Foul Matter (15 page)

“Throw something.”

“Yeah, like what? I ain’t got nothin’ to throw. You?”

Karl yawned. So did the cat. That irritated him to pieces. “It’s mocking us.”

Candy made a noise in his throat. “Nuts.”

“I hate cats. I think I’ve got that phobia.”

“Christ’s sake, a phobia yet.” Candy didn’t like the way the cat was looking at him, but he wouldn’t say so. “A big-ass phobia.”

Karl ignored the sarcasm.

“Kick it, you feel that way,” said Candy, ready to go for the damn cat himself. It just fucking sat there, as if it owned the park.

“No way. It’d be just like one of those animal-rights protesters to pop out of the trees and go for us.”

“Jesus, but you got some imagination, Karl. Come on, let’s find a drink.” Candy yawned.

Karl thought the yawn was just like the cat’s and was made even more nervous. “Yeah, a drink sounds good.”

They got up with their books. They didn’t like it that the cat might be thinking he’d forced them out of his place.

“That cat,” said Karl, “that cat’s made his bones.”

Ned thought, how can I leave her there? Is this, then, the last page? It’s too indefinite. But what, really, was indefinite about it? Patric had gone.

As far as Nathalie was concerned, yes, it was the last page.

Ned capped his pen and sat back and stared at nothing.

 

T
hose two hoods, thought Clive (wondering if that appellation was still in use). What had Bobby Mackenzie set in motion? Rather, what had Clive set in motion, going to Danny Zito? If the police ever came into this, you can bet Bobby would fade the heat, play the innocent:
“Did what, officer?”
And point the finger at Clive. That’s all Clive was, one of Bobby’s goons. No, he was
main
goon,
capo
goon.

He had just gotten off the phone with Paul Giverney, who’d called to see if they were making any progress.
Yes, absolutely,
Clive had told him. They had a couple of very good men on the job.

“Like who?”

“No one you know, I’m sure. Trust us.”

That, of course, had been the wrong thing to say to Paul Giverney, who had told him to hang on for a second while he laughed himself into oblivion. “That’s very good, Clive. So I ask you again, who’s this ‘on the job’?”

Clive had told him about Candy and Karl, explaining that these men were consultants who occasionally did specialized work for Bobby Mackenzie. Clive immediately regretted having told Paul their names when he remembered Paul had written a novel about that Mafia killer, which was only a thinly veiled portrait of the guy. Clive couldn’t recall who, but this meant that Paul actually had sources.

“What does that mean? Consulting?”

Clive sighed.

Wondering why in hell
he
had to think of everything, and why didn’t Bobby do it, it was
his
idea, Clive slid out the bottom drawer in his desk—a big handsome desk, a goon gift, Bobby buying him off for little and big things over the years—and brought out a fifth of Bombay gin.

“All right, Paul. I’ll be frank with you.” No he wouldn’t. “They’re following Ned Isaly.”

“Why?”

“To see if they can find out anything, you know, that Ned might not want made public.”

“What? Are you saying you’re looking to blackmail the man? You mean you’ve got to go to those lengths—?”

Oh, ho. Clive wished those were the only lengths to which Bobby Mackenzie
would
go. “You’re the one who wants him out of the way, Paul.”

“Oh, for God’s sakes! Just tear up his contract. You’ve got a raft of lawyers! What the hell else are they good for if they can’t fuck with a contract?”

“Paul, that’s all I can say at the moment.” There was a longish silence. “Paul—?”

“I want to know Ned Isaly’s movements. Since he’s being followed, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

The “since he’s being followed” held a definite smack of sarcasm.

“Well, that wouldn’t be easy; they made it quite clear this is a ‘don’t-you-call-us’ deal. They report when they’re done. We can’t really control them.” This admission made Clive extremely uneasy.

“Why not? You’re paying them.”

Clive toyed with the image of trying to get the hoods to report in every hour. Fat chance. “I’ll do my best.”

But what Clive would do was between him and his Bombay gin, since Paul Giverney had hung up. Clive broke the seal, twirled the cap off with his palm, tilted it, and drank straight from the bottle. Ah.
Ahhhhhh.
He recapped the bottle, shoved it back in the drawer, and closed the drawer.

He turned and looked out of his window at the silver flowering of the Manhattan skyline, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State, the Metropolitan Life Building, this juggernaut of light and thought, this rush of night and stars. He thought of the condo in his own prewar building and the view from there, the same skyscrapers on view from the other side. This office, that condo, these views. Clive couldn’t imagine being anywhere else; there
was
nowhere else. Losing them did not bear thinking about.

Why was he sitting here fooling with the Dwight Staines manuscript when what he should be doing was trying to figure out what in the hell was going on with Paul Giverney? Giverney had sat right there (Clive even nodded toward the chair as if he were recapping the story for some gossipmonger or journalist. Or the police, if he wanted a chilling example). He told himself Karl and Candy at the very worst would only “rough up” Ned Isaly, just enough to “persuade” him to leave town and take his new novel with him. If that was all, then why did he keep trying to bury that phrase “wet work” that Danny had used almost in passing?

But how did he know? They were weird, those two. Imagine wanting to know more about Isaly before they took the job. Those two were fucking weird, as far as he could see across the table in Michael’s. What hit man wants to know the kind of person he’s going after? What sort won’t even commit himself until he does? What sort wants to meet at Michael’s, for God’s sakes?

And this Giverney-Isaly thing. Maybe he could talk to Ned Isaly himself. . . . No, not a chance. Bobby would think Clive was warning Ned and get rid of him along with Ned. Clive, unlike Tom Kidd, was thoroughly expendable. Talk to Tom Kidd maybe? Tom Kidd knew Ned through and through, but it’s unlikely he’d want to share that knowledge with Clive. No, it would be impossible to get anything out of Kidd.

