Part 3 (1/2)

And there was still the unsigned Giverney contract. h.e.l.l.

Without a care in the world for an expense account (as it wasn't theirs), Nancy and Bill ordered up a couple of Remys.

”Make it doubles,” Bill called to the waiter's departing back. ”Anyway, congrats, Clive. Good job. I'm glad I'm not going to have to take the heat, though, when Giverney doesn't earn out.”

Clive mumbled a response.

”You know what one of Giverney's demands is going to be, don't you? He's going to want Tom Kidd as editor. You know that, don't you?”

Clive stared at him. How in h.e.l.l did Bill know that? Well, he wasn't going to tell him he was right. ”What makes you think that?”

Bill shrugged. ”Makes sense, doesn't it? Giverney'd want the best. He's such an arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d.” He had that stupid smile pasted back in place. ”I'm only glad I don't have to be the one to tell Tom Kidd.” He swiped at his knee with his hand, laughing. ”I'm just glad I don't.”

Nancy said, straight faced, at least at first, ”Tom will just take out a gun and shoot you. Fancy that. Poor Clivey.”

When Clive returned to his office after lunch, feeling deflated, he found a book lying in the center of his desk blotter. It was one that Mackenzie-Haack had published two years previously, Fallguy. This was the book Bobby had mentioned, the one by Danny Zito, who took a lot of heat for it, but would have taken more, and worse, had he not gone into the witness protection program right before the book had come out.

It had been one of Clive's books, though he'd told Bobby Mackenzie another editor, someone like Peter Genero, would do a much better job (meaning, the book was beneath Clive) and that Peter would get on a lot better with Danny Zito.

”Why? Because he's Italian? You mean, it takes one to know one?”

That had been Bobby's response. He'd told Clive that the book needed some toning up, some cla.s.s, however superficial, and Clive was just the one to supply it.

Danny Zito had turned out to be a very down-to-earth (well, sure), entertaining guy. He was a h.e.l.l of a conversationalist over pricey lunches (though Clive was always watching his back) and the book had done somewhat better than expected.

Clive sat down then with the book in his hands.

Why?

He got up and went to the door. His a.s.sistant, Amy Waters, was working on some copy. ”Amy, where did this come from?” He held the book up. It had quite a handsome black-and-white jacket with an embossed silver t.i.tle.

Amy squinted as if she couldn't see the four-inch-high Fallguy from a couple of feet away. ”Maybe Bobby left it?” She went back to her copy.

”You put that as a question, Amy. The question is what I'm asking you, for G.o.d's sakes.” Why did he bother saying that? Amy always put statements in the form of questions.

”Oh. What I mean is: Bobby was in your office before.”

”But what did he say?”

”Nothing. Just walked in and walked out. He said, 'Hi, Amy,' but I wasn't paying much attention; I'm trying to get this copy ready for the catalog?”

Clive grunted and walked back into his office with the book, sat down, and stared at it.

Danny Zito?

SEVEN.

Clive was still looking at Fallguy, thumbing through the book, about to pick up the phone-no, to go to Bobby's office to ask him what in the h.e.l.l he'd left the book for. He was thinking this when Tom Kidd materialized in Clive's open doorway. ”Materialized” was the right word for Tom had found a patch of darkness and it was difficult to make out his features, except for the tonsure of pale hair that, lit from behind, foamed around his head.

Tom was not one for telephone chat or a ”Hey, got a minute?” approaches. Clive rarely saw him, and when he did it was usually in a sudden appearance, such as this. Rarely did he have an opportunity to talk with Tom; Clive certainly never made one. Tom was not one to stop by for an editorial chat; he fairly lived in his office, small but with a view that was magnificent, even by New York City standards. The view was meant to keep Tom happy. It was wasted on him; views of Manhattan didn't interest him, since he doubted the place changed much from day to day (he'd said). Tom had merely found the New York scenery a good backdrop for stacks and stacks of books.

Clive imagined that even when Tom's head came up from reading one of his ma.n.u.scripts, he didn't really see, as on a winter's night, the lighting up of Fifth Avenue, all of the lamps in front of the Plaza pressing through amber fog, nor did he see the dark drapery of trees at this end of Central Park. He saw words. Tom would still be seeing the words of the ma.n.u.script in his mind-this sentence, this image, this transparent page superimposed upon the Plaza and the park-whose sentence? Whose image? Isaly's? Gruber's? Grace Packard's? describing the scene down there with such precision that the words seemed to melt into the fog and the trees and the snow and become it.

