I really should celebrate, but I’ve been holding out until the right moment. When I match with her, I figure the moment is now. There’s a Thai place near the park called Slowloris. Make sure to get there after her, so that when I approach the table, there’s a modicum of edge, a first impression as dramatic as it is memorable.

  “Wow, you’re more beautiful than I imagined,” I say, giving her hand a kiss.

  She stands up, shy and slightly blushing, “Hi, you look great too.”

  We take our seats. Some small talk.

  “Alex, is it?”

  “That’s me,” I grin. “And yours is… Marina?”

  She blushes, “Yes. Marina Grace.”

  “Wow, sounds like a great name for a character in a book.”

  She rolls her eyes, “Oh, well thank you. I know that’s supposed to be a compliment, but I’m surrounded by all things books and publishing all hours of the workweek.” She frowns and offers a confession, “I kind of hate it.”

  “Hate… books?”

  She nods slowly, “Pretty bad, huh?”

  I laugh, “At least you feel something about them. Feel like most people see them as decorations for their latest IKEA furniture purchase.”

  She laughs, and right then and there, I recognize that I’m in. The bond begins.

  I check the phone, DMing when the timing’s right, but otherwise my undivided attention is hers. I’ve studied the dating scene, read countless academic articles about the dynamics of human bonding, yet it pales in comparison to, you know, actually going on a date.

  Shouldn’t I be nervous?

  The answer is no. This is an interlude to a song, a preamble to something precious. A story needs its own vulnerabilities, its own blemishes. It needs to fail first to succeed.

  Instinctively, I reach for one of the menus folded shut on the table even though I already know what I’m going to get. Just like I know how every part of this will play out. It’s been practiced. I practice everything. Nothing in life worth the effort must be relegated to first drafts.

  “Well, it’s very nice to meet someone as honest as you.”

  “Oh come on,” she says. “I’m kind of surprised actually, both of us matching. I’ve never had much luck with the dating apps. I always hear from people that they can match with dozens in minutes but,” she stops and sighs, “I don’t know if I should tell you this but, whatever, you’re the first person I’ve matched with.”

  “Wow, really,” I say, eyes fixed to the pictures on the menu. “Well, same for me too. You’re the first I’ve matched with.”

  “Really? Somehow, I don’t believe that,” she says.

  I look up from the menu, “I guess you’ll just have to trust me. I believe you.”

  “I guess I will have to believe you too,” she says.

  “So, I guess this is where we ask about each other’s lives, day jobs, that kind of thing,” I say. “You start, since you’ve basically already started. What do you do?”

  Marina sighs, “Fine. I guess I’m a secretary and an assistant.”

  “You guess?”

  “Yeah, because I kind of do everything. I read submissions, I send rejections and acceptances, I look through contracts, I deal with author issues… I make coffee, I clean the office, I attend agency-wide meetings, I even handle bills, groceries, and basic adulting.”

  “Wow,” I say. “I hope you’re paid well.”

  A comment made intentionally to provoke, which works swimmingly. The years of being abused by Pendel have festered and begun to cultivate in this woman. This anger, it creeps in for only a second, long enough for her to offer an illuminating rant:

  “The whole industry is shit! I’m being paid $39k. That’s after taxes! Only reason I’m still working this gig is because I haven’t found a job that can pay the same or better. My life is basically working tirelessly for a stuck-up agent that can barely function without me, and go home, scavenge for food, call home asking for more money, and continue to apply for jobs.” She stops, exhales, and asks me, “How many jobs have you applied for?”

  The server interrupts, “What would you like?”

  “Uhh yeah, I’ll have the bibimbap,” she says.

  I’m grinning ear to ear, ordering the Pad Thai and a round of drinks for us both. Besides, it’s a celebration; it’s the beginning of a great night. I’m learning so much.

  “450,” I say, after the server leaves.

  “What?”

  “You asked me how many jobs I’ve applied for. I like the number 450.”

