Blind Submission (37 page)

“And how would
Malcolm
know about what goes on in a literary agency?”

“Well, I told him things he could have used,” I said. “But I also think he had some help from…”

“From
whom,
Angel?”

“Anna,” I said. “I think he and Anna…I think they are or were involved in some way.”

“What?” Lucy looked revolted.

“I don't know,” I said. “For sure.”

“Well, Angel, I have to say I'm very disappointed in you.” Lucy shook her head as if to punctuate her point.

“You're…?”

“If you'll recall, you assured me when I hired you that your
personal
life would not infringe on your professional life. This is exactly the kind of scenario I was trying to avoid. You were not honest with me, Angel. And I have to say this hurts me. Really, I feel that I've offered you much more than a job here. I've given you a career, not to mention a salary that is astronomical by publishing standards. And I feel, frankly, like I've been a mother to you, Angel.”

I remembered how on our flight to New York Lucy had convinced the flight attendant that I was her daughter. As absurd as it seemed, perhaps she'd convinced herself as well. For an instant, I thought about what it would be like to be Lucy's daughter and found it vaguely terrifying. I promised myself I would call my own mother as soon as I had the chance.

Lucy was still talking. “Do you know how many aspiring writers have come through this office in the guise of employees?” she asked me.

“But Lucy,” I told her, “I am
not
a writer.”

Lucy raised her hand to stop me. “No,” she said, “what you've done is less honest than that. This is a business, Angel. I sell books here. And I now have a book that I have a tremendous amount of interest in, a book that I have staked my reputation on, and now, because of your personal involvement in it, I am supposed to abandon it?”

“No, that's not what I'm saying,” I said, grasping for whatever it was that I
was
saying. “I just don't want to work on it anymore.”

“Angel, do I need to remind you that you were the one who ‘found'”—she made quotation marks in the air—“this novel in the submission pile?”

“Yes, but—”

“Has it suddenly become a bad book?”

“No, it hasn't.”

“So the only reason that you don't want to work on it is that your ex-boyfriend is writing it? Because you
did
want him to get published, and that's why you took advantage of your position here, but now that you've broken up with him, you
don't
want him to get published, so you've decided to try your best to destroy his book? Is that right?”

“No,” I said. I had to admit it to myself, Lucy's argument was starting to sound perfectly valid. It was true that
Blind Submission
had become a much better book. It was true that I had wanted to help Malcolm. And it was true that I no longer wanted to have anything to do with him. With a few well-aimed verbal strokes, Lucy had managed to make me doubt all of my own motivations.

“I wouldn't have thought you'd want to represent this novel now,” I said, “knowing that he's writing it.”

“But why wouldn't I, Angel? It's not about
him,
it's about the book.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, I realized the truth in them. It was always about the book for me. In one form or another, I'd been living inside a book for as long as I could remember. And now I was living inside
Blind Submission,
a book about books, which
was,
in its own perverse way, about me. I'd been living on its pages, shaping it to suit myself. She was right: It wasn't about him at all—for her or for me.

“Do you really think it's that good?” I asked her.

“It will be when you get through with it, Angel. You were there with me in New York. You heard them. They want it.”

“They haven't seen it,” I said.

Lucy shrugged. “That doesn't matter,” she said. “They're going to buy this one and they're going to spend a lot of money. It's going to be big, Angel.”

“But what about Malcolm?” I asked her.

Lucy gave me a tight smile and folded her arms. “What if you're wrong, Angel? What if he's not the author? Are we going to let it get away because of your personal problems?”

“Well—”

“But let's assume that he is for a moment. Why don't we let him remain anonymous? Since that's the way he chose to come in. And now that I think about it, that may be the best way to sell him as well, as an industry insider who has to keep his identity concealed.” She ran her fingers along the crease in her pant leg, sharpening it. “It's fitting, no? He gets his book sold, but he doesn't get any glory. Everybody wins. What do you think?”

I liked the idea more than I wanted to admit, and I thought that Malcolm would never go for it, which made it even better because he'd have to. And I was the one who was going to deliver the news to him.

“Okay,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “I'm glad we've got that settled. Now, is there anything else you'd like to get off your chest?”

“No,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “Then get Karanuk on the phone. No, don't leave, Angel. Use my phone and put him on speaker. You need to hear this.”

I was halfway to her desk when I decided to take one more leap into the deep end. “Actually, there is one more thing, Lucy.”

“What?” All of Lucy's trademark impatience was back.

