Ellipsis (25 page)

“I don't know about God, but His missionaries certainly are.”

He squinted for an instant, indicating his vanity didn't admit to eyeglasses, then regained his smile. “You don't look like a professional proselytizer, Mr. Tanner.”

“Only to abolish the DH, I'm afraid.”

He frowned. “I'm sorry, I don't know the reference. Is it some sort of sacrament?”

“Only in baseball. The designated hitter. I was trying to make a joke.”

He was unfazed by my nonsense. “What can I do for you, Mr. Tanner? And, yes, I'm legally Randolph Scott of San Francisco, changed from Joey Cox of Stockton when I turned twenty-one.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Scott. I'm here to talk about you and Chandelier Wells.”

Impossibly, his mood became even brighter. “How nice. There's nothing I'd like better.” Then, as if he were auditioning for a role as a manic-depressive, Randolph Scott began to cry. “Of course it's unbearable what happened to her. I'm quite undone by it all. If I hadn't been ill, I would have been there myself. Perhaps I could have prevented … no. That's silly. I don't suppose you're bringing good news,” he added hopefully.

“I'm afraid not totally, but the doctors say she's improving. I understand you're one of her most loyal fans.”

“The
most
loyal,” he corrected firmly, with the first sign of psychopathy I'd seen.

“That kind of thing is difficult to measure, isn't it? Loyalty. Devotion. Dedication.”

“Not if you have devoted your life to
this
,” he said proudly, and stood with a purposeful lunge. “Please follow me,” he ordered somberly, and led me down the hall to what I nervously assumed was a bedroom but instead was an elaborate shrine to the divinity of Chandelier Wells.

In the center of the room were three rows of shelves that reached from floor to ceiling and were crammed full of volumes and mundane memorabilia. According to Randolph, the shelves contained all the books Chandelier had ever written, in all editions, in all the languages in which they had been published, plus various objets d'art that related to themes in her stories.

Randolph took my amazement for admiration. “They're signed, too. Every one. I go through the line six times on occasion. Since 1995, she's signed them ‘to my #1 fan.' Isn't that special?”

“Very.”

When he beckoned, I followed him to the rear of the room. Behind the shelves was a small sitting area complete with chair and table and lamp and rug. Photos of Chandelier covered all of the available wall space, ranging from small snapshots that Randolph had undoubtedly taken himself to glossy publicity photos of Chandelier in a variety of professional poses in the studied formality of Karsh. Audiobooks of Chandelier's work were piled high by the stereo, bound galleys lay scattered around the chair like discarded playing cards, and posters of blown-up book jackets were propped against the wall like the overflow in an art gallery. Most dramatic of all, a life-size cardboard cutout of Chandelier Wells, smiling broadly and extending her hand in greeting while clutching a copy of
Shalloon
to her chest, was welcoming a pagan into the fold.

“This is quite a memorial,” I said with titanic understatement.

“They're all Chandelier's things, you know,” Randolph announced proudly as he gazed at his cozy lair. “Even the chair is one she threw out back in '94.”

“How did you manage to get hold of it?”

“I go by her house every day, the street in front and the back alley. You'd be surprised what I find tossed away for the trash. I've got a storage unit
full
of her things. I rotate them in and out of the house, to keep the memories fresh.”

I was intrigued in spite of myself. “Do you go through her garbage?”

Somehow I'd insulted him. “I would
never
do that. It would be an intolerable invasion of privacy. I only take what they leave out in the open.”

“But you go by her house every day.”

“When she's in town I do. Unless I'm sick. And sometimes even then.”

“Why do you do it?”

His look suggested I belabored the obvious. “To see her, of course.”

“You see her every day?”

“Oh, no. I don't see her for months on end. She travels a lot. On vacation or on promotional junkets. I'd love to follow along, but I can't afford it.”

“Does she know you do this?”

“Oh, yes. She knows I'm there. She knows if she needs me for anything, I'll be there at noon sharp every day.”

I guess I didn't believe him. “You're at her house every day at noon?” I said dumbly.

