Vanity Fire

by John M. Daniel

  “Jesus,” I said. “I guess it’s time to let Lorraine know her books have arrived.”

  “Do we have to?” Carol said. “Haven’t we got enough to do without having to deal with an author?”

  “We can’t fill most of our orders till she signs the books,” I pointed out.

  Carol shook her head, then leaned forward and put her forehead on her desk. “It’s not going to work, Guy,” she said. “We’re never going to get it all done.”

  “We’ll get it done,” I told her. “We’ll get it all done.”

  “Okay, you call Sweet Lorraine,” Carol said.

  So I called Lorraine Evans. When I told her the news she squealed, “Oh God, sweetie, I’m so excited! You’ve made my day—you’ve made my century! We’ll be there at your warehouse in about an hour.”

  We? “It could wait till tomorrow, Lorraine,” I said, “if you—”

  “Are you kidding? Oh God, I’m literally going to pee in my pants! Bye, honey.”

  “Wait, let me give you the address.”

  “No need. Fritz knows where it is.”

  “Fritz? He’s back in the picture?”

  “Strictly business,” Lorraine said. “Don’t let him tell you any different.”

  ***

  When we got back to the warehouse, Roger Herndon was there waiting for us, sitting on the short pile we used as a desk and tapping his knee with a folded sheet of paper. “Greetings, sports fans,” he said through his shit-eating grin.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Carol nodded to him and sat down in front of the typewriter. “We have an author coming in to sign books,” she told him. “So we’ll need that space your ass is parked on.”

  “Lorraine Evans, right? I’m a big fan. She probably never heard of me, but I was in show business myself for a few years, before I got into publishing.”

  “So we heard,” Carol said.

  “Yeah. Uh, Carol, about this invoice.” He opened it up and laid it on the surface beside him. “I’m a little short right now, so any chance we could work it out in trade?”

  “We’re a bit short ourselves,” Carol answered. “Having spent all this money on cleaning and moving—for your business as well as ours. We’re just asking you to pay your fair share.”

  “What kind of trade do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “Guy, stay out of this,” Carol snapped.

  “I’m just—”

  “I’m trying to be businesslike here, if you don’t mind,” she said. “Give me a break. What’s Roger got to offer? Free tickets to a strip club? A lifetime supply of Freelance Reader?”

  “Roger has a printing press, Carol,” I said.

  “He has a DocuTech machine,” Carol countered. “We don’t do print on demand. What’s the name of your publishing company, Roger?”

  Got to hand it to Roger. He was still grinning. “Caslon Oldestyle Press,” he answered. “The printing isn’t all that bad, actually. But that’s not what I had in mind.”

  “Okay,” Carol said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to attack you. So. What?”

  “Well,” he said, “pardon me for being nosy, but it seems to me if that accordion file is full of orders—”

  “How do you know what’s in that file?” I asked.

  Carol said, “Let the man talk.”

  “Wait a minute,” I asked. “Just answer me, Roger. Were you poking your nose into our private files? Because if so—”

  “Wait,” Roger said. “No. But I have an accordion file just like that crammed full of orders for Freelance Reader. I’m just guessing you use your accordion file for the same purpose, and I can see it’s bursting at the seams. If I’m right, seems to me you’re going to need a little help filling those orders.”

  “You’re offering to help us wrap books?” Carol asked.

  “Well, I’m pretty busy myself, but Gracie has some extra time. Her and her friend Kitty are a dynamite shipping team. They’ve shipped thousands of Freelance Readers. I could let you have them for a reduced rate.”

  “How much?”

  “Tear up that invoice and you can have the two of them for the rest of the week. Three full days. After that you work out your own deal with them if you want to keep them on.”

  I saw a smile steal over Carol’s face. “Will you pay Gracie and Kitty a decent wage for their work this week? I don’t hire slave labor.”

  “That’s between them and I,” Roger said. “Don’t worry about those girls. They owe me big-time.”

  Carol squinted.

