But when I called Lorraine’s number, all I got was a recorded message telling me that Lorraine Evans was unavailable at this time. Click. No invitation to leave a message.
“I guess you’ll have to call Fritz and hear his side of the story, for what it’s worth,” Carol said. “You do that while I walk over to the post office and get the mail. Want me to bring you a scone and a cup of coffee?”
“Sure.”
She kissed my forehead and left the office. I got up and paced around the office for a few minutes, then read the titles of the books on one of the shelves of my collection. Calm down, I told myself. Calm down.
The phone rang, and I picked it up. Fritz? Lorraine? “Guy Mallon Books,” I said. “May I help you?”
“I want to get my poetry published,” said a familiar voice. “How much will it cost me?”
“I’m sorry, sir, we don’t work that way,” I said. “Thanks for calling.”
Before I could hang up he went on. “Says here in this brochure, ‘We’ll publish your book for you. How would you like to be the next best-selling author? Let us make your dreams come true!’”
“Who is this?” I asked. “Is this Sam Welch?”
“Sam Welch? That’s a good one. In my dreams—I hear he packs a mighty mean six-shooter. No, pilgrim, this ain’t Samuel Welch. I’m just a little old poet who wants to take advantage of your big offer. I want to be a best-selling author.”
“I want to know who you are and what you’re talking about, but even more than that I want to hang up, so—”
“This Caslon Oldestyle Press?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “We have nothing to do with that company.”
“That’s funny,” Arthur Summers said—yes, Art Summers, that’s who it was! “It sure looks like you.”
“What are you talking about? This is Art, right?”
Art was laughing out loud now. “This brochure I got in the mail today,” he answered. “Max Black got one too. And a couple of other guys in the English Department at UCSB. I don’t know how big a mailing list Herndon’s got, my friend, but your face is probably all over the country by now. You and Carol smiling in front of a stack of ‘the next bestseller.’”
“Oh for God’s sake,” I groaned. “What a sleazeball. I remember when he took that picture.”
“That warehouse of yours is going to be the center of a publishing empire, is all I can say. Judging from the brochure, you guys are big-time. You’re going to put Alfred Knopf out of business. Or Vantage Press. Maybe both.”
“Give me a break.”
I hung up, just as Carol entered the office. She was not carrying scones and coffee. Just the mail and a faceload of fury. She slapped a brochure down hard on my desk and said, all business, “Call Channing. We’re going to sue. Right now.”
***
We walked into the warehouse twenty minutes later—Carol, myself, and Channing Bates, our attorney. Channing is a good friend to drink with and swap jokes with. He’s also a no-nonsense lawyer who thinks clearly on his feet. And he’s as big a man as I am small. The only legal work he had ever done for me was a simple business partnership with Carol, but I was glad to have him on my side that day as we marched to the back of the warehouse and saw the DocuTech machine spitting out a pile of evidence.
Channing picked up a brochure, turned the pages, and chuckled. “Good pictures,” he said. He turned to Gracie, who was manning the DocuTech, and said, “I’d like you to turn the machine off, please.”
Gracie raised her eyebrows and did as she was asked.
Roger Herndon came out of the small office he had built for himself. “Hey, Grace,” he said, “what happened? How come you turned off the printer?” Then he looked at us and said, “Hey, Guy. Carol. How you guys doing?”
“Roger,” I said, “I’d like you to meet our friend, Channing Bates.”
The two men shook hands politely, with smiles, and Roger said, “What can I do for you, Channing? Want to have a book published?”
“Could we step into your office, Mister Herndon?” Channing asked. Channing has a very low voice when he wants to speak that way. You don’t say no to such a voice.
Herndon nodded and led us into his cubicle. There was just room enough for the four of us, and Channing and Roger faced each other over a desk that looked like it had been hit by Hurricane Hugo.
Channing handed Roger a copy of the brochure and said, “I would like you to show me a signed release allowing you to use my clients in your advertisement.”
