Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

Temple gulped diet orange soda that tasted like a chemically addicted tangerine. She could hardly believe her sympathetic ears. Even Temple knew that having a literary agent in a tiny Minnesota town made as much sense as having a film agent in Nome, Alaska.

“Is he here, at the ABA?”

“I guess so.” Mavis’s seesaw voice wavered into a low range. “I haven’t seen him,” she admitted. “I don’t want to see him! According to what my new representatives are saying, it’s clear to me that... now you mustn’t tell a soul”—Temple shook her head so vigorously her glasses did a bebop on the bridge of her nose—“my ex-agent wasn’t exactly doing his best to see that I got what I deserved. Mr. Royal’s old friend was... behind the times.” Mavis’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not pleased about it.”

And would be even less so later, Temple guessed, when Mavis began to grasp the extent of her editorial enslavement. Or was this just an act? Hell hath no fury—or guile—like a writer ripped off.

“Mavis,” she began carefully, “I need to make sure that Lieutenant Molina is aware of all the people connected to Chester Royal who are at the ABA. What’s this man’s name?”

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” Mavis said, waffling.

Temple stifled an impulse to point out that she’d just admitted the man had stolen her blind. “You’ll get in trouble if you’re not forthcoming to Lieutenant Molina, and I’ll get in trouble if the lieutenant finds out there were some facts I overlooked mentioning.”

“You don’t think he... iced”—this was intoned with great drama and a surprising amount of relish—“Mr. Royal?”

“I don’t think he even flushed him, but I need to know his name.”

“Earnest Jaspar—with two e’s and three a’s. But I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him all ABA.”

Temple smiled. “Right now I’d say that’s a lucky thing for Mr. Jaspar.”

“Yes, it is. I’m not a violent woman, Miss Barr,” Mavis said mildly, “but I do think I’d be tempted to, to—trip Mr. Jaspar if I saw him now.”

“Heaven forbid.”

Mavis looked down at the orange drink can as if she were reading her fortune in its gaudy contours. “You know, I’m beginning to realize that Mr. Royal had some old-fashioned ideas. Styx—that’s the house I’ll be writing for now—wants me to do a really Big Book. Not two days ago, I’d have said I couldn’t have done that without Mr. Royal. Now—”

“Now you think you couldn’t do it with him?” Temple prodded gently.

“Yes! He never wanted me to put the doctors in a bad light, but Styx says that people love to know that doctors have Achilles’ heels like the rest of us. And, frankly, Miss Barr, I’ve seen some stuck-up stinkers of doctors.” Mavis suddenly recognized her anger and retreated. “Mr. Royal was a bit naive, I’m afraid.”

“It’s possible,” Temple said with a straight face.

“Still, what if these new people don’t know how to edit my books? What if they don’t like what I do on my own, all by myself?”

“Didn’t you write your first book that way?”

“Yes.” Mavis sounded uncertain nevertheless.

“I’ll tell you what you do.” Temple leaned forward and donned her most emphatic expression. “You think about everything you ever saw or thought in those years as a nurse when nobody—doctors, patients, hospital administrators—thought you were looking and you write it all down to make the most exciting, true story you can. And you don’t worry a bit what Mr. Royal might think. He’s not here anymore.”

“You’re sure I can do that? Just write what I know and it’ll be all right?”

“Yes, I am, Mavis. Now you just sit here and finish your soft drink. I have to run along. Deadlines, you know.”

“Sure. Thank you, Miss Barr.”

Temple loved a source who thought you’d done her a favor by grilling her.

She waved goodbye and darted off, only to pause in the hall outside the conference room. Where—or how—would she find a low-profile loner like Earnest Jaspar in the waning hours of the ABA? He wouldn’t make a booth his base of operations, and apparently he handled only Royal’s authors.

She headed for the exhibit floor again. Had it only been three days ago she’d been tracking a rogue cat through the setting-up clutter? Pennyroyal Press’s booth looked as shiny and ferocious as it had Friday morning. The glittering, blown-up book covers resembled graphic teeth about to snap at the idle book browser. Those horrific covers made Temple nervous, brimming as they were with barely hidden hostility and ill will.

And who should be holding up a corner of the display other than Lanyard Hunter and Owen Tharp in rapt consultation? They made such an unlikely pair that Temple stopped to watch them with a smile.

Hunter, tall and angular, slouched into a suit that so replicated his thin frame it seemed to cover hangers rather than flesh and bone. Tharp, shorter and stouter, bristled as he talked, his compact body tense with unleashed energy, his gestures almost abrupt.