“Fine,” I said, trying to conceal my disappointment.
“It’s a wonderful novel, Shanna, and I’ll push them for a larger print run. I really think it has a lot of potential once it’s out there.”
Rob would do his best; I knew that. But I also had the feeling that if this novel didn’t go over, I wasn’t going to get another chance, at least not under my own name of Shanna Youngerman. To escape the burden of my lousy sales record, far more harmful in my profession than a prison record would have been, I would have to adopt a nom de plume and become yet another pseudonymous first novelist, cleansed by my new name of my past commercial sins. Why a publisher should assume that the same writer under another name would do any better in the marketplace was a mystery that escaped my understanding, but publishing was full of such arcane lore. Giving me more promotion for my next book under my own name would make more sense, but I would have better luck persuading a shaman to stop casting spells and use antibiotics than talking my publishers into abandoning one of their current superstitions.
Or I could give up entirely and see if I could nail down a permanent position with the Gazette. Joanne Montoya would put in a good word for me, and there were worse places in the world to live than Wilsey. My only other practical alternative was to return to my childhood home in Indiana, throw myself on the mercy of my parents, admit that I had failed, and take up the kind of conventional life they had always hoped I would lead.
The phone rang again. I let the machine take it this time.
“Andrew Wilde calling,” the machine said in digitalized British intonations, and I grabbed the receiver so hastily that I nearly dropped it on the floor.
“Hello?” I squeaked.
“Wonderful,” he said.
“What?”
“The Connections. Your novel. Couldn’t put it down. Quite literary, but with a lot of commercial potential. Irony and yet compassion for the characters. Involved and complex while still being a real page-turner. Yes, I think you should do very well with it, and I would love to represent it.” There was a long pause. “But of course you already have an agent.”
“Not anymore,” I lied.
Rob took the news well. We had only a handshake agreement, with no signed papers, so there would be a minimum of complications in severing our relationship. He was even willing to give up any right to continue collecting royalties on the books he had already sold for me, perhaps because there weren’t likely to be any more royalties. He could withdraw the submission he had made, since the editor he had sent The Connections to wasn’t anywhere close to reading it yet.
“I wish you well, Shanna,” he said, “and I hope you’re able to find another agent.”
“I hope so, too.” I couldn’t mention Andrew Wilde, not yet. Rob would find out about that soon enough, and justifiably feel screwed, but a delayed stab in the back was preferable to in-your-face treachery.
At that moment, I came close to telling Rob that I had changed my mind, that I wanted to remain his client after all, but the thought of Andrew Wilde flogging my book, of hinting to editors that they’d better give The Connections some serious thought or else they might not get the chance to bid on other potential bestsellers from his bestselling authors (rumor had it that Wilde wasn’t above such implied threats), of the likelihood that he would nail an advance for me far above anything Rob was likely to negotiate, kept me shamefully silent.
Rob ran his agency with one assistant. Andrew Wilde had a junior partner, six assistants bearing various titles, three secretaries, and had two lawyers who were specialists in copyright law and intellectual property rights on retainer, all of whom deluged me with a mountain of paperwork as soon as Andrew took me on as a client.
Well over two reams of paper sat on my desk, having been sent to me by Del Murton, Andrew’s junior partner, and delivered by FedEx in their largest box. I had expected that Andrew Wilde, Ltd. would require more in the way of an agreement than a handshake, but what sat in front of me was the size of a Tom Clancy manuscript. I had rarely done more than scan the contracts Rob sent to me to sign, which had increased in size, complexity, and number of clauses with each successive book; by the time I perused all of this paperwork, Andrew Wilde might be ready to retire.
He wouldn’t have taken me on as a client if he didn’t think I would pay off; he represented too many critically acclaimed and prosperous writers to waste his time on anyone he thought wouldn’t sell. Important editors with their own imprints, the sorts of editors who would never have so much as read one of my title pages in the past, would give my novel serious consideration when Andrew Wilde brought it to their attention. Did I really have to go through all of his agreement forms and start nitpicking over clauses that probably didn’t matter all that much in the end?
I leafed through the pages, noted all the places where my signature was required, packed up the documents, and drove to the nearby UPS Store, where a notary public and Joanne Montoya had agreed to witness the signing. Andrew had insisted on two witnesses, for various legal reasons, but I was more than willing to go to the extra trouble.
Six months later, after patching myself through with more book reviews and feature stories for the Gazette and another parental loan, my faith was rewarded with an advance of four hundred thousand dollars for The Connections from Fran Morrese of CotterRollins. And that wasn’t all; Andrew had talked her into picking up two of my earlier novels, to be reissued later on in a uniform trade paperback format with The Connections.
All of this, Andrew assured me, was only the beginning.
I came to New York to sign the contract and to mark the abrupt change in my literary prospects. Andrew had set up a number of appointments for me, including lunch with Fran Morrese and a session with a publicist.
“A publicist?” I asked, entranced by the notion of someone whose job would be to plant items about me in various media in order to create mucho buzz for my book.
