Randall #03 - Sherwood Ltd. (14 page)

By afternoon I felt almost cheery, marching to the office dressed in my Burberry suit and Stella boots to meet Charlie for our outing to Lincoln for another interview.

But I found nobody in the office but Vera, her face stiff and pale. She barely smiled as she worked intently on tallying invoices with an ancient adding machine. I decided it wouldn’t be prudent to interrupt, so I booted up Davey’s desktop to check for e-mail.

There was still nothing from Plant, but I found a message from [email protected]. I almost deleted it before I realized Ryder Books must be the name of Silas’s company. He’d only written a few words, but they hit me like a truck.

“Plant is in the hospital. Looks like a heart attack. I took him to the emergency room and they’ve admitted him. No word yet if he needs surgery. I’ll keep you posted. Let me know if you get this, and if there’s a phone number where you can be reached.”

My vision blurred. I didn’t want to let the words be true. I felt a stabbing pain in my own heart. How could this have happened? How could I live without Plantagenet? He was the person I loved most in the world. My best friend. My family. My only family.

Without him, I was trapped in this bizarre place with no way home.

I sat frozen in the office chair, trying not to let myself sink into despair about Plantagenet. He was going to be fine. I wouldn’t let myself think anything else. Plant was fit. He walked everywhere. Belonged to a gym. And he was a survivor. He’d grown up in the toughest neighborhoods of New Jersey and got himself a full ride to Princeton, then re-invented himself as a sophisticated, urbane playwright.

But I hated myself for not being there with him—and I hated Silas for sending me away.

I managed to type a reply—an entreaty to Silas to let me know immediately if I needed to come home. I told him e-mail was the best way to communicate. I gave him the company phone number, but told him it would be fairly useless, except during business hours, when Vera could take a message.

But Vera didn’t look as if she’d be happy to take anybody’s personal messages at the moment. She sent ocular daggers at Henry and Alan when they came in after what must have been a boozy lunch.

“Duchess!” said Alan, leaning over my desk with beery breath. “Great news. Henry’s going to publish Rosalee’s novel! We’ll have two American authoresses to promote at the same time. Double the publicity for half the cost. You can help out as a tour guide for her. She’s going to be staying with friends in Puddlethorpe, which is only a half hour away.” He hovered by my desk. “Do you mind if I use this computer to send her the good news? That slacker Davey hasn’t yet managed to hook up my machine.” He pointed to an old Powerbook sitting on the desk opposite. “Henry’s promised me a new one, but until then, we have to make do with what we’ve got. This is the one I got as a prize when I won an academic competition at Oxford...”

I only half listened. If I hadn’t just heard that my best friend might be dying, the information that Rosalee Beebee’s dreadful book and mine were going to be linked might have qualified as the worst news ever.

Alan took my seat as soon as I rose. I didn’t really mind. It was time to go anyway. Charlie was late. We were going to have to drive fast to make the interview. I decided to brave Vera’s bad mood and ask if she knew where Charlie was.

“Gone.” Vera’s voice was staccato with anger. “Given his walking papers this morning. Mr. Greene will be taking over his duties.” She gestured at Alan with her head as she kept her fingers on the adding machine, staring straight ahead, her jaw rigid.

I looked to Alan for confirmation of this bizarre piece of news.

“You’re going to do Charlie’s job? But I thought you were taking over for Tom.”

“I’m a two-bird stone,” Alan said, laughing at his own joke. “Henry gets two employees for the price of one. I used to work for Random House, when I lived in New York. Didn’t I tell you that?”

“No. You didn’t.” I wanted to ask him when he fit that in, between getting his degrees from Oxford and the Royal College of Art, but at the moment the important thing was getting to my interview. I didn’t even know where I was to go. “Well, we’d better get going then. We have an appointment in Lincoln in less than an hour.”

Alan didn’t look up from the computer screen.

