The Agency

by Ally O'Brien

  My father. Terrence Paul Drake. The starchy old goat. I really need to call him when I get back. Just because I don’t follow his advice doesn’t mean I don’t like to hear it.

  I squirmed in my middle row seat and felt claustrophobic. I plucked Singularity from my purse to reread it, but after a few pages, all the mutated two-headed ferrets looked like Marty, the bodiless voice in the passage to Nefarious sounded suspiciously like Felicia Castro, and the fat pig turning on the spit for the hobo feast turned out to be Guy. The only hero in this drama was the devil, and no matter who else I pictured in my mind, all I could see was Tom Cruise.

  I put away the book.

  I stared into space. I played solitaire. I tried to watch a movie. The hours over the Atlantic passed like sand going through an hourglass one grain at a time. The flight attendant asked me if I needed anything, and I told her Tom Cruise. She told me to try first class. I think she was kidding, but Virgin has great amenities, so you never know. I settled for a glass of cognac and another pillow.

  When I couldn’t stop myself, I began to think about the real reason I was going to New York. Dorothy. I told myself I had nothing to worry about, because successful authors get scammed all the time, and most of the con artists do a quick exit as soon as they get their first threat letter from a lawyer. David Milton wasn’t going to be any different. He was a man trying to trade on his father’s relationship with a famous author to extort some easy money. End of story.

  Except copyright lawsuits are slippery. They drag out. They get bad press. No one wants to be called a cheat or a thief, and certainly not a sweet old lady who writes books about pandas. Milton probably figured that Dorothy would die rather than face public embarrassment, and he was right. The little fucker.

  Of course, there was another possibility.

  Perhaps Milton was right. The whole panda thing might have been his father’s idea.

  Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe for a minute Dorothy would steal an idea deliberately, but, then again, an awful lot of old family recipes came out of The Pillsbury Cookbook. For all I know, Tom Milton’s manuscript may have barely resembled the book that became The Bamboo Garden, but bare resemblance can still get you in a lot of trouble.

  Anyway, I would find out soon enough what this was all about. When the plane lurched, I thought for sure we were heading to a watery grave. That’s the way I think on planes. But no. We were finally, blissfully, descending into New York.

  My city.

  Talk to most people who live in London, and they’ll tell you that in their heart of hearts, they’d prefer to live in New York. That’s me. Sally’s like that, too. She’d sell her soul for a one-way trip to Manhattan. I know it’s not going to happen, though. Even with the dollar worth about a nickel against the pound, most Londoners can’t afford to live in New York unless they’ve got family money or two salaries in the banking biz. Publishing won’t buy your way to Fifth Avenue.

  I’m not sure why we all love New York. London is safer. London is cleaner. London is greener. Londoners know how to queue up and not shove their way to the front of a bus line. The Tube beats the New York subway hands down. And it’s not like the weather in either city is anything to brag about. Even so, we’re all whores for New York. Stick that on a T-shirt, and you’ll make a lot of money.

  I could feel it on the cab ride into the city. I don’t know what it is, but my adrenaline shoots up like a jolt of cocaine as we cross the river and cruise along the FDR. Cruise being a relative term, because mostly, we sit in traffic and sweat and honk horns and curse in Farsi and flip the bird and smell sewage. Then we push into the concrete canyons, the mile-high buildings funneling hurricane winds through the streets and blocking out the sun. I smell onions. Lebanese sausage. Freshly baked bread. Garbage. There are people everywhere. People hustling across streets against the red lights. People elbowing twenty deep past shop-windows. People in suits. People in saris. People in halters. People on Rollerblades and bicycles. People on balconies, in doorways, in driveways, in alleyways, on steps. People walking, standing, stopping, riding, sitting, and lying drunk and unconscious under moldy blankets. People laughing, shouting, screaming, pointing, and swearing. People from a hundred countries.

  God, I love this city.

