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The Bestseller

Page 7

by Stephen Leather


  “Not writing?”

  “I was thinking about it. I just wasn’t, you know, in the mood.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said. “I haven’t written a word all day.”

  “Oh honey, I’m sorry. What about the agent? Have you heard back from him about The Homecoming?”

  There was a long pause and she wondered if he hadn’t heard her.

  “Dudley? Are you there?”

  “Haven’t heard back from him yet,” said Grose.

  “The man’s an idiot,” said Jenny. “He should be biting your hand off.”

  “Or walking through walls.”

  “What?” Jenny picked up her Kindle with her left hand. She was keen to get back into Slater’s story. She’d been gripped from the first page and she was convinced she’d just reached a major turning point. She also suspected the twist in the tail and was desperate to discover if she was right or not.

  “Nothing,” said Grose. He sighed. “God, I wish I was with you now.”

  “Come around then,” she said. “I’m wearing that silk thing you like. The one with the bows on the front.” That was a lie, she was wearing a NYPD sweatshirt that was several sizes too big and baggy pants that she usually wore to the gym.

  “I wish I could, honey. I’d much rather be there with you.”

  Jenny felt a sudden rush of anger and she bit down on her lower lip to stop herself snapping at him. There were times when he acted like a spoiled child. He was a grown man, older than her father, and if he really wanted to walk out on his wife there was nothing stopping him.

  “Jenny?”

  She took a deep breath. “Yes, honey.”

  “I will leave her, I promise. I just need to get everything sorted. Once my life’s in order, we’ll be together.”

  “You swear?”

  “I swear, honey.”

  “You need to talk to your stupid agent and get him moving on The Homecoming,” she said.

  “I will,” he said.

  Jenny found herself reading. There was something hypnotic about Slater’s writing, it seemed to pull her into the story. His descriptions appeared effortless but she knew from experience how difficult it was to write well. His dialogue was amazing, she could practically hear the characters speaking as she read.

  “Jenny?”

  Jenny realized that he’d said something. She put down the Kindle. “Sorry, honey, it’s a bad line. What did you say?”

  “I said I’ll see you tomorrow. And I’ll come around to your place afterwards, is that okay? Spend some time together.”

  “Can you spend the night?”

  “I’m sorry, honey. Not tomorrow. But I’ll work something out. Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  The line went dead. Jenny switched the phone to silent, tossed it onto the sofa and picked up her eReader. “God this is so good,” she whispered to herself as she began to read.

  CHAPTER 12

  Grose adjusted the creases of his trousers and tried to keep a straight face as Stan Naghdi looked up from his laptop and took his first breath in almost three minutes. Naghdi was one of the more enthusiastic students on the course, a slim second generation Persian with slicked-back gelled hair and rat-like eyes. Naghdi blinked, flashed Grose a hopeful smile, and went back to reading from his screen. His voice was a dull, flat monotone, totally devoid of emotion. “The fighters came screaming from behind the moon, lasers blasting as they swooped down on the space station. Admiral Mackenzie screamed into his intercom. “Fire solar torpedoes!” he screamed.” Stan looked up, pained. “Oh, I’ve used screamed twice. That’s not good is it?”

  “It’s okay, Stan,” said Grose. “Keep going.”

  Naghdi nodded and carried on reading. “Needle fighters burst from the space station's underbelly, breaking formation and attacking the invaders. They were heavily outnumbered, but the needle fighters were faster and harder to hit. Mackenzie watched the dog fight on the main screen. He turned to his weapons officer. “Screens down,” he screamed. Oh, I’ve done it again.” Naghdi looked up at Grose. Grose smiled and waved for him to continue. Naghdi bent down over his laptop and took another deep breath. “The weapons officer looked surprised. To drop the shields in the middle of an attack was suicide. “Just do it.” Mackenzie scr.....” Naghdi rubbed the back of his neck. “Yelled. He pointed at the weapons officer. “Just do it, Sandra, I know what I’m doing. Just trust me.” The weapons officer looked into Mackenzie’s azure blue eyes and her lower lip trembled with passion.”

