Chapter Twelve

 

Morning always comes too soon when you’ve spent the night acting the part of a character in a Thorne Smith novel. Sometime after dawn, I cracked the window shades of my eyes, promptly pulled them closed again, rolled out of bed, and crawled into the bath where I suffered the tortures of the damned—the damned silly—for the next forty-five minutes.

When I finally tottered back into the bedroom, clean and relatively sober, it was about eight o’clock, and while the thought of breakfast made me feel faint, the idea of central heating and hot coffee was enough to get me into my clothes.

Or whosever clothes these were. I peered blearily at a pair of Armani jeans that had been artfully bleached and beaten (why?) and a waffle crew sweater in a suitably muted gray. I felt too weak to comb my hair, and I didn’t trust myself with a razor; clean clothes seemed enough of a concession to civilization and polite company. Not that a mob of writers bent on furthering their careers could be mistaken for polite company.

I managed to dress without incident and opened the door onto a bleak autumn morning. The rain had stopped, but that appeared to be more like the storm pausing to draw a deep breath than any actual break in the dialogue of bad weather. Large brown ponds dotted the meadow, clumps of scrub and weeds glistened in the feeble silvery light.

I glanced over at cabin number six. No sign of life. But just in case J.X. happened to be staring out his window, I strode off across the pampa, Burberry flapping about me, trying to exude brisk confidence and cheerful sobriety.

It was probably a reasonably convincing performance from behind, but I was panting and sweating by the time I reeled onto the front porch and tried the heavy wooden door. To my teary-eyed relief, it swung open, and I slipped inside the lodge.

The smell of coffee and cooking breakfast hit me from down the hallway—along with the din of glad voices—and after an uncertain moment while my guts struggled to make sense of all that had befallen them, I headed for the dining room.

It was packed. Wall-to-wall chicks. Most of them in pink. For an instant I suspected a bout of delirium tremens.

“Family seating,” Rita informed me, as I stood there weaving with indecision.

Family seating? Then why wasn’t everyone decently buried behind newspapers and coffee cups?

I considered foraging in the vending machines, but Rita planted her hand in the middle of my back and urged me forward with an unexpectedly strong push. “There’s an empty seat over at the table by the window.”

I thanked her and made my way to a crowded table. The inhabitants looked up with the sharp-eyed interest unattended men always garner at these things. They introduced themselves, I promptly forgot all their names, and I introduced myself.

“Christopher Holmes?” a lanky gray-haired woman asked. “Don’t you write that pet-sitter series?”

I controlled my irritation. “I write the Miss Butterwith series,” I said. “She’s a—”

“Oh my gosh,” said the youngest of the group. “Miss Butterwidth!”

“ButterWITH,” I corrected.

“I used to read those when I was a kid. I loved them.”

“Thank you,” I said weakly. Since she was about J.X.’s age, I assumed she didn’t mean literally a kid. Or maybe she had me confused with Agatha Christie. Or maybe she was simply being polite. I picked up my menu and hid behind it while they resumed their conversation—the main topic of which seemed to be J.X. How charming he was, how handsome, how modest—

What did that girl mean she used to read my books? Did that mean she felt she had outgrown them? I stared unseeingly at nauseating descriptions of pancakes and omelets and corned beef hash.

The topic of J.X. continued unabated around me. How funny he was, how helpful, what a good writer, how successful—had they mentioned how handsome he was?

On and on and on.

“Too bad he’s married,” my former fan chirped.

I stayed still behind my menu.

“The rich, handsome, polite ones always are,” someone said.

“Or gay,” someone else chimed in, and they all tittered.

I put my menu down, and they stopped chuckling. I said, “Do you think the bar is open? I’d kill for a Bloody Mary.”

At the table next to us a woman was saying loudly, “Don’t forget the three E’s of modern publishing: ebooks, erotica, and elves…”

“You could ask,” one of the women said. I glanced around for a waitress, but they seemed to be in short supply.

“The buffet is over there,” the chirpy young one put in, pointing across the room at a long table laden with chafing dishes. “The eggs Benedict are pretty good.”

I swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

They launched back into further discussion of J.X. I couldn’t decide which I found more nauseating on top of a hangover, J.X. or eggs Benedict. I broke in, “So did any of you know this Peaches Sadler?”

