Hidden Agenda

by Anna Porter

  Hard as she tried to fill it with trivia, her mind kept returning to George Harris. What in heaven’s name would he have been doing on the subway late at night? What, now that she thought of it, would he be doing on the subway at any time? George drove a car. His office was nowhere near the subway line. He never traveled by subway. Not even in dire straits. Hell, when the company was almost bankrupt, he still took first-class air tickets. Always a man with a sense of style. If he couldn’t drive, he’d get a cab. He’d walk, for chrissakes! Worst came to the worst, he’d stay where he was. Let them come to him. Strange how the failure of his business to make money had affected George. The poorer the firm became, the more style he got.

  She took out her interview notes which, as usual, were copious. Out of two hours with George Harris, she had recorded over thirty pages of tightly packed shorthand.

  She had read through the first twenty when the managing editor of Saturday Night called. Had she heard the news, and could she get the story in by the end of the week? Now that George had died, there would be a number of stories. Hers was farthest ahead and they wanted it for the next issue. She said she would try, though she didn’t think she could pull it together so quickly, at least not while there was any question of suicide.

  The managing editor was quite convinced that they shouldn’t probe into the suicide theory. The family wouldn’t want that to be a topic of public discussion. They were entitled to some privacy.

  After she had hung up, Judith finished reading her notes. Just as she remembered, George had been positively ebullient, really enthusiastic about the future. A few years ago he had had to restrain the publishing list, but those had been hard times in all spheres of business. Now he felt his debts were manageable. He anticipated that the whole industry would benefit from the federal government’s new policy paper, and his firm, strong in its history of support for Canadian talent, would undoubtedly benefit the most. He planned to go to the American Booksellers’ Association convention this year, for the first time in seven, because he had some important properties to discuss with American publishers. And he had just accepted an invitation to be the luncheon speaker at the annual meeting of the Canadian Authors’ Association in Vancouver. He was going to talk about the importance of publicity for the success of a book and had a number of jokes and personal anecdotes already sketched out.

  Would a man who was about to kill himself be inventing jokes?

  Three

  NOW THAT SHE SAW how miserable Judith looked, Marsha wished she’d been able to come last night, but Jelinek had staged an auction for Reginald Montgomery’s new multi-generational saga, and Marsha had to be in on the bidding. It had opened at 4:00 p.m. with a floor price of $50,000, not an unhealthy start by Morrow (she guessed it was Morrow; the agent would sooner have sat on a hot griddle than reveal any names) and risen to $88,000 by 5:30. At 6:00 Jelinek had suggested she stop screwing around, which was his way of saying that the bidding was not going as high as he had in mind, but he noted her offer of $5,000 up anyway. The second round took over an hour. Marsha was ready with $100,000 when Jelinek called again, but they were at $120,000 already.

  She had been obliged to call in Marketing for help. That meant giving young Markham a chance to parade his opinions while she forced herself to listen. She knew he had been waiting to be consulted because he had two sheets of statistics clutched to his chest, including sales figures for books she had never encountered. It was 6:30 and he had been waiting in his office for the phone to ring. Ambition without talent is a terrible thing, Marsha thought, but Larry Shapiro had insisted she call Markham if the price went over $100,000, and she had so much wanted to land Montgomery.

  It wasn’t over until 9:00. She’d lost the bidding and her temper at $150,000, Markham was still talking strategy, and it was too late to catch the last flight to Toronto.

  She picked up the flowers on the way to La Guardia this morning, having guessed Judith would deny it was her birthday, so that there wouldn’t have been any flowers yesterday. They were only daffodils, a perky glowing yellow, but they would brighten Judith’s living room gloom. Marsha could never understand why Judith had stayed in this house after her divorce. Surely, she could have found something less dreary, even if she believed remaining in the neighborhood was essential for the kids. Too many changes would unsettle their delicate minds, Judith’s mother had insisted. Marsha knew what the little lady really wanted was a restoration of the marriage. Even though it was James who had walked out, Mrs. DeLisle concluded Judith had been at fault. That was mostly what she decided about everything.

