The Salinger Contract

by Adam Langer

  “Why?” Conner asked. “How much do you pay for this sort of thing?”

  Dex gestured to Pavel, who reached into his jacket pocket and produced a few stapled pages that had been folded in three. Pavel approached the table and handed those pages to Dex.

  “What’re those?” Conner asked.

  “Your contracts and royalty statements.” Dex said that he and Pavel had calculated the amount of money Conner had netted over the course of his five-book career, taking into account agency fees, taxes, and the like, to be approximately $1.25 million.

  It was an impressive-sounding sum, and yet for the decade of work that Conner had put into his writing career, it was not as impressive as he figured it should have been. Divided over ten years, adding expenses and health insurance after Angie had left the NYPD, the sum roughly equaled Conner’s father’s annual salary before he retired from his position as a fire captain, or perhaps the salary of a tenured associate professor at my wife’s university, but without the benefits and pension plan.

  “Would you say that amount’s about right?” Dex asked.

  Conner did some quick calculations in his head. “Give or take,” he said. “I’d have to get home and go to my desk and look.”

  “We’ve already checked this thoroughly, Conner,” he said. “But just so you don’t think we’re trying to take advantage of you by making you arrive at a quick decision, why don’t we double that number?”

  “Double $1.25 million?” Conner asked.

  “Yes,” said Dex. “Which would put our offer at $2.5 million.”

  Conner’s jaw did not drop, he did not gulp, his heart did not race, his cheeks did not flush, and neither did he have any of the reactions a character in one of his books might have had. He couldn’t imagine the offer was real, any more than he could imagine Dex’s manuscripts were real. And yet this apartment certainly seemed to belong to someone who had that kind of money, and yes, even if he couldn’t say with certainty that the manuscript he had browsed was actually the work of J. D. Salinger, it did seem to read exactly like something the man would have written.

  Conner couldn’t say anything except to repeat the sum Dex had offered. “Two and a half million. You’re being straight up.”

  “Yes,” said Dex. “You will receive one-third upon signing the agreement, one-third upon delivery of the manuscript, and one-third upon my acceptance of it.”

  “Acceptance based on what?” Conner asked.

  “Based on whether the book meets my—shall we say, artistic—standards,” said Dex. “Isn’t that the same sort of arrangement you have with your own publisher?”

  “It is,” said Conner.

  Dex walked over to an antique rolltop desk, unlocked it with a skeleton key, and slid it open. On the desk was another personal check. Dex took the check, brought it back over to the table, then placed it in front of Conner. The check was made out to Conner Joyce for the sum of $833,333.33. On the memo line, Dex had written “Upon Signing” in the same ornate, loopy handwriting as on the $10,000 check in Conner’s wallet.

  Conner had never thought himself a person who cared particularly about money, and yet when he thought about the security this sum could bring, when he thought about how one day it could pay for Atticus’s college education, how he and Angie could pay off their mortgage, how they could stop arguing about whether to sell their home, he couldn’t help but hope the check was as real as the manuscripts in the bookcase seemed.

  “Where does your money come from?” Conner asked.

  Dex’s smile contracted. “What difference could the answer to that question possibly make to you?” he asked.

  “It seems like the sort of information I’d have the right to know,” said Conner.

  “Why would it?” asked Dex. “Do you have any idea who buys your books? When you meet your readers, do you ask them what they do for a living? They pay $24.95 for your books; do you ask where that $24.95 comes from? Do you have a ‘right’ to know that?”

  “Of course not,” Conner said. “But we’re talking about a whole lot more than twenty-five bucks.”

  “The principle remains the same,” said Dex.

  Conner had no argument for Dex. He had no idea who bought his books, how they acquired the money to buy them. Perhaps they were saints, perhaps they were criminals; he never asked—come to think of it, it wasn’t his business, no more than it’s any of my business who you are or how you make your money. A few years earlier, Conner had gotten some flak because a scene in Devil Shotgun had supposedly inspired a bank robbery in Trenton, New Jersey. Conner gave no credence to that rumor. He had written a book; someone had committed a crime—there was no connection. Had J. D. Salinger known who John Hinckley and Mark David Chapman were before they bought his books or took them out of the library? Would it have mattered if he had? Had he returned the royalties he received from those purchases?

