Church remains in the hallway, “Yeah. Yeah of course.”

  My door closes as I see him fumble for his keycard.

  “Stay scared,” I whisper.

  Chapter 7

  What was it about being patient? The moment he ends the call, Pendel’s flagging Marina down, sending a quick email, not even a full sentence office in five, he’s already losing track of some valuable advice. When she’s there in three, he’s already mid-task, telling her that he “needs to raise the dead.”

  Marina doesn’t follow. “Excuse me?”

  A glazed over look on his face. He chuckles, “Never mind. You never did connect with my morbid sense of humor. Good thing you’re cute.”

  “Guess not,” she says. She scrolls through her tablet, anticipating the next command.

  “What was that editor’s name again?” he asks, absentmindedly clicking around in his contacts list. “We’re finalizing a deal today, even if it means diving into the dredges.”

  “You mean Emily?”

  “Emily?” He doesn’t find an Emily in his contacts list, at least not one that is in an editorial role. Pendel gets an email notification, one that he ignores. Just because he deleted the email from Moyer doesn’t mean the message hasn’t been made.

  “I can’t believe you still can’t remember her name,” she says. “It’s Emily Mills. She’s the new big shot at FSG. You should remember the name; she’s gathering a real great catalog of authors.”

  In one ear and out the other, Pendel nods, “Emily Mills. Thanks. I have her number, right?”

  This time Marina doesn’t bother. It’s just a waste of her time. This is trademark Pendel treading the byline and latest trends. He’s under a lot of stress. He’s got a reputation and a hefty list of clients to take care of, especially when it comes to selling. These are the most common excuses Marina tends to find a degree of understanding. And when that doesn’t work, she defaults to it being her day gig. It doesn’t pay well ($39k after taxes, fun stuff), but all her friends lately, especially those in the industry, have been losing their jobs. Between the impending merger(s) and artificial intelligence, staffers have lost all sense of job security.

  The phone number is given, though Marina makes a lone comment, “Emily’s quicker via email,” and she’s back at her desk. Pendel likes to call people. It has everything to do with catching them off guard.

  Emily picks up after the sixth ring, “Emily Mills, hello.”

  “Hello there… Emily,” he says, not bothering to give his name.

  “Hello!”

  No reply. He expects her to recognize his voice. What follows is a silence bordering on awkwardness.

  “This is Emily,” she says again, because what else does one do besides consider hanging up the phone?

  When nothing changes, she adds the requisite inquiry, “May I help you?”

  “I’d hope so,” Pendel says. “You do know who this is, right? We have some pressing matters to discuss.”

  “Oh, of course, yes. This is… Mr. Pendel, correct?”

  “Yes,” he says, disappointed.

  “Hi there!” The false sense of excitement is paper thin, altogether too obvious to just shrug off. “I enjoyed our meeting today!”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “You can dial it down a few. Last thing I need is a headache.”

  “Oh, well all right.”

  He’s already forgotten about the boilerplate, “I’m calling because it seems to me that you’re forgetting something.”

  “I am…?”

  There’s another email. Quick glance and he sees the name Alexander Moyer, and again, he notes the name, yet continues to ignore every attempt. It’s up to the lawyer now. He treats it like any other stalker or invasive hanger-on: Give them nothing, and then, should they continue, give them the full extent of legal wrath. This call, like most things that he does that qualify as petty, is designed to make Pendel feel better, when really, every email spikes his anxiety, producing an influx of stress and worry.

  Everything seems to be falling apart. What the hell is going on?

  “You haven’t sent in your offer,” he says.

  Target locked, he needs nothing more right now than to make a young editor sweat it out, squirm in their seat.

  “Oh, well, I was under the impress… umm, the impression that…” Mills trips over her words. “I’d have some time to…” Her brief pause has everything to do with carefully selecting the right choice of words in this delicate, tense situation. “Time to… well…” A single beat, and then she says, “I would need a few days to read.”

  “You’ve had long enough,” he says. “I’ve already told you this is going to be huge. I can see the book on all the lists, in everyone’s minds, its cover becoming iconic, a gem of a cultural moment. I’ve given you a golden ticket, so now you got to pay up.”

  “Mr. Pendel, I cannot rightly make an offer on a book I have not read,” she says, before immediately back-tracking due to intimidation. “What I’m trying to say is… I need to read the book so I can come up with an accurate enough figure to offer.”

  “Let me help you out,” he says. “It’ll save you time. Maybe even gets you climbing up that corporate ladder a bit quicker. What you do with this debut is you offer me $50k, lowball, so that your bosses and the marketing department don’t immediately say no. $50k split into installments is nothing. You’ll look like you know what you’re doing.”

  Emily Mills knows what she’s doing. Still, he continues, refusing to give her a single moment to speak. “I’ll take that $50k and double it. $100k. Still pretty modest, especially when Kawada becomes the next biggest thing, which he will, and the first printing sells out, which it will, and by then, $100k will look like $100 when looking back at the investment. On the other side of the deal, we’ll both come out on top, you’ll get a promotion, and suddenly everyone will believe in you unequivocally. Maybe then you’ll get the books you really want.”

