by Lolita Files
“I’ve been toying with ideas. I thought I had a good one, but now I’m not so sure about it. Nothing’s grabbing me just yet.”
“Really.” Gersh lingered over his glass. “It’s funny because, you know, it really bothered me that we never got a shot at that first book of yours. It was great stuff. The whole Balzac thing. Kafka meets the Valley. It was amazing.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve actually been coming up with some ideas on my own. Kind of an if-I-could-get-Penn-Hamilton-this-is-the-kind-of-thing-I’d-like-to-see-him-do wish list, if you will.”
“Do tell.”
Gersh took a sip of wine first, then readied his lungs for the pitch.
“All right, Penn. Here’s my take. You’re a damn good writer. That’s obvious to almost everyone by now. You know the craft, and you know how to manipulate it for the betterment of a story. You’ve got this whole genius angle going. And the way you worked in the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk was priceless. And let’s face it, men, women, children, everybody gets taken in by your looks. You know how to brand yourself as the ultimate product better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Penn drank it in. He loved this part, the wooing. It spoke to his most basic need. There was a fine line between wooing and pandering. Fortunately, Gersh was nowhere near it.
“You went through something most people don’t come out of clean. Anytime someone is accused of murder, even if it’s just implied, and then it’s played out in the media on the level yours was, the person is usually left with this…taint…a stigma that ends up following them forever. The public will forgive a lot of things, but the stench of accusation lingers on in cases of murder, rape, and crimes against children.”
Gersh waited for Penn to respond, but he didn’t.
“So what I’m saying is, I’ve never seen anyone emerge more beloved, more emulated, more celebrated than you after being trotted out in front of the world as a possible killer. You still got all your endorsement deals?”
“Apple and Starbucks both just sweetened the pot.”
“That’s what I figured. So here’s what I propose, here’s what’s on my wish list for you. Imagine this, if you can: Penn the character. Still Penn the man, but also Penn the character.”
“Go on.”
“Imagine books being written with you in mind, with a fictionalized Penn Hamilton, an antihero navigating the literary landscape as the best of the best writers take him on.”
“So I’d be writing myself taking on other writers?”
“Yes and no. Sometimes. Maybe. And sometimes others will take on the task.”
“Others like who?”
“Others like premier commercial and literary writers. Patterson could have Alex Cross hunting you down,” the publisher enthused. “John Grisham could take a swipe at you in one of his novels. You could turn Washington, D.C., on its ear in one of Brad Meltzer’s books. Patricia Cornwell, Dennis Lehane, Stephen King could make you a monster. Mosley could come after you with EZ Rawlins. There’s so many possibilities! Sue Grafton, Updike, Irving, Wolfe.” He caught himself. “Strike those last three. They’d never do it.”
“Huh?”
“Yes, yes, this could be huge,” Gersh said. “We could get Elmore Leonard, hell, Nick Sparks could even wrap a love story around you. That’d really catch the public off guard. It’d be awesome. We can get totally meta with this!”
“How’s that?”
“The layers, Penn, the layers! They’ll be endless. On the one hand, it’ll be camp, but at the same time, it’ll be serious. We’ll be reshaping the fictional realm. It’ll be the book that knows it’s a book, and everybody reading it will know it’s a book about a guy who wrote a book in real life who may or may not be a villain, even though he’s a villain in the book, and he’ll be chased for fictitious crimes by fictitious characters who know they’re after a real guy but don’t know they themselves aren’t real, they’re just part of the book! When you come to a project with that many slants, it challenges the reader, the writer, the art!”
Penn smiled as he sipped his wine. Gersh was on a tear, and it was all making sense. Just a few feet behind him hovered Karen, at the ready for whatever they might need. She blinked coyly. Penn held her gaze long enough to unnerve her, then rose from his seat.
“Excuse me, Mr. Gersh. Nature calls.”
“Sure!” the big man said, jumping up to let him pass. “Go right ahead. Am I rambling? I’m not rambling, am I? I don’t want to scare you off. I’m just so excited about what we could do. I’ve been turning this over in my head for a while now. I don’t think it’s an accident that we’re meeting like this.”
Penn put his hand on Gersh’s shoulder.
