“‘It’?”
“If they think we are guaranteeing publication, they are misinterpreting. The contract is very clear.”
“And Mrs. Chesko, did she misinterpret?” asked Green.
McDonald stood. “I have no idea what she thought.
I feel sorry for her. But them’s the breaks, gentlemen.”
He shot his cuffs, slipped the strap of his leather bag on his shoulder, and picked up his cane. “I have an appointment.”
Briscoe and Green neither said nor did anything to stop him. They watched him glance back at them as he charged out the door and bumped into a passerby before heading north.
“Coffee jitters,” said Green.
“‘Them’s the breaks,’“ said Briscoe.
109
NEW AMSTERDAM LITERARY AGENCY
131 WEST 25TH STREET
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 11:50 A.M.
Len Kupferman was friendly enough, but looked a bit wary, as if he expected Briscoe and Green to pitch an idea for an awful book. His office was piled with manuscripts. Post-it notes hung from his ancient desk lamp like leaves on a dying oak.
“Well, it is true,” he said, sitting on the edge of his desk, “that publishing operates in its own peculiar ways. Everybody has notions about how it works, but only the people who are in it really grasp it. What can I help you gentlemen with?”
“We’re a little confused about some things,” said Briscoe, settling onto a plain wooden chair, “and we appreciate your talking to us on short notice. I remembered you from Captain Dowd’s party.”
Kupferman squinted. “Oh, yes! That was what?
Three years ago? Mike’s book did pretty well. Our L.A. people are still trying to sell it as a movie. Mike could be the next Wambaugh.”
“Mike was a good cop,” said Briscoe. “I miss him.”
“He lived a lot of stories before his retirement.”
Green scratched at the skin between his lower lip and chin. He had something on his mind. “Is he a good writer?” he asked.
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The question seemed to befuddle Kupferberg momentarily, as if Green had asked how many ears Dowd had. “Why, yes. The book went through three printings. Did you read it?”
“I get enough cop stories at work,” said Green.
Kupferberg smiled. “I imagine you do.”
“The reason we’re asking,” said Briscoe, “is like this.
Suppose a book comes that’s got good stories, but the person who wrote it isn’t exactly Ernest Hemingway. What happens?”
“Well, there aren’t many Hemingways, especially not in the Hemingway family. You mean someone whose writing isn’t up to snuff?”
“Right.”
“It depends on the content. It depends if it’s salable.
Say a celebrity comes in. Eminem wants to tell all about growing up. This will sell, but we discover Eminem is no writer. It’s worth the publisher’s while, then, to hire a ghostwriter.”
“Baseball Been Very, Very Good to Me by Chico Es-cuela, as told to Joe Blow.”
“Exactly,” said Kupferman. “Usually, they pay Joe Blow a little extra to keep his name off it. If the person isn’t a celebrity, then he’d better have a hell of a story.
Mike Dowd had a hell of a story. Several, in fact. The Murphy Commission stuff. The Henderson murder.”
“So there was a ghostwriter on Dowd’s book?”
Kupferman hesitated, so Briscoe reassured him. “Look, it goes nowhere. This is background. The case doesn’t have anything to do with him.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, there was no ghost.”
Briscoe couldn’t tell if Kupferman was covering for Captain Dowd, even though it really didn’t matter.
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“But it needed editing, right? Mike didn’t just retire and turn into a writer.”
“I worked with him to shape it. Not many agents like to do that, but I started out to be a playwright, so I like to get my hand in once and a while.”
“So you edited it. Would an agent normally do this?”
“No, I didn’t really edit it. Mostly I made suggestions about how the material should be organized.
What should be left out, put in, like that. An in-house editor at Ballantine worked on it for the page-by-page, line-by-line stuff. Mike was very cooperative. As I said, most agents don’t have the time and I don’t know of any who do the actual editing, except in unusual circumstances. When a book is accepted, a house editor works with the author and then a copyeditor goes over it for typos, contradictions, grammar, and so forth. That’s normal with any book. I remember we had some trouble with Mike’s copyeditor. She was touchy about politically incorrect dialogue. She was another one of those kids not long out of Vassar.”