  She shakes her head, “Almost, 388. It’s absurd. How anyone can live in this city…”

  “Eh, I wouldn’t call this living,” I say, a partial joke. “Most are here to indulge in fantasy.”

  She leans in close, “What’s your fantasy?” Her attempt at flattery.

  “You’re asking me what I do?”

  She winks, waiting for my reply.

  “I’m… an emerging author,” I say.

  More difficult than expected, saying it with a straight face.

  “Have you been published?” There’s that industry side of her kicking in.

  “Yeah, a few,” I tell her, casually name-dropping my bylines.

  She’s impressed, “Really?”

  I wink, “You could say I have some experience.”

  “London Review and the New Yorker, those are heavy hitters.”

  I’m an emerging author, hopeful yet ignorant of the inner machinations of the trade publishing industry. Play that angle up perfectly, and she’ll be a valuable resource.

  “Are you writing longer fiction?” she asks.

  “Funny you should ask,” I say. “I’m working on a novel.”

  She doesn’t yet know; the Alex sitting across from her is the same Alex who had been rejected, likely by her own hand. Where there’s Alexander Moyer, there’s also Alex P., “new transplant looking to make a real connection.”

  Drinks arrive and we toast, “To good things!”

  She offers some advice, “An author needs to go out there and be really competitive.”

  “I agree,” I say, making a move. My hand gently placed on hers, she doesn’t recoil. In fact, she slowly but surely reciprocates, our hands held there, draped across the table.

  “So, what are you afraid of?”

  She thinks about it and then says, “Being a failure. You?”

  “I’m an author,” I say. “I get that fear of failure. Hmm.” I pretend to struggle over my inevitable response. “Maybe not being able to look back and see what I’ve accomplished.”

  At the end of the day the only thing that spoils is your own ability to appreciate what you have achieved.

  “I get that,” she says, clearly finding me endearing. “But that can’t stop you from continuing to write.”

  I shrug, “We all have a story to tell. Some are just willing to do anything to tell it.”

  Part Three REPRESENTATION

  Chapter 1

  Debut author Chelsea Boll’s INSIDE, pitched as Night of the Living Dead meets The 40-Year-Old Virgin, is about a forty-something mailperson living a boring life when she meets a man who’s eerily similar to her in every way, she starts dating him only to see her friends back away one by one, suspecting that it might be him, and not them, to Hailey Slaughter at Tempest, in a major deal, by Henry Richmond Pendel at Cooper Willis Endeavor (NA).

  How did it happen? That’ll be the first thing Pendel will ask when he sees the deal announcement, same question the detectives will ask when they see her body carved into parts. That’s all part of the reveal, I should know. I’ve planned it out, the moment of rejection became a moment of pure, unadulterated vengeance. Got to hand it to Detective Monroe; he saw right through my MO, down to the pathology of victim and villain. It is vengeance, and it’s one of the purest forms of concentrated obsession outside of a need to possess another.

  The deal announcement is nestled unsuspectingly in Monday’s marketplace update. I get a notification, and it’s bittersweet because you see, Chelsea Boll should have been alive to celebrate the confirmation of her first book deal, her words finally set to be printed onto paper, bound together for an experience offered to the unsuspecting reader.

  And after our workshop, it takes an entirely different meaning. Much more profound when you see the deal announcement paired with the discovery of the author’s body.

  The timing is frankly perfect.

  Her body in pieces, her body more than the sum of each individual part, they’ll find her long after each organ has begun to wither, no longer fresh. She manifested it as truth…

  I remember.

  She didn’t feel like she was a priority to her agent, and she certainly didn’t feel like she was a real author. Sometimes life imitates art. Chelsea, dear Chelsea, her body and life ended, yet it took people over a week to notice.

  Work left a few messages. Some acquaintances texted her, at least one grew frustrated because she didn’t respond and proceeded to send a flurry of messages before going silent. No calls. No knocks on the door. Nothing. It was the landlord who found her pieces; it’s in the lease, the right to entry when it’s maintenance or an emergency. In this case, the next-door neighbor reported some pests. You see, they were saying that there was some kind of smell, almost indescribable, but the sudden appearance of roaches elevated the urgency of bringing in an exterminator before things grew to the point of infestation.

