Critical Space (7 page)

When the intercom on the phone beeped, I poked the button with the pen. "Yeah?"

"Mr. Kodiak?" the temp said. "A Ms. Chris Havel is in reception. She doesn't have an appointment. She says she has something to give you."

"I'll just bet she does," Dale muttered, thumbtacking another photograph to the corkboard.

"Tell her I'll be right out," I told the intercom, then came off the button, capped my pen, and got up.

"If she only brought a copy for you, I'll be insulted," Dale said.

"If she only brought a copy for me, you'll have every right to be," I said.

She was waiting at the end of the hallway, smiling as I approached. It'd been almost seven months since I'd seen Chris Havel last, and she didn't look different, but there was a new air about her. Her short hair was artistically disheveled, and her skin had the luster that people get from either healthy living or expensive salons. What I knew about her led me to believe it was the latter. She had a book-bag hanging from one shoulder, black leather, Italian, and that was new; her old book-bag had been canvas, olive drab, Kmart. In her left hand she had a paper shopping bag.

"Thanks for seeing me," Chris said. "I probably should have made an appointment, huh?"

"I can give you ten minutes without the world ending," I assured her, then gestured to my office. When we got inside, she moved straight to the gallery wall, studying each frame. I settled behind the desk and waited for her to finish. When she had, she flopped on the couch like an exhausted teenager, letting her book-bag drop to the floor and putting the shopping bag on the coffee table. From inside she removed a stack of gift-wrapped packages, gold foil paper with a blue ribbon tied neatly around each.

"That it?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah." She took the top package from the stack, then flipped it my way as if throwing a Frisbee.

It was a hardcover copy of her book. The dust jacket was in matte black, with two traditional theatre masks on the cover, both in an embossed, glossy silver. One of the masks was Tragedy, the other Comedy. In Tragedy's left eye glistened a tear of blood. On the back of the dust jacket were quotes from a whole bunch of people I'd never heard of before, saying things like "Terrifying!" and "A revelation!" and "Possibly the most definitive work on the subject ever!"

Her signature was on the title page, with an inscription. The inscription read,
To Atticus
--
Thanks for almost blowing me up.

"You're welcome," I told her. "Next time I'll try harder."

"That was murder to come up with. I never realized how damn hard it is to inscribe a book." She patted the stack. "You were the easy one, too. I had no idea what to say to Corry and Dale. Are they here?"

"Dale's working in the conference room. Natalie and Corry are out right now. If you want to leave the books with me, I'll make sure they get theirs."

"You're busy."

"We are," I agreed.

"I'll leave these with you, then." She settled back on the couch and put her feet on the coffee table, giving me no sign that she was ready to leave. "I tried to do well by you guys. Tried to be honest. You'll have to let me know what you think."

"I will," I said, closing the book and putting it to one side of the desk, by the phone. "Any word on how it's doing?"

"The book's not officially out until Monday, and we've already sold through the first print run just on the advance orders. My publisher is going back to press, this time fifty thousand copies in hardcover, can you believe it? They're talking about the
Times
list like it's a sure thing."

"I'm impressed."

She shook her head and made a vague gesture with her hands, telling me to wait, that there was more to come. "Gets even wilder. I mean, I've got a literary agent, he's just sold my second book, the publisher wants it ASAP, and the advance is an
embarrassing
amount of money, believe me. I've got another agent, the Hollyweird one, and he called this morning with an offer for the movie rights, and
that
makes the advance for book two look like the change you'd find in a gutter."

I realized that what I'd thought was delight in her was actually shock.

"I go on tour next Monday, I'm supposed to do radio and television and Internet chat rooms and PBS and the whole shebang. People are calling my agent, badgering him to get interviews scheduled and crap like that. I'm waiting to wake up, Atticus, waiting for someone to call and say there's been a terrible mistake, they don't mean
my
book, they mean someone else's book, some other Chris Havel."

"I'm happy for you," I said, and I was, but my voice didn't carry the sincerity, and she caught it. Hurt crossed her face for a second, then vanished.

