A Dangerous Fiction

by Barbara Rogan

  He stared at her, looking more surprised than hurt. Chloe clapped a hand over her mouth and rushed back to her cubicle. The awkward silence that followed was broken by Harriet’s arrival. She wore an ivory silk blouse, a smart, high-waisted black skirt, and heels in place of her usual sensible pumps.

  “Morning, Harriet,” I said. “You look swell.”

  “Lunch at La Jolie today.” There was a little pause where the name of her lunch date should have come, but didn’t. Harriet stared at Mingus. “Is that Gordon’s dog? Are you keeping it?”

  “For a while.”

  “But bringing it to the office—is that wise, Jo? A big dog like that . . . think of your liability if it hurt someone.”

  I wished they would quit calling him “it.” “He’s trained. He’d never attack except on command.”

  “A trained attack dog? That’s like bringing a loaded gun to work!”

  “Guns can be turned against you,” I quoted Gordon. “Dogs can’t.”

  She raised a plucked eyebrow and said, “It’s your neck, my dear. Better introduce us, then.”

  “Say hi, Mingus.”

  He got up, wagging his tail, and accepted a proficient scratch behind the ear. Harriet might have been disapproving, but she wasn’t intimidated. “Comes from a musical family, does he?”

  “Apparently. His brothers are named Satchmo and Miles.”

  She sketched a smile and walked past us to her office. I watched her go. Tommy’s words lingered like poison dripped in my ear. Stole the agency out from under her . . . motive and opportunity . . . none of her clients hit.

  “Who’s she meeting for lunch today?” I asked Lorna, who shrugged. “Where am I lunching?”

  “The Union Square Cafe at one with Marisa Deighton,” she said promptly.

  “Give her a call—see if we can switch it to La Jolie.”

  Lorna didn’t ask why, just turned to her computer. I poured myself a cup of coffee and filled a plastic bowl with water for Mingus. Then I hurried down the hall to my office and, without stopping to think about it, dialed Molly’s number.

  She answered on the first ring, as if she’d been waiting. “Hey, kiddo.”

  “Molly, I am so sorry.” I didn’t know what I was apologizing for, but I felt better for saying it. Nothing was worth being at odds with her.

  “Fuggedaboutit. That was me sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong. Old habit. Hard to break.”

  We went on in that vein for a while, each of us taking the blame on herself, but after we hung up I realized that Molly never recanted those nonsensical things she’d said about Hugo. I thought about that for a while. If Teddy Pendragon had already signed with Random, then Molly was right: he would write the biography with my help or without it. If I didn’t cooperate, skewed stories like Molly’s would be all he’d have to go on.

  That couldn’t be allowed to happen. I pulled up an e-mail I’d received from Teddy the morning after our dinner. In it he’d asked for a letter addressed “To Whom It May Concern,” stating that he was writing a biography of Hugo with my approval and cooperation, and encouraging Hugo’s friends to speak with him “so that the resulting book will do justice to its subject in all his splendid complexity.”

  I’d written back, thanking him for dinner but ignoring his request, which seemed to me presumptuous and even dangerous: endorsements sent to individuals could easily be withdrawn later, if the biographer proved untrustworthy, while this blanket statement could not. But once again the balance of power had shifted. If there were to be sides, I needed him on mine.

  I typed up the letter myself. Normally I’d have had Lorna do it, but it wasn’t strictly agency business, and given the dog situation, I was wary of provoking her. Prickly as she was, Lorna was valuable to me. I’d given her two raises already, but in the back of my mind I was always braced for an announcement that she’d found a better-paying job and was leaving us. But this was unjust to her, for like the German shepherds in Gordon’s book, Lorna was a loyal soul, and she’d attached herself to me. She certainly didn’t stay for love of literature. If the girl read at all, I’d never caught her at it. I’d asked her, when she first applied for the job, why she wanted to work in publishing. It was a standard question, and I’d expected the usual English-major twaddle in response, but Lorna’s answer had been memorable.

