“They won’t know for sure until after the autopsy, but it looks like an OD. They found works and syringes and shit in the study.”

  “Oh my God,” I said. That news hit me hard. I knew Willy had dabbled in drugs, it was part of his legend, but he had given that up years ago, or so I had always thought. “Did you hear anything about whether or not he finished his new novel?”

  “No, I didn’t, and I’ve got to get going.”

  “I’ll email you the story by noon tomorrow,” I said before hanging up.

  By the time I had recovered enough to sit down to write my piece for Joanne, I had found out from a couple of online stories that Willy’s novel was still a work in progress, that he had died after fixing with some extremely potent and pure heroin, and that Andrew Wilde had flown to Toronto to help with the funeral arrangements.

  I wrote up my feature story, sent a copy along with a letter of condolence to Willy’s widow and kids, and went back to my novel. About three weeks after my piece was published, I had a phone call from Andrew Wilde. His voice was instantly recognizable, given all of his guest shots on NPR and Charlie Rose.

  “I just wanted you to know,” he said, “how much I appreciated your remembrance of Wilhelm Edwardson.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, wondering why Wilde, who surely had more important matters to occupy his time, had bothered to call me about that.

  “I was also moved by your allusion to the personal losses I’ve suffered. Most people don’t think of the agent when a writer passes on, or are that sensitive to the fact that he has often lost more than just a client, that the agent and author relationship can be more than purely business.”

  “I think most writers would understand that,” I said.

  “Some would and some wouldn’t. The business of literature has become much more impersonal.”

  “You have my sympathy,” I said. “You’ve certainly had more than your share of grief. Willy was a friend of mine way back, but to lose Mona Dart and Dechen Thorsten as well—” I heaved a sigh. “I know Todd Thorsten, and I know how sorry he was not to have had the chance to know his brother better.” As long as I had Wilde on the phone, it wouldn’t hurt to get that in, especially if he might be trolling for someone to ghostwrite a memoir for Todd.

  “You know Todd? But I suppose you would, in a small town like Wilsey. Know more about your neighbors, I mean.”

  “Writing for the Gazette, I do,” I said. “I did a couple of feature pieces about Todd, one about his funeral home and another one about his reaction to Dechen’s success. That’s how I got to know him. He really is a good guy, didn’t resent his brother at all.”

  “You know Todd well?” Wilde asked.

  “Well enough for him to tell me where his brother is buried.” Knowing that I wouldn’t get an opportunity like this again, I was intent on impressing Andrew Wilde while I had the chance. “But he knew I’d keep that in confidence. I only mention it because you already know about it, Todd did say that you took care of the burial arrangements. But I swore I wouldn’t write about it, or even talk about it. I mean, I can see why it might be better to keep it a secret.”

  “Odd that Todd would have told you,” Wilde said.

  “He knows he can trust me. He probably wouldn’t have mentioned it at all except for Dechen’s grave being disturbed.”

  “Dechen’s grave disturbed?” Wilde’s voice had dropped an octave.

  “I thought Todd might have mentioned that to you,” I said. “He said some patches of grass had been pulled up and put back, but it was such a minor thing. There didn’t seem much point in reporting it to the police, and as far as I know, nothing like that has happened again.”

  “There wasn’t much point in his reporting it to a journalist, either.”

  A journalist, I thought, much preferring that term to stringer. “Maybe he just wanted someone to talk to about his brother, someone he could trust. I mean, having Dechen die so suddenly and burying him in secret and then having the grave disturbed is a lot to handle in such a short time.”

  Andrew Wilde was silent for a few moments. “The line about you at the end of your piece mentioned that you were completing a novel,” he said at last.

  “Oh, it’s done,” I said. “About all that’s left to do is some touching up, and then off it goes to my agent.”

  “And your publisher?”

  “Well, I don’t actually have a publisher yet,” I said. “I wanted to write it without the pressure of a deadline, let the novel develop organically.” It was a common strategy to deal with bad times and reluctant publishers, and sometimes, much as I hate to admit this, it was also best for the novel.

