Cyberbooks Page 8

  His warehouse. The primary storage area and distribution center for Webb Press's books and magazines. Hawks's personal, concrete monument to himself. His albatross.

  It was a long, low, gray concrete structure, more reminiscent of the bunkers and gun emplacements of the Siegfried Line than a publisher's warehouse. Rows of big trucks, each emblazoned with the stylized spiderweb of Webb Press on their flanks (and a small representation of a tarantula at the edge of the web), lined the parking area. The loading docks were shut tight. The place looked empty and deserted.

  Hawks pulled his big sedan up to the front entrance, beneath the marquee that he had personally designed. It was rusting already, even though he had specified that it be made of stainless steel throughout.

  Ignoring the streaks of ignominy defacing his creation, Hawks trudged the few feet from his car to the warehouse's front door, huddled inside his trenchcoat against the gusting wet wind.

  He pushed at the door. Locked.

  He tapped at the security buzzer.

  "Name, please?" asked the security computer in the hard, no-nonsense voice of a retired cop.

  "Hawks. P. Curtis Hawks."

  "Just a moment for voiceprint identification, please."

  Hawks fidgeted in the rain that slanted in under the canopy. A leak in the supposedly stainless steel dripped into a puddle that spanned the front doorway like a miniature moat. Hawks's immaculate Argentinean boots, with their clever inner soles and heels that raised him two inches taller than he deserved, were getting soaked and ruined.

  "I'm sorry, sir. Voiceprint does not match."

  "Whattaya mean it doesn't match!" Hawks shouted at the little speaker grille. "I'm P. Curtis Hawks. I'm the president of this goddamn company! Open this fucking door or I'll replace you with a Radio Shack robot, you goddamn stupid mother—"

  The computer's flat voice cut through. "Voiceprint identification accepted, sir."

  The door popped open.

  Muttering to himself, Hawks stepped through and out of the rain. Goddamn idiot computer doesn't recognize my voice unless I scream at it. Who the hell set up the voiceprint IDs, anyway?

  Fuming and steaming, Hawks stomped through the carpeted reception area and pushed through a steel fire door. The warehouse spread out before him, silent and still, a vast windowless conglomeration of row after row of twenty-foot-high shelving on which rested huge cartons filled with nothing but books. Even taller piles of magazines, neatly baled and wrapped in impervious protective plastic, lay in long rows on the floor. They were not on shelves because there was not enough shelf space for both Webb Press's books and magazines. In his personal direction of the warehouse's design and construction, Hawks had badly underestimated the space needed to store all of Webb's many publications. The brand-new warehouse was far too small the day it opened.

  And dangerous.

  Hawks had insisted on a completely automated warehouse. "We have the technology," he had snapped. "Let's not be afraid to use it." So there were no human workers in the warehouse, in theory. All the lifting and carrying and sorting was done by clever robots. In theory. Overhead conveyor belts whisked heavy cartons of books from one end of the warehouse to the other with swift, silent efficiency. The only people working there were up in the control center, where they pushed buttons from the comfort of padded chairs. In theory.

  In practice the robots were not quite clever enough. They could not reach the shelves higher than ten feet off the concrete floor, and not even the most patient Japanese technicians could teach them to climb like monkeys. The warehouse operators had to hire teenagers and unemployed laborers for that. To keep the facts secret from higher management, these employees were listed in the personnel files as assistant truck drivers. Once the Teamsters got wind of that, of course, they had to be paid as assistant truck drivers.

  Hawks's footsteps echoed off the concrete floor as he made his way across the warehouse toward the control center. Should have placed it on the same side of the building as the front entrance and reception area, he told himself. I'll know better next time.

  He looked warily above him as he crossed the shadow of one of the overhead conveyor belts. It was not in operation, but still, caution was the watchword. At top speed the conveyors developed a slight wobble, just enough to send a heavy carton of books toppling down to the floor below now and then. The concrete was chipped where the cartons had landed. And there were several chalked outlines of human figures, workers who had been conked by falling cartons. Some wiseass Puerto Rican had started putting up little crosses at the spots where people had been killed, but Hawks had put a stop to that.

