Ellipsis Read online

  “I know Eleanor Colbert, too. She’s a nice girl, isn’t she?”

  “She’s all right,” Violet said carefully.

  “Is she your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you go play at her house sometimes?”

  “No.”

  “Does Eleanor play over here?”

  “No.”

  I knew better but I couldn’t help myself. “Why not?”

  “She’s too messy.” Violet glanced at the sunroom door. “You better go in, or Mommy will be mad.”

  “Does Mommy get mad very often?”

  “Mommy gets mad every day,” she said with journalistic precision, then strolled down the hall with her nanny, heading for the stairway that would take her away from me and from her mommy’s moods and into a world much closer to heaven. Eleanor Colbert was messy, huh? I needed to have a talk with her mother.

  As I watched Violet hop her way up the stairs, Lark McLaren poked her head out the door and motioned for me to join her. After I gulped back my reservations, I did as I was told.

  The room was large and rectangular, with an entire wall of leaded windows bisected by a set of French doors. Another wall was a fireplace, and the third and fourth were shelves containing everything from books and magazines to photographs and bite-sized arts and crafts. Some of the books looked rare; most of the photographs looked new; all of the art looked expensive. A tawny cowhide couch faced a giant stone fireplace that blazed tastefully and soundlessly, indicating the logs on the andirons weren’t real. A leather-covered library table backed up to one section of the bookshelves supported a computer, printer, fax machine, and telephone console, an array of multimedia weaponry potent enough to direct-dial Pluto or e-mail the pope.

  Sitting behind the Queen Anne desk was the woman I had been summoned to see. She wore a black cashmere cardigan sweater over a white silk camisole, a double strand of perfect pearls, rings on at least four of her fingers, and an expression that was a mix of impatience and curiosity. Beneath her auburn hair, her face was as serene and imperial as a courtesan’s—without uttering a word, she seemed aristocratic and omnipotent, elegant and expert, certain of her aims and of her ability of achieve them, hobbled by neither doubt nor etiquette. I paid her a silent tribute. I hadn’t possessed as much self-confidence for one minute of my entire life.

  She gestured toward a white slipcovered chair that was draped with a colorful afghan and positioned in front of the desk. “Please sit down, Mr. Tanner.”

  “Thank you.” Unlike poor Karla Sundstrom, I was comfortable the second my butt hit the cushion.

  “May I offer you a refreshment?”

  I started to politely decline, then figured what the hell. “Beer, if you have it.”

  “I have pilsner and lager, both imported.”

  “I’ll take the pilsner.”

  “Lark?”

  Lark McLaren picked up the phone on the table at the end of the couch, pressed a black button, and whispered my order with the hush of a state secret. When I looked back at Chandelier Wells, she was inspecting me the way she would inspect a royalty statement.

  “I assume Karla Sundstrom has told you what this unfortunate circumstance is all about,” she began in a cultivated voice that was both melodic and hypnotic. She hadn’t the slightest doubt that Karla had done just that.

  “In outline, but not in detail,” I confirmed.

  “That will come later.”

  “Fine.”

  “Assuming you are available to assist me immediately.”

  “I can be.”

  “Good. Have you done this type of work before?”

  “Not precisely.”

  Her expression firmed from frustration; she wasn’t used to people who nitpicked or lacked enthusiasm and she had trouble knowing how to react to the combination. “But I understood you are accustomed to violence and to subduing the people who commit it.”

  “Only psychopaths are accustomed to violence, Ms. Wells. But I run into it from time to time. When I haven’t been able to get out of the way.”

  She pursed her lips and nodded, apparently believing she had won a battle only she was fighting.

  A tap on the door brought my beer, courtesy of a young Hispanic who looked enough like Violet’s nanny to be her offspring. He placed the beer on the corner of the desk, then bowed and retreated, all without saying a word. His servility made me wince. As an antidote, I took a sip of beer. In its frosty mug and with minimal head, it was as cold as beer gets without freezing.

  “Perhaps I should outline the arrangement I have in mind,” Ms. Wells was saying officiously.

  “I read the contract Ms. Sundstrom drew up.”

  “Contracts seldom tell the whole story.”

  “I suppose they’d call them novels if they did that.”

  My lurch toward literacy provoked a frown. She leaned back in her chair the way I do when the positions are reversed and I’m the one being courted.

  Her voice was a strong contralto, her hair was carefully coiffed in a ragged fringe at her neck, her lips were precisely defined with crimson, her cheeks were rosy with blush, and her eyes seemed to be augmented by a set of tinted contact lenses. When she relaxed, Chandelier Wells was far more attractive than in her pictures in the paper, but when she didn’t, she wasn’t.

  “Let me tell you a little about my situation, Mr. Tanner,” she said after a moment. “My professional situation, that is.”

  “You think the threats were provoked by your writing?”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  “That’s a bit premature, isn’t it?”

