The Bestseller

by Stephen Leather

  A receptionist answered and she put him through to Pink’s secretary and she made him hold on the line for a full two minutes before putting him through.

  “Dudley, hey, what’s up?”

  What’s up? The words were like a slap across Grose’s face. He’d sweated blood over The Homecoming, put almost two years of his life into writing it and three months polishing and editing it. What was up? The fact that the agent hadn’t bothered to get back to him after two whole weeks was what was up. How long did it take to read a book? A day? Two days? Hell, a professional like Pink shouldn’t take more than a few hours to read a manuscript. “No biggie, just calling to see if you had any thoughts on The Homecoming.”

  “The Homecoming?” repeated Pink and Grose felt his stomach lurch. The bastard couldn’t even be bothered to remember the name of the book that had taken up more than two years of his life.

  “The novel,” said Grose, and hated himself as soon as the words had left his lips. “I emailed it two weeks ago.”

  “Sure, yes, The Homecoming,” said Pink. “Brilliantly written, Dudley. Classic Dudley Grose. Classic.”

  Pink stopped speaking and Grose waited to see what he would say, but no more words came. The seconds ticked off.

  Eventually Grose couldn’t bear the silence any longer. “Did you have any thoughts?” he asked. He screwed up his face, realizing that he sounded like a schoolboy seeking praise for an essay.

  “Right,” said Pink, dragging the word out over several seconds, and Grose prepared himself. “Thoughts? Yes, well it flows well, the characters are memorable, some of the descriptions made me think of Roth at his best.”

  Grose clung to the compliment like a drowning man hanging on to a lifeline. “So you liked it?” he said.

  There was silence for a few seconds and Grose was starting to wonder if the line had gone dead, but then he heard Pink cough quietly. “Hand on heart, Dudley, it’s not the sort of book that I’m going to walk through walls for.”

  Grose frowned and slapped his hand against his forehead. What the hell did that mean? Walk through walls? Who the hell had suggested the agent try to defy physics? All he had to do was to send it out to the big publishers and start negotiations. How difficult was that ? Hell, he didn’t even have to worry about postage, Pink could do it all with his precious email.

  “I don’t follow you,” said Grose.

  “It doesn’t fire me up, Dudley. It doesn’t get my pulse racing. And if I’m not passionate about a book I can’t sell it. It would be dishonest of me to represent a book that I didn’t love, and unfair to the writer. You need an agent who is prepared to go out and slay dragons for you and in this case I don’t think I’d be up for slaying dragons.”

  Grose tightened his right hand into a fist and banged it against his forehead. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, fighting to contain the rage that was building up inside him. Slaying dragons? What was the moron talking about? “What are you saying, Richard?” said Grose, though he already knew what the agent meant. He was dropping him, like a stone. Or a turd. A turd was a better analogy. Pink thought the book was shit and he didn’t want to touch it.

  “It’s just not my thing,” said Pink. “Don’t get me wrong. The writing is terrific. You are a great writer, one of great writers of the twentieth century.”

  “This is the twenty-first century, Richard.”

  “Exactly,” said Pink. “And the world has moved on and I’m not convinced that the world of today is going to be queuing up to buy this novel. It’s not what’s selling.”

  “There are no vampires in it, is that it? Would you prefer a book with some stupid High School cheerleader torn between a vampire and a zombie? How about that?”

  “Is that what you’re working on now?” asked Pink without a trace of irony. “Sounds interesting, horror as literature, give it that Bram Stoker feel maybe. That could definitely work, Dudley.”

  Grose ground his knuckles into the bridge of his nose and he gritted his teeth again, harder this time. He wanted to scream obscenities at the man but he knew there was no point. It was his own fault for phoning. You only ever chased bad news. If it was good news it would come a-looking.

  “Dudley, are you there?”

  “I’m here, Richard,” said Grose, struggling to keep his voice level. “And no, I’m not planning to start writing about vampires anytime soon.”

  “Vampires are hot,” said Pink. “Zombies too. Teenagers can’t get enough of them.”

  “I write for adults, not children,” said Grose. “So what are you saying, Richard? The book needs work, is that it?”

  “The book is wonderful, Dudley,” said Pink. “ It’s classic Dudley Grose and I’m sure there’ll be a publisher out there who’ll bite your hand off but you need to find an agent who’ll walk over burning coals for you.”

  “What does that mean?” said Grose. “Walk over burning coals? Why would you even say that? Why would I want you to walk over burning coals? I just need you to send out my book. How hard is that? I was nominated for a Pulitzer for God’s sake. I’ve sold more than a million copies in sixteen languages.”

  “Yes but when?” said Pink. “Twenty-five years ago, right? How many are you selling now, Dudley? A thousand a year? Two thousand? Last time I looked two of your books aren’t even in print.”

  “That’s the publisher’s fault,” said Grose. “I keep pushing them to get my books back on the shelves but they don’t listen.”

  “Because the market’s changing,” said Pink. “Bookshops are closing left right and center, Amazon is the king, and eBooks are what’s happening now. You should think about that, Dudley. Seriously. Put your work up on Kindle and iBooks. That’s where the readers are these days.”