Roger’s eyes widened and then he broke out laughing. “Great brochure, huh?” he said. “How do you like it, Guy? Good shots of you and Carol, right?”
Channing shot us a look to tell us to keep quiet, which we did. I don’t think Carol found that an easy thing to do, but she kept her mouth shut.
“If I read this brochure correctly, my clients now work for Caslon Oldestyle Press. Is that correct, Mister Herndon?”
“It doesn’t say that. Hey, I just wanted a few pictures of my warehouse. These wonderful people are in my warehouse all the time, right Carol? And they’re good-looking folks, wouldn’t you agree, Channing? I never said these guys are the publishers or that they work for Caslon Oldestyle.”
Carol couldn’t hold it anymore. “This is our warehouse, and those are our books you photographed,” she said. “This brochure says they’re your books.” She picked up a brochure and read, “‘We keep our warehouse clean, neat, and dry, to protect all our books—your books, your best-selling books!’”
“The brochure doesn’t claim—”
“Mister Herndon,” Channing said, “you’re right about that. So all you need to do is to show me that my clients signed releases allowing you to print their pictures in your advertisements. Show me that, and there’s nothing more to complain about.”
Roger’s lips and nose twitched, but he managed to keep smiling. “Hey, man,” he said. “I’m just a small-time one-man operation. I don’t know all those legal mumbo-jumbo things you’re talking about. I just took some pictures of my friends, here, and—”
“Well, in that case, this meeting isn’t getting us anywhere.” Channing rose to his feet and turned to Carol and me. “Shall we?”
Carol said, “But—”
Channing turned back to Herndon. “You’ll hear from me before the end of the week. In the meantime I advise you that it’s in your best interest to keep that printing press turned off and not to mail out any more brochures. Our claim will probably be figured on a per-unit basis.”
Herndon frowned, then he laughed again. “Well, don’t contact me. This isn’t my business anymore. I was just doing what my boss told me to do.”
“You’re not the proprietor of Caslon Oldestyle Press?” Channing asked.
Roger pointed to the bottom of the brochure’s front panel. “Caslon Oldestyle Press is a division of Marburger Enterprises.”
“I was bought out three weeks ago,” Roger said as we walked out of his office. “You’ll have to deal with the man, Fritz Marburger. He knows a lot more about mumbo-jumbo anyway. So long, Guy, Carol. Gracie, turn that machine back on.”
Chapter Six
I couldn’t reach either Lorraine or Fritz on Tuesday. Lorraine’s phone message hadn’t changed, and Fritz wasn’t returning my calls.
Same on Wednesday.
So after lunch on Thursday, while Carol stayed in the office sending out past-due reminders to stores and distributors, I went down to the warehouse to see how the shipping department was doing.
I found Kitty hard at work. She dropped her tape gun and walked up to me with a hungry grin, wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and planted a French kiss on my left ear. You’re just going to have to take my word for it that getting hugged and kissed by a platinum blonde porn star half my age did not turn me on. Okay, so maybe it turned me on, but it was all a big flirt and we both knew it. “Guybaby,” she cooed. “So how’s it going?”
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“Don’t ever go into the publishing business,” I said. “Stick with stripping, it’s a lot less trouble.”
“Aren’t I in the publishing business, boss? Licking and sticking and stuffing and getting them off?” She held up a copy of Naming Names and rubbed it across her chest, then slid it slowly into a Jiffy Bag. “These little numbers work like Trojans. What exactly does that mean exactly, ‘work like a Trojan’?”
“Beats me,” I said.
She licked her lips.
Enough already. “So where’s Gracie?” I asked.
“She’s working for Roger today. Back there typesetting a book.”
“Typesetting? What book?”
“It’s called Onward Christian Sailors,” Kitty said. “The first book from Caslon Oldestyle Press. Roger got the contract and the check on Monday, and the book will be out tomorrow.”
“That’s fast,” I commented.
Kitty said, “That’s the way Gracie likes it. Nice and fast.”
