The Accident

by Chris Pavone

No shit. “Yes. Do you have any additional information?”

  “A portion—a small portion, I believe—of the manuscript is with the editor’s boss. The publisher of the outfit. Do you know who that is?”

  “I do.”

  “He’s worried.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “I happen to be meeting him for a drink tonight, at the Maritime in New York. You familiar with that club?”

  Hayden’s father had been a member of the Maritime; this is where they’d stayed, the two of them, when they’d visited New York for Hayden’s sixteenth birthday. Another era, in a different century. “No, can’t say that I am.”

  “We’ll be there at seven o’clock.”

  Hayden hangs up. The three of them transfer from the SUV to the helicopter. As soon as he’s buckled in, Hayden starts to read.

  Hayden had met with Buford Freeley III when this operation began, back in December.

  “You can call me Trey,” the lawyer said in an aggressively Southern accent, holding out his big hand, taking a firm grip of Hayden’s. Too firm, something to prove. “Everyone does. We been tryin’ to shake the name Buford for three generations now, but can’t seem to ditch it.” He gestured at a chair. “Please.”

  Hayden took his seat, glanced out the windows at the Washington skyline, such as it was, with the monument to the city’s namesake just a few blocks away, puncturing the sky, dividing it. Hayden had taken a good walk around Penn Quarter, the Mall, Capitol Hill. It’d been a long time since he’d wandered the capital. Washington reminded him more of a European city than an American one: the radiating streets and the traffic circles, the parks and squares, the lowness of the buildings relative to the height of the monuments. It’s the least skyscrapery big city in the States; would fit right in on the Continent.

  He let his eye wander over Freeley’s ego wall, framed hand-shakings with dozens of dignitaries, including more than one president of the United States. Law degree from Duke, undergrad from Princeton.

  “The farthest north any self-respectin’ Southern gentleman would consent to attend college, isn’t that right?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Mr. Freeley. I myself am not a Southerner.”

  “No, I guess you’re not.”

  “And only marginally a gentleman.”

  Freeley squinted across his wide, cluttered desk. “So what can I do for you?”

  “People tell me you’re a man who can be trusted.”

  Freeley had an easy laugh, a genuine one, a Southern laugh. “As much as any Washington, DC, lawyer. Isn’t that right, Mr.—what was it again? Mr. Lyons?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Mm-hmmm.” He peered over the rim of his glasses, dubious. “And your message said this is about a book project? Mr. Lyons?”

  “Yes?”

  “You gonna stick with that name, now that you made it into my office? Or you gonna tell me who you really are?”

  Hayden was ready for this, but didn’t feel the need to show it. Which is what separates the pros from the amateurs: pros don’t need to prove how smart they are.

  “What did you think?” Freeley shook his head. “I bill at eight hundred dollars an hour. When I do a book deal, I take fifteen percent off the top, and the top for my clients is usually in the seven-figure range. It takes me a day or two to make one a those deals. And that’s when I’m havin’ an off-day.”

  Hayden nodded.

  “Which is to say, Mr. Lyons, that I make a lotta money. And do you know how I make a lotta money?” He kept his eyes on Hayden, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I make a lotta money by not wasting time takin’ meetings that will make me no money. Which is to say, Mr. Lyons, that I have a staff whose job it is to research the people who want to walk into this office. To find out who they are.”

  Hayden was amused by all the unnecessary bluster. “And who am I?”

  “You are no one. You don’t exist. There is no one meaningful named Joseph Lyons in Washington. Or in the United States of America.”

  “Didn’t someone tell you I’d be calling?”

  Freeley snorted. “Of course. Someone always tells me someone will be callin’. A senator, congressman, lobbyist.”

  Hayden allowed himself a full, broad smile of bona fide enjoyment. “But this was from the director of Central Intelligence.”

  “Oh, is he the one person in Washington who don’t lie?”

  Hayden couldn’t help but laugh. This was exactly the type of guy who he wished he could work with. But guys like this don’t work for a hundred grand a year, occasionally getting shot at, sometimes in hellholes.