“I get there by ten, usually. She never goes out before ten. Not since she made it big.”

“When was that?”

The answer was automatic. “
False Hope
. Nineteen eighty-nine. Six hundred and ten thousand copies printed; four hundred and eighty-three thousand copies sold. In hardcover.”

“What about paperback?”

His smile was as smug as if he'd written the book himself. “One million six. She's over three million now, of course.”

“The paperbacks cost, what? Five bucks?”

“Back then, yes. They're six now.”

“And she gets what?”

“Five percent.”

“That's not much, is it?”

His jaw thrust out like a spatula toward quiche. “I'll say it's not. She's getting screwed, big time. I don't know why Amber doesn't make Madison House take the softcover rights to auction.”

“Still, five percent of six dollars is thirty cents, times three million is nine hundred grand. That'll buy a lot of pens and pencils.”

He shook his head.” It's not the
money
,” he said, repeating the axiom I'd first heard from Lark. “Everyone thinks it's about money, but it's not.”

“Then what is it?”

“The status. The legacy. The comparison with other writers. Barbara Winston gets a full fifteen percent royalty on
her
hard/soft deal with HarperCollins and she's not
half
the writer Chandelier is. And she gets a bigger advance as well. Of course she doesn't earn out—Chandelier is the only writer of romantic suspense who actually
earns back
her advance. But you don't hear about that, do you? All you hear about is the precious
millions
that hacks like Barbara Winston receive from the idiots who publish her. Ms. Wells lets too many people take
advantage
of her, is the
problem
. Amber should put a stop to it, but for some reason she doesn't.”

“You know Amber?”

“Not really. Just what I read in the trades.
Publishers Weekly
, mostly,” he added when he saw my look.

“I'm surprised Chandelier's getting ripped off. I heard she was as hard as nails.”

His voice softened as if he were talking about an infant. “Oh, she tries to be. And she seems that way sometimes. But deep down she's a pussycat. Would you believe she gives me a trinket whenever she sees me?” He pointed. “See that shelf? I call them my treasures. They're things Chandelier gave me herself. Her very own possessions that she said I can keep.” In the umbra of his rapture, I examined the shelf myself.

If I hadn't known they were treasures, I would have assumed they were junk. There were lipsticks and compacts and brooches and bracelets. And key chains and coffee cups and writing pens and bookmarks. And on and on, arrayed on trays of black velvet like ancient artifacts, all junk Chandelier Wells clearly had no use for, all nostrums that made life worth living for the former Joey Cox.

“Would you like to see the outfits?” he asked quietly.

“What outfits?”

“The ones I wear to the signings. They're exact in every particular. I have at least one ensemble for every one of her books.”

“I'll have to pass on the outfits,” I said. “Let's talk about what happened to Chandelier two days ago.”

“Do we have to?”

“Just for a minute.”

His eyes filled with tears for a second time. He pulled a silk hankie from his sleeve to dab at them. “It's so tragic. I've been to the hospital three times. I bribed a nurse to give me updates every two hours.” He paused. “They say she's going to be fine. She is, isn't she?”

“I think so, over time. Do you have any idea who might have done something like that to her?”

His expression turned stern and judgmental, reminiscent of my ninth-grade music teacher. “I have many ideas. But no proof.”

“Give me some examples.”

“Her ex-husband is a brute. And Viveca Dane is a jealous harridan. And Lisette Malcolm, well, don't get me started on Lisette.”

“Who's she?”

“The former editor of the newsletter, among other things. Before I took over and made it intelligible.”

“Lisette didn't take it well?”

“She was livid. She threatened to burn down my house. Lord knows what she tried to do to Chandelier.”

“Chandelier fired her?”

“She had Lark McLaren do it. But of course Chandelier made the decision.”

“Where's Lisette hang out?”

“In Hayward. She's a librarian. And a very spiteful person.”

“I'll have a talk with her.” Though only as a last resort.

“If you do, tell her I'm not going to print her silly little piece on food metaphors. I didn't find it to be at all worthy of publication in the
Chandelier Chronicles
.”

