Envy Mass Market

He turned around. “Hello, Maris.”

She sagged against the doorjamb and snuffled a laugh of self-deprecation. “Mike.”

“Have a seat.”

He picked up a stack of books and magazines off the only other available chair and set it on the floor, alongside several other similar towers of reading material. Maris lowered herself into the chair, but her eyes never left him.

He smiled at her. “I knew you’d eventually figure it out. What was the breakthrough?”

“I guessed days ago that Roark was Parker. At least aspects of him. Yesterday Noah said something that was almost a direct quote from the book. About how convenient my father’s death was to him.”

“As his mother’s death was. It enabled him to move to Florida without further delay.”

“I should have realized sooner that you were Hadley.”

“Frankly, I’m glad you didn’t. Parker’s descriptions weren’t always flattering. I’d have been insulted if you’d seen me in them.”

Her eyes roved the cluttered office. “Parker described your office to a tee. What’s your position here at the university?”

“Professor emeritus.”

“That’s an honor.”

He harrumphed. “It’s an empty title that doesn’t mean a thing except that you’re too damn old to do what you used to do. I get to keep the office till I die. In exchange, once each semester I give a lecture on Faulkner to a couple hundred bored young people who attend only because they’re required to. I’m flattered if one of them stays awake for the duration of my lecture. Beyond that, I have no responsibilities whatsoever.”

Qui

etly she said, “I’ll bet Parker stayed awake for all your lectures.”

“He was exceptional. In his book, he hasn’t exaggerated how I felt about ‘Roark’ and his budding talent. If anything, he’s minimized it.”

“Is it true that you rescued him from drug addiction?”

“As I’ve said many times, he rescued himself. He’d become reliant on painkillers. Considering what he suffered, I can’t say I blamed him. But it had reached a point where he was taking the pills more to dull his emotional pain than anything else.

“All I did was sound the alarm inside his head. He’s the one who went through the hell of withdrawal and then whipped himself back into shape.” He smiled. “I guess it’s fair to say that I handed him the whip.”

“Still, he’s indebted to you.”

“As I am to him. I’ve been privileged to work with an amazingly talented writer.”

“Too bad he’s not as fine a human being as he is a writer.”

Mike studied her for a moment, then reached across his desk and pulled forward a manuscript that was bound with a wide rubber band. He passed it to her. She looked down at the cover sheet and her lips curled with bitterness. “I’ve read it.”

“Most of it,” he corrected. “Not all. There’s some you haven’t read. Read it before you judge Parker too harshly.” He stood up and made his way to the door. “I’m going for coffee. Can I bring you back something?”

Chapter 34

One of Noah’s strongest personality traits was his ability to deny that anything was wrong. Refusing to acknowledge a setback was the same as there being no setback to acknowledge.

The morning following his disastrous martini date with Nadia, he took a taxi to Matherly Press, pretending, indeed believing, that he would manipulate his way through this problem and actually come out better in the long run. On the Richter scale of complications, this was a blip.

He was glad that Matherly Press would remain autonomous. WorldView had bought itself a white elephant. Becker-Howe had been hanging on by its fingernails for years, and everybody in the industry knew it. Ollie Howe was more stiff-necked than Daniel. He was unyielding to the rapid changes taking place and baffled by the concept of electronic publishing.

Noah would personally see to it that the merger was an abysmal failure and that Morris Blume became an industry laughingstock, first for fancying himself a publisher, and second for marrying a whore. Every man he shook hands with was likely to have had a piece of his wife.

As for Nadia’s exclusive story, he would deny it.