Blind Submission

by Debra Ginsberg

  It’s time for a murder, Ms. Robinson.

  I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and while there is certainly merit in writing a bloodless tale, a look at the bestseller list will show you that public taste runs to killing. Death seems to sell. So, a murder. You’ll find it within the enclosed chapters. I am working both backward and forward, incorporating your notes and hurrying to finish. My hope is that the next installment will be the last.

  Enjoy!

  G.

  P.S. We’ll talk soon.

  BLIND SUBMISSION

  Chapter 9

  Alice was dreading her meeting with Carol Moore. Alice knew what it was about and, although she had plenty of alibis at the ready, she was still a little anxious about making sure that Carol didn’t suspect her. Not that there was anything to suspect, really. Carol wouldn’t have known anything about her affair with Vaughn from Ricardo—Alice had seen to that. As far as Jewel went, Alice’s assessment of her was that whatever intelligence that woman had didn’t translate into anything like street smarts. Alice, of course, had plenty of street smarts, having trolled them herself for quite some time. All that time in dark alleys had come in most useful recently when she’d gone looking for the drugs. She’d known exactly where to go and within hours she’d had exactly what she’d needed.

  But she wasn’t going to think about any of that now. What she needed to do was focus on her meeting with Carol. The agent was distressed and Alice thought she’d even seen Carol wiping tears from her face when she’d heard the news. Well, it was understandable, Alice thought. Carol had barely signed him and hadn’t even had a chance to pitch his book and now he was permanently out of the picture.

  Vaughn Blue’s death represented a substantial loss of potential income for Carol Moore.

  Alice pondered this. It was possible, even likely, she thought, that Carol actually liked the man. This was something she couldn’t understand about Carol—how she seemed to have genuine feelings for her clients. She got involved with them, suffered through their stupid writer’s blocks with them, listened to their asinine complaints about having to sacrifice themselves for their art (as if!), paid attention when they came to her with tales of husbands and wives gone astray, ungrateful children, alcoholism, and on and on. They were impossible, Alice thought, always wanting to talk, talk, talk. And yet Carol had unlimited patience with them and a seemingly endless flow of compassion for their plights.

  Maybe she was faking it, Alice thought. If so, she admired Carol even more than she did now, and she did admire Carol. You couldn’t not admire what Carol had accomplished in the world of publishing. But Alice would have preferred to think that Carol made a show of being so emotionally involved with those writers. Like Vaughn Blue. Could Carol really be that upset over his death? Really, if anyone should be crying it should be her. It had to be the loss of Vaughn’s book that was bothering Carol. Well, that was all right, too, Alice thought, because her own book would provide just the remedy.

  Alice had made a big mistake with Vaughn—she’d trusted him. Foolishly, she’d told him that the “idea” for her novel had come from another author. Then Vaughn had developed a very unfortunate sense of moral outrage. Damn writers—they were all the same! She had to come clean, Vaughn told her. She was better than this, he insisted. He would stand behind her, help her. He loved her, he said.

  Alice had played at being sorry. Fine, she said, she would tell Carol. And then she would tell Carol about the two of them. They’d announce themselves as a couple. They should celebrate, Alice told him. They should do something…wild.

  Alice shook her head. It had been so easy to convince him. It was as if he’d just been waiting for the opportunity to fall back into the arms of Morpheus. If you thought about it, she hadn’t really done anything that he wouldn’t eventually have done himself. And she hadn’t exactly twisted his arm to expose the vein.

  One of the silly office girls, Brie—or Sarsaparilla or whatever her ridiculous name was—nervously approached Alice’s desk, interrupting her thoughts.

  “What?” Alice said. She’d given up the pretense of being nice to the underlings. Now that she’d become more valuable to Carol, it was no longer necessary, or fitting, to treat them as equals.

  “Carol’s waiting to see you,” the girl said. “She asked me to come get you.”

  “Get me?”

  “Asked you to come see her.”

  “Tell her I’ll be right there,” Alice said.

