Foul Matter by Martha Grimes Read Free Book Online Page A

his “forgotten world” speeches. Back there, in the mists of the forgotten world of publishing, it used to be that money would be paid to keep new writers afloat, even though there wouldn’t be a return on their books for years. The “forgotten world of publishing.” Back there with the dinosaur bones.
    This made Clive recall a recent sales conference during which Tom had presented a new novel by Eric Gruber. He took pains to point out that in this novel one character was a dinosaur. “Please keep in mind, when you go into the bookstores, that Eric Gruber is a fabulist, that he’s really not Stephen King or Michael Crichton. If you need a buzz term, call it magical realism, that’s as good as any—unfortunately.”
    Tom hated buzz words.
    Leo Brand, who headed up sales, told Tom he always talked as if the whole publishing machine—including sales—was a damned thorn in the writer’s side, as if the house were some obstacle course that Tom’s writers had to run, and Leo wished Tom would keep in mind that without Mackenzie-Haack, Tom’s fucking writers wouldn’t even be in print.
    “What’s so great about print—” Tom had asked, unfazed “—if you’ve got a pencil and a piece of paper?”
    He made other editors—God knows he made Clive—feel as if they’d all come up short. Well, they had, hadn’t they? Tom’s writers took all of the literary prizes: a dozen National Book awards, several Pulitzers, scads of notable book citations, a number of New York Critics’ Circle awards, and the same number of foreign prizes. This was, admittedly, over a couple of decades. But decades had not turned up a rash of prizes such as these for any other editor, indeed, not for all of the editors put together. There had been a sprinkling of awards to other editors’ books, but that’s all.
    Of course there wasn’t a publisher in New York who hadn’t gone fishing to get Tom away from Mackenzie-Haack. The biggest lure they had tossed out was the offer of his own imprint, which was Queeg and Hyde’s offer. All of this was very hush-hush, of course, but there being no secrets in politics and publishing, the word had drifted around to Bobby Mackenzie, who had, naturally (and uninventively), offered Tom the same thing: his own imprint. This would mean Tom would have a small segment of Mackenzie-Haack all to himself. His name would appear right beneath the publisher’s own on the spine of the book and on the title page. A very prestigious thing, one’s own imprint. Clive had been trying to get one for years. “A Clive Esterhaus Book.” He loved the look of it when he typed it on a piece of paper. But it was a look that hadn’t materialized.
    Tom Kidd had (to no one’s surprise, really) turned down Queeg and Hyde and the imprint. “Why?” he had asked Bobby, when Bobby had offered him the same thing, “Why would I want that?”
    “Why?” was generally Tom’s answer to the underhanded, back-biting, envious maneuvers that went on at Mack and Haack. When Bobby had once offered him the position of editor in chief, assuring him he wouldn’t be doing anything more than he was already doing, that had been Tom’s response. “Why?”
    Now Clive had to answer the “Why?” with respect to the proposed contract for Paul Giverney. “Because he’s the hottest thing around these days. Because we want him on board. Of course.”
    Tom didn’t fall for the “of course” (implying Tom would be a fool not to agree). He merely puffed at his cigar, looked at the lighted end to make sure it was, and said, “So what? He’ll never earn back that advance. It’d take sales in the millions to get it back. You’d be losing money.”
    Clive laughed. “Tom, you’re such a literalist.”
    “So’s money. Well, you might get him ‘on board’ as you say, but if the ship goes down you can bet Giverney will be batting the rest of you generous folks out of the way to get to the lifeboat first.”
    Clive frowned. “Is that just