Paul laughed. "That's hysterical. But how could he guarantee it?"

Candy raised his eyebrows. "Ain't that being a tad nave, Paul? I mean you're the first person I'd think would figure a publisher can guarantee just about anything, as long as he spends the money, and we just wanted to make sure Bobby's going to spend a lot of money. Yeah, Bobby's going to see to that book's being a huge success."

Paul laughed again.

"And Bobby's taking a six-month leave of absence. He's having a vacation in Australia."

"Oh, Christ! Yes!" Paul shot his fists in the air.

"We got these friends in Australia," said Karl.

Candy nodded.

" 'Friends'?" Paul grinned like the very devil.

Karl tipped his head. "Like good friends. Like friends'll do whatever we tell 'em to do. You know, like escort him to the Sydney Opera House, escort him to the Outback. Whatever works for them."

Paul went on laughing. These two guys were a real tonic. "So who takes over at Mackenzie-Haack?"

"Old Clive. Old Clive surprised us both. He actually went up against Bobby Mackenzie and that could be a real career cooler, right?"

"That's the truth."

Karl got up, stretched; Candy followed suit.

"We gotta be goin'," said Candy.

"Yeah. Well, as long as Ned's okay, we don't have a beef with you, Paul. It's been very interesting, this talk."

Remembering his book, Candy pulled it away from the chair and held it out. "Now, will you sign?"

"My pleasure." Paul got a pen from an old cup and signed the book. "There." He snapped it shut.

Paul walked them to the door where they shook hands.

"A very interesting conversation," said Candy.

Karl said, "Ditto that. Only listen, Paul, you just got to stop f.u.c.king around with other people's lives. You're a controlling son of a b.i.t.c.h, you know that?"

Paul blushed. He knew it.

They were walking down the hall when Karl turned and asked, "You don't happen to know some guy connected with Ned named Patrick?"

Paul shook his head.

"Huh. Just a thought."

They said good-bye again.

FORTY-SEVEN.

In the publishing industry, news travels fast. Very fast. Especially bad news, which is the good news of the publishing industry. Night, day, dusk, dawn-makes no difference. It's on the street.

When Bobby Mackenzie heard, a couple of hours after Ned had been hit and a couple of hours before any word was given out on his condition, that Ned Isaly was the victim of a hit-and-run! Sweet Jesus! he grabbed his ticket to Australia, ordered a car be sent round, wrote a note to his wife (which he considerately pinned to his pillow) in which he told her he was trying to sign up a writer in Australia and he had to get there fast. "Good-bye. Don't let anyone into the wine cellar."

FORTY-EIGHT.

What a peculiar question to end up with. Patrick? Paul stood in the open doorway, gnawing at a small callus near his thumbnail and thought about it after they left.

He closed the door and went back to his office and sat slumped in his chair as ashamed of himself as he had ever been in his life. Poor Ned Isaly, for G.o.d's sakes. He didn't believe the accident had been anything but your average New York City hit-and-run, but, still . . . He had signed the contract; Candy and Karl hadn't done it; Arthur certainly hadn't done it-anyway, those three were at the scene. And G.o.d knows Bobby Mackenzie hadn't been involved. Not only was there no reason now to get Ned out of the way, but also Bobby was scared s.h.i.tless of the pair he had so insouciantly hired himself.

What a jerk.

What a business.

"What's a casque?"

Paul thought he had asked this in his mind until he turned around and saw Hannah, materialized in the office doorway, wearing her nightgown and clutching one of her pages. How long had she stood there, ghosting around?

"Honey, how long have you been there? What are you doing out of bed? Where-" He stopped when he realized he was asking one question after another and not waiting for the answer. "A casque? Isn't that a headpiece? Like in armor?"

"I don't know. That's why I was asking. I need a weapon to put in the hunted gardens for the Dragonnier. I think he's having a lot of trouble."

"Well, a sword would do. But does he need one?"

The Hunted Gardens evolved at some point-and Paul a.s.sumed at the same point as the ma.n.u.script did for just about every novel: that is, the point of clammy fear that it wasn't any good, that it wasn't working, and even if it was, the writer couldn't think of one d.a.m.ned more thing to say-into becoming the near-exclusive domain of the Dragonnier, a character whose main hold on life (and fame and a story) was his ability to get along with dragons. So he wasn't a dragon slayer, but a dragon tamer, or something like that.

He held his arms out and Hannah whisked across the room to sit in his lap.

Paul said, "I wonder if maybe you're making your story kind of melodramatic because you think this garden hunting isn't exciting enough to hold your reader's attention."

Her little forehead creased into furrows. "Mela-what?"

"Dramatic." As she channeled her anxiety into rolling and rerolling the page she held, he said, "It's what's called unearned emotion."

Oh, yes, that cleared the whole thing up, her squiggly little eyebrows told him.

"You're afraid that maybe people won't want to read any more about your gardens-"

"No, I'm not. I just think they'll want to read more about the Dragonnier. And, anyway, I didn't stop writing about the hunted gardens. I can't because that's where the Dragonnier lives. And the dragons are. See, they've always been there. I just haven't told anyone until lately." Her sly look said Gotcha!

Lord knows he had to give her credit for pulling that particular rabbit out of the hat. Still, as a reader, he felt a bit cheated. "But, listen, you've gone for ninety-some chapters without ever mentioning the dragons. I mean, do you think that's playing fair?"

