Publish and Perish Read online

  “Who is this?” A clipped British accent edged with anger and concern.

  “I’m a friend of Jolly’s. And who are you?” I shot back.

  “Please hold the line.”

  Silence. It stretched on and on and on. I drummed my nails on the armrest. Irritated, I finally started the hopeless repeat of hello, hello, hello? “Goddamn it! This is serious!” The phone went dead, and I had a very polite robot saying “If you’d like to make a call please hang up.…”

  I jabbed furiously at the disconnect button and cussed quietly for a few minutes. I then redialed the number and got a robot. “We’re sorry. This number has been disconnected or is no longer…” I again hung up, this time with more force then was probably good for the buttons on the cheap phone.

  Slouching in my seat, I tugged on my lower lip and considered. I stuffed the phone into the pocket of my jacket and turned to the computer. I typed in lux e tenebris. I got the expected translation, but another entry in Google caught my attention. It was also a motto of the Scottish Rite Freemasons. Well, that didn’t seem that terribly odd. Modern freemasonry began in Britain. But the number was suddenly disconnected.

  Pushing aside the latest paranoid thought, I moved on to the next number, but the phone gave a disconsolate beep, a low battery warning, and the screen went dark. I fumbled in my computer bag and had a memory flash of the charger plugged into the wall of my office, the connector resting on the edge of my desk. I shut my eyes, furious with myself for forgetting to pack the damn charger. Well, I could always buy a replacement at a Radio Shack in Newport.

  I stuck the phone in my purse and looked out the window. About thirty minutes later we were paralleling a two-lane road. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but one car caught my attention by virtue of its speed. It was also weaving in and out of traffic, passing other cars. Even passing some on the right. The whistle began blaring and I remembered there was a train crossing in this area. The road took a sharp bend to the left. I had a brief moment to see the arms on the crossing guard lowering before the racing car crashed through the signal arm and came to a stop on the tracks. A man in a beige raincoat jumped out and ran away.

  The whistle became a scream as the engineer held down the horn. The train began to shudder as the brakes were applied. I braced myself just in time before we plowed into the car that was blocking the tracks. The scream of the whistle was joined by the scream of tortured metal and the terrified screams of the passengers. Even though I knew it was coming, I added my scream to theirs.

  A few hundred feet farther along and the train came to a stop. People were crying, talking, grabbing at cell phones. I sat frozen for a few minutes. Someone had wanted this train to stop. Because of me? No, I was being completely nuts.

  Then I saw a male figure in a beige raincoat through the window of the connecting door. He was a middle-aged man, dark haired, with a neatly trimmed beard, and Japanese. Beneath the coat he wore a suit. His head was turning, clearly searching for something or someone. I remembered the receptionist at the hospital describing the man who had accompanied the female vampire. He had been Asian too. Could this be the same man?

  I ducked down below the seat back in front of me. I needed to get off this train and get off now. I looked down at the rolling case and realized I couldn’t take it with me. But I had to keep hold of the computer. I had client information on that machine, the telephone numbers Lucius had sent me, and Ben’s paper. I tucked the laptop under my arm, slung my purse across my chest, and scuttled out into the aisle.

  Fortunately, a lot of my fellow passengers were on their feet, milling around in the aisle too. For once, my lack of height was an advantage. I stayed hunkered over and moved as quickly as I dared to the other end of the car and into the accordion vestibule between the cars.

  I yanked open the outer door. It set off an alarm, but I was past caring. I jumped down, my feet slipping on the crushed rock of the trackbed. I ran away from the train and toward the road. I risked one glance behind me and saw the man in the raincoat in one of the broad windows. He was gesticulating and staring right at me. I clutched the computer more tightly and ran all the harder.

  I managed to hitch a ride back into Manhattan with a delivery truck driver who kept up an endless stream of conversation about his routes and which towns bought the most different kinds of seafood. I kept nodding and saying “uh-huh” at appropriate moments, and didn’t hear a word.

