A Dangerous Fiction (9 page)

“A lot of nothing,” Molly summarized.

“Precisely,” I said. “Which is why this whole biography thing is such a nonstarter at the moment.”

“Excuse me?”

I'd hoped to slip it past her. Stupid of me. Nothing gets by old Argus Eyes.

“I feel besieged,” I said. “Sam Spade's infiltrated the agency files, Tommy Cullen's combing through my laptop and my life; the last thing I need is Teddy Pendragon undermining the foundation.”

“The
foundation
?” said Molly, an odd look on her face.

I regretted the word instantly, not because it was inaccurate but because it was too revealing. I'd built my life on my marriage. Everything I was, I was because of Hugo. But this was not something I could say to Molly, who has her own image of me. In even the closest of friendships, there must be some pockets of reticence.

“You can't stop him,” she said. “He's already signed with Random.”

I didn't ask how she knew. Molly always knew. “He can't write it without my cooperation.”

“He'll write it anyway; it just won't be as good. Is that really what you want?”

“That's his problem.”

“What have you got against the man?”

“I don't like biographers in general. And I don't like Teddy in particular. He's presumptuous.” Even to my ears, the last bit sounded petulant.

“Presumptuous how? Did that scamp make a pass at you?”

“Not really, though he did mention that if we had an affair, it would be tax deductible.”

Molly threw back her head and roared. “Oh, God bless him,” she said, wiping her eyes. “What a thing to say. Don't tell me that offended you.”

“That didn't,” I said, but I stopped there. If Molly really had told him that skewed version of how I first met Hugo, it could only be the effect of her illness. I was determined not to mention it.

“Well, you can't back out now,” she said. “And you shouldn't. Teddy's the best literary biographer working today, and he adored Hugo.”

That she could take Teddy's side hurt me in a place only Molly could reach.
She's eager to talk to me,
he had said, and I saw now that he was right. Molly had loved Hugo—not as I'd loved him, of course, but in her own way. She'd nurtured him, scolded him, guided his career. She had stories she needed to tell while she still could.

“What makes you think Teddy's trying to undermine you?” she asked.

“He claims I don't know the truth about my own life. He says the truth is arrived at only through a biographer's ‘triangulation.'” I let out a derisive snort, but Molly just looked at me thoughtfully.

“Is it the biographer you object to, or the whole process of unearthing and reexamining the past?”

“There's no need to unearth what's never been buried,” I said.

“Then what are you so afraid of?”

I drew myself up. “Can you really believe I'm afraid of Teddy Pendragon?”

“You're sure acting like it, and that's not like you.”

“Is it really so hard to understand? I don't want Teddy's grubby paws on my life and marriage.”

“But it's not just your life,” Molly said. “It's Hugo's, too, and that doesn't belong to you alone.”

I looked away, stiff with resentment. Why did everyone act as if I had something to hide, when all I was doing was trying to protect my husband's legacy?

A moment passed. Then Molly said, “Let's have some chai.”

I got up to put the kettle on, glad to have my back to her. It didn't take long to make the chai, for I knew her kitchen as well as I knew my own—a true measure of intimacy among women, it seemed to me.

“Such a comforting drink,” she said as I set two steaming mugs on the table. For her, maybe, but I was steeling myself. When a doctor lays out alcohol swabs and a Band-Aid, you don't have to be a weatherman to know a needle's coming.

“Want to know what I think?” Molly said.

“Do I have a choice?”

“I think you've created this canonized image of Hugo, and you're afraid to let anyone deconstruct it.”

“That's ridiculous,” I said. “And rude.”

But Molly was just warming to her theme. “In fact, the more excuses I hear from you, the more I think this biography is just what the doctor ordered. I loved Hugo to death, you know that, kiddo. But the man was no angel, and it's absurd and even disrespectful to pretend he was.”

“I never said he was an angel! But I won't tolerate anyone maligning him. I knew Hugo better than you did, and I sure as hell remember more clearly.”

Molly looked bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you remember how I first met Hugo?”

“Of course. You took his manuscript out to Sag Harbor.”

“You sent me.”

She laughed. “As if! He'd gone out there to be alone and finish the novel. The last thing I'd have done would be to wave
you
under his nose. Good Lord, didn't I know the man? You were supposed to messenger that manuscript, not go out and spend the damn weekend.”

