Publish and Perish Read online

  I risked a glance at Ken. A series of complex emotions seemed to grip him. His expression went from one of joyful surprise to devastation.

  “That’s an interesting proposition. My client and I will discuss it and get back to you,” I said.

  As we left I couldn’t help it, I looked at David. He gave me sad eyes, and I hurried out of the conference room with Ken in tow. He started to talk, but I held up a hand to forestall that. We stayed silent during the elevator ride, and once we were back on the street I headed off in search of a café. It didn’t take long to find one. This was Greenwich Village.

  “Holy shit,” Ken said as he sank into a chair at a corner table. “Associate professor. They can’t really give me that title without giving me tenure. But…” Agitated, he ran a hand through his hair, pulling wisps free from his ponytail. “I spent three years on this paper.”

  “They’re buying you off.” He reacted to my word choice and I elaborated. “There’s nothing wrong with that. We do it all the time. Sometimes it’s cheaper to pay a settlement than to keep fighting. Other times you do it because you really want something to go away. This feels like the latter to me. But it’s your call, and that was just their opening offer. I can probably get them to throw in a monetary settlement to compensate you for lost time.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Some money would be nice. Help pay off some student loans.” He stared down at the surface of the table.

  I stood. “What do you want? I’ll go order.”

  “Is this a way to give me time to think about my decision?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t think you should decide right now. Sleep on it. They won’t expect an answer today.”

  “You got a recommendation?”

  “Not my job. They’ve made you an offer. Promotion and the promise that you are on the tenure track in exchange for you setting aside three years of work and making a promise never to return to that area of research. I can’t make that decision for you. So, do you want something to drink?”

  Ken lurched to his feet. “Thanks for the offer, but I kinda want to just take a walk and think, okay?”

  “Sure. Let me know what you decide.”

  He dug his hands into his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and slouched away. I checked my phone. It was nearly two thirty and it seemed silly to go all the way back to Queens. I headed for the subway and Ray and Gregory’s apartment.

  * * *

  Belinda looked up, the light flashing on her silver studs as I walked into the office the next morning. “Your bug guy has been calling and calling.”

  “Parasitologist,” I corrected.

  “Yeah, bug guy.”

  I sighed. “Thank you.”

  Once I got settled in my office I called Ken.

  “I didn’t sleep last night. I just thought and thought,” he said. “I can’t do it. I can’t just erase three years of my life and all that work. And this is important research. It deserves to be out there. Tell them no.”

  “All right. I’ll let them know.”

  “Thanks, Linnet. So, what happens now?”

  “We’ll see what they come back with, but I expect I’ll be drafting a complaint.”

  “So, we go to court?”

  “Probably.”

  “Have you read my paper yet?”

  I cringed with guilt, but decided to own up. “No, not yet. I will. I promise.”

  There was no reason to delay. I put in a call to IMG, and asked for Gold’s assistant. She told me he was in court. I hung up and debated. Finally I picked up the phone again and called David’s line. His assistant put me right through.

  “It was good to see you yesterday,” he said by way of greeting.

  I really wanted to say, yeah, it was. Instead I said tersely, “Don’t.”

  Long silence on the other end of the line, then David said, “So, why did you call?”

  “My client says no deal. He wants his research published.”

  “I’ll let our client know.”

  I was holding a disconnected line. The harsh buzz felt like a rebuke and a rejection and it hurt. I wanted to call back and somehow make it all better. But I couldn’t. I mustn’t. I grabbed my notes on a pending bankruptcy I was handling and went to work.

  A few hours later Belinda buzzed me. “Mr. Ishmael calling for you.”

  That was surprising. I had thought I might hear from Gold, but not my old mentor at the firm. “Put it through.” A second later and we were connected. “Hi, Shade, what’s—”

  “Linnet, I say this as one who has stood as a friend to you. Drop this case.”

  “But … wait … why?”

  “No good can come of this research, and we will not permit it to go forward. Drop the case.” Once again I heard the strident buzz of a disconnected line.

  It felt like one of Ken’s parasites had scuttled down my back. Shuddering, I hung up the phone. We will not permit it to go forward. Who the hell was we? The vampires at IMG? Or all vampires everywhere?

  What the hell was in that paper?

  * * *

  I had just pulled a Trader Joe’s asparagus and shells dinner out of the microwave when the doorbell rang. Tension tightened my shoulders and I eased my way to the foyer. Another ring followed by an insistent knock. I stretched up on tiptoes and peered through the peephole. Syd and Ken stood in the hallway of the building. Ken’s expression was furious. Syd looked inscrutable. Both were bad. There was a fluttering in my stomach as I undid the chain, unlocked the door, and threw it open.

  “Jesus, thought you’d died in here,” Syd said as he marched through the door.

  “Hello to you too,” I said.

  “They locked my office and confiscated my office computer,” Ken burst out. “And somebody ransacked my apartment. Took my home computer, every thumb drive, and all my notes, drafts, and source material!”

