The Mountain Cage (16 page)

Darcy sucked in her breath.

“But I think I can get them up to three hundred.”

“I promised myself I’d take a long cruise,” Jane said, “if I ever made major money. Now I’m worth over a million, and I’m afraid to go out the door. I mean, a meteor might fall on me or something. That’s about on the same order of probability as my becoming a millionaire.”

“I know what you mean,” Arlen Williams muttered. “I’ve got all this money coming in, and all I’ve done so far is tell my son he can go to Harvard and take his junior year abroad besides. Thing is, I never expected to have much dough, so I don’t know what to do with it all.”

“You’re afraid the money’ll dry up,” Darcy said. “We’re all just too damned used to being poor.”

“That’s part of it,” Arlen said as he dipped a small silver spoon into the caviar. “Kind of ridiculous, actually. All I need is some good financial advice, to set things up so I can be secure for a while. Trouble is, I don’t know anything about handling finances. I don’t even know who to get advice from.”

Darcy had the same problem. Her past fiscal affairs had been operated on one basic principle: Make sure you can always borrow enough to pay off what you’ve already borrowed, and sooner or later things will either sort themselves out or you’ll be dead before you have to settle. She had no debts now, having paid all her creditors, and no idea of how to handle her assets.

Jane sipped some more champagne, then leaned forward. “I heard,” she said softly, “that Desirée Thorne still hasn’t sold any alternate rights. Has your agent said anything to you about that?”

“Leonard doesn’t discuss clients with other clients,” Darcy said, but she wondered about that herself. Leonard had to be disappointed. Still, even Stephen King had not managed to sell any alternate rights. A theory about the reason for that was forming in her mind. Maybe Stephen King wasn’t getting any offers for alternate rights because, in every possible universe, there already
was
a Stephen King, a literary juggernaut so overwhelming that no continuum could possibly be without one of him. There were probably also countless versions of Michael Crichton, Jean M. Auel, Anne Rice, Tom Clancy, and other mainstays of the bestseller list in other parallel worlds; their editors there would have no need to buy the work of their counterparts in this universe. It was only insignificant writers such as Darcy that they would buy, writers so unimportant that they probably existed in only one continuum.

These speculations were making her feel depressed, and there was no excuse for depression now. She was falling into old habits acquired when she was poor and struggling. Leonard would tell her, as he had after selling Melanesian rights to her novel
Terror Takes No Time Out,
that even such a limited edition might increase her readership. He would tell her to be glad that she was such a big deal in at least one continuum.

And she was a big deal in Parallel Universe 3. Elysium Books was now selling foreign rights in that world to The Silent Shriek and In Terms of Terror, and their version of the Book-of- the-Month Club had bought both novels. Surely that proved that she had underestimated herself and her work, and had too readily assumed that her writing was unexceptional because publishers treated it so indifferently. She had accepted and even internalized their valuation of her work. The treatment her books were getting in another continuum only proved that her publishers in this world were wrong.

The same was true of her friends and their writing. It wasn’t Jane’s fault that the ingenuity and wit of her mysteries were wasted on an audience unable to appreciate the details of the plumbing trade. Arlen might have committed
Warlords of Mimistapol
to paper, but he had also won a Golden Tome Award for his ornate and sensual
Prince of Ithlakkan
trilogy.

After all, hadn’t she always told herself that it was the writing itself that counted, and not what others thought of it?

Her good fortune proved that she had been right to persevere.

It was almost midnight when Darcy pulled up in front of her house; it had taken her a while to sober up after overindulging at Jane’s. She locked her Mercedes, wondering if she should arrange for a chauffeur and limo the next time she visited her friend; that way, it wouldn’t matter how much she drank.

Of course, it wouldn’t be wise to let such vices get the better of her, now that she had so much to live for. Perhaps she should contact the Lucky Scribes, an informal network several newly affluent writers had formed to exchange ideas on how to handle the sudden wealth parallel worlds were showering upon them. The Lucky Scribes, from what she had heard, spent most of their time complaining about writer’s block, which was apparently proliferating among them now that they could afford more leisure and self-indulgence, but some of them might be able to advise her on other matters.

