Jean giggled while gobbling down varied appetizers with relish. Silence followed with everyone sipping their assorted beverages. Mona seemed on the verge of saying something more, but when she looked at Rachel, she received a headshake warning her from more speculation. Gus and Nick toasted each other without notice, sipping strongly from their double Bushmill’s.
Nick spotted his agent, Cassie. He waved at her. “We have company. It’s Cassie. When she nears the table, let’s all shun her on my cue.”
Gus laughed, but Rachel gasped in displeasure. “Don’t you dare!”
Nick grinned. “Relax. Even Gus knew I was kidding. I believe you’re wound a little tightly my dear. Sip your wine. Is Quinn making his presence known with his feet again?”
Rachel sipped a bit more Merlot while nodding. “Yeah, he’s letting his poor suffering Mom know he’s nearly ready to do an Alien stomach burst on me.”
“Eeeuuuuuwwwwhhhh… Mom!” Jean crinkled her face in displeasure. “That’s not funny. You’re already drugging him with wine. Quit insulting him.”
“Why you…” Nick had to clamp down on Rachel as she readied to launch across the table. “Your moment of despair is on the way, little missy!”
“Calmness,” Nick urged laughingly as Cassie arrived at the table. “Let’s keep this a fun dinner. Hi, Cass. The only new face here is Rachel’s Mother-in-law, Mona Claren. Mona… this is Cassie Sedwick, my agent.”
Cassie reached over to shake hands with Mona as a server added a chair to their table. “I’m happy to meet you, Mona. Will you be going to the book signing?”
“Yes. I’m very happy to meet you too. Visiting with Rachel and Nick has been an eye opening experience. My Granddaughter Jean has grown so much. I don’t know that I’ve ever been as intrigued with people visiting as I have been this time. I’m looking forward to going to a real book signing for the first time.”
“You’ll have a good time.” Cassie sat down. “I think we’ll break some records tomorrow. I heard on the news there’s been a gang shootout in that nasty ‘Union Heights’ area. Three suspected drug dealers killed each other in a gun battle inside a house on Echo Avenue.”
“It’s next door to my house, Cassie,” Mona said. “They’ve been dealing drugs there for a long time.”
Cassie couldn’t hide the shock at Mona’s admission. “Sorry, Mona, that’s horrible.”
“They’ve been terrorizing the people who live in my neighborhood so we were all afraid to call the police or testify. I’m hoping this will mean better times.”
Nick changed the subject as a waiter brought Cassie the glass of wine she ordered while sitting down. “How’s our renowned publisher doing since the New York tour stops?”
“Linda was deliriously happy on the phone, Nick. I spoke with her before leaving on the plane. I guess you haven’t checked today, but Caribbean Contract is now the number one best seller on the New York Times list. Congratulations. Linda has dropped any pretension about trying to mold your writing to fit whatever goofball liberal flavor of the month trend they come up with. I think she finally realizes there is fiction, and pulp fiction. You’ve never hidden or pretended your work is anything but what it is: pulp fiction. Apparently, contrary to what the publishers keep harping, pulp fiction is a viable and sales worthy genre.”
Nick accepted the toasts and well wishes for owning the number one novel in the country with good natured acceptance. “Thank you. This has been a great book tour for me to experience too, especially with my partner Gus playing a larger role. It certainly bumped sales incredibly well. I’m glad the added notoriety with the Kader factor didn’t mar the results. I’m very happy with how this road trip has progressed. I know some unexpected happenings helped, but you did an outstanding job organizing and guiding us. Thanks, Cass.”
Cassie acknowledged the toasts to her ability with aplomb, laughing a little at the circumstances mentioned. “Yeah… you stopping a murderer back in Pacific Grove, and dealing with his relatives on this book tour garnered enough publicity to make the whole trip worthwhile. Mostly, I schedule boring authors who write exciting literature and fiction. With Nick, I get exciting reality going along with the fiction – the best of all possible worlds. Your fight with the Kader relative outside the New York book signing launched a thousand positive blogs.”
