The Accident (36 page)

But he’s never seen this before. He looks down at the manuscript, at his salvation or his ruin, so often intertwined. Glances at his scratch pad, the calculations of the revenue that could be generated by publishing
The Accident
.

They should be able to charge twice as much for this book, goddamnit. For
any
book. Over the two-plus-decades that Brad has worked in this business, the prices of all consumer goods have climbed steadily—movie tickets doubled, a dozen eggs up about 250 percent, gasoline nearly 300 percent. But in 1991 a typical new hardcover retailed for $22. And today? Up to only $26. An 18 percent increase. No wonder his publishing house—hell, the whole publishing industry—is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

He pushes the window all the way open. He peers down, around, looking to see if anyone noticed his window open. He opens his middle desk drawer and removes a small leather jewelry box, bought in a flea market twenty years ago. He digs the box’s tiny key out from the bottom of a silver bowl that holds loose change. He opens the box, and peers inside.

Brad pays himself an annual salary of a nice round $500,000, the same amount that the firm has budgeted for the publisher position for a decade now. Putting two kids through college—after a combined thirty years’ worth of private-school tuition—while still keeping Manhattan bedrooms available to them, a half-million per year doesn’t make you rich. It barely suffices.

Now it appears that he will never earn more, and quite possibly less, and perhaps even nothing. Luckily when the kids had both moved up to middle school Lucy returned to work, seamlessly sliding back into her
job as a schoolteacher. This year her seventy-some-odd-thousand-dollar-per-year salary, after taxes, does not quite cover the maintenance costs of the apartment. But Brad is beginning to suspect that next year her income—and especially her iron-clad health insurance, union-procured and -guaranteed—will come in handy, when McNally & Sons—one of the last remaining independent publishers of any size—will have been sold, and he, the chief executive who presided over its demise, will have been put out to pasture. It’s not just Jeffrey Fielder who’s staring down the barrel of involuntary retirement.

Brad extracts two baggies from the green leather box. He removes a pipe from one, a pinch of marijuana from the other.

Will anyone ever hire him, ever again? A fifty-something ex-publisher? Or is this the last year of his life that he’ll have a regular full-time job? Is this his last
month
coming to work?

Wow, he thinks: the finish line certainly snuck up on me.

He leans on his windowsill, ignites the pipe, and inhales deeply. He holds the smoke in his lungs for a five count, then exhales, into the shared space of the courtyard.

Ahhhh.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Brad.” His wife is standing in the doorway, hand on hip. He didn’t even hear the door open, what with the David Bowie. “With the
kids
in the house?”

He opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out.

Lucy shakes her head in disgust. “Milo still needs a walk,” she says, and closes the door behind her.

He returns to his desk, his dilemma, his decision. He has been agonizing about this all day, and all night.

On the one hand, Brad is convinced that whatever damaging revelations are in this manuscript will be absolutely true, and that the thing should be published, and that this greedy unethical bastard should be exposed, while at the same time rescuing McNally & Sons from bankruptcy or takeover, plus saving his own career and livelihood. There’s a lot of upside.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the federal agent—if that’s indeed what that Joseph Lyons guy really is—was telling the truth. That the manuscript is a hoax, perpetrated for the purpose of stock manipulation, hostile takeover, with millions—billions?—of dollars at stake. Lord knows people have done far worse, for far less.

But if the manuscript is true, and Wolfe is in cahoots with black ops of the CIA, then Brad himself could be facing arrest on trumped-up charges, shipped out to Guantánamo. Or simply shot.

He refires his pipe, inhales deeply, exhales slowly.

He picks up his cell phone, and places yet another call that goes through to voice mail. But this time he leaves a message: “Hi Freeley, McNally here. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’ve decided to go through with it. To try to publish this thing, as instantly as possible.” Even the phrase
instant book
makes him tingle. “Please call back to discuss how I should proceed. Thanks.”

He places the phone on the mahogany blotter of his boyhood desk, and listens to the lounge-singery “Rock and Roll Suicide,” the end of the album. Then, with the music over, he can hear that Milo the poodle is scampering around the apartment, having heard his name a few minutes earlier, ready for his nighttime perambulation.

