The Accident (22 page)

Brad looked Lyons in the eye, trying to stare hard into a hardened face. “And how did you learn all this?”

“The
specific
details of intelligence-gathering operations are, of course, confidential. But I can reveal that we intercepted telephone calls between the journalist and the, uh,
commissioning
enterprise.”

“Intercepted phone calls? You’re talking about the domestic wiretapping program?”

“That’s right.” That small smug smile, again. “Although we refer to it as the homeland surveillance program.”

“Mm-hmm.”
Brad was slowly becoming outraged. And cocky. “And so why is this journalist supposedly abroad?”

“To elude our surveillance. And our law enforcement.”

“I see. So what is it you want, exactly?”

“
I
do not
want
anything. But what the NSA
requires
, as a matter of national security, is for you to alert us—
me
—if such a manuscript arrives here, to your company.”

“Is that right?”

“That is correct.”

“And how will I know? If a given manuscript meets these criteria?”

“That would be pretty easy, I should think.”

“Ten editors work here. Each receives twenty submissions in a week, of full manuscripts and book proposals.”

“This will not arrive as a proposal.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I do.”

The two men stared at each other, then Brad broke the standoff. “As I was saying, two hundred prospective books arrive here every week. That’s, um … that’s ten thousand per year.”

Lyons nodded.

“And you’re asking me to find one? One out of ten thousand?”

“I’m sure, Mr. McNally, that it will not be nearly as difficult as you’re pretending.”

A
fter fretting about it for a few hours, months ago, Brad decided that he didn’t need to make any decision, at the time. This preposterous predicament was purely hypothetical. He didn’t even bother to consult the in-house lawyer, who was a contracts and intellectual-property specialist, and not exactly an expert in this type of situation. Nor did he call the outside counsel; Brad didn’t need to waste the guy’s exorbitant billable hours on a long fruitless abstract conversation about the First Amendment.

He had more concrete and actionable issues on his desk, every single day. Until today, when that manuscript became no longer abstract. So Brad places the call, the one he was hoping not to make, but somehow knew he’d need to.

“Bradford McNally?” The voice on the other end of the line is a slow, rich Southern drawl, and you can practically hear the belly protruding through the phone. “So nice of you to call.”

“Trey Freeley. So nice of you to
take
my call.”

The lawyer chuckles. Both men know that Freeley is more than happy to field a brief call and charge a hundred dollars for it.

“Listen, Trey, one of my editors has a submission that might be tricky, legally.”

“Mm-hmmmmm.”
Freeley’s drawl seems most pronounced when what’s coming out of his mouth aren’t actual words; he moans and grumbles with a thick accent. “What seems to be the problem?” As if he’s a physician.

“Well, the project is an unauthorized biography of Charlie Wolfe. It includes some pretty explosive revelations. Or, rather,
allegations
, I guess is more accurate.”

“I see.” Long pause. “And who wrote this?”

“It’s anonymous.”

Freeley is silent for another beat. “Who’s the literary agent?”

“It’s a woman named Isabel Reed.”

Freeley doesn’t respond.

“She’s with Atlantic Talent Management,” Brad continues. “You know her?”

“Yes.” The lawyer sounds suspicious, or angry, or something not quite right. Freeley is not a monosyllabic type of guy. “If you don’t mind me askin’, McNally, which one of your editors received this?”

Brad is too mired in his own worries to wonder why the hell the lawyer would ask. “Jeff Fielder got the submission.”

“Mmmm.”
Brad can hear the heavy man’s labored breathing on the other end of the line. “Listen, McNally, we should talk in person. I can come up to New York later.”

Brad’s first, brief instinct is to worry about the cost of such a trip, but then he realizes that if the lawyer is willing to hop on Acela at a moment’s notice, the billable hours are the least of his problems.

“Could we grab a drink?”

B
rad stands at the unfamiliar machine, a relatively new expenditure that he doesn’t remember approving. He stares at the little gray screen, considering his options, wondering whether he needs to actively choose anything here, or if he can forge ahead unthinking. He tries it, simply puts the stack of paper into the feeder tray, hits the giant green button, the one screaming “Push me!” The thing starts operating as it should, duplicating pages. Thank God. He can avoid the humiliation of asking someone to show him how to use the photocopier.

He walks away from the cluster of grand rooms that formed the original offices of McNally Publishing at its founding, before any Sons were involved. Nearly a century later, and Brad knows he’ll have to sell the company to whoever will be crazy enough to buy. His father also knows it, sitting on his veranda on the Vineyard, trying to enjoy the twilight of his life. Though neither has explicitly admitted it to the other, each knows that the other knows.

But if he’s going to have to sell this venerable firm, first he’s going to try to do some good in this world, using the position he still has, however temporarily.

He walks down the hall and around a corner, then steps down into what he thinks of as the new wing, even though it’s now twenty years old. The farthest reaches of the new wing is known as the Lost Corridor, a long warren of cubbyholes and makeshift workspaces and supply closets and restrooms and the fireproofed vaulted rooms that are jammed with FireKing file cabinets that hold artwork, contracts, and other irreplaceable pieces of paper or film.

The Lost Corridor is where Chester Dumont and his people toil: the copy editors, proofreaders, fact-checkers, indexers, and production editors who collectively read and revise the tens of millions of words per year that are turned into the McNally & Sons’ 150 books. At the very end of the corridor, past a large pool of freelance stations, is Chester’s office.
Every square foot of wall space is lined with floor-to-ceiling steel storage, twelve-inch-deep sagging shelves packed with stacks of in-process books, as well as a comprehensive collection of reference materials. Off to the side of his desk is a podium-style stand for
Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary
; beneath are the 1961 Third Edition and the 1934 Second. Chester is leaning over this massive volume, peering at the gossamer-thin paper through half-moon glasses that sit low on his substantial nose, when he hears a polite rap on his open door.

