The Last Cheerleader. Meg O'Brien
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toy-creations book I sold for him years ago. As for Tony…” I shrugged.
“How are you feeling about Tony?” she asked pointedly.
“Oh, I don’t know. Confused, I suppose.” I looked at her. “Did you ever hear any rumors about either of them being gay?”
“Gay!” she said, her eyes widening. “Never!”
I remembered that she didn’t know about the Chinese dildo or the police suspicions about the murders being a gay crime. The cops had asked me not to divulge any information at all about the crime scene. Detective Rucker, the scruffy one, had told me that they wanted to keep certain information out of the papers, the better to catch the killer.
Even so, I was tempted to tell Nia about it, as I knew how well she could keep a secret. It was only my word to the detective that held me back.
“Do you think they were gay?” Nia asked.
I shook my head. “Just wondering. Since they were together in Tony’s apartment, you know? And other things.”
“Other things like the fact that they were both basically unattainable?” she asked, raising a dark eyebrow. “Mary Beth, we’ve talked about that. As long as I’ve known you, which is now about three and three-quarter years, you’ve never even looked at men who were available. When you get interested in a man, they’re always either married, engaged or gay. It’s that Conahan Wall. In this case, though, just because Tony and Arnold were both more or less unattainable, that doesn’t mean they were gay.”
“I know that,” I said a bit snappily, then took my tone back with a smile. A long time ago, I’d had to admit that Nia was right about me and the kind of men I chose to go for. I’ve even thanked her for pointing it out—not that I’ve changed any, just because I know about it.
“I wish you’d tell me what happened to you,” she said. “What’s that wall about, anyway?”
I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and took out my purse, then reapplied powder and lipstick. My hand shook from exhaustion, and despite the expensive black suit and Gucci heels I looked like hell. But since I wasn’t going anywhere except to Craig’s motel—which he’d told me was a run-down hole-inthe-wall—it didn’t much matter.
“Let’s talk another time,” I said, closing my compact with a loud snap. “I just can’t get into all of that now.”
“It’s not just now. You never want to get into it.”
I ignored that and stood. “You’ll hold down the fort till you go home at three?”
“Of course. And I’ll keep calling around for Craig, in case you don’t find him. Will you be back in time to talk to Paul Whitmore, one way or the other?”
“I’ll have my cell phone with me, and if I know anything by two, I’ll call him from wherever I am.”
“What if you don’t find Craig, and Whitmore calls here? What do you want me to tell him?”
I thought for a moment. “Tell him Craig flew to Maui yesterday to gather inspiration from his beach house there.”
She grinned. “So he’s supposed to be rich, confident and simply unreachable.”
I grinned back. “Tell Paul I’ve tried and tried, but according to his housekeeper, he’s incommunicado.”
I held out the packet of messages. “Anyone else in this stack…if they call again, tell them I’m sorry I missed their calls and I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”
“Right,” Nia said, smiling. “And would ye be wantin’ me to stand on me head as well?”
“Gee, a black woman from Dublin with an Irish brogue,” I said on my way out the door. “What a sight. Almost wipes away that scene at Tony’s last night.”
Traffic was heavy from Century City to El Segundo, which entailed going past LAX. I had time to think about Craig, Paul Whitmore, and what I was going to do to get Craig even more money—provided he wanted me to try.
Negotiating was a lesson I’d learned long ago, though more to survive in L.A. than anything. I’d worked in L.A. for a television station after finishing high school in San Francisco—just on the writing staff, but hoping to be on camera eventually. I’d even gone out to crime scenes on breaking news stories, both as an observer and to show that I had initiative and wanted to learn. I did learn, and as a result I knew more now about the law and crime than most people who aren’t actually in the field. In fact, when I decided to become a literary agent, it was largely because someone at work had shown me his book, a true-crime novel, and asked me to read it, to see if I thought it was any good. Arnold and I were on the edge of divorce and I had time on my hands, so I went for it.
The book was great, and after I’d fixed a few minor things for my co-worker, I encouraged him to send it to an agent. He asked me if I would act as his agent, and when I found out that all you really needed to represent a writer was a telephone and some letterhead, I went for it. I started making calls, telling editors I was “Mary Beth Conahan of the agency by the same name,” and leaving my home phone and fax number. Within two months I’d sold the guy’s book to a major publishing house, and negotiated a good contract for him, to boot.
I was twenty-two at the time, and it was the first I’d ever even thought of becoming an agent. I was also kind of naive, and had no idea what it took to set up my own business. So I just stumbled into it, willy-nilly, and set my sails toward becoming Mary Beth Conahan, Literary Agent, for real. The first few years were more difficult than I’d ever imagined they would be, and I have to admit I often drank too much at the end of the day. I even messed around with drugs a bit. But then something happened, and for the last seven years I’ve been clean of drugs and only drink wine now and then. I’ve also worked my ass off to succeed.
I started out with new, untried authors whose first books were exciting enough to interest publishers but needed editing before they were decent enough to go out. I edited their books free, feeling it was unethical to charge. Because of that, I’ve built a loyal clientele over the past seven years, and at the age of thirty-three I now have a stable of wonderful authors. I fly to New York and Europe at regular intervals, dine with editors, schmooze with them at all the important cocktail parties, and I’ve gained their loyalty by not sending them books I know are unacceptable—not even to please an anxious-to-get-going author.
One exception to that was Tony Price. I knew his first novel, which was dark and made a case for the death penalty, would be highly controversial, at a time when a sizable portion of the population was marching against the death penalty. I’d pushed it out there, though, and after nine publishers had turned the book down, one accepted it—and the rest is history. Since then, his work had grown increasingly lighter, which made it easier to sell, though it always did have an edge, a bite to it.
I know that in my thoughts I’d been hard on Tony this morning, but I think that’s only a wall I’d put up at the sight of him, dead, so that I wouldn’t be too gob-smacked by it. The good side of Tony Price was that he was intelligent, funny, supportive…about some things, anyway, like my work…and I loved hanging out with him. We had more fun together than I’ve ever had with anyone I’ve known.
The downside was that I kept wanting to jump his bones, and I could just see how that would turn out—with him pushing me away and assuming that “just friends” attitude that I never could seem to break through. So I’d never even dared to try.
Good thing, I supposed, now that it seems he was gay. Over the years of working in Hollywood, I’d adopted some pretty good radar for detecting whether a man was either married or gay. With Tony, however, I had to admit that I never suspected. If anything, I thought he was probably just nonsexual and put all his energies into his books.
It would have been so much easier if I’d just known up front. But like Rock Hudson, he looked, sounded, walked and behaved like the typical macho man. He was the first man, I do believe, to ever fool me that way.
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