Eight
At 8:15 the next morning Jane pulled into the parking lot of the Shady Hills Police Station, a one-story glass-and-brick building about a mile from the village center on Packer Road. Doris was already there; Jane recognized her tan Buick. Doris and Arthur got out of the car as soon as they saw Jane arrive. Jane got out and approached them.
Arthur was of medium height and of average build. He was a pleasant-looking man, with dark brown hair neatly trimmed and parted on the side, and large hazel eyes. He wore chinos and an olive-colored nylon windbreaker. Doris introduced him to Jane and she took his hand.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
“My pleasure, Arthur. I’m sure it will be fine.”
Doris looked at her watch. “It’s almost time. Should we go in?”
“Yes, all right.” Jane forced a reassuring smile and led the way to the station entrance. Inside she told the desk sergeant that Arthur was there to see Detective Greenberg.
While they waited, Doris turned to Jane. “Thanks, Jane. You don’t have to wait with us. We’ll be fine.”
“That’s all right,” Jane said, but at that moment Greenberg appeared, smiling a small official-looking smile.
Jane introduced Doris and Arthur.
“Thank you, Mrs. Stuart,” Greenberg said. “Arthur, will you come with me, please?”
Arthur shot Doris an apprehensive glance. She smiled and nodded quickly to reassure him, but her smile disappeared as soon as Arthur had turned to follow Greenberg.
Jane took Doris’s arm and walked with her out of the building to the parking lot.
“Thank you, Jane.”
“My pleasure, Doris. Would you like to get a cup of coffee or something?”
“No.” Doris glanced at the police station. “I’ll wait out here until they’re finished. Then I have to drive Arthur to the Senior Center.”
“There’s a place to wait inside,” Jane suggested.
“No, I’ll wait in my car.”
Jane watched Doris walk slowly to the Buick and get in. Doris raised a hand in a halfhearted wave. Jane waved back, got into her own car, and pulled back onto Packer Road, turning left toward the village center and her office.
When she arrived, Daniel was cursing at the new database again. She dropped some manuscripts she had read last night onto the reject pile on the credenza by the window, then turned to poor Daniel and couldn’t help laughing.
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” he said. “I’m beginning to think you were right. Maybe we should go back to the way things were.”
She gaped at him. “I wasn’t serious! We spent thousands of dollars on that program. It will more than—”
“More than pay for itself, I remember.”
“Why don’t you let me input some data, or whatever you call what you’re doing?”
“I call what I’m doing getting frustrated.”
“Well, please don’t. It’s not worth it. I can always get the money back.”
He considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “No, we just need to get comfortable with it.”
“Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug. “Any calls?”
He smiled slyly. “Holly Griffin about lunch today.”
Jane groaned. Daniel knew how much Jane disliked Holly, the embodiment of everything Jane hated in an editor. Holly was arrogant yet dumb, far more interested in office politics than in books, completely untrustworthy, and a master brown-noser. But editors weren’t what they once were, Jane often had to remind herself, and if she submitted books only to the editors she respected, she’d be out of business fast. So Jane did submit manuscripts to Holly, manuscripts like Carol Freund’s Relevant Gods. Jane had squeezed a hundred thousand dollars out of Holly—quite a coup for Jane, and for Carol, a former schoolteacher from Northampton, Massachusetts.
Though Holly didn’t like to admit it, she was excited about Relevant Gods, truly a remarkable novel, and had rushed it for publication in June. That was next month. Corsair was throwing its publication party for Carol this Thursday, in two days. That party, Jane remembered, would be her next date with Stanley Greenberg. Today Jane and Holly were supposed to have lunch so Holly could give Jane the final party details.
Lunch with Holly was the last thing Jane needed now, but she was curious about Corsair’s party plans, and she knew that if she canceled, Holly would just doggedly pursue Jane until she agreed to make a new lunch date.
“Please call her and tell her I’ll meet her wherever she wants, and to let me know the time.”
“She’s already left all that in her message. Twelve-thirty at the Russian Palace.”
Jane groaned again. She should have known Holly would choose that restaurant, which Jane disliked almost as much as she disliked Holly. The Russian Palace was a pretentious, overpriced, overcrowded, noisy tourist trap. But at least Holly would be paying; the editor always paid.