  The girl hesitated. Alice gave her a look of impatience. “What is it?”

  “It’s so sad about Vaughn Blue, isn’t it?” the girl said.

  “Terrible,” Alice said without hesitation. “Very sad.”

  “He was so talented.”

  More than you know, Alice thought. “Yes, he was,” Alice said.

  “And he was so gorgeous,” the girl said, sighing.

  “Yes,” Alice agreed, but, in reality, she couldn’t remember. The last time she’d seen Vaughn Blue he’d been the same color as his name and quite dead.

  “Tell Carol I’ll be right there,” Alice said, and dismissed the girl with a wave of her hand.

  No, I thought. No, no, no. It was too cruel. Why did he want to torture me like this? He wouldn’t—couldn’t—do anything to Damiano. The fact that Damiano was missing had nothing to do with this fictional murder and everything to do with the fact that he thought I was crazy. Maybe that was what he meant. Maybe the murder was supposed to be metaphoric. By making me as crazy as Alice, he’d made me “murder” my relationship with Damiano. Had he—Oh God, had he spoken to Damiano? Had he found Damiano before I’d had the chance?

  There was more—much more, judging from the size of the document—but I had to stop reading. Barely concentrating on what I was writing, I fired off a response and sent it.

  To: ganovelist@heya.com

  From: angel.robinson@fiammalit.com

  Subject: Re: Re: Blind Submission

  Look, Malcolm, I know you’re writing this book, okay? What are you trying to prove now? Are you trying to scare me with this “murder”? It doesn’t even make sense in the context of the book. Don’t be an idiot. Are you trying to get back at me? Lucy knows, okay? She knows.

  Within moments, a reply appeared in my in-box. He was obviously online just waiting to see how I’d react. I couldn’t get over the sheer gall of him—I didn’t know where he found his nerve.

  To: angel.robinson@fiammalit.com

  From: ganovelist@heya.com

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Blind Submission

  The question, Ms. Robinson, is not what I’m trying to prove, but whether or not this is good fiction. What’s your opinion? If you’re scared by my murder, it must mean you think it works.

  To: ganovelist@heya.com

  From: angel.robinson@fiammalit.com

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Submission

  I didn’t say it scared me, I asked if it was supposed to scare me. I know who “Vaughn” is supposed to be and I know what you’re trying to imply here. Don’t ask me to believe that he’s dead and that I’m somehow responsible, because that’s not going to work. I was going to play along—I have been playing along all this time—but I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m finished with your charade.

  I punched the SEND key with so much force that my laptop slid backward on my desk. I waited for Malcolm to send me another poisonous e-mail and dialed Damiano’s home phone number one more time. No answer. I told myself that it didn’t matter, that this manuscript was merely the product of Malcolm’s clearly bitter mind. It had nothing to do with reality. I had to stop, had to pull myself out of the pages of this book and…It was a book, that was all. “You’re nothing but a book,” I said out loud, and wondered where I’d heard the same line. The memory floated just out of reach for a moment and then I grabbed it. Alice in Wonderland. That was it. Who cares for you, Alice says at the end of the story, you’re nothing but a pack of cards.

  I got up and stretched m
y legs, trying to ease some of the tension in my muscles. I tried not to stare at the computer, tried not to hit the REFRESH icon more than once a second, and tried to keep the edge of fear from cutting into my consciousness. Finally, after several more minutes of waiting and watching, I couldn’t stand it anymore and took a long, almost scalding shower. I toweled my hair dry and got dressed. Still no response from G.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said out loud, and grabbed the telephone. I was sick of playing along—I was just going to call him.

  “AANNGGELLL!!!”

  There was an inhuman wailing coming from outside my apartment, along with fists pounding on the door. “Damn it, bish! Open the fuggen door!” It was Malcolm—not on my computer but at my doorstep—and by the sound of it, he was out-of-his-mind drunk. “Aaannngel! Open it!” He pounded again. As I got up and walked over to unlock the door, it occurred to me that now was the time to be frightened. The crazy-drunk-ex-boyfriend-pounding-at-the-door story never had a happy ending. I opened the door knowing that legions of women who’d done the same before me often wound up as statistics. But I was completely calm. There was desperation, not violence, in Malcolm’s voice. And he was making an infernal scene outside. If I didn’t let him in, there would be police at my door within minutes.