  “Done,” I said. I’m not much of a businessman, but I know an auspicious coincidence when I see one. I shook Roger’s hand while Carol tore up the invoice, and that’s the moment Lorraine Evans and Fritz Marburger walked through the warehouse door.

  ***

  We’d had the hugs and handshakes, and now it was time for business. We cleared the low surface off and turned it into a conference table, with Roger, Gracie, and Fritz on one side and Lorraine, Carol, and me on the other. Kitty Katz, the new shipping clerk, sat at the end. Fritz clearly considered this a top-level meeting of his own publishing empire, and he was showing us he knew how to control the action.

  “Okay, people, listen up,” he said. “We got a success on our hands, and the thing we have to do is not get swallowed by it. Growth is good, but there’s such a thing as growing too fast. This business is about to grow like a garden on steroids, and we have to keep it watered and weeded. You with me here? Huh? Carol?”

  Carol nodded and grunted.

  “Okay. Let’s get started. I got a golf date at three o’clock. I want to talk about film rights for Lorraine’s book. Guy, where are we at with that?”

  “We’ve received about twenty-five requests for review copies from people in the industry,” I said.

  “Any big names?”

  “Bette Midler’s company wants to see a copy.”

  “Forget it,” Lorraine said. “Don’t send her a copy.”

  “Why not?” Fritz said. “She’s a big star. She could play you.”

  “The book’s not about me,” Lorraine pointed out.

  “I know that. It’s about your mother, right?”

  “You shut up about that,” Lorraine said. “Bette’s just trying to compete with me, as always.”

  “Send Bette’s people a copy,” Fritz told me. “And from now on all the inquiries get forwarded to me. I’m Lorraine’s agent. I’ll do the follow-up, and I’ll tell you which ones to send review copies to. Okay. You all heard the good news about ‘Oprah’?”

  Carol said, “No. What?”

  “We got Lorraine booked on ‘Oprah’ for sometime in May.”

  “I got me booked,” Lorraine said. “My publicist. You had nothing to do with that.” She turned to me and said, “Isn’t it thrilling? And there will be a cover story in People the same week!”

  I’m sure my grin was as big as hers, but I stole a look at Carol and saw a grimace instead. Absolute panic. I asked her, “You okay?”

  “We don’t have enough books,” she said. “Talk about growing too fast. We’re going to be getting all this publicity to die for, and it’s going to kill us. We’ll run out in two days. By which time Oprah will be touting a different book and we’ll be dead in the water.”

  “Better get more books right away,” Fritz said. “Order another ten thou.”

  “With what?” Carol asked. “We’ve blown our wad.”

  “The whole thirty thousand dollars?” Fritz shouted. “Christ’s sake, Guy, you told me twenty thou would cover it.”

  “That was a guess.”

  “Shit. Amateur. What about income from the sale of the first ten thousand copies?” Fritz asked. “Surely that ought to pay for a reprint.”

  “Doesn’t work that way,” Carol said. “Printers expect to be paid in thirty days. Bookstores and wholesalers usually take ninety days.”

  Fritz nodded slowly and then said, “J
aysus. Okay, no prob. I’ll loan you the cost of a reprint of ten thousand copies, to be paid back in ninety days with fifteen percent interest. Fair enough?”

  “That’s highway robbery,” Carol said.

  “Understand me, missy,” Fritz said. “I only want what’s best for you and for Guy and for Lorraine, and mainly for me. I’m a businessman, unlike my little friend here, and I’m fronting you all this money. I’m putting your little company on the God damned map, right? I want big sales.”

  Lorraine said, “Fritz, cool it. Quit being such an ape.”

  The silence washed around the makeshift table. I caught Kitty blowing a kiss to Gracie and Gracie winking back. Lorraine was studying her book, reading somewhere in the middle. Carol’s face was tomato red, and her hair seemed to be growing snakes. Roger was picking wax out of his ear. I was getting a hard-on from the tension; don’t ask me to explain that.

  “Okay, listen up.” It was Fritz who broke the silence. “Here’s the deal. Cards-on-the-table time. I own this building, and you guys need this building. Frankly, I spent a lot of money on this building, but I was mainly buying the land. I could give a shit about the building itself.

  “But I don’t want to burn this place down so some asshole can build condos. Why? Because Santa Barbara doesn’t need more condos? No. Because I want to be in the publishing business. Why? Hell if I know, but I’m that crazy. I want to be in the publishing business. That’s why I hired Guy Mallon Books to publish Lorraine’s book. That’s why I put you guys together with Herndon’s operation. You guys could all be part of something big here, and when the time comes I’ll be your agent and sell the whole operation to that big German outfit who’s buying all the publishing companies, and then you guys will be rich enough to go back to publishing dorky little poetry books for the rest of your lives for all I care. But for now, you guys—Guy, Carol, you, too, Roger—you guys want to keep me happy. Savvy? Fair enough? Just keep me happy.”

  I looked again at Lorraine’s face, and I saw an old woman on the verge of tears.

  “Stay on my side,” Fritz went on. “I’ve got big plans for you. I have breakfast every morning with Jonathan Winters and Bob Mitchum. And Sam Welch claims he writes poetry, if you can believe that. They’ve all been asking me about Lorraine’s book deal, and we’re talking numbers, okay? You’re onto something big. I’m a big part of that, like it or not. There’s no reason we can’t be a great team. I think even Carol would agree with that, right, honey? Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run. Lorrie, I’ll come back and pick you up at about five-thirty.”

  “Don’t bother,” Lorraine said. “I’ll take a cab.”

  ***

  Things got a lot more relaxed after Fritz Marburger left the building. Lorraine got busy signing books, Carol typed labels, and Gracie and Kitty wrapped the packages, while I made boxes and manned the Pitney-Bowes machine. Nobody said much, although Kitty did a lot of giggling at whatever Gracie was whispering in her ear.

  Kitty Katz was, I have to admit, a looker. She had boobs out to here, stretching her Kountry Klub tee shirt. Platinum hair streaked with neon blue and green. Vampire makeup, but friendly looking. Maybe more than friendly. Half my age, if that.

  Toward the end of the day, Roger came out front and asked if he could take a few pictures. He photographed us at work, then took a shot of the famous author and glamorous song stylist Sweet Lorraine flanked by Gracie and Kitty, then a shot of Carol and me standing in front of the phalanx of inventory.

  “Smile,” Roger pleaded.

  Carol obliged, the flash went off, the smile evaporated, and we got back to work.

  ***

  That evening, as we were having cocktails, Carol remarked, “I wonder if Lorraine Evans is aware she had her picture taken between two porn stars.”

  “They’re porn stars?” I asked. “Really?”

  “Roger’s clients. He has a part interest in the Kountry Klub, too, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “This is really a trip.”

  Carol set down her martini. “You really like all this, don’t you, Guy? People Magazine, ‘Oprah,’ your own shipping department. You like this, don’t you?”

  “A dream come true,” I had to admit.

  “That’s the trouble with you, Guy. You don’t know the difference between a dream and a nightmare. What did you think of Kitty, by the way? Miss Kitty Katz?”

  “Um—”

  “She was making eyes at you.”

  “No, she—”

  “She’s half your age, Guy. If that.”

  “I noticed that,” I said. “That much I noticed.”

  “I noticed it, too,” Carol said.

  Chapter Five

  The Earthling Bookshop had already sold three full cartons of Naming Names by the Friday evening of Lorraine’s big book signing, which was the official publication date of the book. Carol and I showed up at seven-thirty, half an hour early, with two more cartons in hand and two more out in the trunk of my car, just in case.

  Tonight’s crowd was a mob scene, even at seven-thirty, and the crowd continued to grow in number and in volume as the hour approached. They looked as if they were from Montecito and Beverly Hills, decked out in tailored outfits, coifed toupees, and designer shades, chattering like an orchestra tuning up.

  I wandered through the crowd until I reached a small circle gathered around Jonathan Winters, who was mugging and rattling off an account of his most recent trip to Pluto. Samuel Welch took my arm and led me over to the history section, where the crowd was thinner. He traveled in a cloud of cologne.