There was an awkward pause.

“We knew of her,” the gray-haired woman said.

The young’un said, “She didn’t hang with people like us. She stuck to her own circle.”

I was thinking pentagram. Probably inverted. I asked, “Her own circle?”

“Oh, you know. The superstars. J.X. and Steven Krass.”

One more mention of J.X. and I was going to run amuck. The gray-haired woman interjected, “Buzz Salyer. Mindy Newburgh, I mean.”

But another woman shot this down. “Not these days. She’s not part of that group.”

I felt an unworthy stab of relief. Once I would have been part of that group, and no one wants to wander off into exile by his lonesome.

“Speaking of which,” the gray-haired woman said, checking her watch, “we’re going to miss our workshop.”

They began pushing away their plates, tossing napkins on the table, shoving chairs back.

At my inquiring look, the young one informed me, “Steven Krass is holding a workshop on the Top Ten Things Editors Hate.”

“Ah,” I said. “Colored fonts, my-mother-loves-my-book—”

“They don’t like colored fonts? Have you taken his workshop before?” She seemed genuinely shocked.

The others shepherded her off. Briefly, there was peace. The waitress showed up, filled my coffee cup, and instructed me on how to partake of the joys of the buffet. I sipped my coffee and stared out the rain-fogged windows at the gloomy day—what I could see of it through the steam and mist.

The table rattled as someone took a chair on the other side of that linen no man’s land. Espie Real deposited an enormous plate of food on the table and grinned at me.

“You look like death warmed over.”

“Hey, it’s what’s for breakfast.” I nodded at her plate.

She laughed. “Rough night?”

“I’ve had rougher.”

“I bet.” She heavily salted the piles of eggs, bacon, French toast, hash browns, and creamed chipped beef.

I shuddered inwardly—and outwardly. “You’re not attending Steven Krass’s workshop?” I inquired.

She had taken a forkful of eggs and potato and God knows what else, but she withdrew it intact in order to answer me. “Ha ha.”

I stared, fascinated, at the mini mound of food wobbling on her suspended fork. “That’s right,” I said. “You’re not a fan.”

“No. I’m not a fan.” She gave a sly look. “Maybe we should start an un-fan club; what do you think?”

“I think I’m a charter member.” She seemed pretty frank. I asked, “So what was the beef with you and Peaches?”

She snorted, shoveled in the forkful of food, and chewed. I didn’t think she was going to answer, but she swallowed finally and said, “You know her big breakout book?”

I must have looked blank, but the fact was I’d never heard of Peaches Sadler until—cue the theme from Psycho—she came slashing after me with her poison pen.

“Poké Stack.”

I was still lost.

Espie brushed my ignorance aside. “Anyway, it’s really a chicks book. Sort of a noir foodie romance.”

“With that sexy chick-lit sensibility,” I suggested.

“Yeah. Anyway, that was my book.”

“Poké Stack was your book? You mean she ripped you off?”

“It’s called plagiarized,” she said flatly. “Yeah. We were both clients of Rachel’s—well, hell. We were friends. The three of us. That’s why I never saw it coming.”

“What happened?”

“She and Rachel were kinda…” She raised her eyebrows suggestively and shoveled in more food. She ate like people in prison movies eat—sort of hunched over her plate and scooping bites up quickly between words.

“Rachel?”

She guffawed at my expression. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

I felt that was rather beside the point. “So Rachel let her see your manuscript?”

She shrugged. “She saw it. Let’s leave it there. Rachel never meant for it to happen, I know that. It’s Krass’s fault.”

“It is?”

“This was back when he was Senior Editor at Gardener and Britain.”

“Right,” I said. Gardener and Britain was a small, well-respected press known mostly for literary mysteries.

“Well, he’d already bought my book, Hot Sauce. But then he’s porking Peaches, yeah?”

“Uh…yeah.” And Peaches had been porking Rachel and Krass? Yeesh.

“And along she comes with her version of my book, and he buys that and never notices—or just doesn’t give a shit—it’s the same book.”

“You’re joking.”

“No, sweet stuff, I’m not joking. It’s the same fucking book, names changed to protect the guilty. And Krass buys it and spends a shitload of money to promote it, and when I point out to him that it’s my book, he basically tells me to keep my mouth shut about it or it will be the last book I write for Gardener and Britain—and maybe anyone else.”

