"Come on, leave 'em alone," said Saul.

"You kiddin'? They got our table!"

Swill's was more crowded than usual, as if everyone downtown had come to celebrate what would be the publishing event of the year.

"Where's Ned?" asked Sally, turning as if she had expected to see him when she turned, but didn't. She was anxious. She'd been anxious all evening about Ned, partly because she was always anxious about Ned, partly because of that I.S.A.L.Y. acronym. She didn't know whether to tell him or not. She was not going to tell anybody else, for sure. It would end up being her secret alone, she supposed. This depressed her.

" . . . and tuh-ake her under your bur-ur-ran-ches, Mi-is-ter-uh Tu-reeree. "

Ned was standing at the window behind their table, not trying to hurry the group of four away but just standing and looking out of the window. He was looking out into what would have been darkness and rain to any other observer. To Ned, it was also darkness and rain, but he thought he could see through it; indeed, he did see through it, he could see across the street and into the park where a single lamp illuminated its small patch of ground-the bench, the walk, the tree.

He was afraid it would be empty, that bench, those gardens, the Jardin des Plantes, the Luxembourg Gardens. He was afraid he'd seen Nathalie for the last time and this was what had depressed him the entire evening. But now he made out a figure, dark haired, dark coated, her face as white as the letter she still held. She was waiting for something, for him to do something. And he remembered her crying that she couldn't leave on her own.

When Ned set his beer down on the occupied table ("their" table), the people sitting there looked at him, puzzled. He said nothing, just pulled on his anorak and made his way through the crowd to the door. Sally's voice followed him, asking where he was going and sounding anxious; Johnnie Ray's voice followed him with "Cry" and sounded even more anxious: "Whe-en you-r-r-r Su-WEET-ha-art sends a lu-ET-ter-r of good-by-uh-eye-eye-"

He stood on the pavement across the dark, rain-slicked street, looking into the park. Was she going to argue with him again? Demand a rewrite? Tell him this scene and that scene with Patric was a total wreck, a waste, a pack of lies? That Ned did not deserve a character such as she?

But what she did do was move. She rose from the bench (no help from Ned), shoved the letter in her black pocket, and walked away down the path. Turned after a few feet, gave him a little wave and a little smile.

"Nathalie!"

He started across the street, too distracted to see the car that had pulled away from the curb bearing down on him.

Sally screamed.

Sally had been waiting all day to scream, and the people behind her, Saul, Karl, Candy, and most of the Swill's population swarmed out onto the sidewalk.

Someone yelled, "Call 911!"

A dozen cell phones were already in hand and in operation. The ones who had reached the pavement first had tried, but had failed to see the plate of the car that, though it had been going quite slow when it rammed Ned, immediately picked up speed and was now careening around a corner three blocks up the street.

Saul and Sally bent over Ned. She was crying.

Ned looked up, blinked as he opened his mouth and started to say something, but Saul cut him off. "Don't talk."

Ned paid no attention to him. He blinked, slow as a cat and said weakly, breathily, "That no-good f.u.c.ker, Patric . . . that jealous son of a b.i.t.c.h . . . why did I-?" Then his head lolled to one side and rested on the pavement.

"Oh, s.h.i.t! " said Saul.

"He ain't dead," said Candy. "He just pa.s.sed out. Believe me, we know the difference."

Karl said, "Where's the f.u.c.kin' ambulance? Why can't you ever get an ambulance in this f.u.c.kin' town?" He asked this of the night in general, just as the ambulance came sliding around the same corner the car had taken a few moments before.

After Ned had been loaded in and Sally gone, too, to sit with him, and the ambulance bulleted off, siren screaming, the crowd dispersed with a lot of head shakings and sad murmurings.

Candy said, "I don't b.l.o.o.d.y believe this, K."

"Me either. I'm thinking . . . who do we like for this?"

"Who in-f.u.c.king-deed do we like for this? That son of a b.i.t.c.h, Mackenzie, that's who."

"Yeah, except"-Arthur pa.s.sed his finger around the inside of his collar as if it were too tight and asked-"who the f.u.c.k's Patrick?"

FORTY-SIX.

When Paul opened the door of his apartment to the two men, he was instantly glad that Molly had gone to that foreign film with her friends. He was also glad that Hannah was asleep in her bed at the far end of the hall.

"Paul Giverney?" asked the shorter one.

"I am. But how did you get up here? Clarence is supposed to announce anyone who comes in." Paul's antennae were jittering around.

"Clarence? Oh, you mean the guy at the front desk? Well, we didn't exactly come in that way."

"No," said Karl. "Being announced kind of takes away the element of surprise." He smiled broadly.

"Oh, I don't know," said Paul. "The gun would probably keep the surprise fairly undiluted."

Candy and Karl looked at each other and, having worked out "undiluted surprise," both laughed. "He's Candy, I'm Karl, Mr. Giverney. We have a mutual acquaintance?"

Arthur. Who else? Paul hadn't been as circ.u.mspect as Arthur in divulging his address. Not that it would have been hard for these two goons to find him, anyway. "Well, look. I've never been good making small talk in the hallway with a gun in my face. You know?" He managed a bitter little smile; he was scared witless.