"No, no, I didn't use your names," she said. "All the names were changed."

The relief was like a car rolling off my chest.

"Was that it? What was bugging you?"

"That was it," I said. "Thank you, Chris."

"Maybe you shouldn't thank me, yet. You're in the acknowledgments, you and the rest, and I mention the firm, too. Anyone paying close attention, they'll figure it out, but..."

"We can survive that."

Havel straightened on the couch, letting her feet drop back to the floor. "That scared you?"

"The thought of more publicity actually makes my blood run cold," I confessed.

"Is that it? Not that you're afraid she'll, uh..." Havel made a gesture with her right hand, as if shooting a gun.

"Not anymore."

She came forward on the couch, perching on the end, actively curious. "Really?"

"It would be pointless. It's too late to keep the book from being released, so the only other reason to come after us would be revenge, and I don't believe that factors into her world."

Havel considered, then sighed, leaning back once more. "There were a couple of times when I was writing, I got really scared. Working on a passage, and it would hit me that this was
real,
that I was writing about this secret, that she was out there, she and others... and I was afraid to go outside, I was afraid to stay indoors, I was afraid to be with people, I was afraid to be alone..."

"Been there," I said.

"Yeah, I'm sure you have."

For a couple of seconds we shared a silent appreciation of fear.

"I'm supposed to be working on the next one," Havel said. "My new book. They want it yesterday, kind of a sequel to the first one, something along the same lines. Another book about The Ten."

"Good luck with the research," I said.

"I was kind of hoping you could help me with that."

I said nothing.

Havel looked over at the wall of photographs. "I want to talk to her."

I choked on a laugh.

"Yeah, I know how it sounds," she said. "But she talked to you, a couple times, so it's not that outlandish an idea, is it?"

"No, it is," I assured her. "Chris, you don't want to interview this woman, trust me on this. And come to think of it, I don't imagine she'll be all that willing to grant an interview."

"Have you heard from her? Since the Pugh thing?"

She said it like Drama was my ex-girlfriend, as if we'd parted amicably. "Are you nuts?" I asked curiously.

"I was thinking that if you had, you know, then you could arrange it." She rose, looking at the wall, crossing back for a closer look at the photographs. "I'd be willing to pay her for her time."

"You're not listening to me," I said. "I haven't talked to her. I don't
want
to talk to her. And honestly, neither do you."

"No," Havel said. "Don't tell me what I want, Atticus. It would be an amazing interview, it would be an amazing book."

"I can't help you."

"Meaning you won't?"

"Meaning I haven't heard from her, Chris. Leave it at that."

She turned away from the wall, studying me at my desk. "She hasn't been in touch with you?"

"You sound like the Feds. No."

Her frown was brief, gone again when she asked, "Can you tell me how to contact her?"

"I already said..."

"That's not what I mean, I'm talking about like, if I wanted to hire her, you know? How would I do that?"

I gave her a stare that was hopefully more eloquent than everything she'd been ignoring out of my mouth. She met it with a stare of her own, then shrugged and moved back to the couch, gathering up her book-bag.

"I can figure it out, you know," she said. "Asking you was just the quick way."

"Chris," I said. "You really don't want to do this. You start trolling for one of The Ten, they'll investigate before they even begin to make contact, and they'll find out who you are. This time, they'll know about the first book, and they'll see you coming a mile away. You'll be lucky if they simply ignore you."

With her right hand, she adjusted the leather strap on her shoulder, giving me a smile. "Fear is not a reason to not do something."

"Maybe you ought to examine the source of the fear. Self-preservation is a valid motive."

"You don't get it, Atticus," Chris Havel said, heading for my door.

"Chris..." I tried once more.

"The name of the game is publish or perish," she said as she went out.

"The nut file," I said, dropping the folder on Bridgett Logan's desk.

"What does that look like to you?" she asked.

"I beg your pardon?"