  “Come now,” Dex told Conner. “There is nothing mysterious here. Everything is exactly as it appears. Maybe even too much so. I have told you I am a fan of your work. I have said that your work inspires me. I have asked you to write a book for me. I have explained why.”

  “So,” Conner said. “What sort of book am I supposed to write?”

  Dex looked to Pavel. “Show Mr. Joyce the contracts,” he said.

  16

  The Hilton pool had gotten too crowded. A busload of college boys wearing Valparaiso University gear were horsing around and swearing. Conner and I headed back to Jerome Salinger’s room, where we toweled off, showered, dressed, and sat at the desk he had wedged between the two beds. On the table, Conner had placed the checks Dex had given him—the address was 680 N. Lake Shore Drive; the amounts were for $10,000 and $833,333.33. I could see Dex’s loopy, old-style handwriting.

  I imagined I would have felt far more nervous than Conner in the presence of the mysterious Dex Dunford and the hulking Pavel Bilski, and yet I wondered if the arrangement Dex had proposed wasn’t where literature was heading anyway. Book sales were plummeting, publishers and editors were losing their jobs, pleasure reading was becoming an increasingly rare pastime, authors were forced to devise increasingly creative means to make their living. Maybe this was the future—writers being paid to create books for only one reader who would measure his status on the basis of which author he had paid to write a book solely for him. Fewer readers, but richer readers. Donald Trump would commission the next Joyce Carol Oates novel; Warren Buffett would pay Don DeLillo to write his memoirs; Jarosław Dudek, Harper Lee, Conner Joyce, and whoever else would write whatever book Dex requested, and he would place it in his private library where no one but he and Pavel Bilski would ever read it. I didn’t know who would commission me to write his personal, private book—maybe my usual burrito maker at the Laughing Planet; maybe the tamale chef at Feast or the beer sommelier at the Uptown Café; maybe I’d have to pay myself—the ultimate vanity publication. Or I could live like one of those farmers paid by the government not to farm, and convince my mother and anyone else I might conceivably libel to pay me not to write my next novel.

  Maybe there wasn’t much difference between writing for one reader and writing for thousands. In a previous life, when I wasn’t rewriting wire copy for radio or going to class at UIC, I used to make extra money performing stand-up comedy in sleazy little clubs in Lyons and Rosemont, Illinois—clubs with names like the Comedy Womb and the Last Laugh. I remember one night when I was standing before a crowd of about twenty drunk, hostile spectators. All of them were glaring at me as I performed my act, save for one big bearded guy in the first row who smiled and laughed the whole time. I never met that smiling big guy, but he made my entire evening worthwhile, made me feel as if I were connecting with one human being. Maybe the idea of trying to write for the masses was foolish and egotistical; maybe all that mattered was communing with one other human being. Maybe one smiling big guy was all any writer or per
former ever needed. Maybe one Dex Dunford was as good as one million readers.

  “So,” I asked Conner, “did you sign the contract?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I wanted to ask a friend’s advice. The only one I could think of was you.”

  “Why me?” I asked.

  “Don’t be modest,” he said.

  “Believe me, I’m not.”

  “Don’t be naïve, either.”

  “I’m not trying to be,” I said. “Anyway, what’s it like?”

  “The contract? I can’t find anything wrong with it. Take a look.”