  Wilde said, “I wouldn’t mind taking a look at the manuscript.”

  I didn’t know what to say. There was no reason for him to read my novel; he was probably overworked as it was, and I had revealed to him that I already had an agent. “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Wilde.”

  “Andrew, please.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said uneasily.

  “You do that.”

  “I mean, I’m extremely grateful for your interest.”

  “As I said, I’d be interested in taking a look at it as long as you don’t mind sending it to me.” We exchanged addresses and email addresses, he gave me his office phone number, and then he, already late for lunch with Minty Arban, had to hang up.

  This was somewhat unethical behavior on both his part and mine. My novel was, after all, my agent’s business and not his. I could rationalize that, since Rob was technically employed by me, I had a perfect right to explore other possibilities, even to let him go and retain another agent’s services. But Rob and I went back a long way; he had taken me on as a client when my only credits were a writing fellowship, one short story in a highly regarded literary magazine that paid authors in copies, and two short articles in The Atlantic Monthly and the New York Times Magazine. He had done some heavy editorial lifting on my first novel, making me rewrite it twice before he deemed it ready for submission. He had believed in me and encouraged me even when I was ready to give up entirely; if anybody deserved to reap the benefits of what might be my breakthrough novel, Rob did.

  But I hadn’t really decided anything, had I? Perhaps Wilde simply wanted to see more of my writing before deciding on whether or not Todd Thorsten might be worth a memoir with me as a ghostwriter. Probably nothing would come of sending him the book, so there was no reason to say anything to Rob about the matter.

  So I told myself, while hoping against hope that something would come of it and wondering if Wilde had some hidden motive for trying to get on my good side. Could he be running out of clients? He had, after all, lost three prominent ones. Or was I really that good?

  I was midway through revisions on my novel when I heard the news about Joe Waldo Bender. Another literary figure had bitten the dust, although Joe Waldo Bender’s accomplishments were hardly the equal of Willy Edwardson’s. Joe Waldo, as everybody had called him at the height of his fame, had written the shamelessly gory thriller Blue Lizard, followed that up with an even more horrific tale of a serial killer, Stillness of the Swans, sold the rights to that book to a film producer for a bundle, seen Stillness of the Swans become a major box-office hit, and then had lapsed into utter silence for five years before coming out with a new novel, Scipio, a sequel to Stillness of the Swans and another total gross-out that had sold to the movies even before publication. In an interview with Larry King, Joe Waldo had allowed as how Scipio was probably going to be his last novel, as he preferred to devote his remaining years to refurbishing a villa he had recently purchased in Tuscany. Whether the almost universally bad reviews his third novel had received had influenced that decision, he did not say.

  And then suddenly he was gone, the victim of a hunting accident, having accidentally discharged his weapon under his chin.

  At least Andrew Wilde would not be the bereaved agent this time. Joe Waldo Bender was represented by Minty Arban, whose list of clients was heavily weighted toward the bestselling blockbuster side of the scales. But I did note that Andrew Wilde was apparently helping his inamorata Minty and Joe Waldo’s widow Janey Beth with the arrangements for the funeral. Bender’s body had been flown from his Florida residence to a funeral home in Manhattan, the Carstairs and Barbieri Memorial Home, where mourners could come to pay their last respects before Joe Waldo was shipped back to his final resting place in Tallahassee.

  I had, I recalled, seen the name of that particular mortuary establishment before.

  It took only a little while to track down exactly where. A lot of news stories don’t mention funeral homes, but obituaries do, and the Internet finally turned up the references. The Carstairs and Barbieri Memorial Home, as it happened, had also handled all the arrangements for Willy Edwardson, Mona Dart, and Dechen Thorsten.

  “What do you know about the Carstairs and Barbieri Memorial Home?” I asked Todd Thorsten.

  He raised his brows. “They seem reputable, they took care of everything for Dechen, and they charge at the high end of the scale. Luckily, I didn’t have to pay the bill.”

  “Really?”

  “Andrew took care of that, said it was the least he could do.”

  I managed a smile. “Not too many agents would foot the bill for a writer’s funeral, but I suppose Wilde can always reimburse himself from Dechen’s future earnings.”