"Oh. All right." Candy said this a little sadly, as if playtime were over, and stuck the gun between his back and his belt.

(Paul noted that for the next conversation he had with Sammy Giancarlo.) Candy was smiling. "All we want to do is have a little talk with you, Mr. Giverney. Actually, we just have a couple of questions. Could we come in, do you think?"

"By all means," said Paul, bowing fractionally and extending his arm. "My study's just down the hall, there."

They followed him. The room was small, but there were two chairs in addition to Paul's own swivel chair-a club chair and a chair with fancy scrolled woodwork that had always struck Paul as vaguely Oriental. They all sat down and, for a moment, made a study of one another.

Candy said, "Listen, before we have that little talk, I just want to say I think your book's terrific. Don't Go There?" Candy added, as if Paul might have forgotten what book Candy was talking about.

Paul was so surprised he lurched back in his chair as if the gun had gone off near his head. "I'm . . . uh . . . glad you liked it."

"Maybe you'd sign my copy?" Candy held up the book he'd been carrying.

Paul wanted to laugh out loud, but didn't know how safe that would be. "How about I sign it after you tell me what it is you want?" It was nice to have a bargaining chip, even one so slight as an autograph.

Candy tucked the book between himself and the chair arm. He had taken the club chair, Karl the Oriental-looking one whose woodwork he kept inspecting as if he were valuing it. "This is one f.u.c.kin' chair, Mr. G."

"Mr. G."? Was this to be the sobriquet he was hence to be known by? And after he was dead? He said, "Late Fung dynasty. A good example."

Karl frowned and looked at Paul almost with suspicion, as if Paul were pushing baby powder and calling it cocaine. "I never heard of that period."

I know you idiot; that's because I made it up.

"Karl reads a lot. And he likes antiques. You should see his place."

"Well, that's what I was told," said Paul. "I'm no expert on Chinese artifacts. Or periods."

Karl said, "I just hope you didn't get ripped off."

"Me too." Paul was beyond irritated. "Look, why are you here?"

"Oh, yeah," said Candy. "That."

"That"?

"We wanted to talk about Ned Isaly. Ned had an accident. He's in the hospital-"

Paul cut in. "Yes, I know about that. We have the same agent and the agent called me right away. It's too bad, but I don't think it's life threatening." Like you two are.

"Why'd he have this 'accident'?"

"Why? Am I supposed to know?"

Karl said, "We thought you might know something. It was a hit-and-run."

Suddenly, Paul's adrenaline shot through him like a bolt of lightning. "I know it was, but what's that have to do with me?"

"Could be a lot, Paul. See, here's Ned, who just managed to escape getting shot in Pittsburgh by a.s.sailant or a.s.sailants unknown-"

Paul was shaking his head and clearing the air with his hands, "Hold it, hold it. This Arthur Mordred is a friend of yours, right?"

"Right, but what's that got to do with the price of eggs?"

"Well, for Christ's sake, didn't he tell you?"

"Tell us what?"

"That I hired him to watch Ned Isaly. As a bodyguard, not an a.s.sa.s.sin!"

Candy looked at Karl and Karl at Candy as if neither of them could believe his ears. "No, he didn't tell us. You think we go around discussing our work?" said Candy.

"You think we meet up and high-five each other and say, 'Yo! I just took on a job to whack Ned Isaly. So how's your day?' " Karl put in. "What we do, what we take on is done in the strictest confidence. We can't go around comparing d.i.c.ks, for G.o.d's sakes."

Paul shot his hands out, scrubbing at air again. "Okay, okay, I get the idea. Nevertheless, I hired Arthur to see no harm came to Ned. That's the truth. You can certainly ask Arthur. If you want we can all meet and he'll back me up."

They were both silent, studying Paul.

Then Karl said, "Thing is, we don't like coincidences. Don't it seem to you that a hit-and-run coming right on top of the Pittsburgh thing-"

" 'The Pittsburgh thing'? You think I forced Ned to go to Pittsburgh?"

"No, no. But don't you think it's a h.e.l.l of a coincidence we're hired to cap Ned and don't do it and then he's. .h.i.t by a car?"

Paul leaned forward; indeed he rolled his swivel chair toward them as if they might see sense if he sat closer. "Now, listen: first of all, it was not my idea to hire you two-('goons' was bitten off just in time) guys to kill off Ned. Of course, I didn't! You two were hired by crazy Bobby Mackenzie because he couldn't figure out any other way to get me to sign a contract with Mackenzie-Haack."

"Yeah, we figured that had something to do with it," said Karl, wagging his finger at Paul. "But it's still your fault; you're the one started this whole thing. What in h.e.l.l do you have against Ned Isaly?"

Paul started to reply, but Karl enjoyed being in a speculative mood and continued: "We thought maybe, seeing both of you come from Pittsburgh, that maybe you and Ned were in school together? And he did something to you when you were kids? Something real horrible?"

