Animal Appetite

first day, Jack sent me down there to look for a box of books, which was ridiculous to begin with, because I was supposed to be typing, for God’s sake, not hauling cartons around, but I made the mistake of going down there, and Jesus! I’ve never seen such a mess in my life. There was old office equipment, electric staplers, collating machines, all this trash, and moldy manuscripts piled on the cement floor, and cardboard cartons, all this junk everywhere. I mean, any books that’d been stored there would’ve been all mildewed, anyway, but, hey, what did I care? It was a day job, right?”
    I murmured agreement. Actually, I was glad to have something to do with my mouth besides drink that kitty-cat tea. “I tried temp work myself a couple of times,” I told Estelle. “I wasn’t much of a success at it. Now, I manage to scrape by doing a column and freelance articles, but I still haven’t published a book.”
    “What’s your column about?”
    “Dogs,” I said.
    Estelle blinked.
    When I’d explained about how Chip had assisted mankind in a new and publishable way, Estelle understood perfectly. Then she went on about the cellar of Damned Yankee Press: “And this rat went running across the floor and right over my foot! And, I mean, I don’t get hysterical about mice or anything, but this was a really big rat, and I went hightailing it up the stairs, and I never went down there again.”
    “Of course not. Estelle, how many people worked there?”
    She licked her lips. There was nothing even remotely sensual about the act. Stellina Brandt would have enticingly flicked her pink and hungry tongue. “Jack,” Estelle said. “Shaun. This secretary who was away. I forget her name. She was the one I was filling in for. Then there was a woman who basically worked for Shaun. She used the computers. Really, she just keyboarded, but back then, it was a big deal. Computers! There was a part-time bookkeeper, but she quit while I was there. Shaun told her she was fucking everything up, in those words, and Jack tried to get her to stay, but she stormed out. And there was an older woman, Elsie, who did most of the practical stuff about orders for books. There were a few other part-time people. I don’t remember them. It really was a small press.”
    “Do you ever see any of the people from there?”
    “I used to run into Elsie now and then, but she died a few years ago. No one else.”
    The chaos of Multitudes in the Valley of Decision had made me wonder whether Estelle could produce a cogent account of anything, but she managed to give me a blessedly clear and simple outline of the daily routine at the press, at least to the extent that there had been one. Regular office workers arrived at nine and left at five. Part-time people, she thought, came and went at will. Some, she had suspected, handed in time sheets that vastly overstated the hours they’d worked. Shaun McGrath had challenged someone on the subject, but Jack had intervened. Shaun himself worked nine to five. Jack arrived when he felt like it, Estelle thought, sometimes at nine, sometimes at ten or so, and he came and went during the day. He walked his dog. But he always remained at his desk after everyone else had left. “Jack always stayed from five to seven. Everyone who worked there knew that. He did some editing then, and he wrote letters.” She remembered perfectly: The police had been interested, and she’d gone over Jack’s schedule many times with them.
    “Did you type any letters for him? Or did the person who used the computers?”
    “The police asked about that, too. I did a few, but they were just business letters, like to Delta Dental and Harvard Community Health Plan, a couple of bookstores, that kind of thing. He did his own letters to his published authors and to people who sent in manuscripts. That was one of the really sweet things about Jack. When he rejected books, he didn’t just send out form letters. He sent everyone a personal note. We talked about it. That’s sort of in Multitudes, right? Mack is sort of based on Jack.”
    “I wondered,” I said.
    “And that’s important for his character: that he never really wanted to reject anyone.”
    “Yes, I remember. Estelle, did Jack usually keep Chip on leash? In the building?”
    “Sort of. Jack used a leash when he took him in and out.”
    “Did you used to go into Jack’s office?”
    “Not a lot. The office where I worked, the main office, was on the first floor,