Bell, Book, and Scandal (12 page)

"Someone told me the title," Felicity responded, "but I'm sorry, I don't remember what it was. Something with a word like 'Quest' in it. Finding someone? Searching?"

Shelley interrupted with another insight. "Isn't it odd that Vernetta and Gaylord don't brag about the book or the story? All that Vernetta seems interested in is bragging about the money she's made or will make."

Jane said, "I'd never realized that, but it's true.

How much of an advance did she receive? Do you know?"

Felicity frowned. "That I do recall vividly. A cool million. Of course, the publisher will spread it out as far as they can and try to make it up by making a movie deal to earn back the money."

"That's interesting," Shelley remarked. "Does Sophie Smith often pay that much for anyone's book? As cranky as she sounds, I assumed she'd be stingy as well."

"She is stingy. When I was with her the first time, it was all promises of bestsellerdom, but my part of the deal was to buckle down and produce the book in four months and take a rock-bottom advance so the publisher's money could all go into promotion. Lots of blah-blah about how it's a good idea to plan your income this way — drawing it out for as long a time as possible to save on bumping yourself into a higher tax rate all in one year and making horribly high social security contributions."

"Doesn't the publisher pay half of your social security like other businesses do?" Shelley asked.

"They most certainly don't. And they don't give you any retirement benefits either. The author has to pay it all. What's more, on my royalty statements they always have more returns from Canada than the number of books they claimed to have shipped."

Now Shelley had the stunned look, too surprised to even speak.

"I presume it didn't make you rich?" Jane asked.

"What do you think? No. I never even earned out the pitiful advance. I was young and stupid then. It was only my second book. I had a wimpy agent who was afraid to tackle someone as powerful as Sophie. Sophie even forgot to put any mention of my book in the sales booklet for the month it was released. And to answer your first question, Shelley, she often pays authors a bundle. But those people are the ones who are already highly successful. Many are merely unhappy with something about the publisher they're with. She lures them away with lots of money, then treats them as badly as she treats everyone else."

She did a little shake like a dog does when it's wet. "I shouldn't complain. I'm now with a good agent and good publisher and make a very comfortable living on my advances and royalties. Even though I have to turn over outrageous amounts of it to the IRS in estimated payments."

"You deserve it," Jane said, changing the subject as quickly as she could. She didn't want Shelley to go off on her own highly inflammatory opinions of the Internal Revenue Service.

As they were drawing apart to go their separate ways, Shelley said, "Oh, Felicity, would you ask around and see if you can find out what the epubbed version of Vernetta's book is called? I'm curious."

"I will. I promise. My payment to you for letting me vent. I think two of the people who claimed to have read it are here at the conference. I'll make a point of hunting them down."

Jane went to the front desk and asked if they'd received a fax for her of the page Zac was clutching in his hand when he was found. They hadn't. She feared that the page had simply been thrown away. She tried to tell herself she was being silly thinking the page meant anything at all. Although she was still convinced that it might have some significance.

She and Shelley went up to the suite to read for a while. The two evening seminars that were going on sounded useless. One was another one about grammar. The other was about costumes. On the way upstairs, Jane had stopped by the room where the costume seminar was to take place and picked up the handout that listed reference books and what periods of time they covered. That was all she wanted to know. She supposed the speaker would simply go through this sheet and explain endlessly what was already on the list.

She and Shelley made another run at the books they'd collected. Jane realized that two of them were by the woman Felicity said was a wonderful friend who, unfortunately, let her character go stupid and put herself in danger at the end of each book. Jane wondered if the bookseller might let her return it in trade for something else she'd like better.

She put the question to Shelley, who replied, "I'd guess the bookseller would if it was still in good shape. You haven't broken the spine yet, have you?"

This was one of the points that Jane and Shelley disagreed about. Shelley felt that books should remain in good condition forever. Jane's feeling was that if she'd paid for it, it was hers to abuse if she chose. Shelley had often come to Jane's house and seen a book squashed open, face down, on a counter or over the arm of a chair. "Buy bookmarks, Jane!" she always said.

"Waste of money. I usually try to use something like a grocery receipt," Jane would counter. "If it's my book, I can do anything I want with it. I could tear pages out to wash windows. Take it into the bathtub and know it might come back out wet. Or put it in the trash if I'm not liking it."

She'd never let Shelley find out that the reference books she'd purchased for working on her book were highlighted in yellow throughout. That would have put Shelley completely over the brink.

The phone rang and Jane was closest. "Yes, thank you. I'll be right down to pick it up," she said to the caller.

"What was that about?" Shelley asked.

"I have a fax at the front desk. Mel must have found the page Zac was hanging on to," Jane explained. "I'll be right back."

When she returned to the suite and opened the

envelope, she was disappointed. She knew Mel said it was an old page with yellow edges. Unfortunately, the yellow turned into gray when faxed. The words on the outside edge were virtually unreadable. She sat down with a pencil at the dining table and tried to puzzle out what the missing words were.

Shelley was pointedly ignoring her. She was buzzing around picking things up and putting them away. She finally broke down after twenty minutes when there was no longer anything to move or clean up. "Is it interesting?"

"Not especially. It's grammatically correct is the best I can say for it. It's a guy named Malachi thinking over why it seems to be so important to him to find a woman he's only seen in a dream that he's had several times. I'd wonder the same thing if I were he, but wouldn't fret myself about it."

"So it's not worthwhile," Shelley said in a voice of triumph.

"Who knows?" Jane said. "Maybe the rest of it was really good." The phone rang again. This time Shelley picked it up. "Let me write that down. Jane, where's a notepad and pencil?"