Kupferman laughed. “Officers never use sexist or ethnic obscenities, do they?”
“Never in my career have I heard one,” said Briscoe.
“I didn’t think so,” said Kupferman.
“Who pays for the editing?” asked Briscoe.
“The publishing house.”
“The writer doesn’t hire them?”
“Not ordinarily. Some of the more successful authors do, so they can get top dollar for their manuscripts. But most writers don’t make very much. They can’t afford it.” Kupferman shrugged. “Usually there isn’t much editing at all, except that done by the writer. If the book isn’t written well enough, publish-112
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ers don’t buy it. There are a lot of other choices. Why do you ask?”
“Suppose we’ve got a writer who’s got some good stories. Would a publisher ever advise the writer to hire an editor?”
Kupferman chuckled. “As an insult.”
“I don’t get it,” said Green.
“What I mean is that it would mean the thing is unpublishable. If it weren’t, the house would hire an editor.”
“But couldn’t an editor make it publishable?”
“Oh, rarely,” said Kupferman. “Like I said, if the story was compelling enough, for whatever reason, maybe a book doctor could turn it into something.
There are some book doctors who do miracles.
There’s a great guy up in Croton who can give a moribund book the equivalent of a heart, lung and liver transplant, but there has to be some sign of life to work with in the first place. Most honest book doctors contract with publishers. They don’t do most of their work with individuals.”
“Would the story of the breakdown of a marriage be the kind of thing that a publisher might recommend to a book doctor?”
“Sheesh,” said Kupferman. “Bill Clinton’s marriage maybe. How many marriages break down? Is there a murder? International intrigue? I’ve had two wives and I don’t even want to remember the name of my attorney.”
“It wouldn’t even fly as a woman’s book?” asked Briscoe.
Kupferman shrugged. “If it was extremely well written, literary in quality, I’d be willing to look at it, but…”
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Green rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. “The thing is, we are having a problem understanding why a publisher recommended a book be edited, when there was nothing to the book in the first place. No real celebrity. A businessman. Nothing but the husband fooling around. Why?”
“Who was the publisher?” asked Kupferman.
“Kirstner and Strawn.”
“That’s a good house,” said Kupferman. “They must have seen something in it. Maybe they thought it had literary potential.”
“The author hired an editor named Avery McDonald.”
Kupferman gaped. “McDonald? Kirstner and Strawn recommended McDonald? Don’t tell me they’re in bed with McDonald? That’s not possible.”
“Am I missing something here?” said Briscoe.
“Kirstner and Strawn is an old and distinguished publisher! They have a better rep than that!” Kupferman
shook his head. “Where you’ve got a lot of dreams, detectives, you attract a lot of bad actors.
Can I go off the record here?”
“We’re just trying to understand,” said Green.
Kupferman leaned toward them and spoke in a half-whisper, neatly enunciating his words. “Avery and Monica McDonald are slime. They buy mailing lists and advertise in writing magazines. You send them a manuscript, they think it shows potential. If you just send them the money, they’ll fix it up for you.”
“So they fix it up?”
“No, they pretend to fix it up. They mark it up, make worthless suggestions, then send it back with good luck on it.”
“But they do edit it?”
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“Only in the most perfunctory fashion. They’re taking advantage of people. I’ve got a client who worked for them for a couple of months. He was broke and trying to finish his degree at Columbia. He answered an ad for editors and found himself working for them. He did two books a day at two hundred fifty a pop.”
“I couldn’t read a book a day,” said Briscoe. “Not even Marvel comics.”
“Precisely,” said Kupferman. “I’ll give you his number.”
“So, then,” said Green, “the only reason an editor at Kirstner and Strawn would recommend the McDonalds would be?”
