Kill Fee Page 2

  A name immediately popped into his head: Fran Caffrey. Walsh smiled sheepishly; he'd been quick to suspect her simply because he didn't like her. Fran Caffrey was his fiction editor, and she was only twenty-six or -seven, young enough to be his daughter. She had this overly careful way of speaking to him, as if he were growing more senile by the day and she had to take extra pains to make sure he understood everything. But Fran did her job well; Walsh had no real reason to get rid of her. He'd always thought personal animosity a poor reason for firing a good worker, and he liked the feeling of fair-mindedness that attitude gave him.

  Just the same, he thought, she's the type to play I Spy for Jerry Sussman. Maybe he could get a friend in one of the publishing houses to offer her a job. Who owed him a favor?

  In the elevator a man stood on his foot. Walsh had to ask twice before he moved. On the street, two pushy young women crowded in front of him and took his taxi. As usual, he muttered under his breath when he was frustrated.

  As usual, it didn't do any good.

  CHAPTER

  2

  As if the Russian army had marched through barefoot.

  That's the way his mouth tasted. He'd first heard the phrase twenty years ago but hadn't 'fully appreciated it until now. The pounding in his head didn't help. He finished his Alka-Seltzer and wished he'd stayed at home.

  "Would you like me to repeat it for you?" Fran Caffrey asked.

  Don't get mad, Walsh told himself. "No thank you, dear, I managed to get it the first time."

  "My name's not 'dear,' Leon."

  He muttered to himself. Aloud: "Don't be so damned touchy, Fran."

  She made a noise of exasperation. "Will you listen to yourself? Now you're telling me how to be."

  Just what he needed. "You're making something out of nothing. All I said was 'dear.' "

  "I've never heard you call any of the men 'old buddy' or the like. The men in this office you treat with respect—whether they deserve it or not. But you treat the women with a kind of offhand familiarity that's just plain insulting. As if we were cute little performing dogs instead of professionals."

  Is that what had turned this intense young woman into an enemy? "I'm not a sexist, Fran." His head hurt.

  She laughed. "Why, Leon, you're one of the worst kinds! The kind who's convinced he's so open-minded he doesn't need to make any special effort to treat people fairly."

  An echo from the past that made him wince: his second wife had once said something of the sort. He certainly didn't intend to be discriminatory in the way he treated his staff. Why hadn't she said anything before? "Fran—are you feeding information from this office to Jerry Sussman?"

  She stared at him blankly. "What?"

  "Would you like me to repeat it for you?" he asked sarcastically, echoing her own words.

  "I heard what you said—I just don't know what you mean. Feeding information to him? Illicitly? Are we supposed to be keeping secrets from Mr. Sussman?"

  It was either a great act or Fran Caffrey honestly didn't know what he was talking about. "No, no—just forget I said anything. Now beat it, will you, Fran? I've got a hangover and I feel lousy."

  "All right," she said amiably enough, and left.

  Walsh dropped his head into his hands, elbows on the desk. He'd reacted to bad news like any manual laborer: when things get rough, go out and get drunk. He'd really tied one on the night before. Dumb. And how had he allowed himself to get trapped into that childish argument with Fran? He wasn't thinking clearly today.

  How could he, after yesterday? He never read the Wall Street Journal himself. But, oh my, he had a lot of "friends" who were quick enough to call the day before and tell him about that little item tucked away in the inside pages.

  He should have known something was up. He'd gone ahead and published the anti-electronics-industry story and Jerry Sussman hadn't said a word. That should have told him right there. Then Mueller Electronics withdrew its advertising, just as Sussman had predicted . . . and still he hadn't said anything.

  And Simple Simon congratulated himself on having won a victory, Walsh thought bitterly.

  Sussman had stopped coming around to Summit's editorial offices. At first Walsh had thought nothing of it; his partner had a business office elsewhere and Summit was only one of Sussman's "projects"—albeit his most important one. A year or so ago Sussman had acquired a bike-racing magazine, and rumor had it he was buying into one of the supermarket tabloids. Sussman was a busy man, driving himself with the kind of energy Walsh sometimes envied. So a prolonged absence of the majority owner wouldn't attract any particular notice.