Brad hefts his body out of his creaky chair, and puts on his ratty old canvas jacket, its pockets filled with plastic bags and loose change, with ticket stubs and dry-cleaning slips and grocery receipts, a permanent collection of crap that he totes around the neighborhood in this garment that he has owned for thirty-four years.

The agreeable poodle trots in front of Brad down the short hall, and waits at the elevator with his snout pressed up against the seam between the two doors, resolute to be the first to get through any passage, anywhere, anytime.

In the lobby they run into Mr. Benning from 7B, a prissy little sweater-wearing man dragging a prissy little sweater-wearing dog, some type of miniature terrier, excessively groomed, who snarls at Milo, who has the good sense to ignore it.

“That’s a good boy,” Brad mutters, as the dog immediately pulls the leash and Brad to the curb, and pees against a discarded Twix wrapper. Anything will do. “A good boy
and
a handsome boy.
And
good-looking. That’s right.” Nonsense. The dog stares at him, expressive eyebrows asking, Can we go? I smell something good over there. Can we go now? Over there?

Brad continues walking Milo along the quiet street, the dog sniffing and turning, intently assessing the aromas of his world.

This will be exciting, Brad thinks. The most exciting, most meaningful thing he’s ever done—will ever do—in his career. In his life. But it can’t be exciting unless there’s at least a little danger.

He hears two car doors close in near-perfect unison, from somewhere behind him, a quick
thump-thump
. He notices that the dog stops sniffing at the fire hydrant, spins around on his leash, looking up. Brad chuckles at his dog, the ten thousandth nervous laugh of his life, a half-century’s worth of filling uneasy silences with the sound, with the idea, of cheer.

Brad follows the dog’s attention, still smiling as he turns, still smiling as he hears the
pop-pop
, still smiling as he feels the sudden bewildering heat spreading through his chest.

CHAPTER 46

“T
he name is Naomi Berger … Yes, I’m sure there’s surveillance on her line … Why? Because she owns a radical bookshop in New York City … Of course, take all the time you need.”

Hayden returns his attention to the manuscript in his lap, sitting in the little boat that’s bobbing in the moonlit water, gentle waves lapping at the hull. He reads a couple of pages, then the tech comes back on the line.

“Good …” Hayden pokes the bud farther into his ear. “Okay, go ahead.” He listens to the recorded phone conversation, uploaded from a federal database, between Isabel Reed and her friend Naomi Berger. Then he ends that call.

He nods at Tyler, who’s at the helm. “Let’s go.”

Tyler opens the throttle again, and the boat rips through the water, as Hayden returns to the manuscript, comparing this book’s version of events with his own recollections.

“W
hy are we outside?” Charlie asked. “Have you noticed that it’s, um, raining?”

Hayden took a few steps before answering. “
Rain?
This isn’t
rain
. You’re simply not accustomed to London weather.”

He used the tip of his full-length black umbrella to punctuate every other step. He’d been living in England for the better part of a year, and had grown accustomed to always carrying an umbrella. As well as to the continual state of mourning for Princess Diana.

“This is
mist
, Charlie. Rain is something quite different.”

“Be that as it may.”

“We’re outside, Charlie, because it’s impossible to
bug
outside, in the wide-open. It’s impossible for there to be a little transmitter tucked under the table, or a camera in the wall. It’s impossible for someone to be sneaking around in the room behind us.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And in order to achieve this level of security from undesirable surveillance, we sometimes must tolerate a certain amount of
mist
.”

They continued in silence for a half-minute on the lakeside path in St. James’s Park, toward the hulking behemoth of Buckingham Palace.

“So have you considered my proposal?”

The park was exploding with spring bulbs, bright bursts of color popping out of all that green, beneath all the dark damp gray.

“I have, Charlie. I have.”

“And?”

“Well, I’ll tell you.” Hayden stopped walking, turned toward his anxious young companion. “There’s a presidential candidate in Italy for whom we don’t care.”

