“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a doctor.”
“Correct. You’re a one-and-done novelist who lives in a fifth-floor walk-up without air conditioning, ghostwrites memoirs and gets your name in the paper a lot because you used to be married to Meryl Streep.”
“Merilee Nash.”
“I’m quite sure it was Meryl Streep.”
“And I’m quite sure it was Merilee Nash. Tell me about your arrangement with Tommy, Mr. James.”
He shrugged his shoulders in the terry cloth robe. “It was Sylvia’s idea to take him on. This was, let’s see, eight years ago, I believe. An Addison James tale requires a tremendous amount of legwork. I have to travel to the locale. Do thorough historical research, collect anecdotes, folklore, legends—all of the authentic flavor that I’m known for. It’s time-consuming work. I was accustomed to doing every bit of it myself, but I’m on a strict deadline. I’m expected to deliver a big fat juicy bestseller every twenty-four months, then go on tour all over the world for an entire month to flog the hell out of it. I couldn’t keep up the pace anymore, much as I hated to admit it, so Sylvia suggested I take on a shoe-leather reporter like Tommy who could work one book ahead of me researching my next one. He’s a damned good reporter. Assembles an immense, detailed file for me. Takes loads of photographs so I can picture what I’m writing about. Has it all ready and waiting for me when I’m set to go.”
“Does he also do some of the writing?”
“Never,” Addison said indignantly. “Do I look like a fraud to you?”
“No, sir.”
“We do kick things around together. Rough out the bones of a story based on what he’s been able to collect from his sources. But then I sit down at this same Underwood right here that I’ve been typing on since you were in diapers and I write every single fucking word.”
“Except lately, you mean.”
He glowered at me. “Don’t know what you mean by that.”
“Sylvia told me that it was Tommy who wrote your last two books, San Francisco and Havana. And Tulsa will make three.”
“That’s bullshit. Stop. Backspace. Erase. Total bullshit.”
“So she lied to me? Tommy didn’t write them?”
Addison stared at me coldly with that eye of his for a long moment. Got up out of his chair, went over to the window and studied the rain falling on Riverside Park and the West 79th Street Boat Basin. Or at least stared down in that general direction. I’m not sure how well he could make out any of it. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“Sylvia asked me the very same question.”
“And you answered . . . ?”
“That my business is secrets. If I blabbed those secrets, then I would no longer be in business. Furthermore, Tommy told me himself that he wrote Tulsa. He said he came up here Friday night to show you the final two chapters. You gave them your okay. Then he went out to make a copy of the finished manuscript for Sylvia and got mugged. Someone has the only two copies of Tulsa in existence. Maybe they intend to hold them for ransom. Maybe there’s something else going on.”
“Such as what?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me that, Mr. James.”
“Do you do a lot of that?”
“A lot of what?”
“Go around hoping for things.”
“Yes, I do. All writers do. Hope is our oxygen. Hope is what keeps us alive. Hope and fear.”
“Of failure, you mean.” He nodded approvingly. “You’re not as dumb as you look. Do you like Perry Mason?”
“The novels by Erle Stanley Gardner or the old TV series with Raymond Burr?”
“The TV series. It’s on every day at noon on one of my cable stations. I never miss it. Care to watch it with me?”
“I’d be delighted to.”
The same went for Lulu, who’s a huge Della Street fan.
Addison went over to a built-in wall unit and flicked on the TV with the remote. The oh-so-familiar brassy, jazzy Perry Mason theme song filled the big room. Until, that is, someone started knocking urgently on the office door.
It was Sylvia, who slid open one of the pocket doors, looking wet and bedraggled from the rain, not to mention extremely ill at ease. Her shoulders were hunched, her eyes fastened to the floor. It was immediately apparent to me that in the presence of her famous father she was not the fire-breathing dragon lady whom we’d all come to know and loathe. She stepped carefully around the shards of the shattered Perrier bottle as she came in, sliding the door shut behind her.