  Trey Freeley had launched himself in the capital as a white-shoe associate, who soon became a famously aggressive literary agent, who then translated his success into a law-firm partnership, where he carved out a unique niche for himself, representing nearly everyone inside the Beltway with a big book deal to make.

  “I could”—Hayden leaned forward—“tell you another, more complicated, and more difficult-to-verify set of lies. But they’d just be more cover. So for the purposes of this billable hour, let’s just assume that I’m a prospective client who will turn out to be not worth your trouble.” Hayden took an envelope out of his pocket, handed it over to Freeley. “And I expect we will not meet again.”

  The lawyer opened the envelope, pulled out a piece of paper, a cashier’s check.

  “I also do homework, Mr. Freeley. And your hourly is seven hundred, not eight.”

  “Touché.” Freeley put the check on his desk. “This is not about a book deal?”

  Hayden shrugged. “That doesn’t matter, does it? Why I’m here is because people say you know more about the book-publishing business than anyone in DC, and you collect the New York gossip without being a part of it.”

  Freeley couldn’t disagree with this assessment. He shrugged.

  “I’m here,” Hayden said, “for you to explain it to me.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Book publishing.”

  “What about it?”

  “Everything,” Hayden said, smiling broadly again. “That is, everything we can cover in”—he glanced at his watch—“the next fifty-four minutes.”

  Freeley leaned back in his chair, getting comfortable. “That should just about do it,” he said. “It ain’t a very complicated business.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Across-continental flight provides ample reading time, especially headed west, into the wind. But The Accident is on the long side, as submissions go. So even though the plane is inexplicably delayed, and the trade winds fierce, when the seat belt light extinguishes and the passengers stand and Camilla slips the manuscript back into her MCNALLY & SONS tote, she’s still a hundred pages shy of the end.

  She shuffles down the aisle, casting the leads in her imagination. She’s partial to relatively young actors for The Accident, so they’ll be appropriate for the college-age scenes, which will take disproportionate time in the adaptation; there’s a lot of visual drama in the beginning of the story. And she imagines that it’s easier to age younger actors than to reverse-age older ones.

  This will be a brilliant film.

  She should rent a convertible, a nice one, and spend the week zipping around Los Angeles with her sunglasses on, her long red hair whipping in the wind, trying, like everyone here, to attract attention. She finally has something worth the attention.

  And to hell with the limits of her expense account. This is probably the last trip she’ll be taking on the McNally tab, and she’ll never even have to justify the charges. Gone by the time the credit-card statement arrives. Waiting curbside for the rental van, Camilla calls and asks for an upgrade. But they’re all out of convertibles. The almost unbearably stupid clerk can offer her a variety of SUVs, but that’s not what she wants, not at all. “Right,” she says, “I’ll take the midsize then.”

  “No worries.”

  As Camilla listens to this unapologetic dimwit, she worries that maybe California i
sn’t exactly Shangri-La. “On second thought, no thank you.” She hangs up, calls another agency, who sure enough has multiple convertible options. If there’s one place that’s never short on rental cars, it’s LAX.

  The other shuttle bus deposits her in the lot, across an access road and a quarter-mile from the lot where she’s expected.

  She doesn’t have sufficient time to check into the hotel before her appointment, as planned. She’ll just freshen up here, in the rental-lot restroom, a wardrobe swap and a makeup application. Staring at herself in the mirror, painting her lips under the harsh glare of public-bathroom fluorescence, dehydrated from the flight, she catches a foreshadow of her face in twenty years, maybe ten, eyes downturned at the corners, a bit like a cocker spaniel, and cheeks sagging, a spot of wattle. She’ll look exactly like her mum. Not being her mum has been one of Camilla’s main goals in life. The primary goal, in fact. But there’s no avoiding one’s genes.

  She tosses her luggage into the boot, shimmies into the driver’s side, adjusts all the things that need adjusting. She turns the ignition, and steals a glance at the car’s clock. She’s cutting it close.

