The Nomination (13 page)

By then she'd be long gone and, she hoped, hard to find.

TED AUSTIN CAME out from behind his desk with his hand extended. “Mac,” he said. “Good to see you.”

Mac Cassidy grasped Austin's hand. “You too,” he said. “It's been a while.”

“How're you doing?”

“Okay.” Mac shook his head. “It's been hard.”

“And your girl? Katie? How's she bearing up?”

Mac shrugged. “I worry about her. She doesn't say much.” He forced a smile. “We're getting there. It takes time.”

Austin released Mac's hand. “You didn't have to wear a necktie on my account, you know.”

Mac shrugged. “I almost forgot how to tie it, to tell you the truth. I'm not much of a necktie guy, as you know.” The full truth was that Mac Cassidy had avoided occasions that required him to wear a tie since Jane's funeral a little over a year ago.

“I like the beard,” said Ted. “The Hemingway look, eh?”

Mac touched his face. “The gray, you mean.”

Austin smiled. “It gives you character.”

“Anyway,” said Mac. “Congratulations. You got Simone. Quite a coup.”

Austin nodded. “I've been hounding her for years.”

“So why'd she agree now?”

“Dunno. But I can tell you this. Suddenly it's urgent. She wants to get it done right away.” Austin slapped Mac's shoulder. “You up for it?”

“Yes,” said Mac. “I think so.”

Austin arched an eyebrow.

Mac nodded. “I'm up for it.”

“Good. What about coffee?”

“Sure. Please.”

Austin waved his hand toward the sofa in the corner of his office. “Grab a seat. I'll be right with you.”

The walls of Austin's comfortable Manhattan office were covered with framed book jackets—the big sellers, the prizewinners, the books that became films—several dozen of them, but still, Mac knew, just a fraction of the books that Ted had midwifed for his authors.

Ted Austin was one of New York's big-time literary agents. Publishers respected him and authors trusted him. Mac knew he was lucky to have Ted representing him.

The covers of all seven of Mac Cassidy's ghost-written autobiographies hung on the agent's office wall. His first had been the Jackie Gleason story, which the egotistical funnyman had reluctantly allowed them to call
And Away We Go,
an unintentionally ironic title, as Gleason had died shortly after the book came out. Mac Cassidy's name had appeared nowhere in that one, not even in Gleason's acknowledgment page—which Mac had also written. Jackie had taken full credit, but the industry knew that every word had been penned by Cassidy, and after
Away
's sixteen weeks on the
Times
bestseller list, boosted, no doubt, by the news of Gleason's well-timed death, Mac and Ted Austin had found themselves in the enviable position of picking and choosing their projects.

They'd turned down Brando because he balked at the “with Mac Cassidy” credit that Austin demanded, and they'd been unable to reach an agreement with the elusive Hepburn. Mac and Austin could now laugh at their decision not to go after Lee Iacocca when they'd heard he was in the market for a ghost.

There were six after Gleason. Sports figures Julius Irving (
Doctor J)
and Lee Trevino (
Swinging from the Hip
); political luminaries Bob Dole (
A Life to Give)
and Barbara Bush (
Mrs
.
President
); entertainment personalities Bruce Springsteen (
The Boss)
and Jay Leno (
Cracking Wise)
.

In the process of researching the books, Mac Cassidy had interviewed hundreds—make that thousands—of people. He'd always done it honestly and with class, and he'd made a lot of friends, earned a lot of trust.

So now it would be Simone, the Garboesque woman known to the world by that single name, the reclusive millionaire—or maybe she was broke, no one was quite sure—the former film beauty, the mysterious cult icon. Simone had once been the envy of every middle-aged American woman and the wet dream of every redblooded American male, the source of periodic speculation in the supermarket tabloids. Simone's sexual partners? Simone's wealth? Simone's origins? Simone's age?

Since Mac had received Ted Austin's call three days earlier telling him about the Simone project, he'd prowled the Internet and looted the library, consuming every word he could find about her.

Simone always had been an enigma, from her first memorable role as a Mafia don's traitorous Eurasian concubine in the otherwise forgettable 1986 film
This Side of Daybreak
. After that there had been a film or two every year for twelve years.

And then, without explanation, she had walked away from it, away from the public life. She had, effectively, disappeared. No explanation. No forwarding address. No more photo shoots or public appearances. She just quit.

Which, of course, only enhanced her mystery.

Simone, as it turned out, had never appeared in a critical hit or a box-office smash. She'd never played opposite Redford or Newman or De Niro or Harrison Ford. Mostly she'd played supporting roles, not leads. If she were a man, she'd have been called a “character actor.” In truth, she'd never been cast in a complex role or played against type, never been nominated for an Oscar or a Golden Globe.

She had been, simply, one of those actresses who always seemed to just play her own fascinating self: elusive and manipulative, desirable and unattainable, mysterious and seductive and utterly, incredibly beautiful.