  The cab dropped me off at the St. Regis. Dorothy lives in Tribeca, but I usually stay in midtown, because it’s closer to the museums and the theater district. I can get my biannual fix of Steichen and Cezanne. In the evenings, I can go to Broadway and catch up on the shows that I never have time to see in London. Yes, that’s a little dig, in case you missed it.

  No time for sightseeing today, though. This was going to be a lightning strike in and out of the city. I barely had time to dump my bag in my room before I was back downstairs. The cab line at the hotel was twenty yards long, so I decided to take my chances on the street. I bought a hot dog from a vendor and ate it in large bites as I strolled southward on Fifth. Globs of mustard threatened to squirt over my white blouse, but I managed to remain pristine. There are no hot dogs like New York street dogs. You can taste the soot of a hundred thousand tailpipes mixed in with coarse grindings of mystery meat and cancer-causing nitrites. It is scrumptious.

  Half a block down Fifth, as the traffic thinned between red lights, I made my move by leaping into the street. I have a foolproof method for hailing a cab in New York. Don’t tell anyone. I stand in the middle of the lane, cock my right knee like a hooker, stick out my left arm, and extend my middle finger.

  Then I wait ten minutes, swear, and take the subway.

  Flipping the bird to hundreds of Pakistani drivers who still think they’re in Islamabad may not get me a cab, but admit it, you can’t get one, either. And my way is much more satisfying.

  I got off the 1 train at Chambers Street. Dorothy lives a few blocks away on Greenwich, taking up two floors of a renovated brownstone, including the rooftop garden overlooking Washington Market Park. Nice. She’s come a long way from her days in a two-bedroom apartment near the Finger Lakes in Icarus. Did I say Icarus again? I mean Ithaca. Dorothy told me that she and her husband always dreamed of a Manhattan condo when they visited the city on weekend trips, but that’s like dreaming of a suite in Buck House if you’re a small-town librarian. Damn if she didn’t do it. And pay cash for the place. Sell enough books about pandas to twelve-year-old girls, and you, too, can snap up a few million dollars’ worth of prime New York real estate. Her husband never lived to see the dream come true. He died almost six years ago of a heart attack, and Dorothy didn’t move out of Ithaca until four years later.

  The merry, lonely, animal-loving widow. She’s already a Tribeca fixture, with her street gang of poodles. Everybody loves Dorothy. You can’t not love eccentric millionaires.

  I was on the steps of her building and getting ready to buzz her apartment when my cell phone rang. The caller ID box told me it was The New York Times. I turned around and sat down on the steps.

  “Tess Drake,” I said.

  “This is Wallace Mooney, Ms. Drake,” a voice said. “I write for the Sunday Book Review at the Times.”

  Mooney sounded like a sad, gray-haired alcoholic in a torn sweater. I heard street noise in the background. He was probably drinking gin and having a slice two blocks away from me.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Mooney?”

  “It’s about Dorothy Starkwell,” he said. “I do have it right, don’t I? You’re Ms. Starkwell’s agent?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I heard a rumor about Ms. Starkwell. I’d like to get more details.”

  With reporters, you never know how much they really know and how much they’re bluffing. They like to see if they can make you say something stupid. I say stupid things all the time, but not to the media, not to strangers, and not on the phone. I reserve my worst gaffes for times when I can do the most damage. You know, like telling your married boyfriend you love him.

  “A rumor?” I asked.

  “Yes.�
�

  He didn’t rush to fill me in.

  “What kind of rumor, Mr. Mooney? I’ve heard rumors that Dorothy keeps live pandas in her condo. I’ve heard rumors that Dorothy is a pseudonym used by Nora Roberts. I’ve heard rumors that the character Filippa was a dead ringer for Camilla Parker Bowles and that Prince Charles called Dorothy personally to get her to rewrite the description. Needless to say, all those rumors were false.”

  Actually, I’ve always suspected that Dorothy really did make Filippa a Russian version of Camilla, but I’d rather not know for sure.

  “The rumor is that Dorothy Starkwell is the target of a big lawsuit that could cost her millions of dollars,” Mooney told me.

  Shit.

