“I can see how it would be, to have the QB as your first client.”
“Well, at first it was having a client at all that disconcerted me,” he said. “Apparently most of the thankless, low-paying jobs in this agency were taken by would-be agents. I was the only one in the lot who simply wanted a paycheck. Perhaps I should have spoken up then.”
“You didn’t want to be an agent?”
“I had no objection to it,” he said. “The idea just never occurred to me. And, of course, I quickly learned that the reason they’d picked me was that they couldn’t really afford to lose clients at that juncture, but no one else at the agency could stand to deal with her.”
“And you could?”
“I didn’t like it, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “But apparently I managed to keep her on board longer than anyone imagined possible. By the time she’d moved on, I’d become sort of an agency specialist in…um…”
“Difficult, high-maintenance clients,” I suggested.
“In a word, yes. And after about ten years, another agency offered me better terms for doing essentially the same thing. And four years ago, I decided to go out on my own. I thought maybe I could finally pick and choose my clients. Unfortunately, about half of the clients I was representing at the time chose to go with me.”
“Including Walker?”
“Yes, including Walker,” Francis said.
I burst out laughing, and Francis looked deeply offended.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I just realized that you’ve spent your whole career on pita patrol!”
And to my relief, after I explained the phrase, Francis wasn’t insulted.
“Pita patrol,” he said, as if savoring the word. “Yes, I like that. I usually refer to them as ‘my little flock,’ but pitas is more like it.”
“Always nice to find a new way of looking at the world,” I said. “It’s divided into pitas and non-pitas.”
“More like pitas and other people’s clients,” Francis said. “Except for one or two. Michael, for example, but I know perfectly well that I won’t be keeping him much longer.”
If he was trying to win my sympathy, it was working. I found I not only felt sorry for Francis, but I liked him more than I had before. And felt even more strongly that Michael needed a new agent.
“What was she like back then?” I asked. “The QB, back when you represented her.”
“Younger,” he said. “But then, weren’t we all? I don’t remember much about her, back then. I know that sounds implausible. After all, I worked with her for a year and a half. But all I remember from that whole time is a sort of ghastly feeling, like getting hit over the head repeatedly with a sledgehammer.”
He sat staring into space for a few moments, as if trying to remember.
“Of course, she hasn’t changed much,” he said, finally.
“Then why did you let Walker sign with her?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not as if we had a lot of other options, did we?” he said. “Not like Michael. If he did decide to put his academic career on hold, there’s no end to what he could do.”
Time to hit the trail, I thought, if Francis was going to keep dragging the conversation around to his uneasy relationship with Michael.
Chapter 24
I glanced around, searching for an excuse to leave, and noticed that the show’s costumer had come into the green room.
“I’ll catch you later,” I said. “I’m trying to get all the guests’ autographs for my nephew, and I just spotted someone I’m missing.”
Not to mention someone whose motives for murder I wanted to explore.
Karen, the costumer, happily signed Eric’s program, and I didn’t have any trouble dragging the conversation around to the topic of the day.
“Wasn’t it exciting, being questioned by the police!” she exclaimed. “Of course, I’m lucky I had an alibi, aren’t I? I mean, under the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” I asked. “Was she firing you, too?”
“Well, not that I know of,” she said. “But it was only a matter of time, of course. I’m the show’s thirteenth costume designer, you know. I bet that’s some kind of a record. Anyway, it was such a relief to say that I’d gone straight from my four o’clock panel to dinner. A little early for me, normally; but I understand your mother wanted to get your nephew away from the convention for a while. Poor dear; he did have an awful experience, didn’t he?”
“You had dinner with my mother?” I asked.
“Oh, yes; didn’t she tell you?”
“I haven’t talked to her much today,” I said. “But that’s good news. After her quarrel with the QB, I’m relieved to hear that Mother has an alibi.”
“You don’t really suspect your own mother?” Karen exclaimed.
“Of course not,” I said. “But the police might feel differently. After all, they don’t know her the way I do.”
She nodded approvingly.
“I know perfectly well that Mother wouldn’t kill anyone,” I said. “At least not by bludgeoning. Too strenuous, messy, and generally inelegant. It’d be different if the QB had been poisoned in some clever way.”
Karen’s mouth fell open, and she stared at me for a few seconds. And then she burst into laughter.
“Oh, my! You had me going for a minute!” she said, through her giggles. “Your mother should have told me what a tease you can be.”
If she thought I was kidding, I wouldn’t argue.
“I hope you went someplace nice,” I said.
“Well, actually we went to one of those noisy places where they have a whole room full of video games for the kids,” she said. “But your nephew had fun, and your mother and I had such a nice talk. She told me all about your decorating plans for the new house. It sounds so…unusual!”
“Yes, any decorating scheme Mother comes up with usually is,” I said. I wondered if she was still enthralled with a jungle theme, and whether or not her rendition of it would include live animals. “Don’t noise it about—you know how Michael is about keeping his private life private.”
Although, considering how rapidly costumers appeared to come and go on the show, I supposed she’d be lucky to know Michael’s face.
“Right,” she said, looking momentarily quite solemn. And then her face broke into a smile again. “I was so sorry your father couldn’t join us.”
Damn. Too much to hope for that both of them had been out of harm’s way.
“But it was so nice of him to babysit your niece.”
“Niece?” As far as I knew, Mother and Dad had only brought Eric along to the convention. Much as Mother adored her grandchildren, she preferred having them around one at a time, ideally with Dad and other adoring relatives available to take care of any actual work the little dears caused.
“Yes, little…Samantha? Or was it Sabrina?”
“Salome?” I suggested.
“Yes, of course! Such an unusual name; I do think it’s so much better for children to have their own names, instead of a name every other child in their school has.”
I made a mental note to speak to Salome’s keeper. What the devil did he mean by putting someone he hardly knew in charge of Salome? Especially someone like Dad?
As the costumer nattered on about baby names, I found myself warming to this cheerful and apparently uncomplicated woman. She was probably the only person from the Porfiria cast and crew who hadn’t yet said an unkind word about the QB. Despite, I suspected, considerable temptation. And I had the reassuring feeling that anything that came into her ears or surfaced in her memory would come straight out her mouth, unless it was too