For those twelve years of cult stardom, she'd allowed herself to be photographed for the fashion and entertainment magazines. She'd even endorsed a shampoo. But never had she sat for a personal interview. When she allowed herself to be quoted about a film, or a role, or the talents of her director, or the foibles of her fellow actors, she'd been unfailingly bland and uncontroversial. She never said anything critical or nasty, and so she got the reputation for being a poor interview.

Her blandness, Mac surmised, was calculated to keep the hard questions away. She'd consistently refused to discuss her past or her private life. The only Simone quotes on the subject he'd been able to find were, “I don't talk about that,” or, “You know better than to ask that question.”

Which, of course just sparked new speculation.

Now, after over twenty years of mystery, Simone would speak. She would speak to Mac Cassidy.

He felt a hand on his elbow.

“Here's your coffee,” said Austin.

“Oh, thanks.” Mac accepted the mug.

The two men sat across from each other.

“She's got MS,” said Austin.

“Simone?”

He nodded.

“That's why she quit making movies?” said Mac. “That's why she's become a recluse?”

“Apparently.”

“Is she prepared to talk about her disease?” said Mac. He smelled a hook for the book. Simone could do for multiple sclerosis awareness what Mike Fox had been doing for Parkinson's.

“She says she's prepared to talk about everything,” said Austin. “But I sense some skittishness. She'll need some hand-holding.”

“That will be my pleasure,” said Mac with a grin. “She's a gorgeous woman.”

Austin nodded but did not smile. “You know, Mac,” he said, “it's not too early to begin thinking about our next project.”

“Assuming I do a good job on this one,” said Mac.

“Assuming you do a
great
job. Which I'm confident you will.”

Mac shrugged. “I haven't honestly given future projects much thought.” He waved his hand in the air. “There are a lot of things I should've been doing lately that I haven't thought about.”

“Understandable,” said Austin. “I've had a few conversations, but frankly, with you, um . . .”

“Out of commission,” said Mac.

“Yes. All right. With you out of commission, I was reluctant to pursue anything.”

“First things first,” said Mac.

“Well, yes,” said Austin. “First Simone.” The agent sat back in his chair. “I know it's been a tough year for you, my friend.”

Mac nodded. It had been a very tough year.

He kept returning to the railroad tracks in Concord, less than a mile from their suburban Massachusetts home, where Jane had been walking that foggy March evening a little over a year ago. He'd sit there near where they said it had happened, trying to understand.

He kept seeing the face of the cop at the door, how he'd refused to meet Mac's eyes, how he mumbled, “Um, are you Mr. Cassidy?”

And Mac just nodding, knowing instantly that something terrible had happened, barely hearing the cop's words: “The seven o'clock commuter train from Boston . . . where the tracks curve, down there along the river ... couldn't stop in time.” Trying to imagine what she had been thinking and feeling at the moment when the train suddenly was upon her. Trying to understand why she was there on that moonless March night standing on the tracks. Endlessly replaying their last moments together, their mundane argument, their hurtful parting words.

Trying not to think the obvious.

They'd called it an accident. Mac wanted to believe that's what it had been. A tragic, senseless accident. That was infinitely preferable to the alternative.

“Local Woman Killed in Train Accident.” Headline in the local paper. The investigation had absolved the conductor. The local woman, Jane Cassidy of Chester Street, had apparently wandered onto the tracks, perhaps disoriented by the fog.

Nobody's fault, they said.

Suicide. The obvious thought. The thought that he tried not to think. The thought that he thought all the time.

A tough year, indeed.

Guilt, anger, shame, loss, bewilderment. And the other feelings, the harder ones to acknowledge. Relief. Release. The feelings that circled back to the guilt.

And there was Katie, the fifteen-year-old child-woman who refused to talk about her mother, refused to go to therapy, refused to cry, who cooked and vacuumed and washed and ironed and got A's in her classes and had taken a sudden liking to classical music.

Katie, whose simple announcement that fateful day—“Me and Laurie are heading for the mall. I'll get something to eat there.”—had set it off.

“No,” Jane had said. “No, you're not.”

“Why not?”

“I don't need to give you a reason,” Jane said.

Katie turned to Mac with that smile he couldn't resist. “Daddy? Please?”

“Is your homework all done?”

“Well, yeah. Sure.”

“I made dinner,” said Jane, “and now, Goddamn it, we're going to eat it. For once we're going to sit down together like a normal family.”

Mac, trying to lighten it up: “Nowadays it's not normal for families to sit down together.”

“She is not going anywhere,” said Jane. “Do you always have to take her side?”

“I wasn't taking—”

And Jane suddenly standing up, her chair toppling backward, tears bursting from her eyes, saying, “I don't care. You can do whatever you want. The hell with you, both of you.” Grabbing her jacket and striding out of the house, the door slamming behind her.

An hour later she was dead.

Katie blamed herself.

Mac blamed himself.

And they blamed each other, too.

Mac looked at Austin and shrugged. “Yeah, it's been a little rough.”

“You understand,” said Austin, “it's going to be tight. Beckman wants the book by the end of November. They want it to be the lead title in their spring catalog. We're working up the contract. You won't be disappointed. I don't want to wait 'til it's signed. I'll front you the advance. I want you to get started right away.”