  “Self-publish you mean,” snorted Grose. He slumped back in his chair, knowing that the conversation was already over. He’d been dumped. His agent had fired him. “I’d rather shoot myself than start to publish my own work.”

  “Lots of writers are doing it,” said Pink. “And not just new writers. Plenty of established writers are getting the rights to their backlist back and putting them on-line.”

  “I’m a writer,” said Grose quietly. “I was nominated for a Pulitzer. I was featured in Time magazine. I topped the New York Times bestseller list for six months, Richard. Six months. I’m not going to start hawking my own work like some sort of snake oil salesman.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Pink. “Look, I’m going to have to rush, I’ve a conference call booked for ten. Good luck anyway. I’m sure you’ll find someone to walk through…” He cut himself short. “There are plenty of agents out there who’d…”

  Grose opened his mouth to swear at Pink, but then decided that it would be pointless. He put down the receiver without saying anything. He put his head in his hands, his eyes burning with tears of frustration. He was a writer, damn it. A Pulitzer-nominated writer who’d been featured on the cover of Time magazine. Who the hell was Pink, anyway? A middle-man, a Shylock taking fifteen per cent of whatever his clients earned. What did he know about writing? About constructing a novel, shaping a hundred thousand or more words into a structure that would keep a reader gripped for hours. The Homecoming was a good book, possibly a great book, and if Pink didn’t appreciate that then he was an idiot.

  “Honey? Are you okay?”

  Grose took his hands away from his face and twisted around in his seat. His wife was standing in the doorway, taking off her gardening gloves. He forced himself to smile. “Damn agents,” he said.

  “Kill them all,” she said. “Wasn’t that what Shakespeare said?”

  “He was referring to lawyers, but the principle’s the same,” said Grose.

  “Coffee?”

  Grose looked at his watch. “I have to go,” he said. “Tutorial.”

  “I thought you were off today?”

  Grose stood up and took his jacket off the back of his chair. “It’s an extra tutorial for the high-flyers,” h
e said.

  “Are you okay? You look… upset.”

  “Pink didn’t like the book.”

  Her face fell and her look of concern made Grose feel suddenly ashamed. “Oh honey, I’m sorry.”

  He waved away her sympathy. “There are plenty of other agents,” he said.

  “Did he say why?”

  “It wasn’t his thing.” He put on his jacket. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter, Dudley. You put your heart and soul into that book. Two years work. Blood sweat and tears.”

  “Hardly that, Karen.”

  “How dare he turn you down? Who does he think he is?”

  “A gatekeeper,” said Grose. “You have to go through him or someone like him to get to the publishers and that gives them power.”

  “Why can’t you send it to Random House? They published you before.”

  “Eric retired five years ago,” said Grose. “I did speak to their head of publishing and she said that all submissions had to go through agents.”

  “Didn’t she know who you are?”

  “Of course she knew. But she didn’t care.”

  “The world has gone mad,” she said. “You almost got a Pulitzer. You sold millions of copies, they owe you.”

  “Publishing houses don’t see it that way,” said Grose. “She said I had to submit through an agent but…” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  She stepped forward and he knew that she was going to hug him. He put his hands up. “Karen, really, I’m not a kid.”

  She nodded. “Okay, I don’t mean to fuss. It’s not as if we need the money. You’ve got your job at the university, the house is paid for, we’ll be fine.”

  “It’s not about the money,” said Grose. “It was never about the money. I just want people to read my work. To be moved by it. I’m a writer. That’s what I do, I write. It’s not my fault if an idiot like Pink wouldn’t recognize a good book if it bit him on the ass.”

  “There are other agents, aren’t there?”

  “Sure. They’re like cockroaches. My mistake was choosing a gay one.”

  She smiled. “I suppose the clue was in his name. Pink.”

  “I’m serious. The publishing business has been taken over by the gays and there aren’t any gay characters in The Homecoming. Gay cowboys, that’s what sells. Or gay private detectives. That and vampires and zombies and wizards.” He looked at his watch again. “I have to go.”

  “We can talk about it over dinner. I’m doing sea bass. And I’ve some runner beans from the garden.” She put a hand on his arm. “It’ll be all right, Dudley. I know it will.”

  Grose saw the concern in her eyes and that only made him feel worse. He didn’t want her sympathy. More importantly, he didn’t need it. “I know,” he said flatly. He picked up the car keys from the table in the hallway.

  “Do you want me to drive you to the station?” she asked.

  “Please, don’t fuss over me,” he said and hurried out, making a conscious effort not to slam the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 4

  Jenny looked up as the door buzzer rang. She frowned at the handset to the left of the front door and then looked at the clock in the top right hand corner of her laptop screen. It was just after mid-day and she wasn’t expecting anybody. The door buzzer rang again, longer this time, but she ignored it. There were twenty apartments in the building and delivery men would often push buttons at random to get inside. “Go away,” she muttered under her breath. “Writer at work.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to frame a paragraph that would describe the dress that her protagonist was wearing. She could describe people and places, but she never felt comfortable with clothes and furniture.

  Her cell phone began to ring and she picked it up. She looked at the screen and smiled, then took the call. “Dudley, hi,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at home,” she said. “Writing.”