Charlie tilted his head to the side.

“He has in the past strayed outside of his marriage. We don’t know for certain if he’s currently, um,
wandering
. But even if not, we doubt it would be difficult to arrange.”

Charlie tilted his head to the other side. Hayden wondered if one side was for listening, the other for thinking. Hayden wasn’t immensely impressed with young Mr. Wolfe’s intellect, but the guy had somehow managed to accomplish things that seemed to be rather difficult to accomplish.

“Are you telling me to entrap this guy, then expose him?”

“I’m not
telling
you to do anything, Charlie. I’m never going to tell you to do anything. You don’t work for me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What I’m doing is mentioning that the United States of America would be better off if this particular candidate did not prevail.” Hayden handed over a small slip of folded paper. “It’s a complicated name. I’ve written it down, to help you remember.”

Charlie glanced down.

“Just as we’d prefer it if Saddam Hussein were ousted. If Hugo Chavez had not won that election in Venezuela. If we could do something about the mess down in Kosovo. The challenge in Italy is, by comparison, a much smaller one. But it would also make
far
juicier news coverage. Titillating.”

At that moment a dozen ducks emerged from the lake, most of them brightly plumed drakes, and set off across the paved path to a stand of shrubbery, in fresh bud. There must be nests in there, ducks sitting on eggs with infinite patience. There didn’t seem to be any ducklings about, not yet.

Charlie turned to watch the waterfowl waddle, as if they might be purposefully interloping in this conversation, perhaps eavesdropping.

“I’m just speculating, Charlie, about international events. And giving you a friendly alert to a news story that could develop. A story that your nascent Italian website might be in a unique position to break, which would certainly help launch that site with a bang. As it were.”

“Nice pun.”

“Thanks.”

Charlie looked off to the left, then the right, slowly. It was almost laughable.

“Listen, Charlie, if you’re going to be in this line of work, you’re going to need to be less
obvious
. Please don’t glance around like that. You draw attention to yourself, and you look like an idiot, and more importantly
you make
me
look like someone stupid enough to deal with amateurs. So please.”

Charlie nodded. “And if I do this for you—”

Hayden held up his hand. “No, Charlie: if you do this for
you
, for your
own
benefit. Then I can assure you that you will not be investigated or pursued by us. And we will appreciate the outcome. So we will alert you to other similar opportunities, should they arise, in the future.”

“And by
we
, you mean …?”

“I mean me.”

Charlie’s eyes darted away again, increasingly nervous, but to his credit this time he didn’t swivel his neck.

“What did you think this was going to be, Charlie? That I’d tip you off to breaking international news because, why? Because I know your
father
? Because out of the goodness of my heart, I want to help you get rich?”

Charlie watched the ducks disappear into the underbrush, instantly hidden in there.

“You came to me, Charlie.” Hayden clapped him on the shoulder. “Think about it.”

Hayden set off, his leather heels loud on the hard damp walkway, the tip of his umbrella clicking, the sleeves of his new rubberized Mackintosh whooshing against his torso, a raincoat that he’d bought on the same Mayfair shopping expedition as the long expensive umbrella, when he acknowledged that this dismal weather was going to be a part of his life for a long, long time. He should make the best of it. Of everything.

He felt around in the cold but dry right pocket of the Mack until his thumb depressed the stop button, and the record button popped up, and the tape stopped turning.

H
ayden glances over the side of the boat, white foam spraying from the black water, speeding toward the horizon’s thin string of lights, among
which Isabel Reed and Jeffrey Fielder are shacked up somewhere, hiding from him, about to be discovered.

At first, Hayden was expecting this entire mission to be much shorter, more finite, infinitely simpler: find the author, and kill him, and destroy his manuscript. Each year it becomes easier and easier to locate people, anywhere, with cell phones that can be triangulated, with IP addresses that can be pinpointed, with bank cards whose transactions can be monitored, with security cameras at airports and train stations, at banks and gas stations. It’s extremely difficult to hide, unless you’re very smart, and very careful, and very well-funded.