The Way of All Fish: A Novel (26 page)

“I’ve got to go to my séance group.”

Paul quickly checked the level of whiskey in his glass and wondered if he was totally smashed. “Your, ah,
what
?”

“Séance.” Bass drained his glass, looked for a waiter. “I attend a bimonthly séance.”

Paul stuck out his foot and nearly tripped the waiter without taking his eyes off Hess. He circled the two glasses in a “refill” signal, and the waiter walked briskly away. Only L. Bass Hess could combine “séance” and the time parsing of “bimonthly.”

All Paul knew about séances was one on a wet afternoon with Richard Attenborough. The psychic, his medium-wife, was crazy as a bedbug. Good starting point. “That’s . . . interesting. Now, is there, you know, someone you’re trying to, well, get in touch with?” It was hard to ask the question.

The waiter was back, God bless him, with fresh drinks.

Bass drank. Glug. “My father. I’ve been trying for some time now. I get . . . soundings.”

Paul chewed his lip. He wondered why in hell just not use a cell phone. They seemed to be good for everything else. Paul was not a believer in the cell phone culture.

L. Bass was moving on. “The thing is—Simone, my aunt. You know, the one I just visited. She’s been baiting me for years about my father and her will and her money. Changing her will. She’s been forcing me to go there and see her, to listen to her chatter about the ruination of the Everglades by men like Flagler and developers and politicians back in the twenties and thirties. On and on and on. Endless talk from her and that goddamned parrot!” The voice, rising, settled into a whisper. “My father disliked him—her—intensely. Hated her. And I know, I
know
”—the fist came down on the table—“that he can tell me something I can use, something that she wouldn’t want known.”

Aunt Simone didn’t strike Paul as in any danger of further revelations. But Hess’s line of talk was interesting.

“I could shut her up, just get the damned will revised in my favor.”

Paul sat back. There were times he thought (along with Molly) that he himself was kind of crazy; but hell, he was a writer. And nothing he had done, nothing he had thought of, not alligators nor burning bushes nor junkyard antics (coming up), nor horsemen (maybe) could outperform this new wrinkle in the mind’s fabric: L. Bass Hess at a séance, trying to get in touch with his dead dad, not to tell him how much he missed him but to get blackmail material from the astral body.

Leverage from a dead man.

Life was just too fucking thrilling to be believed.

It went down on the mental list.

P
aul sat in his office, staring once again at the Facebook page of Johnny del Santos. Hard to believe. Handsome Johnny, the most popular kid in high school, the great mugger of local 7-Elevens, rip-off artist, and darling of juvie detention, this guy was now in a monastery somewhere near Sewickley, PA. He rocked in his swivel chair. He picked up Mann’s
The Magic Mountain.
Well, well, well.

The only other pieces of furniture besides his desk and chair were a beat-up armchair and a rococo wing chair that resembled a dragon, with its cobalt blue and green upholstery, its scrolled arms and legs. Paul wouldn’t have been surprised to see the Draggonier sitting there some evening.

He set the book aside. He studied his revised list, smiled at “Cathedral.” Everglades, check; Central Park bush, check. He had been about to add “#7: Séance,” when he heard, “Is that one of your lists?”

He jumped a bit at Molly’s voice. “This? No. Just some notes. I guess you could say the notes are listed, if you want.”

“What are you up to?”

“I’m not up to anything.”

“You were two hours late for dinner last night.”

“I know. I got to talking to Bass Hess about this damned contract with Mackenzie.”

As if she hadn’t heard, she said, “I don’t like your lists. The last one was a list of publishers and writers. And we know what happened there.”

Paul tossed his pencil on the desk. “Am I never to be allowed to forget that?”

“No.”

“No.”

The second “no” came from Hannah, who was standing by her mother. Sometimes the two of them together made a gang.

“How often,” asked Paul, “do I have to remind people that it was Bobby Mackenzie who hired the hit men? That was never my idea.”

