The Slipper (34 page)

11

If I have to read one more sweet nurse romance, I'm going to jump right out of this chair and
scream
, Nora promised herself as she stared at the pile of manuscripts Charlie, the office boy, had just dumped unceremoniously on her desk. I could do without lesbian novels, too. Baritone babes in heavy fur coats and dark glasses, mournfully prowling the bars. Will the paperback audience ever get tired of this crap? And when the hell is Mr. Ross Sheridan ever gonna let me handle real writers instead of his paperback hacks? Two fucking years I've worked here and I'm still shoveling shit over to Ace and Manor and Popular Library and I've yet to handle a hardback. Count your blessings, sweetheart, at least you're not handling the shoot-'em-ups and the epics about bug-eyed green men from Mars. Wearily she reached for the manuscript on top of the new pile.
Nurse Dalton's Chance
by Elsie Prentice. Jesus! Give me a break. No need to read it. Stuff it in a manila envelope and send it over to Manor. They published all the Elsie Prentice sagas. Include a cover letter saying this one's special and we want five hundred bucks more and a two percent increase in royalties.

Nora typed up the letter—the first paragraph oozing with enthusiasm for Elsie's latest, the second paragraph demanding more money and strongly hinting that another publisher was champing at the bit for this writer's output—then placed it in a huge envelope along with the manuscript and gave it to Charlie, telling him to send it out immediately to Manor, giving him the editor's name. The next gem on the pile was a number entitled
Too Hot for Hell
by Burt Stone. Hard-boiled stuff, voluptuous blondes, tough detective who mows 'em down with a mean right and a sawed-off shotgun, sex and violence in machine gun prose. No need to read this one either. Signet was making a bundle with the Burt Stone originals. A poor man's Mickey Spillane, Burt Stone was actually a sweet little lady from South Carolina in her sixties, but who the hell is gonna buy
Too Hot for Hell
by Bessie Mae Rawlins? Off to Signet with the usual demands for more money this time. Ten o'clock now. Time for a coffee break. Nora stood up and stretched.

The salt mines were humming, as usual. Twenty desks crammed into a large airless room with dreary tan walls and a corrugated white ceiling stained yellow from all the cigarette smoke. Manuscripts heaped on desktops and stacked untidily on the floor, more arriving by the minute. A water fountain. A coffee machine and two stacks of cardboard cups on a battered wooden table, along with a green glass kitty for nickels. The cheap son of a bitch made them pay five cents for every cup of coffee they drank and woe unto anyone who tried to sneak one without paying. At least cream and sugar were free. Phones ringing shrilly. Typewriters banging away. All the little slaveys hard at work while Mr. Ross Sheridan was ensconced in splendor in his private office, busily making big deals for big-name writers.

I come to New York because I think he's gonna sell
This Heaven, This Hell
and make me a star, and every publisher in New York turns it down and the bastard likes me, thinks I'm cute, cons me into coming to work for him. I visualize glamor—chic lunches at the Four Seasons, tête-à-têtes with top editors, squiring glamorous authors around in limos—and what do I get? I get his paperback hacks. I get to meet Bessie Mae and take her to Patricia Murphy's for shrimp salad. The job did have its perks, though. Occasionally there was a fancy party for one of the big authors, like the one for Jason Pollen tonight, and Ross expected all his bright young women to attend wearing their brightest smiles and their fanciest attire. Free booze. Caviar. Smoked salmon. Doggie bags after the shindig.
Ross
carried home the doggie bags, but the girls always managed to smuggle out a bottle of scotch or some fancy canapés wrapped up in a paper napkin.

Ross Sheridan was a rogue, a charlatan and the scourge of the industry according to his competitors and a number of editors in publishing, while to his writers he was the Boy Wonder. The boy was bald now and in his late fifties, but he was as flashy, as flamboyant, as volatile as when he first stormed onto the publishing scene like some rapacious carpetbagger and cornered the markets on mysteries and paperback originals. Sheridan was one of the few agents who advertised, running showy, tantalizing ads in the trades and many of the pulps that promised
YOU TOO CAN BE A PUBLISHED WRITER!
While he did represent a few top-selling authors and cooked up fabulous, highly publicized deals for ghost-written celebrity autobiographies—he was still hoping to bag Sonia Henie and Vera Hruba Ralston—the bulk of his business was in paperback originals doled out to efficient, ambitious young assistants like Nora and Sage Conway. However, most of his fortune had been made from books that never saw print at all. This was what his competitors resented most of all, what they considered unethical, unprofessional, fraudulent and downright foul. Sheridan just considered it good business and kept trotting off to the bank.

