Foul Matter

by Martha Grimes

He’d leave in a moment. For now, Ned leaned his forehead on the cold glass and watched the wind tearing at the leaves and looked at the sky, thinking how dusk looked like dawn, and then thought of Pittsburgh’s smoggy dawns. City snow. He could see himself at the end of that bridge (what bridge was it?) ornamented by four panthers, two on each end. The bridge spanned Panther Hollow. He had stood looking at the statues, licking an ice cream cone with three scoops of ice cream. Chocolate. Strawberry. Vanilla. Well, he couldn’t be sure of that, could he? Was he even certain there’d been a bridge spanning Panther Hollow? Was he even sure about Panther Hollow?

  Stupefied, as if he’d just come awake, he took down his wind-breaker, realizing he’d drifted a long way from the Jardin des Plantes.

  If she didn’t tell him, Ned would have no ally with the power of Tom Kidd. He stood there, a slightly built man with milkweed hair and almost colorless eyes, the best editor in New York, one who knew what an editor was supposed to be. Tom was quixotic, a champion of the lost causes of literature.

  Times she had been in Tom’s office on one or another pretext—reshelving books, picking up copy, looking terribly urgent, and pretending not to listen when Ned had been there—Ned or Chris Llewelyn or one of the other good Mackenzie-Haack writers—and she’d never heard a word said about sales, promotion, publicity, or the damned list. It was all writing and not necessarily their writing. Writing was everything.

  All of this went through Sally’s mind in the time it took her to say, “Nothing. It’s not important.”

  He waited (since it was obviously “important”) but did not prompt her. He said, “That’s a pretty bunch of flowers, Sal. You should always have blue flowers around.”

  Tom walked away and she felt she had flunked some rigorous test. She covered her face and in a minute felt tears leaking through her fingers. Coward. She reached out and pulled the book she was reading over. Wiping her eyes on her blue sleeve, she opened the book, at the same time pulling open her desk drawer and getting out a Hostess cupcake.

  It was Henry Suma’s new book, but it could have been any of a number of books. She read and ate and was calm once again.

  Saul watched the old tomcat sit down in front of the two suits. He smiled. Story: here’s the cat; here’s the tension: the cat becomes the still point. Saul couldn’t help himself with a layout like this; what writer could? That was arrogant, he thought, maybe a lot could, wouldn’t think it worth thinking about.

  Yet maybe that was it: we think like dreams. We throw all kinds of junk into the stew pot because we believe it will all go together, will cohere no matter how unlikely the match is. As fluid as a dream yet as fixed as the moon.

  Focus: cat or zinnia bed, or books or suits. One or the other. As suits, he meant. The men inside them? They meant nothing. They were no problem.

  Saul looked up at the sky at dusk. It was mottled, the faintest blotchy colors—yellow, blue, brown. He thought it was a New York sky. Only in New York would you see a sky like a bruise, darkening up. He checked his watch. Time for Swill’s.

  “Throw something.”

  “Yeah, like what? I ain’t got nothin’ to throw. You?”

  Karl yawned. So did the cat. That irritated him to pieces. “It’s mocking us.”

  Candy made a noise in his throat. “Nuts.”

  “I hate cats. I think I’ve got that phobia.”

  “Christ’s sake, a phobia yet.” Candy didn’t like the way the cat was looking at him, but he wouldn’t say so. “A big-ass phobia.”

  Karl ignored the sarcasm.

  “Kick it, you feel that way,” said Candy, ready to go for the damn cat himself. It just fucking sat there, as if it owned the park.

  “No way. It’d be just like one of those animal-rights protesters to pop out of the trees and go for us.”

  “Jesus, but you got some imagination, Karl. Come on, let’s find a drink.” Candy yawned.

  Karl thought the yawn was just like the cat’s and was made even more nervous. “Yeah, a drink sounds good.”

  They got up with their books. They didn’t like it that the cat might be thinking he’d forced them out of his place.

  “That cat,” said Karl, “that cat’s made his bones.”

  Patric had left her. He had gone, thought Nathalie. He had gone to the place with the beautiful name: Villerosalie, the summer home.

