The Missing Chapter

Vinson sighed. “Both of them were to some degree correct, and it seemed that every time I turned around I was mediating one of their battles. Finally, Frank Ott called and told me Charles wouldn’t write for Monarch anymore unless he got assigned a new editor. I gave in and tabbed someone else to work with him on his next book. Billings quit in a rage, feeling, perhaps with some justification, that his authority had been undercut. He now is working for another publisher — Westman & Lane — I’m sorry to say.”

“You valued the writer more than the editor,” Wolfe remarked.

Vinson stirred his coffee, then looked up. “I have always been referred to as ‘a writer’s man,’ ” he said, turning a palm up. “Maybe in this case, I tried too hard to live up to that tag. Anyway, at the same time he was mixing it up with Billings, Charles was sniping at Frank Ott, and he eventually fired him. He was angry because, among other things, Ott didn’t cut a better deal with us on his new Barnstable contract.”

“Did you feel Mr. Ott adequately represented his client?”

“I’ve known Ott for years, and he has always been a top-drawer agent, honest, hard-working, and plenty tough,” Vinson replied. “You should be aware that there were two factors at work here: First, Charles’s Barnstable books have sold okay, but not great; and second, I don’t have to tell you that these aren’t exactly the best of times anywhere, especially in the publishing world. I was a great supporter of Charles — hell, I’m the one who brought him in to continue the Sawyer series, and then I sided with him against a damn good editor, losing the editor in the process. But when Ott came at me three months ago looking for an eighty-percent increase on a new two-book contract, I dug in my heels. I knew Frank was being pressured by Charles, because he — Frank, that is — was realistic enough to know that such a demand was ludicrous. Eighty percent, for God’s sake, for books that don’t have a prayer of making the best-seller lists!”

Vinson realized his voice had been rising and checked himself. “So then what happens?” he said in more moderate tones. “First Charles fires Frank Ott, telling him something to the effect that ‘You’re supposed to be such a damn close buddy of Vinson’s, but you can’t get me a decent deal.’ Then he writes an article, one of those ‘It’s my turn to speak out’ things, for Book Business, our weekly trade magazine, in which he blasts both literary agents and editors. He calls agents ‘lazy and reactive,’ among other things, and he whacks editors as being ‘dictatorial, closed-minded meddlers and stiflers of creativity.’ Charles didn’t mention names, but he didn’t have to; most of the people who read the magazine, at least here in New York, knew exactly whom he was targeting in both cases.”

“Mr. Childress had a penchant for diatribe,” Wolfe observed. “When did the article about agents and editors appear?”

“Three weeks ago, and within minutes after the issue was on the street, you’d better believe I heard from both Billings and Ott,” Vinson answered, his voice rising again. “Keith already was well established at his new job, but he was really hot. He swore that if he ever ran into Charles again, he’d do some major-league stifling of his own. But his anger was nothing compared to Frank’s. He told me — I remember the phrasing precisely — that I’d better ‘put the lid on that smart-mouthed, marginally talented, egomaniacal bastard or I’ll sue his ass from here to Trenton. Hell, I may sue his ass anyway, and yours, too, while I’m at it.’ I’ve known Frank Ott for more than twenty years, and I’ve never, ever heard him talk like that, to me or to anyone else. I think he felt that his reputation had been damaged beyond repair.”

“Do others in the publishing community agree?”

Horace Vinson wrinkled his brow for several seconds before responding. “It’s... a little soon to tell, but, yes, that article probably did hurt Ott to some extent, even though a lot of people know that Charles had a penchant, to use your word, for shooting off his mouth.”

“You apparently feel that given the consecution you have described, either Mr. Billings or Mr. Ott is capable of murder, along with Wilbur Hobbs.”

Vinson shook his head mournfully, looking like he’d just missed the last night train to Poughkeepsie. “Mr. Wolfe, I like and respect two of those men very much. But yes, I’m convinced that Charles was killed by one of the three.”

“Have you discussed this with the authorities?”

“Huh! If you want to call it that. I went and saw a man at NYPD. Homicide — not that fellow Stebbins you mentioned earlier — and it took me less than fifteen seconds to realize I was wasting my time. This cretin, I forget his name, but he’s tall and has bulging eyes, he acted—”

“Lieutenant Rowcliff,” I put in.