“Lara, I’ve been thinking about you all day, darling. How did the opening go?”
“Wonderfully. I wish you could have been here, Philip.”
“So do I. I miss you like crazy.”
Then why aren’t you here with me? “I miss you, too. Hurry home.”
Howard Keller walked into Lara’s office carrying a thick manila envelope.
“You’re not going to like this,” Keller said.
“What’s up?”
Keller laid the envelope on Lara’s desk. “This is a copy of Gertrude Meeks’s manuscript. Don’t ask me how I got hold of it. We could both go to jail.”
“Have you read it?”
He nodded. “Yes. ”
“And? ”
“I think you’d better read it yourself. She wasn’t even working here when some of these things happened. She must have done a lot of digging.”
“Thanks, Howard.”
Lara waited until he left the office; then she pressed down the key on the intercom. “No calls.”
She opened the manuscript and began to read.
It was devastating. It was a portrait of a scheming, domi neering woman who had clawed her way to the top. It depicted her temper tantrums and her imperious manner with her em ployees. It was meanspirited, filled with nasty little anec dotes. What the manuscript left out was Lara’s independence and courage, her talent and vision and generosity. She went on reading.
“…One of the Iron Butterfly’s tricks was to schedule her business meetings early on the first morning of negotia tions, so that the others were jet-lagged and Cameron was fresh.
“…At a meeting with the Japanese, they were served tea with Valium in it, while Lara Cameron drank coffee with Ritalin, a stimulant that speeds up the thought process.
“…At a meeting with some German bankers, they were served coffee with Valium, while she drank tea with Ritalin.
“…When Lara Cameron was negotiating for the Queens property and the community board turned her down, she got them to change their mind by making up a story that she had a young daughter who was going to live in one of the build ings…”
“…When tenants refused to leave the building at the Dorchester Apartments, Lara Cameron filled it with homeless people.…”
Nothing had been left out. When Lara finished reading it, she sat at her desk for a long time, motionless. She sent for Howard Keller.
“I want you to run a Dun and Bradstreet on Henry Seinfeld. He owns Candlelight Press.”
“Right.”
He was back fifteen minutes later. “Seinfeld has a D-C rating.”
“Which means?”
“That’s the lowest rating there is. A fourth-line credit rating is poor, and he’s four notches below that. A good stiff wind would blow him over. He lives from book to book. One flop and he’s out of business.”
“Thanks, Howard.” She telephoned Terry Hill, her attor ney.
“Terry, how would you like to be a book publisher?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I want you to buy Candlelight Press in your name. It’s owned by Henry Seinfeld.”
“That should be no problem. How much do you want to pay?”
“Try to buy him out for five hundred thousand. If you have to, go to a million. Make sure that the deal includes all the literary properties he owns. Keep my name out of it. “
The offices of Candlelight Press were downtown in an old building on Thirty-fourth Street. Henry Seinfeld’s quarters consisted of a small secretarial office and a slightly larger office for himself.
Seinfeld’s secretary said, “There’s a Mr. Hill to see you, Mr. Seinfeld.”
“Send him in.”
Terry Hill had called earlier that morning.
He walked into the shabby little office. Seinfeld was sitting behind the desk.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Hill?”
“I’m representing a German publishing company that might be interested in buying your company.”
Seinfeld took his time lighting a cigar. “My company’s not for sale,” he said.
“Oh, that’s too bad. We’re trying to break into the Ameri can market, and we like your operation.”
“I’ve built this company up from scratch,” Seinfeld said. “It’s like my baby. I’d hate to part with it.”
“I understand how you feel,” the lawyer said sympatheti cally. “We’d be willing to give you five hundred thousand dollars fork. ”