Deadline for Lenny Stern by Peter Marabell (beautiful books to read TXT) 📕

the windows overlooking Lake Street. The July heat was in its eighth day. Sandy was at her desk, nibbling on a molasses cookie.

“Whenever you say something’s simple,” she said, “I get nervous.”

Henri laughed. “Muscle memory, Sandy. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“That’s easy to do, hanging around the two of you.”

“Did you tell Lenny’s agent …” Henri said, hesitating.

“Tina Lawson.”

“Right. Did you tell Tina Lawson we’d take over the tour?”

“Uh-huh.”

“She okay with that?”

“She understands we have to do some things our way to protect Lenny. But we have to work with the schedule set by Gloucester Publishing.”

“I assume we also stick with Lenny when he’s not on tour.”

“Until this is over, yeah.”

“Where is he now?”

“I have no idea.”

“That’s not a very reassuring way to start, gentlemen,” Sandy said.

“Said he’d let us know when he got back to the office.”

“The real danger starts when the tour starts,” I said. “The people doing the threatening don’t know if the tour’s been canceled or not. Because of the threats.”

“Unless there really is a leak at Gloucester Publishing,” Sandy said. “Should we trust anybody associated with Gloucester?”

I shrugged. “I think Lawson’s okay. She seems like a sharp professional trying to do her job. Besides, Lenny likes her.”

“Bigelow?” Sandy said.

I shook my head. “He’s probably okay. Seems too preoccupied with himself to sell out to the mob.”

“That’s not enough to rule him out,” Henri said.

“No, it’s not,” I said.

“We going to set Lenny straight on how this will go,” Henri said, “on and off tour?”

I nodded.

“I suppose the esteemed Mr. Bigelow will want to weigh in.”

“I’ll fill Bigelow in after we set it up with Lenny. Keeping his author out of harm’s way is our job, not his.”

“Book must be a helluva read,” Henri said.

“Hey,” Sandy said, reaching under her desk.

“Voila.” She held the book in the air. “Hot off the press. Our own copy of Corruption on Trial.” The large block letters of the title were superimposed over an even larger judge’s gavel.

“Where’d we get that?” Henri said.

“Kid from Weston’s office dropped it off,” Sandy said. “Already read the introduction.”

“So what do you think?” I said.

Sandy carefully placed Lenny’s book on the desk in front of her, as if it were a rare first edition in the original paper jacket. She stared at it for a moment.

Henri and I sat quietly, waiting.

“I’ll know better after I read it,” Sandy said, glancing at each of us. “Right now, hard to tell.”

“What does that mean?” Henri said.

“Look, Lenny describes … you know, gives us the background, how he covered the mob killing in the first place, how he came to write the book.”

“We know some of that,” I said.

Sandy nodded. “But it was the documents,” she said, “they’re what did it. They filled out the story he’s wanted to tell for a long time.”

Sandy pointed at the book. “Once he had the evidence, he knew he’d finally write the book.”

“Do you want to read it first?” I asked her.

“You bet.”

“Might be something we need to know …”

“How about this,” she said. “I’ll email you two highlights, a summary, something. You’ll have that.”

Before we could quiz Sandy further, we heard footsteps. A moment later, Lenny Stern came through the door. He stopped when he caught all three of us staring at him.

“What?” he said. “What’d I do?”

Sandy held his book in the air. “Look, Lenny. My own copy.”

Lenny smiled. “You got it,” he said. “That’s Maury’s, but he can get another one. You guys need a copy right now.”

“Will you autograph it for me?” Sandy said.

“I would be delighted,” Lenny said, with a very theatrical bow at the waist. “I’ve only read the introduction,” she said. “I have a quick question.”

Lenny hung his coat on the hall tree and took the chair next to Henri.

“What’s the question?”

Sandy leaned forward on her desk. “Finding the evidence of corruption sealed the deal …”

Lenny nodded. “To write the book.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Sandy said, “but why stick with it so long? You reported on the original crime, wrote the stories for the Tribune years ago, but never let it go. Why not?”

“You hang around cops and criminals as long as I have, you can smell a cover-up. Even if nobody spells it out, the cops, prosecutors. They all know.”

Lenny paused a moment. “Proving it … that was another story.”

“But when you could prove it,” Sandy prompted.

“I started the book,” he said.

“Anyone else know you’d started the book?” I said.

Lenny sat back. “Well, at first no one. How could they? I have all my original notes. The rest is in the paper’s cloud file.”

“Would anyone at the paper be interested?”

“That I was digging in the digital files?”

“Uh-huh.”

Lenny shook his head. “Reporters, editors, we’re always checking stuff. Nobody’d paid any attention.”

“Would anyone care that you started a book on a famous crime?”

Lenny smiled. “Every reporter is writing a bestseller, Russo. Like English professors are always writing …” Lenny paused, making quote marks in the air with his fingers. “You know. The ‘great American novel.’”

“You tell anyone you were working on the case?”

“Nobody to tell,” Lenny said. “I was the only one who had the evidence. It wasn’t any kind of big deal that I was sketching out a book.”

I stood and looked out the window. There were shoppers moving here and there in the humid air. Most visitors were at the beach trying to stay cool. I was happy for air conditioning.

“It had to be a big deal to somebody, Lenny,” I said. “Somebody who knew about the book.”

“Lenny,” Sandy spoke up. “After you started the project, what’s the first thing you did? Like, where’d you go, who did you talk to?”

“Well.” Lenny thought for a moment. “I might have said something to someone at work, you know, over coffee or a beer.”

Sandy shook her head. “No, no, not that. I don’t mean a casual conversation at work.”

“How about Gloucester Publishing?” Henri said. “When did they get involved?”

“Later,” Lenny said. “I’d finished most of the rough draft before I took it to Gloucester.”

“Who’d you