  Pendel isn’t a bad person. He doesn’t mean to be so cutthroat and downright mean, but he must put his emotions somewhere, and he’s never been great at sitting and processing his feelings. And really, this isn’t the first time he’s groomed an editor. Hendrix de Leon had to start somewhere. One morning he received a call from one Henry Richmond Pendel, and by the end of it, Hendrix had made an offer on a book he had never read; Pendel inked yet another deal (the good ol’ days when he often ended a month so above his expectations that he gleefully took that extra-long weekend upstate, took twice as many vacations than normal, often right in the middle of the busiest time of the year for trade publishing, just because), and Hendrix became a made editor. Not that Pendel gatekeeps or even has full control over anything. Really, he’s just good at what he does. Ask him and he’ll tell you, Yeah, I’m probably a sociopath. Laughter would follow, but along with the joke, a nugget of truth would carry forward.

  Emily is speechless.

  “Email me the offer within the hour,” he says. “Then the boilerplate. Let’s get this complete by day’s end, hmm?”

  She manages a reply, “Will do…”

  “Good,” he says. “Don’t fuck up this opportunity.”

  He hangs up. In every sense of the term, he leaves her hanging. Leave it up to Emily to figure out how to make this all happen before the end of the business day. He’ll enjoy thinking about how stressful the remainder of her day will be. It gets him through all the unknowns, all the uncertainty, and it helps him delete yet another email from Moyer without thinking about it. It’s nothing. Reminder: This has everything to do with him feeling in control and nothing at all about the poor young editor giving it her all.

  That’s what he tells himself.

  Repeat it enough times and eventually you’ll start to believe.

  Chapter 8

  Before I bother knocking, I dart off an email, one that implicates his agent. No big deal, just a little note that says he has the power to stop this. All he needs to do is email me back, hear me out, see through the clearing, and understand that he’s made and continues to make a big mistake. He’s losing out on so much money, and soon, he’ll be losing out on one of his biggest clients.

  Maybe all his clients…

  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A story can always benefit from a few notes.

  We’re going to workshop the key details.

  A little tap-tap on the door, Church sees me standing there, and he could easily not open the door, which could be the solution, real armor for an incoming personal attack, but he’s going to pry. Undoubtedly, he must wonder, a fellow devotee of the weird, how crazy can this fan interaction get?

  He uses the door as a shield, barely ajar. “Did you find a book for me to sign?”

  “Yeah,” I flash a smile. “I actually have your latest right here!”

  When he sees the bound manuscript, things change quickly.

  “How did you get that?”

  “This?” The title page reads: The Renegades. “I just finished reading it on the flight over!”

  “No,” he shakes his head. “I don’t care. Wait…” Composure failing in five, four, three, two… “Nobody should have that except my agent.”

  My agent.

  I’ve always found it so… possessive. Like being owner and owned, the author is more likely to say “my agent” than an agent to say “my author.” Well, some agents do it more flippantly, but usually it’s only tossed around by an agent if they are particularly proud of the author. My author.

  “Oh right,” I laugh. “That’s right. So sorry. This must all be so confusing. You see… your agent sent me the manuscript!”

  It washes over him right as I jam my boot between the door and frame.

  In a low whisper, I offer my first piece of feedback, “You know, it runs a little long. You could stand to get right to the action, less info dumping, more death.”

  And then we’re inside the room, door locked, no one any wiser, and he’s coming apart like anyone would under the circumstances, tripping over his own clumsy feet, on the floor and crawling away from… me? Come on now, be a little more original. But give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s what the workshop is for.

  I toss the bound manuscript onto the bed. “At a hefty 810 pages, and who knows how many will be in the final hardcover, you manage to keep the group of survivors away from danger for 65% of it. There are only three action scenes? Only one survivor dies? Church, you really need to double down on the war. It’s supposed to be a climate-centric civil war, hmm?”

  I rush over and grab him before he can send for help and put him in a headlock. “You see, something as simple as a headlock. Why didn’t any of the soldiers or survivors get in each other’s faces? What happened to all the grit and grime from your other books? Instead, you have them go on and on, talking up a snoozefest.”

  Apply enough pressure, keep the hold locked, and he’ll begin to nod off. His body goes limp. “Exactly my point. Your book put me to sleep.”

  While he’s out, I restrain him to the desk chair with zip ties. A ball gag around the mouth works well enough. Time is certainly valuable. He’s out for around ten minutes. Enough time for me to gather my notes.

  I’d love to impress him.

  Give him something to reconsider this late in the process.

  Nearly out on submission, and J.D. Church decides to pull the novel, do some more editing, all because of my feedback. Imagine!

  It’s a good fantasy.

  But he’s awake and I’m not finding a whole lot to critique, at least nothing that really warrants the effort.

  “You see, I think when it comes down to it… I just find your novel to be, well, unimaginative.” That’s the cold hard truth. “You’ve always been so clever and so poignant, so on-the-pulse with cultural issues, but this climate horror post-apocalyptic whatever-the-fuck, it’s just… boring. I really don’t have much else to comment on.”

