Dead Men Don't Blog: A John Ray Mystery - Chapter 9

There was a rabbity little rise to her upper lip when she smiled that revealed front teeth too white to not have been bleached. Her eyes were round, dark, and wet-looking, almost like a meerkat. But she didn't have that hungry look like her namesake. No, there was something polished and hard about her, like a librarian ticking up a late fee. I'll confess, this new Elinor Dashwood caught me slightly off guard. I make a modest little hobby of not getting caught off guard, so I hoped it didn't show.

"Call me Jack," I said. I frisbeed my hat onto the coat tree hook and sat down at my desk. The window behind me was cracked open two fingers and the scent of city morning cool almost seemed sweet. The bourbon I'd drunk had apparently slipped on a pair of boots and was trying to kick its way out of my skull just above my left eye.

"I know you're a busy man, Mr. Ray, so I hope you don't mind if I get right to the point."

"Don't mind at all, Sweetness. Shoot."

"Mr. Ray—"

"Jack."

She smiled but it wasn't a nice smile.

"Mr. Ray, I'd like to offer you professional representation."

"Thanks, Elinor, but I have a lawyer."

"I run a boutique literary agency, Mr. Ray."

"Ah. How nice for you."

"Yes, it is."

"So what does a 'boutique literary agency' do? Try to make poets look presentable? Good luck."

"Mr. Ray, I'm interested in serious writing by talented authors."

"Have you checked the library?"

She frowned and looked at the things on my desk: a cheap blotter, an ashtray, a calendar book, a little caddy of cigarettes, and a dinged up lamp. I leaned back in my chair and added my feet to the inventory.

"Mr. Ray, have I offended you in some way?"

"Not yet, Sugar. But I expect it's just a matter of time."

"Thin-skinned as all that?"

"Just wary, Dollface. And weary, I guess you could say. I've been running up against a lot of Elinor Dashwoods these days."

"I beg your pardon?" She looked genuinely confused. I liked that.

"Angel, you've either got an impersonator running around out there, or you're one. I don't know for sure, and I don't really care at this point."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I and I'm hoping to keep it that way. That's not my usual angle, occupational hazard being what it is, but my spidey sense is telling me right now that the white thing to do is to hang dumb and let all this drift."

"You don't know who I am?"

"I don't know hell's first whisper about you. And you plainly don't know ditto about me, so can the corn."

"Why do you talk like that?" she said.

"It's not me, Sister. Thom Palmer is writing this dialogue. Like you didn't know."

She glanced quickly through the Fourth Wall and then turned back to me, blushing, and buttoned up one of the buttons on her blouse. I felt bad for her, but not too bad.

"Mr. Ray, I want to publish your novel The Riders."

"Who doesn't?"

"Max Vox doesn't," she said.

"You're sure about that?"

"Very sure."

I put my feet on the floor at looked at her square.

"Sorry, Pumpkin, but I'm afraid you're wrong."

 "How do you know that I'm wrong, Mr. Ray."

"Come again?"

"If you don't know who I am, how do you know what I said was wrong?"

"I know you used to work for Max Vox," I said.

"All the more reason that you should believe what I'm telling you then."

"Or all the more reason to distrust you. Max has already scored me a deal."

"Really? You've seen the paperwork?" she said.

"Yep. Saw it this morning."

Her head did a little bob, like she was enjoying a silent laugh. She smoothed her hands over the lap of her trousers and then crossed her legs.

"You've overplayed your hand, Mr. Ray."

"Did I?"

"First of all," she sighed, "if you legitimately had such a thing, you would not have told me so. Second… well, as you pointed out, I used to work for Max."

"Which means what?" I took a Pall Mall from the cigarette caddy and offered her one. She recoiled and made a face like I'd just asked her to read Ayn Rand. I snicked a match head with my thumbnail and lit it.

"I can't say," she said.

"That's your pitch?"

"I would have both our best interests in mind, Mr. Ray. Particularly in light of your history with Max Vox, would you genuinely believe him if he said or promised the same?"

"No," I said, shaping the ash of my cigarette in the tray. "But at least I have a history with Max. He knows his onions. What do you know?"

"Again," and again she sighed, "I can't say."

I shrugged. "More of that. Can't say? Or won't?"

"Can't, Mr. Ray. I used to work for him. I signed a non-disclosure agreement. If I talked about anything said or that transpired during my employment there, Max will bring the legal wrath of a hundred Scott Turows down on my agency overnight."

"Okay, so you've got an NDA. But you didn't sign a non-compete agreement? What gives?"

"Oh, I signed a non-compete as well, of course. But The Dashwood Agency is not a competitor. Technically, Vye is a bookseller, not an agency."

"What did you say?"

"I said, Vye, V-I-I, Vox Ink, Inc., is technically a bookseller."

I sat there in a haze of smoke staring at the Dashwood dame and thinking hard. The morning was clouding over now and my office had grown dim. There was a floor lamp next to my filing cabinet, and I got up and switched it on. The light picked out a few golden grace notes in her blond hair as well as a few lines around her eyes that I hadn't noticed before. I leaned against the front of my desk and folded my arms.

"Okay," I said, taking a softer tone, like I wanted to play nice now. "You're right. Max made me a proposition, that's all. Just dangled a little bait to see if I'd go Pavlovian. But why should I think I'd do any better teaming up with you? You think you can go up against Max Vox and come out jake?"

She looked up at me. "You let me worry about Max Vox."

"Max is a lot to worry about, Angel," I said. "It seems like the more people involved in that activity, the better. Take my word for it."

"I can handle him." She smiled. It was the first smile out of her that seemed real but still not very comforting: the smile of someone who thinks she's just come up with a better ending to your story than the one you wrote. The smile of someone who thinks she has you all figured out.

I was happy to let her think that. I smiled back.

Next: A very unpleasant surprise