I took a deep breath. “I've been thinking, and I know you like us to take initiative, Lucy, you know, be
proactive.
” I tried to smile, although my heart was beating double time at the thought of what I was about to say. “I've learned so much from you, Lucy. I'm sure I could never be as good as you, but I was wondering if…you'd consider giving me a shot at selling a project on my own. For this agency, of course.”

Lucy was amused. “At what point did I give you the impression that I was interested in adding another agent to my staff, Angel?”

“You've said I've got a good eye, Lucy. I could still do what I'm doing now, but I'd be better, more productive.”

“How can you possibly think you've learned enough to be a successful agent, Angel? You're a baby in this world.”

I swallowed the insult and moved forward. Still smiling, I said, “I've had an excellent teacher. The best.”

Lucy paused, weighing the options. “I'll have to think about it,” she said finally.

“That would be great.” And enough to move forward with Sunny Martin, I thought.

“This is a good day for you, Angel. Now, if you don't mind, get Karanuk on the phone.”

I was halfway to her phone when Lucy stopped me again. “Go get everybody else,” she said. “I need everyone to hear this. It's not often one gets to witness the birth of a seven-figure book idea.”

“Karanuk!” Lucy shrieked into the speakerphone once we were all assembled once more in her office.

“Yes, Karanuk,” he said with his characteristic deadpan.

“My dear, I've got some fabulous news for you,” Lucy said, sweeping her eyes over the four of us.

“News,” Karanuk repeated.

“I know you've been torn as to what to write next, dear,” Lucy said, “and I'm just thrilled to tell you that I've just been to New York and I have come up with a brilliant idea for you.”

“I'm writing
Thaw,
” Karanuk said. “I sent it to you.”

“
Cold!Cooking
!” Lucy yelled into the speaker, unable to contain herself any longer. “Recipes in prose. Or essays and recipes. A new kind of cookbook. It will be stunning, K, just stunning.”

The static hiss was the only indication that Karanuk hadn't hung up. Flushed with anticipation, Lucy leaned closer to the phone. “Karanuk? Are you thrilled?”

“I'm writing
Thaw,
” Karanuk said finally. “I am working with your assistant, Angel. I'll talk to her. She understands.”

Lucy leaped at the phone and picked it up so that Karanuk's voice would no longer be audible to the rest of us. All eyes, I noticed, were now on me. “Listen, K,” Lucy said, “this is a good idea. You should consider it. What? Well, in all honesty,
Thaw
needs some work, K. Yes. Yes, she is. Yes, I do.
I'm
your agent, Karanuk, not her. No. Well, I hope you'll reconsider.”

Lucy hung up the phone and looked across her office at the four of us. It was impossible to get an exact read on her expression. “He wants to write
Thaw,
” she said quietly. “Angel, you'll need to work with him on that.”

Nobody spoke or got up for a moment. I got the sense that we were all afraid that if we moved she'd explode.

“Why the FUCK is everyone still sitting here?” she said finally. “Have we run out of work to do?”

Within seconds, every one of us was back at our desks.

SIXTEEN

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Blind Submission

Hello G,

I thought you'd like to know that we've decided that we now have enough text to take your novel out for sale. However, we won't be able to do that until you sign an agency contract. I know you want to remain anonymous, but I'm afraid it's time to “come out.” Lucy and I both know who you are, so there's no need to keep this up. There's no harm done, okay? Just give me a call—you know the number—and we'll get this thing going the way it's supposed to.

Thanks,
Angel

 

It was almost noon on Saturday when I turned on my computer and prepared to check my e-mail. As my laptop booted up, I dialed Damiano's number one more time and listened to it ring a half-dozen times before I placed the phone back in its cradle. It was the fifth time I'd tried to reach him since I'd left work. I'd brought my angelfish home at last and had placed the bowl next to my computer. I ran my hands over the glass as if it were a crystal ball and tried to make myself believe that I hadn't lost Damiano forever. But as I connected with the server and logged onto my e-mail program, I could see immediately that it wasn't going to be a day for faint hopes and half-baked beliefs. There waiting for me was another missive from my author from hell.

 

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Blind Submission

Dear Ms. Robinson,

Well, it seems we are in the home stretch, doesn't it? I am racing toward the finish—with your help, of course. I don't have time to write you a long note (need to get back to work, don't I?), but I wanted to tell you this:

It's time for a murder, Ms. Robinson.

I've given this a great deal of thought, and while there is certainly merit in writing a bloodless tale, a look at the bestseller list will show you that public taste runs to killing. Death seems to sell. So, a murder. You'll find it within the enclosed chapters. I am working both backward and forward, incorporating your notes and hurrying to finish. My hope is that the next installment will be the last.

