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A woman screamed. From nowhere, Roland appeared and went to the fallen man. Then Roland leapt up and grabbed the standing mic. “Is there a doctor here?”
A man and two women were already pushing through the crowd. A minute later, Roland asked some of the male servers to help transport Kane inside.
“He’s dead, Jim,” said Howard Hogarth, who happened to be standing next to me.
I turned to stare at him. He wasn’t smiling or anything. Maybe he thought a Star Trek joke was appropriate to someone collapsing? Did Howard have a beef with Jeff Kane or CP Comics?
“Did you see what happened?” I asked.
Howard said, “He got hit by a streamer. That’s all I saw.”
My mind leapt on the idea that a streamer launcher could have been modified to shoot something potentially lethal at Kane. As the idea formed, I dismissed it. Kane had been constantly walking around, hardly a stationary target.
I turned to the person on my right, who by strange coincidence was Leslie. She looked pale and upset.
“What did you see?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Do you think he had a heart attack? He was awfully angry at Eric.”
“He’s old enough. Or a stroke,” I said, but I didn’t believe that. I ditched Leslie and checked out the perimeter of the party area. All the launch tubes had been removed by the catering staff, except one. A catering assistant, a young guy, was fiddling with it and cursing.
“What’s wrong with that launcher?” I asked.
The catering assistant jumped in surprise. He turned to look at me. Ray Herriman. “It’s you,” he said.
“Did you fire something at Jeff Kane? Is that why he collapsed?”
“Leave me alone. I didn’t do anything,” he said, looking frightened.
“Then why are you disguised as a caterer?”
His answer was as sullen as the look on his face. “I wanted to go to this party, but Jeff wouldn’t invite me. Too low a staff position. Aunt Jean created the Juggerman. I have a right to be here.”
He was pushing it. I shrugged. “Are you a party to the big lawsuit against CP Comics?”
His expression darkened. “No, but I wish I was. She nixed joining it.”
“Why’d you sneak in tonight?”
He hung his head. “I wanted to see, okay?”
“Is that what you were arguing with Damien Nast about this afternoon?”
He scowled. “You saw that? None of your business.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him a sour look. “You invited me into your business this morning, remember? You practically begged me to check out your crazy aunt, who you accused of trying to sabotage the comicon because of a personal grudge she holds against CP Comics.”
He scuffed his shoe against the planked pathway and avoided looking me in the eye.
I didn't hide the asperity in my voice. “I went to the trouble of talking to your aunt, who by the way is a doll. I saw no evidence of bitterness or grudge-holding. She’s not here tonight, either.”
“That bastard Kane didn’t invite any of us.”
“Wouldn’t his lawyers have warned him not to be in any kind of personal contact with any of you during the other lawsuit?”
“Yeah, but...”
I threw up my hands. “Ray, I’m trying to help you, but you seem confused. What do you want from CP Comics? What did you argue about with Damien?”
“What you said. He told me not to come here tonight. Said I’d get into trouble.”
“You didn’t come here to cause a ruckus, did you?” I looked around at the remnants of the party. “Unless you’re dying for a piece of cake, you might as well leave. This party is dead now that Jeff Kane has been attacked.”
At his guilty look, I asked, “You didn’t do it, did you?”
“No. I...No!” he said, his voice rising.
“What about this launcher?”
Ray looked uneasy. Scratch that. He looked guilty as hell. He grabbed it before I could look at it closely. “Got to return it to the catering truck,” he mumbled. He rushed away to the back of the garden where the service entrance was.
I stared after him. He was hiding something, but what?
At the house proper, the partiers were still milling around, casting anxious glances at the building. Security staff blocked access to it, which also meant the guests had no way to leave.
I asked one of the security guys if I could speak to Roland. A few minutes later, he came to the nearest door and beckoned me inside. The room was an old-fashioned millionaire’s library, the kind the rich monopolists of the 1900s era all built. Leather armchairs, shaded lamps, lots of Morocco-bound leather books no one read. Now it was being used as the hotel lobby. A knot of people were gathered in a corner where Jeff Kane lay on a couch.
Roland said, “The EMTs are working on him. The doctors said he was hit by some kind of dart. They suspect a heart attack, too.”
“A dart? That can’t be coincidence,” I said. “Mistress Miraculous strikes again.”
His uneasy expression showed that he agreed. I told him about my little chat with Ray Herriman. Roland said Ray was a strong suspect.
“This attack was pointless,” Roland said. “Looks like Kane will be okay, but even if he'd died, nothing would change. CP Comics would simply hire a new publisher.”
“Who hates Jeff Kane personally?” I asked.
At that moment, one of the PR ladies bustled in and demanded Roland’s attention. I retreated to the garden, where the partiers were trying to get back into the groove. It wasn’t working.
Leslie rushed up to me. “How is he?”
“They think he had a heart attack. They’re stabilizing him now.”
Leslie now seemed to want to cling to me. I looked around. “Where did Eric go?”
She said, “Jeff was very upset when Eric told him I’m doing Swoonie. Very upset.”
I stared at her. “What the hell did you expect?”
“Eric offered me the security of a contract. Jeff never did.”
I shook my head, disgusted. “We’re just pawns to these big dogs.”
Leslie’s expression took on hauteur. “My career is going very well. I know what I’m doing. I have more offers of commissions than I can accept.”
“Wonderful. Do you know even one woman who has successfully worked for both of the major comic book companies recently? Even one?”
When she said nothing, I continued. “The guys in this business go back and forth from the one company to the other, sometimes playing them both off by going to a third. What makes you think that a woman attempting that will be tolerated?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Where’s your evidence?”
“This is a boys’ club. Do you think Jeff Kane will come to me and ask me to work on the strip you’re abandoning?” I asked.
“Of course not. You’re a beginner. You barely have fans.”
That stung, but I’d asked for it. “How long does your contract with FC run?”
“A year, not that it’s any of your business.”
“I’ve been drawing Swoonie for a year, and according to you I haven’t made an impression on anybody. What makes you think you can do better in the same short amount of time?”
She bridled. “My style is well developed, and I already have a fan following.”
“Are they letting you write Swoonie?”
“Steve will continue to script the storyline, for continuity,” she said.
“I knew it,” I threw up my hands and then dropped them in disgust while rolling my eyes. “You have been so suckered. You’ll be a mere hired hand relegated to drawing whatever Eric and Steve demand. I don’t give much for your chances of getting your contract re-upped.”
Leslie said, “I think you’re really nasty to be talking about what could happen a year from now when poor Jeff might be dying, or dead.”
I put my hands on my hips and cocked my head to one side, looking her over. Leslie was only a few years older than me, but she’d been in the comic book business long enough to know better than the rubbish she was spouting. She probably was correct that regardless of what happened a year from now, she would be offered other opportunities. Was I wrong to think that she, too, might become collateral damage in Eric’s campaign to score off against CP Comics? Switching companies this way was a huge risk for Leslie. Offering her only a one-year contract was nothing to Eric.
I stopped arguing with her. Let her live and learn, just like me.
Roland came outside and made his announcement, and the party broke up. There were still other parties the media people could visit in search of business opportunities tonight, parties hosted by lesser comics companies, or toy companies, or gaming companies. Jeff Kane’s collapse had put the kibosh on this event, but the comicon attendees had plenty more to choose from. They streamed out of the Walker Mansion hotel and onto Superior Street, where a fleet of limos waited to return them to convention central. Another perk of being at an elite event. I decided to walk back to my hotel down Michigan Avenue.