  Naghdi closed his laptop and looked at Grose. “That’s as far as I’ve got.”

  Grose nodded thoughtfully. “It's coming on, Stan,” said Grose. “Your descriptions need work, of course. And you must watch out for repetition.”

  “You said that last week,” said a voice from the back of the room and the class laughed. It was Slater, looking over the top of his notepad, wearing his trademark RayBans.

  Grose looked up at Slater, his face hardening. He wanted to ask Slater to remove his sunglasses but couldn’t risk a confrontation. If Slater refused, what were his options? He could hardly force Slater to take them off.

  The class gradually fell silent as they realized that Grose wasn’t amused.

  “Your point being what, Mr Slater?” said Grose, his voice carrying across the lecture hall.

  Slater put down his notepad and stared at Grose without replying.

  “Well, Mr Slater?”

  Slater shrugged. “I just meant that you repeated that repetition was a bad thing, which I guess was sort of ironic. I was being funny. Or I thought I was. I guess with hindsight…” He shrugged.

  Grose took off his spectacles and began to polish them. When he looked back up at Slater, all he could see was a blur. “I think it’s time for you to share your work in progress with us,” said Grose. “Hopefully you’ll have improved it since you last gave us a reading.”

  “I'll pass,” said Slater.

  “All talk, huh?” said Grose. “Talk is cheap, Mr Slater. Anyone can talk. But being a writer takes more. It takes commitment. It takes intelligence. It takes character. To put it bluntly, it takes balls. Balls that apparently you are lacking.”

  Slater stared down at Grose for several seconds, then he reached into his backpack and took out a clear plastic file containing several papers. He stood up, looked around, and cleared his throat. Grose pushed his glasses high up on his head and tucked his handkerchief in his pocket.

  “Chapter Two,” said Slater. “The victim.” He paused for effect, smiled, and then continued. “The victim is everything. The victim can't be too obscure. There'd be no challenge in picking up someone from the street, someone who'd never be missed. A prostitute would be too easy. Young and pretty would be best. Somebody's daughter. But not a child. Definitely not a child. I think that what will happen is that eventually the victim will select herself. I saw a wildlife documentary once on the National Geographic channel, about how a cheetah kills its prey. The cheetah prowls around the herd, zebras maybe, watching and waiting. The zebras can run if they want, but unless the cheetah gets too close they keep on grazing.”

  Pretty much all the students had twisted around in their seats to get a better look at Slater. Slater grinned, reveling in the attention, and then began to read again. “Eventually the cheetah selects its victim. It stands and stares, but still makes no move to attack. The zebra that's been chosen stands and stares back. It knows that it's going to be killed, but it doesn't run. Why? Because deep down, it wants to be killed. It wants to be a victim. Then the cheetah attacks, it breaks into the lethal sprint that ends in death, and only then does the herd scatter and the victim run. But by then it's too late. It's all over bar the killing.”

  Grose felt his stomach lurch as he saw that Jenny was looking up at Slater, her eyes wide, clearly enjoying the story. Jenny seemed to sense that Grose was looking at her and she turned to look at him. Their eyes locked for a couple of seconds and then Grose realized that Slater h
ad stopped speaking. He was watching Grose with a sly smile on his face.

  Slater jutted his chin forward before continuing. “I think the victim might turn out to be one of the students on this course,” he said.

  Grose got slowly to his feet. “That’s enough, Mr Slater!” he said wearily.

  Slater held out the papers he was holding. “There’s more,” he said. “I was up all night writing. It just seemed to flow.”

  “We’re done, Mr Slater. I’m not having you sully this lesson with your garbage.” He pointed up at Slater. “You’re treading on very thin ice, very thin ice indeed. I’m this close to throwing you off this course.”