  But then Walsh realized he hadn't seen Sussman at all since he'd published the electronics story. Count your blessings, he told himself nervously. Yet he couldn't help worrying; Sussman was not a man who tolerated opposition quietly. Walsh had called Sussman's office a couple of times. In conference, the secretary had said. Then the answer had appeared in yesterday's Wall Street Journal

  Suddenly Walsh had to get out of the office. It was too early for lunch, but he just couldn't sit there any longer. "I'll be back," he called to his secretary as he rushed by.

  "When?" she asked. "Where are you going?"

  He left without answering. Secretaries hated bosses who didn't keep them informed of their whereabouts, but this time they'd all have to plug along without him for a while.

  He'd vaguely had it-in mind that a hair of the dog was what was needed to cure his hangover. But the elevator's swift descent brought out the wave of nausea he'd managed to keep suppressed so far. Walk it off, he told himself.

  He turned left and headed uptown. The air was still nippy—it was April—and he had to move along at a fast pace to keep from getting cold. His near-jogging stride jarred his headache, and for some reason all of Sixth Avenue seemed to be permeated with the odor of frying onions that morning. Feeling worse, he hurried across Central Park South and went into the park. He veered off to the right, toward the Pond. Looked for a place to sit. Found it. Sat.

  After a while the throbbing in his head began to ease. And he seemed to have found a relatively odor-free corner of the city. He hadn't gone far enough into the park to escape the traffic noise—but the sound was muted, tolerable. He was chilly, sitting still; but the nippy air was starting to brace him up. He decided to live.

  To live, but not to go back to the office. No—he changed his mind immediately; that was cowardly. He shouldn't let his staff see how defeated he was. He shouldn't even have let Fran Caffrey see he was hung over. They all knew what was happening—they must know, it was in the paper. Yet no one had said a word to him, although they had to be talking about it among themselves. Other than that, it had been business as usual. Waiting for him to make the first move? Well, he'd made it. He'd run away.

  Leila. He wanted to talk to Leila. Needed to, had to talk to her. He got up and left the park, looking for a phone.

  Leila had been his second wife, the one he kept in touch with. She'd remarried after their divorce—a little too soon to please Walsh. He'd once tried to rekindle the flame. It had been a time he was in special need of comforting—another instance when Sussman had made his life miserable, come to think of it. So he'd gone to Leila.

  She'd turned him down flat. "You'd just love that, wouldn't you?" she'd said. "You'd like me to cheat on Jack with you—that'd make you the big man after all. Sorry, love. I'm not interested in making you feel big."

  They hadn't spoken for three months after that.

  But something had gone sour in the marriage to Jack; Leila was once again an unmarried woman and swearing to stay that way. For once she and Walsh were agreed: two marriages were enough. Leila and Leon didn't see each other often—lunch every month or so. It suited them.

  Walsh had to walk all the way to Columbus Circle before he found a phone that worked. He dialed the television production company where Leila worked.

  "Leon? How are you? Haven't heard from you for ages."

  He couldn't wait for the amenities. "Leila, Sussman is selling Summit."

  There was a small pause on the other end, and then she said cautiously, "Couldn't that be a good thing? You've been wanting to break with that man for years."

  "He's selling to UltraMedia."

  "Oh. Oh, my god. Oh, Leon—I'm so sorry!"

  As well she should be. UltraMedia Corporation was an ultrabuck conglomerate that had grown (astonishingly, to Walsh) out of a single acid-rock bimonthly that had been considered hot stuff back in the sixties. Now Ultra-Media had fingers in just about every aspect of pop entertainment—gossip magazines, music videos, record albums and tapes, TV production, a dozen other things Walsh couldn't even guess at. UltraMedia had pioneered the one-issue magazine. A personality would capture the public interest, and UltraMedia would put out a one-shot magazine devoted solely to that personality. They'd started off in the sixties with Jackie and Elvis and Liz and moved through the seventies with Farrah and Burt and Liz and into the eighties with Bo and Prince Charles and Liz. And that was the outfit that was buying Summit.

  "Maybe they've decided to go straight," Leila said wryly. "Do you know what their plans for Summit are? What does Sussman say?"

