Free One More Body in the Pool by Ray Bradbury Page B

then lit another cigarette and smoked it quietly. “I know you won’t believe this,” he said, “but my mind has wandered in similar directions in recent years. I got around to reading some Dashiell Hammett last year and it was very good stuff. I’ve wondered about people like that and what sort of ends they come to.”
    “Well,” I said, “if you accept what I’ve suggested, I will have done my job. I worry about my favorite authors and their lives and want everything to come out right for them in the end. It seems to me that if you wrote a murder mystery now, you could reestablish yourself as a first-class writer in American letters, even though people make a good deal of fun about detective stories.”
    There was a long silence.
    The sun somehow seemed brighter and hotter and I felt sweat move down my face.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald offered me his silver flask again and this time I took a sip. I winced and handed it back to him, then somehow managed to get to my feet.
    Fitzgerald watched me do all this, then suddenly reached out his hand.
    I took it and held on, very quietly, because I hated to leave.
    I stared down into that young old face and said, “I think it’s time for me to go.”
    “Much thanks for dropping by,” said F. Scott Fitzgerald.
    I backed off and walked across the sand, waiting for him to say a final thing.
    Before I was very far away I heard him call.
    I turned and he said thoughtfully, “I was wondering. Wouldn’t it be wiser to
not
have the body in the pool at the start of the story? How about finding the body there at the very end of the novel?”
    I hesitated a moment, nodded, and said, “Now you’re cooking!”
    He raised his flask in a toast to me.
    Somehow I managed to turn and walk away.

About the Author
    Ray Bradbury, who died in 2012 at the age of ninety-one, inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include
Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine,
and
Something Wicked This Way Comes.

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Copyright
    The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
    Copyright © 2005 by Ray Bradbury
    Used by permission of the author’s estate
    Cover design by Keith Hayes
    Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
    Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
    The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes),