CHAPTER 16
KENTON, to Gunnison’s surprise, kept a low profile and the evening passed with both of them going unnoticed. They ate thick steaks at a fine restaurant and had three glasses of wine each, not the single glass Kenton had promised. But no harm came of it and the pair of them returned to the rented room, talking of finding better quarters for the remainder of their time in Denver.
For now, though, the squalid room was theirs. Gunnison had gone out earlier in the day long enough to purchase a cot, and as he stretched out upon it that night, he was glad for it. The floor was hard, rough, and incredibly dirty.
Before he drifted away to sleep, Gunnison said a prayer for his wife far away, for himself, and for Kenton. As his consciousness faded, the affairs of the present seemed to line themselves up rationally in his mind. Because of two days of hard teamwork, Gunnison was certain that Kenton’s job had been saved. There had been no legal repercussions so far for Kenton’s assault in the saloon. Kenton seemed to have worked through his personal crisis over the quest for Victoria, and it now appeared likely that Kenton would soon finish exploring the improbable matter of the so-called clues in the serial novel, and all this nonsense would end.
Gunnison had such a sense of relief and peace about it all that before sleep fully took him, he consciously forgave Kenton for that fiasco in Leadville.
* * *
Kenton paused at the door of the office building that housed American Popular Library, and glanced in a dark window to check his appearance. He liked what he saw. The bleariness was almost gone from his eyes, the sallowness from his face. Few exterior signs remained of his bout with alcohol and self-doubt. The old Brady Kenton was returning.
He walked into the office building confident that he’d obtain the information he needed within the hour. He’d probably come out with a full copy of The Grand Deception in hand and the name and home address of the author.
The man at the front desk was slender, bespectacled, bookish, and possessed of a haughty expression and manner. He looked at Kenton with no trace of recognition or respect.
“May I help you?”
“No need to sound so reluctant, young man. Indeed you may help me. My name is Brady Kenton.”
As Kenton expected, the fellow’s expression changed dramatically when he learned who his visitor was. He adjusted his glasses, stared Kenton up and down, then reached under the desk and pulled a folded copy of a newspaper onto his lap. He glanced at something on the page, looked at Kenton again, and put the paper back under the desk again.
This reaction did not surprise Kenton. The business with the newspaper, however, was a little confusing. Never mind, though. He was here about a serial novel.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Kenton?” The fellow sounded oddly reticent.
“I’d like to meet Mr. Jason Bell,” Kenton replied.
“Jason Bell, the editor?”
“What? You have more than one Jason Bell?”
“No … no. Uh, do you have an appointment, Mr. Kenton?”
An appointment? Kenton hadn’t expected that one. People normally threw appointment calendars out the window when offered a chance to meet the famous Kenton.
“I have no appointment. But if you’ll announce me, I’m sure Mr. Bell will be pleased to see me.”
“Pardon me, sir. I’ll go tell him. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I assure you, I’ll stay put.”
The skinny man rose and turned to go back into the building, but paused long enough to again retrieve the newspaper. He folded it under his arm and scurried off.
Kenton resettled his coat, feeling perplexed by the man’s odd manner.
A few moments later, the man was back, minus the newspaper. He looked darkly at Kenton and said, curtly, “Come on back, sir. Mr. Bell has kindly agreed to adjust his schedule and see you.”
“How kind of him.”
Bell’s office was a floor below Darian’s, in a corner, and very dusty. Its only window looked out onto the brick wall of the building next door. Papers and books and magazines and manuscripts were piled about the office.
Bell was short, rumpled, and shaped like his name. He stood behind his overflowing desk and looked at Kenton the way a man looks at a carnival barker.
Kenton was beginning to feel a little off balance, as if everyone but himself were in on some piece of secret information.
“My name is Bell, Mr. Kenton. Have a seat.”
Kenton slid into the only chair in the room not piled with papers. “Thank you, sir.”
Bell eyed him with obvious suspicion. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to talk to you about a novel that, I believe, you recently began publishing.”
“Which one? I’ve got two in publication currently.”
“I’m speaking of The Grand Deception.”
“Oh, yes. Written by Horatio Brady.”
“A pen name, I assume.”
“Some of our novels are written under pen names. Others are published under actual names.”
“What about The Grand Deception?”
“I’m not free to say, Mr. Kenton. Our contracts provide the strictest privacy for our authors.”
Kenton glanced at the desk, reached over, and picked up a copy of what was obviously a book contract, albeit not for the one that concerned him. “I see that your concern for privacy governs everything you do, Mr. Bell.”
Bell, with obvious irritation, reached over and snatched the contract out of Kenton’s hands. He turned, scooted a stack of books to one side, and began to manipulate the dial on a small shelf safe. Bell’s wide body blocked most of Kenton’s view, but Kenton saw enough of the inside of the safe to realize that he’d just spotted the depository for Bell’s contracts.
Bell slammed the door shut again, twisted the dial, and turned to face Kenton again. “May I ask the grounds for your interest in this novel, sir?”
“It’s a private matter.”
“What do you want to know about it?”
“How it ends. Who wrote it. And the origins of its plot.”
“Out of the question. Our novels are published in segments, and no one but the author and the editor have access to the full manuscript.”
“But I’m sure, sir, that you make some exceptions.”
“None.”
“Come now … we’re both professionals. You do know who I am, I presume?”
“I know you. I was reading about you only this morning, in fact.”
Reading about him? “Well, then … you’ll allow me a bit of discretion, bend the rules, perhaps…”
“Mr. Kenton, I must ask you to leave.”
Kenton was shocked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I must ask you to leave, sir. And please, if you have any notions of throwing me out of the window as well, be aware that we have a security officer in this building who will respond at once to my first call.”
Kenton blinked twice, something coming clear. “Mr. Bell, when you said you were reading about me this morning, what were you referring to?”
Bell reached into the pile on his desk and pulled out the same folded newspaper the receptionist had brought back to him. He tossed it to Kenton.
Kenton opened it and went pale. Beneath the byline of one J. B. Haddockson was a lengthy story with a screaming headline:
FAMED JOURNALIST BRADY KENTON VISITS DENVER, GOES ON RAMPAGE OF ASSAULT AND WINDOW-SMASHING!
Beneath it was a smaller deck head:
DENVER POLICE HAVE QUESTIONS FOR VANDALIZING WORDSMITH.