  He had given up on her. He had left her with nothing to hold but blank pages.

  Nathalie had managed to get up from her bench and walk to the little zoo, much beloved of children, but a rather scruffy place.

  She looked at the tiger. It was awfully small for a tiger. But what did she know about tigers? The tiger returned her gaze. No menace. No menace at all.

  Perhaps like her, it was left with only a blank page.

  Ned thought, how can I leave her there? Is this, then, the last page? It’s too indefinite. But what, really, was indefinite about it? Patric had gone.

  As far as Nathalie was concerned, yes, it was the last page.

  Ned capped his pen and sat back and stared at nothing.

  Nathalie sat alone in the Jardin des Plantes.

  SEVENTEEN

  Those two hoods, thought Clive (wondering if that appellation was still in use). What had Bobby Mackenzie set in motion? Rather, what had Clive set in motion, going to Danny Zito? If the police ever came into this, you can bet Bobby would fade the heat, play the innocent: “Did what, officer?” And point the finger at Clive. That’s all Clive was, one of Bobby’s goons. No, he was main goon, capo goon.

  He had just gotten off the phone with Paul Giverney, who’d called to see if they were making any progress. Yes, absolutely, Clive had told him. They had a couple of very good men on the job.

  “Like who?”

  “No one you know, I’m sure. Trust us.”

  That, of course, had been the wrong thing to say to Paul Giverney, who had told him to hang on for a second while he laughed himself into oblivion. “That’s very good, Clive. So I ask you again, who’s this ‘on the job’?”

  Clive had told him about Candy and Karl, explaining that these men were consultants who occasionally did specialized work for Bobby Mackenzie. Clive immediately regretted having told Paul their names when he remembered Paul had written a novel about that Mafia killer, which was only a thinly veiled portrait of the guy. Clive couldn’t recall who, but this meant that Paul actually had sources.

  “What does that mean? Consulting?”

  Clive sighed.

  Wondering why in hell he had to think of everything, and why didn’t Bobby do it, it was his idea, Clive slid out the bottom drawer in his desk—a big handsome desk, a goon gift, Bobby buying him off for little and big things over the years—and brought out a fifth of Bombay gin.

  “All right, Paul. I’ll be frank with you.” No he wouldn’t. “They’re following Ned Isaly.”

  “Why?”

  “To see if they can find out anything, you know, that Ned might not want made public.”

  “What? Are you saying you’re looking to blackmail the man? You mean you’ve got to go to those lengths—?”

  Oh, ho. Clive wished those were the only lengths to which Bobby Mackenzie would go. “You’re the one who wants him out of the way, Paul.”

  “Oh, for God’s sakes! Just tear up his contract. You’ve got a raft of lawyers! What the hell else are they good for if they can’t fuck with a contract?”

  “Paul, that’s all I can say at the moment.” There was a longish silence. “Paul—?”

  “I want to know Ned Isaly’s movements. Since he’s being followed, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  The “since he’s being followed” held a definite smack of sarcasm.

  “Well, that wouldn’t be easy; they made it quite clear this is a ‘don’t-you-call-us’ deal. They report when they’re done. We can’t really control them.” This admission made Clive extremely uneasy.

  “Why not? You’re paying them.”

  Clive toyed
with the image of trying to get the hoods to report in every hour. Fat chance. “I’ll do my best.”

  But what Clive would do was between him and his Bombay gin, since Paul Giverney had hung up. Clive broke the seal, twirled the cap off with his palm, tilted it, and drank straight from the bottle. Ah. Ahhhhhh. He recapped the bottle, shoved it back in the drawer, and closed the drawer.

  He turned and looked out of his window at the silver flowering of the Manhattan skyline, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State, the Metropolitan Life Building, this juggernaut of light and thought, this rush of night and stars. He thought of the condo in his own prewar building and the view from there, the same skyscrapers on view from the other side. This office, that condo, these views. Clive couldn’t imagine being anywhere else; there was nowhere else. Losing them did not bear thinking about.