  I stared at the contract just as Conner had stared at it in Dex’s apartment, hoping and despairing, fretting and dreaming. Pavel showed him the documents the other authors had signed—Salinger’s contract, Mailer’s, Hetley’s, Capote’s, and Dudek’s—all more or less the same as Conner’s with perhaps a modification here or there. Sitting at that desk with a view out onto Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan beyond it, Conner asked Dex what sort of book he was supposed to write. He expected Dex to issue strict parameters that would make writing the book difficult, if not impossible. But the assignment was vague. Dex said he liked crime stories, particularly the sort that Conner wrote—dutifully researched, exceedingly detailed. He said he wanted Conner to write as attentively as he always did. He wanted an original crime story, an idea neither of them had ever read before. He preferred for Conner not to write another Cole Padgett thriller, but said he wouldn’t put that stipulation in writing; he just thought writing something different would be liberating for Conner. Conner kept asking Dex specific questions while Dex responded with more vague answers. When Conner pressed further, Dex finally said he wasn’t a writer, but if Conner really wanted an idea, why didn’t he try this one?

  “Just in case I lose all my money someday and I have to try to make it all back, why don’t you write a book about a man who loses $2.5 million and finds a very original way to steal that very amount,” he said. “I would like to see what you would do in a book about that.”

  That’s what Dex had told Conner. But the contract itself didn’t say anything about subject matter. It only stated that Conner would write a novel of a typical length and that Dex would pay him in three installments. There were a few peculiar items, but none of them seemed like deal-breakers. For example, Dex insisted that Conner write the book either longhand or on a manual typewriter. Conner was not to make any Xerox copies or carbons of any pages he wrote. If he took any notes, they were to be shredded or burned. Ditto for any drafts, which were to be kept in a locked drawer to which only Conner would have a key. Attached to the contract was a confidentiality agreement, stating that, once Conner had signed, he wouldn’t discuss the book with anyone other than Dex, Pavel, or any of the authors who had previously written for Dex. But there was little danger of that happening—Norman Mailer wouldn’t rise from the grave to debate the fine points of the contract. Since Conner hadn’t yet signed the contract and wasn’t bound by its terms, he apparently felt he wasn’t obligated to keep the matter secret from me. Still, given that we were meeting at the West Lafayette Hilton, he didn’t seem to be taking too many chances.

  “I should probably have my agent look at this. Or my lawyer,” Conner told Dex.

  “No agents, no lawyers,” Dex said. “This agreement is between you and me only. If you reveal a word about our agreement to anyone other than the individuals enumerated in it, this contract will be null and void, and all the money I pay to you will have to be returned to me. Do you understand?”

  Conner said he did, but added that he would probably have to discuss the matter with his wife at some point.

  “Not with your wife,” said Dex. “Not even with your son.”

  Conner laughed. “My son is only one year old, man.”

  “One year and three months,” Dex corrected. “But you are not to discuss this assignment with him, either. Not when he’s one and not when he’s twenty-one. If you discuss it with him at any time, you must repay the money I have paid you.”

  “But how would you even know whether or not I had discussed it with him?” Conner asked.

  Dex said nothing.

  “What would you do?” asked Conner. “Bug me? Bug my house? Tap my phone?”

  “Would you really risk two and a half million dollars to find out?” asked Dex.

  “I guess not,” Conner said. “So, when would I start?”

  “The day my checks have cleared.” Dex looked at his watch. “You should probably head back to your hotel, so they don’t think anything has happened to you. I’ll expect the contract back by the end of the week.”

  “And when I finish the book—” Conner began.

  “Don’t concern yourself with that,” said Dex. “I’ll know how to find you.” He extended a hand and Conner shook it. “I do so look forward to doing business with you.”

  Conner took the contract and the Montblanc pen with him as well as the checks. He gave the gun back to Pavel, who offered to walk Conner home; Conner demurred. He took a cab back to his hotel, and when he was in the Author’s Suite, he called me and asked if I would meet him the following morning in West Lafayette.

  Now, as he sat across from me in the Hilton, he asked, “So, what do you think, pal? You think I should do it, don’t you?”

  “Why’re you asking me?” I asked.

  “I told you. You’re the only one who’d get it,” he said. “You think I should do it, right?”

  “I don’t see how you could say no,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t see how I could either.”