Bridgett sighed and pointed up. We were in her office at Agra & Donnovan Investigations, and she was slumped in her chair behind her desk, ignoring me and focused on the light fixture that hung above. I followed the direction of her index finger, saw the bowl of frosted glass attached to the ceiling. A tarnished brass bolt secured the fixture in place.

"A light fixture," I said.

"Yeah, but what does it look like?"

"Is this a trick question? It looks like a light fixture."

"You have no imagination," she said.

I pushed the file forward across her desk until it was even with her keyboard. It wasn't the thickest nut file I'd ever handled, but it had meat on its bones, and when I pushed it, pages slid out the way playing cards slide from a newly opened deck. "Courtesy New Scotland Yard," I said. "By way of Robert Moore."

"And how is that SAS bastard?"

"Ex-SAS."

"And how is that ex-SAS bastard?"

"Counting on us to make certain his principal doesn't take harm in our fair city. I need you to start on this right away."

"We're on the clock?"

"Lady, I'm here as the man who is subcontracting your services to assist our protective effort, not as the man who is pleasuring you nightly."

"You think mighty highly of yourself, don't you?" She sat up in her chair, flipping the folder open and beginning to scan the pages. "These have been vetted?"

I nodded and took the seat across from her. "Moore or one of his detail screens the mail. They don't like what they read, they forward it to the police and the cops take it from there. That's a copy of the official file, with Moore's notations."

Bridgett kept scanning the pages. "Notes are remarkably free of anti-Irish sentiment so far. You've reviewed this already, I assume."

"I have."

"Any in particular you want me to pay attention to?"

"I flagged the letters that got me twitchy."

She found the pages I'd marked, removing them from the folder and spreading them out to view side by side, then resting her elbows on the desktop and her chin in her hands. She read carefully. There were four that I'd noted as worthy of a closer examination. Three were sexual, two of them signed and from the same author. Both letters were couched in romantic phrasing until degrading into more disturbing fantasy when the author described what he wanted to do with Lady Ainsley-Hunter. While his descriptions weren't explicitly violent, the tone as each progressed became more aggressive and bitter. The third was written anonymously, a graphically detailed rape-murder fantasy. Scotland Yard didn't think the author of the first two and the author of the third were the same.

The fourth letter was a vitriolic death threat, in which the writer stated that he had been "close enough to do it" on more than one occasion. That letter also referenced the Jeppeson attempt, saying that, "you can't be protected all the time."

Bridgett's mouth tightened to a line.

"Just read the bit about the meat cleaver and the drill, huh?" I asked.

She nodded and kept reading, moving one hand to open her desk drawer. I thought she might be going for a Hi-Liter or a pen, but she produced a tin of cinnamon Altoids and popped three in her mouth. The tin stayed open on her desk.

When she had finished reading she separated the two that had been signed. "These worry me the most."

"Those are the ones postmarked out of Connecticut?"

"Hartford, yes. Signed, 'Love always, Joseph Keith.' Not Joe, Joseph. We know who the hell Joseph Keith is? Anything on him in here?"

"No. That's why I'm hiring you."

She crunched the Altoids in her mouth. "When does Lady Ainsley-Hunter get in?"

"Monday."

"Five days."

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'll get on this immediately. Have you talked to Special Agent Dude?"

"Fowler said he'd be happy to take a ride to Hartford with you."

"I'll call him now," she said, reaching for the phone. "If I head to Hartford, I'll be out of town for a couple days. I'll need you to go by my place and bring in the mail, water the plants. You guys backed up?"

"It's always like this the closer we get to a deadline. The details begin unraveling."

She stopped dialing long enough to let me come around the side of her desk and kiss her on the cheek.

"I should have started on this Keith guy a couple weeks ago," she scolded me.

"We didn't get the file until this morning. Moore had some trouble getting the copy released to us."

"It's not enough time, Atticus."

"It's all we've got."

"I'm sure that'll be a consolation to Her Ladyship when the shit hits the fan," Bridgett said.

"So where is he, then?" Moore asked.

"That's the problem," I said. "We don't know."