  "I haven't seen him for over a month. And he won't come to the phone. It's still in the negotiation stage, but the Wall Street Journal says they're close to an agreement. That's how I found out about it, Leila. From the goddam newspaper."

  "Sussman didn't tell you he was selling?" The astonishment in her voice was real, indignant.

  "No, he didn't tell me he was selling," Walsh said bitterly. "I'm only the minority owner—but I am his partner, damn it." Walsh knew why Sussman hadn't told him, but he didn't want to say so to Leila. Sussman was punishing him again. For being a naughty boy. "He should have let me know."

  Leila agreed. "Have you talked to anybody at Ultra-Media?"

  "No." He hadn't even thought of it.

  "Seems to me that's your next step. Jerry Sussman may be ashamed to face you, but the people at UltraMedia can hardly refuse to talk. Maybe you can find out what their plans are."

  "That's a possibility."

  Another pause. Then: "Leon—maybe UltraMedia won't interfere with Summit. You might end up just going on doing what you're already doing."

  "Hah."

  "No, listen—Summit's a major periodical, a paying proposition. Why would they want to meddle with a winning formula?"

  Walsh thought of Mueller Electronics. And a few others. "We've had a little advertiser attrition lately."

  "Oh. Well, I'm sorry to hear it. But they still might not want to change the magazine. Talk to them, Leon," she urged. "Find out what their plans are."

  Yes, that was what he should do. Find out from the enemy what his own partner wouldn't tell him.

  Rain pounded New York's streets and buildings for three days, the three days it took Walsh to set up an appointment with UltraMedia. Finally someone by the name of Hartley Dunlop agreed to meet him. What kind of name was that, Hartley Dunlop? Walsh didn't even know Dunlop's position in the firm. He supervised publications, the secretary had said. That could mean anything, Walsh muttered under his breath. What rank? Manager, vice president, department head? A supervisor, said the breathy, girlish voice on the phone.

  Through the secretary Walsh had invited Dunlop to come to the Summit offices; no dice. Then he'd tried for a meeting on neutral ground, a restaurant for lunch. That didn't work either. So Walsh was going to have to go into Dunlop's turf, hat in hand, begging for a crumb of information.

  He shouldn't be treated this way, Walsh told himself uncomfortably. Summit was his magazine, he'd created it out of nothing. And yet people he didn't even know were deciding the magazine's future. No one had consulted him, no one had asked his opinion. He'd never heard of doing business this way; simple courtesy dictated that at least a telephone call be made.

  UltraMedia's corporate headquarters were in Los Angeles (naturally), but there was a New York office, on Lexington. The rain was still pouring from a livid sky when the time for Walsh's appointment approached; he got water down the back of his neck as he bent to climb into the cab. Visibility was poor and the driver swore all the way during the short trip from Summit to Ultra-Media.

  UltraMedia's reception area looked like a set for a science fiction movie—colorful, futuristic, and boastfully plastic. Music from Jupiter filtered through invisible speakers. Walsh was directed through a tunnel of rotating lights (an ordinary hallway when the plug was pulled, he was sure) and emerged at the other end with a slight feeling of nausea. And waiting for him there—well, she was either a fashion model or a movie star or the Queen of Venus, at least. But no, it was only Hartley Dunlop's secretary—she of the breathy voice.

  She was an absolutely stunning young woman, and Walsh stared in open admiration. She noticed (in fact, she was waiting for it), and she gave him an open, sweet, professionally shy smile in return. "Mr. Walsh?" she whispered. "This way, please."

  She was an expensive-looking young woman: clothing, haircut, make-up—all reeked of money. Walsh followed her down another hallway and wondered how long it took her to get ready in the morning. But it was her personal style that was most disconcerting. Her manner was soft, friendly—but with just a touch of hesitation in it. As if she were saying: Here I am, a great beauty, but I'm still vulnerable. You won't hurt me, will you? Walsh didn't buy it, but it was obviously the pose UltraMedia liked in its female employees. He had half a notion to send Fran Caffrey over here on an errand so she'd see how well off she was at Summit.

