The Way of All Fish: A Novel (11 page)

Cindy looked at the cans in the cupboard. Why did she keep thinking she could foist on him the Science Diet, the Blue, the Wellness, the Iams, or
any other food except Milky Empire, the one that cost about as much as a trip to outer space? Once she had even tried packing Science Diet into an empty Milky Empire can and then, with Gus watching, making a big display of opening the can and shoveling some into his dish. He took a sniff and looked at her, outraged. At least that was what she imagined was swimming in his citrine (or peridot) eyes: How dare you. It was not a question.

She fetched down a can of Milky Empire, pulled off the lid, spooned half into the bowl. He set about eating and had no further use for her.

Cindy went back to the living room to write.

Lulu had her head in her hands.

Cindy found the story so sadly unsettling that she couldn’t seem to get on with it. Lulu was still sitting in her car. She had been thinking (Cindy recalled from twenty pages ago) about Johnny. Lulu had just taken him to the train station in the unidentified city where she lived.

This was what defined Lulu: Until the person left her—that is, left for his or her own home; left to go across the country or to some foreign place; left, died—Lulu never knew how important that person was to her. Like Johnny. Lulu seemed blinded to any sign of love until the person was gone. Gone and irretrievable. No sudden realization on the train station platform, just as the train was beginning to chug and pull away, no “Johnny, Johnny! Come back oh please come back!” No. That she truly loved Johnny was revealed to her only now, while she was sitting in her car.

This was the reason, thought Cindy, Lulu had been sitting there for nearly twenty pages.

This was the reason the book was named
You Had Me at Good-bye
.

Cindy put her head in her hands.

B
obby Mackenzie, publisher of Mackenzie-Haack, had just poured himself a liberal measure of Talisker and was sitting at his desk, staring at the jacket art for a new book.

“Bobby!” said Candy and Karl simultaneously. They had bullied their way past Bobby’s assistant.

Bobby gave them a sip’s worth of silence before he held up his glass and said, “Scotch?”

Candy said, “I got to hand it to you, Bobby. We run you out of the country for six months, you come back, and all you say is ‘Scotch?’ ”

The question hung in the air as they sat themselves down on the other side of Bobby’s desk, which looked like a slab off a redwood tree. It could have been, Bobby not being the most green-thinking person in Manhattan.

He was wearing one of his half-dozen bespoke-tailored suits, which both Karl and Candy envied. They were not bought at Façonnable or Saks. Some wizened little tailor with a tape around his neck had run them up. All of the suits were the same cut, only different weaves and colors. They were woven of ethereally fine threads, merino wool and hummingbird’s wings, who knew? Bobby was considered the best-dressed person in the publishing world. That he was amused many people, since it was so out of line with the rest of him.

The phone rang and Bobby picked up. He had a Droid; he had a Bluetooth. But he liked good old receivers he could slam down, and he was easily a match for that hell-on-wheels agent Mort Durban. He listened for about five seconds before saying, “This cover? Is this book about trolls? There’s a troll on the jacket. Oh, a
child  
? It’s a little
girl  
? So
why am I puzzled? Do not show me shit like this. Ever.” He hammered down the receiver and, looking from Karl to Candy and back, said, “I can hardly wait.”

“For what?”

“To hear what you guys want. Like, who do you want me to punt onto the
Times
list this week and make sure he/she hangs out there for two months?”

Karl said in a meditative manner, “Bobby, here’s what we fail to understand: Ned Isaly is your author. So when we ‘made you’ get him on the list and he stayed there for two months and got a lot of money, you, Mackenzie-Haack, made out, too. What we fail to understand is why you wouldn’t have done it anyway.” He thought this an obvious and excellent point.

Bobby didn’t. He made a sound in his throat as if battling back a nasty reply and lost. “What you fail to understand is you are so full of shit, you rain turds all along Madison.” He cocked his head toward the huge window overlooking Madison Avenue.

Tsk, tsk. “That’s not helpful, Bobby.”

“ ‘That’s not helpful, Bobby,’ ” he mimicked Karl in a high and nasal voice as he made a return visit to the crowded drinks table. “You guys think because Ned Isaly wound up on the
TBR
list, you’ve got a whole fuckarama going about publishing, like you could start your own house. I wish you would, and just shoot any writer walking through the door who doesn’t sell one million copies of his ‘debut’ novel.” He sat down. “There are some writers who, like Isaly, are so good, they’ll succeed without making an armored car full of money, which is not success anyway, and he’d do it in spite of publishing.”