“I’ve cancelled all that. No point in doing anything until Rosalee arrives.”

As I watched him peck with two fingers at the keyboard of Davey’s computer, I felt acute sympathy with Tom Mowbray and his penchant for punching holes in walls. My anger propelled me out of the building and into the parking lot. I walked along the river, my head so full of rage I hardly noticed the rain escalating from drizzle to downpour.

I charged from the end of the river-walk park through the alley that led to the central square. But the place was gray and colorless—empty now of the tents and stalls of the market-day vendors. I stood in the rain, staring into the Mary Ann Evans tea house. It looked old and dirty through the fogged window. Why had I found this crumbling old mill town charming?

Rain dripped from my hair down under my collar, as the natives rushed along, sensible and dry under their big, practical “brollys,” but I hardly felt the damp or chill. I knew now why anger was described in terms of heat—my body felt as if it were boiling with it—anger at Henry and Alan and Peter and the whole Sherwood mess. Anger at Silas, too. Who knows, maybe his fight with Plant had caused the heart attack. Why was their relationship so volatile? And why hadn’t he bought me a round-trip ticket?

But as the damp soaked in and chilled me, my anger turned inward. This was my own fault in so many ways. If I hadn’t allowed myself to be deluded by Peter’s charm, I wouldn’t be in this grim, soggy place, Silas or no Silas.

It was time for me to end this crazed fantasy and get myself back home, somehow. And I had questions that needed answering. Now.

1. What hospital had Silas taken Plant to?
   

2. What kind of surgery were the doctors contemplating?
   

3. What exactly had they said?
   

4. Would Silas lend me the money to get home?
   

I stomped back through the downpour to write another e-mail, immediately.

But Alan was still using Davey’s computer in the office. So was Henry, hovering above him, chortling at whatever they were viewing. When I rounded the desk, I could see hard-core pornographic images on the monitor.

“Excuse me, but I have to use the computer for a moment.” I tried to sound calm. “I have an important e-mail…”

“This is a place of business,” Henry said. “Does your e-mail relate to this business?”

“It’s my best friend. He’s had a heart attack…”

Henry turned his back to me as he ogled improbably endowed females, bruised and bleeding—enduring torture for his amusement.

“You’re making puddles all over the floor, Miss Randall,” he said. “Could you please go outside?”

Fury blinded me as I ran from the room. At that moment, I understood why people kill. If I’d stayed another second, I would have picked up the computer tower and hit Henry with it in his smug, perverted face.

Now it wasn’t only anger that propelled me, but disgust. The images I’d seen on the computer screen made me want to retch. I’d always assumed erotica involved depictions of men and women having sex—or women and women, or men and men, or various mix-and-match assortments. Unpleasant sex, even—in dreadful little outfits. But sex. Not torture. Not what I’d seen on that screen.

I had a memory-flash of Plant at some gallery opening a decade ago, talking about the difference between erotica and porn—

“Erotica is a feather, but pornography is using the whole chicken.”

And here I was, trapped in a big, nasty chicken coop.

I hid my childish tears by ducking behind one of the big printing machines. I blew my nose and tried to pull myself together.

From the other side of the machine came the echo of a sniffle much louder than mine. I peered into the shadowy corner.

Meggy Poole was talking in an agitated whisper to the Professor, who held her hand. He seemed to be kissing it. Then he pulled her down so he could kiss her lips. Just a quick kiss, but not a brotherly one.

When Meggy saw me, her hand went to her eye, dark with a fresh bruise.

“Oh, you didn’t half give me a start,” she said. “The Professor and me was talking about all this lunacy. Do you believe Henry’s sacked Charlie as well as Tom? It’ll be one of us next. And me Mick has already thrown a wobbly about me bounced paycheck.” She put her hand to her bruised eye.

I wondered if most women were secretly masochists, as the Rod Whippingtons would have us believe. I found myself angry with Meggy—and myself. Why did we put up with it?