“Joni’s one of the best in the business,” Andrew replied. We were sitting in his office, in two Eames chairs in front of his Jere Osgood desk; Andrew’s office was full of the kind of furniture that had names. There was a look of strain on Andrew’s long face; he had admitted to suffering from back pain. The pressure of certain recent events in his life might have been responsible for his complaint. Minty Arban and he had gone through a breakup so acrimonious that people were still gossiping about the breach. According to the New York Observer, Minty’s main beef with Andrew involved unspecified dealings with her late client Joe Waldo Bender, who it turned out had been very briefly represented by Wilde while Bender was still turning out copy for the Tallahassee Democrat, trying to peddle a nonfiction book about Florida politics, and only dreaming about being a novelist. Apparently Andrew had retained some sort of claim on Joe Waldo’s future earnings, a claim that Minty Arban considered way out of line, but the Observer was vague on that point.
I had my own monetary concerns to worry about. An advance of four hundred thousand may sound like a lot of money, but my contract allowed the publisher to parcel it out in bits and pieces. Some had been paid to me on signing, meaning that I had been forced to take out a bank loan to survive while my check wended its way through the bureaucracy of CotterRollins. More would be paid to me after Fran Morrese completed her editing, another portion would arrive on publication, still more after my earlier two novels were ready to come out, and there were a number of “escalator” clauses and more legalese covering the rest. Andrew insisted that all of this was to my advantage, since my tax rate wouldn’t be as high, but the upshot was that my basic standard of living would remain about the same.
But I couldn’t dwell on that. I had real prospects now, and Andrew was already thinking ahead to my next book. “We’ll bat some ideas around while you’re here,” he was saying, “and see what kind of proposal you might pull together for Fran. We should strike while the iron’s hot, I should be able to get more for your next novel.”
I smiled uneasily, not wan
ting to admit that my muse had been completely silent ever since I had finished The Connections. Other ideas would occur to me eventually, and in the meantime I had plenty to do in New York, including selling the last thing I owned that might count as a collectible item.
That was the manuscript of a short story by Willy Edwardson, which he had shown to me when we were both still clients of Rob Saperstein’s. Willy had marked up the manuscript with notations, and had enclosed a handwritten note. This wasn’t something I felt like mentioning to Andrew, and not just because I would seem money-grubbing or insensitive, as well as much too willing to sacrifice this last memento of my dead friend and colleague. For all I knew, there might have been some clause in Andrew’s convoluted agreement with Willy giving him the rights to Willy’s unpublished manuscripts.
Arturo Savoy’s business was on the first floor of an old brick building that had once been a warehouse. Inside, there were two bookcases with glass doors holding first editions, a few more open shelves of far less valuable used books, and a couple of display cases housing old manuscripts, but Savoy wouldn’t have kept his most valuable items there; he would have stored them in a much safer place. I doubted that he conducted much business at the storefront anyway; most of his acquisitions had apparently been acquired at auctions, through trades with other dealers, or from collectors down on their luck.
My mood was sour as I got out of the cab. I had gone back to my hotel to fetch Willy’s manuscript after the session with my publicist. After realizing that there were few hooks in my somewhat dull life on which she could hang her hype, and becoming concerned that I might lack the skill at badinage to do well in interviews, she was coming to think that our best move might be mystery and reclusiveness combined with the persona of a small-town unpretentious woman with roots in America’s heartland. Great, I thought, as I approached the entrance to Savoy’s Literary Treasures; now I could promote my novel by trying to act like the kind of person my parents had always hoped I would be.
A bell above the door rang softly as I entered the dimly lit interior of the storefront. No one seemed to be inside, but the door to the office in the back was partly open. I waited, expecting the proprietor to come out, but apparently Arturo Savoy hadn’t heard the bell.
Then Savoy spoke. “I don’t care,” he was saying from his office, “I still think you made a big mistake.”
“It’s not a mistake.” I froze, recognizing that voice immediately. “It’s a risk, and under the circumstances a risk that’s well worth taking,” Andrew Wilde continued. “I wasn’t about to take the chance of sneaking into another boneyard and going through all that again. We’re lucky the old coot and I weren’t caught in there while he was still digging up the grave.”
“I concede the point,” Savoy said, “but now Carstairs is in on the whole thing.”
“He’s not in on the whole thing,” Andrew replied. “He doesn’t know that much more than he did when we asked him to provide a casket with sliding panels, and we pay him enough for him to keep quiet. No one’s likely to catch him at it, and even if they do, he could explain it readily enough, since there is more demand these days for sentimental mementos of the dead. It’s a damned sight safer to let him make the impressions for us than to poke around in a graveyard in the middle of the night with a gravedigger.”
“But we could have controlled the gravediggers, Wilde. One job, a one-time payment, you’re out of there and no one’s the wiser. Somebody different each time, and no way to tie any of it together or to us. But now Carstairs knows. What if he decides to blackmail us?”
“I’m paying him enough to see that he doesn’t, which isn’t much more than what the gravedigger got, and Carstairs has absolutely nothing to gain with blackmail.”
“He has nothing to gain now. What about later? What if he decides he wants more money?”