Nora shook her head, thinking of his racket, scam or, as he liked to call it, “service.” Very few people believe they can automatically paint a masterpiece, compose a symphony, perform brain surgery or step onto a stage and sing grand opera. Every kid on the block believes he can write a best-selling novel, despite lack of education, experience, or even the most basic comprehension of English grammar and syntax. Shell-shocked clerks in tobacco shops in Kentucky and stout, gum-smacking housewives in Missouri scribble on yellow pads or type away on decrepit Remingtons convinced they're going to be the new James Jones, the next Kathleen Winsor. These were the people who saw his ads and leaped at the chance to become rich and famous overnight. Hundreds of manuscripts came flooding into the office every month, and Sheridan charged a hefty reading fee for each one. They were turned over to a group of poorly paid employees—the peons—who glanced at them, kept them for a few weeks and then sent them back with one of half a dozen form letters stating that while the book showed great promise it needed considerable work on plot, structure, character, dialogue or whatever, a few personal remarks about the particular manuscript artfully woven in for verisimilitude.

The recipients of these letters were usually quite satisfied—a real New York literary agent thought their book showed promise, it just needed some revisions, some more work—and another flood of manuscripts poured in and Sheridan got richer and his rivals gnashed their teeth. Hell, he hooked
me
, Nora thought, moving over to the coffee machine. At the time her letter of inquiry arrived, Sheridan had been looking for another bright, capable young assistant to help shuffle the schlock, and her letter had piqued his interest—a senior at Claymore, straight-A student, Jewish, interested in writing, obviously ambitious, perfect for his purposes. So he took me out to lunch, signed me on at the salt mines and really did try to market my book. Didn't charge me a reading fee either. And they say he has no heart. Ross Sheridan might be vulgar, pushy, self-promoting, an ardent publicity hound who loved to have his name in the columns, but he was also dynamic, outrageously funny and crazily endearing in his own special way. You might want to shove the guy under a freight train at times, but you couldn't help liking him, couldn't help smiling at the hype, hoopla and bombastic shenanigans. Working at the Ross Sheridan Literary Agency might often be frustrating but it was never dull. You sure as hell learned everything about the publishing business, and if you were smart, you used that knowledge to further your own career. Half the editors in town were graduates of the salt mines, it seemed, and they all had horrific tales to exchange.

Nora wasn't interested in becoming an editor. She still planned to write that blockbuster, and in the meantime she was keeping her finger on the pulse. A couple of years back
Nine Coaches Waiting
by Mary Stewart had come out, sold fantastically well, and then came
Thunder Heights
by Phyllis A. Whitney. Both books were in the Daphne Du Maurier, Charlotte Bronte tradition, featuring innocent, inquisitive young heroines, broodingly handsome heroes and a huge, mysterious house. Hot on their heels came
Mistress of Mellyn
by the pseudonymous Victoria Holt, a novel Dorothy Parker in her Constant Reader column claimed to have been “lifted from
Jane Eyre
as carefully as fingerprints are lifted from the butt of a gun.” It soared to the top of the lists, and Nora scented a new trend. She promptly knocked off her own gothic romance and Ace snapped it up immediately, paying a whopping fifteen-hundred bucks and a one percent royalty rate. At least they hadn't banged her on the head and grabbed her purse while they were at it. There had been three more “Susannah Hart” originals, sold to Dell for twenty-five hundred each with a reasonable royalty rate. They weren't going to make her a fortune, but the extra money helped and the confession market had dried up completely. She was writing, learning her craft, making a little money—and that bestseller was still going to be written, just as soon as she hit upon the right idea.

“I saw that, Nora,” Sage Conway said, joining her at the table.

“Saw what, you bitch?”

“Saw you drop a slug into the kitty. Ross will have a coronary.”

