His phone rang.
"Miss DeBeck, I told you I didn"t want to be bothered,"
he snarled into the receiver. "I"m in the midst of an importa"ah? You"ve tracked the rotten little deadbeat to his sc.u.mmy lair, eh? Good, good, put him on." Kellaway gave Harmon a wink. "Giford?
What? You"ll have to whine a little louder, I can"t . . . That"s better. Okay, Giffy, why haven"t I been paid for the writing lesson in five long months? Leg braces for your . . . No, no, Giford. That won"t wash.
Kellaway has to come first with you. Now listen to me, Giford, you"re blind in one eye now, right?
Okay, schlep, you"ve got until Friday to get that two hundred and twenty dollars to me ora"" Kellaway took the phone away from his ear for a second, wincing. "Giford, how many times have I told you not to do those agonized screams so close to the phone? Okay, I accept your apology. Send me the money or go blind. *Bye." He hung up and chuckled. "Who owes you money, Junior?"
Swallowing, Harmon said, "Well, as a matter of face, I haven"t been able to get some four hundred and eighty dollars that Hightower Magazines has owed me for some articles I did for their girlie magazines. One, in s.n.a.t.c.h two months ago, about foot fetishes around the world, is supposed to pay a hundred and seventy-five anda""
"Miss DeBeck, get that swine Mo Hightower on the horn,"
Kellaway said into the phone as he began to poke down in another desk drawer. "We do a lot of business with that ganef, Junior, so I already have a doll for him."
"Doll?"
"Voodoo doll." Kellaway dropped a six-inch-high wax figure next to the crystal ball. The figure was chubby, bald, wearing a double-breasted gray suit. "Mo, is that you? Fine, and yourself? Mo, I"m representing Junior Harmon. Yes, I agree he certainly is a gifted young writer. And you owe the schlep five hundred eighty dollars, you moneygrubbing toad."
"Four hundred eighty," corrected Harmon in a quiet voice.
"What, Mo? Your accountant"s sick and your computer"s down. Remember when you owed Mitch Jazzminski a hundred and sixty dollars?" Kellaway was poking around amid the piles of papers on his desk top. To Harmon he mouthed, "Got a straight pin?"
"No, Ia""
"Never mind. I"ll use this ballpoint pen . . . Mo, you still there? Okay, this is going into your tummy." He jabbed at the wax figure with the tip of the silvery pen. "Sure, it hurts. Remember the last time? This is going to be much worse, because there"s a larger sum of money involved. After the stomachache we"ll try your crotch, Mo, and then . . . What?
Okay, but a certified check. Sent over by messenger, Mo.
Thanks, *bye" Hanging up, he put the doll carefully away.
"How"d youa""
"Magic." Kellaway rubbed the tip of the pen. "Voodoo in this case. I have an eclectic approach to agenting, Junior.
You"ll find me using voodoo, witchcraft, Satanism . . . what ever"s best for my clients."
"Hightower"s really going to send the money right over?"
"Of course. He"s no sap. After that coronary I gave him two years ago, he doesn"t mess around. That was for fifteen hundred dollars he owed us on a serialization for Nipples.
"This is impressive, buta""
"Sure, the unorthodox takes a little getting used to."
Kellaway leaned back, stroked his stubbly chins. "How"d you like to sell Me and the Devil to 4Most Paperbacks for five thousand dollars?"
"They"ve already bounced it."
"Leave me a copy of the proposal, one of the ones you have in that tacky briefcase."
"How"d you know I hada""
"On the simpler sales and collection problems, I can go it alone," the agent continued. "With novels and bigger advances, you have to cooperate."
"You mean lunch with the editor ora""
"No, no, stay away from that b.i.t.c.h at 4Most." Kellaway closed his puffy eyelids for a few seconds.
"Yes, here"s what you have to do. Sleep in a graveyard."
"Beg pardon?"
"Graveyard," repeated Kellaway, a shade impatient. "Sleep in one. From midnight tonight to dawn tomorrow. Be sure your frapping head points north."
"What"s that got to do with sellinga""
"Trust me," cut in Kellaway. "For an agent-author relationship to work well, there must be mutual trust.
Right?"
"I suppose, sure, but where would I find a graveyard ina""
"There"s one, a nice eighteenth-century relic, about six blocks from that hovel you live in in the Village, Junior.
Attached to the Church of St. Norbert the Divine."
"Won"t they chase me away ifa""
"Do you want to sell this d.a.m.n book or not?"
"Yes, since it"s the best idea I"ve come up with in a long time. Still, thougha""
"Sleep. Graveyard. Midnight to dawn." He rose. "Do you want your eighty percent of that five hundred and eighty dollars today?"
"It would help with an alimony payment I"m behind on."
"Sit out in the reception room with Miss DeBeck until it arrives," said Kellaway. "She"ll write you a check for four hundred and sixty-four dollars soon as the messenger comes tottering in." He held out his right hand. "We"re going to have a fruitful relationship, Junior."
The night in the cemetery wasn"t as bad as Harmon had antic.i.p.ated. He actually managed to sleep for nearly four hours, and when he awoke, although he discovered someone had swiped his shoes right off his feet, he didn"t feel all that bad. Four days later Kellaway phoned to inform him that Me and the Devil had been sold to 4Most for seven thousand five hundred dollars.
Harmon was elated, and his reservations about the agenta"most of thema"vanished. It looked like Kellaway was going to be the most effective agent he"d ever had.