“It’s not easy to scare me off. Besides, where would I go? We’re thirty thousand feet in the air. There’s only ten suites in upper class, and I refuse to travel in any other section of this plane. I usually don’t fly Virgin at all. Branson’s a megalomaniacal blowhard. At any rate, I’m trapped up here for a while. But then again,” he said with a wink, “so are you.”
Gersh laughed heartily as his quarry walked away. The flight attendant gave a slight nod to Penn as he passed, then followed him quietly into the john.
Ten minutes later, Penn returned.
“The wine”—he smirked—“it goes right through you.”
Gersh went along with the ruse.
“No problem. It gave me a chance to collect my thoughts.”
“More about the metanovel thing?”
“Yes. I’m pretty excited about it. Think about it, Penn. This could be a chance to do something really different. We’re talking about spinning a character based on a real person, a celebrated personality, a genius, an award-winning writer, an accused murderer who was wrongly charged…maybe…” He cleared his throat, took a sip of wine. “We’re talking about spinning that character—you—into the works of other bestselling authors. Across several genres! It’s a home run all the way. Even if it doesn’t work in all the books we try it with, there’s a strong chance it’ll stick with a few. The ones that get it right will soar. Readers will be dying, heh-heh, dying to see how a particular author takes on the next Penn Hamilton tale.”
“Really?”
“Of course they will. And we’ll have you, I mean, we’ll have the fictional you killing real people, not Hollywood types or publishing figures or fashion icons. It’ll be man-on-the-street kinds of characters, and we’ll have you knocking them off at random.”
“Why not have me bump off celebs? The public might love it.”
“Nooooo,” Gersh said, vigorously shaking his head, “readers hate that kind of insider stuff.”
“How so?”
“Movies about life in Hollywood, books with characters in the world of publishing, that stuff never does too well. It’s all a bunch of self-celebrating garbage. That’s not the kind of thing we’re going for.”
“I liked that movie Adaptation,” Penn said. “It was an insider story, but it was great.”
“Of course you liked it. You’re a writer. People love stories that relate to their own struggles. Adaptation got critical acclaim and Oscar notice, but it wasn’t a blockbuster.”
“I see.”
“Just remember this: most people aren’t in Hollywood. Most people don’t write books. Even fewer are drop-dead models with seven-figure contracts. People might like celebrity-watching and may want to write a book or be a model, but they sure as hell don’t want to sit around and listen to the people that do it whine about their lives or pat themselves on the back about it. But everybody, everybody…”—he let the word hang in the air—“everybody lives with the possibility of murder, and everybody loves sex and money, despite what they say. People like villains versus heroes, class struggle, and the pursuit of love. They like intrigue, drama, and suspense. That’s why movies and books like that sell so well. Murder, sex, and money are always home runs, and right now, you’ve got high ratings with all three.”
&nb
sp; Penn mulled over his words.
“What if I bumped off O.J.?”
“Oh,” Gersh said, rubbing his chin. “That’s actually quite clever. But it would split your audience. You’d be heroic to some and despised by others. It’d play the race card, and that’s not what we’re looking to do.”
Penn gave a slight nod, his lips pursed.
“But it was an excellent thought,” Gersh added encouragingly.
“So how do you think the authors you mentioned would feel about doing this?” Penn asked. “You can’t just impose an alien element into their work.”
Gersh leaned forward with intense conviction.
“Let me tell you, Penn…we work really hard for the writers we publish and we pride ourselves on not interfering with the creative process, but I get the feeling the authors will see the merit of what I’m proposing. I’m not casual about stuff like this. When I fall in love with an idea, I fall hard. That doesn’t mean I think it’s foolproof. What it does mean is that, over the years, I’ve learned to look at things from every angle, pick my battles wisely, and make calculated moves. I think I’m able to recognize what’s worth fighting for. I think we can make this work, Penn.”
“But the authors you talked about are all at other houses. They’re not at Brecker Books.”
“So what? All the best writers will be lining up for a chance to take a crack at you on the page. It’s just a matter of getting you on board.”
“This is starting to sound like the branding of a partnership,” Penn said. “It’s got imprint written all over it.”
“Penn Books, maybe?” Gersh was on it.
“Fifty-fifty share?” Penn asked.
“I don’t see why not.”
Penn whistled. This guy was a bona fide closer. The real deal. He had to give the man that. And he was so damn likable. All that effusiveness was rubbing off.
