The Ghost

for this assignment.”
    “Then it’s a good job it’s not your decision, Roy.”
    Oh, yes, I had Quigley’s measure right enough. His title was UK Group Editor in Chief, which meant he had all the authority of a dead cat. The man who really ran the global show was waiting for us in the boardroom: John Maddox, chief executive of Rhinehart Inc., a big, bull-shouldered New Yorker with alopecia. His bald head glistened under the strip lighting like a massive, varnished egg. As a young man he’d acquired a wrestler’s physique in order (according to Publishers Weekly ) to tip out the window anyone who stared too long at his scalp. I made sure my gaze never rose higher than his superhero chest. Next to him was Lang’s Washington attorney, Sidney Kroll, a bespectacled fortysomething with a delicate pale face, floppy raven hair, and the limpest and dampest handshake I’d been offered since Dippy the Dolphin bobbed up from his pool when I was twelve.
    “And Nick Riccardelli I think you know,” said Quigley, completing the introductions with just a hint of a shudder. My agent, who was wearing a shiny gray shirt and a thin red leather tie, winked up at me.
    “Hi, Rick,” I said.
    I felt nervous as I took my seat beside him. The room was lined, Gatsby-like, with immaculate unread hardcover books. Maddox sat with his back to the window. He laid his massive, hairless hands on the glass-topped table, as if to prove he had no intention of reaching for a weapon just yet, and said, “I gather from Rick you’re aware of the situation and that you know what we’re looking for. So perhaps you could tell us exactly what you think you’d bring to this project.”
    “Ignorance,” I said brightly, which at least had the benefit of shock value, and before anyone could interrupt I launched into the little speech I’d rehearsed in the taxi coming over. “You know my track record. There’s no point my trying to pretend I’m something I’m not. I’ll be completely honest. I don’t read political memoirs. So what?” I shrugged. “Nobody does. But actually that’s not my problem.” I pointed at Maddox. “That’s your problem.”
    “Oh, please,” said Quigley quietly.
    “And let me be even more recklessly honest,” I went on. “Rumor has it you paid ten million dollars for this book. As things stand, how much of that d’you think you’re going to see back? Two million? Three? That’s bad news for you, and that’s especially bad news,” I said, turning to Kroll, “for your client. Because for him this isn’t about money. This is about reputation. This is Adam Lang’s opportunity to speak directly to history, to get his case across. The last thing he needs is to produce a book that nobody reads. How will it look if his life story ends up on the remainder tables? But it doesn’t have to be this way.”
    I know in retrospect what a huckster I sounded. But this was pitch talk, remember—which, like declarations of undying love in a stranger’s bedroom at midnight, shouldn’t necessarily be held against you the next morning. Kroll was smiling to himself, doodling on his yellow pad. Maddox was staring hard at me. I took a breath.
    “The fact is,” I continued, “a big name alone doesn’t sell a book. We’ve all learned that the hard way. What sells a book—or a movie, or a song—is heart .” I believe I may even have thumped my chest at this point. “And that’s why political memoir is the black hole of publishing. The name outside the tent may be big, but everyone knows that once they’re inside they’re just going to get the same old tired show, and who wants to pay twenty-five dollars for that? You’ve got to put in some heart, and that’s what I do for a living. And whose story has more heart than the guy who starts from nowhere and ends up running a country?”
    I leaned forward. “You see, here’s the joke: a leader’s autobiography ought to be more interesting than most memoirs, not less . So I see my ignorance about politics as an advantage. I cherish my ignorance, quite frankly. Besides, Adam Lang doesn’t need any help from me with the politics of this book—he’s a political genius. What he does need, in my humble opinion, is the same thing a movie star needs, or a baseball player, or a rock star: an experienced collaborator who knows how to ask him the questions that will draw out his heart.”
    There was a silence. I was trembling. Rick gave my knee a reassuring pat under the