Part 28 (1/2)
”Which means no,” said Candy.
Bobby got up in a sudden burst of bravado but was quickly waved back to his chair by two guns in motion.
Karl said, ”We know old Clive here. In this business you get you can read character. Clive would never have thought this up.”
Candy put in, ”But you would, you little dips.h.i.+t.”
”So had Giverney signed a contract?”
”No.” ”Yes.” Both Bobby and Clive spoke together.
Bobby stared at Clive. ”What? When, for Christ's sake? And you didn't tell me?”
”That's what I came in here to tell you. We got-sidetracked.”
”So you can die happy,” said Candy. ”Just a figure of speech, Bobby.” He snickered.
”One last thing,” said Karl. He pulled another envelope from his pocket, tossed it on the desk.
”What's this?” asked Bobby.
”Ticket.”
”What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?”
”To Australia. Didn't you always want to see Australia? Melbourne? The Outback? Sydney Opera House? Kangaroos? We're sending you.”
”I can't-”
”Bobby, you're always saying that. Sure, you can. For a while, six months maybe. You get back in time to take over the marketing of Ned's book. To convince everybody on your staff that no holds'll be barred. You can leave ol' Clive here in charge.”
Bobby gave Clive a lethal look.
”Look,” said Candy, ”it coulda been worse.”
Bobby moved the lethal look from Clive to Karl. ”How?”
”We coulda written a book.”
Candy and Karl howled.
FORTY-TWO.
Sally sat at her desk reading the book about Pittsburgh she had brought back. What she supposed she meant to accomplish by doing this was to be able to talk to Ned about the city. The one she was looking at now was heavy with ill.u.s.trations and old newspaper photos.
Was he interested in the actual history of the place? Or was he interested only in its symbolic history? He did not know about the Pirates' wins and losses over the years, or who the team's coach was, or how many people had filled Forbes Field. What he wanted to think about was the rush the spectators must have felt when Roberto Clemente slammed the ball out of the park; the way the clouds looked ma.s.sed in the gray . . .
Maybe that's not the history that draws me. He had said that a long time ago, arguing with Jamie. Maybe that's not the real history.
Tom Kidd came to stand in the door of his office. He'd been closeted or barricaded behind his stacks of books for twenty-four hours. She bet he hadn't gone home and probably hadn't eaten since that coffee cake Amy had brought around. Bobby's treat. Tom had been reading Saul's ma.n.u.script for a whole day and night and part of another day. He looked goggle eyed.
”Tom?”
He turned the empty eyes on her. Who're you?
He went back into his office.
When she looked out into the busy room-not as bad as a newspaper, perhaps, but not far behind-she saw Clive wandering in and out and around the cubicles like a b.u.m with an empty cup. He looked slightly delirious. A few people called after him, rising to look over the cubicle walls, calling their congratulations, or perhaps they were hectoring him.
Sally hoped he'd pa.s.s her by (but here he came) because she had too much on her mind to deal with Clive.
But of course he didn't pa.s.s; he stopped by her desk, lit a cigar (Bobby's Cuban) and dropped into the wooden chair. ”Sally.”
”What's going on? Did you finally sign up Paul Giverney?”
For everyone was waiting for this.
”Yep.”
”That's wonderful, Clive! I'm really happy for you.” It surprised her that she was. But he looked so happy himself that it was hard to feel her usual antipathy toward him. And then she thought, but he's changed in the couple of weeks. He'd certainly changed since Pittsburgh. What a strange experience that had been.
Sunken cheeked, he sucked in on his cigar, turned it in his mouth, withdrew it, exhaled, and said, ”That ain't all, Sal-”
Ain't? Sal?
”-Bobby's taking a holiday. Six months, maybe longer. I'm taking over for him.”
What was going on? ”Clive-?”
”Cheap thrills.” Tom must have picked up on something going on for he was standing in the door again. But he said this in a sporting, kidding way.
Sally was again surprised by her reaction to Clive's news. As though she'd been heavy with a weight that now lifted. If Bobby was leaving, if the contract was signed, then he'd have no reason to get rid of Ned.
Clive left and Tom went back inside his office, to leave Sally wondering about Paul Giverney. What was he like? Really like? From what she had gathered, he was bossy, arrogant, self-indulgent, a writer who commanded several million per book. Yet he had seemed pleasant enough when he stopped by her desk.
Sally was mooning over Giverney when Tom came to the door a third time, this time with Saul's ma.n.u.script in his hands. ”I'm dead and gone to the sweet hereafter. Go make a copy of this and don't leave the copy machine until it's finished. And don't tell anybody what it is. But first, get me Jimmy McKinney on the line.”
But of course it got around like wildfire. The buzz over Saul's book was exceeded only by the furor over Paul Giverney. To have cornered either of these writers was a coup; to get both of them was nothing short of miraculous. The parade could commence down Fifth, filled with ticker tape and confetti. All the other publishers could lay down their books; it was war's end.
Though Mackenzie-Haack hadn't actually signed up Saul, they would. He didn't have a publisher or even an agent-which might have been the reason for calling Jimmy McKinney, whom Tom probably meant to recommend.
To have both Ned and Saul under this roof, and Tom Kidd as their editor, made Sally happier than she'd been at any time in the last year. She returned to the Pittsburgh book, grinning at every line, and in this frame of mind her eyes skipped over the text, barely touching.
Thus, she would have missed it had there not been a picture of an Isaly's Ice Cream parlor, taken back in the forties, with several employees out front, smiling and squinting into the sun and holding the ever-popular ice cream scoop, like the one Ned kept on the shelf beside the picture of himself and three others, in front of the shop they worked in.