Candy and Karl were taken aback that Bobby wasn’t equating success with money. Karl held up his hand like a flag he’d bring down to start a race. “Whoa, Bobby! ‘In spite of’? Man, Ned wouldn’t have his books in print, much less selling like hell, if it wasn’t for you and publishing.”

Bobby’s eyes turned to him, molten with something Karl thought was maybe real lava. “Ned’s books shouldn’t be bestsellers; the books are too good for that. Bestsellerdom can only get him off the track. He’ll move from his cramped apartment, get a corner condo in Chelsea or someplace
with fifteen fireplaces in TriBeCa, go out more, join something or other like the Groucho Club in London, get himself a wardrobe—”

“Excuse me, but this don’t sound like Ned Isaly, this person you’re describing.”

Bobby got up and roamed the office as if looking for something, stopping now and then to stare at an expressionist German print or to kick at a stack of flashy-jacketed books. “It will be. Ned was doing all right.” Here Bobby clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “And then you two guys, you decide he should be a bestselling author. Oh, yes, you who know fuck-all about publishing, decide what’s best.”

“Hey, hey,
hey,
” said Karl. “Yeah, Bobby, we decided it was best if the guy went on living for a while. It was you that paid for the hit. We just didn’t do it; we told you our terms; you should be damned glad.”

“Again, you don’t know what I’m saying.” Bobby dropped like a boulder into his chair. “What the hell do you guys want, anyway? Why are you here?”

“Yeah, we did get off the track there,” said Karl. “You know an author named Cindy Sella?”

Bobby’s frown looked locked in place. “Why?” Treading carefully.

“Well, you should. She’s published by Mackenzie-Haack.”

“No, it’s Harbor Books, an imprint.”

“What’s that?”

“As I said, an imprint. One of many. I’m not the publisher of Harbor Books. That’s Bella Bond.”

“But you’re all part of the same outfit?”

“You mean publishing conglomerate, as they say? Yes. Why?”

“You know an agent named L. Bass Hess?”

“Of course. He’s a sociopath. In my opinion,” Bobby added generously. He got up, snatched the bottle of Talisker and two stumpy glasses, and poured them each a couple of fingers. He handed them the glasses and said, “Whatever”: Bobby’s way of saying “Cheers.” He set the bottle on his desk, where he would, ostensibly, have more control over it. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

“You don’t know about him and Cindy Sella?”

Bobby rolled his eyes and spun the cap back on the bottle. “Yes, I
heard something come down the pipeline. I know our lawyers have been busy. Well, busy for them. I try and stay away from legal.”

“You should keep better informed, Bobby.”

“Better informed? Let me remind you goodfellas that some of my information went out the door when I was escorted to Australia. I just got back, guys. And if I kept informed of every scam, scheme, and shell game that goes on in this business, I’d be the fucking CIA and MI5 combined.”

Candy filled in the blank spots on the Cindy Sella situation.

Bobby’s laugh was a single-malt blubber. “Jesus! Why doesn’t Hess just get up a poker game, mark all the cards, put a gun in his lap, and shoot them as they walk through the door? What’s it got to do with me?”

“We found out Dwight Staines’s agent is also L. Bass Hess.”

“Don’t I know it? He’s always trying to claw more money out of me, not satisfied with the million or two Dwight gets for each one of his parapsychotic books. What a jerk.”

“Yeah. We met him in Pittsburgh. The point being that Hess—”

Bobby interrupted. “Hess will move Dwight Staines to another publisher if we don’t drop Cindy Sella.”

“This is sounding familiar,” said Candy, looking at Karl. “That really sucks.” Candy cleared his throat of what sounded like major wreckage.

“It’s like blackmail, right?” said Karl. “So is that what authors do? They do whatever some dumbass agent tells them?”

“Not always. But Dwight Staines is a dumbass author. So they’re a lock.” Bobby interwove his fingers. “Hess is going to have a hard time, since Staines’s contract calls for two more books.”

“You know that stuff right off the top of your head?”

“I’m the publisher; I’m supposed to know it.” He yanked open a drawer, pulled a few pages out of a folder, held one up. “From Cindy Sella’s last contract—”

Karl interrupted. “Then you know all this stuff. Why’d you let us go on about it?”