It was clear Karl wanted the something real horrible to have happened, not just to clear up the mystery, but horrible for its own sake. Paul sighed. We're all such sentimentalists, even these men with guns shoved down into their belts, even they go for the easy explanation, the quick fix, the uncomplicated motive, with no ambiguity, no play of light and darkness, no shading, no nuance.

Paul smiled. "Like maybe I ratted him out for something? Made him take a blame he didn't deserve? Got him kicked off the team? Stole his girl or f.u.c.ked his mother?"

They liked that last alternative, Paul thought, as their lips pursed and their eyes narrowed. Yes, that would really be an act demanding retribution. Paul was almost disappointed that he couldn't give them the easy out, the clear and undiluted reason he'd done what he'd done. One problem was that he was no longer sure of the motive himself.

He said, "Let me show you something." And he rolled himself and the chair back and left it bouncing as he opened a desk drawer. He had kept the page on which he'd set down his shortlist of publishers and authors. Now he handed it to Karl, saying, "On that you've got a list of three publishers and three writers. Now, you know I could go to any of those houses-"

Candy nodded, rather proud of himself for having picked up a lot of publishing arcana. "Sure, because you're a guarantee of a million-copy sell-through."

Paul looked at him oddly, shrugged. "So given I think publishers these days are so full of s.h.i.t-not all of them, mind you; there are still one or two good ones-but I think most of them greedy, grasping, immoral, and vicious. Certainly those three. I was curious-no, more than curious: I wanted to see how far they'd go to get me into their stable. What a ghastly expression. Now, come the three writers, all of them very good and with real integrity that keeps their heads above the publishing swamp. Those three very good writers-"

"But Ned's the best," Karl put in, wanting their candidate to win.

"Yes, he is. But the question remained: which of those three, if any of them, could be threatened with a terrible blow to his career, could be having his contract canceled, or rumors spread his wife really wrote his books, or people in the trade otherwise firing away at his reputation? Which of them wouldn't panic? Which wouldn't hire a brace of lawyers and sue? And which-in some very real sense-just wouldn't give a good G.o.dd.a.m.n?"

Paul went on. "That's a quality I think all of us might have had once, but a quality that went south when the first book got published." Paul rocked himself in his chair, back and forth, back and forth, looking out of the little window at a skinny tree branch as if he were comforting himself. "After that first book which we were deliriously happy to see published, and the h.e.l.l with whatever the 'publication process' was, after that there was an almost constant nattering away about how much publicity and promotion do I get. How much money up front-? What? I'm not getting as much as King or Grisham? Go screw yourself. I'm not getting a book tour? Screw yourself twice. What about that snotty review in Kirkus? That starred review in Publishers Weekly? Reviews, reviews, reviews-tearing our hair out, plagued by jealousy over that one's or this one's reception, arguments over screen rights, reprint rights, foreign rights, electronic rights, and on and on.

"It used to be writing we cared about; now it's whether we get our own dumps, what kind of placement at Barnes and n.o.ble. Now it's the two-day laydown. Now it's the TBR list." Paul had picked up a pencil and was rolling it back and forth over his chair arm, still rocking. "Writers rail against the trash that turns up regularly on the best-seller lists and keeps on hanging around for weeks, months, effectively blocking the appearance of their books. But you know what amazes me? Not that dreck appears on the list, but-think of it-only fifteen books. .h.i.t that list on any given Sunday out of thousands. Tens of thousands-so what gets me is the pure arrogance of any writer's thinking his book should be on that list."

Candy and Karl listened with interest. They nodded right along, as if Paul were recounting their own history.

Karl said, "Man, it's a cutthroat business. You know, it's disillusioning, isn't it, that all that would creep into the book world? At least the book world, you'd think they'd be more, I dunno, idealistic."

Paul looked at him. He supposed he'd better not tack on that they'd crept into the book world. Instead, he sighed. Say good-bye, he thought, sadly.

Candy said, "So you're sayin' what you wanted to find out was how bad a publisher could be?"

Paul nodded. "That, and how good a writer can be."

"Like Ned Isaly. Some guy that's like what you were talking about before all of the s.h.i.t publishing splatters around happens. Maybe you miss it, the old days of writing; maybe you wanted to see them again." Candy c.o.c.ked his head. "Maybe instead of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d we think you are, you're like leading a charge. Something like that. Know what I mean?"

Paul tilted back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling because the eyes seemed to be filling up and if they did too much, the tears could run backward. "Yeah. Not leading a charge; I never did anything courageous in my life. But the old days of writing? I know what you mean."

There was a silence almost sepulchral in its heaviness as if they were gathered around a grave.

"On a cheerier note," said Candy, "we had a little talk with Bobby this morning. h.e.l.l, K"-Candy turned to his partner-"and we kind of wonder if it ain't Bobby involved in that hit-and-run." He and Karl, finding this idea humorous, started to laugh.

Paul leaned forward, scarcely able to contain his joy. "You 'had a little talk with' Bobby?"

"We just wanted to get a few things straight about how Ned's book was going to be published. You know, the stuff you were just talking about. To guarantee Ned'll be in the top ten. Starting in the top fifteen then moving up."