Escape the Night (17 page)

“Cheers,” Phillip was saying.

They drank. As always, his uncle watched him, while pretending not to. Imagining himself as Phillip, Carey wondered what he saw: perhaps he himself felt nervous now, Carey thought, because Phillip had been nervous with the child Peter.

“What I wanted to ask aloud,” Phillip began, “is where we go from here.”

“Us, or the firm?”

“Both, really.” Phillip brandished his Bloody Mary. “Drink up, Peter, while I state two basic propositions. First, to buy new books we have to borrow front money from banks at increasingly outrageous interest rates, and then wait for sales a year or two down the road to generate the cash to pay them back. Second, hardbacks are becoming too expensive to publish—damn few people are willing to pay fifteen dollars for a book. It's a vicious combination.” Phillip took another sip. “Your father would be facing the same squeeze if he were sitting where the old man wanted him—we've got no paperback line, and no one wants to lend us money. We're like a boutique in the garment district, ludicrous and out of place …”

“In other words,” Carey cut in sharply, “you've found a buyer.”

Surprise softened Phillip's features. “He—they—found me, actually.”

Carey felt a rush of anger. “I see.”

“I'm not sure you do. Look around you.
Deals
are getting made here: these are the rapt faces of happy men and women, discussing
money
. And whose money?
Corporate
money—money to buy paperback houses and best-selling books.”

“You sound like
The Music Man
.”

Phillip held up a hand. “Stop, right now, and count the other publishing houses still owned by families. It won't take long.”

“Two.”

“And those two are underpaying unknown writers for unsalable books and living on a threadbare pretense of literary taste. Soon we'll be like that: a cell of desiccated monks genuflecting before a dusty photograph of Black Jack Carey and making pilgrimages to our abandoned bindery.”

“I get the point. And our putative saviors?”

“Are committed to quality publishing in a realistic framework.”

“‘I give you the man who …' Do I have to guess his/their name?”

“Barth Industries.” Phillip checked his pearl cufflinks. “Clayton Barth, Jr., to be specific.”

Carey smiled without humor. “Of course it is.”

“Really?” Phillip looked unsettled. “Why do you say that?”

“Because it's so utterly logical: Barth Industries made its money in computers, and Clayton Barth has no known connection to publishing. Why this sudden interest in our particular boutique?”

Phillip began snapping his lighter at an English Oval, muttering, “Damned nuisance.” Carey took the lighter, tapped it twice on the table and held out a flame. Leaning forward with his cigarette, Phillip shot him a quick, discomfited glance. “I was never very mechanical,” he said. “About Barth: I really don't know.”

“Then what in hell do we want with him?”

“It's as I've said: financing. Plus, Clayton Barth will guarantee that you take over as editor-in-chief on your thirtieth birthday.” Phillip pocketed the lighter. His tone grew pointed. “As I am sure you planned …”

“So you've met with him already.”

“Yes.”

“You've moved quite fast. Frankly, I find it odd that he didn't approach
me
—in June, I'll own fifty-one percent.”

Phillip looked past him. “Perhaps your reputation precedes you.”

“What reputation is that, precisely?”

“Another of my idle comments.” Phillip's face was distant, abstracted. He stubbed the cigarette. “I don't know why they came to me.”

Carey waited, quite still; it was his trick to go silent at a conversation's crucial moment, until the other blurted more than he'd intended. Phillip, who knew this, said nothing. Finally, Carey asked, “How long has this been going on?”

“Just within the past two weeks. I was awaiting the right time to raise it.”

“No doubt. Tell me, Phil, just what's in this for you?”

Phillip faced him again. “Money,” he said coolly. “Money, and a little bit of dignity. You don't intend to leave me much of that, do you, Peter.”

Carey flushed. “How much money?”

“Eight million dollars for my forty-nine percent.” His eyes locked with Carey's. “
If
Barth acquires at least fifty-one percent control.”

Carey's smile was sardonic. “That makes me rather important, doesn't it. To you, and to Barth.”