“I figured you’d give up and go away. So, here’s the clause: ‘The Author shall indemnify and hold the publisher harmless against any loss, liability, damage, cost or expense . . . arising out of any breach or alleged breach,’ et cetera. And it continues, points a, b, c, d, e, f—you get the idea?
It’s pretty much standard in contracts, but how many times have I seen it invoked against an author? Never. Now, tell me, are you guys actually working for Cindy Sella?”

“If you mean ‘employed by,’ no. This is, you could say, pro bono.”

“Then why the fuck don’t you do what you do so well?” Bobby made a gun of his thumb and forefinger.

“Who’d be the first person the cops would put the hit down to? Stop and think.”

Bobby sat back, hands tight behind his head. “Probably Cindy Sella, although with him, there could be other candidates.”

“Yeah, Cindy Sella would be prime, seems to us.”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”

“Really?” Karl stopped chewing his gum and stared. It had the unnerving effect of a thumb slowly pulling back the hammer of a gun. Bobby wasn’t about to give in to these two again. “Yeah, really.” He switched his gaze from one to the other.

Candy said, “Cindy is one of your authors.”

“I told you. She’s Harbor Books.” He got up, reached for the bottle of Talisker, and wheeled the cap off with the index finger of the hand that held it. Seeing the twinned lethal stares, he said, “So?”

“Harbor Books is run by Mackenzie-Haack. And you’re missing the point here, Bobby. You owe us.”

“I don’t owe you two squat.”

“I mean Cindy. Ned Isaly. Writers. Them, you owe.”

“You two? Nobly standing up for the rights of authors? Don’t make me larf.” He took a sip of whiskey. “You guys think you own me, right? I’ll do whatever you want, correct?”

Together, Candy and Karl lifted their hands, palms out. Karl said, “You’ll do it, Bobby, but not because we want you to.” He smiled. “You’ll do it because you want to.”

“Oh, sweet Christ, there’s an elfin statement.” Bobby plopped himself down. The chair’s fine-grained leather really did go
pffffff.
“How do I interpret that? I join the Family? Get to be a made man? Become a capo?”

Candy tch-tched. “You take Francis Ford Coppola too serious, Bobby. Besides, you ain’t Italian. You think we’re mobbed up? No. We are independent contractors. You’ll do it because you like it, because of the rush.”

“The rush. I get no kick from this stuff  ”—he said, raising his glass—“so I have to turn to you guys?”

“Come on, Bobby. She’s a Mackenzie-Haack author. That name is all over Hess’s complaint. So come off it, stop winding us up.”

Bobby leaned over the desk. “I’m telling you, it’s Bella Bond you want to strong-arm, not yours truly.” He smiled insincerely and drank.

Karl said, “Listen: You’re sitting there bantering away, and you don’t even know what the hell we want.”

“I figure you’ll tell me when the moment is ripe. Like a cataract.”

“Cindy Sella—”

Bobby slid down in his chair, looked at the ceiling. “She’s not one of mine.” He slid up. “I do not own Mackenzie-Haack. I do not own the controlling stock in this house. As you work your way up the publishing ladder, don’t you ever read the trades?”

“
Publishers Weekly
, yeah.”

Bobby’s eyes raked the ceiling as if searching for clouds. “You read
PW     
?” He laughed.

“You just told us we should.”

“If you were reading
PW
while I was vacationing in Australia—at your request—you’d know Mackenzie-Haack was taken over by two brothers from Dubai.”

“Dubai? The fuck. I thought they put their money into racehorses and hotels. What conglomerate?”

“D and D.”

“What’s D and D?”

“Dubai and Dodge.”

“Dodge who?”

“Dodge City.”

Candy and Karl laughed and punched each other. “Dodge City! Who the hell’s the CEO? Randolph Scott?”

Bobby smiled. “CEOs, plural. The Dubai brothers: Saad and Sahan bin Saeed.”

“That sounds real Old West.”

Bobby snickered. “The younger one’s into Westerns. He wears ten-gallon hats, and his horse’s bridle is studded with bullet casings from a
Remington. These two thought it would be a friendly gesture to the U.S. to call it after Dodge City.”

“Dodge wasn’t open to friendly gestures, last I heard. It had more gunfighters than anyplace. It had Wyatt Earp, too. So? You’re solid with this arrangement?”

“Of course. As long as they keep their butts out of my business. Which they do because they’re rarely here, the Dubai boys, they’re always leaving for Dubai. I call them the Good-bye Boys.”