Enjoy!
G.

P.S. We'll talk soon.

 

 

BLIND SUBMISSION

Chapter 9

Alice was dreading her meeting with Carol Moore. Alice knew what it was about and, although she had plenty of alibis at the ready, she was still a little anxious about making sure that Carol didn't suspect her. Not that there was anything to suspect, really. Carol wouldn't have known anything about her affair with Vaughn from Ricardo—Alice had seen to that. As far as Jewel went, Alice's assessment of her was that whatever intelligence that woman had didn't translate into anything like street smarts. Alice, of course, had plenty of street smarts, having trolled them herself for quite some time. All that time in dark alleys had come in most useful recently when she'd gone looking for the drugs. She'd known exactly where to go and within hours she'd had exactly what she'd needed.

But she wasn't going to think about any of that now. What she needed to do was focus on her meeting with Carol. The agent was distressed and Alice thought she'd even seen Carol wiping tears from her face when she'd heard the news. Well, it was understandable, Alice thought. Carol had barely signed him and hadn't even had a chance to pitch his book and now he was permanently out of the picture.

Vaughn Blue's death represented a substantial loss of potential income for Carol Moore.

Alice pondered this. It was possible, even likely, she thought, that Carol actually liked the man. This was something she couldn't understand about Carol—how she seemed to have genuine feelings for her clients. She got involved with them, suffered through their stupid writer's blocks with them, listened to their asinine complaints about having to sacrifice themselves for their art (as if!), paid attention when they came to her with tales of husbands and wives gone astray, ungrateful children, alcoholism, and on and on. They were impossible, Alice thought, always wanting to talk, talk, talk. And yet Carol had unlimited patience with them and a seemingly endless flow of compassion for their plights.

Maybe she was faking it, Alice thought. If so, she admired Carol even more than she did now, and she
did
admire Carol. You couldn't not admire what Carol had accomplished in the world of publishing. But Alice would have preferred to think that Carol made a show of being so emotionally involved with those writers. Like Vaughn Blue. Could Carol really be that upset over his death? Really, if anyone should be crying it should be her. It had to be the loss of Vaughn's book that was bothering Carol. Well, that was all right, too, Alice thought, because her own book would provide just the remedy.

Alice had made a big mistake with Vaughn—she'd trusted him. Foolishly, she'd told him that the “idea” for her novel had come from another author. Then Vaughn had developed a very unfortunate sense of moral outrage. Damn writers—they were all the same! She had to come clean, Vaughn told her. She was better than this, he insisted. He would stand behind her, help her. He loved her, he said.

Alice had played at being sorry. Fine, she said, she would tell Carol. And then she would tell Carol about the two of them. They'd announce themselves as a couple. They should celebrate, Alice told him. They should do something…wild.

Alice shook her head. It had been so easy to convince him. It was as if he'd just been waiting for the opportunity to fall back into the arms of Morpheus. If you thought about it, she hadn't really done anything that he wouldn't eventually have done himself. And she hadn't exactly twisted his arm to expose the vein.

One of the silly office girls, Brie—or Sarsaparilla or whatever her ridiculous name was—nervously approached Alice's desk, interrupting her thoughts.

“What?” Alice said. She'd given up the pretense of being nice to the underlings. Now that she'd become more valuable to Carol, it was no longer necessary, or fitting, to treat them as equals.

“Carol's waiting to see you,” the girl said. “She asked me to come get you.”

“Get me?”

“Asked you to come see her.”

“Tell her I'll be right there,” Alice said.

The girl hesitated. Alice gave her a look of impatience. “What is it?”

“It's so sad about Vaughn Blue, isn't it?” the girl said.

“Terrible,” Alice said without hesitation. “Very sad.”

“He was so talented.”

More than you know, Alice thought. “Yes, he was,” Alice said.

“And he was so gorgeous,” the girl said, sighing.

“Yes,” Alice agreed, but, in reality, she couldn't remember. The last time she'd seen Vaughn Blue he'd been the same color as his name and quite dead.

“Tell Carol I'll be right there,” Alice said, and dismissed the girl with a wave of her hand.

 

No, I thought. No, no, no. It was too cruel. Why did he want to torture me like this? He wouldn't—couldn't—do anything to Damiano. The fact that Damiano was missing had nothing to do with this fictional murder and everything to do with the fact that he thought I was crazy. Maybe that was what he meant. Maybe the murder was supposed to be metaphoric. By making me as crazy as Alice, he'd made me “murder” my relationship with Damiano. Had he—Oh God, had he
spoken
to Damiano? Had he found Damiano before I'd had the chance?