  I threw up a hand. “Whoa. Slow down. Come into the living room and sit down.” They did and Syd took a chair. Ken continued to pace, long furious steps that had his glasses slipping over and over again. “You look like you could use a drink,” I said to Ken. I didn’t think Gregory would mind.

  The scientist stopped, ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I could.”

  “Syd?”

  The little lawyer held up a hand and shook his head. “I’m good.”

  I splashed the amber liquid into a cut-crystal highball glass and handed it to Ken. “You had to expect some reaction from the university when you turned down their offer, and they have a right to lock you out and reclaim equipment that they own.” Ken gulped down a mouthful of scotch. “I’m more concerned about the break-in at your apartment.”

  “Sounds like somebody is trying to make sure no copies of this paper are floatin’ around,” Syd said.

  “But it had been sent out for peer review—”

  Ken interrupted me. “I never did send out the paper. That was what started all this crap in the first place. I’d shown bits and pieces of it to some other biologists in the department and over at the med school, but it hadn’t been formally reviewed.”

  “But this is just stupid,” I said. “You’re a savvy scientist guy. I presume you had a backup in Dropbox or the Cloud or some other offsite storage.”

  “Of course.”

  I perched on the edge of a big ottoman and nibbled on a hangnail. “This was a really dumb move. Trying to suppress the information by stealing copies … oh, shit, it was vampires.”

  “What?” the men said in chorus.

  “It’s the only thing that makes any sense. They’re incredibly old-fashioned and they don’t handle technological change very well. They knew enough to grab the computers as well as hard copies and somebody had coached them about thumb drives, but it never occurred to them that information floats in the cyber universe now.”

  “And I emailed you a copy.”

  “Yeah, that was going to be how I spent my evening. Reading your paper.”

  Syd jumped in. “On
ce whoever has taken the computer digs into it they’re going to know Linnet has a copy and they’ll come after her.”

  There was a hole where my stomach used to be and I didn’t think I felt that empty just because I was hungry. I looked up at Ken. “You can’t be the first person who thought of this line of inquiry.” And I quickly added, “No offense,” at the look on Ken’s face.

  He swallowed his pride and gave it serious thought. “Yeah, you might be right. I was just so excited because there was nothing out there in the community.”

  “And now we might know why,” Syd said.

  “We need help investigating this.” I stood and headed to where my purse rested on the side table.

  “You got somebody in mind?” Syd asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  12

  “Before I hire you I guess I should first ask if you’re the guy who broke into my client’s apartment,” I said when John opened the door.

  John stared at me for a long moment. “Would you like to tell me what you are talking about?” Gadzooks, seeing the open door, tried to make a break for it and got grabbed by John.

  I outlined the situation while Gadzooks struggled with increasing desperation to escape from John’s arms. When I finished, the Álfar gave a disgusted head shake. “You honestly think I’d be that stupid?”

  “To do something that illegal or to not understand computers and Cloud data storage?” I shot back.

  “The latter,” he said. “And why are you still standing in the hall?”

  “Because you haven’t invited me in.”

  “When has that ever stopped you? You usually just barge in whether it’s Fey, a partner’s office, a kidnapping investigation—”

  “Hey, I get things done.”

  “You certainly get things all stirred up,” John countered.

  “Admit it, you love it.”

  He just stared at me, shook his head, turned and walked away from the door. I stepped into a small, but neat and nicely furnished apartment. John dropped Gadzooks onto the floor and the big tabby promptly tried to trip me by coiling around my legs.

  John headed for the tiny table in the kitchen. “I was just sitting down to eat. There’s chili, you want a bowl?”

  “Is it hot? I mean chili hot not stove hot.”

  “Of course.”

  “No, thanks.” The spices coiled through the steam and tempted my nose. My stomach gave a loud growl.

  I sat down opposite John and remembered the last time we’d sat companionably across this table from each other. That had been over breakfast after a night of amazing lovemaking. John crumbled crackers on top of his chili, added some grated cheese and a big handful of chopped onions.

  “Hope you’re not planning on kissing anybody,” I said.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Too bad,” I said. He gave me a sharp glance and I returned a limpid one. He gave a growl and began eating.

  “What do you need?”

  “Research. I need to know if any other scientists have undertaken research into the Hunters and the legend of the predator.”

  “Research the researchers, huh?” John grunted.

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay. Hundred and fifty an hour. Plus expenses, but let’s leave this off the books. A vampire law firm is one of my clients. They don’t need to know I’m doing research into vampire secrets.”

  “What happened to ‘I owe you’?” I asked.

  “This isn’t about you. This is about your client. It’s business.” He took a few more bites and studied me. “Do you want to fuck?” he said abruptly.

  The blunt statement unleashed a torrent of conflicting feelings. Hurt that he could say something that crude to me. What we had shared had been beautiful and now it felt dirty.

  Which led me to fury that he could say something that crude to me. I was a person, not an object.

  Next up in the emotional merry-go-round—sadness. That he could say something that crude brought home how deeply damaged he actually was.