  “So why aren’t you answering your doorbell?”

  She laughed. “My God, is that you outside?”

  “Of course it’s me. Now are you going to let me in, or not?”

  The intercom buzzed again. Jenny got up from the sofa and hurried over to the door. She picked up the receiver and pressed the button to open the door three floors below and then rushed into her tiny bathroom and put on fresh lipstick and squirted Coco on her neck. She was wearing an Emily the Strange t-shirt and black leggings but she didn’t have time to change. She untied her hair and shook it loose before heading back to the door. There were three locks and a chain to deal with and by the time she had the door open he was coming up the last flight of stairs.

  “This is a nice surprise,” she said.

  “That was the idea,” said Grose. He groaned and patted his chest. “You need an apartment with an elevator.” He took a couple of deep breaths then walked inside and flopped down onto her sofa. “Are you working?” he asked, pointing at the laptop.

  “You should have phoned,” said Jenny, closing the door and clicking the locks shut. Her mother had made her promise on a Bible that she would always lock her door when she was in New York.

  Grose looked over at her, his eyes narrowed. “What, now I need to make an appointment, do I?”

  “Dudley, that’s not what I meant,” she said, dropping down on the sofa next to him and closing the laptop. She kissed him on the cheek. “If I’d known you were coming over I’d have worn something prettier.”

  Grose slipped his arm around her. “You look just perfect as you are,” he said, and kissed her full on the lips. She straddled him and kissed him hard, grinding herself against him. He grunted as he stood up, holding her tightly, and she wrapped her legs around him.

  “Dudley!”

  He kissed her. “What?”

  “What’s come over you?”

  “I missed you. I was going crazy at home.”

  “I missed you, too.” She kissed him, hard, and squeezed her legs.

  He grunted and carried her to the bedroom.

  CHAPTER 5

  Their lovemaking was over in less than ten minutes. Grose lay on his back, his arm around her, staring up at the ceiling. Jenny toyed with the hairs on his chest.

  “Are you okay, Dudley?”

  “Sure, honey, why?”

  “You seem, I don’t know, a bit tense.”

  He shrugged. “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Why did you come into the city today? I thought you had no classes today.”

  “I wanted to see you, is that so surprising?”

  “You see me every day, silly,” she said.

  “Well, there’s ‘see’ you and there’s ‘see’ you, isn’t there?” he said. “And today I really wanted to ‘see’ you.”

  “And everything’s okay at home?”

  “As ok as it ever is,” he said.

  “No problems with your wife?”

  “She’s fine. So long as she has her garden, she’s happy.”

  “Leave her,” she said. “You don’t love her. You can move in with me.”

  Grose chuckled. “Live here, with you? We’d be at each other’s throats in a week.”

  “Dudley, how can you say that?” She grabbed a handful of chest hair and tugged it.

  He yelped and rolled away from her. “You know I can’t walk out on her,” he said. “She’d take everything.”

  “She’d take half of everything,” she said, cuddling up to him again. “Living with me wouldn’t cost you anywhere near as much as it costs for her. I don’t need a garden, for one.” She grinned. “Really, I’m low maintenance.”

  “Let me think about it,” he said, but she could tell from his voice that he wasn’t serious. It was the same tone that her father had used when he’d said that he’d think about getting her a pony. He looked at his watch. “Why don’t we order Chinese?” he said. “I’m hungry.”

  “I feel a bit sick,” she said. “I think I’ve got a stomach bug
. I haven’t felt like eating for a couple of days. But you go ahead.”

  “What about sandwiches then? From the deli on the corner?”

  “I’m really not hungry, Dudley.” She sat up and stretched. “What about going for a juice? I haven’t been to the Elixir Juice Bar for ages.”

  “Honey, what if someone sees us? Come on now.”

  “So what if someone sees us? We’ll just be having a juice? I wasn’t planning on having sex with you there.” She laughed. “Come on. It’s a lovely day, let’s go for a walk.”

  “Jenny, you know that if the faculty found out what was going on, I’d lose my job. You know that.”

  “So a student can’t have a drink with her teacher?”

  “I think we’re beyond that,” said Grose. “I just don’t want people talking about us, that’s all. We need to stay under the radar until you’ve graduated. Even then we have to be careful.”

  “Why?” asked Jenny.

  Grose sighed. “You know why, honey. I’m a lecturer. You’re a student.”

  “You’ve got hundreds of students.”

  “Yes, but I’m not sleeping with them, am I?”

  “I hope not,” she said, and pinched him around the waist.

  “Don’t!” he snapped.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t mark you,” she said. “I know the rules. No marks, no bites, no scratches.”

  “Jenny…”

  “It’s okay, Dudley.” She kissed him on the shoulder. “You should just leave her. Your marriage is dead, you said it was, and it’s not as if you’ve got kids.” She stroked his chest. “I’m serious, Dudley. You can move in here.”

  “Your parents would kill me.”

  “Not after I’ve told them that we love each other.”

  “Jenny, honey, I’m older than your dad.”

  “Not by much. And you’re nothing like him.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “He’d come looking for me with a shotgun.”