  “It’s clean work,” she’d said. “Books are clean.”

  I looked at Mingus, lying beneath my desk with his head resting on his front paws. He didn’t seem to me the least bit filthy, but I supposed that filth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

  • • •

  New Yorkers, like denizens of all great cities, cope with its unfathomable vastness by carving out small communities. Some are based on location, others on affiliation. Lawyers have their hangouts, stockbrokers have theirs, and we publishing professionals have ours. Some restaurants are perennials: the Union Square Cafe, Michael’s, and the Four Seasons. Among the fashionable newcomers were Maison D’être, where Rowena had had her book launch, and the current favorite, La Jolie. The chef was a young Frenchwoman who’d been a sous-chef at Le Cirque. La Jolie was her nickname, a dismissive one in the male-dominated world of haute cuisine, so there was a pleasing sassiness in her adopting the name for her first restaurant.

  It was a charming little place on East Fifty-Fifth, not far from Michael’s, with a small but comfortable bar and a dozen well-spaced tables in the dining room. The décor was French rustic, as was the menu; only the prices referenced Manhattan. I found Marisa waiting in the bar, radiant with secret knowledge. Either she’s pregnant, I thought, or she’s got an offer for me, and judging by the wineglass in her hand, she wasn’t pregnant.

  The maître d’ led us into the dining room. The moment we entered, I spotted Harriet at a table in the center of the room. Opposite her sat a man I recognized at once, though his back was to me. They leaned across the table with the quiet intensity of lovers or conspirators.

  I let Marisa go ahead and paused beside their table. Harriet glanced up, smile in place, and did a double take. Her companion, seeing her reaction, turned to discover its cause. Charlie Malvino didn’t blink an eye. “Hello, Jo,” he said, sketching an ironic little bow.

  “Charlie,” I said coolly, “Harriet. Catching up on old times?”

  She stared at me. “What are you doing here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Charlie said. “She’s checking up on the help.”

  “Enjoy your lunch,” I said, and went back to Marisa. I ordered the goat-cheese salad and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and she said she’d have the same. Definitely not pregnant, I thought. Then she broke the news.

  “Marty read the Keyshawn Grimes and he loved it. We’re prepared to make an offer.”

  “Nice,” I said. “What’s the offer?”

  “Modest.”

  “How modest?”

  “Eight thousand?”

  “That’s not modest, that’s downright chintzy.”

  I know she would have been given a range, not a figure; the trick was figuring out the upper limit of that range. We haggled amicably over our salads and settled at last on $12,000. Better than eight, but still low enough that unless we got extraordinary early reviews or major award nominations, they’d just shove the book out with no support, which is like dropping a toddler off to play in Times Square. But with no other bidders, I had very little leverage.

  Still, it meant that Keyshawn’s first novel would be published by a prestigious house. There’d be reviews, maybe some subsidiary rights sales: not a bad debut for a twenty-three-year-old writer. Suddenly I couldn’t wait to get back to the office to call him. The sale of a first novel is a moment that lives forever in a writer’s mind. It’s the start of his career, a before-and-after moment he’ll remember for the rest of his life. I would be a part of that memory: a modest sort of im
mortality, but my own.

  Chapter 12

  I was on the phone with Keyshawn when Harriet stormed into my office. Waving her to a seat, I continued my conversation.

  Keyshawn attempted to take the news coolly but was undermined by the break in his voice. “You’re the man, Jo. I can’t believe it. I owe you for this.”

  “I take it you accept the offer?”

  Harriet, who’d been scowling at the floor, looked up at this.

  “Oh, hell yeah!” Keyshawn said.

  I congratulated him again and warned him that contracts would take several weeks. We talked for a few more minutes, then I eased him off the phone.

  “Who’d you sell?” Harriet asked.

  “Keyshawn Grimes.”

  “Well done.” Her tone was begrudging but sincere. For all the nos we have to give and receive, we agents live for the yeses; and the sale of a first novel is the sweetest deal of all.