  “Well, I’ll add that one to the list, Mr. Mooney.”

  “Are you saying the rumor is false?”

  “Dorothy is not the subject of a lawsuit anywhere by anyone.”

  Not yet.

  “Does Ms. Starkwell face any legal issues that might have caused a rumor like that?” Mooney asked.

  “I know she’s recently become very interested in kinky behavior, so maybe that’s it,” I said.

  Mooney paused for a long time. “Kinky behavior?”

  You could almost hear him salivating over a sex scandal enveloping a noted children’s author.

  “That’s right. Kinky is what she named the kinkajou she’s fostering.”

  I heard him sigh with disgust. Reporters usually don’t like me, because I’m not nice to them. “Kinkajou, that’s an animal, right?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Good-bye, Ms. Drake.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Mooney.”

  I kept sitting on the steps. My stomach churned with acid, and I tasted a belch of New York hot dog repeating in my mouth. It tasted better on its way down.

  A rumor about a big lawsuit? If I had to guess, the rumor was David Milton sending a shot across my bow.

  Welcome to the Big Apple.

  18

  IF YOU VISIT Dorothy’s condo, you must put up with the Thunder. It is the noise made by five giant poodle thugs stampeding across a hardwood floor, toenails scratching, tongues lolling, clipped white fur shedding on your clothes as they swarm around you and bathe you with kisses. They are good girls, but they are taller than Dorothy on their hind legs and could easily trample me, mug me, and leave me for dead. They may look like Barbie doll ballerinas, but they have a New York attitude.

  Dorothy clasped her hands together and beamed as I struggled for my life with the poodles jumping around me. They backed me against the door. Shoved their gray snouts in my face. Produced a knife. Demanded my wallet. I was ready to give up and hand it over when the girls decided to hunt for easier prey and took off like a pack for new targets in the condo. If you have never seen cotton balls run, it isn’t a pretty sight.

  I heaved a sigh of relief at my narrow escape. Dorothy tottered up to me in her heels and threw her tiny arms around me.

  “Oh, Tessie, you are my savior,” she told me. “Thank God you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do without you, I really don’t.”

  “It’s a treat to see you, Dorothy,” I told her, checking to see that my watch and jewelry were intact from the assault by the dogs. I pictured the biggest one hocking my emerald ring in Little Italy. “Sally sends her love and says she misses you.”

  “Oh, does she? That’s so sweet. How is Sally?”

  “Same as always. Living for gossip and dreaming about New York.”

  “Yes, yes, she won’t be happy until she’s on Park Avenue. Well, the grass is always greener, isn’t it? You dream about Manhattan, while we New Yorkers dream about London and Paris and Milan. Did I tell you that Alan and I visited Italy once? We took a holiday there for our twentieth anniversary. Oh, it is so beautiful. I really must go back. Maybe the three of us can do a girls’ trip sometime, how would that be?”

  “It sounds lovely.”

  “Well, we’ll do it then, it’s settled. And how are you, Tessie? You are always so busy, busy, busy. And now this agency, how exciting is that! But I worry about you, so lonely over there, always working. I miss Alan every day. We had thirty-five years together, but it wasn’t enough, I would give anything for more time with him. Love is what life is all about, Tessie, so promise me you will find someone and settle down, all right? You shouldn’t spend your whole life alone. It’s not natural. And you’re such a delightful girl, you have so much to give. Don’t you worry about getting older, you have plenty of time.”

  I never really worry about getting older until someone tells me not to worry about getting older. Suddenly, thirty-six felt like fifty-seven.

  “I’m still looking,” I assured her.

  “And what about Emma? How is she? She’s coming with you to your new agency, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, of course. Emma’s in love again. An actress. Very pretty.”

  Dorothy winked. “She hasn’t talked you into playing for the other side, has she?”

  “No, although there are days when I think it would be easier to be gay.”

  “I don’t believe many gay people would agree with you, my dear.”

  “No, that’s true,” I admitted.