  Why was he sitting here fooling with the Dwight Staines manuscript when what he should be doing was trying to figure out what in the hell was going on with Paul Giverney? Giverney had sat right there (Clive even nodded toward the chair as if he were recapping the story for some gossipmonger or journalist. Or the police, if he wanted a chilling example). He told himself Karl and Candy at the very worst would only “rough up” Ned Isaly, just enough to “persuade” him to leave town and take his new novel with him. If that was all, then why did he keep trying to bury that phrase “wet work” that Danny had used almost in passing?

  But how did he know? They were weird, those two. Imagine wanting to know more about Isaly before they took the job. Those two were fucking weird, as far as he could see across the table in Michael’s. What hit man wants to know the kind of person he’s going after? What sort won’t even commit himself until he does? What sort wants to meet at Michael’s, for God’s sakes?

  And this Giverney-Isaly thing. Maybe he could talk to Ned Isaly himself. . . . No, not a chance. Bobby would think Clive was warning Ned and get rid of him along with Ned. Clive, unlike Tom Kidd, was thoroughly expendable. Talk to Tom Kidd maybe? Tom Kidd knew Ned through and through, but it’s unlikely he’d want to share that knowledge with Clive. No, it would be impossible to get anything out of Kidd.

  Giverney’s agent. Agents usually knew what their clients ate for breakfast, what they slept in, and with whom. Who they hated and why. Clive grabbed his Rolodex, thumbed through the names of agents (under “A,” cross-referenced with their clients), and came up with Mortimer Durban. Christ, but he hated Mort Durban, the insufferable egotist, the Donald Trump of agents, interested only in the deal, the deal, the deal. Not the writer, The Deal. He was one of the most powerful agents in the business. Mort Durban negotiated a book contract as if he were orchestrating the Normandy invasion. He thought he was fucking MacArthur. He was also agent for a couple of high rollers on Clive’s list. All Clive wanted to say to him when Durban started turning a contract into a fretwork of arcane bits and pieces, clauses of clauses nobody ever paid any mind to or gave a damn about, some nobody seemed ever to have heard of except Mort Durban—all Clive wanted to say to him was, Here’s a pile of money, asshole. Now give me the goddamned book!

  Mort Durban wanted you to believe that he believed that agentry was a mission and he a missionary spreading the gospel and prepared to be buried in an anthill for the good of his client, about whom he really cared nothing. This bloated belief in his abilities had him demanding totally inappropriate advance moneys for his authors, meaning, of course, for his own commission. To give him credit (if you could call it credit), he was motivated not as much by the money he himself would collect as he was by the stars in his crown, the rush of the deal.

  Clive regarded the bottom desk drawer but decided not to. He started chewing at the bit of dry cuticle on the side of his thumb, thinking. The Giverney thing must have to do with something in the past, some unsettled dispute, some unforgiven slur or slight. Irritated, he hit the intercom button.

  Amy answered with a tentative “Yes?”

  “Get me stuff on Paul Giverney. Facts.”

  “He’s not one of our authors? I don’t understand.”

  Clive squinched his eyes shut. I know you don’t understand, you simpleton. Then he said, “He’s somebody’s author, isn’t he?”

  Silence. A deduction to be made here, but it was too much for Amy. “Amy, what I’m trying to hint at is that Queeg and Hyde, Giverney’s publisher, would have information like that.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m not sure how to get it?”

  “Ask your friend Stacey (talk about the blind leading; Amy was Diogenes compared to Stacey) to messenger over a copy of their fact sheet on Paul Giverney. You know what that is; we have them, too. They’re no big secret; they’re just a source for publicity and promotion who might need a few salient facts for print, interviews, that sort of thing.”

  “They do?”

  “Amy, I’m not asking you to exhume Elvis’s body or excavate Graceland for unrecorded tunes. I only want to know stuff like where he went to school and his mother’s maiden name, and so forth.”

  “I could call him up? He was just in here a couple days ago.”

  Where in the bloody hell had Bobby found this girl? He bet she was recycled from Bobby’s outer office. “No, Amy. Listen. Are you having lunch with Stacey this week?”