  Conner uncapped his fountain pen and signed the contract.

  “Nice pen,” I said.

  Conner smiled. “Used to be Salinger’s,” he said.

  II:

  Upon

  Submission

  One day, I thought I was looking through a window. The next day, I thought I was looking in a mirror. This morning I realized there’s no difference between the two.

  Conner Joyce, The Embargoed Manuscript

  17

  I watched Conner sign the contract. Later, when he got back to his home in the Poconos, he would endorse Dex’s checks and return the signed contract. The checks would clear, and more than three-quarters of a million dollars would appear in Conner’s account. He would keep quiet about the agreement he had made with Dex, wouldn’t even discuss it with Angie. He would tell her some story about how he had gotten the money. Even when he was rocking his son to sleep or jabbering to the child about this or that, he would make certain not to mention anything about the project he was working on. He didn’t really think Dex and Pavel could eavesdrop on conversations he might have with a one-year-old boy. But at the same time, he knew Dex was right—it wasn’t worth risking $2.5 million to find out.

  I didn’t learn about any of this at first, although, on a few occasions, Conner tried to make contact with me, phantom calls I didn’t answer because I didn’t recognize the number or because I didn’t have time to speak with him and was too preoccupied to call him back.

  By this time, I had my own concerns to worry about. The idea of the consequences a piece of writing could have on a person’s life had become an all too pressing and personal issue for me, more so even than when I had published Nine Fathers and lost my mother’s trust forever.

  This isn’t really my story, at least not yet. So, I won’t bother you with all the details about what happened that changed my wife’s and my secure lifestyle. Also, since I’m legally prevented from discussing some of these matters in detail, I could be putting both Sabine and myself in further danger by writing about it in more than the broadest of terms. Suffice it to say that there was a regime change at the Graduate School of Foreign Policy. Sabine’s hang-loose, pot-smoking, reggae-playing department chair, Joel “Spag” Getty, who once told Sabine she reminded him of Uma Thurman in Pulp
Fiction and said he would “shepherd” her through the tenure process, managed to get himself a better gig at Princeton. Rumor had it that he had become a hot commodity in the academic world, not because of his scholarship but because of the hot-tub parties he hosted in his Deer Park manse along with the other members of his band, the Rastabators.

  Shortly after Getty announced his imminent departure, he was replaced as chairman by one of his colleagues, a slick number cruncher named Dr. Lloyd Agger, a product of Midwestern schools who had his eyes focused not only on the chairmanship of Sabine’s department but also on a position high up in university administration. Since I still don’t know the differences among a provost, a chancellor, and a dean, I can’t say with certainty which position Dr. Agger coveted, but whichever it was, he apparently felt that making tough decisions, such as recommending cuts in his department, would make him appear to be a man who was not afraid to make deep sacrifices to maintain the bottom line. It was my wife’s and my misfortune that Dr. Agger was elected to the chairmanship during the same year Sabine was going up for tenure. It was also our misfortune that when Sabine had her creaky Dell office computer replaced, she didn’t think to wipe clean its hard drive. Somehow, one of Dr. Agger’s henchmen, a busybody named Duncan Gerlach from the Informatics Department, discovered all the blog entries Sabine and I had written under the name Buck Floomington.

  In the grand scheme of things, writing puerile remarks about colleagues’ sexual proclivities, professional indiscretions, weapons collections, and poor hygiene habits might not have ranked high on the list of potential misdeeds for an employee. Surely, it didn’t compare with, say, dating students or stalking them when they worked the register at Bloomingfoods natural grocery, or only giving teaching assistantships in exchange for hummers performed on moonless nights in the clearing in the IU woods known as Herman’s Hideaway. Allegedly. Still, writing these blog posts on the office computer was probably not the smartest thing for a Columbia University PhD and her trailing-spouse husband to do. And even so, all this might not have posed such a great problem had Duncan Gerlach not sent copies of our blog entries to each member of the personnel committee shortly before they met to discuss my wife’s tenure case.