“I’m glad it didn’t turn into a riot,” Nick replied. “The police did a great job checking into the family of the guy in the book signing line, Alex Kader. Gus and I stay aware when we attend anything in public now. I’m glad for Dimah’s sake the more psycho members of her family don’t live near her.”
“People are sick of being hung out to dry by fundamental Islam,” Cassie agreed. “I hate even dealing with the controversy, but your helping Jean’s teacher in Pacific Grove bolstered you into a position defending women in general against Sharia Law. Our women’s groups for the most part in this country defend nothing unless it has something to do with liberal causes. They have been strangely silent about Sharia Law goons doing honor killings, female genital mutilation, and the near enslavement a woman goes through as a wife in Muslim countries.”
“That El Muerto guy I’ve been reading about is brutal,” Mona said. “He’s killed a bunch of those Isis stooges, and stopped two terrorist plots, along with two serial killers. He and his partner, Payaso, seem more dangerous than the ones they’ve killed.”
“What about all the lives they saved by killing the bad guys?” Jean stared at her Grandmother with furrowed brow.
“We have laws, honey,” Mona replied, gripping Jean’s hand. “We can’t take the law into our own hands or we’re no better than the bad guys.”
“I’d rather be worse than the bad guys until they’re dead, Grandma. Wouldn’t you want to have an El Muerto and Payaso take care of the bad guys in your neighborhood?”
“But where does it all end if our laws don’t work? We have to trust in justice. Otherwise, innocent people could be hurt. I know it’s hard to understand, Jean, but vigilante justice seems great until the wrong man is murdered. Lynch mobs in past instances of vigilante justice vented their supposedly righteous rage on targets of opportunity.”
Jean received the Muerto stare from Nick when she glanced at him. She smiled. “I understand, Grandma, but some folks just need killin’.”
Mona gasped, but when Jean, and everyone else laughed at the movie cliché, she sighed. “Good one, Jean. You had me there for a moment. Where did you hear such a thing?”
Jean shrugged. “I watched the movie ‘Sling Blade’ last year when I wasn’t supposed to. Mom didn’t want me to see it, because I was too young. I liked it though. It was sort of vigilante justice too.”
“Let’s have a toast to our justice system. May it eventually be as effective as we all hope and pray it will be in the future,” Nick toasted, trying to end the comments on a positive note.
Jean made a face. “May as well wish for world peace, Santa, and the Easter Bunny.”
* * *
The line moved along with humor and good natured kidding. Readers from all over the area had arrived in mass at the much publicized event. Gus kept a running dialogue going with yachtsmen interested in his sailing expertise. Others bore into Nick with literary questions concerning scene creation, and humorous outtakes involving misuse of pronouns. Anything relating to editing Nick handled without malice or bad temper. He issued the same statement to any reader questioning his word usage and literary judgment with a lowering of his head, and an angry bass voiced acknowledgement that ‘editing is the devil’. His response elicited laughs rather than confrontations over what every writer knows deep in his or her heart – writers write alone, and writers edit alone… with many times unwanted guidance from editors without a clue as to the nature of the message a scene seeks to carry. Everyone in line within hearing seemed to enjoy the Nick and Gus show.
Mona watched the goings on with Rachel, Jean, and Tina, trying to grasp the questions and answers given to the readers
. They sat near the main signing table, but far enough away, so as not to be a distraction whether they chose to leave, stay, or take a break. Mona seemed genuinely perplexed Nick didn’t answer back harshly when criticized for what he had written or the way he had written it. After a particularly long exchange about his using dialogue to move a scene or show action instead of describing it in detail, Nick simply answered he wrote what he loved to read. That provoked a whispered exchange with Rachel and Jean.
“Why doesn’t Nick simply sign the books and say thanks?”
“Dad likes interacting with the readers. He doesn’t care what they think about his writing,” Jean answered. “He told me the important thing is they’re still reading his novels no matter what objection they have to the way he tells the story.”
Mona stared at Jean in surprise. “Doesn’t he write according to what sells?”
