like a restaurant exhaust fan blowing grease in a winter alley. He stuck his hand out. “Stark. Pleased to meet you.”
“Delighted,” said Poe, closing icy and surprisingly strong fingers around Stark’s.
“I’ve already admitted I’m a writer. May I ask how you make your living, Mr. Stark?”
“Banks and armored cars.”
“Do not expect me to be frightened by an armed robber. I’m accustomed to agents and publishers.”
“I could be a writer,” said Stark. “I could write a hell of a book about my work.”
“And what would you write for your second book?”
“I could write ten books. I’ve pulled jobs you couldn’t dream up. Some good, some bad. Human situations, mistakes, betrayals, revenge, scruples. All that stuff.”
Stark, who had put prison time to good use reading, was impressed to be meeting a writer. He began to tell Poe about jobs he’d pulled—leaving out names, dates, and venues. Poe listened, politely. Now and then he made a note in his book. Stark was wrapping up a redacted version of the morning’s disaster when Poe interjected, “Forgive me, sir, but I’ve got to finish this mystery before the Xerox place closes. They’ve got a special overnight rate, three copies for the price of two. One for my editor. One for me. And one for the girl who lives across the hall.”
Stark displayed some inside knowledge he had picked up somewhere. “What about your agent? Doesn’t he get a copy?”
Poe gave a small sad shrug, bent over his book, and resumed scribbling. Stark watched and when his pencil stopped moving figured it was okay to ask another question. “Why’d you have to change your name to sell your stories?”
Poe looked up, blinking. “What? What? Oh … I write different kinds of stuff. Poems. Novels. Short stories. I mean there’s no way I can write a love poem, a horror novel, and one of these Mystery Magazine pieces with the same name.”
“What does a name have to do with writing?”
Poe considered that a moment, and it seemed to make him uncomfortable. “Not writing. Selling. Marketing. You can’t confuse the readers.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The publishers say you can’t confuse the readers.”
Stark had spent enough time behind bars to understand the merciless logic of the power behind the rules. “I get it.”
Color rose to Poe’s cheeks. He closed his notebook on his pencil and said, “It’s more than that—here, I’ll show you.” He swung his legs over the edge of the hole in the rock and dropped into it. “Come on! I’ll show you.”
Stark peered over the edge. Poe was climbing down a rickety ladder.
“Come! I don’t have all day.”
The hole looked like the lowest form of on the lam where you huddled in the dark, curled in the fetal position. Still, you took your chances when you saw them; maybe it contained a tunnel that led under Riverside Drive into an apartment shared by Pan Am stewardesses.
Stark followed Poe down the ladder. The hole wasn’t as deep as it looked. He caught up at the bottom. Poe led him down a rock-sided alley and into a narrow street of low brick row houses. A carriage pulled by horses clattered past. The sunlight was dulled by coal smoke. “What is this?”
“Greenwich Village, last century—there! There we are.”
And there was Edgar Allan Poe, walking head down with a group of thin men who were listening to a plump, prosperous-looking business type with a thick gold watch chain draped across his belly.
The Poe standing at Stark’s elbow said, “The gaunt men are Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne. The youngster is Melville. That’s our literary agent doing the talking. Listen to what he says.”
“How did we get here?” asked Stark.
“Listen—”
“Can we get back?”
“Of course.”
Stark looked up and down the street and back at the stone alley and saw opportunity. His sharp cheekbones and granite jaw dissolved into a dreamy expression that had last crossed his face when his mother breast-fed him.
Poe smiled. “Would I be far off the mark?” he asked silkily, “to guess that you are speculating, what if you knocked that agent on the head and took his watch and chain back to Riverside Park in 1981?”
“I’m a heist man, not a mugger.”
“Forgive me. I meant no insult.”