Final Edit (3 page)

To my outfit at the hospitality suite, I had added a broad-brimmed panama hat and a malacca cane. Just before leaving the
suite, I had pinched a carnation from the flower arrangement on the coffee table; it was now planted in my buttonhole. Even
so, I hardly felt overdressed—except alongside Harry.

We took a cab through Rock Creek Park, its trees prodigal with green leaves shimmering in the setting sun, to the Harry T.
Thompson Boat Center, the designated point of departure in the
New Yorker
invitation. Quite a crowd had already gathered at the dock, although we were at least half an hour early. Once the barrier
was lifted and the ramp was clear, we went on board.

The Queen of the Potomac
reminded me of the Circle Line boats that ply the waters of the Hudson and East rivers around Manhattan, only tonier by any
standard. A full-size cutout of Eustace Tilley greeted us at the first two bars; a rock group with a strong calypso beat was
playing in the bow; I recognized Arrow’s “Hot Hot Hot”—as appropriate for Washington, D.C., as it was for the Caribbean.

“Upper or lower deck?” I said to Harry.

“Lower’s fine,” he replied. “Let’s hope I don’t get seasick.”

I ordered a Stolichnaya martini; Harry settled for a bottle of Amstel Light. As we sipped, we looked around to see who we
might fraternize with.

“Nick,” Harry said, coming up for air and wiping foam
from his lips, “I’ve got news that will improve your appetite. As well as your disposition.’’

“Nothing wrong with my appetite, alas,” I said. “Shoot.”

“Well,” he began, “a certain best-selling author… excuse me, Nick…” At this he pulled a cigarette from a rumpled pack, lit
it, and stuffed it into his holder. All this took a deal of time, as Mark Twain might say, and I felt fidgety, wondering if
the cigarette shtick was merely Harry’s way of heightening the suspense.

“Come on, Harry,” I said. “What best-selling author?”

He ignored my remark, and after a puff or two, continued. “As I was saying… you’ve heard of Herbert Poole, Nick.” It was not
a question.

“Everybody on this tub has heard of him,” I said. “The author of the number one best-seller on the
Times Book Review
list?”

Pan at Twilight.
A novel at once erotic and elegantly crafted, but accessible even to the great unread. A masterpiece, some reviewers had
called it—but that word is so grossly overworked, I distrust its use. Herbert Poole had, however, been favorably compared
to D. H. Lawrence, among other poets of the carnal. I hadn’t read the book myself. It probably wouldn’t surprise anybody to
learn that we publishers read few books—only those we
have
to read, usually. And we buy even fewer. Instead, we scrounge them from fellow publishers.

I recall once asking Charles Scribner the elder for one of his books, promising in return to send him any one of mine he might
covet. I forget what book it was I wanted: probably a Hemingway volume, one of the many published since his death. In fact,
more Hemingway books have turned up since his suicide than were published in his lifetime. Posthumous
Hemingway has been a growth industry for the Scribners and Hemingway’s widow, Mary.

“I don’t approve of the practice,” Charlie sniffed, “but in your case, I’ll make an exception.”

“So,” I said to Bunter, “what about Herbert Poole?”

“Well,” said Harry, “I’ve heard via the grapevine—actually a friend of mine at Random House told me, well… that Poole might…
just
might
be interested in writing a mystery for his next book.”

“Ahhh.”

“And who better to publish him than the great Nicholas Barlow, master of mystery, high-muck-a-muck of the thriller?”

I haven’t blushed in years. And didn’t blush then, either.

“No doubt he’s heard of your triumph last year in the murder of Jordan Walker.”

“It was really my brother, Tim, who solved that one.” Nor could I forget that the book we finally got out of it didn’t exactly
burn up the charts. If you don’t have a live celebrity to tour, a Graham Farrar… well, forget publishing a celebrity tell-all.

Almost imperceptibly,
The Queen of the Potomac
slipped away from the dock and headed upriver.

I turned again to Harry, who by now had another bottle of beer in his hand.

“How do you suggest we proceed, Harry? What modus operandi? Directly to Poole? Or through his agent? Who is his agent, by
the way?”

He mulled that over a moment. Bypassing the glass on the bar in front of him, Harry took a deep swig of his beer straight
from the bottle, sighed, and said: “Poole will be here tomorrow signing autographs, which you would know if you read your
convention program or the
Show Daily.”