The question caused Jean to laugh out loud, which she tried to muffle with some success. “No! Dad writes stories. I don’t think he’d care if anyone read them or not. He loves to write. I’ve watched him. He smiles, laughs, bears down as if he were in a fight, and generally acts out everything as he goes along. In what I’ve learned from him, or seen his reactions to, the stories mean everything. The way Dad creates the stories he leaves for someone else to judge. I like it. He loves what he’s doing. I guess the readers like it well enough too.”
Mona clasped Jean’s hands. “Your Dad was a lot like you… I mean your real Dad. Rick took a different read on anything he was exposed to. He never cared what anyone thought about what he did, or how he did it.”
Jean hugged Mona. “Mom told me. He loved his work. She told me he was the best at what he did. Nick is the best at what he does, and sometimes it goes way beyond writing. Don’t think he doesn’t pay attention to every word the people in line say to him. He really does. I’ve already started writing stories, and I plan on writing my first novel before I’m a teenager.”
“That is incredible! Is that what you want to be, Jean… a writer?”
Jean’s face warred with her first instinct to tell Mona everything about what she wanted. She had learned the hard way about trust. “It’s one of the careers I’m considering. Mom’s okay with most of them.”
Rachel gripped Jean’s neck in a playful choking hold. “You better be careful, girl. Maybe you had better take a closer look at what you’re edging towards, and redirect to being a doctor or engineer.”
“I’ll be fine,” Jean stated adamantly. “I can do more than one career at a time. Sometimes you need a day-job like Dad says writers need starting out. One thing I know, I’ll have to earn a living before I launch off into what I truly want.”
“And what would that be, young lady?” Mona patted her hand.
Jean giggled through the dead silence at the table. “I think I’d like to be a movie star. I have to pretend with my Mom so much, I may as well get paid for it if I get a chance.”
Rachel laughed, but then she launched. Tina, not fooled by either the pretenses or reactions to pretenses, caught Rachel at the waist, pulling her down into the seat again. “Rachel… not the time or place for child discipline, girlfriend. You need to calm down. Jean is eating your lunch with this stuff.”
Rachel stewed in place like a fast boiling roast. She pointed an index finger at Jean while nodding and smiling with grim intent. “Every electrical device you own is mine once we get back into the room… every device! If you have any playing cards, you better bone up on solitaire, because your gaming license has been revoked!”
The horrified look flowing down over Jean’s countenance caused inadvertent snorts and chuckles. Jean shifted her attention to Tina, only to get a smiling shrug.
Tina took stock of Rachel’s tight lipped glare fixed on Jean with grim determination. “Looks like you tugged on Superman’s cape once too often. I’m afraid it’s time to pay the piper. You’d best plead for leniency, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Otherwise… I sure hope you enjoy playing Frisbee with Deke, because you’ll be doing a lot of it for entertainment.”
Jean crossed her arms, returning Rachel’s unrelenting stare. “I don’t bargain with terrorists.”
Mona listened with amusement. “My daughter and I had much the same give and take when she approached double digits in age. I hate to tell you this, Rachel, but it gets worse.”
“How is Celia?” Rachel gave up on the stare down with Jean. “Is she going to visit while we’re here?”
“She just reconciled with her husband, Ed. I’m glad too. Celia went through that unhappy phase where nothing pleased her. Luckily, she didn’t go through with the divorce all the way. Ed Dalman is a great guy. He’s an IT specialist for a string of stores in the Charleston area. She works as a manager at one of the stores. Saturdays are their busiest day of the week, so both of them are working. Ed left me a message earlier they would try and meet us for dinner tonight. They would love to give the Charleston Grill a try if you don’t mind eating there again.”
“I love their food,” Jean piped in. “I can’t wait to see Aunt Celia.”
“Celia will be shocked when she sees you, Jean. You look twelve, and you talk like you’re eighteen. That teacher of yours Nick helped – is she letting you keep up on your studies while making this trip?”
“I’ve scored all A’s on my papers, Grandma,” Jean stated, turning to Rachel. “Of course that means nothing to some people.”