  Marsha held Judith at arm’s length, grinning, the daffodils between them. “How is the big girl today? Don’t look a day over thirty, if you ask me. Not that it matters. Older is better. It’s gentler, they say, more understanding. You’ll love it.”

  “I hate it,” Judith mumbled into Marsha’s shoulder as they hugged each other.

  “Did you ever think we’d make forty?” Marsha laughed. “Did you? No? That means you’re doing better than you thought. Not even halfway through if you discount the years you’re trying to forget…”

  “I’m trying to forget last night and this morning.”

  “Too much celebration?”

  “Too many martinis…”

  “You’re entitled.”

  “… and then George Harris died.” Now Judith was crying into Marsha’s shoulder.

  “George Harris died?”

  “Last night. Jeez, I’m getting your blouse wet. Come on in. I’m afraid I won’t be much fun today…” She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, exactly as she had used to when they were growing up together at Bishop Strachan School for girls, and told Marsha about her interview with Harris and about the policeman.

  Marsha had known George for years, not closely. She had admired his enthusiasm, his willingness to take chances, and to push his authors with the Americans, who remained breezily unreceptive. She had made time for him when he came to New York and called on him when she was in Toronto. She had even allowed herself to be talked into publishing some of his authors, not because she always agreed with his assessment of their unsurpassed talents but because she had decided to back his judgment. He had often been right.

  “Shit. He could have chosen a better time to do it.” Marsha tried to snap Judith out of her gloom. “But I’m not going to let him ruin the whole day. Let’s go to that ritzy restaurant you promised me, I want to treat you to something sumptuous—like carpaccio and zabaglione, and linguini with cream. You said it was Italian, didn’t you?”

  Marsha selected the dress and the shoes. She brushed Judith’s hair and distracted her with David Markham and the auction.

  “He actually believes in five-year strategic planning and comparative financial analysis, he refers to books as units and authors as elements, and he only laughs when he doesn’t mean to. He whinnies if you ask him a question he hasn’t anticipated.”

  “Why do you put up with him?”

  “Larry hired him. He thinks we need some fresh thinking about marketing. He’s fresh all right, wet-behind-the-ears fresh… I think he’s angling for VP by next year.”

  In the event they had linguini with red wine and radicchio salad, and Judith told Marsha it wasn’t going to work out with Allan Goodman, after all. OK for occasional companionship, but no point fooling herself there was any magic.

  “Magic is fine for a month, kid, but it has no staying power. It’s whether you can joke about making love when you wake up in the morning, and both laugh. That’s the real magic.”

  “Allan is scientific about making love, and he doesn’t think that’s funny.”

  “I don’t think my mother and father ever laughed together. About anything. He probably wore his vest to bed to make damned sure she wasn’t going to touch him. I don’t know how they managed to produce me; in those days there was no artificial insemination. I can’t imagine them in bed together.”

  “You never could,” Judith said.
“Some thoughts we are never old enough for.”

  “Like what?”

  “Understanding our parents.”

  They both had zabaglione, and Marsha gave Judith her birthday present: a round-trip ticket to New York for the coming weekend.

  “It’s what you wanted. We’ll go to the theater. Have brunch at the Sherry-Netherland. We’ll go back to the Frick.”

  “I have to finish my George Harris story. Now he’s dead they want it in a week. You know, Marsha, he couldn’t have planned to kill himself.”

  “Then get an extension and find out why he changed his mind. It’ll make for a better story. But give it a rest for the weekend. You write better after a rest. Remember your group therapy story? It was fabulous.”

  “Yeah. I got sued.”

  “Nobody sues over boring stories.”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to get away—with the kids…”

  “Come on, they’d be glad to be alone for the weekend and you know it. Let your mother loose on them for mealtimes. They’ll forgive you by the time they’re thirty-eight.”