Addison glared at her. “Damn, it, Pudge, why’d you have to show up right now? We want to watch Perry Mason.”
Pudge?
“I-I said I’d be here at noon to meet you w-with Mr. Hoag,” she stammered.
“But I want to watch my show.”
“Why don’t you tape it, Mr. James?” I suggested.
“Why don’t I what?”
“Don’t you have a VCR?”
“Speak English, man!”
“A videocassette recorder. You can record the telecast and then watch it later. Or better yet, you can buy boxed sets of entire seasons. I’m sure someone in Sylvia’s office could order them for you. That way you can watch any episode you want any time you want.”
He gaped at me in disbelief. “Just pop it in a machine and watch it?”
“Precisely.”
He glared at Sylvia again. “Why didn’t I know about this?”
She turned off the TV with the remote, which prompted Lulu to let out a sour grunt of displeasure. “Father, I-I don’t have time f-for this. Can we talk business, please?”
“As you wish. Just give me a minute . . .” He went into his bathroom and proceeded to take a fire hose of a piss with the door wide open.
Sylvia didn’t seem the least bit fazed. She was used to his crude behavior, evidently. Besides, she was much more interested in shooting a Vulcan death stare at me. “Our agreement was to meet here at noon, Stewart.”
“And it is noon.”
“Yvette just told me you’ve been here for almost an hour.”
“A slight exaggeration. I always arrive a few minutes early for important meetings in case I get stuck in traffic.”
“That’s a load of crap. You wanted to talk to him without me.”
“What if I did?”
“I don’t approve of the way you operate.”
“You say that as if I give a damn about your approval.”
Addison let out a cackle from the bathroom. There was nothing wrong with the old man’s ears. “I’m going to like this fellow,” he exclaimed, returning to us after he’d flushed the toilet and washed his hands. “We’ll get along just fine now that Tommy’s out of the picture.”
“I’m not here to replace Tommy, Mr. James.”
Addison ignored me, peering down at Lulu curiously. “What’s his name?”
“Her name is Lulu.”
“Ugly little mutt.”
“She’s not a mutt. Lulu’s a purebred basset, extremely comely, and she’s not little—just short. If you don’t believe me, try to pick her up,” I said, quite certain that a man possessing his ego would be unable to resist the challenge.
“What on earth for?”
“You accused her of being little. Go ahead, pick her up.”
“I’m starting to think you’re as crazy as I am.” As the old man bent over to gather Lulu into his arms, she treated him to a huge yawn, the better to mouth-breathe on him. He drew back, aghast. “Good God, man, what do you feed her—desiccated seal carcasses?”
“Excellent guess, but no.”
He bent over again, and just as he was about to lift her up off of the floor, she transformed herself into a dead weight. Despite straining with all of his might, he couldn’t get her more than an inch off of the floor. It’s impossible to pick up a basset hound that doesn’t want to be picked up, just as it’s impossible to make one keep walking if it doesn’t want to walk anymore. It’ll just lie down and refuse to budge. “Jesus
H. Christ,” he groaned. “How much does she weigh?”
“She got a lot of exercise on the farm this summer. No more than fifty pounds, I’d say.”
“That’s nothing. I should be able to pick her up.”
“You should, except she doesn’t want you to.”
“Why not?”
“Because you called her an ugly little mutt.”
“You make it sound as if she understands what people say. You are as crazy as I am.” He sniffed at his hands. “And why do I smell like castor oil?”
“It’s the rain. Her coat is imbued with an oil to repel water.”
He went in the bathroom again to wash his hands and came out drying them on a towel. “You’re acquainted with Hoagy, aren’t you, Pudge?”
Sylvia’s mouth tightened. “Must you humiliate me in front of m-my colleagues by using that h-horrible childhood nickname?”
“Can’t help it. You still look like the same fat little girl. If you’d do your Royal Canadian Air Force exercises every day like I do, then you wouldn’t resemble a Hubbard squash and men wouldn’t flee at the sight of you.”