Jane realized she wasn’t liking many people or places lately. With a deep sigh, she headed into her office, where she jotted down answers to a list of questions Daniel had left her about a contract he was vetting for one of his own clients. At 10:45, when she could put it off no longer, she rose heavily from her chair and headed out of the office for the bus that would take her into New York City.
“Jane! Jane!”
Jane squinted into the crowd of people who filled the narrow red-and-gold expanse of the Russian Palace’s dining room. Finally, she spotted Holly at a table near the back and told the maître d’ she saw her party and would make her own way.
Holly was half standing at the tiny table, waving furiously and wearing a big grin. Jane forced a grin of her own. The two women exchanged air kisses, and Jane set down her bag and dropped into the empty chair, careful not to bang into the man in the chair just behind her.
“Why don’t they just stack us up,” she said dryly, “like a totem pole.”
“Ooh,” Holly said, “in a bad mood today, aren’t we?”
Jane stared at Holly. Something was different. A lot was different. Then Jane realized it was her hair, which, the last time Jane had seen it—at their last lunch here, actually—had been curly, shoulder-length, and medium brown. Now it was straight and a shiny darker brown, almost black, cut in a severe sort of sharp pageboy that reminded Jane of Claudette Colbert in Cleopatra.
Without realizing it, Jane must have been staring, because Holly stroked one shiny wing. “Like it?” she purred.
“It’s very different from last time,” was all Jane could think to say. She wasn’t going to lie and say she liked it, because she didn’t, any more than she liked Holly. She was here, she reminded herself, for Carol Freund. She simply had to get through it.
“Know who did it?” Holly said, leaning forward.
“No.”
“Hec-tor,” Holly said, with exaggerated pronunciation, “at Snip Snip.”
Jane had to laugh. She tossed back her own shoulder-length auburn mass of hair. “Joanie. At Selma’s Cut ‘n Curl.”
Holly frowned, pushing out her lower lip. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Moi? Never. Now,” Jane said, ready to change the subject, “how are things at Corsair?”
“Totally fabu!” Holly cried. Suddenly her head turned as if someone had snapped it with a rubber band. She gasped. “That’s Mort Janklow.” She slitted her eyes and made an angry pouting mouth. “He’s having lunch with Ham Kiels.”
“So?”
“So,” Holly said, turning back to Jane, “Hamilton Kiels works at Corsair, like me, and he’s only a senior editor. I’m executive editor.” She looked thoughtful. “I wonder why he wouldn’t have lunch with me. He said he didn’t have anything for me.”
Jane shrugged. “Maybe he was being honest—he doesn’t have any projects right for you.”
“Oh, yeah, but he has some that are right for Ham Sandwich over there.” Holly sneered in Ham’s direction. “We all work for the same company. What’s right for Ham is right for me.” She looked at Jane as if she’d had an epiphany. “He just didn’t want to have lunch with me! What am I, chopped liver?” She cocked an eyebrow. “That’s very shortsighted of Mort. One day I’ll be running Corsair. Then he’ll be sorry.”
“I’m sure he will, Holly. But in the meantime, you’re here with me.”
“Mm, right.” Holly shrugged petulantly, heaved a great sigh, and gazed despondently down at her menu.
“You were telling me that things at Corsair are, um, fabu,” Jane coaxed.
“Right,” Holly said, mustering some of her former enthusiasm. She smiled. “And the reason they’re so fabu is the party we’re throwing for your Carol Freund. Jane, I’m telling you, it’s going to be the biggest event of the year. And I take all the credit for that.”
“Thank you, Holly,” Jane said, because she knew that’s what she was supposed to say.
“You’re welcome. You’re gonna love it. My decision to have it at our offices was a touch of genius. The media people think it’s brilliant. Did you see Liz Smith? She called it ‘intellectual chic.’ ”
“Did she?” Please, time, pass quickly. This is worse than lunch with Bertha.
“Mmmm-hmmmm,” Holly said with gusto. “And it will be.” Her eyes grew widely innocent. “I do hope Carol likes what we’re doing for her book.”