“So you really did tell that story to Teddy!”

“He asked me how you met. I told him.”

“But it's not true, Molly. And telling the story that way makes it look as if I schemed to meet the great Hugo Donovan, as if I were some kind of stalker.”

“Nonsense,” Molly said. “I never held it against you. If anything, I admired your enterprise.”

“But my version's better and has the advantage of being true.”

Molly raised her eyebrows but didn't answer. We sipped our chai, not as comforting as usual. Something else she'd said was nagging at me. Finally I realized what it was.

“What did you mean he ‘went out there to be alone'? He could have stayed in the city for that.”

“No, he couldn't,” Molly said. “What's-her-name was there.”

“What's-her-name?”

“His mistress. And the kid.”

L
orna glanced at her watch and frowned as I walked into the office. It was nearly noon.

“I went to see Molly,” I said, wondering, not for the first time, why I felt compelled to answer to my secretary. I certainly didn't answer to anyone else. Publishers call me a tough cookie, which I was and took pride in being. Yet Lorna, all of twenty-three, ran the office and me with an iron hand; and she was no easier on herself. She'd never missed a day, taken time off, or even come in late. Last winter she dragged herself in with the flu; I sent her home, and damned if she wasn't back the next day. Whoever said the younger generation lacks dedication never met my staff.

“A ton of calls,” she said, with an air of forbearance, as she handed me a stack of message slips.

“Did the police call?”

“No, but Charlie Malvino did, twice, and he sounded mad as heck.”

And that was another thing about Lorna: she didn't swear, though I'd noticed no other signs of religiosity. Perhaps, like me, she'd been raised by people who didn't care for cursing; only in her case, the training had stuck.

“Must've heard from the cops,” I said.

Her eyes widened behind her thick-rimmed glasses. “You think it was him?”

“No, I'm sure it was that idiot writer, Sam Spade, but the police have to talk to everyone.”

“Gordon Hayes called a few times too. Says he's in the city and needs to see you today. I told him you're jammed up, but he's real insistent.”

I remembered then that Gordon had said something about coming down when I called him to tell him there was no Animal Planet deal. I sighed. Work was piling up on my desk, I had a thousand calls to return, and I hadn't even briefed Jean-Paul on his new duties yet. The last thing I needed was a meeting with a client, even one I liked. But Gordon lived all the way up near Saratoga Springs. If he'd already made the trip, there was no way I could refuse to see him.

I told Lorna to set up a late-afternoon appointment, then hurried down the hall to my office without seeing anyone else. I felt rotten. My conversation with Molly had been as close to a quarrel as we'd ever come, except for the time she'd urged me not to marry Hugo, and it had left me sick at heart. I wanted to call and put things right, but I wasn't the one who'd put them wrong. Things she'd said still played in my head like a song I couldn't shake. “Canonized image of Hugo” my ass: as if I didn't know my own husband, warts and all! And that nonsense about a mistress and child.

“Not his!” Molly had added hastily, seeing my face. “Hers.”

She was out of her mind, of course. When Hugo and I met, he was as free as I was. There was no child. There was no live-in mistress. Women there were, and plenty; some had left souvenirs, and they weren't shy about calling the apartment, either. But I'd moved in with Hugo right after he returned to the city from Sag Harbor, and, besotted though I was, if there'd been a woman and child in residence, I'm quite sure I'd have noticed.

Work was the best remedy for misery, so I rolled up my sleeves and plunged into my e-mail. The first message I read drove everything else from my head. It came from Harvey Millstein, Max's new editor at Random House. “Jo, did you get my fax? I sent over an advance NYTBR. First page, baby! We're going back for another 30K. Call me!”

I suspected the e-mail at once. If Sam Spade could prank my clients, he could do the same to me. But then I found the fax, buried in my inbox, of the front page of next week's
New York Times Book Review.
I read the first paragraph: “Max Messinger's six previous books were clever entertainments, fast-paced thrillers notable for the verisimilitude and attention to detail one would expect from a former FBI agent. His seventh
,
‘The Gatekeeper,' is a work of another order altogether. Nothing in his previous writing, as competent as it's been, gave any indication of this writer's true depth and ability.” I let out a whoop. Footsteps pounded in the hallway; my door flew open and Jean-Paul appeared, Chloe right behind him. “Jo,” he cried, “what's wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, “it's good, it's great—here, read this!”