  Slater stared at Grose, his face impassive behind the RayBans. “Actually, I don’t think you have the authority to do that, Doctor Grose.”

  “You don’t think so?” He pointed at the door. “Out. Now.”

  Slater looked as if he was going to argue, but then he slowly shook his head, put his folder back into his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, picked up his motorcycle helmet and then walked down the stairs. He stopped at the door and turned to look back at Grose. “You’re making a big mistake,” he said.

  “We’ll see about that, Mr Slater,” said Grose. He pointed again at the door. “Now go before I call security and have you removed.”

  Slater smiled, shook his head again, and pushed open the door. Grose glared after him, seething.

  CHAPTER 13

  Jenny walked out of the college building and was about to head for the subway when she saw Slater down the road, his long black coat flapping behind him. “Adrian!” she called, but he didn’t appear to hear her and continued to stride along the sidewalk. She ran after him and caught up with him just as he was turning the corner. “Hey,” she said, and then took a couple of deep breaths.

  Slater grinned at her. “You’re not a jogger, then,” he said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sure I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  “You got thrown off the course. How can you be so calm about it?”

  Slater chuckled. “He can’t do that. It’s not in his power. I’ve paid for the course, I’m doing the work, he can’t throw me off just because he doesn’t like what I’ve written. We’ve got a little thing called the First Amendment, remember. He can’t throw me out of an educational establishment because of something I wrote.”

  “He seems to think that he can.”

  “Yeah, well I went in to see the Dean and she’s going to set him straight. To be honest, if anyone is at risk of being shown the door, it’s Grose. The Dean’s none too happy with him.”

  “You can see his point, though.” She clutched her laptop bag to her chest.

  Slater frowned. “You’re not serious? You can see the way he’s gunning for me.”

  “Well, you did sort of start it, making that comment about repetition.”

  “But he does repeat himself. Over and over again.”

  Jenny grinned. “Which is also repetition, isn’t it?”

  Slater tilted his head on one side like an inquisitive budgerigar. “What?”

  “Over and over. That’s repetition. It’s like Pete and Re-Pete sitting on the wall.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Jenny smiled. “Pete and Re-Pete are sitting on a wall. Pete falls off. So now who’s sitting on the wall?”

  “Re-Pete.”

  “Okay. Pete and Re-Pete are sitting on a wall. Pete falls off. So now who’s sitting on the wall?”

  “Re-Pete.”

  “Okay. Pete and Re-Pete are sitting…”

  Slater laughed and held up his hand. “I get it,” he said. “How old are you? Ten?” He nodded at her laptop bag. “So what did you think of The Basement?”

  “How do you know it’s in my bag?”

  Slater smiled. “I saw you reading it at lunch. I was going to go over but you seemed so engrossed that I left you to it.”

  Jenny patted her bag. “Can we go for coffee?”

  “That sounds ominous. Are you breaking up with me?”

  Her mouth opened in surprise and then she realized that he was joking. “I’ll buy,” she said. “You got them last time.”

  They walked together to Starbucks and this time Slater grabbed a table while Jenny fetched the coffees. She frowned as she stirred sugar into her coffee. “Can I be honest with you?” she asked.

  “You can be frank.”

  “Frank?”

  “It’s sort of a joke. You say “Can I be frank” and I say “You can be whoever the hell you want” and we both laugh.”

  “But I asked if I could be honest.”

  “I was rewriting your dialogue as we went along. It’s a thing I do. In my head.”

  Jenny finished stirring her coffee and put down the spoon. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”

  “Generally not,” said Slater. “But go on. You can be Frank. Or Ernest.”

  “Honest,” she said, opening her bag and taking out the thumdrive he’d given her. “I’ll be honest.” She pushed it across the table towards him. “I might say something that you don’t want to hear.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “I don’t mean that it’s not well written. It’s brilliantly written. It grabbed me from the first page and I read it in one sitting.” She sat back in her chair. “It’s a fast read, lots of pace, and the dialogue is perfect. I really could hear their voices.”