“She’s thrilled,” Jane said. “She never dreamed she’d receive such treatment.”
“Have you seen the reviews? I had Jilly send them to you.”
“Yes, they’re—fabu!” Jane said. “Publishers Weekly gave it—”
“A starred review,” Holly finished for her. “Which I like to think is due in large part to my editing. And the Kirkus! They weren’t nasty at all!” Her face grew pensive. “I wonder if my affair with—Never mind.” Her head snapped to the left again as a tall, thin woman with skunk-striped hair sauntered past their table. Holly fairly jumped out of her seat. “Jana! Jana!” The skunk-striped woman turned to look at Holly, her face registering absolutely nothing. “Holly Griffin!” Holly chirped brightly, and the woman just turned and walked on.
Jane could stand it no more. She’d manufacture a headache in a few minutes, even ask Holly if she had any Tylenol. She waited, taking a sip of her water.
A waitress appeared and asked if they wanted something from the bar. Holly asked for Perrier and lime, and Jane said she’d have the same. When the waitress was gone, Holly turned to Jane, eyes gleaming. She looked like a crazed tiger.
“Holly, what is it?”
“I swear I’ll burst if I don’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“I have a wonderful surprise for you, Jane Stuart.”
Jane waited. The waitress arrived with their Perrier, and Jane took a sip, watching Holly.
“Well,” Holly said, “don’t you want to know what it is?”
“Of course! What is it?” It probably had something to do with someone else Holly had slept with to get a good review for Carol’s book.
“Okay,” Holly said, wiggling in her chair. “Okay. I’m bringing a very special guest to Carol’s party. Someone who wants to do a book and needs an agent. This . . . person asked me who she should consider, and I told her the only agent to even consider is Jane Stuart.”
Jane frowned at Holly skeptically.
Holly waited, watching Jane carefully.
“Well?” Holly finally blurted out. “Aren’t you going to ask me who it is?”
Jane set down her drink. “All right. Who is it?”
Holly’s eyes grew even wider and she leaned closer to Jane. “Goddess!”
A woman at the next table turned at the sound of the name. Jane could only stare at Holly. Jane must have misheard her. “Goddess?” Jane repeated.
Holly’s head bobbed up and down. She was positively gleeful.
Jane continued to stare. This couldn’t be true.
Goddess was one of America’s—indeed, the world’s—hottest stars. Newsweek had called her “Madonna and then some.”
Everyone knew who Goddess was. Goddess was a phenomenon. No one was exactly sure how old she was, but she couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. She had burst into the public consciousness two years ago when she starred in an underground sleeper of a film called Doing It, in which she played herself—the daughter of Viveca and Carl Hamner. Carl Hamner was the founder and chairman of Hamner Global, makers of the world’s best-selling running shoe, the Hammer. Goddess, whose real name Jane had read was Katherine, had publicly stated that she hated and rejected her parents, and in Doing It she ridiculed them by having brutal sex with a man inside a gigantic scale model of the Hammer. Even the movie’s title was a parody of Hamner Global’s slogan, “Go ahead and do it!”
Since Doing It, the multitalented Goddess had starred in several more hit films, recorded a number of international hit songs (and sexually graphic videos to go with them), and appeared on Broadway in a one-woman show called Goddess of Love. It was still running, one of the city’s most popular shows. Tickets were virtually impossible to get. It seemed anything Goddess did, the world wanted to see.
Holly stared at Jane, waiting for a reaction. Jane didn’t know what to say. Could this be true?
“Well?” Holly said at last. “What do you think of that?”
“The Goddess?”
“Yes! Goddess!”
A strange sensation washed over Jane—the feeling one gets when it appears possible that one might make quite a bit of money. But Jane and Holly’s relationship over the years had been strained, to say the least. Why would Holly have done this for her?
“What’s the catch?” Jane asked.
Holly made her pouty mouth. She tilted her head a little to one side, her Cleopatra hair swinging. “No catch, Jane. Really, I’m très insulted. I really felt you would be the right agent for her. Look what you’ve done for Carol.”
Jane felt a wave of guilt about all the bad things she’d thought about Holly all these years. “Holly, I . . . I don’t know what to say. Except—well—thank you!”
