“Makes me have a little more sympathy for Jones,” I muttered.
“The worse part is I think he really loved her and didn’t have the smarts to know what he was up against. He started playing lousy ball, ended up in the Betty Ford Clinic He’s since dropped out of sight. One of America’s greatest quarterbacks is washed up, ruined, and indirectly you can thank Sparacino for it. This kind of muckraking and slandering isn’t our style. Orndorff & Berger is an old, distinguished firm, Kay. When Berger began to get a scent of what his entertainment lawyer was doing, Berger wasn’t exactly happy.”
“Why doesn’t your firm just get rid of him?” I asked, picking at my salad.
“Because we can’t prove anything, not at this point. Sparacino knows how to slide through without a snag. He’s powerful, especially in New York. It’s like grabbing hold of a snake. How the hell do you let go without getting bit? And the list goes on.”
Mark’s eyes were angry. “When you start looking back through Sparacino’s professional history and examine some of the cases he handled when he was a one-man show, it really makes you wonder.”
“What cases, for example?” I almost hated to ask.
“A lot of suits. Some hatchet writer decides to do an unauthorized biography of Elvis, John Lennon, Sinatra, and when it comes pub time, the celebrity, his relatives sue the biographer and it makes the network talk shows, People magazine. The book comes out anyway, with the benefit of incredible free publicity. Everybody’s fighting over it because it’s got to be juicy to have caused such a stink. We’re suspicious Sparacino’s method is to represent the writer, then go behind the scenes and offer the ‘victim’ or ‘victims’ money under the table to raise hell. It’s all staged, works like a charm.”
“Makes you wonder what to believe.”
In fact, I wondered that most of the time.
The prime rib arrived. When the waiter was gone I asked, “How in the world did Beryl Madison ever get hooked up with him?”
“Through Gary Harper,” Mark said. “That’s the irony. Sparacino represented Harper for a number of years. When Beryl was coming along, Harper sent her to him. Sparacino has been shepherding her since the beginning, a combination agent, lawyer and godfather. I think Beryl was very vulnerable to older powerful men, and her career was pretty bland until she decided to do this autobiographical work. My guess is Sparacino originally suggested it. Whatever the case, Harper hasn’t published anything since his Great American Novel. He’s history, only valuable to someone like Sparacino if there’s a possibility for exploitation.”
I considered. “Is it possible Sparacino was playing his game with them? In other words, Beryl decides to break her silence–and break her contract with Harper–and Sparacino plays both sides. Goes behind the scenes and goads Harper into causing a problem.”
He refilled our glasses and answered, “Yes, I think he was staging a dogfight and neither Beryl nor Harper was aware of it. As I’ve said, it’s Sparacino’s style.”
We ate in silence for a moment. Gallagher’s was living up to its reputation. You could cut the prime rib with a fork.
Mark finally said, “What’s so awful, at least for me, Kay”–he looked up at me, his face hard–“that day we had lunch at the Algonquin, when Beryl mentioned she was being threatened, that someone was threatening to kill her…”
He hesitated. “To tell you the truth, knowing what I did about Sparacino …”
“You didn’t believe her.” I finished the sentence for him.
“No,” he confessed. “I didn’t. Frankly, it struck me as another publicity stunt. I was suspicious Sparacino put her up to it, had her stage the whole thing to help sell her book. Not only does she have this battle with Harper, but now someone’s threatening to kill her. I didn’t give what she said much credence.”
He paused. “And I was wrong.”
“Sparacino wouldn’t go that far,” I dared to suggest. “You’re not implying …”
“I really think it’s more likely he might have agitated Harper to the point he freaked, got so enraged maybe he came to see her and lost it. Or Harper hired someone else to do it.”