  Camilla shifts into gear and pulls out of the numbered space, past a security check, accelerating down the surface street, driving like a maniac in the rich glow of the late-afternoon sun, on this day of hers that will be twenty-seven hours long, the wind in her hair and an invaluable property in her possession, on her way to pitch a friendly producer.

  She loves it here. The palm trees and the mountains, the canyons and the beaches, the valet parking and the central-air. Camilla used to be posh, sort of, before she decided to reject it. Twenty years on, she’s reconsidering. Posh had its upsides. She could be posh here, where posh can be earned democratically. In England, posh needs to be bestowed genetically to be worn comfortably.

  Camilla guns the engine, feels the automatic transmission turn over to the next gear, hitting ninety on the ascent of the on-ramp.

  She doesn’t notice that she has pulled far ahead of a burgundy sedan that had been speeding to catch her before she reached the freeway.

  Camilla enters the vast outer office, walking with the long strides of an Important Person with Places to Be. But she also softens her face into what she hopes is a sweet, sincere smile.

  “Hullo Jessica,” she says to the assistant. “It’s Camilla Glyndon-Browning.”

  If there’s one thing Camilla has learned about Los Angeles, it’s to suck up to the assistants. All it really takes is remembering their names.

  “Hello Ms. Glyndon-Browning. He’ll be right with you. Please have a seat.”

  “Thank you, Jessica.” Another big smile. Remembering their names, plus really big smiles; it’s not so hard. She reaches into her tote and takes out the manuscript.

  “Jessica, whilst I’m there, could I impose on you to have a photocopy made? Of this?” She puts the manuscript on the desk. “It’s for Stan, of course.”

  Jessica looks down her nose at the stack of paper, then back at Camilla. “Absolutely.” The girl punches a button on her vast telephone apparatus. “Need a copy, George, now,” she says into her headset. “Ms. Glyndon-Browning, it’ll be ready in ten.”

  “Thank you so very much.”

  Camilla crosses to a deep, welcoming sofa. She looks around at the promotional posters for blockbusters, Stan’s credit on all of them.

  The door to the inner sanctum is open, and Camilla can hear the in-progress meeting within. “We can’t have a SAG actor doing the driving, if there are other actors on the bus, and the bus is actually moving,” some woman says. “We’ll need a Teamster. This is not a big issue, but it’s a safety concern, when we’ve got equipment and lighting in the vehicle, and the vehicle is moving.”

  Camilla straightens her back, crosses her legs, places her hands in her lap, trying to look her best. Then she leans back a few degrees, trying to look like she’s not trying. Then she notices the assistant watching her, regarding her coolly, warily. The girl must see a lot of women waltzing through this office, dressed like this. Camilla suddenly feels self-conscious, aware of what she looks like. Aware of what she is. Fleeing England didn’t eradicate the rich tapestry of insecurities that comes with being someone like her, with a dad like him. It just redirected them, disguised them. She recognizes her origins every time she pulls on a skirt she knows is too short, a working-class girl from the North. But she can’t help herself.

  She tunes back into the conversation, and hears another voice. “That’s with all their bonuses maxed out at one mil: the book author, the first screenwriter, the second screenwriter. I’m gonna go back to the second screenwriter’s rep to renegotiate. It’s been two years, and she hasn’t contributed anything. Not a single word of hers in the entire script.”

  Camilla loses herself in the reverie of renegotiating a contract that includes million-dollar bonuses. She doesn’t notice Stan’s meeting disbanding. “Camilla, Babe.” His chunky arms are spread expansively, oversize gold cufflinks glinting at the end of a garishly striped shirt. A handful of people spill through the anteroom, clutching papers and folders and phones.

  “Stan,” she says, standing, smiling. He has lost a little weight in the half-year since she last saw him, but he’s still a bear: maybe six-two, probably 275 pounds, and a massive everything—his hands, his fingers, his forearms, every part of him is oversize. Like a different species, Homo producerus giganticus. It’s his gigantic head specifically that’s alarming, and not just the circumference of the skull, but a gigantitude in all aspects—elephantine ears, bulbous nose, flesh-filled lips, dome-like forehead. It’s a scary bloody head.