  * * *

  Once we reached Manhattan I thanked my new best friend and had him drop me off in front of a hotel with a taxi stand. It wasn’t late, not quite eight o’clock, but enough after work hours that I had the taxi driver take me to John’s apartment, only to discover John wasn’t there. We went next to his office. He wasn’t there either. Date or work? It didn’t really matter since I had a dead phone and I couldn’t track him down.

  “Where to now, Miss Lady?” My driver was a cute young Somali man named Bahdoon. He had warm brown eyes, a nice smile, and, unlike a lot of cabbies, wasn’t resentful that I kept sending us in different directions.

  I dithered over that for a few minutes. I could have him take me to Ray and Gregory’s, but something scary was happening and I didn’t want to bring it home to them. We could find a Radio Shack and I could try to buy a charger for my phone. Or I could go back to the office where I had both an old-style phone and my charger.

  “Would you be willing to take me to Queens?”

  He gave me a bright smile. “Sure. Lots of money for me.”

  I sighed. “At least one of us is having a good night.”

  Bahdoon also chatted all the way to Queens, but unlike Rudy, who delivered seafood to points north, Bahdoon was actually interesting. He talked of his home, his family, his dreams now that he had made it to the United States. I appreciated the distraction. Someone had wrecked a car to stop a train and it was pretty damn clear that action had been directed at me. I had no idea what the next escalation would be and I didn’t want to find out.

  I paid the bill, gave Bahdoon a really good tip, and let myself into the office. Sitting at my desk I plugged in the cheap cell phone, then used the landline to call John. It went to voice mail.

  “You’ve reached John O’Shea. Leave a message.”

  “Another really weird thing has happened. Need to talk. Call me soonest.”

  It was stupid, but I checked the little phone. It had only been a few minutes, and it wasn’t like my twitching was going to force a charge into the battery any faster. I drummed my nails on the desk, eyed some of the paperwork waiting for my attention. I opened up my laptop intending to read Ken’s paper, but what loaded was the email from Lucius.

  I stared at that final number on the list. The only one I hadn’t tried. I grabbed the receiver out of its cradle and dialed. The phone rang in my ear. I also heard it ringing right outside my office door.

  When your heart hammers really hard it almost hurts. It was certainly impeding my ability to draw a decent breath. Who was in the outer office? How had they found me? I thought about the long pause when I’d been on the phone to Britain. Had they been tracing my call? Was that even possible? I had a feeling it was.

  I had toyed with applying for a license for a gun, but hadn’t followed up. I was really regretting that procrastination now. The door to my office didn’t lock. I wondered if I could push the desk against the door to block it? And go where? I looked at the window. I jumped up from my chair and went to look out. There was a narrow ledge. I could maybe walk along that ledge and kick in a window in another office. I was also really bad about heights. Sheer terror would probably have me falling off the ledge.

  I had to know who was out there. What I was facing. I crept to the door and held my breath. I heard nothing from the other side. I opened the door a crack and peeked out and found myself looking at an expanse of purple silk. My eyes jerked up from the front of a blouse. It was the female vampire from Jolly’s house. Our eyes met. She opened her mouth and I slammed shut the office do
or and put my back against it.

  The door began to open, an inexorable force pushing it. I scrabbled, but my bootheels found no purchase on the linoleum floor. Panic constricted my chest, but that feeling I’d had when I fought John’s mother in Fey was also present. A sense of something coiling, stretching, moving within my chest. A slim manicured hand reached around and closed on my shoulder. I squeaked and jumped, and lost my footing. My feet shot out from under me, I slid down the door and landed on the floor. The door flew open and the vampire entered the room only to trip over me.

  I had a moment to react and I scrabbled on hands and knees into the reception area and jumped to my feet. I ran for the front door as I heard the vampire call, “Please, Linnet, wait! Listen!” Her voice lilted with a curious and unusual accent. “You must come with me.”