Darcy climbed the stairs to her second-floor apartment and unlocked her door. Her lease would be up soon. She would have to decide whether to move into a luxury apartment downtown or buy a house in the country. Even if she wanted to stay here, her landlord was likely to raise her rent as much as possible to take advantage of her recent prosperity, while the jokes her neighbors made about hitting her up for loans were beginning to sound both more insistent and more resentful.

The light on her phone’s answering machine was blinking. Darcy hit the message button and sat down to listen.

“Darcy, this is Leonard,” the machine said. “It’s about four o’clock. I just got off the phone with Gertrude Banner, your Elysium House editor. Yeah, you heard that right. She called me up, I actually heard her voice. Looks like communications from other universes are leaking into the phone lines now. Anyway, she wants to talk to you. Call me tomorrow, soon as you can.”

“She wants to talk to me?” Darcy said to her agent the next morning. “About what?”

“About your next book. I managed to drop a few hints about your
Terror Is My Middle Name
proposal, and she thinks it sounds great, but she wants to talk to you. She’s really insistent—called back just a few minutes ago to ask if I’d heard from you yet.”

Leonard had talked to her Elysium House editor twice! Amazing, Darcy thought. If telephone conversations were possible now, what next? Faxes from other worlds? Maybe a book tour, if someone could figure out how to move bodies, and not just information, from one continuum to another. Anything might be possible. She might actually decide to settle down in Parallel World 3 permanently; writers, after all, had often been expatriates.

“I guess I should talk to her,” Darcy murmured. “How did she sound?”

“Like she grew up in Brooklyn and didn’t quite manage to get rid of her accent. Anyway, I was sure you’d appreciate a chance to schmooze, so I told her you’d be looking forward to her call. She said she’d call sometime this afternoon, probably around three.”

“My God.”

“And she was making a few noises about doing a short story collection of yours.”

A short story collection! Would wonders never cease? At this rate, Gertrude Banner would soon be expressing interest in her memoirs. Darcy had begun an autobiography some months back, abandoning the project after realizing that people uninterested in her fiction probably wouldn’t be any more interested in her life.

“Anyway, let me know how it goes,” Leonard continued. “Frankly, I think the sky’s the limit at this point.”

Toward three, Darcy was growing increasingly more agitated. She had spoken to plenty of editors in her life, but they had usually been people who regarded her novels largely as a relatively inexpensive way to fill slots on their lists. The only times they called were to ask her when her next novel would be finished. “You have to keep up your shelf presence! Don’t leave me with empty rack space to fill!” She had always sensed such unspoken thoughts behind any offhand praise the editors might offer for her books. She had never spoken to anyone who wanted to invest big bucks in her work, or who treated her as much more than a temp who would eventually be replaced, or as a migrant worker who could be run off the farm.

Maybe, she thought as she fluttered around the phone, Gertrude Banner wouldn’t call today. Darcy had known more than a few editors who seemed to assume that two months was an appropriate waiting period before returning one of her calls.

But the phone rang promptly at three. Editors in alternate worlds apparently called when they said they would.

“Hello?” Darcy said, realizing too late that her nervousness made her sound like Rocky the Squirrel.

“Darcy Langton?” a woman’s voice with a touch of Brooklyn said. That had to be Gertrude Banner, and she did sound a little like the female New Yorker Mike Myers played in drag in his “Coffee Talk” routine on
Saturday Night Live.

“Speaking,” Darcy said, dropping her voice into the Mary Tyler Moore range.