“And what was the justification for that?” I asked.

“Oh, you think there’s a justification for that?” she asked hotly, glaring at me.

“No, of course not. I mean, what justification did Krass give you?”

“That the publisher had spent a lot of money and it was embarrassing to everyone involved, and the best thing would be that I let it be.”

“And did you?”

She stared at me, eyes very bright, the tattooed teardrop black against her skin. “Yeah, I did. I talked it over with Rachel, and we decided it was the best move.”

“What happened to your book? Hot Sauce?”

“It was published. It had a tiny print run, no promotion, and it sank like a stone.”

“And no one commented on the similarities between your book and Peaches’?”

“Nobody read my book.” She looked at her watch. “Shit, I gotta give a workshop on Writing Through Violence.”

She jumped up and took off across the dining room, causing people to stare after her.

“Something you said?” Rita inquired, refilling my coffee cup.

“She’s late for a workshop.”

“These people ever do any writing, or do they just talk about it?”

I shrugged.

Finishing my coffee, I wandered off to see what I could find out about the possibility of getting back to civilization that day.

The lodge seemed relatively quiet with the majority of people in workshops or talking in small groups. I spotted my breakfast companions in a huddle at a table in the bar.

“How was the workshop?” I asked.

The perky girl said, “Steven Krass never showed up. He blew us off.”

I couldn’t say that surprised me. It sounded like his style.

“Any word about when we might get out of here?”

They all shook their heads. I spotted J.X. coming in the side door and excused myself. The last thing I felt up to was making polite conversation with J.X.

I didn’t have a destination in mind, so I headed down the hall and went into the first open doorway. It seemed to be some kind of reading room or library. There were a number of knotty pine shelves stacked with books—mostly paperbacks—a couple of low rough-hewn tables littered with magazines, and a few comfortable chairs.

In one of the comfortable chairs was Debbie Croft, the daughter of the house. She appeared to be crying over an issue of People magazine.

I couldn’t imagine what drove her to tears. Another wardrobe malfunction? Another substance abuse hospitalization? Another debut album from a celebrity who couldn’t sing to save her life? Whatever it was, I didn’t want to know.

And it appeared Debbie didn’t want me to know. She looked up, saw me, and threw the magazine aside. Then she was on her way out of the room with some muffled comment I didn’t catch.

Since I didn’t know what else to do with myself, I sat down, picked up the magazine, and studied the glossy layout. The usual suspects behaving predictably. Then I blinked. Second photo from the top. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson at a Literacy Fundraiser in San Francisco. And in the background stood bestselling crime author J.X. Moriarity and bestselling author and columnist Peaches Sadler. Peaches had her red-taloned hand fastened on J.X.’s sleeve, and she was beaming at him with an expression that was anything but fraternal.

I examined them. If I knew anything about body language—and thanks to Miss Butterwith and the Body of Lies, I did know a fair bit—there was quite a lot of sexual interest on the part of Peaches Sadler. J.X. was harder to read because he was partially turned away, smiling at someone off camera. But his body language conveyed…a certain level of comfort. Relaxation. He certainly didn’t mind her hanging on his arm and gazing soulfully up at him.

It didn’t matter to me, naturally. It was merely a point of interest. Academic interest.

I tossed the magazine aside and walked down to the front desk to see if anyone had any information on when we might escape this hellhole, but once again it was deserted.

Feeling more and more restless, I wandered into the large meeting room with its panoramic view of the vineyards and the mountains wreathed in mist. Tables had been set up everywhere so that people could sit and chat in small groups.

I didn’t see anyone I knew, and I wasn’t in the mood to make new friends. I decided to return to my cabin.

Leaving through the back entrance, I walked across the rain-slick wooden deck, down the stairs, and started through the maze of metal tables and chairs. Preoccupied as I was, I didn’t notice there was someone sitting at a table until I was a few feet away.

I halted. The rain ticked down on the metal tabletops, bouncing away like grain. Two tables from me a man was slumped over. I saw a black jacket and blond hair. His face was hidden in the curve of his arm—as though he were crying. Water sheeted off the table, reinforcing the idea. But he wasn’t crying, although perhaps he should have been—what with that axe crunched in the back of his skull.