  Amy’s voice brightened. “Oh, yes, tomorrow? We’re thinking of going to that new place on Fifty-fifth? I—”

  Clive cut her off before she really got into either hers or Stacey’s eating habits. “Tell you what: I’ll treat the two of you to lunch at Michael’s Restaurant. Just have Stacey bring the fact sheet with her.”

  She was thrilled. She probably would exhume Elvis’s body for a lunch at Michael’s.

  “Now, get me Mort Durban.”

  “You want him to come here?”

  “On the tel—” Oh, what’s the use? “I’ll do it myself.”

  Flick off intercom, resort to telephone.

  A voice far more confident and cold than Amy’s would ever be answered, “Durban Agency.”

  How did the woman manage to get so much swagger into two words?

  Clive didn’t give an inch. “Let me talk to Mortimer Durban.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?” An iceberg calving.

  “The I.R.S. It’s personal, if you don’t mind.”

  No response, but Mort Durban came on, very cautious with his “Yes?”

  “Mort! Long time no see! It’s Clive here.”

  Mort expelled the breath he’d been holding. “What the hell’s the idea, Clive?”

  “Had to say something to get past that subzero receptionist you’ve got. She was with Scott of the Antarctic?” Amy’s habit of sticking on a question mark rubbed off on him sometimes.

  Mortimer Durban seemed to be considering this description for some reason. He didn’t reply.

  “Look, I thought maybe we could do lunch tomorrow or sometime?”

  “Let me check my bookings.”

  Bookings? Clive could hear the half-baked British accent clicking into place. Mort spent a lot of time in London, a lot of loud time in that fey Soho club cleverly called Groucho’s that was so popular with the publishing crowd.

  “Sorry, Clive, old man. I’m booked up for a month.”

  “Okay, how about dinner?”

  “Dinner?”

  His emphasis suggested dinner was foreign to an agent’s experience. How about breakfast, then, you overbooked asshole? Clive said, “I was thinking of the Old Hotel.” Now Clive was delighted, snickering with his hand over the mouthpiece.

  Oh! What a plum!

  The Old Hotel was legendary; it was famous for turning people away. Not because the tables were all taken but because they didn’t like you, or at least didn’t like some of you, though how the maître d’ or the various persons who took reservations knew they didn’t like you was beyond Clive’s ken, as it was beyond everybody’s ken.

  There were edicts handed down by the owner, a man rumored to be all sorts of things with all sorts of connections, b
ut no one Clive knew could tell him which, if any, of these rumors were true. The owner’s name was Duff and no one could say whether that was a first name or a last. “Duff” was all they knew. It was said that Duff kept a long list of suppliants who were not welcome. But for the ones who were welcome, hell, it was like getting on the fast track for Lourdes. No one knew the rationale for this list. The names were not always persons; the name could be an area, so that anyone living, say, on the Upper East Side between Sixtieth and Eighty-fourth needn’t bother getting dressed for dinner at the Old Hotel.

  What, exactly, were the criteria? No one knew. But the standards (if such they were) had been implemented and stringently upheld to the point where Clive had witnessed the eviction of a party of four one evening around nine P.M. Standing before the maître d’s narrow lectern, one of the four (a loutish-looking man) had raised a hue and cry, shouting that he was a writer of such renown that they damned well better let him in. For all Clive knew, one item on the “no admittance” list could have been “writers of renown.” It was all extremely peculiar. But since there was such cachet in getting into the place, in being one of the chosen, none of them was about to put down this system; indeed, they fully approved and made much of it over cocktails at a less particular club or restaurant. There was no end of pleasure in knowing people, including your own acquaintances, who couldn’t get into the place. And what a plum of a question to put to people and watch them react. Have you dined lately at the Old Hotel? It had a blackball list worthy of the McCarthy hearings, except in this case one didn’t know what in hell the hearings were about.

  It was Kafka-like. Clive had often wanted this Duff to write a book for Mackenzie-Haack. He sounded like a real stunner. So would the book be. People were more atwitter over the Old Hotel than a gaggle of college freshmen during rush week. Clive would have to include himself in the rushees, to be honest. And whether he would have entertained the book idea had his name been on the “no” list—well, he was quite sure he would not.