Foul Matter by Martha Grimes Page A

really talking about this? Clive had known Bobby was a megalomaniac, a virtual Attila the Hun, but this . . . ? And Clive himself—he was afraid to think about what he thought about himself.
    “Huh.” What came from Bobby was a kind of exploded sigh. He picked up another colorful, shiny jacket and held it at arm’s length. “Where in hell was Mamie Fussel when this got done?”
    “It was Mamie who did it.” She was the art director, a rough-cut woman Clive didn’t particularly care for.
    “I’d rather be back in the days of tits and ass.”
    “These are the days of tits and ass,” said Clive. “Could we focus here? Could we just stay on the point here?”
    Bobby dropped this jacket on the other one. “Another thing is, Isaly’s going to be giving Tom a new manuscript soon. It’s due this month.”
    They always talked about manuscripts like long-overdue babies. Tired, Clive had finally dropped onto the sofa. “Why in hell does that make a difference?”
    “Why? Because I don’t think Paul Giverney would relish a new Isaly coming out, even after this little reversal of fortune Ned’s going to have. And God knows not with all of the attendant publicity around the publication of Isaly’s new property. Right?”
    Clive could only stare.
    Bobby picked up the phone, then thought better of it, plucked up the two jacket mock-ups, and went to the door.
     
    “Where the hell’s Melissa?”
    “Small emergency,” said Sally as she raised her fingers from the keyboard. “Coffee’s just about ready.”
    “Uh. Call Tom Kidd and ask him what’s the progress on the Ned Isaly book. Then tell Mamie Fussel I want to see her asap. These are fucking terrible.” He tossed the jackets on Melissa’s desk.
    “I can—” She stopped. At Bobby’s raised-eyebrow inquiry, she mumbled, “Nothing.” She could have, too. Told him about the progress of Ned’s book. But that might eclipse Tom’s own reaction to all of this. Tom wouldn’t stand for their giving Ned any trouble.
    Bobby disappeared from the door and, as Clive had done, pulled it shut.
    Sally felt a chill descend and rubbed her arms against it. She thought she knew what the theme of this conversation between the two of them was about. If Ned reneged on the delivery date of his book, Mackenzie-Haack would drop him. She could not work out what Paul Giverney had to do with it.
    Tears came to her eyes. What in God’s name could Bobby (or Clive) have against Ned? How could they even consider such a thing?
    Sally stared at the gaudy jackets Bobby had dropped on the desk. They were not inspired, no, but neither were they awful.
    And to Bobby it was all the same—the end of Ned Isaly at Mackenzie-Haack and two dead-in-the-water dust jackets.

    “She was nothing like my mother,” said Saul, still talking about his grandmother.
    They were sitting in the park, on this now-luminous November day, such a rarity in New York that all one wants to do is sit and look at it, at the light that lay like a transparent crust across the cold grass beyond them. It was so clear, Ned’s head was spinning a little with the dazzle and clarity of it all, as if he were drunk on air.
    Saul had stopped talking and sat smoking a fresh cigar. Then his talk resumed: “I could never understand how my mother and my uncle Swann could be her children. I got it in my head there was a mix-up in the hospital. You know.”
    “Maybe you believed that; kids do, don’t they? It’s a way of explaining discomfort and pain to themselves.” Ned was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, and now looked up at Saul, waiting for him to go on, but he’d stopped. Ned was surprised he’d talked this much about himself. About anything, really.
    “Isn’t that Sally?”
    Ned followed the direction of Saul’s gaze. It was Sally and she seemed in a dreadful hurry, walking so fast she might at any moment break into a run. Getting up, smiling, he regretted there was no wind to snatch up a page of his