I told Randolph I'd try to remember to pass along the rejection. “Tell me this, Mr. Scott. When you're at Chandelier's and she goes out somewhere, what do you do?”

He blushed. “I follow her.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

“Why?”

“To be near her. To be ready if she needs me.”

“Needs you for what?”

His shrug was heedless of burden. “Whatever.”

I gave in to my urge. “Why is she so important to you?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes. I do.”

He looked momentarily stricken, then straightened with pride and purpose. “In today's vernacular, I have no life. But when I'm reading Chandelier's books, I have the most wonderful existence imaginable.”

“How so?”

“For one thing, I'm Maggie Katz's best friend. Her confidant. Her soul mate. We go many places and see many things and she tells me her innermost thoughts every step of the way. And every time we go on an adventure, we make the world a better place.” He lifted his gaze to the bookshelves. “On my own, I do nothing. But with Chandelier, I move mountains. And for that, I owe her my life.”

“What if she stopped giving you presents? What if she asked you not to follow her around anymore?”

Randolph shrugged in Zen-like unconcern. “It wouldn't matter. Whatever she wants is what I want. That sounds pathetic, I know. But it's truly what I feel. Before Chandelier, I was nothing. I hated myself. I wanted to die because I felt so useless and so foreign. But now I have a purpose. And my purpose is Chandelier Wells.”

I waited for his thoughts to return from the world of yearning and romance. It was a world I had once known well, though not for forty years. “Were you following her last week, Mr. Scott?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Her driver told me she was making the rounds of some pretty rough places.”

He shuddered, then nodded. “She went into neighborhoods that looked like war zones. I was horrified.”

“Where were they?”

“Mostly South of Market. I know they claim it's coming back, but really.”

“SOMA, you mean?”

“Farther south than that. The Potrero, mostly. Out past China Basin.”

I perked up. “Where did she go in the Potrero?”

“Two places. One she was in for just a few minutes. The other she was in for more than two hours.”

“What kind of place was it?”

“A bar. Saloon. Tavern. Whatever noun is most disreputable.”

“Do you remember the name of this joint?”

“The Porthole, I think it was called. A horrid little place on Illinois Street. Out by the bay.”

Chapter 26

Illinois Street out by the bay was where I'd been shot, and where I'd shot Charley Sleet, and where the Triad had set up headquarters in an abandoned power house not far from the Potrero police station. Suddenly Chandelier Wells and her apparent quest for a new milieu for a saga of romantic suspense had come uncomfortably close to Jill Coppelia's effort to clean up police corruption in the city. The same professionals who had killed Wally Briscoe could have set and triggered the bombs beneath Chandelier's car. The possibility sent me racing back to the office bathed in the sweaty stink of foolishness and frustration. I had the phone in my hand before I sat down at the desk.

Lark McLaren didn't ask many questions when I suggested that Violet Wells be kept home from school that day, and that if at all possible she and her nanny should be whisked off to some secluded hideaway for a while. What Lark had seen and done in the past forty-eight hours must have made anything at all seem possible, even conspiracies that victimized little children.

“I haven't had time to find a geek,” I said when I'd finished making arrangements for Violet's safety. “You'll have to do it yourself.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“Look for a file under the name or password of Hardy. Vincent Hardy. Also the name Triad. Also Wally or Briscoe. Also any synonym for cops or corruption.”

“You sound like you've learned something.”

“I don't know if I have or not. But if any of those files show up on Chandelier's computer, it will be the first real lead I've turned up.”

“Okay. I'll run through the files again and let you know what I find out.”

“Also, if any city cops come around the hospital and ask to see Chandelier, don't let them. Have the doctors keep them out, then have Ruthie Spring call the Berkeley police and tell them a witness to the bombing is in danger. If they won't come, call the FBI. Use the name Hugh Cadberry, he's a former agent. Also call the San Francisco DA's office. Ask to speak to Jill Coppelia. Tell her you need a protective order for Ms. Wells against an outfit called the Triad. She'll know what you're talking about.”