“I told you before, I have no sense of humor. Do you agree or disagree?”
“Agree.”
“Finally, except when you feel my life is in danger, I want you to stay out of my way. I realize you will have to be around and watchful. I don’t know how serious the threats are, but you have to assume they are serious. I understand that. But short of a mortal situation I do not want to hear from you. I want a shadow.”
I said, “Agree,” and drank the rest of my beer. The waiter came by and removed the empty peanut bowl and replaced it. Rachel Wallace noticed my beer was gone and gestured that the waiter should bring another. Ticknor looked at his glass and at Rachel Wallace’s. His was empty, hers wasn’t. He didn’t order.
“Your appearance is good,” she said. “That’s a nice suit, and it’s well tailored. Are you dressed up for the occasion or do you always look good?”
“I’m dressed up for the occasion. Normally I wear a light-blue body stocking with a big red S on the front.” It was dim in the bar, but her lipstick was bright, and I thought for a moment she smiled, or nearly smiled, or one corner of her mouth itched.
“I want you presentable,” she said.
“I’ll be presentable, but if you want me appropriate, you’ll have to let me know your plans ahead of time.”
She said, “Certainly.”
I said thank you. I tried to think of things other than the peanuts. One bowl was enough.
“I’ve had my say, now it is your turn. You must have some rules or questions, or whatever. Speak your mind.”
I drank beer. “As I said to Mr. Ticknor when he and I first talked, I cannot guarantee your safety. What I can do is increase the odds against an assassin. But someone dedicated or crazy can get you.”
“I understand that,” she said.
“I don’t care about your sex life. I don’t care if you elope with Anita Bryant. But I do need to be around when it happens. If you make it with strangers, you might be inviting your murderer to bed.”
“Are you suggesting I’m promiscuous?”
“You suggested it a little while ago. If you’re not, it’s not a problem. I don’t assume your friends will kill you.”
“I think we’ll not discuss my sex life further. John, for God’s sake order another drink. You look so uncomfortable, I’m afraid you’ll discorporate.”
He smiled and signaled the waiter.
“Do you have any other statements to make?” she said to me.
“Maybe one more,” I said. “I hire on to guard your body, that’s what I’ll do. I will work at it. Part of working at it will include telling you things you can do and things you can’t do. I know my way around this kind of work a lot better than you do. Keep that in mind before you tell me to stick it. I’ll stay out of your way when I can, but I can’t always.”
She put her hand out across the table, and I took it. “We’ll try it, Spenser,” she said. “Maybe it won’t work, but it could. We’ll try.”
“Okay,” I said, “tell me about the death threats.”
“I’ve always gotten hate mail. But recently I have gotten some phonecalls.”
“How recently?”
“As soon as the bound galleys went out.”
“What are bound galleys? And who do they go out to?”
Ticknor spoke. “Once a manuscript is set in type, a few copies are run off to be proofread by both author and copy editor. These are called galley proofs.”
“I know that part,” I said. “What about the bound ones going out?”
“Galleys normally come in long sheets, three pages or so to the sheet. For reviewers and people from whom we might wish to get a favorable quote for promotional purposes, we cut the galleys and bind them in cheap cardboard covers and send them out.” Ticknor seemed more at ease now, with the third martini half inside him. I was still fighting off the peanuts.
“You have a list of people to whom you send these?”
Ticknor nodded. “I can get it to you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Now, after the galleys went out, came the phone-calls. Tell me about them.”
She was eating her martini olive. Her teeth were small and even and looked well cared-for. “A man’s voice,” she said. “He called me a dyke, ‘a fucking dyke,’ as I recall. And told me if that book was published, I’d be dead the day it hit the streets.”
“Books don’t hit the streets,” I said. “Newspapers do. The idiot can’t get his cliches straight.”
“There has been a call like that every day for the last week.”
“Always say the same thing?”
“Not word for word, but approximately. The substance is always that I’ll die if the book is published.”