Giverney’s agent. Agents usually knew what their clients ate for breakfast, what they slept in, and with whom. Who they hated and why. Clive grabbed his Rolodex, thumbed through the names of agents (under “A,” cross-referenced with their clients), and came up with Mortimer Durban. Christ, but he hated Mort Durban, the insufferable egotist, the Donald Trump of agents, interested only in the deal, the deal, the deal. Not the writer, The Deal. He was one of the most powerful agents in the business. Mort Durban negotiated a book contract as if he were orchestrating the Normandy invasion. He thought he was fucking MacArthur. He was also agent for a couple of high rollers on Clive’s list. All Clive wanted to say to him when Durban started turning a contract into a fretwork of arcane bits and pieces, clauses of clauses nobody ever paid any mind to or gave a damn about, some nobody seemed ever to have heard of except Mort Durban—all Clive wanted to say to him was, Here’s a pile of money, asshole. Now give me the goddamned book!

Mort Durban wanted you to believe that he believed that agentry was a mission and he a missionary spreading the gospel and prepared to be buried in an anthill for the good of his client, about whom he really cared nothing. This bloated belief in his abilities had him demanding totally inappropriate advance moneys for his authors, meaning, of course, for his own commission. To give him credit (if you could call it credit), he was motivated not as much by the money he himself would collect as he was by the stars in his crown, the rush of the deal.

Clive regarded the bottom desk drawer but decided not to. He started chewing at the bit of dry cuticle on the side of his thumb, thinking. The Giverney thing must have to do with something in the past, some unsettled dispute, some unforgiven slur or slight. Irritated, he hit the intercom button.

Amy answered with a tentative “Yes?”

“Get me stuff on Paul Giverney. Facts.”

“He’s not one of our authors? I don’t understand.”

Clive squinched his eyes shut. I know you don’t understand, you simpleton. Then he said, “He’s
somebody’s
author, isn’t he?”

Silence. A deduction to be made here, but it was too much for Amy. “Amy, what I’m trying to hint at is that Queeg and Hyde, Giverney’s publisher, would have information like that.”

“Oh. Well, I’m not sure how to get it?”

“Ask your friend Stacey (talk about the blind leading; Amy was Diogenes compared to Stacey) to messenger over a copy of their fact sheet on Paul Giverney. You know what that is; we have them, too. They’re no big secret; they’re just a source for publicity and promotion who might need a few salient facts for print, interviews, that sort of thing.”

“They do?”

“Amy, I’m not asking you to exhume Elvis’s body or excavate Graceland for unrecorded tunes. I only want to know stuff like where he went to school and his mother’s maiden name, and so forth.”

“I could call him up? He was just in here a couple days ago.”

Where in the bloody
hell
had Bobby found this girl? He bet she was recycled from Bobby’s outer office. “No, Amy. Listen. Are you having lunch with Stacey this week?”

Amy’s voice brightened. “Oh, yes, tomorrow? We’re thinking of going to that new place on Fifty-fifth? I—”

Clive cut her off before she really got into either hers or Stacey’s eating habits. “Tell you what: I’ll treat the two of you to lunch at Michael’s Restaurant. Just have Stacey bring the fact sheet with her.”

She was thrilled. She probably
would
exhume Elvis’s body for a lunch at Michael’s.

“Now, get me Mort Durban.”

“You want him to come here?”

“On the tel—” Oh, what’s the use? “I’ll do it myself.”

Flick off intercom, resort to telephone.

A voice far more confident and cold than Amy’s would ever be answered, “Durban Agency.”

How did the woman manage to get so much swagger into two words?

Clive didn’t give an inch. “Let me talk to Mortimer Durban.”

“May I ask who’s calling?” An iceberg calving.

“The I.R.S. It’s personal, if you don’t mind.”

No response, but Mort Durban came on, very cautious with his “Yes?”

“Mort! Long time no see! It’s Clive here.”

Mort expelled the breath he’d been holding. “What the hell’s the idea, Clive?”

“Had to say something to get past that subzero receptionist you’ve got. She was with Scott of the Antarctic?” Amy’s habit of sticking on a question mark rubbed off on him sometimes.

Mortimer Durban seemed to be considering this description for some reason. He didn’t reply.

“Look, I thought maybe we could do lunch tomorrow or sometime?”

“Let me check my bookings.”

Bookings? Clive could hear the half-baked British accent clicking into place. Mort spent a lot of time in London, a lot of loud time in that fey Soho club cleverly called Groucho’s that was so popular with the publishing crowd.

“Sorry, Clive, old man. I’m booked up for a month.”

“Okay, how about dinner?”

“Dinner?”

His emphasis suggested dinner was foreign to an agent’s experience. How about breakfast, then, you overbooked asshole? Clive said, “I was thinking of the Old Hotel.” Now Clive was delighted, snickering with his hand over the mouthpiece.

Oh! What a plum!

The Old Hotel was legendary; it was famous for turning people away. Not because the tables were all taken but because they didn’t like you, or at least didn’t like some of you, though how the maître d’ or the various persons who took reservations
knew
they didn’t like you was beyond Clive’s ken, as it was beyond everybody’s ken.

There were edicts handed down by the owner, a man rumored to be all sorts of things with all sorts of connections, but no one Clive knew could tell him which, if any, of these rumors were true. The owner’s name was Duff and no one could say whether that was a first name or a last. “Duff” was all they knew. It was said that Duff kept a long list of suppliants who were not welcome. But for the ones who
were
welcome, hell, it was like getting on the fast track for Lourdes. No one knew the rationale for this list. The names were not always persons; the name could be an area, so that anyone living, say, on the Upper East Side between Sixtieth and Eighty-fourth needn’t bother getting dressed for dinner at the Old Hotel.