  The warehouse was costing Webb a fortune. The accident insurace claims alone were enough to keep the company in the red. If the Old Man ever started wondering why so many assistant truck drivers were receiving accident benefits, Hawks might end up working in the warehouse himself.

  All the more reason to get the Old Man out of the picture. For good.

  With grim resolve, Hawks climbed the clanging metal stairs that led up to the control room. He pushed open the heavy, acoustically insulated door, and saw that the Beast from the East was already there, smiling at him.

  Vinnie DeAngelo had won his nickname many years earlier, when he had been in charge of Webb's magazine circulation for the western region of the country. Headquartered in Denver, responsible for getting Webb's magazines prominently displayed on every newsstand between the Mississippi and the Pacific coast, Vinnie had instituted a reign of terror among wholesalers, distributors, truck drivers, and newsstand operators.

  He looked fearsome. Six feet even, in every direction. Built like a block of concrete. Absolutely no neck at all; his shoulders grew out of his ears, which were strangely petite and a shell-like pink. A nose that had been broken so many times it looked like a hiker's trail twisting up a steep mountain. Ice-blue eyes. Reddish-brown hair. The control center, built to accommodate three operators at their consoles and at least two more supervisors behind them, seemed crowded with Vinnie in it.

  "Hello, Mr. Hawks," said Vinnie. It sounded almost like an old Mickey Mouse cartoon.

  The Beast had a high-pitched little-girl's voice that made people want to laugh when they first met him. Those who did laugh never repeated the error.

  "Hello, Vinnie."

  "What can I do for you?" asked the Beast.

  "I need a favor."

  "Such as?"

  Hawks glanced around the control center. It was small: merely three electronic consoles and the padded chairs for them, plus to more empty chairs behind them. The wide windows looked out on the warehouse floor. The only door was at Hawks's back. The walls were softly padded to keep out the noise of the machines that clattered during the working day.

  "It's time for the Old Man to retire."

  For the first time in the years that Hawks had known the Beast, Vinnie's glacial blue eyes widened with surprise.

  "The Old Man? Mr. Weldon?" He whispered the name.

  Hawks nodded.

  Vinnie shifted his ponderous bulk from one foot to the other. "Gee, I don't know. The Old Man . . ."

  "It's got to be done. For the good of the company."

  "He's already had a stroke, ain't he?"

  "A heart attack."

  "Maybe he'll pop off by himself soon."

  "This can't wait for nature to take its course, Vinnie." Besides, Hawks thought, the old bastard will probably live long enough to bury us all. Especially me.

  "Gee, I don't know," Vinnie repeated.

  "I can make it worth the risks you'd be taking."

  Hunching his massive shoulders, the Beast replied, "I'm already special assistant to the national manager of magazine circulation. I get more money than I can spend as it is."

  "Name your price."

  "The Old Man? Gee, I don't know. . . ."

  "Name your price," Hawks repeated.

  Glancing furtively around, as if afraid that someone was eavesdropping, Vinnie hesitated for agon
izingly long moments. At last he said, "See, I met this guy a couple months ago. In the airport in Dallas. He was autographin' books. He's a writer. An author."

  Hawks felt his brows knitting. What was the Beast after?

  "An' we got to talking on the plane back to New York, an' he told me I ought to write my life story. You know, I'd tell it to him and he'd write it and we'd split the money."

  "You want me to publish your autobiography?"

  Sheepishly, the Beast nodded his massive head. "Yeah. That's it "

  "Aren't you afraid that the police would read it?"

  "I ain't done nothin' illegal. Nothin' they got witnesses for "

  Hawks started to smile, but quickly suppressed it. Not wise to smile at the Beast; he might get the wrong idea.

  "All right, Vinnie," said Hawks slowly, carefully. "I'm sure that Webb Press will be happy to publish your autobiography."

  "And make it a best-seller."

  "We'll do our best."

  "It's gotta be a best-seller," said the Beast ominously.