“Me? Drop a slug into the kitty? Cheat Mr. Sheridan out of five fucking cents? Do I
look
like that kind of girl?”

“Where'd you get the slugs?”

“I've gotta purse full.”

“Give me one.”

Nora handed her a slug and Sage dropped it ostentatiously into the kitty and it made a resounding ting. They both giggled, knowing full well Sheridan would hold a sober inquiry, interrogate every single employee and give 'em all a stern lecture when he discovered the slugs. Sage was a tall, slender girl from Columbus, Ohio, with short, silky blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a breezy, outgoing personality. Her wry, caustic wit and engaging warmth made her a constant delight, and her shrewd professionalism was going to carry her far in the book business. Sage was catnip to the men. Nora envied her chic and sophistication.

“Coming to the party tonight?” she asked.

Sage nodded. “My last foray as one of Ross Sheridan's party girls. I handed in my resignation and today's my last day in the salt mines.”

“My God—you're not deserting the ship, too!”

“I start Monday as a junior editor at Dell.”

“You bitch!”

“Watch it, sweetie. I may well be editing your Susannah Hart epics.”

“See if you can get me more money.”

“I'll try. We Sheridan girls have got to stick together. We're going to take over this town one of these years.”

“You'd better believe it,” Nora said.

Both of them were startled as the door to Sheridan's office flew open and the man himself charged toward them. “My God!” Nora whispered. “He's found out about the slugs!” Of medium height, quite rotund, his bald head gleaming, Sheridan wore gray slacks, an expensive pale blue silk shirt, a gaudy blue-and-red tie and, on the pinky of his left hand, a signet ring with a gigantic diamond. His usual checked sport coat was missing. Somehow, for all the money he spent on clothes, Ross always managed to look like a race track tout with pretensions of grandeur. His blue eyes were flashing now. His cheeks were a vivid pink. He seemed to charge the air with nervous energy as he slammed to a halt in front of them and seized Nora's arm.

“You!” he roared.

“I did it!” she cried. “I did it and I'm glad! I'll wear sackcloth and ashes, I'll crawl to work on my knees, but please, please don't fire me, Boss. I've got a gray-haired, paraplegic mother to support, and my baby brother needs an operation. You can't fire me. You just
can't
!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Just getting into the spirit of things.'

“If there's one thing I don't need today, I don't need a smart-mouth giving me lip! An emergency's come up, and you've gotta help me out—you're the only one I trust not to screw it up.”

“Who do I have to kill?”

“Lip! That's all I get around here, lip! James Hennesey's in town. I'm supposed to meet him at Copenhagen at one, go over the new contracts with him, get him to sign 'em. There's a crisis with Jason—he's been on a binge, got into a drunken brawl in the village in the
wee
hours, socked a cop, got tossed into the slammer. I've gotta bail him out and sober him up and see he gets to the party tonight.”

“Bless your heart,” Nora said.

“Look, it's what—ten-fifteen? I want you to pick up the contracts from Meg at eleven and go home and change into something sexy—Hennesey has an eye for the ladies—and then take a taxi to Copenhagen and meet him and charm him into signing the contracts, then bring 'em back to the office.”

“I don't look sexy in this?” she demanded.

“I'm in no mood, Nora. No mood. Don't agitate me! It's gonna cost me a bundle to bail that bastard out, and sobering him up isn't gonna be a picnic either.”

“I'm to take a
taxi?
A real
taxi
? Who's gonna pay for it?”

“I'll pay for the fucking taxi! I don't want you arriving at Copenhagen all hot and mussed up, but you'll bloody well
walk
back to the office when you finish with Hennesey.”

“You're all heart, Ross. I expect a raise for this.”

Sheridan made an exasperated noise and turned to glare at Sage. “You traitor!” he hissed.

“If you'd given me that raise I asked for a couple of months ago I wouldn't be leaving,” she said sweetly.

“Raises! Day in, day out, that's all I hear! You all wanna bankrupt me! At least now I'll have a spy at Dell. Still coming to the party tonight?”

“Wouldn't miss it,” Sage replied.

“My best girl deserting me—no loyalty at all in this fucking business! No wonder I've got bleeding ulcers.”