Small Town

“No,” he said, “I guess not. When the case goes to trial is when it starts in earnest. Unless they catch the prick before then, and then the phone’ll really start ringing off the hook. Not just reporters wanting to know how it feels to be vindicated, but the department head from the New School saying of course they’ll want me back in the fall, plus all the old friends I haven’t heard from, telling me they knew all along I was innocent. Jesus, I sound like a cynical bastard, don’t I?”

“Actually,” she said, “you sound like your old self.”

He flexed his fingers, looked at the computer screen. He’d been at a natural stopping place when the phone rang, and had picked up without really thinking.

“My old self,” he said. “That’s pretty interesting.”

“Not that the John Blair Creighton we all know and love can’t be a cynical bastard. And ironic. Didn’t Kirkus comment on your almost diabolical sense of irony?”

“Devilish, actually, but that’s close enough.”

“Devilish is better, it sounds more playful. Well, ironically enough, you old devil, this may not be an entirely bad thing.”

“How’s that?”

“I know what you’re going through, to the extent that it’s possible for anyone but you to know it, and I don’t want to minimize it, but—”

“But there’s a bright side? I’d love to know what it is.”

“Well, don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “but all in all it’s not a bad career move.”

He got a cigarette going and smoked it while she talked. She’d had a phone call from an editor at Crown, where his most recent book had been published. Sales had been disappointing, and his editor was no longer with the publisher, had in fact jumped ship before his book hit the stores, which certainly hadn’t helped his cause. It was the second book in a two-book contract, and Crown had had no further interest in him, or he in them, truth to tell, but this editor, whose name he didn’t recognize, had called Roz to talk about something else entirely.

“And then it just happened to occur to her to ask about you. I represented you, didn’t I? She thought she remembered that. And of course they’d published you, and people there had good feelings about your books, in spite of the fact that sales hadn’t been what any of us had hoped for, quote unquote.”

“Jesus wept,” he said. “They want me back?”

“There was no reprint sale on either of the two they published,” she said. “No paperback, trade or mass-market, and this fact popped into my head, and I said, you know, I was glad she’d called, because I’d been meaning to call her to get rights reverted on the two books, considering that they’ve long since gone out of print.”

“And?”

“And I got some hemming and hawing, and the reluctant admission that they’d had some recent interest in both books from a mass-market publisher. So I vamped a little myself, and admitted with some reluctance that you were hard at work on a major project, and that they should hold off on any reprint sale for the time being. She was on that like a pike on a minnow, John. As your loyal publishers, of course they want your new book, and of course they realize on the basis of my description that it’s clearly a more commercial venture—”

“How did you describe it?”

“I didn’t. Major project is what I called it, and how descriptive is that? I know it’s tacky, John, but in addition to being the designated suspect in a murder case, you’re also a hot ticket. Now I know that right now writing, or even thinking about writing, is the last thing you feel like doing, but hear me out, okay?”

He leaned back, blew a smoke ring. “Okay,” he said, amused.

“You could use a few bucks, sweetie. I don’t know what Maurice Winters charges, but he’s got to be billing at a base rate of six or seven hundred dollars an hour, and it doesn’t take long for that to add up. And didn’t you say something about a private detective?”

“Yeah, and the guy’s bar bill alone...”

“The point is it would be good if you could make some serious dough, and all of a sudden it looks as though you can. Soon as I got done with your new big fan at Crown, I made a few well-considered phone calls to a few top people here and there.” She named some names. “I got interest and enthusiasm from everybody I talked to,” she said, “and they didn’t even bother trying to conceal it.”

“And nobody found it unacceptably crass to cash in on a book by an accused murderer?”

“No. You think I’m being crass, John?”

“No, not at all.”

“You’re my client,” she said, “and you’re on the spot financially, along with whatever else you’re going through. If you can get a big transfusion of cash, it’s got to take some of the pressure off.” She stopped herself for a moment. “On the other hand,” she said, “it’s not as though I’m going to waive my commission. If you make a fortune I make fifteen percent of a fortune, so I’m very much acting in my own interest here, as well as yours.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”