  “I still have the Nuclear Madness story to finish…”

  “The one about closing the plant in Pickering?”

  “And Whitby. It’s $1,500. For the Globe Magazine.”

  “Not enough. Besides, it’ll wait, and I can’t. I’m in London the weekend after.”

  In the afternoon Marsha was going to visit M & A’s Canadian subsidiary in Don Mills. She had to review the upcoming summer promotions and be back in New York in the evening. There was a reception for a British expert on contemporary papal diplomacy and its role in maintaining world peace. The event promised to be dreary but she had given Peter Burnett her word that she would attend. The expert was one of Peter’s touring authors.

  Judith was glad she hadn’t asked Marsha about Jerry. Why spoil a perfectly pleasant lunch?

  Four

  FITZGIBBON & HARRIS seemed like the best place to start. On the way there, Judith picked up a copy of the Star. Next to a vivid description of the stray Russian warhead discovered in Norway, Harris, not unexpectedly, had made the front page. He occupied the bottom right-hand corner, with a suitably restrained headline, an old, but not altogether unflattering, photograph, and a few comments from a variety of celebrity authors who had known him. There was no hint of suicide but the copy made much of the company’s financial problems. They were giving themselves an I-told-you-so comeback should the police conclude it was suicide. Nice.

  Judith still felt a pang of nostalgia every time she drove into the Fitzgibbon & Harris parking lot. It had been good working here, even though she hadn’t lasted long. All the executive parking spots were filled, except for Harris’s. His name was painted on a white board at the head of his space—like a tombstone. She drove to the end and parked by the back entrance that led to the editorial department.

  She found them all huddled together in Alice Roy’s office, drinking Scotch out of paper cups. There was not much conversation and a great deal of cigarette smoke. Judith didn’t want to go all the way in.

  “Alice, may I speak with you for a minute?” she asked tentatively from the doorway. A couple of the older editors who knew her waved, but nobody smiled.

  Alice’s cheeks were puffy, her eyes red. With her narrow, thin shoulders pulled forward, long slender arms crossed over her chest, she looked like a bird caught in the rain. She came out slowly and closed the door behind her.

  “You’re not working on your story today,” she said quietly, with only a hint of threat.

  “Look, Alice, I know how you all must feel and I don’t like barging in like this, but I do have to finish the story and dammit, I liked him too. A lot. You know that.” A little petulant?

  “So?” Alice leaned back defiantly against the hospital-green wall.

  “So, I want to find out how and why he died. Because I care.”

  “We all care. That’s why we won’t have journalists snooping around today,” Alice said, hostile. “Not even you,” she added for old times’ sake.

  “Come on, Alice, don’t you want to know why he committed suicide?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No.”

  Alice straightened up and fished a cigarette out of her mangled pack of Gauloises.

  “When I left him at 9:30, or thereabouts, he was in the very pink of health, he was cheerful and optimistic.”

  “I take it you have your own theory?” Suddenly Alice was belligerently interested.

  “No theory. Just a need to find out.”

  “Me too.” Abruptly Alice took Judith by the arm. “Let’s go up to the cafeteria and talk. There’s nobody there now.”

  On the way up they passed the executive boardroom. Judging by the hubbub of voices, a meeting was in full swing.

  “Deciding how we carry on till young Harris sells.” Alice nodded toward the boardroom. “He’s a jerk.”

  The rest of the building was mostly deserted.

  “They let everybody off as soon as the news was announced,” Alice explained. She got them both coffee and they sat overlooking the parking lot. One thing about the publisher’s suburb in Toronto: they hadn’t cluttered it with trees.

  “The police claim somebody saw him jump,” Alice said. “I was with him yesterday. We had an editorial meeting. The whole team: editorial, design, production. Mainly, we were tying down the schedules, since we’d already closed down the Fall list. George seemed pleased about the way it was going.”