  Fat chance, I thought. I had been vaguely aware of the smell of burned coffee in the office when I’d come in, but I’d been so focused on getting to my phone and the charger that I hadn’t checked the coffeemaker. The smell was much stronger now as I ran for the door to the hallway. I heard the woman’s footfalls behind me. Suddenly there was a sharp pop followed by the sound of shattering glass, and a few shards of glass hit me as the coffeepot, which had clearly burned dry, exploded. The bulk of the glass hit my pursuer. She gave a cry of pain.

  Come on, little buddy, I implored my strange super power. Come up with another one.

  And I promptly tripped over my own feet and went staggering toward the fridge and watercooler. I grabbed for the big blue bottle to try to keep from falling and ended up yanking it off the stand. It hit and rolled away, water gurgling from the neck. The vampire hit the now wet linoleum and slipped. She was falling. Whether she would actually hit the floor was problematic, vampires were very dexterous, but it bought me a few seconds. I reached the outer door of the office and threw it open.

  I ran into the hallway. The elevator was out of the question. Taking the interior stairs left me at a disadvantage. She was a vampire, which meant she was both faster and stronger than me. I needed to be outside where there were people who might help me. There was a fire escape off the window at the end of the hall. Balling my fists at my sides, I ran with all I had for that window. A stitch formed in my sides, and my lungs burned with effort. I could hear her closing in on me. There wasn’t going to be time to fumble the catch and actually open the window. I hoped it worked in real life the same way it did in the movies. I threw an arm across my eyes and tried to ram through the glass.

  It wasn’t all cinematic and awesome. There was no shower of glass shards around me. In fact, it didn’t work at all. The glass didn’t break, but the catch snapped and ripped out of the wood frame, and the window flew open. I fell out onto the metal grating of the fire escape. It flexed and rang beneath me.

  This was an old-style escape with a ladder that lowered toward the ground. I grabbed the handholds and swung around, groping for the first rung. My foot hit it, and the ladder went sliding with a violent rattling and shaking toward the pavement in the alley. I clung like a monkey to its mother’s back until we hit the end of the slide with a jerk. I was still some three feet above the ground, and the sharp stop meant I lost my grip and fell backward, cracking my head on the pavement, and sending a shout of pain from my not-yet-healed rib.

  From my supine position, I could watch the female vampire, long dark hair flying like a pennant, swarming down the ladder. My head hurt from the hard knock and I felt dizzy. I struggled to my feet. She was halfway down the ladder. I started to limp away as the ladder gave a shrill creak and a scream of tortured metal, and the ladder broke free, plunging the vampire to the ground. She was tangled in the rungs, struggling to push the ladder off of her.

  I didn’t wait to see more. I pushed into a hobbling run and headed for the street. I spotted an out-of-service taxi and took my life in my hands by running out in front of it. The driver slammed on his brakes. I could see his mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. That changed when he opened the door and stepped out. Red-faced, he shook a fist at me and shouted in a language that sounded like Russian. I touched the back of my head where I had a cut and showed him the blood on my fingers.

  “I’m hurt! Somebody is chasing me,” I yelled at him. I looked back over my shoulder, but the vampire wasn’t there. “Was chasing me,” I amended. “Please, please will you drive me home?”

  The taxi driver stopped shouting and looked concerned. “Some punks, huh? Goddamn animals,” he said in English. “Where you want to go?” I started to give him Ray and Gregory’s address then panicked that I might be followed. I needed help. I gave him John’s address in Greenwich Village. “That’s a long drive,” the driver complained. “I’ll only take cash.”

  “Um … well, about that. I don’t have my purse or anything. But my friend will pay you. I promise.”

  He stared hard at me for a long moment. “Okay, I’ll take you, but I go with you to get the money. Get in.”

  I climbed in, closed my eyes to hold back tears, and pressed a hand against my chest. Who were these people and why were they after me?

  13

  It was pushing ten p.m. before Yuri (I was getting to know so many taxi drivers) and I reached John’s apartment. I rang the bell. The door flew open.

  “I’ve been calling and calling. Why didn’t you pick up?” he demanded.