“C-Can we please talk business?” she stammered miserably. “We’re here to t-talk business.”
“If you’ll stop that damned stammering!” he hollered at her. “Stand up straight! Stop picking at your scalp! And when was the last time I saw you in a dress that didn’t make you look like a Jewish grandmother?”
Sylvia stood there fighting back tears, utterly mortified. I doubted that very many people had ever witnessed how abusively her father treated her. I found myself feeling sorry for Sylvia James, which was something I’d never imagined happening.
Addison let out a disgusted sigh. “Fine. We’ll talk business. You’ve fired Tommy and this fellow’s taking over, right?”
“Wrong,” I said. “I was talking to you about the theft of the Tulsa manuscript, remember? Did Tommy talk to anyone on the phone before he left to get it copied?”
Addison nodded. “His girlfriend.”
“You heard him say her name?”
“No, but just before he hung up he said, and I quote, ‘Have I told you how much I love you?’ Trust me, the man wasn’t talking to his wife.”
I considered this, my wheels turning. Could Norma Fives, a rising star at a rival publishing house, be involved in this? Could the entire mugging story be a fabrication? Was Tommy complicit in it? I looked over at Sylvia. “What do you know about her?”
“Who, Norma?” She curled her lip. “I know she has no scruples. We’ve gotten in several bidding wars. Each time I’ve been assured by the author’s agent that the book is mine. Each time I get a call back an hour later, and somehow it’s Norma’s.”
I turned back to Addison. “Tommy arrived here with the last two chapters of Tulsa at what time?”
“Maybe four o’clock,” Addison replied. “He brought me the final fifty pages of material that we’d roughed out together. Ran them through his typewriter at home during the week. He’s happier working there than here. Can’t imagine why.”
“And did you read them?”
“Didn’t need to. I already knew what was there.”
“Was that how you collaborated on the rest of the book?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did you ever actually read the damned thing?”
“I wrote the damned thing,” he fired back angrily. “Dictated it, scene by scene. Tommy put it down on paper, that’s all.”
“But you never read what he put down on paper, did you?”
“What for? I’ve just told you, I knew what it said. Are you dense or something?”
“And then off he went to make a copy of the completed manuscript. What time was that?”
“Six or so. And that was the last I’ve heard from him.” He turned to glower at Sylvia. “Why haven’t you told me that I could buy whole seasons of Perry Mason on videocassette?”
“I-I assumed that you knew.”
“Unacceptable. Not credible. Bullshit. You purposely didn’t tell me.”
“Father, w-why would I d-do that?”
“What was supposed to happen next?” I broke in.
“They were supposed to give one of the finished copies to me so that I could read it,” Sylvia answered.
“How much of it had you already read?”
“None. Father never lets me see a book until it’s completed.”
“I make many, many changes along the way,” Addison explained airily. “Throw out characters, add new ones, jettison entire sequences. I don’t believe in showing a work in progress to anyone. Not Sylvia. Not Yvette. Not Bingo.”
“And Bingo is . . . ?”
“Fellow at the garage around the corner who wipes down my GT Hawk.”
“You have a Gran Turismo Hawk?”
Addison nodded proudly. “A ’62, gun-metal gray. I bought her new. She’s a honey. Nobody built better cars than Studebaker.” He tilted his head at me appraisingly. “What do you drive?”
“A ’58 XK150 roadster—when Merilee lets me borrow it, that is. She got it in the divorce.”
“Lovely machine,” Addison said approvingly.
“What about a typist, Mr. James? Was Tulsa being professionally typed as you and Tommy went along?”
“We don’t bother with that,” Sylvia answered for him. “Just wait until Father turns it in. Then a girl in my office puts it into a word processor. Much faster that way.”
I tugged at my ear. “Just so I’m absolutely clear about this, what you’re telling me is that neither one of you has actually read a word of the Tulsa manuscript, correct?”