“More so to me, as usual. Barth can always buy another publishing house.”

“Then why doesn't he?”

The brisk, balding waiter served two more drinks and Carey's steak tartare, followed by Phillip's shrimp Louis. Phillip tasted his drink. “I don't know,” he mused. “He's so steeped in the myth of Black Jack Carey that he knows more about the old man's career than
I
do, and takes considerably more relish in it.” He looked back at Carey. “It's always strange to meet a person who reminds you of someone dead …”

His grandfather's grip as they looked up at the building was rough as his near-whisper, “It's
ours …”

“Barth reminds you of Grandfather?”

“Somewhat.” Phillip's gaze across the table was cool and clear. “But not as much as everything about you, right down to your Jaguar and martinis, reminds me of my brother. Someday you'll have to tell me, Peter, how hard you've worked at that.”

“How could I,” Carey answered in a low voice, “when I've no memory to do it with.”

“I
rescued
you.” There was sudden pain in Phillip's voice. He caught himself glancing around as if worried that they had been overheard. When he spoke again, his voice was low and even. “I can understand the loss you felt at six, Peter. But to be so paranoid now is crippling.”

His father's laugh was bright as sunlight dancing on the ocean
…

Once more Carey was driven by a debt cited with evident emotion that he himself did not remember and could not be sure he owed. “I must be confused,” he parried. “I thought I'd heard you say you'd been meeting with Barth behind my back.”

Phillip straightened, himself again. “Only until we could talk rationally. Ever since that curious business of the picture, I've known that the relationship I'd hoped we'd have can never be—that you're obsessed with being Charles Carey's representative on earth. But despite our sad divergence, I remain legally and morally obligated to act in your best interests as trustee of your fifty-one percent. So I met with Barth, and now I'm setting forth your options in a reasonably calm environment.” Phillip rested his chin on folded hands. “As is my obligation as long as you're of sound mind.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Phillip looked away. “Perhaps that's a bit unfair, Peter. I suppose I'm somewhat wounded by your inexhaustible mistrust.”

Phillip had read him stories
…

Carey tasted his lunch. Finally, he said, “Tell me about Barth, Phil.”

“He's forceful, and seemingly quite interested in Van Dreelen and Carey for its own sake: he knows our bottom line, but also our history. I find it quite encouraging that he seems driven not just to acquire a publishing house, but
our
firm. And he seems genuinely intrigued by the notion of having the old man's namesake running it for him.”

Carey frowned. “What are my options?”

“As I see them?”

“Yes.”

“To get bogged down in a twilight struggle where sentiment is no collateral for bank loans, or to do what your grandfather and father would have done: sell, yet keep your title with enough financing to make it mean something.”

“As you retire with eight million dollars.”

“I'm sixty years old.” Phillip's voice grew very quiet, his stare direct. “For me, there
is
no other option—you've made that clear, in every way but speech. So now I'm asking that you consider this for me—and for yourself.”

Their eyes met again; in that moment, Carey felt himself as Phillip's burden. Finally, he said, “Then I can do that much.”

“Is this merely
politesse?
”

“No. Noelle and I …” Carey's gaze dropped. “It might be easier if I backed off a little, got some distance. I suppose I should consider what you say.” He smiled. “If I do end up with any interest, perhaps we can use my reputation—as you so tactfully put it—to jack up the price.”

Phillip's returning smile was his least strained of the lunch. He raised his drink. “Some days, Peter, I'm not so sorry that I saved you.”

“Then you can order me dessert.” Carey excused himself, still smiling.

Watching Peter Carey from the bar, Martin guessed that his sudden leaving owed little to the urgings of his kidneys.

He had ordered a Bloody Mary when they did; with Phillip Carey, he had tasted it. Like the playwright Martin felt himself to be, he enjoyed borrowing the sensations of others.

Now the drink felt queasy in his stomach: the two men were frightened of each other.