  Stan Balzer takes up more than his fair share of space in the world. He’s a big person with big cars, big houses, a big presence, big bank accounts with hundreds—thousands—of times the amount of money that the average person on this planet has. He consumes more of everything—food, liquor, money, women—than he’s entitled to, and he boasts about it. For Camilla—for a lot of people, she imagines—he’s the unlikely intersection of repugnant and alluring. He’s America.

  “Always good to see you,” Stan continues, “looking so … um … wonderful.” He gives her a full, slow once-over. What Stan is not is a subtle man.

  Camilla thinks she sees Jessica roll her eyes, and she can’t blame the girl. Her boss is a lecher; everyone knows it. And Camilla has to admit that she herself is—to put not too fine a point on it—a tart, dressed the part in a scandalous skirt, a diaphanous low-cut blouse, big hoop earrings, a choker. Absolutely no question this is a slutty look. And she completes the ensemble, as always, with her plastic-frame eyeglasses, a little bit of schoolmarm there. With her English accent, she’s at least a compelling enigma. Surrounded by all these silicone breasts and Botoxed faces, that’s all she can hope for. A compelling enigma, plus the promise of a relatively cheap date, in a town filled with wildly expensive ones.

  “No calls, Jessica,” says Stan. “None. I’m gone. Call Tim and tell him wheels-up in ninety.”

  Camilla stands in the center of the office, her back to the door, to Stan, facing his unoccupied desk. She knows where Stan is going, but she’s not. Not yet.

  “Babe,” from behind her. “Why don’t you join me over here?” She can hear him pat the black leather of his Art Deco casting couch. She wonders if he chose leather specifically, as opposed to upholstery, to make it easier to clean off bodily fluids.

  She peeks over her shoulder. Stan is wearing the smuggest of his various types of smug smiles, shoulders thrown back confidently. She turns away.

  “In a moment, Stan,” she says. “But first, perhaps you could join me, over here?”

  “We have business?”

  “We do.”

  “Rrrmmm,” he grumbles, walking around his desk. He settles into his vast chair, crosses his legs. “Ninety seconds.”

  “I need thirty.” She’d rehearsed, quite a bit, in the car.

  Stan chortles, looks off to the window, whose
shades are already drawn. “Go.”

  “When one of the most powerful men in the world was at university, he killed a girl.” Camilla got this sentence out slowly, with a measured pace, a poker face. “His father and best friend helped cover it up. And then they went on to found an international string of news websites, which they expanded into cable television and newspapers—the largest media company in the world. All built with the illegal, covert help of the Central. Intelligence. Agency.”

  Stan turns away from the window, to Camilla, with his eyebrows raised. “You have an unauthorized biography? Of Charlie Wolfe?”

  “Something like.”

  “And it’s true?”

  “It is.”

  “And it’s brand-new? Do you own it yet?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it.”

  Stan nods knowingly. “And how’s my friend Bradford? He on-board with this?”

  She pauses. “He’s not involved.”

  The look on Stan’s face can be summed up in one word: bullshit. “How an …?”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “Okay.” He shrugs. “I’ll definitely read it. You left it with Jessica to copy?”

  “I did indeed.” Camilla stands, smiling coyly. “But you need to promise me something, Stan.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Executive producer credit.”

  He raises his big bushy eyebrows.

  “You know you can screw me, Stan. But I won’t let you screw me over.”

  The Accident Page 150

  “There was another girl.”

  Preston Wolfe squinted at this interloper, his son’s friend. “What do you mean?”

  The three of them had been in the suite for an hour, rehashing the accident and the aftermath in minute detail, drinking coffee from the tiny hotel-room carafe, Cokes from the vending machine down on the floor below. Both Dave and Charlie had taken showers, scrubbing off any traces of their night, and that dead girl.

  There had never been any mention of going to the police.