Hannah glanced up at her mom for guidance.

Molly said, “But it was you who set the wheels in motion.”

Paul was sick of that phrase.

“Yes,” said Hannah. “You put the wheels—” She frowned and looked up at Molly.

“In motion.”

“The wheels in motion,” said Hannah.

Oh, it was a playlet they’d rehearsed.

“Life isn’t a book where you can do whatever you want with your characters.” Molly liked this analogy, so she repeated it. “Life is not a novel.”

Hannah chewed that over. “Except maybe
The Hunted Gardens
. That’s real life.”

Paul crossed his arms and sat back. “That’s real life, is it? With the dragons and the Dragonnier?”

Hannah nodded but seemed puzzled by his pronouncement. “Most of the time.” She was covering her bases.

Molly said, “I hope that’s not a list.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Molly. Here, have a look.” He held the page out to her.

Molly took it and looked it over and lowered it for Hannah to read. Then she said, “Everglades? I thought your new book was set in New York. Here.” She pointed down as if the floor were New York.

“People do travel. And it
is
set in New York. See points two and three.” Smugly, he smiled.

“Cathedral and Central Park bush.”

“Yeah. Last I heard, New York had a St. Patrick’s Cathedral
and
a Central Park.”

“What’s the bush?”

Paul shrugged. “Just a detail. Maybe someone’s hiding behind it.”

Hannah looked suspicious. “Like the Dragonnier?”

“Good grief, no.” Seeing that Hannah seemed to be taking this disclaimer as a criticism of the Dragonnier, he added, “The Dragonnier is a hero; he’s brave and smart. And young. The person in my book will be old and shambling and in the last stages of dementia. He’ll be yelling, ‘End of days! End of days!’ ”

“What’s ‘end of day’? You mean, like, sunset?”

“ ‘Days,’ plural. It’s an expression that means end of the evil and the world. Like the apocalypse.”

Came Molly’s relentless voice: “Who are the horsemen?”

Shit. “What?”

“The sixth thing on your not-list: horsemen.”

Paul’s brain rattled away and came up with “No, no, no. Not ‘horsemen.’ ‘Norsemen.’ You know, Vikings.”

Molly frowned. “Why would they be in New York?”

“I’m not about to sit here and tell you the plot of this book.”

“Who’s Joe Blight?”

“Blythe. Just a character I may or may not use; hence the question mark.” Paul drew one in air. “Molly, you know how I hate talking about what I’m writing.”

“All right. What about ‘car parts, junkyard’?”

“It’s just a setting. Junkyard at night. Full moon.” Paul raised both hands, rounding the fingers in case they didn’t know what a moon looked like, full. This was to kill time. “Now, the fella who takes care of the junkyard finds this big diamond kind of hammered in the hubcap of a tire from an Alfa Romeo. The diamond used to be in the head of a sacred statue—”

“Wait,” said Molly, her tone suspicious. “That sounds like
The Moonstone
.”

“What, you think I’m
plagiarizing
Wilkie Collins now?”

“What’s that mean?” said Hannah, her forehead puckering.

“Stealing another writer’s work,” said Paul.

“A moonstone?” said Hannah.

“It’s the title of a book by Wilkie Collins:
The Moonstone,
” Paul said helpfully. “It was probably the first psychological suspense novel. Very influential, very famous.”

“The Moonstone.”
 Hannah was thoughtful. She drew her latest chapter of
The Hunted Garden
s close to her chest, as if plagiarism were rampant in the room.

“I just don’t like you getting up to stuff and targeting some poor soul for one of your ‘experiments,’ ” said Molly.

“You make me sound like Dr. Frankenstein. My Lord, Molly, I’m not targeting anybody. It’s my new book.” He looked from one to the other. “Now, are both of you quite through? Might I get on with my work?” he added self-righteously.

“All right. But I still think you’re up to something.” Molly turned and walked back to the kitchen.

