Hopscotch

But it meant he had to go to ground for a period of weeks. The book didn’t have to be very long but certain things had to be covered in detail; he didn’t want to leave them room to squirm out of anything. It had taken him five days to rough out the chapter and another four days to polish it until it satisfied him; the second chapter had taken a bit longer than that. Probably the whole book would run about two hundred pages of typescript, of which he’d already written thirty-five; if he could do forty a week he’d have it finished in four more weeks. That meant hard steady work but it could be done; he wasn’t trying for any literary prizes.

The limit would be self-imposed because they weren’t going to go away no matter how long he took; but if he wasted too much time on it there was a danger he’d relapse and maybe not finish writing it at all. He had to keep the tension on. So he set himself a thirty-day limit. It would be just about the right length of time to get Cutter into hot water too.

But before he went to ground he’d have to lay a false trail—something to keep them occupied and leave them looking silly.

Number 748 Third Avenue was a steel-and-glass office tower that had been architected in evident imitation of a sheet of graph paper: as functional as a bayonet and just as warm. He consulted the building directory in the lobby and found IVES, JOHN H., LITERARY AGENCY—3302. He found the proper bank of elevators and touched his thumb to the depressed plastic square; it lit up in response to the heat of his skin and he twisted his thumb slightly, out of habit.

Muzak and two delivery boys accompanied him to the thirty-third floor and he found his way to Ives’s door. A chic receptionist asked him to wait; he sat while the girl talked into an interphone. The desk and shelves were cluttered with an awful mess and the floor was a jumble of opened cartons of books.

A man came through the door. “Mr. Butler? I’m Jack Ives. Come into the office.”

Ives was younger than he’d expected—very tall, glasses, beard, wavy brown hair cut and shaped by someone expensive. He didn’t exactly look distinguished; he looked like a character-actor who specialized in playing distinguished roles, but he was too young for the part and his eyes were too bright and crafty.

The office was as littered as the anteroom. It had the studied elegant decor of a nineteenth-century gentleman’s library but the frantic disorder dispelled that. Ives shut a door behind Kendig and waved him to a chair. “I don’t ordinarily talk speculative books with unknown writers. But I’ve checked with Desrosiers and he tells me I’d better listen to you. Your name’s not Butler, is it.”

“Kendig. Miles Kendig.”

Ives squinted as if trying to place the name.

“You’ve never heard it before. I’m a retired employee of a government agency. My last position there was Deputy Director of the Plans Division.”

“You don’t look the type.”

“Which type?”

“E. Howard Hunt, that type.”

“That’s another breed. Those are the downstairs troops.”

“Go on, Mr.… Kending?”

“Kendig.”

Ives reached for a notepad. “Spell it.”

Kendig spelled it out. “The government will deny my existence. If you were thinking of checking with Washington.”

“It won’t be necessary. I’ve already got Desrosiers’s recommendation. Let’s talk business, Mr. Kendig.”

Ives was a fast reader. He went through the two chapters and Kendig handed him an unfolded list. “Those are the publishers I’ve sent it to.”

Ives glanced at it, set it aside and went back to the manuscript. “There are a couple of pages missing.”

“They’ll be supplied later on. Names of witnesses, documentary sources for confirmation of my facts, that kind of thing.”

Ives had a shrewd smile. “Not to put too fine a point on it but have we got any way to make sure you’re not bluffing?”

Kendig had pages 23 and 24 folded into an envelope in his pocket. He showed them to Ives. Ives’s face changed. Then Kendig took the two pages back and put them away. “They’ll be delivered with the final installment of the manuscript.”

“And you want me to handle the contractual details.”

“I need a middleman. I’ve got to finish writing it—undisturbed.”

“I think I understand. Why’d you pick me?”

“Desrosiers recommended you. You handled the Harry Bristow book.”

“Are you putting a floor price on it?”

“I’ll take whatever the market will bear.”

“Then it’s not primarily a money thing with you.”

“I won’t be a patsy—I’m not giving it away.”

“Do you need money right now?”

“I’ve got plenty of money. But I want them to have to pay for the book—I don’t want it neglected for lack of big promotion.”

Ives smiled again. “Don’t count on publishers to act logically. I’ve seen them pay a fortune for a book and then drop it right down the gratings. They’re in a mass business but they do no market research, they never test their packaging, they only advertise a book if it’s already selling well—and even then they haven’t the slightest idea how or where to get the most for their advertising dollar. They’ve got an archaic distribution system and haphazard retailing. Actually they have no idea at all what sells books and what doesn’t. But this property looks as sure-fire to me as anything I’ve seen in the past five years. It could be the most explosive book of the year—and you’ve already done the groundwork with the publishers. I’d be an idiot not to handle it for you.”

“It won’t be the usual agent-client relationship.”

“There’s no such thing. Every client is a separate lunacy.”

“I’ll give you a power of attorney,” Kendig said. “You’ll have to conclude the arrangements in my name. You won’t be able to communicate with me. I’ll be sending copies of each chapter to each of those publishers at irregular intervals—and I’ll be withholding evidential pages from each of them. It may be months before I’ve delivered the complete book.”

“You could send it directly to me. I’ve got copying facilities.”

“No. That would give the Agency a bottleneck to work with. I’ve got to be sure the material reaches every one of the publishers.”

“Very well—if you feel the risk is that great. But send me a copy when you send it to the rest of them.”

“Naturally.”

“There’ll probably be a matter of libel insurance. With a book of this kind the premiums may prove costly.”

“The publishers will have to pay for that.”

“I’ll arrange that if I can.”

Kendig said, “What’s the usual procedure for paying commissions?”

“I take ten percent of the client’s gross receipts off the top. When I receive a check from a publisher I deposit the check in my corporate account and draw my own check for ninety percent of that amount, payable to the client. Naturally the client is welcome to examine my accounts at all times. There’s no written contract between me and any of my clients—it’s a handshake arrangement. When a client’s dissatisfied with my work he’s free to go elsewhere.”

Ives continued, “In your case since you say I won’t be able to reach you the thing would be for me to open an account for you and make deposits as the money comes in.”

“No good,” Kendig said. “A bank account can be frozen by court order. I’ll want cashier’s checks, made out in my name, sent by airmail to this address in Switzerland.” He wrote it down and tore the page out of his pocket notebook and tossed it onto the desk. Ives picked it up curiously.

Kendig said, “People from the government will be around to see you before very long.”

Ives’ grin made him even younger. “They won’t learn anything from me. Not without a warrant.”

“They won’t use warrants. They don’t work that way. You’d find yourself up to your ears in income tax audits. Your driver’s license would be mysteriously revoked. Your credit rating would evaporate overnight. Maybe you’d find that certain publishers were no longer buying anything from you. You’d start to lose clients—they’d give some vague excuse for shifting to another agency. Your wife would find her charge accounts canceled. Your kids would be caught with narcotics planted in their pockets. I could give you a list of subtle persuasions ten pages long.”