  Harriet recomposed her face into a scowl. “Were you checking up on me?”

  “Why would I?”

  “You tell me; you’re the one who showed up at La Jolie.”

  “We’ve crossed paths at lunch before, and you never asked that question. Feeling guilty?”

  “Why the bloody hell should I? Charlie may be on your blacklist, but he still has some friends.” Her voice had taken on a grating upper-class English edge. Mingus sat up and stared at her. “Lie down, you silly dog!” she snapped, and to my surprise he obeyed.

  “Harriet,” I said mildly, “it’s no business of mine who you lunch with.” And yet I couldn’t help wondering. Charlie had good commercial sense but no real taste; Harriet was the opposite. They’d never gotten along in the office, and I’d never known them to meet outside it. Why now?

  “No, it isn’t,” she said sourly.

  “How is Charlie, anyway? Still fuming?”

  “What do you expect? It’s not pleasant being grilled by the police.”

  “Beats being fried,” I said. Harriet was not amused, and I remembered that she, too, had been questioned. “I told the police they were wasting their time. No agent would have sent those e-mails.”

  “Yes, well, apparently you didn’t tell them forcefully enough.”

  “Charlie called me to complain,” I said, “but what he really wanted was to find out exactly what the police were investigating. I can’t imagine he didn’t ask you.”

  “Of course he asked. I told him nothing.”

  I thought of their two heads, canted together like lovers’. Charlie hadn’t looked disappointed.

  The door opened and Lorna walked in, carrying a stack of letters. “I need signatures,” she said.

  Harriet turned on her with the fury she hadn’t dared show me. “Can’t you see we’re in a meeting, you stupid cow?”

  I was on my feet before I knew it, and so was Mingus. “How dare you talk to her like that? Apologize at once!”

  “Or what, you’ll sic the dog on me?” Harriet took a deep breath and composed herself. “I apologize, Lorna. You didn’t deserve that.”

  “No, she didn’t,” I said, quelling an impulse to slap the older woman silly. Striking out at Lorna like that was like kicking a stray dog, and I wouldn’t have it in my office. “Thanks, Lorna, leave them on my desk. Harriet and I have some things to discuss.”

  “Actually,” Harriet said, “we’re done. I’ve had enough interrogation to last me for a while, thank you very much.” She got up and marched out of my office with the perfect posture of one whose governess had made her walk with books on her head.

  I started to call after her, then stopped myself. If this conversation continued, it would end with Harriet quitting or being fired. Maybe that’s where we were headed anyway, but I didn’t want it to happen now, in the heat of the moment. I sat back down and rested my head on my hands.

  “Nasty old witch,” Lorna muttered. I pretended not to hear.

  • • •

  I worked late. The sun had set by the time I left the building, but Manhattan by night is as bright as most cities by day. I’d changed into sneakers and planned to walk home through the park. Mingus needed the exercise, and I needed to clear my head.

  The rush-hour crowd had abated, but there were still plenty of people on the streets. I stood for a moment, adjusting to the clatter and clanks, honks and beeps, the incessant polyglot hum of the city. Then I stepped onto the pavement, and the city cradled me in its towering arms, cloaking me in anonymity. Mingus trotted at my heel, ears perked, vigilant. All he needed was an earbud to be the consummate Secret Service agent.

  Hugo used to hate me running in the park, or even entering it at night, but that’s because he didn’t understand my situation. The city was his birthright, not mine. I had to earn it; and to make a city yours, you must inhabit it. So whenever Hugo fussed, I’d said “Yes, dear” and “No, dear,” and then I’d done as I pleased.

  I was willing to cede the outer boroughs, but within Manhattan, there was nowhere I would not go. Central Park was relatively safe. The main paths were well lit and well patrolled, and I took sensible precautions: I never walked through late at night, and I avoided secluded places. But at seven thirty on a clear summer evening, with Mingus at my side, I had no fear.