“I can barely manage to keep up with my
Times.”

“And his agent, the lovely Kay McIntire, will also be here.”

By now the line at the bar was two or three deep. I edged away from it toward the rail, beckoning Harry to follow me.

“You really have made me the happiest of men, Harry.”

“It would be a coup, wouldn’t it? Every major publisher in town is probably after Poole—including all those who turned down
Pan at Twilight.”

“I’m sure.”

“But—”

“But what?”

“It’s probably gonna cost you, Nick.”

“We’ll have to discuss that with Mort Mandelbaum when we get back to the city. Can you hold up your end?”

“I’d expect a bidding situation with the book clubs, and a paperback floor of, say, a quarter,” said Harry. Like the Richard
Condon/
Prizzi’s Honor
/jack Nicholson gimmick, Harry liked saying “five” when he meant “five thousand,” “fifty” for “fifty thousand,” and so on.
“A quarter” was a quarter of a million. Or maybe “250 big ones.” The habit is contagious.

We glided up the Potomac past the Tidal Basin, built from land reclaimed from the river—so that the symmetry that inspired
L’Enfant in his master plan for Washington could be maintained. As we moved along, the moon rose, swollen and phosphorescent
in its brilliance, lending its glow to the floodlights shining on the Jefferson Memorial, that columned rotunda modeled after
the Pantheon in Rome, which Jefferson so admired that he designed the University of Virginia in its style as well.

“A lovely evening,” I said. Harry nodded.

“Not half-bad,” he said, “as evenings go.”

Just then I heard that familiar bray of laughter. Parker Foxcroft had somehow wangled an invitation, or had crashed the party,
and was fast approaching.

“Parker!” I called out. “Over here, Parker!”

He was not alone. On his arm was one of those rare beauties that every once in a long while turn up in book publishing—when,
if they knew better, they would go into fashion modeling or acting. Blonde, slender, and, I could see when she drew near,
with a figure that was at once full-bodied and elegant. She was wearing light blue cotton jeans and a white button-down man’s
shirt—from the Gap, I supposed, or was it Banana Republic? I whistled silently.
Parker Foxcroft does it again,
I thought. As Parker came near, Harry Bunter moved off, rather abruptly, it seemed to me.

“Nick,” said Foxcroft, “I’d like you to meet Susan Markham. Assistant editor at Little, Brown. Susan, this is my boss, the
well-known eponymous head of Barlow and Company.”

I extended my hand. She took and pressed it gently, but firmly enough to generate the smallest amount of electricity.

“You’re with an excellent house,” I said.

“You’re quite a house yourself.”
My God,
I thought,
is it
that
bad? I must consider a diet.

“Susan almost worked for us,” said Parker.

“Oh?”

“But you turned her down when she applied for a job,” he said.

I turned to Susan Markham. “And just why did I do that?”

“Because all I could do at that time was type, file, and answer the phone,” she said. “And apparently you didn’t
need a typist, a file clerk, or a receptionist. I, on the other hand, aspired to be an editorial assistant—and I guess you
didn’t need one of those, either.”

When young, newly graduated college students arrive at our office looking for a job every fall, any job, at entry level, we
put them through an inevitable rite of passage. They must submit to being underpaid, given menial tasks to perform, and forced
to wait months or even a year or two for advancement. And why? Because everyone else entering publishing had to go through
the same kind of initiation. Which, of course, is no reason at all. Still, the only people who are allowed to skip “boot camp”
are those who inherit a place in the industry, like me.

“Obviously, Little, Brown saw something in you I did not,” I said. “Color me obtuse. Anyway, you’ve clearly moved well along
past the typing, filing, and telephoning stage.”

“Still,” she said, “I was disappointed you didn’t hire me. I would have done practically anything to get a job at Barlow and
Company.”

I smiled, for I was fresh out of anything else to say. Not for me to fall into the false-modesty trap.

