Dead Men Don't Blog: A John Ray Mystery - Chapter 8

As soon as I hit the sidewalk outside of the Café Denouement, I tumbled into the backseat of the first cab I saw. The driver wore a turban and a large beard, and he was playing a CD that sounded like several different high-strung women taking turns screaming at each other. I gave him my address and a fin to turn off the racket.

The bourbon left a sour taste in my mouth and burned in the pit of my stomach. But the last thirty-six hours all told left me with a sicker feeling. I had to wonder how minding my own business and keeping my nose clean, as I'd been doing for more years than I could count, had suddenly put me in the middle of two people trying to settle each other's hash. That was the problem with this rummy business. It sucked the heart of you, mashed it into a paste, stamped dollar signs all over it and then told you to add more dialogue if you wanted it to sell.

But I'd walked away from all that and I wasn't going to double back or second guess. Sure, I'd given myself a moment or two to ask what if… I wasn't made of stone. Like I told Eustacia Vye a/k/a Elinor Dashwood, I had an ego. But I'd learned my lessons long ago.

I took the steps to my apartment two at a time. Everything looked the way I'd left it that morning, still in disarray from the previous night's intruder. I went to the credenza and examined the floor around the legs. There were faint marks in the hardwood, but I couldn't tell if any of them were recent. I lifted the right end and swiveled it out.

Everything looked normal. The credenza had a false back, and I opened a penknife and undid the screws. The "package" was there, wrapped in brown paper and still taped it place. I ripped it free, reattached the back panel, and replaced the credenza back against the wall. Then I went down the building's back stairs, down an alley, through the lobby of an adjacent building, and hailed another cab to take me to my office. Somehow, I managed to get the same driver. He grinned at me in the mirror and turned up the volume.

Our elevator operator, Jimmy, a fresh-faced kid who had a grin as big as a billboard, like he'd just sold his first New Yorker casual, closed the cage behind me and propelled us skyward.

"Howya doin' today, Mr. R.?"

"Okay so far, Jimmy. Lana in yet?"

"Yeah, she got in about a half-hour ago. Another lady just came in for you, too."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yep. A real looker!"

I thanked him and said I'd consider myself warned. I tipped him a Chesterfield.

"For your break later," I told him. "Just don't inhale, Jimmy. It'll kill ya'."

Lana Lane had been my secretary for three years and I didn't like to think about what I would do when she finally moved on to bigger and better things. She was a petite, full-lipped showstopper with a great, wavy, tawny mane and an eye for misplaced modifiers that would have made William Strunk dribble in his blue book. I trusted her like Eliot trusted Pound.

Lana could probably do my job better than I could, and I knew it. But she believed that the stultifying pallor of technical hack work would bleach the color from her evolving writer's voice, and I couldn't disagree with her. I paid her to proofread my copy and juggle my QuickBooks five days a week, and when she'd finished those tasks, she spent the rest of her time working on her novel and querying agents. I considered it my contribution to the arts.

I was quiet with the office door, knowing Lana would have directed Miss Dashwood into my office to wait for me, and I didn't want to announce my arrival to her just yet. Lana was at her desk in the outer office staring at her flat-screen.

 "Good morning, Angel," I mouthed silently.

Lana looked at me overtop of the frames of her readers and cocked her head toward the frosted glass door of my office. I nodded and winked. She slid a business card toward me across the desk. "The Dashwood Agency," it said. "Elinor Dashwood, Principal," it said. Raised black lettering. Bembo. (I've got a weak spot for typefaces.) Classy. I wondered why she hadn't left a card with me at our earlier encounters. Maybe she'd just gotten them printed. I wouldn't be surprised. Everything else about this gig seemed fly-by-night so far.

I opened the deep drawer of Lana's desk, put the package in there, and gave her a little twist of the wrist motion. She extracted her desk key, hanging on the end of a chain, from her deep and meaningful cleavage, and locked the drawer.

I opened and closed the office door again, this time audibly, to let my visitor know that I'd arrived. I could have burst in if I'd have thought our Miss Dashwood was taking this opportunity to snoop around. But after last night, I wanted her to think that the impromptu little love lyric on which we collaborated had transformed my suspicions into ardor, and I didn't want to put her on the defensive again.

"Gooood morning, Angel," I said. "Did you have a good afternoon off yesterday?"

"I did," she said brightly. "Just what the doctor ordered. How were things here?"

"Actually, I had an interesting afternoon. I'll have to tell you about it later. What's on the schedule?" I offered her a piece of the Teaberry and she took it.

"You've got a conference call at 11. And there is a Miss Elinor Dashwood in your office waiting to see you."

"Thanks, Doll. Hold my calls."

She was sitting in the chair across from my desk when I opened the door, a briefcase on the floor next to her. She stood and turned. She was wearing a pricey looking pair of worsted wool trousers with a very wide flair at the bottom and she looked good in them. She had on a short herringbone jacket with three-quarters sleeves over a tailored white shirt, the top three buttons open.

"Good morning, Mr. Ray," she said. "I'm Elinor Dashwood."

And I'd never seen this dame before in my life.

Next: The second Miss Dashwood's proposition.