“Lance had no pre-mortem wounds, according to Felix. That’s probably why your policemen friends suspect foul play. They questioned Felix for hours. Apparently Lance gave his notice yesterday. Felix got a little heated—in front of a witness, who happened to be Lance’s old girlfriend. But Lance may have OD’d. Felix says he seemed drugged and out-of-it recently. Not a good way to go, but better than being killed by a wild animal, I should think.
“Or murdered by a well-mannered Englishman.” It was quite possible I’d had a brush with a murderer. And he still might be out there.
All I could do was shiver.
Plant set out the bagels and lox for our breakfast—a taste of heaven after a week of scrounging meals from his understocked cupboards.
As I spread cream cheese on a second bagel-half, he gave me a penetrating look.
“Felix said an odd thing—he said you’d applied to work at his store. That wasn’t you, was it? What about your job at the
Chronicle
?”
My unfavorite subject again. “Evaporated. So has the editor who asked to interview me. I’m an etiquette columnist in the 21
st
century—about as much in demand as, well, a newspaper.”
“And they didn’t bother to tell you until you’d flown all the way across the country?”
I shrugged as I munched my bagel. I didn’t feel up to telling him the non-refundable ticket represented my entire net worth, and without his apartment to run to, I’d probably have spent the last week sleeping on a bench in Central Park.
Plant gave me a confused smile. “I hope I didn’t make a mistake, but I told Felix to go ahead and give Lance’s job to one of the other applicants. So many people are hurting for money these days, and you’ll be rolling in it once the Countess’s will is straightened out.”
“That could take a while.” I took another chomp of bagel to avoid having to admit my little beige lies. There was nothing to straighten out. My poor mother had six husbands, five of them rich, but the last one left her nothing but debts and a dubious title.
Plant put on a cheery voice. “I think the Universe has decreed you spend the summer working on a project of your own. Isn’t it time to do an update of
Wedding Rx from the Manners Doctor
or maybe
Manners Rx for the Suddenly Single
?”
Another painful subject. “My agent says they’re totally last century and told me to start a blog. It lasted three months. I had ten followers.”
“Then you’ll have to do a whole new book. Something more contemporary. How about
Good Manners for Bad Times
? I’ll put a curtain over the bed alcove and that can be your room.” He gestured at the area by the side window. “It used to be a separate bedroom. When I bought this place, I thought I’d only use it for an occasional theater weekend, so I remodeled for entertaining. I didn’t realize those Hollywood vampires would steal me blind. Do you believe they claim
Wilde in the West
never made a penny?” He offered me half of the last bagel. “And speaking of vampires, I want the dish on your ex. Has Jonathan Kahn really left the faux news business to find enlightenment…?”
Plant and I did make pretty good roommates. And actually, the studio was bigger than my old three-room West Side apartment.
I didn’t bring up the subject of Silas and Plant didn’t ask me about my failed romance with my policeman friend Rick. I even started to get used to the Stephen Sondheim mix constantly playing from Plant’s iPod speakers. I set up my laptop in an almost-private nook, and had a lot of evenings to myself, since Plant spent most of his time at Theater Rhino, where they were reviving one of his plays.
I discovered a resale shop in Hayes Valley that gave me a reasonable amount for my Piaget watch and the diamond earrings Jonathan had given me on our tenth anniversary. After that, I could contribute groceries and buy a few necessities. I didn’t tell Plant where the money came from. He thought my new Tinker Bell Timex was a cute fashion statement. I didn’t need diamonds. I was living in jeans anyway.
That’s why it was over a month before I put on the Armani pants suit I’d worn job-hunting the day Lance/Larry the bookstore clerk had met his end.
Plant was treating me to Peruvian food to celebrate finishing up my book proposal and sample chapters to send to my agent. As we waited to get into
Mochica
in a drizzly March fog, I stuck a hand in my pocket for warmth, and felt something I didn’t remember putting there. I pulled out an elegant business card, printed on forest green stock with gilt lettering.