“Shall we sample the food?” said Parker to Susan Markham. And without waiting for an answer, he drew her away. And just when
I was beginning to enjoy the conversation! It was to weep. Clearly the only consolation
was
food. I followed Parker and his companion to the stern, where the buffet tables had been set up. There were oysters on the
half shell with a pungent sauce, succulent fat shrimp, a decent
pâté de campagne,
pigs in blankets, and tiny, extremely hot pizzas smoking away in chafing dishes. There were even crudités and a dip, which
I ignored, in favor of white and yellow cubes of cheese speared with toothpicks. Consolation
was quick, and highly satisfying. When I had a plateful heaped high and a glass of white wine, I looked around for a friendly
tablemate. Parker and Susan Markham had seated themselves on the port side of the boat; spotting Harry Bunter starboard, I
joined him.

“Ah, I see you’re stoking up, Nick,” he said. There was a sour note in his voice, as though he were reprimanding me somehow,
the way a small boy might be scolded for stuffing himself with too much cake and ice cream.

“So what’s it with you, Harry?”

“Oh
shit,”
he said softly. “That goddamn
son of a bitch.”

“Which one?”

“Parker Foxcroft,” he said, putting a spin of contempt in every syllable of the great editor’s name.

“What about Parker?”

“That poor girl,” Harry said. “I feel sorry for her, mixed up with that lousy bastard.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “She looks as though she can take care of herself. And she certainly is of age. What’s the problem?”

“He spoils every woman he touches,” said Bunter. I’m not often shocked these days; book publishers, like movie and television
producers, are exposed to every kind of depravity—secondhand. But Harry’s vehemence did startle me. Then I remembered there
had been rumors around the office that Parker had been having an affair with Harry’s wife, Claire. Usually I ignore the local
quidnuncs, but if the report was true…

“I don’t know how he gets away with it,” Bunter said, “but someday, someday—somebody is going to fix that prick for good.”

Time to change the subject. I asked Harry how things were going on the rights front. He brightened. “A good
season,” he said. “You really brought us some lovely properties.”

And he began to rattle off his recent string of sales, large and small, to this reprint house and that book club or magazine.
I listened happily to his soothing litany while looking over the rail at the flickering lights of Georgetown. For by now we
had reversed course and were heading downriver. I leaned back in my chair, content to enjoy the night air and the moonlight
and the largesse of
The New Yorker.
It wasn’t such a bad kickoff for the ABA, after all.

Saturday morning, the first day the trade fair opens to convention-goers. I had breakfast in my room: eggs Benedict, by no
means up to the standards set by my treasured cook, Pepita, but satisfactory; coffee, piping hot, a welcome improvement on
most hotel room service; and both the
Times
and the
Washington Post.
Neither paper had any coverage of the ABA.

At the Convention Center, I headed straight for the Barlow & Company booth. It was a few minutes before nine. All hands were
there, including Harry Bunter. Harry had a pair of dark half-moons under his eyes; I wondered if it was a hangover, or just
a sleepless night.

“All set, folks?” I said. Mary Sunday and Chezna Newman smiled and nodded; Toby Finn gave me the thumbs-up sign. Harry shrugged
and said: “As ready as I’ll ever be.” The cigarette holder in his hand shook slightly as he raised it to his lips, for the
last few puffs before the crowd arrived. The ABA is strictly a nonsmoking affair.

For rights directors like Harry, the ABA has become a must. Though the ostensible purpose of the convention is
to sell books to the trade, and to launch one’s new list, there are agents there as well as booksellers, and foreign publishers
by the score; which means that there are deals being made, both on the floor and in hotel suites, at breakfast, lunch, and
dinner. Harry was there to see what he could sell, primarily, but also what we might buy.

Herbert Poole’s next book, for example. I had to do something about that.

Now the doors opened, and the booksellers rushed into the exhibit hall. It was rather like the running of the bulls at Pamplona.
Here they came, people of all sizes, shapes, and colors. I have never been able to find a common denominator for the breed
of person who opens a bookstore, no
genus librurium,
so to speak—though I have often reflected that only wine or flower merchants could claim to trade in stuff as precious as
do the booksellers.

And what a motley assortment of costumes I saw among them: Hawaiian sport shirts, tee-shirts in every color of the rainbow
and bearing every conceivable brand name or slogan; elderly gents in shorts and white socks with black shoes; baseball caps
and straw hats; women pushing strollers or bearing infants on their backs like papooses. And there were shopping carts and
wheeled luggage carriers, the better for those pushing or pulling them to collect all the loot the publishers were giving
away in their booths.