Ned still stood, drinking Bud from a bottle. "Well, yes, you can. I mean I think so." Why had these two been in Pittsburgh, really? Ned wondered. There was something wonderfully old-fashioned about them, like Kennedy fifty-cent coins.

Karl kicked back a chair in a way that suggested he was used to kicking back chairs and said, "Sit down," in a way he was used to telling people to sit down. But he did not mean to give offense, which was pretty much what he said, together with "Please (sit down)."

So Ned sat.

Candy said, "You were saying?"

"About nostalgia? That it might not have to do with a particular time and place."

They squinted at him as if compressing the field of vision might leave another faculty free to play around.

"I don't get it," Candy said. "You?" He turned to Karl, who was thinking and didn't answer.

Ned said, "You might be attaching a feeling to somewhere that wasn't ever the source of it. Maybe you don't recall the source because remembering it's too painful."

They c.o.c.ked their heads like big birds, listening carefully.

"Anyway, it's what the book I'm writing is about."

Was it? It gave Ned a jolt. He thought of Nathalie and thought she had been sorely used and not just by Patric but by Ned himself. He saw her there in the Jardin des Plantes, waiting for Patric, who wasn't going to come. He'd left Paris for his house in l'Herault. Why was she waiting if she knew he wasn't coming? Hope against hope, a strange way, thought Ned, of denoting hopelessness. She thought:He will walk toward me, turning in from the Rue Linne, carrying roses. He will not have gone, after all; he will have sent his wife and children off without him to Beaulieu-sur-Mer. Now they could be together for two weeks, two weeks uninterrupted. They would sit in cafes along the Boulevard St.-Germain, in Deux Magots, or along the Rue de la Paix, the cafe jammed with Americans who remembered it from the old song.

Nathalie imagined Patric with the same ferocious intensity with which he, Ned, imagined Nathalie.

She watched the path with such an intensity that Patric might actually materialize there, holding flowers . . .

He only half heard the question asked of him and looked up. "Sorry, you said-"

The taller one nodded, then asked, "What's your book called?"

"Separation." Ned said, "Why were you guys in Pittsburgh anyway?"

"Oh . . . yeah . . . we got business in Pittsburgh. Accounts, you know."

"No kidding?"

"Coincidence. Listen, we're just on our way over to Mackenzie-Haack. We want to see Mackenzie before he leaves town. He's one of our accounts."

"Yeah," said Candy. "Before he leaves town." He grinned.

FORTY-ONE.

Candy and Karl walked into the enormous lobby of the Mackenzie-Haack Building. The lobby looked like a marble sepulchre with its black floor tiles reflecting upward and white Doric columns on either side. The floor looked slippery slick and icy black enough to skate on.

They walked up to a black marble half-moon structure with RECEPTION on a small bra.s.s plaque. Behind the counter sat a guard. Another guard stood by him. Both looked bored. On the wall behind them were the huge intertwined initials MH.

"Bobby Mackenzie," said Candy, rolling his wad of gum from the left side of his mouth to the right. He had worn his black fedora.

Karl had worn his, too. Both of them also wore their mirror Ray-Bans.

The guard looked them slowly up and down, obviously not caring much for what he saw. "Names?"

"Mr. Black and Mr. White."

The second guard stopped yawning, narrowed his eyes at them, and adjusted his Sam Brown gun belt.

The first one scoured a big book of names, dates, and times, looked almost happy that he didn't find Mr. Black and Mr. White. "You got an appointment? Because here it says you don't."

Karl reached over the marble surface of the desk, picked up the phone, and held it out. "Call him and say we're friends of Mr. Zito's. Danny Zito's."

The guard looked increasingly unhappy and, now, fearful. He buzzed a number, spoke into the phone, waited a few seconds, and was given an instruction. He hung up and wrote "Black" and "White" on two identification tags. He handed these over to them. "S'posed to keep this on at all times you're in the building."

The tags had little metal clips that they used to fasten them to their lapels; they were directed to a bank of elevators that would whisk them to the twentieth floor. Nonstop. As soon as they entered the elevator, Candy and Karl jerked off the tags. They didn't think much of wearing identification.

Out of the elevator, past another receptionist, down a carpeted hall, blowups of book jackets lining the walls right and left.

"These guys are really into books," said Candy.

Bobby Mackenzie was seated at his desk, feet planted on top of it. He appeared to be editing some pages. Clive was standing by the window that gave out on a panoramic view of Manhattan. Bobby did not rise. He did not invite them to sit down in the two leather chairs on the other side of the desk.