  Her smile was condescending and maternal. “As I was saying, when I begin to write a book, I lock myself up in this house for three months. No trips abroad, no cocktail parties or gallery openings, no plays or concerts or charity balls. I write fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, till it’s done. When I’ve finished the book, I send it off to my editor, then go out to promote my last one, which according to plan is just being released. I spend four months on promotion, then four months relaxing, then a month of research on my next book, which I’ve been conceiving and structuring in my mind the whole time, then three more months in seclusion in my study, writing the next magnum opus. I’ve followed that schedule for twelve years.”

  “How did you work before that?” I asked, but only because I was curious.

  “Before that, I wrote four books in a year and the only place I relaxed was the bathtub. Thankfully I don’t have to live that way.”

  “I don’t either,” I said. “But not for the same reason.”

  Her eyes narrowed with yet another tic of annoyance. “If you go to work for me, I’ll require your total attention and effort, Mr. Tanner.”

  “You’ll get it, Ms. Wells. Just like all my clients.”

  “Good.”

  “So where are we in this schedule of yours?”

  “I’ve just finished a book. It’s called Ship Shape. Next week I’ll send it off to New York. Tomorrow afternoon is my launch party for the last one—it’s called Shalloon, if you’re interested. The next four days are readings and signings at local stores, plus media appearances and chat-room stuff, then I’m off to L.A. and environs, then up to Seattle and Portland, then off to the East Coast to do national television, then the Midwest and South, then back here for a rest in the middle of next month before I set off again for the second tier.”

  “Second tier?”

  “The smaller cities. Reno, Wichita, Des Moines, Columbus. Twenty-eight in all. Actually, I tend to draw larger crowds in the smaller cities than I do in the big ones.”

  “Less competition, I imagine.”

  She scowled. “I prefer to think it has to do with taste—that readers in the hinterlands are less prone to the winds of intellectual incest and political correctness that prevail in more metropolitan areas.”

  “Could be,” I said, to be agreeable. “Or maybe they’re just bored.”

  Chandelier
looked out the windows at the ancient cypress trees that bordered a backyard that fell away toward the bay like a ski slope. “They hate me, of course,” she murmured in a non sequitur.

  “Who? The folks in Des Moines?”

  She shook her head. “The aesthetes, I call them. The reviewers in The New York Times and their ilk in Chicago and L.A. and the newsmagazines. Mostly male, of course. But not all, sad to say. They flatter themselves that they’re the literary vanguard, entitled by birth and education to dictate the reading habits of the country. To them I’m a joke, an insult to their impeccable taste, but what I really am is proof of their impotence. I sell a hundred times more units than their precious geniuses do, and they can neither understand nor acknowledge it. Deep down, they would prefer that I stop writing, but what they really don’t get is that at this point they are what keeps me going. And the fans, of course.” Her eyes grew as moist as fresh melons. “My fans are wonderful, Mr. Tanner. Truly. They send me the most amazing gifts, handcrafted work of immense skill and even greater hours of labor and of love. I’m humbled by it. Truly.”

  “Except that one of them sent you a death threat.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “Not a fan. Never.”

  “Then who?”

  “I don’t know. If I did, you wouldn’t be here.”

  She looked out over the grounds, as if to confirm her fortress was still impregnable. “Tell me about them,” I said to her back. “The threats, not the fans.”

  She waved away my request as a nuisance. “Lark will take care of that.”

  “Do you have any idea at all who might want to harm you?”

  She spun back toward me with vigor, the antique chair squeaking under the centrifugal strain. “I have several suspects in mind, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to narrow down the list myself. Lark can give you those names as well. It is a sobering thought when the list of people who want you done away with approaches double digits.”

  Before I could comment, she shrugged off the circumstance and looked at her watch. “Now you really must excuse me. The Sacramento Bee is calling for an interview at nine, then I’m on-line with AOL for an hour, then I have books to sign for my media people, then I need to review my notes for my talk after the readings. If you need anything at all, Lark is the one to talk to.”

  She pushed back her chair and stood up. When I did the same, I noted she was nearly as tall as I was.

  She came to my side and put her hand on my arm in the only affectionate gesture I would ever see her make. “I find you a satisfactory choice as my guardian angel, Mr. Tanner. If it’s agreeable to you to take on the task of my protection, you should be here at four tomorrow. We go to the launch party, then to dinner afterward with my editor and publicist and agent. It shouldn’t be a long night—we’ve done this, let’s see, twelve times in the past ten years. We’re getting pretty good at it.”

  “What about here at the house?” I asked quickly. “Don’t you need someone on duty while you’re home? If you’d be uncomfortable with me clomping around, I know a woman who would be perfect for—”

  Chandelier shook her head. “This house has the best security system money can buy. Primarily to guard the valuables, of course, but to safeguard my work in progress as well. Also, one member of my staff is a former FBI agent who has been trained in weaponry and counterintelligence. For various reasons he is not amenable to public appearances. You need only report for duty when I’m going out—Lark will provide you with a schedule. Do we have a deal, Mr. Tanner?”

  Prodded primarily by my debt to Millicent Colbert, I stemmed an urge to abstain. “Yes, we do.”

  “Good. I assume you’ve signed Karla’s contract.”

  I nodded.

