Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

Tharp’s cocky smile became both gentle and bitter. “Would you buy Indigo Atwill? Two hundred thousand historical romance readers did. Maeve Michaels? Sean Owen, then? Kevin Gill? How about Owen James and Jesse Wister? It’s bad strategy to use the second half of the alphabet for an author’s last name, but I have an affinity for bad strategy. I see, Lieutenant, that none of my aliases rings a bell—good for my continuing freedom but bad for my writing career. No wonder I’m out here in limbo while the sainted Lanyard Hunter, who under his own name sat out three years in Joliet, basks in the adjacent limelight.”

“Are you saying Hunter has a record?”

“I’m not saying anything. I am merely venting a bit of authorial bile. I presume that an autopsy of the late lamented Mr. Royal has returned a verdict of death by unnatural adventure?”

Molina regarded the writer with polite wonder until the man shook his head as if emerging from a mental fog. The black cat, unacknowledged and perhaps miffed, stalked behind the pillar and vanished. Temple hoped he was heading back to the storeroom like a good kitty.

“Sorry.” Tharp offered a final head-clearing shake and a wry smile not without charm. “I was talking like a character out of Agatha Christie, wasn’t I? I’m a natural mimic. My personal, as well as my literary style adapts to suit the subject matter. How can I help you, Lieutenant?”

“If you didn’t work for the late Mr. Royal, how would you describe your relationship?”

“I wrote books; he bought ’em. I could always churn something out when one of his prima donnas was overdue. Or when one of theirs required a complete rewrite. I was Royal’s safety net. He could always take my stuff and ram it through with just some copy-editing.’ Course, that wasn’t enough for Pennyroyal Press to pull me out of third-lead position or onto the best-seller list.”

“Lorna Fennick said you were one of the imprint’s bestselling authors,” Temple put in.

Owen/Tharp/Gill/Michaels/Et cetera regarded her pityingly. “High production. None of my titles sold that much, but I sold ’em a lot of my titles. It adds up. But the big-buck advances, the sure thing, no, that’s never been my role.”

“I’m puzzled,” Molina began, surprising Temple, who’d never expected to hear her admit any such problem. “You say the other authors turned in unpublishable work? Not big sellers like Hunter and Davis, surely?”

Tharp snorted with gusto. “Are you kidding? They were the worst of the wimps. Look, I’m a writer. Day in, day out; trends in, trends out. In the late sixties I wrote Gothics; in the seventies it was historical romance; the eighties were Westerns and male adventure, and horror; now I’ve hit this medical gore vein, excuse the expression, and at least Owen Tharp earns some royalties even. But Hunter, he’s a medical con man, an obsessive, if you wanta know the truth. Sure, he knows the underbelly of a hospital, but pacing, story, structure—phooey! And Davis is just a Kankakee nurse with a weird sense of horror who wrote this strange little book which somehow found its way to the Pennyroyal slush pile and, bingo, she’s a star. Editors always like writers they can remake better than ones they have to take as is, because they know what they’re doing.”

“Slush pile?” Molina inquired faintly.

Temple was feeling beneficent. “Unsolicited manuscripts, sent without benefit of agent or introduction. Some best-sellers have been plucked from the slush pile—”

“And a few million haven’t,” Tharp finished.

“How long have you been in Las Vegas, Mr. Tharp?”

“Lieutenant. Lieutenant.” He looked down. He looked up. The only place he didn’t look was at the thick, twisting line of Lanyard Hunter fans, all bookstore owners likely to order mega-amounts of the new fall title. “I’ve been here since Tuesday. I like to play the slot machines and a little craps. I coulda killed Chester, easy. Anybody could have, that late and that lonely. But I didn’t. Without Pennyroyal Press, I wouldn’t have the modicum of success I do; I’d be writing porn or Ninja Turtle novelettes. He never axed my stuff, wasn’t any fun in it. He never owned me enough to push me to the top. It was a comfortable arrangement for us both.”

“Now that he’s gone, you might be given first-title status.”

“Lead title, it’s called. No, it doesn’t work that way. Now he’s gone, the whole imprint could be cannibalized and I could be out a gravy train. I had no reason to dust the dude, honest.”

Molina remained silent but skeptical.

“Oops, I’m sounding like Sam Spade or something. Sorry. Habit. Anything more?”

“Not for now.”

“Good. I’m gonna hit the slots. The odds are better there.”

Tharp pushed off the pillar he’d been upholding and melded with the crowd. Temple regarded Molina expectantly.

“Thanks for the tour,” the detective said absently. “I’m going to have a long talk with Hunter about his white-coated past as soon as the signing is over.”