  Slater smiled. “There’s a “but” coming, isn’t there?”

  She nodded. “It was just…” She shrugged. “I don’t know what the word is. Bleak? Soulless? It has no heart.”

  “No heart?”

  “No one in it has any redeeming features. I think that’s because really there are only three characters of any weight – Marvin and the two cops. And you can’t empathize with any of them.”

  “Why do you need to empathise?”

  “Because you have to be rooting for someone. And you’ve no real sympathy for the woman in the basement because you never really get to know her. She’s just a victim. But because you don’t care for her, there’s no ticking clock, no race against time to save her.” She frowned. “You’re not annoyed are you?”

  Slater smiled easily. “Of course not. I wanted your honest opinion.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? Why?”

  “Because I’m not saying it’s the greatest book I’ve ever read. Because I’m picking it apart.” She smiled sympathetically. “You don’t mind me being critical, do you?”

  “I want honesty,” said Slater. “If you hate it you hate it. I’d rather you look me in the eyes and say that than pretend you love it just so as not to hurt my feelings.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it. I found it fascinating, and the writing was great. It really flowed. It was hard to put down, it was as if you were dragging me through the story by the scruff of the neck.”

  Slater smiled, obviously pleased.

  “The problem is like I said, you don’t empathize with anyone. And there’s no happy ending.”

  Slater chuckled. “That’s life, Jenny. Any story that ends with a happy ending hasn’t really ended. It’s like when Snow White rides off into the sunset with Prince Charming, you know it’s not really going to end happily ever after, the chances are that before long she’ll put on weight and he’ll be off having affairs with Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. There are no happy endings in the real world, Jenny. You know that.”

  “You are the cynic, aren’t you? The thing is, if you don’t have a sympathetic character then you don’t know who to root for.”

  “So you’re saying you need the writer to tell you who the hero is? I don’t agree.” Slater picked up the thumbdrive and put it into his backpack. “I didn’t want any of the characters to be sympathetic,” he said. “That’s not what I was trying to do. I wanted to see if I could write a book in two viewpoints, one in the first person and one in the second p
erson.”

  “That worked brilliantly,” she said.

  “And then I wanted the big twist at the end, which calls into question everything that you’ve read up to that point.”

  “And that worked too,” she said. “I never saw the twist coming. But I’m not sure that the average reader is going to like the fact that there’s no one to empathize with. Have you shown it to an agent?”

  Slater shook his head. “There’s no point. You’re right, it doesn’t fit the mold of what sells. And it’s too short. It’s not long enough to be a stand-alone book. I mean what would it be at best, a hundred pages? A hundred and twenty? Who publishes books that long? No one.”

  “So what was the point of writing it? Was it an exercise?” She picked up her coffee and sipped it.

  “I’m going to publish it myself,” he said. “I don’t think a traditional publisher will touch it. So I’ll do it myself.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she said. “John Grisham self-published A Time To Kill and look what happened to him.”

  “John who?” asked Slater. Jenny was about to answer when she realized that he was joking and she put a hand up to cover her mouth. “But only when the time is right,” he said. “I want to finish the book I’m working on now. That’s going to be the big one. My break-out book. I’ll publish The Basement on the back of it.” He sipped his coffee, then wiped foam from his upper lip with the back of his hand. “So tell me about your book. The romance. How’s it going?”

  “Slowly,” she said.

  “You’ve finished the first chapter?”

  “I’m not happy with it but I’ve moved on. Dudley says I…” She stopped herself but it was too late, Slater was already grinning at her. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “He’s read it and he was offering me some advice.”

  “So you won’t tell me about your work but you’ll show him?”

  “He’s running the course, Adrian. He’s going to be marking me.”

  Slater chuckled. “This course isn’t about marks. It’s about producing a book. At the end of the day it’s the books that we write that matter, not what marks Grose gives us.”

 

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