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Today, Nancy came down hard on the grilled swordfish, and, after wading around through the monkfish baked with ginger and the steak and shiitake mushrooms, both Clive and Bill had said, yes, they’d have the swordfish, too. They did not do this because they were so closely bound in temperament that they were bound in taste; no, each was afraid that a dish would be brought which was obviously superior to the ones the others had ordered. It was simpler to get the same thing.
    “Come on, Clive,” said Nancy, leaning toward him until her bosom nearly flattened on the table. “What?”
    Over the years the three of them had grown as cagey and monosyllabic as illegal aliens.
    Bill gave him a razor smile and said, “Yeah. What’ve you got?”
    Well, Clive hadn’t got anything, had he?
    Both Bill and Nancy had X-ray vision and mirror eyes good enough for a Village of the Damned remake. Because of that, Clive might have believed they could see straight through him had he not known their vision was clouded by their own predilection for sham and subterfuge. So, having nothing at all, he resorted to a wide-eyed innocence designed to pique their curiosity even more about the coup they thought he must have brought off.
    His shrug was elaborate. “I haven’t got anything.”
    Nancy put on her disbelieving face, turned sideways in her chair, and shook her head at this witless attempt to convince her.
    “Yeah, right,” Bill said.
    The three of them had never actually discussed Paul Giverney. Had never so much as mentioned it over the telephone, because none of them had wanted the others to think he or she was working ropes and pulleys like holy hell behind the claptrap scenes of their dusty stages, trying to grab Giverney’s agent’s ear, hurling more and more outlandish offers. Clive knew he was right in assuming their offers had been intoxicating. But Bobby Mackenzie’s had been so far off the charts Giverney’s agent could easily retire on the commission. Never have to return another call in his life, he wouldn’t. It was just the sort of advance that would bring the publishing industry to its knees, eventually. Monster advances of the kind being offered would never be earned out.
    This, too, thought Clive, was sad. But, again, he wasn’t wearing this fifteen-hundred-dollar silk suit by virtue of adhering to the Tom Kidd publishing virtues.
    “Lunch, for God’s sakes,” answered Clive, affecting a laugh insincere enough to prove it must be otherwise. “We haven’t had lunch since—” He bethought himself.
    Nancy answered: “Since I signed Tasha Gorky for a one-mil advance on spec.”
    That was walking right into a trap she should have foreseen, being Nancy. She must be desperate.
    Clive smiled. “As I recall, Nancy, the spec turned out to be one purely ghosted outline with the ghost departing into the ether.”
    Tasha didn’t have any ideas, much less could she write. Tasha’s writing expertise extended to autographing tennis balls.
    Nancy’s preeminent trait was her ability to stonewall anybody. “Yes, why’re you surprised? It was obvious I was taking a big chance. But like I always say, no pain, no gain.” (The only thing she got out of her occasional bouts with AA were the aphorisms.)
    Of course, she was managing to turn things around to make her editorial errors look like brave risks. They were off the subject of the reason for the lunch. But Clive knew well enough they’d be right back on it at any second. They were too sharp to be taken in by his we-haven’t-seen-one-another-lately gambit. Too sharp and too envious. Too much like him, in other words.
    Did he dare? He cut off a bite of swordfish with surgical precision. Given Bobby Mackenzie’s determination to sign Giverney, wasn’t it already a foregone conclusion that they’d get him? If by some chance they didn’t, surely he’d be able to cover himself. So he dropped it right in the middle of talk about Tasha: “We’re signing Paul Giverney