  "Well, your people in distribution would have more to say about that than I would," Hawks replied smoothly. "We'll start with a print run of fifteen thou—"

  "A hunnert thousand. Hardcover."

  "That's not necessary, Vinnie. Fifteen to start, and we can go jack to press as soon as we see they're selling well enough to warrant another press run."

  "A hunnert thousand," rumbled the Beast. "This writer guy said it can't be a best-seller unless you print a hunnert thousand hardcover."

  "Oh, come on now," Hawks countered—cautiously. "What do writers know about the publishing business?"

  Vinnie scowled, a look that many a man had taken to the grave with him.

  "I'll tell you what," said Hawks, trying to keep his voice from trembling. "We'll do a first print run of fifty thousand. That'll be enough to get the book on The New York Times best-seller list all by itself. Okay?"

  Vinnie thought it over for a while. Hawks could almost hear he laborious grinding of gears inside the Beast's thick skull. Finally, he stuck out his right hand and Hawks let the enormous paw engulf his own hand. Weldon W. Weldon is about to enter that big publishing house in the sky, Hawks congratulated himself as Vinnie pumped his arm nearly out of its socket.

  Then he added, And I'm going to publish the autobiography if a goon.

  THE WRITER

  The Writer drove his battered GMota across the George Washington Bridge and into Manhattan that same rainy, dreary Saturday morning. But to him, the fabulous skyline of the city sparkled like Arthur's Camelot.

  For hours he drove through the midtown streets, seeing with own eyes for the first time the legendary Saks Fifth Avenue windows, the Cathedral of St. Paul, the United Nations complex, the Empire State Building. It was breathtaking.

  By midafternoon he was running out of gas, with no idea of where a gas station might be, practically no money in his pockets, and not a clue about where he might find a motel room. But he did see a police precinct station halfway down the block, with half a dozen blue-and-white police cars double-parked in the narrow street, blocking traffic almost completely.

  He double-parked behind a police car, got out, and started into the station. Then he remembered he was now in New York City, the Big Apple, and sprinted back to lock the doors of his old hatchback.

  Contrary to what he had been led to expect by watching hundreds of TV police shows, the precinct station house was drowsily quiet this Saturday morning. A few uniformed officers were standing off in the far corner of the room he entered, quietly talking together. Along the side wall stood four squat blue robots, silent and inert. The Writer paid careful attention to the equipment on the human police officers: pistols, stun wands, gas and concussion grenades, bulletproof vests, protective helmets with built-in radios and shatterproof sliding visors. Yes, he was in New York, all right.

  The sergeant behind the desk was neither friendly nor gruff, just totally impersonal. He seemed to be looking through the writer instead of at him.

  "Excuse me," said the Writer.

  The desk sergeant sat up on a raised platform, like a judge. He seemed to take in the Writer's presence at a glance, his faded jeans and checkered polyester sports jacket. He made the barest perceptible motion of his head. Otherwise he remained as stolid as a robot.

  "I just got into town, and I'm looking for a place to stay. Can you recommend—"

  "Traveler's Aid," snapped the desk sergeant.

  " 'Scuse me?"

  "Grand Central Concourse. Traveler's Aid."

  The Writer scratched his head.

  Leaning forward slightly and peering down at the writer, the desk sergeant said slowly and carefully, as if speaking to a retarded child, "Go to Grand Central Station. That's at Forty-second Street and Park Avenue. Ask any officer there and he, she, or it will direct you to the Traveler's Aid desk. The people there will help you to find a hotel. Understand?"

  The Writer nodded vaguely.

  The desk sergeant started to repeat his instructions, this time in Spanish: "Vaya a Grand Central Estacion . . ."

  The Writer backed away, muttering his thanks and wondering if the desk sergeant actually was a robot.

  Outside, it was drizzling again. But that was nothing compared with what had happened to the Writer's faithful old hatchback. Vandals had taken all four wheels, popped the hood and stolen the battery, the distributor, and all four sparkplugs, jimmied the hatch and taken his only suitcase, ripped out the seats, the radio, and the hand-stitched snakeskin steering wheel cover that his mother had made for him many Christmases ago, and broken each and every one of the windows. In front of the police station.

