Bestseller. Olivia Goldsmith

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СКАЧАТЬ Ochs Davis tapped the mouse twice and sent the new chapter off to the print queue. He had—finally—succumbed to the lure of technology and had allowed installation of a sophisticated PC, which was housed in a mahogany neoclassic cabinet. But he had drawn the line at having a clattering printer in his office. He leaned back in the tall, leather-upholstered chair and shot his cuffs so that they protruded out just the appropriate inch and a quarter beyond his perfectly tailored blazer sleeve. He wore a Patek Phillipe wristwatch—he called thin as a small novella. In discreet white thread his initials were embroidered on the inside of his white cuffs. He looked down at the monogram—GOD. He allowed himself a very small smile.

      His friends would consider the inside, white-on-white monogram just another one of his small idiosyncrasies. All endearing—at least to his friends. His enemies, and they were legion, would simply chalk it up as another one of his nasty affectations. But Gerald knew his enemies, and following the Arabic advice, he kept them close to him. He also knew why they hated him: simple jealousy. Gerald had had the good fortune to be born into a wealthy, prestigious family, he had had the fun of being thrown out of the very finest prep schools, he had bedded, married, and divorced (not always in that order) four of the world’s most beautiful women. As if that wasn’t enough, he now not only ran one of the oldest and certainly the largest publishing company in New York City, but he also wrote some of its most touted books. Not to mention having the coveted corner table reserved for him in the Grill Room of the Four Seasons every day of the week he was in the city. Gerald’s life was full and rich, and he understood that those with a more paltry portion were, naturally, envious. It came with the territory.

      And quite a large territory it was. Gerald looked around his office, an enormous room almost fifty feet long, which contained not only his magnificent English Regency partner’s desk but two separate seating arrangements, a floor-to-ceiling library of first editions, a massive window with a view across to the Chrysler Building and the East River, as well as an original Chippendale conference table that seated eighteen—in original Chippendale chairs. Aside from the large and luxurious bathroom (complete with sauna), his suite also consisted of a small private dining room, another conference room for larger groups, an impressive reception area, and two secretarial offices. In fact, his offices took up so much space in the building and were so luxuriously appointed that many of his employees referred to Gerald’s floor as “God’s Little Acre”. It was virtually an acre of space—Gerald had once had it measured—and at eighty-two dollars a square foot, it was probably the most expensive executive suite in all of the city. That made Gerald smile, too. In an industry noted for its lack of frills and style, Gerald had more than his share of both.

      But there were complications and tragedies in a life of such privilege. Gerald got up from his desk and checked himself in the Duncan Phyfe mirror that hung between two windows of the south wall. He adjusted one eyebrow. His hair, all of it, was false, glued on every morning. Gerald suffered from alopecia areata, a disease that had rendered him totally hairless from the age of three. Some doctors thought it hereditary, others felt it was psychologically based, the product of an unloving home. Gerald didn’t know the reason. AH he knew was that each morning he put on his wig, his eyebrows, and even his upper eyelashes.

      There was a knock at the brass-inlaid door. Gerald ran his hand across his eyebrow, smoothing it, and called out. Mrs. Perkins appeared, the printout in her hand. “Do you want this now?” she asked.

      Gerald’s good mood evaporated as he eyed the manuscript pages in his secretary’s age-spotted hand. The woman should do something about those. “Yes,” he said curtly. “And I’d like some coffee. Jamaican Blue Mountain.”

      Part of Mrs. Perkins’s job was to grind and brew Gerald’s dozen or so daily cups of coffee. And he was very particular about his coffee. He had given up red meat, dairy products, other fats, cigarettes, and even—with great reluctance-red wine. But he’d be damned if he was giving up his caffeine. He planned to live forever, but he wanted to be alert while he was doing so. And if he was going to drink coffee, he was only going to drink the best coffee. Only Gerald and the Queen of England bought Jamaican Blue Mountain in bulk. At sixty dollars a pound, it was expensive, but there was a line on Davis & Dash’s annual budget that read “executive office canteen supplies,” and Gerald’s exorbitant coffee bill was buried in there. To Gerald there was nothing that heightened the pleasure of a luxury more than not having to pay for it himself.

      Because, despite his six-figure salary and his seven-figure bonus, Gerald was always short of cash. This came of living well in New York City and of having three expensive wives, two of them exes, along with four children in college, as well as a demanding mistress to support. Even Gerald, long used to profligate spending, could be shocked by his current monthly expenses.

      Part of the problem was that Gerald had been raised among the very, very rich and moved among the very, very rich but was, actually, himself, only moderately well-off. His family’ had created no trust funds. Gerald’s only sinecure had been the publishing firm, his stock, and his job at Davis & Dash. But his father had sold the firm when Gerald was a young man, and although some of the family still retained shares, Gerald’s portion of the sale money had been spent long ago.

      Since then, unforeseen by Gerald’s now aged father, the company had been sold again, and yet again. This last time it had been acquired by a major communications conglomerate. Davis & Dash was the corporate jewel in their crown. Through all of the acquisitions, while other heads rolled, Gerald had managed to keep his above water. After all, he was a member of publishing royalty, he was the Davis of Davis & Dash. He knew everyone in the business, and he brought in the top money-making books, not to mention the most prestigious (though not always profitable) authors. No one would dare to fire Gerald Ochs Davis. He was a resource of the firm as important as the backlist. He knew it, and so did the corporate moguls, Philistines though they were. Gerald was, after all, the most well-known publisher in New York.

      And Gerald was an author himself. In the early years of his career, he had become vaguely unhappy, working as an editor, then editor in chief, and, finally, publisher. It seemed to him that all of it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. Being the midwife at the birth of an important book was exciting, but after a dozen years of it Gerald had realized that the spotlight was never on the midwife but always on the mother and child—and some of them were real mothers. Gerald had realized, rather late in life, that he wanted to write.

      Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Gerald did not want to write, he wanted to have written. He wanted to see his name in the New York Times Book Review, on the spines of books, and on the cover of volumes displayed in bookstore windows. He wanted to be mentioned in “Hot Type” in Vanity Fair. He wanted a black-and-white photo of himself, taken by Jill Krementz, on a dust jacket. Gerald wanted the thing that writers got, which eluded all editors: He wanted credit.

      He also wanted money. After all, there he was making million-dollar contracts with barely literate horror-genre writers, people who thought that brand names were adjectives, for God’s sake, while he himself was perennially short of spondulicks. Something was wrong with the picture.

      But Gerald had not been sure he could write. He had a deep fear of making a fool of himself—after all, he was already Gerald Ochs Davis and didn’t need to make his name. He also didn’t need to destroy the name he had by doing something louche or stupid. So he had begun cleverly, dipping his toe in the water of words, so to speak, by writing a nonfiction book called Getting It All. He had used every contact he had to launch and promote the book. He had also mounted a campaign to have each secretary at Davis & Dash call bookstores across the country and buy multiple copies. It had all managed to get the slim self-help volume onto the bestseller list. He had been clever and picked the right subject at the right time. Twenty years ago his book gave people permission to be selfish. The altruism of the sixties had faded, but the outright greed of the eighties had not fully kicked in when his book, a sort of СКАЧАТЬ