“There isn’t any reason. No decent one, anyway.”
“So what are the indecent reasons?”
“Bribes. Kickbacks. I’ve heard of editors and agents getting fees for referring victims to so-called editors like this,” said Kupferman. “Any editor who threw a writer to those sharks would know what he was doing. And I guarantee that unless something is different in the main office of K and S, any editor who did it there would be out on the pavement.”
Briscoe and Green looked at each other. Motive?
“You know what it’s called among agents?” confided Kupferman. “‘Reflux.’ After a few drinks, it graduates to ‘Refux.’ The latter is more accurate.”
115
LIEUTENANT VAN BUREN’S OFFICE
27TH PRECINCT
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 3:03 P.M.
Robert Rosserman’s sweaty hands quivered as he took Van Buren’s. “How do you do?” he said, then sat stiffly in a chair.
“I’m John Ellis with Hartman and Price,” said the slim young attorney.
“Do you know detectives Briscoe and Green?” Van Buren asked. Ellis took their hands in succession.
“A pleasure,” he said. Everyone sat. Ellis placed his briefcase in his lap and stretched his forearms across it. “I’m sure you’re wondering why we’re here.”
“To discuss Mrs. Chesko’s death?” asked Van Buren.
“Exactly,” said Ellis, “and to ask for a little mercy.”
Briscoe looked past Ellis. “You need a lawyer? Why would you need a lawyer, Mr. Rosserman?”
“Lennie,” said Van Buren. Rosserman brushed at his trousers.
“He doesn’t,” said Ellis, “but he thought it might help in case there was a misunderstanding. Mr.
Rosserman and I asked for this meeting to correct an error of judgment on his part.”
“I’m sorry,” said Rosserman. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
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Briscoe opened his mouth to speak but Ellis raised his hand to cut him off. “It was an error of judgment, out of the best of motives. It was more an error of omission than commission.”
“And exactly what was this error?” said Van Buren, tilting her head.
“She killed herself,” said Rosserman.
Ellis gave him another “let me handle this” look.
“Are you speaking of Barbara Chesko?” said Van Buren. “Do we need to record this conversation?”
“Hear us out. Bob meant well, but it was a mistake.”
Van Buren smiled at Ellis and raised her eyebrows.
“Well,” said Ellis, “you already know that Bob turned down Mrs. Chesko’s manuscript around noon on Tuesday. About two, she showed up at his office, distraught. Bob had an important telephone call to deal with.”
“Sub-rights,” said Briscoe.
“Besides which,” said Ellis, “he was hoping she would sit, reflect, calm down. Unfortunately, the call became complicated. He forgot she was out there.
Am I being accurate, Bob?”
Rosserman nodded.
“About four-thirty Bob came out to go home and Mrs. Chesko confronted him: the editor in the office down the hall, Albert Ilsing, heard it, the secretary, Jenna Marshak, heard it, but Bob told Mrs. Chesko the editorial board had turned down the book, and after a while, she left.”
“But there was no editorial board, was there?” asked Green.
Rosserman rolled his head. “I couldn’t take that thing to the board. I’d have been a laughingstock!”
“But you told us it had raw talent!” said Briscoe.
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He clenched his hands. “It wasn’t ready to publish.”
“Okay, so you admit you lied to Mrs. Chesko,” said Green. “And you admit you lied to us. What else?”
Ellis snapped open his briefcase. “He should have given you this.” He lifted out an envelope and handed it to the Lieutenant. “The suicide note,” he said.
Briscoe stood and read it out loud over her shoulder:
YOU HAVE USED ME. RALPH USED ME. AVERY USED
ME. I AM ALL USED UP AND WON’T TAKE ANOTHER
DAY OF IT. MY LIFE HAS BEEN OVER FOR YEARS.
LET THAT BE ON YOUR HEAD. NOT THAT YOU’LL
CARE. YOU’VE SHOWN ME HOW MUCH YOU CARE.