Tina laughed as the Rachel/Jean staring war began again. “We’ve been making sure all her homework and papers get done while we’ve been away. Ms. Kader has a website where we can find out what’s due, and take any tests on-line. Nick likes to check on how she’s doing too after everything that happened. She promised to let us know if any of her other psycho relatives arrive unexpectedly.”
Jean spotted a sullen looking man next in line to talk with Nick. “That tall, thin guy with the brown ponytail is trouble, Mom.”
Rachel watched the man waiting impatiently, his hands clenching Nick’s novel, Caribbean Contract with white knuckled concentration. Dressed in tan Dockers, with a light brown cashmere open necked sweater, he looked like a college professor. His brown eyes glinted angrily as he stared at Nick without glancing away for a second. “I don’t think he’s trouble, but he sure has a chip on his shoulder. Nick’s already glanced at him twice, and I see Gus smiling at him. I think the boys have been scoping Mr. Dockers for longer than we have, Jean.”
Jean hunched forward. “This is going to be good.”
“This bookstore doesn’t have the security force for a book signing like they do in New York. Even here in a large city like Charleston, I doubt the Barnes & Noble book store thinks much beyond shop lifters as far as crime goes,” Mona said.
“That’s okay, Mona,” Tina stated. “Nick and Gus do.”
* * *
In between fans, Nick kept an eye on one of the people in line. “You see that guy with the sweater, Gus?”
“I’ve been watching you watch him. He’s next after our approaching little gray haired lady. He has a bug up his ass about something.”
“As long as he keeps a choke hold on my novel, I’m not concerned,” Nick replied. He stood up slightly with Gus as a woman possibly in her late eighties or early nineties approached the table with a walker, and Nick’s novel in the carry basket. Nick went around the table to help her get seated, while shaking hands with her. She settled in with a wry smile on the chair while Nick took her hardcopy of Caribbean Contract to his table side. “I hate you, Nick McCarty.”
“You do? How can I make what angers you better?”
“You can’t. I love your assassin series. The moment a new one comes out, I read it two or three times in the first week I have it. You need to write faster… damn it! I love Jed as Diego’s sidekick. He’s been alone too long. Jed really livens things up with the added humor in their exchanges. Oh… and the first time through the novel I can’t even sleep until I get to the end. You’re messing with
an old woman’s sleep time.”
Nick and Gus had been enjoying the old woman’s diatribe with appreciation. “What’s your name, young lady?”
“Don’t you call me young lady!” The old woman bristled. “I’ve earned these years, you young punk! My name’s Gladys, and I ain’t the lead singer in ‘The Pips’ either.”
Nick made calming gestures with his hands before launching into a heartfelt note to Gladys in her book front. “Very well, you old bat, I’ll find something to say to you in here. Do you have an e-mail address?”
Gladys cackled appreciatively at Nick’s disrespect. “That’s more like it. Give me a pen and paper. I’ll write it down for you.”
Gus was ready with pad and paper. Gladys wrote down her e-mail address in efficient form. She peered into Gus’s face with affection. “I’ve been listening to your answers to the at sea adventure part. I could tell you’re no phony. My late husband and I sailed back in the day when there were very few ports. Repairs were a bitch, and we never headed on a voyage without a bunch of repair parts on board.”
Gladys took a moment, laughing over an old memory. “There were pirates back then just like now. Brad and I had hand weapons, but we also had a thirty caliber machine gun. When we were approached, we called out to state their business. If they didn’t, we fired a pattern in front of their boat. That did the trick.”
“I’ll bet it did,” Gus said.
“I’m going to send you the raw chapters as I write, Gladys,” Nick whispered. “You can be privy to the book as it gets written. I’m working on Assassin’s Folly right now.”
Gladys reached across and gripped Nick’s hand in both hers. “God bless you, Nick. Your banter in the books, and humor, make me laugh all the time.”
She released him and stood up. “I’m not taking any more of your time. These kind folks have been waiting too. Thank you.”
Cold Blooded III: Sins and Sanctions (Nick McCarty Assassin Series Book 3) Page 15