That, thought Clive, was what editors like Kidd saw. There weren't many of them. Thank G.o.d. Kidd always made Clive feel inadequate; he did this without even trying. All he had to do was appear in the d.a.m.ned doorway.

Clive would have to rally. ”Tom!” he said, rising from his chair.

”Clive.” Tom was lighting up one of his big cigars. They were quite vile. All of the flack on smoking seemed to have sailed right over Tom Kidd's head. ”I just saw Tootsie Malone.”

Agent for Clive's one good writer, Jennifer Schiffler. ”Was she coming to see me? What'd she say?”

”I don't know. I couldn't read the balloon above her head.”

Tom hated agents of all stripes and kidney except for Jimmy McKinney, one of Mort Durban's agents.

”I understand you're signing Paul Giverney.”

Clive tried for hearty self-denigration, laughed, and said, ”Trying like h.e.l.l to.”

”Why?” Tom had taken a step into the room and smoke billowed out behind him as he exhaled.

”Why?”

Tom nodded. ”Why do we need another commercial writer? A new one seems to pop up every day. Now it's Giverney.”

”Come on, now, Tom. You know every house in Manhattan is trying to get him.”

Tom shrugged. ”Again I ask, why?”

”Look, sit down, will you?”

”No, I've got to finish going over Mary's contract.”

This was Mary Mackey. Clive saw an opportunity to get off the subject of Paul Giverney. ”Mackey's such a good writer. I'm glad you got her an extra twenty thousand.” He could have bit out his tongue; he was leading right into the subject of advances. Mary Mackey had originally been offered fifty thousand, but Tom had shoved it up to seventy. Still, it was mere change compared with someone like Dwight Staines or Paul Giverney. If Mackenzie-Haack took just 15 or 20 percent of the money it was paying writers like Staines or Rita Aristedes, it would be enough to keep really good writers out of trouble for years. Clive certainly wasn't going to say this, or Tom would come back with one of his ”forgotten world” speeches. Back there, in the mists of the forgotten world of publis.h.i.+ng, it used to be that money would be paid to keep new writers afloat, even though there wouldn't be a return on their books for years. The ”forgotten world of publis.h.i.+ng.” Back there with the dinosaur bones.

This made Clive recall a recent sales conference during which Tom had presented a new novel by Eric Gruber. He took pains to point out that in this novel one character was a dinosaur. ”Please keep in mind, when you go into the bookstores, that Eric Gruber is a fabulist, that he's really not Stephen King or Michael Crichton. If you need a buzz term, call it magical realism, that's as good as any-unfortunately.”

Tom hated buzz words.

Leo Brand, who headed up sales, told Tom he always talked as if the whole publis.h.i.+ng machine-including sales-was a d.a.m.ned thorn in the writer's side, as if the house were some obstacle course that Tom's writers had to run, and Leo wished Tom would keep in mind that without Mackenzie-Haack, Tom's f.u.c.king writers wouldn't even be in print.

”What's so great about print-” Tom had asked, unfazed ”-if you've got a pencil and a piece of paper?”

He made other editors-G.o.d knows he made Clive-feel as if they'd all come up short. Well, they had, hadn't they? Tom's writers took all of the literary prizes: a dozen National Book awards, several Pulitzers, scads of notable book citations, a number of New York Critics' Circle awards, and the same number of foreign prizes. This was, admittedly, over a couple of decades. But decades had not turned up a rash of prizes such as these for any other editor, indeed, not for all of the editors put together. There had been a sprinkling of awards to other editors' books, but that's all.

Of course there wasn't a publisher in New York who hadn't gone fis.h.i.+ng to get Tom away from Mackenzie-Haack. The biggest lure they had tossed out was the offer of his own imprint, which was Queeg and Hyde's offer. All of this was very hush-hush, of course, but there being no secrets in politics and publis.h.i.+ng, the word had drifted around to Bobby Mackenzie, who had, naturally (and uninventively), offered Tom the same thing: his own imprint. This would mean Tom would have a small segment of Mackenzie-Haack all to himself. His name would appear right beneath the publisher's own on the spine of the book and on the t.i.tle page. A very prestigious thing, one's own imprint. Clive had been trying to get one for years. ”A Clive Esterhaus Book.” He loved the look of it when he typed it on a piece of paper. But it was a look that hadn't materialized.