  “Well, come in, come in, come in, it’s so good to have you back here again. I wish you lived in New York. It would be so nice if we could see each other more often. Don’t you think? Maybe you and Sally could get an apartment here together. You’d both love that.”

  Dorothy waved her hand and led the way into her living room, which was vast, in the way that New York lofts are like warehouses. The floor-to-ceiling windows stared west toward the park and the Hudson. Dorothy sat primly on a bone white sofa, where her feet dangled above the floor. She wore a pink cocktail dress that fell below her knees. Her face was narrow and pale with two rosy blooms of rouge on her cheekbones and gaudy diamond-studded hoops glittering on her earlobes. She had a pinched nose with tiny nostrils that always made me wonder how she could breathe. Her gray hair was coiffed and sprayed so heavily that it probably hadn’t moved an inch in thirty years. Back in the days when spray cans had fluorocarbons, Dorothy probably launched the earth on its path of global warming.

  The big loft and big couch made tiny Dorothy look even smaller than she was, like a child in a castle. She was everyone’s little old grandmother, which played well on the morning shows. If you had to build a children’s writer from scratch, you’d wind up with Dorothy. Sweet, not New York rough. A blithe innocent in the mean city. The small-town bookworm from Icarus, who never had kids of her own, was now an unofficial grandmother to the world.

  Dorothy had already red wine poured into two balloon glasses. Good stuff, expensive stuff. I sat down and took a drink and realized I was exhausted. By my body clock, it was well after midnight, and only the excitement of the city was keeping my eyes open.

  “You look tired, dear,” Dorothy commented. “How was the flight?”

  “Fine. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t.”

  “You should do what I do. Put on a silk mask and take a whopper of a pill. I sleep like a baby. They have to wheel me off the flight.” Dorothy giggled.

  “How’s the kinkajou?” I asked.

  “Kinky? He’s a hoot! He runs around like he owns the place, although he can be a teensy bit destructive. We’ll have to go downstairs later so you can meet him. Did I tell you he’s allergic to strawberries? I just find that so funny, because he eats most other fruit. Especially bananas. He usually sleeps during the day, so we’ll have to be careful if we go down there not to wake him up too suddenly.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Well, kinkajous will scream, charge, and bite viciously if they’re startled.”

  “Let’s not startle him,” I said.

  “Oh, don’t be alarmed, he’s quite sweet.” Dorothy’s brow knitted in annoyance, and she put her glass of wine down and folded her matchstick arms across her chest. “To think that poachers hunt them for fur and m
eat! Little things like Kinky! Is there any animal who is safe from butchery by people? It makes me so mad. I actually volunteered to do one of those ads, you know, where you take your clothes off to protest? They were kind, but they said no. I suppose it’s mostly models who do that sort of thing, but I wanted to make a statement.”

  I figured this was a bad time to ask about good steakhouses nearby.

  You have to understand about Dorothy and animals. She’s not a Dorothy-come-lately on the subject; this is and has always been her life’s passion. When I first met her in Icarus, she was the chair of the board for the local Humane Society, and her walls were already plastered over with awards, letters, citations, and photographs from the work she had done for organizations like PETA, the WWF, and the Nature Conservancy. And that was when she had no money. Since becoming a zillionaire, Dorothy has ramped up her efforts all over the world, and I don’t imagine there’s a zoologist or animal rights activist anywhere on the planet who doesn’t know her name. Even her panda books are thinly disguised morality tales about animal conservation. Scratch the surface, and there are lessons about habitat destruction, climate change, endangered species, and human greed, starting with Filippa, the archnemesis of the pandas, who may as well have been a sister to Cruella de Vil.

  I love animals, but it’s all a little over the top to me, and I’m not about to give up lamb chops just because the little guys are so cute. You won’t hear me saying that to Dorothy, though.

  “Maybe you’d better tell me about David Milton,” I said.

  Dorothy got up and paced, wringing her hands. “Yes, of course, yes. Oh, I just cannot believe this is happening. I can’t believe anyone could do this to me.”