“One moment, please,” he says reflexively, without looking up, finishing his tiny task of research. Then, satisfied with his new understanding of the
rhombicosidodecahedron
, he turns to the door, and sees Bradford. Chester is pretty sure that the publisher has never before visited his office. And Chester has been with McNally & Sons for thirty years.

“Mr. McNally,” he says, “what a surprise.” Chester’s habit, which he realizes everybody thinks is pretentious, is to use formality. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The publisher is standing in the doorway, seemingly unsure of whether to enter. As always, Bradford is wearing a suit, this one a chalk-striped charcoal affair that looks like flannel, and a shirt in what’s called French blue with English-style club collar, and an embroidered navy-and-purple necktie knotted in a well-executed half-Windsor. Alan Flusser’s
Style and the Man
, Chester knows, is the most thorough reference on men’s attire.

“Hi, Chester,” his boss’s boss says. “May I come in?”

“Of course.” Chester walks around his gunmetal-gray desk. “Have a seat?”

The publisher makes his way through the stacks of reference books and manuscripts that litter the floor. He sits in the soft leather Brno chair, designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1929–30, a pair of the few surviving relics of the 1952 overhaul of the office furniture. The chunky illustrated book
1000 Chairs
sits just over Chester’s right shoulder.

“Look, Chester, I need a little fact-checking.” Brad taps the small stack of paper.

“Very well, Mr. McNally. I’ll have one of the freelancers take care of this soonest.” He knows that Doris is about to finish proofing an astoundingly ahead-of-schedule novel. That work can be put aside for the day. Hell, that work can be put aside for four months. Chester starts leafing through the pages.

“I’m sorry, Chester, but I need you to do this yourself. And I need it done today.”

Chester glances at the man who signs his paycheck—eighty-two thousand dollars a year. Thank God he never moved out of his rent-controlled Turtle Bay hovel.

“What is this?”

“Part of a submission.”

“And what is it you’d like me to check?”

“Anything that can be verified.” The publisher rises. “By the end of the day, please.”

Chester takes a long slow breath, and starts plotting out a reorganization of the rest of his day, now that this giant crater has been blown into the middle of it.

“Oh, and Chester? This is strictly embargoed. Not a single word, to anyone.”

CHAPTER 28

T
he pavement changes at exit 66, the relatively new black surface giving way to the old gray, rougher, louder, a stronger vibration in the steering wheel of the brand-new Mercedes that they’d collected from the garage around the corner from Judy’s house. While they were waiting at the bottom of the ramp, Jeff noticed the rate list: $675 per month for a car, plus parking tax of 18.75 percent. Aka $800 a month. For a parking spot.

“You know how to drive, right?” Isabel asked.

“Yeah.”

The shiny silver car came screeching around a corner, a wiry guy opening the driver’s door while the vehicle was still moving, stepping out smoothly, taking Isabel’s five-dollar tip with a quick “Thank you Miss,” scurrying back into the bowels to collect someone else’s hundred-thousand-dollar car, for minimum wage.

“You drive,” she said. “I need some sleep.”

Jeff sank into the soft leather, adjusted the mirrors and his seat, glanced around the dash. Then he pulled out tentatively into the thick snarl of a weekday traffic jam. A hundred yards ahead, a disheveled wild-haired man was standing in the center of an intersection, attempting to direct traffic with no authority whatsoever other than his will to be in
charge of some little piece of the world, to preside over something, anything, however irrelevant.

Jeff stole a glance at Isabel, collapsed in her seat, staring out the side window, apparently lost in thought. He wondered what her plan really was. He knew that she wasn’t telling him the whole truth.

In a sudden burst of multi-vehicle movement, the car was sprung free of the jam, and Jeff accelerated through the intersection, then cruised across a comparatively empty street—“Take the next right, Jeffrey” and “Turn up there”—and then they were ascending a ramp onto the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge, climbing into the blue sky, on a single narrow lane that seemed to be cantilevered out over the river. This was the scariest roadway he’d ever driven, and it was already the scariest day of his life.

“I really think we have to go to the police,” he said. He felt he needed to object, again, to their course of action.

“No.”

“Why?” He knew what her answer would be. And he didn’t even want the police. But he needed to go through the motions of the argument. “I’m terrified, Isabel.”

“Mmm.”
A sound of agreement, but not of commitment. “Jeffrey?” she asked, lowering the window. A warm wind flooded into the car. “May I have your phone?”

Jeff doesn’t drive frequently—he has never in his life owned a car—so he was wildly uncomfortable at the wheel of this luxury car borrowed from a famous woman on this insanely narrow and shockingly exposed roadway high above the East River. So he reached into his pocket and handed the device to Isabel without looking at the phone, or her, keeping his eyes glued ahead. Which is why he didn’t exactly see the thing fly out the window; he was just vaguely aware of her arm motion.

“Did you just throw my phone out the window?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because cell phones are homing devices. Even when they’re not bugged.”

His stomach was in freefall, plummeting with the sinking SIM card on its way to the bottom of the East River, along with its irretrievable, irreplaceable data.

“You could’ve just removed the battery,” he said sullenly.

“Sorry.” She turned from the window, now closed again, to face Jeff. “It was just a phone, right?”

N
inety minutes later, Jeff looks over at the passenger seat, at his companion, sleeping. Her hair has cascaded over the right side of her face, and her mouth is open, her jaw hanging a bit crooked. Her breathing is deep, her chest rising and falling with a slow, even rhythm.