"Waiter's coming," said Bobby, with a curt warning nod, as if he were already hip to the ways of gangland.

Candy flipped the photo over as the waiter set Bobby's drink before him. Behind the waiter, Mortimer Durban was sitting down at the next table where two women Clive didn't know were seated. Apparently finished working his own table, Mort had come to work somebody else's. Mort Durban gave them a nod, checked out the two strangers in a wondering way. He was a powerful agent. You had to nod back. Clive did. You hardly had time to eat in Michael's, you were so busy checking things out.

After he'd gulped down some wine, Clive asked, "What . . . advance are you looking for?" He liked putting it this way. If anyone overheard (and the other diners were all too busy with checking out the room front and rear to focus for more than three seconds), it would be thought just the old familiar publishing argot.

"You mean total?" asked Candy.

Bobby nodded.

"A mil."

"That's a steep advance," said Bobby.

Steep? wondered Clive. After a three-million advance to that eminent true crime writer Barry Shooter, who, despite his name (not to mention his speciality), couldn't tell a gun from a corncob?

Karl gave a tiny shrug. Take-it-or-leave-it.

Bobby said, "Okay, but is that the actual advance money or is it half on signing, half on completion?" Bobby grinned.

"Divvied up, right. Only, fellas-" Karl chuckled "-Candy and me. We don't sign nothing, surprise, surprise."

Bobby took another gulp of his Scotch. He was loving this. In another moment he'd be chewing a chair. "Okay, a handshake's good as a signature."

Clive hoped Mort Durban didn't hear that, for G.o.d's sakes. But Mort was too deep in studying the cleavage of the women on either side of him.

"So when can we expect, you know, the first installment?" Bobby asked.

"That depends," said Karl, "on whether we, ah, undertake the project. You know, whether we go for the idea." He was rolling an expensive cigar in his mouth, as yet unlit.

Clive wondered how Karl would respond if the waiter told him about the no-smoking rule. Clive was glad he wasn't the waiter.

Bobby was confused. His brow furrowed into rows you could plant beans in. " 'Take on the project'? But that's why we're talking in the first place. I mean, I a.s.sumed you'd already decided-"

Closing his eyes as if against the blatherings of a child, Karl said, "Depends on this." Eyes open again, he tapped the upside-down photo of Ned Isaly. "We have to find out more about-" He tapped the photo again. "We have to research it; otherwise we'd be, you know, writing this project blind." He gave them a scimitar smile.

What was this contract killer talking about, for G.o.d's sakes? Clive asked, "Are you saying you have to get close to the subject? You're saying you want to get to know the subject?"

Candy, who'd been busy sussing out the room, waded into the conversation. "We have rules: one is we never, I mean never, take on anything without we get to know the, uh, subject."

Bobby and Clive looked at each other, for once equally at a loss. They shook their heads. "Mackenzie-Haack," said Bobby, "pays out half a million on spec? That's what you're saying?"

"So what'd'ya want, Bobby? An ear?" Candy's laugh was like a rasping cough.

Karl's was more of a snort.

Bobby looked quickly around, shoving his palms down on air, motioning them to keep their voices down. "Then what about the advance?" Bobby asked. "I mean if you decide not to, uh, you know, write it?"

"Return it, obviously." Karl rolled the cigar. "Why do you want this thing done, anyway?" he asked.

Crossing his arms in front of his chest, sealing himself in, as it were, Bobby shook his head gravely, as if what he knew would never pa.s.s his lips; it was too solemn to be disclosed. He said, "Can't help you there. Can't talk about it." Bobby was boss again; Bobby was in control of the situation.

Karl and Candy looked at each other as if someone at the table were crazy and it wasn't them. Karl turned to Bobby. "Well, if you can't help us here, I guess we can't help you there. Ready C?"

"Yeah, we're outta here." They got up.

"Just a minute!" said Bobby. "Come on, sit down." They did. He said, "It's a very volatile subject, see." Bobby slid Don't Go There carefully across the table, the photo on the back face up. "It's him, he's the reason."

Clive had been getting increasingly more nervous and now was utterly astounded. Surely, he wasn't going to tell them . . . "Bobby, let's just drop it. The whole thing."