  They knocked. After receiving no response, they even came back at the end of the day, another series of knocks, and again, nothing. The landlord made the choice, giving them the go-ahead, and then it happened instantly, the powerful aroma hitting them. So intense, it knocks the wind out of a person. They pause, they do what they need to do to recover, but they’re going in. Curiosity has been piqued. What are they going to find?

  The culmination of our workshop. Case in point—the heart cradled by a chapter, a stack of pages that have since begun to curl at the edges, a mock embrace around the organ as it has begun its descent into decomposition. I would have liked for them to be able to read those pages, but they took their sweet time. And it’ll take some time for them to figure out who it is. Chelsea Boll’s name is on the lease, but identifying the body cannot be left to assumptions.

  Detective Monroe. What do you think?

  Quite the mess, huh? Just look at what happened with the brain. The source of the pending infestation, but it’s not what the exterminator had expected. The roaches scatter, but there’s something burrowed into the brain matter. This part nobody can plan. The best you can do is hope that it plays out right. Burrowed deep in her brain, a sizable rat has taken the opportunity to feast. A week’s worth of neglect has attracted a scattering of vermin. This bold rat is caught off-guard when the exterminator reaches down with a gloved hand. It screeches and runs away, its escape plan already figured out. Everyone recoils in disgust. Quite an image.

  This all happens late in the afternoon, sunset well on its way. They’re too busy reacting to notice a bystander, yours truly, cross-legged and watching from the safety of the fire escape. I have a good sense for these things. Spent a lot of time waiting and then it became clear, Chelsea was correct. She was underappreciated, rendered invisible because she didn’t have the cache of an author cut from the Ivy Leagues, the cutthroat literary communities. Poor Chelsea, she loved writing, but how could she handle the hurdles of becoming an emerging author?

  When Monroe shows up on the scene, I’m already descending the fire escape. His presence implies the merging of both plot lines.

  I’m feeling good, tired but good. It’s been a lot of shadow work, hiding and being invisible. The fun part is being able to workshop the story, continue building what will surely become an impressive body of work. I keep reminding myself of the end goal, how this all will end.

  What about Pendel? Is it all coming apart yet?

  He knows it’s me. Pendel must be the first to know, or else the story doesn’t add up. First suspicion and fear, then knowledge and anger… finally, when I once again make my presence known, it won’t be like at Black Swan, brunch and confusion; he’ll look into my eyes, feel my presence, and understand the weight of what’s in store. For me and for him.

  After knowledge and fear?

  Next comes complicity and self-destruction.

  The world around him will fold over and take on an entirely new, more menacing shape. He’ll be forced to let it all go if he’s going to make it to the end of the story. If he wants to stand toe-to-toe with me, he’s got to lose it all.

  I’m doing my part to make sure that happens.

  He’ll thank me later. This story’s going to be one for the ages, studied by authors and agents, critics and readers.

  Chapter 2

  Pendel learns about the Boll announcement from a horror newsletter, one that he isn’t even sure he signed up for. Chelsea Boll is one of his authors. If he were honest with himself, he would recognize that he lost track of the author amid his perpetual hustle to glean the best deals for his top clients. This Chelsea Boll does have a file folder at the agency, and if he were to look, he would discover a signed agency contract and author questionnaire. The latest addition would be a contract, also signed, by what looks to be his signature and that of editor Hailey Slaughter at Tempest. It’s all there, facts waiting to be found. Yet Pendel sees the deal announcement, feels an overwhelming sense of confusion, and immediately receives a phone call, one that draws his attention away toward the latest issue.

  It’s all been emotional whiplash. First the failure to sell J.D. Church’s estate, not to mention the postponement of the recently announced The Renegades. Then the allegations and information of Church’s predatory past going viral. Then he hears from Benji that his widow is going to press charges against Pendel and Cooper Willis Endeavor. What’s at stake? All previously published and brokered works.