Clive did.

"Clive, my man!" Candy gave him a high five.

Clive rather enjoyed returning it. He offered them chairs on the other side of the desk.

Bobby looked displeased. After all, he hadn't arranged this meeting and he didn't want them sitting down. "So why are you here? There wasn't supposed to be any further meeting until the job was done. Far as I know, it isn't. I saw Ned Isaly this morning walking into Tom Kidd's office, unmistakably alive."

"Don't be testy, Bobby. This ain't as public as Michael's. Nice office." Candy looked around.

"The job is finished, as far as we're concerned." Karl drew an envelope from an inside pocket; he was sitting near enough to the desk that he could skid it across the polished mahogany. "The advance. It's all there except expenses incurred. Pittsburgh Hilton, that kind of thing."

Bobby looked at the envelope as if it were a package of vipers that he'd dearly love to toss back. "So you can't do it? That's what you're saying?" Bobby sneered, or at least tried to; a sneer in this company wasn't easy. "Clive?" He turned then to Clive as if offering him the job.

Clive shrugged. If a shrug could look happy, this was it.

"But that ain't all, Bobby," said Karl. "We got a couple things to take up with you, things we want done."

Bobby stared at them in genuine disbelief. "Things you want-done?" He laughed abruptly and turned to Clive again.

The happy shrug returned, even happier.

"Things you want done," Bobby said it again, shaking his head. "I don't think so. Now why don't you just get out of here. f.u.c.k off." He fluttered his fingers toward the office door.

Clive looked from Bobby to Karl and Candy, this time a trifle nervously. Was Bobby so totally unaware of life going on outside of himself and his little publishing fiefdom that he thought he controlled everything? Including these two? Hadn't he, for G.o.d's sakes, read Danny Zito's book while leafing through it?

Karl and Candy looked at each other as if questioning the wisdom of the term: " 'f.u.c.k off.' Bobby says 'f.u.c.k off,' K. Does he really mean us?"

"Yeah, I heard him, C. You talking to us, Bobby?"

Clive thought this sounded exactly like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. Karl even looked like him. Clive had never noticed this before.

Bobby looked up from the pages he was marking up, pretending to think the two of them had already gone. "Get lost."

Clive squirmed. But he was enjoying it.

Karl looked at Candy in mock surprise. " 'Get lost.' That's in case we didn't understand 'f.u.c.k off.' " His expression settled in a little. "Now, Bobby, listen up: all we want is for you to ensure Ned Isaly's book, his new book, makes it to the TBR best-seller list. (Their time spent in Swill's had definitely not been in vain.) No no, hear me out-" He held up his hand to stave off whatever reply might be coming from Bobby's dropped-down mouth. "It don't have to begin in the top ten; it don't have to suddenly appear there in a hail of bullets-"

(Clive liked that a.n.a.logy a lot.) "-it's okay if it's on that 'extended' list for a couple weeks. After all, Ned's stuff is a far cry from Dwight Staines-which is a relief-and since Ned's literary, and, well, it's hard getting that on the list at all. But we insist it's in the top ten for the rest of the time, say, five or six weeks. At least five or six, maybe seven's better. And maybe it ought to crawl up to the top five, now we're talking about it-"

Candy shook his head, "Top ten, K. We ain't asking for miracles. If Ned's never been on the list before, then top ten's a real victory, right?"

Karl brooded. "It should be top five, a good writer like him. He should be in the top five."

"You're both nuts." Bobby's hand shot to the telephone.

Synchronized as the Rockettes, ch.o.r.eographed by Bob Fosse, liquid as Twyla Tharp, in one fluid motion they thrust their hands inside their Armani jackets (deconstructed for just this relaxed effect) and pulled out guns.

Frozen silence. They shoved the slides up and back. In that still room, they made a noise like Niagara.

Clive felt a jolt of electricity, a rush of adrenaline putting his senses on red alert. It was not an unpleasant feeling. How often did he ever have it? But were these the amiable "Waltzing Matilda" boys of the Pittsburgh group? Even hit men had their lighter side, he supposed.

Karl continued. "That's the first thing-the list. Understood?"

Bobby slammed himself farther back in his chair. "You're-" (He wanted to say "crazy" but looked again at the black muzzles pointed his way.) "-kidding. I don't control the best-seller lists. n.o.body does. n.o.body but the public, the reading public, the ones who buy the books."

Candy and Karl both laughed richly and shook their heads.