  The evening was warm, and a fine mist rose from the lake. We had just passed the tall boulders along the lakefront when Mingus stopped and swung his head around, pointing like a bird dog at a spot amid the rocks. The hair on his ruff rose, and I believe my own hair did as well, for I felt it too: the sense of being watched, followed . . . stalked.

  I stared hard at the boulders. At first I saw nothing. Then my eye caught a flicker of movement where none should have been, and gradually I made out a deeper darkness in the shadow of the boulders: a crouching human figure.

  There were people around but no one close. I thought of running, but to run was to invite pursuit. I felt for the clasp of Mingus’s collar and called out, in a voice much braver than I felt, “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

  A moment passed. Then the dark shape unfurled, and through the mist I glimpsed a male figure in dark clothes and a hoodie. A moment later it swung around the side of the boulder and was gone. Mingus leapt forward, straining against the leash, and for a moment I was tempted to let him loose. If it was Sam Spade, this was my chance to catch him. But what if it wasn’t, and I ended up siccing Mingus on some harmless vagrant who’d been sheltering in the boulders?

  “Leave it,” I said. “Let’s go, Mingus.” The dog threw me a reproachful look but followed as I turned toward home.

  • • •

  To call or not to call, that was the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to be taken for a poor frail woman in need of protection, or to swim alone through a sea of troubles? If I called Tommy, would he take it personally? Even the question made me angry. What did I care what he thought?

  I took a steak from the freezer and stuck it in the microwave to thaw. Poured myself a glass of wine, which I sipped in the kitchen while the dog lapped water from his bowl. I thought of all the novels I’ve read in which witnesses withhold information from the police, only to show up dead in the next scene. Tommy’s card was in my wallet, cell phone number scrawled on the back. I laid it on the counter and looked at it. When the microwave beeped, I put the steak on to broil and threw together a salad. Mingus stationed himself beside the stove, drooling so much that a little pool of saliva collected on the floor. “Poor guy,” I said. “You’re not used to city hours, are you? How do you like your steak? Medium-rare work for you?”

  It seemed to. His half of the sirloin, mixed with kibble, was gone before I took my second bite.

  • • •

  “No, I don’t think you’re paranoid,” Tommy said when I finally phoned him. “I think you’re stupid.”

  “What?” I sat up straight on the couch.


  “Walking alone through the park at night? Jesus wept, woman. Why not pin a target on your back?”

  “I wasn’t alone. Mingus was with me.”

  “Can he stop a bullet?”

  “Easy there, Detective. No one’s been flashing any guns. Sam Spade’s the white-collar type.”

  “His namesake wasn’t.”

  “Oh,” I said. “You’ve read Hammett.”

  There was a little pause, and I found myself listening for background noises on his end—footsteps, a TV, a woman’s voice—but all I heard was his voice in a vacuum. “You gave me The Maltese Falcon. Said if I insisted on being a dick, I might as well learn from the best.”

  I laughed. “I don’t remember, but it sounds like me. Fiction trumps reality every time.”

  “Now there’s a surprising flash of insight.”

  Definitely alone, I thought. He wouldn’t use that tone if he weren’t. Somehow conversations with Tommy seemed to start out professional and take a sharp turn toward personal. He had an encroaching way about him: that much I did remember.

  I told him about Harriet and Charlie. He didn’t seem impressed.

  “You don’t think that’s kind of suspicious?” I asked.

  “La Jolie, you said?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I know it,” Tommy said. “Expense-account joint. Publishers’ hangout.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Silly place to meet if they’re conspiring.”

  I hadn’t thought of that, but he was right. La Jolie was more the type of place you take someone you want to impress. “So now you think Harriet’s OK?” I asked.

  “Didn’t say that. She’s no fan of yours, that’s for sure. My advice would be don’t take any poison apples from her. And stay out of the damn park.”

  “Brilliant, Detective.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am.”

  Chapter 13

  The next blow fell the following morning. Jean-Paul was with me; we were going over his plan for resubmitting the work of each of our targeted clients. Lorna walked into my office and said, “Amy Patel from Publishers Weekly called.”