Phillip Carey's eyes were those of a cornered animal; his nephew's stillness was so unnatural that Martin's muscles felt its strain. As their bodies leaned forward across the table, their dialogue took on the sinewy tension of some martial art which pitted nerve against reflex. When Carey rose abruptly, Martin sensed that he should follow.

Lingering for discretion's sake, Martin surveyed Phillip Carey in his moment of aloneness. His eyes on Peter's back held fear as naked as the Turk's, in that instant before dying …

Martin waited until Phillip pasted on a smile for the nearest table, and then slipped downstairs.

Peter Carey was leaning in a telephone booth.

Martin decided to wait outside.

Twenty minutes later, he saw Peter and his uncle trade brisk farewells through the window of a cab, before Phillip drove away. His nephew stared after him, unmoving. Then, as if on impulse, Peter Carey began walking.

Martin followed: his orders were to observe how Peter received his uncle's news. He did not mind this. For six years Martin had kept himself in peak condition, awaiting the chance to track again.…

Carey turned down Park Avenue. Ahead, the silver mass of the Pan Am Building formed a background to the venerable tower jutting from Grand Central Station, gold-brown with winter sun and shadow. Martin kept pace: the block letters “Pan Am” loomed higher and closer, and still Carey walked with obsessive haste past pedestrians hunched against the wind and cold, never looking back until he rushed through the haze and echo of the station itself and out the other side, entering the marble lobby of the Pan Am Building. Martin watched him through the windows of the main floor, breathing easily.

Carey disappeared into an elevator.

For an instant Martin felt his disappointment: unless one killed, tracking had its limits. But there were other methods. He went inside and watched the light above Carey's elevator move from number to number, until it stopped.

Fourteen.

“What's so urgent?” Benevides asked.

Carey took a chair in front of his desk. “Phil wants to sell out.”

“So you were right after all.” Benevides grinned at the thought of human greed. “He's a fool to have waited this long.”

“I'm not sure why he did. Do you still have those papers we drafted?”

“Locked in a safe, per your instructions. All we do if he tries selling your stock is fill in the blanks and dash down to Superior Court for an injunction.”

Carey nodded. Dark and highly charged, Benevides exuded the distrustful brilliance that had drawn Peter Carey to him when, at twenty-six, Peter left the Wall Street firm which represented the Careys to find a lawyer who would maintain his confidences inviolate. Wary of Phillip, Carey decided his first need was a trial lawyer; in Benevides, a quick-tongued ex-prosecutor whose midtown firm could provide the other services Carey required, he found one so inherently suspicious that he could speak his fears without embarrassment. “What are my chances?”

“Tell me your story. It depends a little on the resources of our buyer.”

“It's Clayton Barth.”

“
Barth?
” Benevides scowled in disbelief. “What's a man like Barth want with a publisher?”

“That's the second thing I don't get.”

Benevides picked up a pencil and legal pad and began scribbling notes. “Maybe it's the building. I'll try and find out if he's into real estate.” He looked up. “You know, Clayton Barth makes old Black Jack look like Mother Teresa. He took over a client of ours three years ago—a computer software outfit. In twenty-four hours he'd given each employee the choice of signing the most preposterous dress code and loyalty oath this side of the McCarthy era or immediate termination. I was spared the sight of all those white shirts and crew cuts when Barth posted guards to keep visitors out of the building.” Benevides smiled. “The ruthlessness of the ‘truly needy,' I suppose—his father was some sort of menial. So where did you leave it with Phillip?”

“That he won't try selling without my approval.”

“Do you believe him?”

Phillip had burnt the pictures
…

“No.”

“Why not, exactly?” Carey shrugged. “It's a feeling.”

Benevides looked at him askance. “One you've had for years, Peter, with nothing to back it up. We've watched Phillip like hawks and he's yet to take one step out of line.
I'm
the one who's stealing your money.”

“This is different.” Carey paused, trying to phrase the instinct of the child Peter in the linear facts of trial lawyers. “Phil stands to make eight million dollars, and he knows I really don't want him there when I take over. Our interests aren't the same.”