Holly smoothed her hair, smiling as if to say, Now you’ve got it.
“How do you know her?” Jane asked.
“My parents have been friends with her parents for years. Goddess and I—we haven’t been that close, but when she decided to do a book, she naturally came to me for advice. I’m her friend in publishing!”
Jane tilted her head in the direction of Mort Janklow, agent to the stars. “I’d have thought someone like that would have been more suitable.”
“No no no, Jane. If you think that, you don’t understand the phenomenon that is Goddess. Goddess never does what’s expected. Goddess never does what you’d think. That’s what makes her—Goddess!”
Jane still wasn’t convinced. “If she wants to do a book, and you, an editor at a major publishing house, are her ‘friend in publishing,’ why don’t you just sign her up? Why steer her to an agent when you could just buy her book?”
“Jane,” Holly said, her tone indicating that Jane should know better, “Goddess may be eccentric and outrageous, but she’s a sophisticated businesswoman. Don’t let the tender age fool you. She knew that even if she published with us, she’d need a killer agent, and she asked me to recommend one. And I did. You! Of course . . .” Her smile grew coy.
Here, at last, was the catch.
“. . . Of course, I would expect you—just as a courtesy, of course—to offer Goddess’s book to me first and exclusively.”
“Of course,” Jane promised solemnly. She thought she understood the situation now. Holly knew Goddess wouldn’t be satisfied until she had an agent, so Holly steered Goddess to Jane, whom she considered not a tiger but a pushover who would sell the book to Holly for a relatively low advance. This would be just like the scheming Holly. On the other hand, Jane had sold Carol Freund’s book to Holly for big money, six figures . . . though for Goddess’s book, that kind of money would be considered paltry. Yes, Jane’s theory made sense. But if Jane really did sign Goddess as a client, really did handle her book, she’d prove Holly wrong. Jane could be a tiger.
“Holly, I don’t know what to say. I’m stunned. She’s the biggest star—”
“In the world!” Holly grabbed a rye bread stick from a basket on the table and crunched on it. “Where the hell is that waitress,” she muttered. “I’m starving.” She looked around, spotted the waitress, and summoned her with an upraised hand. They ordered quickly, and the waitress hurried away.
Holly leaned forward again, touching Jane’s hand. “And Goddess,” she said, “is my big surprise for Carol’s party! Dontcha just love it?”
Jane didn’t think she just loved it. Carol’s novel was a quiet story about people on a farm in Indiana during the Korean War. She didn’t see how the outrageous avant-garde Goddess fit in.
“Do you think she’s quite—appropriate?”
“Appropriate! Jane, as you just said, she’s the biggest star in the world right now. Who wouldn’t want her at their party? And she’s agreed to do something very special for us—but I’ll keep that a surprise. Besides, I intend to introduce you to Goddess at the party.”
Jane remembered that Stanley Greenberg would be with her. What would he make of all this? she wondered, not knowing him well enough even to guess.
During the remainder of the lunch, Jane toyed with her blinis and watched Holly carefully, trying to figure her out. By the end of the meal, Jane had decided her pushover theory made the most sense. Nevertheless, signing Goddess would be an incredible coup for Jane as an agent.
When they were out on the sidewalk, Holly suddenly grabbed Jane in a hug. “I’m so excited, Jane. This party is going to be a triumph for me—I mean for all of us. Remember, our offices, eight o’clock.”
“Got it.” Jane watched Holly hurry away down Fifty-second Street toward Fifth Avenue. It was a beautiful warm day and Jane decided to walk to the Port Authority. On Broadway in the mid-Forties she passed the Minskoff Theatre and stopped short. Mounted to the building was an enormous billboard. It was Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, except that it wasn’t Venus rising from the sea on the half shell; it was Goddess, nude, stray locks of her famous waist-length light brown hair floating before her perfect body in strategic places. Draped around her waist and shoulder was a sash like a beauty queen’s, and on it were the words Goddess of Love.
Jane stared up at the image for a long time. Goddess’s eyes seemed to gaze down on her, as if she were about to tell Jane something.
Finally, Jane pulled her gaze away and continued west, shaking her head at thoughts of how Carol Freund’s publication party might turn out.