  Welch smiled, loomed over me, and said, “I want you to read something. You publish poetry too, right?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Here.” He pulled a sheet of paper out of his shiny jacket pocket and placed it in my hand. “I’m Sam Welch, by the way.”

  Duh. Hollywood’s favorite bad guy. He’d been in more westerns than John Wayne and Randolph Scott put together. “I know,” I said. “But right now I—”

  “Read it. I got a bunch of them. Make a nice little book.”

  I looked across the aisles of the store and saw Carol trying to smile at a dozen munchers and moochers at the same time. “Listen,” I said, “I really have things I need to do right now. But with your permission, I’ll just take this with me and get back to you.”

  Samuel Welch reached down and patted my shoulder. “You’re going to love it. It’s about Marilyn Monroe and me.” He showed me his dentures and I escaped back to Carol’s side.

  Penny Davies, the owner of the store, joined us and said, “Guy, dear, did you bring more books? The stacks are gone, and we’re starting to sell copies out of the window display.”

  “We have two cartons out in my car,” I said. “In the parking lot.”

  Penny said, “I’ll get Joe to go with you. He’ll bring the dolly.”

  ***

  Out in the parking lot I transferred the two cartons from my trunk onto Joe’s hand truck. “Thanks,” Joe said. “Good crowd.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “All we need is one more.”

  “You mean her?” Joe nodded to the next lane, where a well-dressed couple were standing next to a vintage Mercedes-Benz. The woman was sobbing into her hands and the man was leaning over her, whispering fiercely.

  “You go on ahead,” I told Joe. “I’ve got to get this cleared up.”

  I walked over to where they stood and said, “Evening, folks.”

  “What’s good about it?” Fritz Marburger replied.

  Lorraine sobbed, “Guy, I’m so sorry! I can’t do it!”

  “You’re going to do it,” Fritz stated.

  “I can’t!”

  “Can’t do what?” I asked.

  She shook her head. Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving tracks through the makeup. “People,” she cried. “I can’t deal with any more people.”

  I turned to Fritz and
he shrugged. “Stomach flu,” he offered.

  “My ass,” Lorraine snapped. “It’s just people. People, people, people! Fritz, take me home.”

  Fritz scratched his head. “Nope.”

  “You asshole!” Lorraine turned to me and pleaded, “Guy, honey, will you drive me home? Please, Guy?”

  “But Lorraine, I’m needed inside. We’ve got over a hundred people in there—”

  “Shit! The hell with both of you!” She turned and walked off toward Chapala Street.

  “Where the Christ do you think you’re going, Lorrie?” Fritz called after her.

  “I’ll get a cab. Fuck you!” she called back.

  I looked up into Fritz’s glowering face and said, “Okay. Spill. What happened?”

  “People,” Fritz answered.

  “Fritz—”

  “The magazine. She had her interview today and they upset her pretty bad. Call me tomorrow and I’ll tell you about it. I’m going to go give the little princess a ride home.” He turned and opened his car door.

  “But—”

  “You just get your ass back into that store and sell books. Handle the crowd.”

  “What do I say—”

  “Stomach flu,” he shouted. “How many times I got to tell you?” He got into his powder-blue Mercedes and slammed the door. He fired it up and streaked out of the parking lot, slowing down only briefly to pick up his passenger.

  I turned around and saw Carol hurrying toward me. “What’s going on?” she asked. “People are getting really antsy in there.”

  “We got a problem,” I said. “I have to make an announcement.”

  “You want to announce it to me first? I want to know what’s going on, Guy.”

  I told her about Lorraine’s panic attack. “I guess the interview with People was a disaster. I hope she performs better on ‘Oprah.’”

  “She’d better,” Carol said. “I heard from Ann Arbor this afternoon. The presses are already rolling and and ten thousand more copies are scheduled to ship next Wednesday.”

  ***

  The next morning at the office, I told Carol I was going to call Marburger to find out where things stood. Carol said, “No. Call Lorraine. Let her explain for herself. Fritz just wants to control things. This is Lorraine’s crisis, not his.”