There was more—much more, judging from the size of the document—but I had to stop reading. Barely concentrating on what I was writing, I fired off a response and sent it.

 

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Blind Submission

Look, Malcolm, I know you're writing this book, okay? What are you trying to prove now? Are you trying to scare me with this “murder”? It doesn't even make sense in the context of the book. Don't be an idiot. Are you trying to get back at me? Lucy knows, okay? She knows.

 

Within moments, a reply appeared in my in-box. He was obviously online just waiting to see how I'd react. I couldn't get over the sheer gall of him—I didn't know where he found his nerve.

 

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Blind Submission

The question, Ms. Robinson, is not what I'm trying to prove, but whether or not this is good fiction. What's your opinion? If you're scared by my murder, it must mean you think it works.

 

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Submission

I didn't say it scared me, I asked if it was supposed to scare me. I know who “Vaughn” is supposed to be and I know what you're trying to imply here. Don't ask me to believe that he's dead and that I'm somehow responsible, because that's not going to work. I was going to play along—I have been playing along all this time—but I don't want to do this anymore. I'm finished with your charade.

 

I punched the
SEND
key with so much force that my laptop slid backward on my desk. I waited for Malcolm to send me another poisonous e-mail and dialed Damiano's home phone number one more time. No answer. I told myself that it didn't matter, that this manuscript was merely the product of Malcolm's clearly bitter mind. It had nothing to do with reality. I had to stop, had to pull myself out of the pages of this book and…It was a
book,
that was all. “You're nothing but a book,” I said out loud, and wondered where I'd heard the same line. The memory floated just out of reach for a moment and then I grabbed it.
Alice in Wonderland.
That was it.
Who cares for
you, Alice says at the end of the story,
you're nothing but a pack of cards.

I got up and stretched my legs, trying to ease some of the tension in my muscles. I tried not to stare at the computer, tried not to hit the
REFRESH
icon more than once a second, and tried to keep the edge of fear from cutting into my consciousness. Finally, after several more minutes of waiting and watching, I couldn't stand it anymore and took a long, almost scalding shower. I toweled my hair dry and got dressed. Still no response from G.

“This is ridiculous,” I said out loud, and grabbed the telephone. I was sick of playing along—I was just going to call him.

“AANNGGELLL!!!”

There was an inhuman wailing coming from outside my apartment, along with fists pounding on the door. “Damn it, bish! Open the fuggen door!” It was Malcolm—not on my computer but at my doorstep—and by the sound of it, he was out-of-his-mind drunk. “Aaannngel! Open it!” He pounded again. As I got up and walked over to unlock the door, it occurred to me that
now
was the time to be frightened. The crazy-drunk-ex-boyfriend-pounding-at-the-door story never had a happy ending. I opened the door knowing that legions of women who'd done the same before me often wound up as statistics. But I was completely calm. There was desperation, not violence, in Malcolm's voice. And he was making an infernal scene outside. If I didn't let him in, there would be police at my door within minutes.

Malcolm looked like the wreck of the Hesperus. Bedraggled didn't even begin to cover it. His hair was matted and dirty and plastered to one side of his head. He was wearing a pair of baggy torn jeans I'd never seen before and a stained gray T-shirt that said
Canada
in faded red letters. His clothes looked as if they'd been wet and then had dried on him while he slept in them. He was unshaven and unwashed and there was a still-raw scrape down the side of one cheek, as if he'd slid his face along a gravel road. His eyes were bloodshot and dark with patent misery. And if all that wasn't enough, he stank—of liquor and cigarettes and a few other substances I didn't want to identify.

“What happened to you?” I said.

Malcolm looked at me, fists still raised to hit the door I'd just opened, and started to cry. “Bish,” he whimpered. “You ruined my life.”

I stood aside and let him stumble through the door. “What is this?” I asked him after I'd closed the door behind him. “What have you done to yourself?”

Malcolm staggered toward my desk to sit down, but he was too drunk to negotiate something as complicated as lowering himself onto a chair. He missed it, sliding to the floor, catching my computer cord on his way down so that I had to leap over him to save my laptop from crashing onto his head. When I replaced the computer on the desk, I saw that I had another e-mail. It was the response I'd been waiting for.

 

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Submission

Are you so sure it's a charade?

Doesn't art imitate life?

 

Malcolm was sprawled out on the floor, making feeble motions to try to right himself. “Annnggel,” he moaned. “I fugged up.”