Lorna and Harriet drifted in to listen as he read the review aloud. The last line was “‘The Gatekeeper' adheres faithfully to the form and conventions of its genre but transcends it in the depth of characterization and the lucent clarity of Messinger's elegant prose.” I had to swallow hard to keep from bawling. This couldn't have happened to a more deserving writer. A year ago, Max had delivered his latest novel. I read it in one night. It was a first-rate thriller, certainly up to the level of his past books, but it was just a hair off being a much better book than that. We talked. Max listened a lot, spoke little, and took the manuscript back. Two complete revisions later, it went to Harvey Millstein, who worked with him on a final draft that in my view amply deserved the reviewer's praise. No wonder Harvey was over the moon. This was huge for him, too. It wouldn't escape the notice of anyone in the business that Max had written his breakthrough book
after
switching houses.

I took the bottle of scotch from the bottom drawer of my desk. “We have to celebrate.”

“Absolutely,” said Harriet. Jean-Paul hurried out and came back with five glasses. We toasted Max in absentia, and I gazed fondly at my stalwart, motley crew. Lorna was frowning slightly, no doubt fretting over the waste of office time. I asked her to scan the review and e-mail it to Max and Molly.

“We can e-mail again?” she asked.

I hesitated. Although we still didn't know how Sam Spade sent those phony e-mails, we knew they hadn't been sent through the agency's e-mail account. There was no telling how long it would take the cops to catch this guy, if they ever did; till then, the stalker might strike again at any time. But how long could we function without e-mail?

Jean-Paul seemed to follow my thoughts. “We could send out a general notice warning people to check the headers on any e-mail they get from us.”

I'd rather have said nothing. I was sick of Sam Spade; if it were up to me, I'd bury the whole incident for good and never think of it again. But there was no wishing this leech away. Something had to be done to protect the agency and its clients, so for lack of a better idea, I accepted Jean-Paul's.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone, starting with Harvey Millstein, who told me that the major chains and distributors had already reordered, and the publicity director was working on a television campaign. No sooner was I off with Harvey than I got a call from Marisa Deighton at Doubleday, who raved about the Keyshawn Grimes novel. We strategized about lining up support on the editorial board. These days it was hard to sell even established writers; publishers were even warier of untested commodities. “Is there anything about the author that might help?” Marisa asked. “Does he have a platform?”

“Does drop-dead gorgeous help?” I said. “How about smart, outgoing, and funny? Not to mention his arc: from Bed-Stuy to Swarthmore.”

I left the young editor very happy and myself hopeful that her enthusiasm would carry the day. But I would say nothing to Keyshawn yet, for many an offer founders in the shoals between an editor's enthusiasm and the cold, hard calculations of marketing.

Another half a dozen calls later, I was more behind than ever, because for every call I made, two more came in. There was a special project I was eager to launch, but I despaired of ever finding time for it. I need help, I thought desperately, and finally it dawned on me: I had a brand-new shiny assistant I hadn't even unwrapped yet. Jean-Paul was still doing the work he'd done as an intern, reading slush-pile submissions and helping Lorna with clerical chores, because I hadn't yet made time to deploy him on other tasks.

I rang Lorna's extension. “Send in Jean-Paul, would you, and hold my calls?”

A moment later my new assistant knocked and entered. He advanced slowly, looking nervous. It occurred to me that we hadn't been alone together since that night in my apartment, when I lost my cool over a cockroach and he drew the wrong conclusions. I'd hustled him out before anything foolish could be said or done, but the fleeting moment when that possibility existed seemed to have opened a Pandora's box of discomfort for him. I indicated a chair across the desk from mine; he sat as if it were upholstered in cactus.

“I've got a project for you,” I began, and at once Jean-Paul relaxed. “I want you to pull the files of the twelve clients Sam Spade hoaxed. Familiarize yourself with their publishing histories, submissions, reviews—everything. Read their books. I want you to come up with a new marketing plan for each of them: lists of houses we didn't try, subsidiary rights we didn't place, other media outlets. You'll have to dig. If it's obvious, I've already tried it. Let's see if we can't make some lemonade out of Sam Spade's lemons.”

“Brilliant,” he said, with such fervent admiration that I blushed with gratitude. At least I hoped it was gratitude. He really was the most attractive young man. If I were Chloe's age . . . but I had never been Chloe's age.