Apparently Professor had heard me weeping.

“Don’t waste tears on Tom Mowbray,” he said. “He’s been through worse. Charlie will land on his feet as well. We Yellowbellies are tough as old boots. As far as your book tour, Peter will set things right when he gets back. He won’t let some old woman’s toy boy destroy his company.”

The Professor’s smile was so sympathetic, and Meggy’s sturdy presence so reassuring, that I poured out the whole story of Plant’s heart attack, and the rats, my computer’s demise, and how desperately I needed access to e-mail.

Meggy shook her head in sympathy.

“I doubt Davey will have had time to fix your computer.” Henry’s got us all working overtime on his book. We finally got our load of paper.”

The Professor looked more optimistic.

“Davey’s got broadband in his lair,” he said. “He’s in there. I’m sure he’ll let you use it for a moment, in spite of the rush to get Rodd Whippington’s new opus to his adoring fans.”

When I told Davey the story of Henry and Alan and the computer, Davey snorted and typed something into the search window of his computer.

“Look,” he said as the first page of results came up. “‘Allan Greene’ is indeed a fellow at Balliol College, Oxford.” He pointed at the screen. “‘Allen Green’ was also an editor at Random House. The only problem is the Oxford don is in his fifties and the editor died two years ago.”

The Google search page said the number of results was 42,700,000.

“The Baron has found the world’s most gormless techo-moron in Henry Weems,” Davey said. “Poor old Henry can barely navigate his e-mail program. He’d be dazzled by this, and not bother to look further.” Davey clicked on one of the search results and brought up a photograph of a tattooed teenager standing in front of a large computer- manipulated photograph. “Meet Alan Greene,” he said. “Student at the Royal College of Art.” He sighed. “But I can’t find one photo of the Baron. I doubt it’s even his real name. The only thing we know for certain about him is that he’s a pathological liar.”

This reminded me that Peter Sherwood wasn’t much different from this liar known as Alan Greene. The one thing I knew about them both was they were tricksters—smart, slick—and totally untrustworthy. I thought of the horrible coyote I encountered in that alley with Peter. The Native Americans called coyote the trickster. Maybe the Universe had been trying to tell me something.

After bringing up pictures and data on a few more Alan Greenes, including one who claimed to be the love child of Princess Margaret and Elvis, Davey helped me go to my iGoogle page and mailbox. I did have a few new messages, including another one from Valentina demanding her cousin Rico’s money, but there was nothing from Silas or Plant.

“Don’t worry, Duchess, I’ll sort things in the office,” Davey said. “You should have access to that computer whenever you need it. It belongs to me, not Henry or Alan bloody Greene—whoever the hell he may be.”

Late that night, I was using my bucket “en suite” when Much jumped up from the bed and gave a sharp bark. Then a menacing growl. He ran out into the warehouse, barking loudly.

Quickly pulling myself together, I grabbed my robe and shone a flashlight in the direction of the barks. I could see Much standing at the big double doors that led out to the parking lot. As I tried to quiet him, I heard something scrape against the door. Then I heard—or thought I heard—a metallic sound. It could have been someone locking the loading doors. Or trying to unlock them.

Much stood immobile, letting out another low growl. I pulled my robe tight. Should I wake Davey and Liam?

Now I heard footsteps crunching across the gravel parking lot outside. Turning off the flashlight, I peered through a grimy window. I could see a man—short, bearded, balding—and could it be?—what looked like a patch over one eye.

Barnacle Bill. I could barely breathe.

Much made a quick turn to bark at something behind us.

“I don’t recommend going outside dressed like that,” said a voice from the shadows. “Not at pub-closing time. Lots of randy bastards out there.”

It was Alan Greene. He looked slimier and more dangerous in the dark, with his leather jacket and too-tight jeans. He leaned over to give Much a piece of biscuit from his pocket. Much took his bribe to a corner, abdicating his role as my champion.