The Ghost

table. “Nicely done.”
    “What utter balls,” said Quigley.
    “Think so?” asked Maddox, still looking at me. He said it in a neutral voice, but if I had been Quigley, I would have detected danger.
    “Oh, John, of course ,” said Quigley, with all the dismissive scorn of four generations of Oxford scholars behind him. “Adam Lang is a world-historical figure, and his autobiography is going to be a world publishing event. A piece of history, in fact. It shouldn’t be approached like a”—he ransacked his well-stocked mind for a suitable analogy but finished lamely—“a feature for a celebrity magazine.”
    There was another silence. Beyond the tinted windows the traffic was backing up along the motorway. Rainwater rippled the gleam of the stationary headlights. London still hadn’t returned to normal after the bomb.
    “It seems to me,” said Maddox, in the same slow, quiet voice, his big pink mannequin’s hands still resting on the table, “that I have entire warehouses full of ‘world publishing events’ that I somehow can’t figure out how to get off my hands. And a heck of a lot of people read celebrity magazines. What do you think, Sid?”
    For a few seconds Kroll merely carried on smiling to himself and doodling. I wondered what he found so funny. “Adam’s position on this is very straightforward,” he said eventually. ( Adam : he tossed the first name as casually into the conversation as he might a coin into a beggar’s cap.) “He takes this book very seriously—it’s his testament, if you will. He wants to meet his contractual obligations. And he wants it to be a commercial success. He’s therefore more than happy to be guided by you, John, and by Marty also, within reason. Obviously, he’s still very upset by what happened to Mike, who was irreplaceable.”
    “Obviously.” We all made the appropriate noises.
    “Irreplaceable,” he repeated. “And yet— he has to be replaced .” He looked up, pleased with his drollery, and at that instant I knew there was no horror the world could offer—no war, no genocide, no famine, no childhood cancer—to which Sidney Kroll would not see the funny side. “Adam can certainly appreciate the benefits of trying someone entirely different. In the end, it all comes down to a personal bond.” His spectacles flashed in the strip lights as he scrutinized me. “Do you work out, maybe?” I shook my head. “Pity. Adam likes to work out.”
    Quigley, still reeling from Maddox’s put-down, attempted a comeback. “Actually, I know quite a good writer on the Guardian who uses a gym.”
    “Maybe,” said Rick, after an embarrassed pause, “we could run over how you see this working practically.”
    “First off, we need it wrapped up in a month,” said Maddox. “That’s Marty’s view as well as mine.”
    “A month?” I repeated. “You want the book in a month?”
    “A completed manuscript does exist,” said Kroll. “It just needs some work.”
    “A lot of work,” said Maddox grimly. “Okay. Taking it backward: we publish in June, which means we ship in May, which means we edit and we print in March and April, which means we have to have the manuscript in-house at the end of February. The Germans, French, Italians, and Spanish all have to start translating right away. The newspapers need to see it for the serial deals. There’s a television tie-in. Publicity tour’s got to be fixed well in advance. We need to book space in the stores. So the end of February—that’s it, period. What I like about your résumé,” he said, consulting a sheet of paper on which I could see all my titles listed, “is that you’re obviously experienced and above all you’re fast. You deliver.”
    “Never missed once,” said Rick, putting his arm round my shoulders and squeezing me. “That’s my boy.”
    “And you’re a Brit. The ghost definitely has to be a Brit, I think. To get the jolly old tone right.”
    “We agree,” said Kroll. “But everything will have to be done in the States. Adam’s completely locked in to a lecture tour there right now, and a fund-raising program for his foundation. I don’t see him coming back to the UK till March at the earliest.”
    “A month in America, that’s fine—yes?” Rick glanced at me eagerly. I could feel him willing me to say yes, but all I was thinking was: a month, they want me to write a book in a month…
    I nodded slowly. “I suppose I can always bring the manuscript back here to