“Sherwood Publishing Group, Ltd.,” it said. “Peter Sherwood, Managing Director. Maidenette Building/Threadneedle Street/Swynsby-on-Trent, Lincs, UK.”
“Ooooh,” Plant took the card as I told him where it came from. “Your alley-person was Peter Sherwood? He really is a publisher, darling. Silas and I met him at the Frankfurt Book Fair. He’s the new owner of Dominion Books. His uncle’s an earl or something.”
I felt my face flush. “How awful. I should write and apologize…”
Plant smiled. “The fact he’s an aristocrat doesn’t mean he’s well-behaved. He wasn’t joking about the whips and chains. Dominion publishes erotica. He was probably peddling his wares to Felix.”
I put the card in my purse as a waiter finally beckoned us inside. I felt terrible. “I gave the police his description. And called him a creep. The poor man.”
“Don’t worry, darling,” Plant said after ordering the wine. “I’m sure Mr. Sherwood is fine. It’s Felix I’m worried about. He’s going to lose the store. He was barely breaking even before this happened—e-books have taken over the erotica market more than any other—and now, after the horrible thing with, um…” He stopped, then shook his head as if shaking off his grief. “Since Lance’s death, he’s lost regulars.
“People honestly think Felix killed Lance?” It was hard to envision little baby-faced Felix perpetrating that awful thing I saw in the alley.
But Plant nodded. “There are nasty rumors flying around—even though it now looks as if Lance probably died of a heart attack.”
“The police think Lance died of a heart attack? He couldn’t have been more than thirty. That’s scary.”
Part of me was relieved to hear he died of natural causes, but I couldn’t help thinking how dreadful it would be to drop dead while taking out the trash. Especially with a hungry coyote lurking nearby.
Plant nodded. “I guess it happens to younger people all the time. Of course, the police won’t know until the autopsy’s been done, and they’re still saying it could have been murder. When there’s suspicion of foul play, people always suspect a jilted lover.” He gave an unfunny laugh. “Apparently Lance’s high school girlfriend suspects Felix of all sorts of criminal activity. She keeps reappearing to make his life difficult. The woman must take clueless pills for breakfast. She actually tried to flirt with me—and kept asking if I’d read the manuscript of Lance’s novel.”
“I suppose a lot of book store clerks have novels lying around somewhere. Did you know about it?”
Plant rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately, yes. He begged me so often that I finally had to look at it: a medieval vampire/werewolf saga—writteneth forsoothly. Dreadful. ”
My mind was still on the enigmatic Mr. Sherwood. I wasn’t convinced he didn’t have something to do with Lance’s demise.
“There was something scary about Peter Sherwood. Maybe after I chased him away, he took Lance back to the alley for a quickie and killed him for some sort of kinky thrill…”
“I doubt Peter Sherwood is gay.” Plant poured our wine. “Dominion books are mostly hetero. Silas carries some of their titles. Rather classy-looking for what they are.” He sniffed. “He called this afternoon, by the way, Silas did. He wants me to pay half of last month’s bills, if you can believe it. He owns a bookstore empire and my screenplay has been in development hell for three years—but I have to pay half his damned water bill.”
It was the first time Plant had mentioned Silas. I could see his pain was still raw.
I could also see he wanted to talk, so I let him spill out his anger at Silas. And I told him how my long-distance romance with Rick Zukowski had slowly fizzled while I nursed my mother through the surgery and chemo.
When we got home that evening, I wrote a quick e-mail to the address on Peter Sherwood’s card, apologizing for the shoe-throwing. As I hit the send button, I hoped the man was safely back in his lair at Threadneedle Street/Swynsby-on-Trent/Lincs.
Even if he wasn’t Lance’s murderer, I had a feeling that Mr. Peter Sherwood might make a dangerous enemy.
I hid my growing panic from Plant as I left my futile job applications everywhere. With so many experienced people out of work, nobody wanted an ex-socialite with no employment history. But Plant didn’t need to be burdened with my worries. The split with Silas had sent him into a depression he couldn’t hide.
