Elgin’s books were upstairs in her bedroom. Even a sexy romance would have given him something to read, occupy his mind. Perhaps he could find something else lying around. A magazine. A cookbook. Anything.
Absently, he moved to a small desk sitting in an alcove by itself near the front door. He’d never seen Elgin use the desk but it was as good a place to start as any. The drawers contained nothing but dust, an old yellow legal tablet and a fountain pen with no ink. Except the last one on the right-hand side. Lying in the bottom, he found a thick sheaf of paper, covered in faded blue cardstock and held together with two brass brads. Curious, he reached in and removed it.
Another Love, A Novel by Elgin Collier.
Sheila Forbes had told him she wrote under a pen name. Gillian Something. Oh well, better than nothing. Picking up the manuscript, he went back over to the sofa and settled himself under the small reading lamp on the end table. Carefully, he placed his PDA on the table where he could watch the screen. Hopefully, this romantic trash would keep him awake until the forensic boys sent their information.
“How dare you!”
The scream more than the words ripped through his sleep and pulled him to groggy consciousness. Opening his eyes, he sat up and blinked, trying to figure out where he was and what was going on. Before his brain slipped into gear however, something heavy connected with the left side of his head, almost knocking him over again.
“Hey,” he yelped, grabbing his throbbing ear. “What the hell…?”
“You miserable, rotten, low down, good-for-nothing, weasel-hearted son of a bitch!” Something came at him again and instinctively he ducked, feeling air whiz by his head. Peeking up, he saw Elgin standing in front of the sofa, her face contorted and purple with rage, the manuscript in both hands, raised to her head and ready to swing again.
“What are doing? Are you crazy?”
“I’m going to kill you, you lying, sneaking, cold-blooded bastard and there’s not a jury in the world that would convict me. I’ll probably get a medal from the ‘Keep America Beautiful’ people. Consider it part of the vermin abatement program!” The manuscript flew at him again but he grabbed it and managed to wrestle it away from her.
“Stop it,” he shouted, finally getting to his feet. “Stop this crap and tell me what’s going on.”
Ten bright red claws arched out at his face. Grabbing her wrists, Harm marveled at her strength as she struggled to break free and reach him.
“Let go of me you contemptible prick! You pile of pig shit! When I get my hands on you…”
“Stop this,” he ordered again, shaking her like a rag doll. “Stop it.”
Suddenly she stopped fighting him, fixing him instead with a look that burned right through him. Theirs had been an uneasy relationship at best and he’d gotten used to her smart mouth and monumental attitude. But this was different. Cold, pure, unadulterated hate radiated out at him like a physical force. He knew if he released her, she’d kill him without a second thought.
“You had no right,” she spit, “no right at all. This is my house and these are my things and most especially this is my book. Your Junior G-man license doesn’t give you the right to snoop through my things. Through my personal things. And that book is about as personal as my life gets.”
He glanced down at the sofa, the little light still on, the manuscript on the floor. The pieces fell into place and a wave of embarrassment and remorse rolled over him. His fingers opened and she immediately pulled back her arms, rubbing the red finger marks on her wrists.
“I’m sorry,” he told her softly, his head drooping to his chin. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I thought maybe I could find a magazine or a book to read ‘til I got drowsy. I found the manuscript in your desk drawer. I…I thought it was one of your romance novels. I wasn’t prying but you’re right. I shouldn’t have been going through the desk.”
“Well,” she told him, her voice dripping acid, “at least it wasn’t a total loss. I mean, apparently it did put you to sleep.”
Bending down to retrieve the manuscript, he held it out to her. She took it, pulling it to her, crossing her arms over it in a protective, almost maternal gesture.
“I enjoyed it,” he told her seriously. “Really. It’s very good.”
“You sound surprised.”
Like everything else, this wasn’t going to be easy.
“I was. I mean, I expected heaving bosoms and throbbing rods. That’s the cliché of romance novels. But this,” he nodded to the book, “totally blew me away. The story, your way with words. It’s a love story but it’s more. It’s…it’s…”
“Literature?” she prodded.
“Yes. Literature. Your descriptions of the ordinary, everyday, almost invisible indignities of a slave’s life made me angry and sad and ashamed. You throw the whole, ugly, filthy system in your reader’s lap, narrowed down to the laser point of two human beings on opposite sides of it. I hope you’ll autograph a copy for me when it’s published.”
Elgin laughed, a single caustic, ironic chuckle. “Yes, well don’t sit by the telephone with a tuna sandwich and wait for that to happen.”
“I don’t understand.”
A deep sigh escaped her, resonating with despair and resignation and frustration. “It’s very simple, really. I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. I never wanted to be a schoolteacher or a nurse or any of the other things little girls want when they’re growing up. My mother and I both worked to put me through college.
“Clutching my newly printed degree, I struck out for the center of the publishing world, New York. Worked as a filing clerk in the daytime and wrote like an inspired fiend at night. Haunted agents and publishers, lived in ratty apartments, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and generally suffered for my art.
“One day, I literally bumped into Sheila on the subway. She told me she had a job as a reader at what she termed, ‘Pervert Publishing.’ ‘Alternative fiction,’ they called it. But she’d discovered people were buying it up like rainwater in the desert, especially on the Internet. She also discovered the one area these sleaze bags didn’t cover was women’s erotica. Sex but tied up with ribbons and champagne. She told me they got dozens of inquiries a month asking if they carried that kind of thing.
“So, having maxed out her credit cards for the publishing software and a website, she’d gone into business for herself. Fantasy Publishing; cool stories and hot sex.”
“Well, then, I guess you were all set.”
“Yeah. Right. I told her she was crazy and that she’d be in the poor house in six months. She told me I was probably right but to keep her card anyway.
“Well, winter came and one morning while covering a hole in my shoe sole with one of my rejection slips, it dawned on me that I’d suffered enough for my art. I rummaged around in my desk for a novella I’d written about a ‘soiled dove’ in a western bordello and trundled off to see Sheila who by then had a real office and was printing real books.
“She read the novella, told me to call my heroine a ‘whore,’ write three more sex scenes and see that she ended up reformed in the arms of the hero and I’d have myself a hit. So I did. Of course, since I was only doing it for the money and didn’t want it to reflect on my ‘real’ writing, I created Gillian Shelby. The book came out and presto! After five years of struggle, I was an overnight success.”
“But…?”
“Here’s where the irony comes in. I thought that Gillian’s success would open the right doors for Elgin. No longer a mere ‘wannabe,’ I’d achieved ‘published’ status. Or at least Gillian had. Unfortunately, she’d been consigned to ‘romance’ hell and publishers and agents didn’t take seriously that she might have more meat on her literary bones. And Elgin Collier still couldn’t get arrested. So, Another Love gathers dust in my drawer.”