“I think even Simone understands that someone dying doesn’t count as losing a client,” I said.
“I would pay to see you tell her that.” Wyatt gestured over to one of the fire drums, where I could see Simone sitting with Wolfgang. “And she didn’t come away entirely empty-handed. I gave her a consolation prize. Not that she’ll be signing anyone with it.” He snickered at his own joke, though I wasn’t quite sure what it was. “Besides, she didn’t lose out on Henry because he died—no, it’s far more humiliating than that. She made her pitch. Screwed you over, by the way. He declined. Then he died. Vale and all that.” Wyatt did a borderline-offensive sign of the cross that was so wobbly Jesus would need a chiropractor. “Oi!” he yelled again, but this time across me. “Jasper! Champers? Lots to celebrate.” He raised his glass and spilled half of it.
Jasper had been on his way to join Harriet, whom I could see on the dance floor. Wyatt’s command pulled him into our current, and he grimaced as a glass was shoved into his hand. Wyatt was clearly willing to celebrate his windfalls with anybody who passed him. Like stepping off a land mine, or Indiana Jones switching a golden idol, I sacrificed Jasper to hold Wyatt’s attention and scurried off, making my way over to Simone and Wolfgang.
Wolfgang greeted me with a snarl of acknowledgment, and I couldn’t quite tell if he was annoyed I was there or annoyed that he had debased himself enough to know who I was. He and Simone each had a long metal skewer, which they were using to toast marshmallows from a bowl nearby. Wolfgang was only lightly singeing his. Simone was letting hers flare into a meteor, the burned sugar dripping into the coals.
“Everyone’s in a surprisingly good mood,” I said. “Events of today considered.”
Wolfgang de-skinned his marshmallow with his teeth. “One less hack, who’s complaining?”
Simone laughed cruelly. Yes, I know it’s an adverb.
“That’s a little cold,” I said. “I bet you’ve never even read him.”
“I have indeed,” Wolfgang huffed, to my surprise. “His very first. Drivel, of course. Grammatically haunting. Uses commas like cane toads—they multiply on every page—and he’s addicted to the bloody Oxford.”
I didn’t want to get into a conversation with Wolfgang about bad writing, as I would surely wind up insulted, so I changed the topic. “How’s your artwork coming along?”
“Artwork?”
“Yeah, your painting, or whatever. The Death of Literature.”
Wolfgang chuckled dryly. “It’s going just fine, thank you. And it’s not a painting, it’s an experience.”
“That’s worth staying alive until Adelaide for at least,” I said.
“If you get that far.” Wolfgang’s lips transformed into a frown. The fire cast a long shadow of his nose down to his chin, like a slash. “This could be a dangerous journey for you. If I were in your shoes, I’d be concerned.”
“Me?” My voice cracked. Was that a threat? Did he know I’d been poking around, playing detective?
His mouth split into a grin, but the type that accompanies a mean-spirited prank rather than an actual joke. “Someone’s picking off bad writers. I’d lock your door.”
Simone punched him on the shoulder playfully, which seemed, to me, a low amount of physical violence for her 15 percent. She caught my scowl. “Lighten up, Ern.”
“It’s not a nice way to be remembered, is all.”
“Is it not?” Wolfgang scoffed. “You think we look on our dead with fondness? Let me give you a history lesson. The Washington Post’s obituary of Edgar Allan Poe said that the announcement would ‘startle many, but grieve none.’ And he was an actual genius. All you crime writers owe him your careers—you talk about Christie and Conan Doyle and forget about Poe.”
I was surprised by Wolfgang’s knowledge of a genre he supposedly despised, just as I had been by his reading McTavish. It actually made me like him a little more: at least he made the effort to participate in the things he wished to criticize.
He ranted on. “And I’m supposed to grieve some middle-of-the-road Scot because he sold a few books? Please. I show him enough respect to treat him with the disdain a great artist deserves. How do we measure a man? He may be odious and foul, but if his words have value, they will outlive him.”
“An ethos you’re attempting to live by, I see.”
Wolfgang’s face did a good impression of Simone’s overcooked marshmallow, a sagging melt, before he raised his glass to Simone, ignoring me, and skulked off into the night.
“You’re in a bad mood,” Simone said, poking the coals. The tip of her silver skewer was glowing orange, flecked with the scorched sugar.
“Don’t you think something’s going on here?” I asked. “Everyone seems pretty glad that McTavish is dead.”
“Just because everyone’s glad he’s dead doesn’t mean someone killed him.” Her eyes reflected the flames. Then they lit up of their own accord and her lips curled. “You’ve got reason to be happy too! You’ve got your book! That must be a relief.”
“Speaking of the book, how does everyone know about my advance?”
Simone kept her poker face, shrugged. “Gossip?”
I knew from experience that surliness was repaid with venom from Simone, so I put it to the side and tried to capitalize on her good mood. If she was pleased I finally had something to write about, I figured she’d be open to helping me with some of the details. “Let’s say this does become the book. Help me with the backstory. You worked for McTavish, right? How’d that happen?”
“I did an exchange program to the UK and was in editorial at Gemini. This was back when they were a little floundering thing, before Morbund filled their coffers, but I jumped at the opportunity for a change of scenery. Then Henry poached me to be his full-time assistant after the first Morbund took off.”
“Good gig?”
“Better than working for Wyatt. Paid well, good hours. I’d say I got hit on less, but the two of them blur together.” She sighed. “God, the early aughts.”
“I’m sorry to hear it was so bad back then.”
“Back then?” she scoffed. “It’s happening now. So some of the really bad eggs are ‘canceled,’ apologize, and slink away for a while—and then they’re right back selling more books than ever, on our TVs, filling stadiums. The problem is deeper than that, and every person who sits back and thinks we fixed it because I don’t get slapped on the arse at work anymore is ignoring the deep-seated structural issues.”
“You seem on good terms with Wyatt,” I said. “And you were willing to agent McTavish.”
She flicked the superheated glowing tip out of the coals and held it in the air. “It’s a brave man who accuses a feminist of double standards, Ernest.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. But you don’t get to say things like that because you don’t have to make those choices. Like I said, men like this go on and on. I’ve got to play the game as much as anyone. I figure I should take some of their money while I’m at it. That’s feminism, if you think about it.”
I found myself impressed seeing this side of Simone, a glimpse at her vulnerabilities. Her staunch pride and self-confidence had always made her seem so above everything. But I could see now the artifice of what she was doing and the sacrifice of her real self that it was: she had to look hard as nails to go toe-to-toe with people like McTavish and Wyatt.
I thought about McTavish. What had he done that he should have had his comeuppance for? I remembered Brooke’s question at the panel, and the note in McTavish’s room. What if Archibald Bench was a public accusation, not an attempt to impress? “Did Henry have any, shall we say, distasteful associations?” I asked.