I walked to the back of the warehouse, and there was Gracie at her desk, her eyes glued to her monitor and her fingers dancing on the keyboard.
“Hi, Gracie, how’s it going?” I asked.
“Hey,” she answered.
“I understand you’re typesetting today.”
“All week. Don’t worry, the wrapping will get done,” she said.
“I’m not worried. So you’re a typesetter, too?”
Gracie took her hands off the keyboard and took off her glasses. She looked at me without smiling and said, “I’m turning a piece-of-shit MacWrite document into a book. The author didn’t even spellcheck. This is going to take all day, so if it’s okay with you—”
“I’ll leave you to your work,” I said. “Where’s the boss?”
“Fritz Marburger’s in Rancho Mirage playing golf. If you want Roger, he’s in his office selling more contracts. They’re coming fast and furious.” She put her glasses back on and returned to her computer, muttering, “Piece of shit.”
I knocked on the open door of Roger’s cubicle, and he waved me in and pointed to the metal folding chair. He was on the phone and he was turning over the pages of a manuscript on his desk. I sat down and listened to the sales spiel.
“Lillian, this looks like a winner, is all I can say. I mean look at this—romance, sex, love, tragedy, a happy ending, I mean what more do you need to have a bestseller? And that’s the business we’re in.…Yes, I can put this book on our schedule for fall, but if you want to pay the whole amount up front, I can move the project to the front of the line, in time to get review copies off to The New York Times, The New Yorker, Cosmo, you know, all the big reviewers.…Yes, twenty-two thousand dollars is a lot of money, but we’re talking about an investment here. I mean read the contract I faxed you: it guarantees I’ll print ten thousand books, as needed to fill orders. Ten thousand times twenty-four ninety-five is two hundred and forty-nine five, and you get twenty-five percent of that, which will triple your money, see what I mean?…Okay, dear, you think it over while I enjoy reading the rest of this wonderful novel.…Oh, right. Memoir, that’s what I meant. But let me know in a day or two, okay dear? I mean there are others waiting, and I’d like to get the presses rolling on your book.…Good-bye, Lillian, I loved talking with you, too.”
He hung up, swiveled his chair around, and placed the manuscript on a shelf behind his desk. The shelf was piled with manuscripts. He swiveled back to me and said, “Guy, my man. So how’s it going?”
“Looks like that brochure mailing is paying off for you,” I said.
He clapped his hands and whooped. “That mailing cost me twelve thou. They started going out less than three weeks ago, and I’ve already taken in four contracts, all of them over twenty thousand bucks apiece. Got their disks, their contracts, and their checks. And I’ve got a bunch more authors on the line, ready to be reeled in. Business is booming, my man. Booming!”
“And they’re all paying up front?” I asked.
“So far. If they want to pay me half on deposit, that’s okay, but I warn them there’s a long waiting period.”
“So how long will it take you to publish the first four books?”
“I’m starting out slow, till Gracie gets the routine down. I figure a week a book.”
“You’re going to turn out ten thousand copies in a week?”
“Hah. One copy for starters.”
“But you told Lillian—”
“‘As needed,’ I told her. ‘As needed to fill orders.’ So, what can I do for you, Guy? I have to make a few more phone calls, so—”
“Where’s Marburger?” I asked. “You know?”
“He’s gone to Rancho Mirage, he told me,” Roger said. “Took Lorraine Evans down there to give her the full spa treatment for a week—massages, mud baths, facials, saunas, and lots to drink. He’ll be golfing and she’ll be coming to her senses, or that’s what he told me. I guess she’s being difficult.”
***
“We’re going to sue his ass,” Carol fumed.
“Roger?”
“No, I don’t care about Roger anymore. Besides, within a few months he’s going to be sued to death by disgruntled authors. No, I’m talking about Fritz Marburger. He’s the one I want to sue.”
“For what?”
“For getting us into this mess in the first place.”
“We went along with him, Carol. I don’t think there’s much we can complain about.”
“You went along with him.”