  Having found a reason to feel superior, Walsh was able to enter Hartley Dunlop's office in a fairly self-confident mood. But that good feeling began to evaporate the second he caught sight of his new surroundings. From a science fiction set he had stepped into one of those display rooms of fine period furnishings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His own office was a paper chase: desk and work tables piled high with manuscripts, galleys, layout pages, paste-up boards, all the accouterments of putting together a magazine. It was a working office. This, on the other hand, was the office of a man who sat in luxury and thought big thoughts, made big plans—which others would implement at the flick of a finger.

  Walsh sat down gingerly on a Louis Somethingth chair and stared at an ornate tapestry on the opposite wall. Miss Vulnerable Beauty whispered something in his direction and disappeared through a door. This wasn't even the inner office. This was an audience hall where the King entertained petitions from the peasantry.

  Hartley Dunlop came in; Walsh found himself standing up to meet . . . a little boy.

  Well, he looked like a little boy. He had to be in his twenties, but he appeared even younger than that. Clean, all-American features; dark hair in an ostentatiously youthful cut—he would have looked at home in a Boy Scout uniform. But Dunlop's "uniform" came from Savile Row; the expensive clothing and his half-closed eyes gave him an effete air, a poise far beyond his years. "I'm Hartley Dunlop, Mr. Walsh. Let's sit over here, shall we? So much more comfortable than those." He dismissed the Louis Somethingth chairs with a graceful wave of his hand.

  Walsh lowered himself on to the indicated settee and found himself staring at Dunlop's suit, wondering if UltraMedia gave its people a clothing allowance. He sat admiring Dunlop's tailoring until Dunlop asked what he could do for him.

  Walsh roused himself and said, "You can tell me what the hell is going on. Why do I have to read in the newspaper that you're buying my magazine?"

  Dunlop tilted his head back and looked at Walsh through his eyelashes—easier, Walsh supposed, than opening his eyes all the way. "I would have thought your partner had kept you informed," Dunlop said.

  "Do you know Jerry Sussman?"

  "We've met, yes."

  "Then that's your answer—you know the kind of man he is. He's been negotiating with UltraMedia behind my back—and you know it."

  "Do I?" Dark eyebrows raised a fraction. "What goes on between you and Mr. Sussman is not our concern."

  He wasn't getting anywhere. "Look," Walsh said, "I've been in the magazine business longer than you've been alive. There's no way you can understand what creating your own magazine means. I did donkey work in periodicals you never heard of, and then twelve years ago I started Summit—from nothing I started it. Sussman came along with the money when I needed it, but I built the magazine. And yet you don't even bother to consult me when you negotiate a purchase?"

  "Mr. Sussman is the majority shareholder. He's the one we'd have to deal with in any event."

  "Damn it, Dunlop, that's not what I'm talking about! I'm talking about just plain good manners. How can you think of buying a magazine and not talk to the editor? You should have consulted me. UltraMedia is way out of line."

  "Well." Dunlop crossed one impeccably tailored knee over the other. "I'm sorry you feel that way." Not exactly an apology.

  "How the hell should I feel? My life is being manipulated by strangers and nobody bothers to tell me—that's supposed to make me feel good?"

  Dunlop spread his hands, made no comment; the effect was to make Walsh feel he was behaving in a tacky and self-pitying way. Get a grip on yourself, he thought. It was the age of his adversary that was throwing him off stride. Walsh should be calling him "son" and teaching him the rudiments of the business. Instead . . .

  Instead, this twerp had one-upped him from the moment he walked into the room. And how had he done it? Just by being there, in that office, in that corporation. By sitting quietly while Walsh ranted and complained about being left out. By being in.

  Walsh made the effort to assume a posture of dignity and speak in a level voice. "Summit is totally different from your other publications—I can't see how it fits into UltraMedia's corporate image. I need to know what your plans for the magazine are. My staff has a right to be kept informed."

  "Ah." Dunlop played here's-the-church-and-here's-the-steeple with his hands. "It would be inappropriate for me to detail our plans before the sale is final—but I do understand your position." He smiled to show how understanding he was. "I can give you an idea of the general thrust we have in mind. We'd like to see Summit concern itself with issues and writers that people are interested in right now."