“I’m
delighted
to hear you at last,” the woman said enthusiastically. “This is Gertrude Banner, your editor at Elysium House. I just finished reading your wonderful
Terror Takes No Time Out
—I simply can’t remember when I’ve had such a good time. What a terrific read—I couldn’t put it down.” Darcy did not have the heart to interrupt as Gertrude went on about how suspenseful and brilliantly written her novel was. “I want to buy it, of course,” Gertrude finished.

“Uh, you’ll have to talk to my agent about the contract.”

“Well, of course. But the main reason I called is that I hear you’re working on a new book. I think Leonard mentioned the title—”

“Terror Is My Middle Name,”
Darcy said.

“That’s the one.”

“Leonard can e-mail the proposal to you,” Darcy said. “That’s probably the easiest …”

“Oh, Darcy. I don’t need to see a proposal from
you.
Just tell me you’ll do
Terror Is My Middle Name
for me, and I’ll start discussing the advance and contract with your agent right away.”

Darcy could not bring herself to speak. “Um,” she said at last.

“I’m so
pleased.
I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to working with you on that. This is really going to be exciting. I know you’ll need more for this one than we gave you for
In
Terms of Terror,
but I just know Leonard and I can come to an agreement that will make us all happy.”

“Um,” Darcy said again.

“Wonderful! I’m just so excited!” Gertrude went on to mention another pending book club deal and the prospect of interviews now that
The Silent Shriek
looked like a sure bet for the bestseller lists. It was a pity Darcy couldn’t be there in person, but at least now she could be interviewed over the phone. Too bad also that there was no way to send author’s copies from one continuum to another. But Gertrude could upload some material from a CD-ROM that would give Darcy an idea of how the book would look, and she could rest assured that one of the best designers in the business had done her dust jacket.

“And I insisted on full cloth for the book,” Gertrude went on, “a nice red shade, with Gothic gold lettering on the spine— and acid-free paper, of course. But we’ll also be doing a special collectors’ edition of one thousand copies in leather.”

“Um,” Darcy said. There wasn’t much more to say. All in all, even though the conversation was basically one-sided, it was by far the best discussion with an editor she had ever experienced.

“I ran into Edwina Maris this morning,” Jane murmured to Darcy as she sat down. They were sitting in Phil Donahue’s green room, waiting to go on his show. Three other writers were already out in the studio fielding questions from the audience about their alternate rights deals, but Darcy had been told she and Jane would be going on after the break.

“What about Edwina?” Darcy asked.

“Oh, she was being really bitchy. I think her new book just got remaindered.”

“But it only came out five months ago.”

“Well, you know how it is,” Jane said. “Anyway, that’s not the point. She just saw a really shitty review of
The Wrench Tightens in Kirkus,
and made a point of telling me all about it. She looked absolutely delighted.”

“What do you care?” Darcy said. “You only got about a million dollars so far for
The Wrench
Tightens
in Alternate World 6.”

“Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t care, but I do. I’m stuck in this universe, Darcy, and here I’m just a midlist paperback mystery writer. Maybe I’m even flattering myself by saying I’m midlist. I mean, I have to live here. I’m only on the bestseller lists in a world I can’t even get to.”

Jane sounded totally bummed. Darcy hated to admit it even to herself, but she was feeling the same way lately. She had thought it might be her usual depression after finishing a book, but there was more to her low spirits than that. She had completed
Terror Is My Middle Name
a week ago, in record time, buoyed by Gertrude Banner’s encouragement and praise and Elysium House’s million-dollar advance.
Terror Is My Middle Name
was her best novel so far, but Leonard had not yet found a publisher for the book here.
The Silent Shriek
was still number 1 on Alternate World 3’s bestseller lists, but it remained out of print in this world. Darcy might have finally made it to Phil Donahue’s show, but only as part of a program about this alternate rights business. To most people, she and her colleagues were probably even less interesting than a random selection of lottery winners; a glance at the green room’s monitor told her that Phil’s audience was already getting bored. David Letterman had booked a few alternate rights millionaires as guests on his show, but only to poke fun at them. Oprah Winfrey hadn’t invited any such writers at all.