  The Writer gasped and gaped at the pillaged remains of his car. Then he noticed a piece of paper stuck in the one remaining windshield wiper. A ticket for double parking.

  He sank down onto the curbstone and cried.

  TEN

  For the fiftieth time that cheerless Saturday Carl picked up the telephone, then slammed it back down again. He paced to the window of his sparse hotel room again and looked out at the rain. It spattered the puddles growing on the rooftops across the street, it slanted down onto the cars and pedestrians in the avenue far below. The city allowed private cars into Manhattan on weekends. They and the umbrellas along the sidewalks made a shifting patchwork of colors against the gray stones, gray streets, and gray skies of this somber Saturday.

  So you slept with her, Carl said to himself. That doesn't mean anything. Not in this day and age. You're both consenting adults.

  But what did you consent to? the other half of his brain asked. A one-night stand? Or do you love her? Would you want to marry her?

  Not so fast! This is no time to talk about marriage. Don't even think about it. You're in no position to take on responsibilities like that.

  But you've got a tricky situation here. You're here in New York because she got her company to invite you. If you go ahead with them on the electronic book project, you're going to have to work with her. How are you going to handle that?

  You can't mix business and romance, Carl insisted stubbornly. That's the one thing I learned out of all the management courses I took. Office romances lead to disaster.

  So it was just a one-night stand, eh?

  It has to be.

  Carl nodded, satisfied that he had thought the problem through and come to the correct conclusion. But his hand reached for the telephone, and he asked the information computer for Lori's number.

  *

  Lori was in the middle of her morning calisthenics. Saturday she could sleep late, then do the week's wash and her exercises at the same time. Instead of riding down to the basement laundry room on the elevator, she jogged the three flights down and back up again. Not only was it better for her cardiovascular system and muscle tone, it avoided the jerk who lived on the ninth floor and seemed to lurk in the elevator, waiting for anything female to leer and lunge at.

  She finished the deep bending rou
tine and, wiping a sheen of perspiration from her face, was about to head downstairs again when the phone chimed.

  Drat! she said to herself. If that's Momma she'll talk me blue in the face while the clothes wrinkle before I can get them into the dryer.

  She touched the phone console's automatic answer button and heard the telephone's flat, emotionless voice say, "You have reached 999-5628. When you hear the tone, please leave your name, your number, and a brief message. Thank you. Please remember to wait for the tone."

  Lori had one hand on the front door's knob when she recognized Carl's voice. "Uh, oh, Lori? This is Carl Lewis. I . . . I, uh, I'll call you back later."

  She was at the phone before he could hang up.

  "Carl? I'm here. It's me."

  "Oh! I thought maybe I got a wrong number."

  "No, that's just the answering program. It's not a good idea for a woman to use her own voice."

  A long pause. Then, "I was wondering if you'd be free for dinner tonight."

  Lori's first impulse was to say yes, and then explain that it would have to be early and brief, because she had to work and a belly dancer with a full belly was a belly dancer in trouble.

  But she heard her voice replying, "Gee, I'm sorry, Carl. Not tonight. I have to work."

  "Oh." Did he sound disappointed? Or relieved? Or some of each?

  "How about brunch tomorrow?" she suggested. Brunch would be safer than dinner, she thought. Not so many complications afterward.

  His voice brightened. "Sure. That'll be fine."

  She gave him the name and address of a neighborhood restaurant. "Is one o'clock okay?" she asked.

  "Sure. I've got nothing else to do."

  "All right. I'll make the reservation. See you then."

  And she sang to herself all the way down to the laundry room and back upstairs again.

  *

  Sunday morning was warm and bright, a perfect spring day in the city, like a scene from a Woody Allen film. The previous day's rain had washed the streets and the sky; everything seemed to sparkle as Lori walked from her apartment to the restaurant. People were actually smiling on the street and almost being polite to one another. A fantastic spring day in Manhattan.