As he worked away on completing the occult novel, which had been sold on the basis of three lackl.u.s.ter chapters and a muddled outline, Harmon"s social life began to change. At the annual banquet of the Foot Writers of America, less than two months after joining up with Kellaway, he met an absolutely stunning fashion model named Pert Rainey. She was slim, blonde, twenty-seven, and she professed to be a great fan of his. Harmon"s article on famous feet of yesteryear, which had run in a health-oriented girlie magazine called Vegetarian t.i.ts, was up for a Big Toe Award, and Pert had sought out Harmon to inform him she was rooting for him to win.
"I just dote on your work, Mr. Harmon, and this is a real thrill meeting you in person, especially as you don"t look anywhere near as runty as you do in the author"s photo on your last hardcover book."
"You read that?" He"s done only two hardcover books in his life; the last had come out six years ago.
"I"m honestly surprised it wasn"t on the bestseller list."
The lovely blonde squeezed his arm fondly. "The minute I saw the t.i.tle, A Picture History of Shoes, I knew I was going to love it. And not just because I"m a shoe model by profession.
I mean, your prose style is absolutely breathtaking, and fur thermore .
She went on to tell him she"d read all five of his Pow dersmoke Kid adult Westerns for Runt Books, three out of the four Lady from BOSOM novels he"d done for Rooster Books in the early 1970s, and even his latest historical, The l.u.s.ty d.u.c.h.ess. That very night, although Harmon lost out on the Big Toe, he spent the night with Pert in her impressive Central Park West penthouse apartment.
Kellaway called him there the next morning at a few minutes after nine.
"You off your ox, Junior?" he inquired.
"How"d you know I wasa""
"How"s Pert in the sack? Does she grab as much as she does when she"s upright?"
"Whoa now, Kellaway. There"s no way you could"ve known I was going toa""
"Before noon go into a church and light six black candles while reciting the Lord"s Prayer in Latin backward."
"Hum? They don"t have black candles in church ora""
"You have to bring the candles yourself, dimwit. And don"t let the priests catch you."
"Why am I supposed toa""
"It"s to cinch the romance. See, like I told you, Junior, you"ve got to play a role. Sometimes before the fact, some times after. In this casea""
"You"re trying to tell me Pert fell instantly in love with me because of some d.a.m.n magic spell?" He glanced anxiously at the door of the bedroom the lovely girl had returned to after summoning him to the phone.
"Would a rational woman, even a half-wit like Pert, fall for you otherwise?"
"I was married twice, after all."
"Did they look like Pert?"
"Well, not exactly . . . but she"s read all my books. She told me."
"She only thinks she has."
"C"mon, she can quotea""
"Have you ever before, anywhere, met a human being who admitted to reading a single Lady from BOSOM novel?"
"No, not yeta""
"Go light the candles. Get hold of a Latin version of the Lord"s prayer. Backward, remember?"
"Kellaway, it"s not right or honest to have somebody sleeping with me if it"s only because of some dark supernatural trick youa""
"She"s a better lay than your wives?"
"Sure, I guess so, buta""
"Come into my office at eleven on Monday morning. I"ve got a new deal cooking for you."
Harmon sat with the phone resting on his naked lap for several minutes.
Then he went and lit the candles.
Cinching the three-book deal for a new series of macho Westerns wasn"t that difficult, even though the Western market had supposedly gone soft. Harmon did feel a trace silly putting on the long black robe with the golden moons and planets on it and reciting pages of Chinese while standing Kellaway"s desk with Miss DeBeck playing the bongos and the fat agent setting off sticks of sulfur. It worked, though, and Harmon was to get ten thousand dollars per novel. The very editor who"s once made fun of his name took him to lunch the day the contracts were signed.
Lunch at a restaurant where the entrees started at $17.95. A far cry from the usual editorial lunches he"d had, at delis and Chinese carry-out joints.
Success was coming his way at last.
Pert continued to adore him. When Harmon left his dingy rooms in Greenwich Village for a six-room apartment on East Seventy-third, the lovely blonde moved in with him.
Me and the Devil was published just before Christmas and did fairly well. Harmon got favorable reviews, was invited to be on local talk shows, and there was even an autographing party at a bookshop in Yonkers.
He would have coasted along, enjoying his enlarged income and the stunning Pert, turning out the three Westerns at a leisurely pace of one every couple of months. But Kellaway wasn"t one for resting on the oars.
"You ought to have some stories in Playpen and Houseboy,"
he told Harmon on a bleak December afternoon while gray snow hit at his smeary office window.
"They"re not very high on foot-oriented nonfiction in the manner of Roald Dahl and Harlan Ellison.
Bright, witty stuff with a lot of razzle-dazzle prose. I"ll get you three thousand dollars per yarn."
"I suppose I could try aa""
"First buy a chicken."
"Hm?"
"A chicken." Kellaway flapped his elbows and clucked a few times. "There"s a poultry shop over on Second Avenue near your new place that sells *em live."
"I don"t want a live chicken, Alex. I can"t have pets in the apartment, and even if I could, I"d lean more toward gold fish ora""
"Buy a live chicken. A black one, if you can." the hefty agent instructed him. "Take it to Central Park tonight at midnight. Slit its throat."
Harmon popped up out of his chair. "I don"t really have to sell to Playpen, ever."
"Yeah, you do." Kellaway"s left eye narrowed. "It"s important for your career plan."
"Why can"t I write the stories first? That"ll take me a month or more.