The look Bobby thought twice about turning on Karl and Candy he didn't even think once about turning on Clive.

Clive threw up his hands. "Okay, okay!"

Bobby continued, with relish, leaning across the table, across the smiling face of Paul Giverney, and keeping his voice to a whisper so that the two men had to lean toward him, too.

Clive looked at the three of them, heads nearly touching. The Three Stooge Conspirators. He shook his head and looked away.

Bobby said, "It's this guy, this writer. We can't sign him unless we get rid of Isaly. His idea"-Bobby tapped the dust jacket-"his, not mine."

"So," said Candy, "he told you to cap the guy."

Clive watched, disbelievingly, as Bobby made a movement of his hand and head that would have been completely ambiguous if anyone in this business knew what ambiguity was. "Bobby-"

This earned Clive a kick beneath the table. "So you see the problem," Bobby said, leaning back with a satisfied air.

Candy and Karl both stared at him. Karl said, "Yeah, yeah, we see the problem. This is one s.h.i.tty business you guys are in."

Candy asked, "You all like this? I mean is all publishing this f.u.c.ked up?"

The face of Paul Giverney seemed to grin up at them. "No," it would have said, "it's even more f.u.c.ked up."

Bobby said, smiling. "Listen: have you two ever thought of writing a memoir? It'd be big. I guarantee it."

Until now, Clive had never realized just how much Bobby (the son of a b.i.t.c.h) was in the right business.

FIFTEEN.

What's the deal on this guy?" Candy inclined his head toward the plate gla.s.s of Barnes & n.o.ble, which today was full-swamped, really-with Don't Go There.

Karl considered. "Giverney's really hot. The way those two acted-" Karl motioned vaguely back downtown in the direction of Michael's. "You'd think he was the only waiter around. You never read one of his books?"

"Not to my knowledge."

His eyes still on the window, Karl shook his head. "You read a book and don't remember?"

"Well, have you? I see you with books sometimes. Me, I ain't got the time."

Karl extracted a fresh slice of gum from his Doublemint gum packet, then put the packet away and considered the Barnes & n.o.ble window as he folded the fresh piece into his mouth. "He sells almost as much as Stephen King. He doesn't write straight horror though, I don't think. Maybe psychological horror."

"With a display like that, I bet he's number one on the list."

"The what?" Karl was surprised.

"New York Times best-sellers. They call it 'the list.' I been doing my homework. After all, we don't want to be completely clueless about this game, do we?"

"We are clueless. I mean, one big clue is you never heard of Paul Giverney." Karl nodded toward the window. "I think maybe we better stop in, look around."

Candy looked indecisive. "I dunno. We might not even decide to take this job. This Ned Isaly might be someone we don't much want to whack. Then we'll have wasted the look around."

Karl stepped up to the door, motioned to Candy. "Come on." For a few moments, they simply stood, looking around at the stacks and shelves of books, books on tables, on counters, and stretching along the walls, back as far as they could see.

"Jesus," said Candy. "What did we let ourselves in for?"

"You don't have to f.u.c.king read them all."

"Yeah, I know; all the same, it's like another world in here, and it ain't ours."

Karl ignored this. "Here's what I think we ought to do-you listening?"

Candy nodded, his eyes narrowed as if he were caught in a white water of books, swirling around in his vulnerable little kayak.

"We buy these two books. I'll look for Isaly's-"

"And me, I get this Givenchy's, right?" Candy was on top of it.

"Right, except it's Giverney, not Givenchy." There was a stack right in front of them and another stack on the counter. This in addition to the book's having been given another key place in the store, a separate display across one entire section of the wall. Karl gave a low whistle. "Wow. This guy gets a lot of play." He turned to Candy. "You okay with this idea, C?"

Worriedly, Candy said, "Yeah, only the book looks thick as h.e.l.l." He reached down to the stack that was still high enough to topple. He took up the book and straightened the stack a little. Don't Go There had a murky jacket, gray and black and kind of watery, as if it had been left out in the rain. Candy didn't like the jacket and said, "This bodes ill."