  Malcolm looked like the wreck of the Hesperus. Bedraggled didn’t even begin to cover it. His hair was matted and dirty and plastered to one side of his head. He was wearing a pair of baggy torn jeans I’d never seen before and a stained gray T-shirt that said Canada in faded red letters. His clothes looked as if they’d been wet and then had dried on him while he slept in them. He was unshaven and unwashed and there was a still-raw scrape down the side of one cheek, as if he’d slid his face along a gravel road. His eyes were bloodshot and dark with patent misery. And if all that wasn’t enough, he stank—of liquor and cigarettes and a few other substances I didn’t want to identify.

  “What happened to you?” I said.

  Malcolm looked at me, fists still raised to hit the door I’d just opened, and started to cry. “Bish,” he whimpered. “You ruined my life.”

  I stood aside and let him stumble through the door. “What is this?” I asked him after I’d closed the door behind him. “What have you done to yourself?”

  Malcolm staggered toward my desk to sit down, but he was too drunk to negotiate something as complicated as lowering himself onto a chair. He missed it, sliding to the floor, catching my computer cord on his way down so that I had to leap over him to save my laptop from crashing onto his head. When I replaced the computer on the desk, I saw that I had another e-mail. It was the response I’d been waiting for.

  To: angel.robinson@fiammalit.com

  From: ganovelist@heya.com

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Blind Submission

  Are you so sure it’s a charade?

  Doesn’t art imitate life?

  Malcolm was sprawled out on the floor, making feeble motions to try to right himself. “Annnggel,” he moaned. “I fugged up.”

  I leaned over him, peering into his face. The fumes coming off him were toxic and I had to stop myself from gagging. “Malcolm! Listen to me. How long have you been here?” Even as I asked the question, I knew that the answer didn’t matter. He was here now and couldn’t possibly have sent me that e-mail. My hands and feet had gone cold and a chill was spreading up my legs and arms to my spine.

  “I dunno,” he said. “I had shome drinksh.”

  “Some drinks?” I said. “You think?” I stood up, reached over to my laptop, and hit REPLY. Who are you? I typed. What are you doing? I pressed SEND and waited.

  “Anngggellll,” Malcolm wailed at my feet.

  “Malcolm, get up and tell me what’s going on.”

  Malcolm raised himself to a sitting position. “You ruined my life,” he repeated. “Why, Annggell? Why’dja have to do that?” He hiccuped and put his hand to his head. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” he said.

  “No!” I yelled at him. “Don’t you dare throw up in my house now! Malcolm, for God’s sake, tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Malcolm covered his mouth with his hand and hiccuped again. “You told her…she told me…never going to have a career…gonna be a waiter for the resht of my life…your fault, Angel. No angel. Thass you. No fuggen angel.”

  As he was finishing his slurred diatribe, another message appeared on my computer.

  To: angel.robinson@fiammalit.com

  From: ganovelist@heya.com

  Subject: Blind Submission

  Angel Robinson wrote:

  Who are you? What are you doing?

  Dear Ms. Robinson,

  I am writing a book, which you’ve been editing (quite well, I might add) for literary representation by Ms. Fiamma. And while it’s obvious that you’ve read some of what I’ve recently sent you, I don’t think you’ve finished. I urge you to continue—I think you’ll enjoy it. And while our little flurry of messages has been most entertaining, I think it would be remiss of me to take up any more of your time with pleasantries. We both have work to do, don’t we? I’ll sign off now, but I promise to be in touch soon. I’m almost certain that I’ll be able to finish the book within the next day or two.

  Until then,

  G.

  “Never should’ve got you that job,” Malcolm was saying. “Woulda had better luck on my own…My angel…left me for a guy with a book deal. Ruined my career…” He started to laugh and started coughing. “Really bad country song,” he said. “She warned me…I shoulda listened.”