  “Long story,” I said wearily. “Right now I need you to pay the nice man and then give me a ride back to my friend’s apartment and make sure I’m not being followed.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “First pay Yuri.”

  “How much?” John asked. The taxi driver told him, and John, grumbling, pulled out his wallet and thumbed through a wad of cash.

  Yuri made a big point of counting them. I supposed I couldn’t blame him. Neither John nor I were likely to inspire much confidence. After the door closed behind the Russian’s broad back John bent a frown on me.

  “All right, talk. What happened?”

  “First there was the train and then a vampire happened.” I sat down on the couch, and Gadzooks landed in my lap. The warm, furry, purring bundle pressed against my stomach eased the knot of tension as I told John everything. I concluded by saying, “I’m broke, I’m tired, and I’m starving. I don’t have the skills to make sure I don’t bring trouble back home to Ray and Gregory, so are you going to help me or not? Or do I call Detective Washington?”

  “Of course I’ll take you.”

  It was a short walk to the garage. I slid into the passenger seat, and then did a face palm. John reacted. “What? What’s wrong now?”

  “I busted out a window at the office building to get to the fire escape, and the office is unlocked. Well, the fire escape ladder is broken too, so maybe nobody can get in and rob us, but maybe I should tell Syd. May I use your phone?” He handed it over. “I hate to call this late. Wish I knew the name of the building management company.”

  “You can be rude or get robbed. Take your pick,” John said in that cold way that I was trying to wrap my head around and accept.

  “Good point. And we have clients’ confidential information on file.” I gave a sigh and rang Syd at home. It went to voice mail. “You’ve reached the after-hours number for Syd Finkelstein, attorney at law. If you need a bail bondsman call Harvey Richard.” The number was provided. “If you’ve been in an accident and need to reach me right away press one.”

  I pressed one and Syd answered on the first ring. “Syd Finkelstein.”

  “It’s Linnet.”

  “You okay?”

  “Not really.” I gave him the Reader’s Digest version then said, “So we need to inform the management company and get that window and the fire escape fixed.” I paused and sighed. “And Syd, I’m really sorry. My brother calls me a chaos magnet and I guess that’s true. If you want me out of the office suite I’ll understand.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. We’ve been in the trenches together. You just st
ay safe. I’ll take care of the building.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  That’s when I noticed we weren’t heading toward the southern tip of Manhattan but rather driving north. “Wait. What are you doing? Where are we going? Ray and Gregory live near Wall Street.”

  “I’m taking you to the Dakota and Parlan. You’ll be safe there.”

  “Safe from this vampire maybe, but what about your mother’s supporters, who are probably pissed?”

  “My brother has hot-and-cold running guards and the loyalty of a lot of Álfar that he grew up with. It’s the best solution. None of the parties who seem to be breaking and entering various apartments and offices and stopping trains will be able to get at you in Fey.”

  I noticed the way his good eye flicked between the rearview mirror and the side mirrors. “Are we being followed?”

  “No.”

  We drove in silence for a few minutes. The taillights of the cars ahead of us threw a rosy glow across his face. “You told me the first time I went into Fey when your mom grabbed us that I wasn’t supposed to eat or drink anything. Does that still apply?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then please let’s stop somewhere and get me something to eat.”

  “Okay.” He spun the wheel and took us off to an all-night Colombian empanada restaurant. As always, he found street parking just a few steps away. I was convinced it was some kind of Álfar magic that John did without realizing he was doing it.

  A somewhat dispirited waitress slouched over to our table. I grabbed the menu and ordered a number of small plates: sweet potato and black beans, mushroom and butternut squash, and chicken and chorizo with olives. The chorizo was hotter than I expected, and I went through two glasses of Coke before I had finished it. John had a cherry empanada and a cup of coffee and watched me with his one remaining eye. The blind, milky white eye was disturbing.

  As usual, my mouth took on a life of its own. “Have you considered a patch?”

  “I’m not going to go around like a damn pirate.”