Karl rolled his eyes. Candy loved this expression, had picked it up from a cretinous screenwriter in L.A. who said it with his back against the wall, looking at two gun muzzles. "This bodes ill" he'd said just before they shot him. It boded ill, all right. But Candy had been full of a rather grudging admiration for the screenwriter. He'd said so.

"He's a screenwriter, for f.u.c.k's sake," Karl had said. "We should have shot him for that alone. What did you expect him to say? 'Don't'? That strike you as a Hollywood ending? 'Oh, please, don't'?"

Karl thought if he ignored the "bodes ill," Candy would give it up sooner. "It's not a bad jacket. It's atmospheric."

"It's raining. I don't like books like that."

"You just got through saying you didn't have time to read them, so what the f.u.c.k do you mean?"

A woman b.u.mped into him, vision obscured by the stack of books she was carrying. "Sorry," she said. "Can you find what you're looking for?"

Karl smiled. "Depends if you're talking about books. Yeah, I'm looking for one by a writer named Isaly."

She frowned a bit, mouthing the name Isaly, Isaly to herself. She brightened. "Ned Isaly, you mean? Yes, I can-"

The pile of books teetered and Karl clamped his hand on the top one. "Where're you headed? I can take these for you."

Round eyed (green eyed) she said, "Well . . . well thanks. If you take them over there to the counter, you see, where the line is and just leave them, I can get your book for you."

"Right."

She took off, weaving through customers and shelves, and Karl balanced the stack of books. "Come on, C. Over there to the counter. You can get in line."

"The d.a.m.n counter's a mile long. Look at the line."

The place was crowded. It was hard getting through it with a pile of books. Must have been a lot harder for her because she was small. Karl made two stacks of the books on the end of the counter, then joined Candy in the line.

Candy wondered what Don't Go There was about. A lot of things he didn't care if he ever knew, probably. He looked to see how many pages, and it was as he'd feared-nearly five hundred. Four hundred eighty pages. He wouldn't have to read it all, though. Then it occurred to him-why did he have to read any of it? Why did they have to have either book? Which is what he said to Karl.

Karl's face showed impatience. "We'll have to know this guy Isaly. When we run into him strictly by accident do you want to stand there with your teeth in your mouth saying, like "Yo, you say you're a writer? I never heard of you."

"I'm not that uncla.s.sy, K."

"We got to see what makes these writers tick, right?" They had already moved up a half dozen places in line. Karl saw the saleslady coming toward them.

"Thanks," he said, taking Isaly's book. Solace. "Do you know anything about this?"

"Of course. It's wonderful. I just wish he'd write quicker. And thank you for depositing all of those books-" Her head nodded toward the counter. "Well, 'bye."

Karl wondered how old she was. She was very pretty. "Yeah, see you."

Candy fanned the pages of Don't Go There and wondered where "there" was. Well, that was the idea, he supposed. To keep you guessing and make you buy it and read umpteen million pages. A good plan. He looked around again, still astounded. "Did you ever think how a book was competing for f.u.c.king s.p.a.ce? Look at all of them. You'd have to be s.h.i.t crazy to try to break into this. You'd have to have solid gold b.a.l.l.s to do it."

"Either that or get an agent that already has them."

Candy shook his head again. "So what's yours called?"

Karl held it up. "Solace."

Candy studied the t.i.tle for a moment. "It's only one word."

"Yeah. Why? What's wrong with that?"

"The t.i.tle's only one word and there ain't no picture on the jacket. I think your jacket sucks, if truth be known. It's white. I mean, if the publisher didn't like it enough to put a picture on-" Candy shrugged.

"Yeah? Well, apparently this guy Isaly can write, really write. It won some award." Karl frowned. "New York Critics,' it says back here." He had turned the book over and was reading the blurbs on the back of the jacket.

"So how d'ya know mine can't write? I mean, you don't have to get awards to prove it. Look at Russell Crowe." Candy moved his shoulders to sit his jacket better across his shoulders.

Karl just looked at him. "The f.u.c.k's Russell Crowe got to do with it?"

"He never won the Academy Award for playing that nutty code breaker. Doesn't mean he can't act."