"They were hidden, see. It's not my fault if they were hiding. The Dragonnier should have said."

"Said what?"

"That the dra-gons were there." She pinched up the sleeve of his shirt and started to hum.

"But, Hannah, it's your story so it's your responsibility."

"Maybe we should send her to Bread Loaf this summer."

Molly's voice. Molly stood in the doorway, leaning slightly against the doorjamb, one foot tucked over the other and her arms folded across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Bread Loaf might help. She'd probably get some editorial advice, have an opportunity to get a lot of feedback, maybe snag an agent."

Hannah slipped off his lap and went to swing on her mother's hand.

"I didn't hear you come in, Moll. I was only trying to help Hannah with her story."

Molly rolled her eyes. "Some dads read stories to their little girls; other dads tell their little girls how the story should have been written in the first place. Cinderella, your feets' too big, that kind of thing."

Hannah laughed and ran down the hall.

Molly said, "Listen, I like your friends."

Paul felt a little frisson of anxiety. "Friends? What friends?"

"The ones downstairs. In the lobby. They said they were really happy to meet me and that I should tell Paul-that's you-to keep out of other people's business. They said it wasn't healthy to mess around." She shifted to the other side of the door, leaning again. "I really liked that 'healthy' bit. We chatted for some time about your book. What have you been up to?"

Paul clamped his hands flat against his chest. "Who, me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing!"

"Yes, you have. I know you." She turned and walked down the hall. She turned back and blew him a kiss.

Ah, Molly!

Could he really leave her in thirty seconds flat if he spotted the heat around the corner? Paul grinned.

Maybe not.

After Molly left, Paul looked at the telephone on his desk. He thought for a moment, and then picked it up and punched in the number. At the other end, a voice floating on a sea of calm said, "The Old Hotel, good evening."

"I wanted to make a reservation. Tomorrow night?"

"For how many, sir?"

"Two, my wife and me." He didn't know why he was moved to tell the Hotel's personnel who the other person was; it could as easily be "my girlfriend/mistress/trainer." Was it the Old Hotel's business? He thought perhaps it might be.

"If you'll wait a moment, sir, until I check."

Paul closed his eyes. It was at this point the Old Hotel would say, Sorry.

"Your name?"

"Giverney. Paul." No, it was at this point. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for rejection: "Sorry, Mr. Giverney, but we're fully booked until Christmas/New Year's Day/Easter, whatever."

"Yes, sir. Would nine o'clock be too late?"

What was going on? He shook the receiver as if to dislodge this false response, this clear lie.

"Uh, yes. Absolutely. Nine o'clock."

The voice thanked him, told him the Old Hotel would look forward to seeing him.

Slowly, Paul replaced the receiver.

Why? Why was he all of a sudden on the Old Hotel's anointed list?

"Molly! Come in here for a minute, will you?"

In a little while, Molly appeared in her old, ratty-looking dressing gown. "What's up?"

"You're not going to believe this."

"It pertains to you? Try me."

Paul thought maybe it was Molly they were really admitting. But he'd tried to make reservations for the two of them before and failed. He told her about the Old Hotel. "We're in! Tomorrow night!"

Molly just gave him a patient shake of her pillow-tousled head, turned, and waved his news away. "Oh, that old place."

He stared after her, mouth open. Then he called after her, " 'That old place' ? What? What?"

Her voice floated back to him. "They're all crazy there. 'Nighty-night."

Paul sat, staring through his open door down the hall where she'd gone. Then he yelled, "They are not!" And he wondered why he didn't want to believe they were all crazy at the Old Hotel. The idea disturbed him greatly. He mumbled something even he didn't get.

Then Paul swiveled around and looked at his computer screen with the haunted house screen saver. He also had an old Royal portable that he used to type up rough copy because he liked the sound of the keys and because he felt as if he were working harder and more like a real writer. When he made a mistake he would X it out. The page would eventually look like nothing but cross-hatching.

There was a file on casters in which he kept ma.n.u.scripts and parts of ma.n.u.scripts. He rolled it over and pulled from it the thick copy of the novel he'd written before Don't Go There. This was Half a Life and it had sold upward of two million copies. What had been returned to him was the original ma.n.u.script he had given to Queeg and Hyde. It had been returned some time after the book had been published, which was standard practice. What he wanted to look at now was the note that had come with it. Here it was, clipped to the ma.n.u.script. Paul recognized the handwriting-he had seen it often enough-of that officious little squirt, DeeDee Sunup, who had pompously written:Dear Paul, We are herewith returning the foul matter of Half a Life.

The first time he had seen this phrase he had laughed until he choked (and Hannah had run in to pound him on the back). But DeeDee Sunup (and others like her) failed to see any sort of humor, irony, or even anything cabalistic in the phrase. "Foul matter": this was what publishers called all of those original ma.n.u.scripts, frozen in time, before they had been blue-penciled, red-penciled, edited, reedited, chicken pecked to death. This was the first look at the book, the ma.n.u.script out of which they'd tried to suck the marrow, drain the blood, leach the life, while they hammered the book into fame or obscurity, it hardly mattered which.

What had been returned to him was his foul matter. The gunk, the sludge, the muck that preceded all the placement, the sales figures, the ads, the reviews. Yet the original had been the writer's best effort, the work he was willing to send out into the world and be judged by.

Paul grinned his devilish grin and fed a sheet of paper into the old Royal. He typed:FOUL MATTER.

by Paul Giverney.