One afternoon in April, I returned from selling my graduation pearls to find a familiar-looking envelope addressed to me. Finally, word from my agent. Perfect timing: the book was edited, polished and ready to go. I tore open the letter as I climbed the stairs. Maybe my luck had finally turned.
“Dear Writer,” it said. “This project is not right for us at this time…”
My stomach thunked. Not even a personalized salutation. Why hadn’t I formed a plan B? Or told Plant I was broke? I had to tell him tonight. No: he said he’d be at the theater.
Just as well. I was going to cry and it would probably be noisy.
But as I opened the door, I heard some sort of huffing and puffing coming from behind my bedroom curtain. A growl. And some grunting. Then voices.
I stopped breathing. Until I recognized a voice: Silas’s—then Plant’s, murmuring softly. Okay, Silas and Plant seemed to be having a reconciliation. A very private one. I tiptoed back to the kitchen, but Silas’s booming baritone carried. I could hear him telling Plant, in soothing tones, how they mustn’t spend another moment apart and they could live part-time at the beach house in Morro Bay, and part time here in the City.
“But what about Camilla…?” Plant said in a throaty whisper.
“She’s been mooching off you long enough. You’re on the verge of bankruptcy, and you won’t even ask her for rent. You take care of everybody but yourself, Plant.”
Bankruptcy? Another stomach-thunker. So Plant’s comments about being ripped off by Hollywood weren’t ordinary kvetching.
Stifling my guilt with stale chocolate chips, I grabbed my laptop and went out to the back porch to give the lovers some privacy. I perched at the top of the stairs, looking out on the dumpster where Lance had met his end. I hoped they’d decide soon if Lance had died of a heart attack, or if some murderer was still lurking out there.
When I checked my email, I was surprised to find, amidst the spam, a message from [email protected]. I opened it, wishing my heart wouldn’t do that jumpy thing when I thought about him. I was not going to allow myself to be attracted to a scary pornographer—at least not one who lived on the other side of the planet.
“Dear Miss Randall,” he wrote. “It is I who must apologize—for terrifying you that night in San Francisco. May I plead that I was too dazzled by your beauty to think properly? Or offer the excuse of jet lag? Or nicotine-deprivation? Nowhere to smoke in that bloody town, which is why I was reduced to lurking in alleys with wild beasts.”
Okay, he was charming. Maybe too charming. But at least he wasn’t angry. The message went on. “I admit to giving you a quick Google. Are you the Camilla Randall who wrote the “Manners Doctor” books? Any interest in re-releasing them?” He went on to say that Sherwood Ltd. was launching a new mainstream imprint. He’d bought Dominion Books “in hopes the backlist of pervy tomes might support an independent publishing company that can take risks with new writers.” He was also reprinting nonfiction titles that could generate steady sales. “Your
Wedding Rx
might work nicely,” he said.
I tried to calm myself. There had to be a catch.
“If you have other work available (whips and chains optional) I’d love to have a look. My best to you and the San Francisco wildlife. Cheers, Peter.”
Reminding myself to breathe, I hit “reply” and attached the file of
Good Manners for Bad Times
. Then I took myself out to dinner. Maybe my luck-wheel had turned.
Plant’s luck seemed to have improved, too—at least with Silas. When I tiptoed back to the apartment, I could hear them softly snoring from my bed-nook. I stretched out on the couch and slept better than I had in ages.
In the morning, cozy bacon-and-eggy aromas told me that Silas was still on premises. Toasting bagels was as close as Plant got to the culinary arts.
Big, bearded Silas looked gigantic in Plant’s tiny kitchen as he hovered by the stove. Plant looked up from his sunny-side eggs and gave me a goofy grin. Silas’s hello was warm. “You’re just in time for breakfast. How do you want your eggs?”
“Silas drove up yesterday,” Plant winked at Silas. “He says it’s because he wanted to make an offer on Felix’s bookstore, but I think he just wanted my body.”