  “Who warned you?” I asked him. I kept my voice quiet and calm but firm enough to get through his drunken haze. “Who warned you about what?”

  “Lucy,” he said. “Told me you didden really care about my career.”

  “When did Lucy tell you this? Why would she tell you?”

  Malcolm whimpered. “I screwed up, Angel. I never shoulda…I thought she believed in me.”

  “Never should have what, Malcolm?”

  “Don’t you get it?” he asked me miserably. “I screwed her. She’s the one who told me about you and that Italian guy. I knew it, but I didn’t wanna believe it.”

  “You had sex…with Lucy? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “She told me I had talent,” Malcolm wailed. “She told me you were cheating on me.”

  I looked at him and knew he was telling the truth. I thought about how flustered and familiar he’d been with her at her dinner party and how she’d looked at him as if he were another piece of meat at her table. He’d known how to get to her house not because he’d followed me to work but because he’d been there before. Then there were the flowers, asking forgiveness for things he’d never felt the need to apologize for before. It all made sense. I was starting to feel sick. Bile rose in my throat.

  “How long—” I started, and had to swallow the bitterness in my mouth. “You’re not still…?”

  “It was a mis-mistake,” he hiccuped. “I love you, Angel. Always loved you.”

  “Sure, Malcolm. That’s why you screwed my boss.”

  “She wasn’t anything like you, Angel.”

  “That’s disgusting, Malcolm.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m disgusting. Take me back.”

  I looked at my computer and then back down at Malcolm. “Anna…” I said, more to myself than to him. “Malcolm,” I said, leaning over once again so that I could see into his eyes, “did you have sex with Anna, too?”

  Malcolm stared up at me, my question working its way through a sea of alcohol to his brain. I saw it register and watched as a look of shame cut through the bleariness in his eyes. “Sort of,” he said.

  “Sort of?”

  “I was drunk,” he said. “She tried to…” He shook his head slightly and winced at the pain the motion caused him.

  “She was nice to me,” he said finally.

  “Lucy?”

  “Anna. She understands…what it’s like.”

 
“Are you working on this book together, Malcolm?”

  “What book?”

  “Blind Submission.”

  “She told me—” He stopped and tried to lick the dryness off his lips. “You shouldn’t be so mean to her, Angel. She just wants to be you. You gotta feel sorry for her.”

  “I should feel what?”

  “You don’t know, Angel,” he said. “You think you do, but you don’t know anything about what it takes to be a writer.” He fell over again and attempted to pound the floor with his fists. I could tell that it was supposed to be a dramatic gesture, but it was just a weak slap against the wood. “Angel,” he said, “I loooove you.” He wrapped his arms around my legs, throwing me off balance.

  “Listen to me, Malcolm. Let go of me and get up. I’m going to get you some coffee now and you’re going to drink it and sober up. We’re going to talk. And then I’m taking you home. Do you understand?”

  He lay still for a moment, his head resting on my feet. Then he sighed and released his grip on my legs. “Okay,” he said.

  “GOOD LORD, ANGEL, I thought I’d never see you again!”

  Elise stood in the doorway of her small, shaded San Anselmo house and regarded me with a look of kind concern.

  “Can I come in?” I asked her, smiling.

  “Oh hell, I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t mean it to come out that way. I’m so pleased to see you.” She wrapped me in a tight hug. “Come on in. Let’s get you something to eat. Have you had lunch?”

  “You know, I haven’t,” I said, following her into the house. “It’s been quite the morning.”

  “Honey, you’re gonna have to tell me about it.” Elise looked better than I’d ever seen her. She’d cut her long hair into a short, loose style that made her look ten years younger, and she’d traded her bookstore pallor for a light golden tan. She’d obviously been exercising, something she’d never had time to do before, because her body was toned and tight. All around, she looked the picture of health. Not working—or at least not working at the bookstore—seemed to be agreeing with Elise.