Hannah hovered. “Are you sure you didn’t steal from Willy Collins?”

“I do not steal other writers’ stuff, Hannah.”

Hannah left.

But I could, heh-heh. He wrote, “#8: The Woman in White.”

J
ackson Sprague, Mackenzie-Haack’s chief counsel, was having a pickup lunch with Robson Jolt and Barry Weiss, lawyers from the firm representing Mackenzie-Haack in the matter of Cindy Sella; and the D and D attorney next in standing to Jackson, Bryce Reams. Jackson rose from the conference table where they were eating their deli sandwiches and went to the aquarium installed against one wall.

“What the hell do you care? She’s the one who has to pay your fees.” This reference was to Cindy Sella. Robson had been talking about their eight-hundred-dollar-per-hour fee. Bryce Reams was not a fan of eight-hundred-dollar-per-hour fees. Neither was he a fan of the complaint against Cindy Sella. He thought the whole thing was a complete cock-up. He did not say this; he merely listened.

Jackson, wanting to project the image of a caring man, dropped a feather of fish food into the water, and both a blue tang and a discus fish went for it; the discus, a bully, won. The tank had been professionally installed and was professionally maintained. Rarely did Jackson pay any attention to it; it just hung there like a painting on the wall.

Jackson returned to the table and his panini. Lunch had come from a small place called Gourmet Gourmand and meaning neither, hence a good place for lawyers to get their takeaway food. Gourmet Gourmand was an overrated deli that specialized in sandwiches. But its paninis were quite good. Jackson was eating one made of mozzarella cheese, prosciutto, avocado, and various add-on condiments. Robson Jolt and Barry Weiss were carefully munching chicken salad. Bryce Reams was eating an Eskimo pie.

The sandwiches and ice cream had been procured by Bunny Fogg. Bunny was the sure-fingered stenographer who made the fifth person at the table; she had no sandwich. Barry Weiss, Jolt’s partner, said nothing but spent a lot of time adjusting the knot in his tie and taking notes in a handsome leather notebook.

Robson Jolt, a man no one would be tempted to call Robby or Rob, finished his sandwich. He then went on about post-discharged commissions and L. Bass Hess’s alleged right to said commissions.

“Why would that be the case, Robson, given the concomitant committal of both parties only insofar as the contract states that the Hess Agency would receive commissions on extensions of all agreements going forward?”

Bunny’s fingers hummed across her pad. She enjoyed taking dictation because she had to listen only to sounds, not meanings. She didn’t ask for words to be repeated, as she knew they wouldn’t make any more sense the second time around. She wrote what she heard, and her ear was a tuning fork.

“And don’t overlook,” said Robson Jolt, “the claim for promissory estoppel—”

“Which meets none of the criteria, including unambiguous promises,” Jackson Sprague went on as Bunny whisked her pencil across the page. If the word “estoppel” was a word in the English language, Bunny didn’t know, but she got it down right. These guys could vacuum up words better than any Hoover. She wondered if a bunch of lawyers talking was the source of the expression “bite the dust.”

Bunny would have loved to tell poor Cindy Sella that she was making a mistake in trying to understand the legal terminology. The words were never meant to be understood, only to intimidate. You could make out good plain words, such as “works” or “agency” or “time,” but they would immediately be set swimming in the torrent of legal babble that would sweep you downstream.

Bunny played a little piano, and during breaks in the legal exchange—such as the fish feeding—she would devise a musical bar and supply notes for phrases she especially liked, such as “concomitant committal,” and see where the notes led. She drew in five quarter notes, each rising
on the measure, then a couple of half notes, and sounded it out in her mind. She smiled. “Fascination.”

Deftly, she drew a musical bar to the tune of “It was fas-cin-A-tion, I know.”

Then she penciled in her own version in place of those words:

“Con-com-it-ant com-MIT-tal, I know . . .”

It passed the time and kept Bunny from drowning in nonwords.