  “I will sign it this evening as well, and you’ll get a confirmed copy tomorrow. In the meantime, Lark will make arrangements for payment of a small advance, just to get things going.”

  “Thanks.”

  She took two steps toward the door, then turned back. “Have you ever read one of my books, Mr. Tanner?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Do you plan to?”

  “I don’t know. Is it a requirement of the job?”

  “Not at all. But you might enjoy it. They’re not nearly as bad as you’ve heard.”

  Chapter 3

  Lark and I looked at each other, then sighed and smiled simultaneously. The tension in the room had dropped by a factor of five.

  “Quite a woman,” I said.

  “Definitely.”

  “Tough boss?”

  “At times.”

  “Good pay though, probably.”

  She shrugged. “Good enough. For now.”

  “What did you do before this?”

  “Editor.” She blushed. “Well, editorial assistant.”

  “Where?”

  “New York. Madison House. Chandelier’s publisher.”

  “How long have you been on staff with Ms. Wells?”

  She squirmed uncomfortably. “This is beginning to sound like you’re interrogating me. Are you?”

  I grinned. “Sure.”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “Not yet.”

  “If I wanted to do something to Chandelier, I’d just …”

  “What?”

  Her back straightened and her nerve firmed. “Never mind. I’ve been on Chandelier’s staff almost four years.”

  “You edit her work?”

  She hesitated. “I read it and tell her what she wants to hear.”

  “Which is what?”

  “That it’s her best book ever.”

  “Is that a genuine response?”

  Her smile was thin and resigned, as though it answered a question she’d asked herself too many times. “No comment.”

  “Do you want to be a writer yourself?”

  She chuckled without amusement. “Not anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “If you hang around here very long, you’ll know.”

  I walked to the couch and took a seat beside her. “Okay, Ms. McLaren. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Why am I here?”

  “That’s easy.”

  She stood up, walked to the bookcase nearest the desk, swung open a hinged panel disguised as a matched set of Thackeray, opened the wall safe that was secreted behind the panel, extracted a manila folder, and brought it to me. I opened the folder and looked at the contents. Six sheets of white bond paper were inside, each sheet protected by a transparent plastic sleeve and each containing a message, handwritten in black block print with a Magic Marker or a Sharpie. All six messages were essentially the same as the one on top: IF YOU DON’T STOP, YOU WILL DIE!

  I put the sheets back in the folder and looked at Lark. “I don’t suppose it’s as simple as she’s poached the property of an irate wife. Or husband, for that matter.”

  She shook her head. “Nothing like that, I’m sure. Chandelier dates quite a lot when she’s not writing, but she doesn’t date married men.” She grinned. “Or women. Chandelier is relentlessly heterosexual, if it makes any difference.”

  “It usually doesn’t.” I gestured toward the notes. “I take it you provided the plastic.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have the sheets been dusted for prints?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the cops are in on this?”

  She shook her head. “The testing was done privately by an independent forensics lab in Sacramento. At this point, the authorities have not been consulted about anything. I’m sure Chandelier wants to keep it that way.”

  “Why?”

  Lark took a deep breath. “For years, Chandelier was both unhappy and unpublished. Her marriage was a mess, her first book didn’t sell, she weighed well over two hundred pounds, she couldn’t have children, and she couldn’t afford to do what you have to do to make a splash in the business, such as hire a publicity person, mail out expensive promotional materials, and travel to stores and book conventions all over the cou
ntry. But she saved her pennies and made a plan and slowly but surely it worked. She got where she is by taking total control of her life, both professionally and personally. As much as is humanly possible, nothing happens in Chandelier’s world unless she wants it to. Among other things, she has created a marvelously potent image of herself. She feels if the police are brought in, if she’s seen as incapable of responding to and resolving a crisis in her life, she’ll risk undermining that image to a degree. At this point, she’s not willing to take that chance.”

  I’d heard Baptist sermons less fervent. Clearly Lark looked on Ms. Wells as something more than a boss. “If these notes are serious and someone takes a pop at her,” I said easily, “she’ll wish she hadn’t been so worried about image.”

  “At that point, if it comes, I’m sure she’ll do the sensible thing and inform the police. In the meantime, we’re hoping you can put the matter to rest unofficially.”

  I didn’t bother to temper her tribute to my expertise. “When did the first note show up?”

  “Three weeks ago.”

  “How?”

  “In the mailbox. In an envelope. But not postmarked so not mailed.”

  “The writer wants her to stop something. Stop what?”

  “Writing, I assume.”

  “Why would her writing put someone on edge?”

  “I’m not sure, but she sets all of her books in a realistic context. Shalloon is about fraud in the cosmetics industry—substituting cheap imitations for the real thing. Shalloon is the name of the fictitious perfume in the book. The novel she’s just finished is called Ship Shape. It takes place on a luxury cruise where the sponsors prey on customers both physically and financially.”

  “These books are based on actual practices in those industries?”

  “By some companies. Yes.”

  “Have there been any repercussions from outraged corporate flacks or their counsel?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “What’s she working on next?”

  Lark shook her head. “I don’t know. She probably doesn’t either. I never know till she’s finished the first draft. No one does.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes.”