"You put everything that wasn't nailed down away somewhere," Jane said. She handed Shelley a paperback book and a pen from her purse and said, "Write it down on the first page."

"No. I'd ruin the book."

"Suit yourself," Jane said, not wishing for another round of how-a-book-must-be-treated.

With great reluctance, Shelley wrote something on the reverse side of the back cover.

"That was Felicity," she said. "The title of Ver netta's e-pubbed book is
Martin's Quest
or
The Quest of a Martian,
she said. Two different people called it by different names."

"I doubt the Martian one," Jane said with smile. "I can't imagine Sophie Smith paying a for tune for a science fiction book."

"It's odd about this page Zac was holding,"
jan
said.

"What's odd?"

"Many books these days have a heading on each page. You know, the author's name at th top of one page and the title of the book on th opposite page."

Shelley checked some of the books she'd pux chased. "You're right. I never noticed that. Bu this page doesn't," she said, looking over Jane' shoulder.

"If we can't hunt down Zac or if he doesn't re member what the book was, we'll never know."

"Will we care?" Shelley asked. ·

"I think so. I don't think that Sophie Smith's ill ness was natural, nor was the attack on Zac. Ei ther one could have died."

"You amaze me. You don't think they were jus pranks? And Sophie could have just eaten a bad egg with her breakfast."

Jane said, "If you were eating a bad egg, you'd know it right away."

"I just meant it as an example," Shelley said grumpily.

"I think these two 'unfortunate' events are connected. Remember that Zac handed Sophie a book at the reservation desk. It must be the connection."

"Did she then give it back to him and he was looking it over when he was attacked?"

"Maybe," Jane claimed. "Or it was another copy."

Jane suddenly slapped her head. "I know who might be able to identify it!"

"Identify what?"

"The page from the book Zac was reading. Or at least holding." She went on to explain about the contest Chester Griffith had conducted, and the woman who won the prize. "She's a teacher at a local college and teaches about the mystery and science fiction genres. Her name is…"

Jane screwed up her eyes and tried to bring the woman's name up. "Mr. Griffith will remember," she finally said. "I'm going down to the desk and have copies of the page made. Maybe if they lighten it up a bit, the words at the end will be easier to decipher."

"I'll come with you," Shelley said, somewhat to Jane's surprise. It was the first hint that Shelley was accepting Jane's wobbly theory that the page meant something."Make me a copy," Shelley said when they ar-

rived at the front desk.

"why?”

"I'm not telling," Shelley replied.

Jane went to find Chester Griffith. He was still at his book booth and was engaged with a collector who was arguing over the price of a rare book. Jane had to wait impatiently for the conversation to end, which it did with the customer accepting Griffith's choice of cost.

"I'm sorry to bother you…"

"You're not a bother. You're a good customer," Chester said with a smile.

"I'm trying to remember the name of the young woman who won the contest, and I know your memory is better than mine," Jane said with a smile

"She's LaLane Jones."

"Of course," Jane said. "All I could recall was that the first name had two 'L' sounds. Do you think she's still in the hotel somewhere?"

"I should think so. She's on the list of attendees on the back of the program."

"I've lost my program," Jane admitted.

Chester leaned down and pulled an extra program from a hidden shelf. "I always receive a cou- ple of extra ones."

"Thank you so much," she said. She headed foi the closest house phone and asked to be connected to guest LaLane Jones.

The phone rang twice and a woman's voice said, "Hello?"

"Is this Ms. LaLane Jones?"

"Yes, it is."

"I'm Jane Jeffry, one of the people attending the conference. I admired how much you knew about mysteries. I need to pick your brain, which I know to be an amazing storehouse. I was hoping you'd meet me somewhere, in a location of your choice."

"How about the book room? Give me about ten minutes."

"This is so mysterious," Ms. Jones said when Jane snagged her and introduced herself. "What do you need to know and why?"

"Let's sit down somewhere quiet," Jane said, indicating a sofa in the corner of the room that was currently not in use by other readers. She handed the copies of the front and back of the page to LaLane Jones.

"I'm hoping you'll recognize these two pages. I'll keep as quiet as a mouse while you read them. And then I'll tell you why I need to learn who wrote it."

Jane sat, as she promised, silently. She didn't look at LaLane for fear of making her nervous. Instead she studied the other shoppers. They were all fully engaged in looking for new or old books and handling them gently and respectfully. Jane wondered if some of them were like her, and once having purchased a book they felt they could treat it as their own. Breaking the spine so they could spread it and read while eating, holding the page open with a knife with a touch of mayonnaise on it.

"I have a very vague memory of reading this," LaLane finally said. It's good that it's page 25 and 26. I think that's about as far as I read. It bored me senseless."

"Me, too," Jane said. "Do you know who wrote it?"

"I might. It was a man, of course. That was back in the days when only men wrote science fiction. Or at least sold it. I've always suspected that some of the writers were women pretending to be men. Now it's different. Some women are at the top of the heap. I keep a book list that's always with me. I may have a record."

"For a book you didn't even want to read clear through?" Jane asked.

LaLane smiled. "Those are sometimes the most important ones to jot down, so you don't pick up another one by the same writer. Come up to my room and let's see if I can figure it out."

As LaLane opened the small case containing the records of her reading, Jane realized how truly obsessive the woman was.

"I think I read this when I'd broken my right wrist and couldn't write very well." She picked up the relevant notebook and started flipping pages. "Yes, here we are. I can hardly read my own handwriting. It was titled something like
Martin's
or
Marvin's Quest.
By James Cuttler, I think. I gave it an F minus."

"Do you know who James Cuttler is?"

"I could make a guess, I suppose. It must have been one of about six or seven who kept changing names. There were a lot of hack writers back then turning books out under a great many pseudonyms."