  Never mind the looming presence of someone or something that has been at the center of the conflict, who eludes Pendel’s ability to fathom it. He already knows it’s Alexander Moyer, he simply refuses to give it any attention. He cannot accept it as true, much less face the apprehension and fear that has begun to mount.

  He should be mourning the loss of his authors. After Boll, that makes… three?

  Oh right, Pendel has already forgotten that fragment of information. It’s a future problem. For now, Pendel doomscrolls. He refuses to acknowledge that he has a meeting with the detective, precipitated by the fact that the very same author he has “supposedly” just aided in finalizing a book deal has been found brutally murdered in her studio apartment. He refuses to think about how this looks for him, the agent with three dead authors and counting, the agent being paired with J.D. Church in the posthumous criminal past controversy; he refuses to look at what people are saying in the media and online about Chelsea Boll’s death, just like he paid little attention to Brendon Kawada’s tragic death.

  His doomscroll is pointed and exact, focused only on one topic: The war overseas. He fixates on every story, real and fabricated. He ignores emails and phone calls.

  Pendel doesn’t pick up for Benji, who has only one thing to tell him: I think it’s best if you pursue different legal representation. The lawyer has an entirely well-thought-out explanation that goes into plenty of detail. In reality, his long-time attorney is not cut out for the sort of work that’s increasingly likely to follow. An entertainment lawyer specializing in copyright law, Benji is intimidated and unqualified for what Pendel will require. Yet Pendel won’t take his calls, won’t answer his emails. Text messages? Consider them dead on arrival.

  Everything shuts down, an internal and external quiet settles in, a calm before the storm.

  Marina checks in, poking her head into his office, “Do you need anything?”

  No answer.

  She understands.

  When the lone meeting scheduled for today draws near, Pendel closes all browser tabs, takes his cell phone, and places it face down on the desk. He sits in silence. Maybe he should be preparing for the meeting. It could be worth getting his story straight. But what does an agent do when the situation at hand involves three dead authors?

  Nothing to do but wait.

  Pendel stares blankly at his inbox, eyes unfocused, everything blurring together into a mess of confusion and color.

  “Mr. Pendel.”

  The voice of interrogation. Detective Monroe stands before him, arm outstretched.

  Blinking, vision clearing, Pendel takes his hand and says, “H-hi, hey there.” His voice cracks, saliva and phlegm scraping against his larynx. He clears his throat and tries again, “Hey there. Sorry about that.” He takes a sip from his mug of lukewarm coffee, “Where did the day go? I guess I’ve been drowning in it today.”

  “Life of the agent, I assume,” says the detective. He crosses his legs, reaches into a pocket, and retrieves a device. “Thank you, again, for taking the time.”

  “Of course,” he says. “This is quite a trying time; I don’t yet believe it’s hit me as reality.”

  The detective doesn’t waste any time. “I have a few questions,” he says. “Where were you the night of Thursday, June 7th, at approximately,” he checks his notes app. “At approximately 2:41 AM?”

  On the spot, Pendel is in no way prepared. “Umm, asleep, I’d imagine. Asleep at home.”

  The detective narrows his gaze and then types something into his phone. “When was your last communication with Brendon Kawada?”

  Kawada? Why him? Pendel isn’t following, yet offers the best answer he can give, “Oh I’ll have to look at my email to confirm, but it must have been recently. We just signed the deal with FSG!”

  “Hmm, and Chelsea Boll?”

  “Chelsea Boll… who?”

  “Your client?”

  Pendel shrugs, “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “You just announced a book deal this morning? That Chelsea Boll.”

  His piss poor memory always backfiring on him. “Ah! Sorry, my mind is always so scattered. Right, yeah.” He’s got nothing. “Again, I’ll have to check my files but hey, I like to be prepared before a meeting; I wasn’t aware we’d be touring my client list. I thought this was about Church.”