  I grabbed at the whirling maelstrom of emotions and struggled to contain them into something I could channel and actually form into words without ripping his face off. I compressed them into disdain and derision. “Just curious, but how’s this approach working out for you?”

  He said with some frustration, “I haven’t gotten laid once since I got back.”

  “Imagine that. Here’s a few suggestions for pickup lines. You could try—How bad could it be? How long could it take?”

  “That was mean.”

  “So was your remark.” I rested my hands on the table and leaned in on him. “Look, John, most women need some sort of emotional connection.”

  “Well, I can’t do that.”

  “I know. And no, I don’t want to fuck. Thanks for helping out with this.” I started for the front door. John jumped up and followed me.

  “I thought you wanted me. Otherwise why the crack about kissing?”

  “I shouldn’t have said it, and I’m sorry. I want the old John, and I guess I think pushing you is going to make that happen. I’m sorry,” I repeated.

  “Linnet, what if this is really who I am, who I was all along, and the other me was just a mask?” He seemed uncomfortable.

  “It’s not. You said yourself the Álfar are all divas and live their own personal operas. This is like the complete opposite of an Álfar. I mean, look at Parlan. He was raised in Fey and he’s way overly emotional.”

  “So maybe between the two of us we might manage to add up to one normal person,” John said.

  I searched for a hint of irony, but found none. “We’ll figure this out, John. I promise.”

  “So confident.”

  “I said I’d get you out of Fey and I did. Don’t count me out.”

  * * *

  The next day I tried to work in between the numerous calls from Ken asking if I’d hired an investigator—yes, and what had they learned—nothing. After the tenth call, I yelled at him. The calls stopped.

  After harping at Parlan and John I decided it was past time that I confronted my dad. I picked up and set down the phone several times before I decided that this wasn’t a conversation that should be held on the phone. There was a train leaving for Providence, Rhode Island, late that afternoon. I decided to catch it. I got to the station a bit early, bought a ticket, and waited on the platform for the train to arrive. If I’d had my real phone I would have been able to surf the internet to pass the time, but given what had happened to Ken it was probably smart I didn’t have it, inconvenient though it might be. I thought about pulling out my laptop, but decided I was too lazy. I was forced to actually look at the real humans occupying space with me. The little burner phone rang. I pulled it out, and finally got the cracked flip cover open.

  “Hey, Linnet, Lucius. I got those numbers for you.”

  “That’s great. Thank you.”

  “I’d love to check them out for you, but I had to hide the request in another case I’m working and I really can’t take the time to run them down right now.”

  “No, no, that’s cool, you’ve done enough. I’ll take it from here. Would you email them to me?”

  “Only if you promise to call in the experts if you find anything. You won’t play girl sleuth.”

  I sighed. “Okay, but may I call you? Those Brooklyn guys didn’t impress me.”

  “All right. As long as you call someone.” I heard the click of a keyboard. “They’re on their way.”

  “Thanks again.”

  The train pulled in. I got settled into a seat. Not a lot of people seemed to be headed to Providence, so I had my row to myself. The whistle echoed through the station, then a sharp jerk and we were underway. We slid out into the slanting golden light of the sunset. I watched buildings, walls, and graffiti sliding past the window, and tried to think about what I would say when I finally did reach the house, but my mind kept skittering away.

  I gave up, pulled out the laptop, and found Lucius’s
email. As I expected, more than a few of the numbers proved to be suppliers to the barn. I recognized the number for Jolly’s farrier and the vet. Those were numbers that didn’t need to be checked.

  With my laptop balanced on my lap I started dialing. The first number went to voice mail for the Feed Bin. I hung up. The next number had an area code that I recognized as being in Virginia. The number belonged to Elite Hay Haulers. Another number was for the Custom Saddles branch office in Del Mar, California. With the three-hour time difference they were still open, and I ended up having a nice conversation with the woman at their American office. As always happens when horse people start talking, there had to be a discussion of which model I rode and what my horse was like. During the conversation I learned that Jolly had in fact ridden in a Custom before his accident. He had been calling them to discuss putting his saddle on consignment. Which made me feel sad in a really indefinable way. What would I do if I couldn’t ever ride again? I pulled my wandering thoughts back to the next number.

  It didn’t look anything like a number in the States or Canada. It looked like a foreign number. I tried to remember back to my high school graduation trip to Europe and how to make overseas calls. There were country codes, as I recalled, but this one seemed to be missing the code. I went to that source of much knowledge, Google, and brought up a list of country calling codes. I then started dialing. Most of them got me a recorded operator voice speaking French, German, or Spanish. I had to assume the foreign robot operators were telling me wrong code, try again. Tired of being told off by robots in languages I didn’t understand I dialed the code for Great Britain. Three rings and a man answered.

  “Lux e tenebris,” he said.

  There was a momentary brain freeze at the Latin words. Then the high school Latin that Meredith had insisted I study kicked back in and provided the translation. Light out of darkness.

  “Hello?” I said tentatively.