I didn’t get a response out of either of them. They just looked at me, waiting for me to keep talking. So I did. “How do you know that there even is a Tulsa manuscript?”
“Because Tommy’s been working on it like a demon for more than a year,” Addison answered. “And before that he spent months in Oklahoma researching it.”
“And you trust Tommy,” I said to him. “He’s a top-notch guy. Completely reliable.”
“Completely,” Addison agreed emphatically.
I glanced over at Sylvia. “Yet you think he’s a liar and a thief. You told me so at the Algonquin.”
“What I told you is that I think he’s playing hardball,” she said. “I’ll bet you Norma put him up to this—whatever this is.”
“It happened on the Friday evening before Labor Day weekend. Why weren’t you out at your place in the Hamptons, Mr. James?”
“Because I abhor holiday crowds. And Tommy had phoned to tell me that he had the pages ready.”
“Do you believe that he was mugged?”
Addison sighed impatiently. “What I believe is that this is about money.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because when you’re as rich as I am, everything is about money. Sylvia, why don’t you just find out how much he wants and give it to him?”
“I-I can’t. He’s disappeared.”
“Mr. James, what are you prepared to offer him to make things right?”
“Who says things are wrong?” he demanded.
“Tommy does.”
“So you’ve been in touch with him,” Sylvia said to me accusingly.
“He claims that Sylvia promised him coauthor credit and a one-third share of the royalties on your previous two books—Tulsa would make three—and then reneged on it.”
“Preposterous!” Addison erupted. “I would never share cover credit with anyone else. I’m Addison fucking James! Besides, I just told you, Tommy doesn’t write the books. I do!”
“F-Father . . . ?”
“W-What?” Addison responded mockingly.
“You h-haven’t written a first draft in over five years.”
“Of course I have. See this right here? It’s called a typewriter. I write on it each and every day. Plan to do so as soon as you let me watch what’s left of Perry Mason so I can get back to work.”
“On what?�
� I asked him.
“On my next book.”
“What’s the title of your next book?”
He looked at me blankly.
“Is it San Antonio?” I asked.
He nodded. “San Antonio, right.”
“Wrong. You published San Antonio in 1973.”
He glared at me. “You’re starting to get on my nerves, young man.”
“I hear that a lot. Can’t imagine why.”
“Are we done here?” he demanded abruptly. “Because I need for both of you to leave right now. And that smelly dog, too. We’re finished. GET OUT!”
We stepped our way around the shards of the broken Perrier bottle. I slid a pocket door open and we went out into the hallway. As I slid the door shut behind us, I could hear Raymond Burr’s voice blaring from the TV.
Sylvia started down the hallway and then stopped, biting down hard on her lower lip. Her father had just totally humiliated her in front of me. I felt certain that it was taking every ounce of self-control she possessed to not break down and start sobbing.
“When I was a little boy I had a habit of humming while I ate.”
“You . . . you what?”
“True story. I used to hum tunelessly under my breath. Don’t ask me why. I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it. I was only four years old. To break me of the habit, my father would reach across the table and flick me incredibly hard in the face with his index finger. The fingernail would leave a scratch, sometimes even make my face bleed.”
“Did it work?” Sylvia asked me.
“Sure did. I stopped humming. Developed a facial twitch instead that I had until I was fifteen. I still get it to this day if I’m really tired or upset.”
“I try so hard not to let him get to me . . .”
“He’s your father. He always will. There’s no way around it.”
Sylvia resumed walking. As we headed down the hall we passed Yvette’s suite. She was curled up on her loveseat reading a fashion magazine. “He threw a Perrier bottle at me really hard,” she informed Sylvia. “If it had hit me, I’d be in the emergency room right now.”
“What did you do to provoke him?” Sylvia’s voice was devoid of warmth.
“She didn’t do a thing,” I said. “He just wanted her to leave.”
The Man in the White Linen Suit Page 6