  “Have you been harassed by the suppliers?”

  “No.” Alice pursed her lips as if to say none of your damned business, then she relented. “We’ve been paying at about a hundred and fifty days. Regular, reliable. They’ve learned to live with it. So had George. Cash flow is better now than it had been for the past several months and George was congratulating me on the success of last Fall’s titles. Three are still on the bestseller list. In April.” Alice smiled proudly for just a second.

  “How much do you think he owed the bank?”

  “Maybe $2 million. Hell, if we could carry it at 17 percent, it’s no problem at 13. And if he was going to kill himself over the debt load, he should have done it in 1982—we were carrying $5 million then.”

  “When I left,” said Judith, “he was waiting for some phone calls. Do you know who?”

  “Could have been anybody. He’d stay late to finish reading some massive manuscript or work out a complicated deal, but then he’d tell everybody where he was. The phone never stopped ringing. He was the worst manager of his own time.” Alice lit another cigarette. “Comes from not putting enough value on it, I suppose.”

  “Do you have any idea whom he might have talked to after I left?”

  “No. None. Gladys says he had no more appointments. He’d told Jennifer Harris not to expect him home before midnight.” Alice leaned forward. “You want a theory? I’ve got one for you: some nasty discovery he made between 9:30 and 11:00. Something to do with that pampered little bastard downstairs.”

  “Francis?”

  “The same. He’s always hated the firm. Ever since the old man planted him here as a summer student in ’68. He confessed he was meant for better things than reading through the slush pile. He hates reading. He wanted to be a stockbroker and ‘make an honest living’—his words. Didn’t have a lot of choice though. George was determined he’d be a publisher. You know, grandfather, father, son. Generation to generation. Like Scribner’s.”

  “So you figure he told George he was leaving and George got so depressed…”

  “That’s stupid. I’ve no idea what depressed him, but if I were you I’d start with Francis. He is the most depressing thing around here.”

  “Have you looked in George’s office today?”

  Alice shook her head.

  “There wasn’t a suicide note?”

  “I don’t know.” Alice stood up so fast her chair toppled over. “Let’s go have a look. We might even find his list of phone ca
lls for the day.”

  Judith half expected George’s office to be locked and guarded by a policeman, but it wasn’t. Gladys wasn’t sitting at her usual place either. “She’s taken the day off,” said Alice.

  “How is Gladys?”

  “Well. She’s taking it all in her stride. As ever. She rather fancies Francis, I think. If you can believe Gladys liking anybody. Couple of times last year, I saw her laugh at his jokes. They have the same sense of humor. None.”

  Nothing had changed since yesterday. Harris kept a remarkably tidy office—it looked as though he had just stepped out for a minute. There were no final gestures apparent. His desk, imported Spanish oak on fancy cast-iron legs, was bare except for the two neat piles of incoming and outgoing mail and his correspondence file. His old-fashioned Stenocord dictaphone sat on the small cabinet next to his desk. On the opposite wall there was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase on which someone, maybe George himself, had lovingly arranged his best books for the past year. There were a couple of worn canvas-back armchairs. A blue-sky, rolling-wheat, all-Canadian landscape occupied the side wall.

  Alice went behind the desk and pulled out the top drawer. “Here it is.” She shoved a sheet of paper toward Judith. The list was typed, complete with phone numbers. Most had been lightly ticked in pencil. Some were bracketed with familiar company names, like The Royal Bank, Ashton Potter, The Globe and Mail, Axel Books. At the top, the date: April 8.

  “Every morning, Gladys prepared a new list, starting with the calls George hadn’t ticked off,” Alice explained, leaning her cigarette into the clean ashtray. “Almost like sacrilege,” she said. “He hated the smell of my cigarettes. Uncivilized, he called them.” She started going through the other drawers. “You can make a copy of the list, if you like. I suppose you’ll want to know what they all said to him?”