The two-hour nap Penn had taken was refreshing. The wine had given him a pleasant kind of mellow. And the trip to the bathroom. The bathroom had been quite special, indeed.
“His willy is right proper,” Karen whispered to the clusterfuck of idling flight attendants. “It’s like a nice, thick banger.”
The owl-eyed girls peeked in Penn’s direction.
“Did you take it with cream?”
“Clotted, of course.”
A round of devilish sniggles could be heard across the room.
“So tell me something, Mr. Gersh,” Penn said, looking at the flight attendants.
“Please call me Harold.”
“Okay…Harold.” He turned his attention to the publisher. “You think somewhere in all these metabooks we can arrange it so that my character gets a decent helping of meta blow jobs?”
Gersh’s brow shot up.
“You know,” Penn continued, “kind of like a blow job within a blow job within a blow job, where the fictitious women in the books don’t realize they’re giving a real person a real blow job, and the real women in the real world are aware that some of the blow jobs they’re giving are fake.”
Harold howled.
“You are bad.”
“I figured since we’re making meta wish lists and all.”
Gersh finished the last of his wine.
“You could be the antidote to 007,” he said, brimming with excitement. “Imagine, a suave supervillain. Sleek, well-spoken, a mastermind who’s got a way with the ladies. People won’t know who to root for, especially if the character pitted against you is a schlep. Readers might even prefer it if the author lets you get away.”
“With murder, you mean?”
“With everything.”
Penn’s gleaming smile lit up the cabin.
“I like that.”
“So do I.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“Let’s make a deal.”
A few hours later, he was in the bathroom. Everyone else was asleep.
The other flight attendants were scattered throughout the plane. Some were sleeping. No one had seen him get up.
No one but Karen, the flight attendant who had serviced him before.
No one saw Karen follow him into the bathroom.
She was with him now, leaning over the sink. He was taking her from behind.
She was grunting. He placed his right hand over her mouth.
“Keep it down,” he whispered, pulling back.
“Don’t stop,” she moaned, “don’t stop.”
“I will unless you keep it down.”
Karen quieted, pressing her backside deeper into him.
He increased his tempo, pounding into her as the plane made a dip.
Karen grunted.
He slid his hand from her mouth, down her neck, wrapping his fingers around its delicate grace. It was a beautiful neck. He could feel the ridges under his fingers as he pumped and pushed her against the sink.
The flesh of her neck was so soft. The more he clutched it, the more Karen moaned and tilted back her head.
It was an overpowering sensation, the feel of fragile bone beneath the power of his fingers. He pulled against her neck, tilting it back even further. Karen gasped and moaned more, her breathing impeded as she escalated toward incredible ecstasy.
He could snap a neck like that. It would be so easy. Just a quick tug beneath her chin and it would all be over. No fingerprints, nothing.
“Do it with zest, or don’t do it at all.”
His father’s words rang in his ear as he pulled the girl’s throat back a little bit further. Karen coughed, still pressing her backside into his thrusts.
He pumped harder, faster, simultaneously pulling her throat, his hand now under her chin. He could feel the tension building in his groin.
They hit a patch of turbulence, and the impact made him shove harder against her, inside her, her head tilting back even more. A bell dinged as the Fasten Seatbelt sign lit up.
Karen moaned.
Penn pumped with urgency, his hand clasping her chin. Tighter, tighter. The plane and Karen lurched and rocked. So much power was about to explode out of him at both ends. From his hand at her neck. From his loins.
He would come any minute.
Do it with zest, or don’t do it at all.
Do it with zest, or don’t do it at all.
Do it with zest, or don’t do it at all.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
About the Author
Lolita Files is the author of the bestselling novel Child of God, which has been optioned as a feature film by Kanye West. She is also the author of four additional novels: Tastes Like Chicken, Blind Ambition, Getting to the Good Part, and Scenes from a Sistah. Files has a degree in broadcast journalism and lives outside of Los Angeles, where she is currently developing projects for television and film.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Also by Lolita Files
Tastes Like Chicken
Child of God
Blind Ambitions
Getting to the Good Part
Scenes from a Sistah
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SEX.LIES.MURDER.FAME. Copyright © 2006 by Lolita Files. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © APRIL 2007 ISBN: 97800
61877773
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