Andrew, I was certain, wouldn’t welcome knowing that I was eavesdropping on this particular conversation. If I made for the door, he might hear the bell, and come out of the office and see me before I got outside.
I crept toward two of the bookshelves and quickly concealed myself in the narrow space between them, pressing Willy’s manuscript to my chest as if it were a life preserver. Images came to me of Andrew and a gravedigger, presumably the same one who had come to an untimely end after being picked up by the Wilsey police, digging around Dechen Thorsten’s unmarked grave. The thought of it made me sick. What had they been doing there?
“You worry too much,” Andrew said. They were coming out of the office now; their voices were closer. “At any rate, I don’t think there’ll be any other new acquisitions for a while. I suggest that you concentrate on getting what books you have out to our buyers. And be grateful that you’ve been put in the way of some unique collectors’ items.”
“Oh, I am. Believe me.” Savoy’s voice had the choked sound of someone struggling to suppress his anger. “But I still think you’ve taken too many chances. First Carstairs, then that breakup with your girlfriend–”
“We buried the hatchet. I had to make a few concessions, but it’s worth it. Minty has what she wanted, and she still doesn’t know anything about our little enterprise.”
I held my breath, afraid to move, clutching the folder with Willy’s manuscript and letter.
“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” Savoy said.
“Oh, I do.” Wilde’s voice was farther away from me than Savoy’s. “Gave you enough for your trouble, didn’t I?”
“You gave me enough, and got plenty for yourself, but why the hell you need it, I don’t know. You must be making a fortune with your writers.”
Wilde said, “Come now, Arturo. There’s no such thing as too much money.”
“Maybe there is. Maybe I have enough already. Maybe we should forget about any more acquisitions.”
“Don’t be silly. Another one’s bound to come along sooner or later. Don’t start losing your nerve now.” The bell over the entrance jingled, and then the door whispered shut.
I inhaled as quietly as possible, hardly able to hear Savoy’s footsteps over the pounding in my ears as he went back to his office. I stood there for a long time, hugging dead Willy’s manuscript, then made my way to the entrance.
I could have simply opened the door and closed it, then started acting as though I had just entered when Savoy came out of his office. But I fled.
Fran Morrese turned out to be a demanding and incisive editor. Going through her suggested revisions helped me to put aside what I had overheard at Savoy’s Literary Treasures. Whatever was going on there, I was better off not fantasizing about it, even forgetting that I had ever heard any of it. Fran’s editing would make my book a better one, perhaps one of the major novels of the season. Andrew was lining up a number of writers among his clients who were likely prospects for blurbs, including the celebrated Cormac O’Malley, who had expressed some interest in a writer who now lived in his old hometown of Wilsey. On top of that, there were already several foreign publishers interested in seeing the final manuscript.
Andrew called me again less than a week after Fran had approved my revisions and sent my novel off to a copy editor. It was time for a new proposal, time to get another book in the pipeline while the buzz for The Connections was still building. We could gamble by holding off until The Connections was climbing the bestseller lists and garnering raves, as Andrew was certain it would, in which case we might get a better deal, but –
“ – a bird in the hand, and all that,” Andrew finished.
“I get the point,” I said. It had become harder for me to talk to my agent lately. I kept remembering his voice in Savoy’s shop, or pictured him poking around Dechen Thorsten’s grave, prying open the casket to get ... what?
“And I can work up a contract that’ll get you more for the next book if The Connections does even better than expected. So you ought to get cracking on that proposal, Shanna.”
“I’ll get right to it,” I said. Maybe all the effort on
The Connections had burned me out; it was normal, after such intensive effort, to be unable to work for a while. I had been through this kind of dead period before, and would bounce back.
So I told myself, refusing to believe that I had a writer’s block that might last indefinitely, perhaps even for years, while Andrew persisted in his pleas for a new proposal.
And then, less than a month before my page proofs were due to arrive, an unusually dry spring and a summer without rain brought one of the worst forest fires in the history of the Northeast.
I watched coverage of the fire from a hotel room in Lake Placid, having treated myself to a change of scenery in the hope that this might prime my creative pump. The fire raged in the southern Adirondacks for three days, until a long-overdue downpouring of rain doused the blaze. By then, several summer homes had gone up in flames, including one that belonged to Arturo Savoy, the fire’s only fatality.
The television newscasts reported that Savoy’s place was nearly a total loss; all that remained of his library there were a few heavily charred leather bindings. There was a brief segment with two book collectors who mourned the loss, although it was hard to tell whether they were grieving more for Arturo or for the lost books. I left Lake Placid and drove down the Northway toward the scene of the fire.
The site of the fire looked worse than I had expected. I drove past rows of blackened tree trunks and burnt walls and the charred lattices of beams that might once have been cabins. A man digging around one ruin with his family, trying to salvage whatever he could, told me how to get to what was left of Savoy’s house. I drove there down a long dirt road until I saw a state trooper’s car up ahead.
The car blocked the road. I got out of my car and waited until a trooper jogged up the road toward me, then pulled out the press card Joanne Montoya had finagled for me at the Gazette.
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