“But I do care,” mumbled Rosserman. “I thought she’d get over it.”
“And when did you get this note?” asked Van Buren sharply.
“It was in his mailbox the day after she died,” said Ellis.
“The mailboxes are by Jenna’s desk,” said Rosserman, “just a few feet from where Barbara waited. The envelope was between a couple of manila envelopes.
If I’d have gone through the box on Wednesday, I might have known. I might have stopped her.”
“So,” said Green, “you knew she was in the Waterloo Hotel?”
“No!” said Rosserman. “I meant if I had known about the note and known where she was—”
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shredded the note and you would never have known about it.”
“That’s true,” said Van Buren. “Unless he thinks the note will clear him.”
“Clear him?”
“Of suspicion of murder,” she said.
Ellis momentarily looked like he had wandered into the women’s rest room. “Murder? Who said she was murdered?” He looked at Rosserman. “She jumped out of the window.”
“Or was pushed,” said Briscoe.
Ellis glanced at his client as if to ask him if this was the real reason Rosserman had asked him to come.
“Well, certainly, that letter proves she wasn’t pushed,”
he finally said.
“Maybe he should be charged with withholding evidence,” said Van Buren, “and we can see where that leads.”
“You see?” said Rosserman to Ellis, before facing Van Buren. “For God’s sake! I brought this to you on my own. There’s a shredder not twenty feet from my desk. I simply was trying to keep K and S out of the papers. We’re a respected publisher. We don’t need this kind of tabloid publicity.”
“He came here to inform you,” said Ellis, “but also to ask you not to punish his employer. A little discre-tion. These accusations are ridiculous.”
“I didn’t hear any accusation,” said Van Buren.
“Are you sure this is just to protect the beloved and eminent reputation of Kirstner and Strawn?” said Briscoe. “What about you, Mr. Rosserman? Do your bosses know that you refer
red Mrs. Chesko to Avery McDonald?”
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Rosserman blinked. “I suggested they might help.
I was trying to help her.”
“So, then, it’s just a coincidence you get a fee?”
“Who said anything about a fee?”
“That’s how it works, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t force her to use Redux. That was entirely her choice. I certainly didn’t do it for the finder’s fee.”
“Money never motivates me, either,” said Briscoe,
“but I’m sure your bosses wouldn’t approve of this little favor.”
“I did nothing wrong!”
Ellis’s eyes had been banging from side to side watching the exchanges and trying to figure out where they were going. “That’s enough,” he said. “I now see why Bob asked me to come along. Mr. Rosserman has turned over a significant piece of evidence. That’s what he was here for, and he acted in good faith. If you have accusations or innuendos, you’d best be careful with them. Now, am I to assume that this meeting has ended?”
Van Buren glanced at Briscoe and Green. They had nothing to add. “But keep yourself available,” she said to Rosserman.
“I think,” said Ellis, “that any further contact should be through me.” He reached into his briefcase and held out a business card. “In fact, I am advising Mr.
Rosserman that he shouldn’t speak about this matter, unless I am present.”
“Catch you later,” said Green. Rosserman glared back at him.
When Ellis closed the door, Briscoe said, “I think he was disappointed in the outcome.”
“I think he wasn’t sure we’d buy it,” said Green, picking up the note. “Why else the lawyer?”
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Van Buren looked down at the note. “Nevertheless,”
she said, “I suppose that about ends the case.”
“Not that there was one to begin with,” said Briscoe.
“We could see if the note has her fingerprints,” she said.
“Oops,” said Green, dropping it to the desk. “But it won’t.”
“It won’t? How do you know? She didn’t write it?”
“It smells,” admitted Briscoe. “As soon as we question him, it turns up. Do I detect a little consciousness of guilt?”
“Oh, it’s easier than that,” said Green. “We need to go back to her apartment to make sure, but she didn’t do this. At least not at home. The paper is wrong.”
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