A commotion seemed to have broken out in the reception room. I heard Lorna say, “Oh, no you're not!” followed by a deeper voice that answered calmly but insistently. Both voices were growing louder as the speakers approached my office.

My eyes met Jean-Paul's, and the same thought must have hit us simultaneously. I grabbed the letter opener from my desk and strode toward the door, but Jean-Paul got there first. He flung it open, filling the doorway. Beyond him I could see Lorna, her back to us, arms outstretched as she faced down the intruder, who was hidden from me. I tried pushing Jean-Paul aside, but it was like shoving an oak. “Who is it?” I demanded.

“It's Gordon, Jo,” the intruder said. “Gordon Hayes.”

“Oh for Chrissake! Lorna, Jean-Paul, let the man in.”

“He's not alone,” Lorna said stubbornly. She didn't budge, but Jean-Paul stepped aside, and finally I saw what all the fuss was about. Gordon had one of his dogs with him, a huge black German shepherd sitting calmly by his side.

•   •   •

“Jo,” Gordon said, “this is Mingus. Say hi, Mingus.”

The dog stood and approached my outstretched hand. I'd shooed the others out; we were alone in my office, though I sensed Lorna hovering protectively right outside the door. Mingus sniffed my palm, paying special attention to the pulse point on my wrist where I apply perfume. I stroked his sleek head and ran my fingers through his ruff. He had a lustrous black coat, broad shoulders, intelligent eyes, and a noble head, graying at the muzzle.

“Nice to meet you, Mingus,” I said. He wagged his tail, then walked off to explore the office.

“Hope you've got no contraband,” Gordon said. He'd dressed up for the city in slacks and a sports jacket, but even cleaned up he wasn't nearly as pretty as his dog. He was a hefty six-footer, rock-solid by the look of him, bullet-headed with just a tonsured fringe of grizzled hair, a skewed nose, and a long, thin mouth. He was forty-five but looked ten years older.

“He's a police dog?” I asked.

“Retired. Once a cop, though, always a cop. You like him?”

“Who wouldn't? He's beautiful.”

“Good. He's yours for as long as you need him.”

I stared at my client. I didn't know him well, except through his book, but I knew him well through that. He'd been with the agency for about a year, brought to me by a client who'd purchased one of Gordon's dogs and ended up reading his manuscript. The title,
My Life in Dogs,
was quirky enough to be interesting, but I'd started reading only out of courtesy to my client; I had no interest in a book on dog training.

But it was much more than that. I wasn't two pages in before I knew the writer was a writer. Each chapter began with a story of a German shepherd the author had trained, and those sections did include practical guidance in understanding and training dogs. But those stories segued into others, drawn from the author's peripatetic life, a journey that had included a long stint in the Marine Corps and another in a monastery before depositing him in upstate New York, where he now made his living breeding and training German shepherds.

It was a book that shouldn't have worked but did, because the dogs' qualities—loyalty, bravery, rivalry, pack discipline—mirrored similar qualities in Gordon's comrades-at-arms and brothers, and because the author was as astute an observer of men as of dogs. The composite of all the stories added up to a sort of pointillist self-portrait: hence the well-conceived title, which we kept.

The book was an original but difficult to categorize; it garnered more compliments and fewer offers than any I'd ever handled. Nothing but pure bullheadedness compelled me to keep going until, finally, my twentieth submission struck gold.

It seemed as if I'd cast my bread upon the waters and it had come back to me in the form of a four-legged guardian angel. I was touched by Gordon's generosity and tempted to accept. As a lonely child, I'd longed for a dog but wasn't allowed to have one. Thwarted desires never really go away; they just burrow in deeper.

It was impossible, though. I couldn't take care of a dog, and I told Gordon so.

“You've got it backward,” he said. “The dog takes care of you.”

“I can't accept.”

“You need him. And I need you to keep doing what you do, instead of looking over your shoulder. A trained dog's the best security there is. Any other weapon can be taken away and turned against you, but nobody turns a dog against his master.”

I thought about the night Sam Spade emerged from the shadows and grabbed my arm. I looked at Mingus, who had finished exploring and settled on the floor beside Gordon's chair. In response to my gaze, the dog thumped his tail and panted, baring long white fangs. He was as big as a wolf.