  It’s like in the movies. He makes noises and struggles to break free. And, like in the movies, his own struggle results in some self-sabotage. So swiftly he shifts to playing the victim. I haven’t even done anything, yet.

  The chair crashes to the hotel room floor. On his side like that, I have direct access to his arms. I can see the daisy chain of purple-blue veins, his pale flesh untouched and unedited.

  I brought along with me a few items. I’d like to think of them as part of the process; everyone’s got a favorite. Pen to paper, there’s always something in hand.

  “Found this gem at a specialty shop,” I say. “It’s what I work with best.”

  He can’t see the large blade in my hand. He can’t see the lye, vials of bleach, and other liquids I carry with me, just in case. Probably for the better. I need him lucid.

  Back to the manuscript, I know exactly which pages to cut. Using the tip of the blade, I cut a handful of pages from the beginning, a handful more from the middle, and then a whole lot from the end. A post-apocalyptic novel where the last half is just the two survivors talking and reminiscing? Complete with footnotes?

  Cut.

  He screams, and I have to give him a warning, “Yo, keep it down or else we’ll have to cut this workshop short.”

  I find a few areas, forearms and the soft underside of his armpits.

  “These could all stand to use a rewrite,” I say, taking each page and folding it three ways before offering the final insulating fold of his skin. The pages fit perfectly in each wound, thank you very much. I measured the length, thinking about trim sizes and other production details. Unlike Church, I’ve outlined and planned this all out. Still, we got a few more cuts, in some cases, whole chapters. After a few more, he stops making a sound.

  Church passes out from the pain. It’s a shame, really. He could use the feedback. But that’s okay. I’ll keep cutting until I find something worth keeping. After the arms, then the legs. Save the best for last, the chest, namely the heart. The liquids will come in handy.

  Guess it’s up to me to fix this story.

  J.D. Church is kind of a letdown. I had hoped for my debut to be far more poetic, more than what’s on the page. It’s the reason I started with the best, a brand name, the author and king of an entire genre. Instead, it’s down to blood loss and torture.

  How boring.

  I guess there’s always the next one.

  His body of work is impressive, really it is, but when it comes to the body, it’s like everything else: You cut and peel away to the skeleton underneath, and it all looks the same.

  Chapter 9

  It’s nearly 6 PM and the only one of his calls that has been returned is from Pendel’s lawyer. His assistant should really go home for the day, but Pendel keeps Marina around because he expects that offer from the young editor whose name he still can’t quite remember.

  “Anything yet?”

  She peeks into his office, “Not yet.” It is followed by the reminder, “But Benji is on line two. He’s still on line two.”

  Pendel doesn’t say anything. His inbox refreshes, revealing yet another email. Moyer.

  “He’s been waiting,” she says. “You do know he’s paid by the hour… right?”

  “Get me what’s-her-name on the phone,” he says, changing the subject. “The nerve, letting such a perfect opportunity slip away.”

  “Sure thing.” Marina shuts the door and less than five minutes later, line three lights up. Like a good assistant, she never forgets a request or task. Leave line one open. Just in case. He’s left multiple messages. It’s troubling when a client goes silent, especially one who keeps his cash flow steady and comfortable.

  Getting into character, he holds his breath and then—“So where’s my offer? Was it misplaced somewhere?”

  “Pendel, we have much to discuss.”

  Wrong line. The lawyer.

  Shit. The last thing Pendel wants is to talk “terms” and possible recourse. It’s a pulverizing reminder of the danger surrounding him from all sides. If only he knew the full extent of what was unfolding. There’s no going back now. He’s got to talk about it sometime.

  “Yes, we do,” he says, feeling the stress manifesting as an ache in his jaw. “Lay it on me. Understand that I hired you because you don’t waterboard me with legalese. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “Understood,” Benji says. “I have gone through the communications you’ve sent me. They’ve all been emails, correct?”

  “Correct,” he says. “But I do suspect that this stalker, this writer, this whoever, has been inside my house.”

  “How certain are you?”

  “Things moved. Things missing. Personal space ruined and disrespected,” he says. “That’s got to count for something.”

  “It gets a little tricky.” The lawyer dives into the short version, “You can file a restraining order, which, obviously, is a done deal. However, outside of that, unless there’s more, I won’t have much for you.”

  He gets a text message. Before he checks, Pendel must know, “What’s the guy’s deal? This Moyer? What does he want?”

  “Same as any writer,” Benji says. “He wants your attention, your validation, and ultimately he wants you to sign him and represent his work.”

  Representation. Like submission, it is a term veiled and layered in the interpersonal dramatics of author and agent. To be represented becomes more than the brokering of a deal; it becomes an author receiving an agent’s “stamp of approval.” To write something, an author must learn to live with something; to submit, the author must learn to give something away. For Pendel there might not be much of a difference.

  “Stalking and making threats,” he chuckles. “That’ll really inspire me to give his query another look.”

  “The remainder of the correspondence, hmm…” He can hear Benji typing away at his keyboard. “Yeah, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If you haven’t looked, I would keep it that way.”

  “No interest,” says Pendel. “I’d be more inclined to delete them.”