Karl tipped his hat back on his head and said, "Bobby, the public doesn't control anything. They are controlled by whoever or whatever blows the strongest wind their way. And in addition, Bobby, there's one thing our line of work has taught us and that is nothing, nothing, is impossible if you want it done enough. You'd be surprised." Karl raised the gun a fraction.

Bobby made a dismissive noise that brought Candy to his feet, gun hand propped in his other hand. "s.h.i.t, K. This guy don't know any more about marketing than my aunt f.a.n.n.y. Lemme cork him up."

Bobby's eyes grew several sizes rounder before Karl motioned Candy down. "It's okay, C. Bobby here'll see reason."

"Reason-" Bobby's voice was a rasp. "You walk in here with guns and that's reasonable?"

"Kindly remember who brought us to this ugly pa.s.s in the first place," said Candy as he raised the gun fractionally.

"Impa.s.se," said Karl.

"Impa.s.se. You seemed to think then we were being real reasonable. So 'be reasonable' really means 'Do what I want, sucker, just don't do it to me.' "

Bobby opened his mouth.

"Stop interrupting, Christ's sake, we'll be here all day. Clive"-Karl's head made a little motion toward the door-"see what the girl's doing and tell her to do it someplace else."

Clive felt a fresh wave of self-respect wash over him. They considered him to be one of them; they were treating him as an ally. He walked over and opened the door just enough to get his head through and told Amy to go down to the cafe off the lobby and bring back whatever everybody wanted. To take someone else with her so she didn't have to make several trips. Then Clive withdrew, gave Candy and Karl the thumb's-up, and went back to his perch by the window.

"So, Bobby, we're agreed on the TBR list."

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, I told you, I can't-"

Karl shut his eyes, pained. "Haven't you been listening, a.s.shole? Say I walk into a bookstore looking for something to read. Now, what am I likely to pick up? A book that's buried in the back or a book that's in my face everywhere I turn? A book that's all over the f.u.c.king place. Get real, man. You pay for what you want in this world, as you sure ought to know." He pointed the gun barrel at the envelope that still lay where it had been tossed on the desk.

Bobby leaned back, stuck his hands behind his head, and put his feet back up on the desk.

Apparently, thought Clive, Bobby couldn't see that he was not the puppeteer in this situation, wasn't plying the strings, or that this was not an occasion for pomposity, for he said, pompously, "We don't control the middleman-"

Whereupon, Candy was up. "I'm gonna clip the little f.u.c.ker, K."

Bobby went white and quickly returned to his victim's position, arms and legs down.

Karl motioned to Candy, who sat down, reluctantly.

"Thing is, you know you're lying. Lying or plain stupid and we don't think you're stupid."

Clive saw Bobby actually smile. His ego was so huge he didn't consider it to be any less of a compliment that it came from a guy with a gun in his hand.

Karl went on. "As I was trying to say before, but apparently you weren't listening, you control whatever you pay to control. Tell the bookstores you're putting out a mil to promote this book, they buy more copies. They sell more copies. You buy s.p.a.ce up front, you hawk dumps. Then they put the book up front. You do this for best-selling authors; it's nothing new. You pay the chains to do this; it's what you might call a hostile collaboration. In the case of Ned's book, you just pay even more. Maybe a mil and a half, even two. I'll say it clearer: you can buy anything and you, of course, G.o.dd.a.m.ned well know it. Bottom line is, we see Ned Isaly's book on the TBR next year"-he raised the barrel slightly to point at Bobby's forehead and added-"or we come back."

"Yeah," said Candy with an evil grin, his pupils glittering like sequins. "We come back."

"There's another thing we want to remind you. And this you better believe: Ned Isaly better not meet up with an accident. So pray he's careful crossing streets and turning off the gas. You better pray he don't get mugged-"

"You can't hold me responsible for something like that. Christ, every other person in New York gets mugged."

"Really? Then hope he only meets up with the other fifty percent."

Candy said, "Now, Paul Giverney, how about him?"

"Yeah. Paul Giverney, the writer you're trying to sign. What we want to know is, was hiring us done at his suggestion? Was murder his idea?"

No one said anything, letting "murder" swing slowly from a noose of air.

"Yes," said Bobby. His eyes traveled the room, lit behind him on Clive. "Yes, it was Giverney's idea. And Clive's."

"Wha-?"

"It was you Giverney talked to, not me." Bobby tossed this over his shoulder at Clive, not bothering to look at him.

"So, it was Clive's idea?"

"Yes."