“Listen,” I said. “Don’t piss off Fritz at this point. He told us he’d pay for the second printing, but we don’t have that in writing. Let’s get him to pay the printer’s bill, and then we can let him know how we feel.”
“By which time we’ll be majorly in debt to him.”
“I’d rather be in debt to him than to the printing company. We need to go on printing books.”
“What books?”
“We’re still publishers, Carol.”
“More’s the pity.”
“I’m going back down to the warehouse,” I said. “Are there any more orders to process?”
“A few,” Carol said. “Fewer every day. And they need autographs. You might as well stay here and keep me company.”
“The shipping department’s shorthanded today,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”
***
“So tell me, Kitty,” I said as we wrapped books together across the work surface. “What’s the deal with this Freelance Reader book?”
“How to Earn Big Bucks at Home as a Freelance Reader,” she answered. “It’s a scheme Roger cooked up. It explains how publishers hire people to read manuscripts, right in their own homes. Roger charges fifty bucks a pop for these pamphlets, and they sell like hotcakes. He advertises in newspapers all over the country, and the orders come in every day. Gracie and I ship them out the next day.”
“But publishers don’t hire freelance readers.”
Kitty shrugged. “That’s probably why Roger is always changing the P.O. address of the company. When the orders come to us, they’re forwarded from Indianapolis or Salt Lake City or Lake Worth, Florida, or Manchester, New Hampshire, places like that.”
“Mail fraud,” I said.
“That’s Roger for you,” Kitty agreed. “But then most males are frauds. Hey Guy, when are you going to come see me at the Kountry Klub?”
I chuckled. “Pass me the stapler.”
“I’m serious, babe. Me and Grace do a sweet sister act. I mean sweet. It’s a bondage thing, you know, handcuffs and feathers and stuff.” She stuck a few Day-Glo strands of her hair between her pursed lips. “Hmmm?”
“I can’t say I’m not tempted,” I said. “Pass me the stapler.”
“I already did, Guy. You’re not paying attention.”
***
When I got back to the office I found a sign on the front door in Carol’s handwriting: “Gone for the day.
”
She must have walked home, I figured. Good. It was an easy mile-long stroll through the East Side of Santa Barbara, and I was glad she was working off some of that Irish steam among the springtime flowers and tree-lined streets. So I went into the office and straightened my desk as quickly as I could. I checked the phone messages—two people wanting to order Naming Names and no callback from Fritz. I pulled the blinds closed on the windows, then walked out and locked the office door behind me.
Then I heard the phone ringing in the office. On the chance that it might be Carol, wanting me to pick up something from the store or take care of some business on her desk, I fumbled with the key and let myself back in. I scurried across the office and picked up the phone on the fourth ring, just as the answering machine kicked in.
My mistress’ voice: “You have reached the office of Guy Mallon Books. Our office hours are—”
“Hold on,” I said, punching buttons in the dark until I found the one that cut off the recording. “This is Guy Mallon. May I help you?”
“You’re Guy Mallon?” asked a familiar voice I couldn’t quite place.
“That’s right.” What’d I just tell you, dummy?
“Yeah. Guy, this is Samuel Welch.”
Oh right. “Oh right,” I said. “Nice of you to call. How are you?”
“Dandy,” he said. “Say, have you had a chance to read that poem I gave you?”
“Oh my God,” I said. “I guess it’s still in the pocket of my sport coat, hanging up in the closet. You know, Friday’s event was such a disaster, I completely forgot.” The truth was I had read the poem, essentially a love song to Sam Welch’s legendary penis, as sung by Marilyn Monroe, supposedly. Dreadful in spades.
“Yeah, well that’s okay,” Sam Welch allowed. “I got a whole book full of them, and I’d like to drop them by your office. Tomorrow be okay?”
“Just a minute.” I pretended to check my calendar while I tried to come up with excuses, but I couldn’t think of anything, so I said, “How about ten tomorrow morning?”
“Gotcha. These little babies’ll knock off your Argyles.”
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