  “I wouldn’t begrudge him that.”

  We were standing just outside Todd’s office, in the front hallway of his funeral home, and the pounding of hammers and occasional shrieking of drills behind the closed door across the way were becoming too loud for me to ignore. “Doing renovations?” I asked.

  “Actually, I’ve decided to open a gift shop. It’s a new trend in the industry.”

  “A gift shop? What would anybody want to buy at a funeral home?”

  “Crucifixes or other religious symbols, special frames for photos of the deceased, maybe a small memorial plaque or a reproduction of the actual monument. Jewelry holding a few of the departed’s ashes, or a pendant with the thumbprint of the deceased—you just make the impression in wax, and use that to cast the keepsake in gold or silver.”

  I shivered. “Sounds morbid to me.”

  “Actually, a couple of my colleagues in other parts of the state say it’s quite comforting to people, being able to get some kind of concrete remembrance, especially something as unique as a fingerprint.” Todd paused. “Maybe you could write something about the shop for the Gazette when it opens.”

  “Sure.” The Gazette welcomed puff pieces about local businesses, especially those that took out ads regularly. “Anyway, wish me luck. I’m on my way to the post office to mail my novel.” I had packed up two copies, one for Rob and the other for Andrew Wilde, although I was sure Wilde had forgotten his promise to me.

  Todd nodded. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

  A month after I had sent off my manuscripts, Rob called to say that he was going to try a new editor at the publishing house that had brought out my last book. Since there was an option clause in my last contract, that house technically had the right to see the book first, and Rob had talked up my new effort enough to spark some interest. “I’ll try to get you what you got last time,” he told me, “but if we have to settle for less, I’ll ask to have it all paid up front and try to get more concessions on other rights.”

  “Fine,” I said, trying to conceal my disappointment.

  “It’s a wonderful novel, Shanna, and I’ll push them for a larger print run. I really think it has a lot of potential once it’s out there.”

  Rob would do his best; I knew that. But I also had the feeling that if this novel didn’t go over, I wasn’t going to get another chance, at least not under my own name of Shanna Youngerman. To escape the burden of my lousy sales record, far more harmful in my profession than a prison record would have been, I would have to adopt a nom de plume and become yet another pseudonymous first novelist, cleansed by my new name of my past commercial sins. Why a publisher should assume that the same writer under another name would do any better in the marketplace was a mystery that escaped my understanding, but publishing was full of such arcane lore. Giving me more promotion for my next book under my own name would make more sense, but I would have better luck persuading a shaman to stop casting spells and use antibiotics than talking my publishers into abandoning one of their current superstitions.

  Or I could give up entirely and see if I could nail down a permanent position with the Gazette. Joanne Montoya would put in a good word for me, and there were worse places in the world to live than Wilsey. My only other practical alternative was to return to my childhood home in Indiana, throw myself on the mercy of my parents, admit that I had failed, and take up the kind of conventional life they had always hoped I would lead.

  The phone rang again. I let the machine take it this time.

  “Andrew Wilde calling,” the machine said in digitalized British intonations, and I grabbed the receiver so hastily that I nearly dropped it on the floor.

  “Hello?” I squeaked.

  “Wonderful,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The Connections. Your novel. Couldn’t put it down. Quite literary, but with a lot of commercial potential. Irony and yet compassion for the characters. Involved and complex while still being a real page-turner. Yes, I think you should do very well with it, and I would love to represent it.” There was a long pause. “But of course you already have an agent.”

  “Not anymore,” I lied.

  Rob took the news well. We had only a handshake agreement, with no signed papers, so there would be a minimum of complications in severing our relationship. He was even willing to give up any right to continue collecting royalties on the books he had already sold for me, perhaps because there weren’t likely to be any more royalties. He could withdraw the submission he had made, since the editor he had sent The Connections to wasn’t anywhere close to reading it yet.

  “I wish you well, Shanna,” he said, “and I hope you’re able to find another agent.”

  “I hope so, too.” I couldn’t mention Andrew Wilde, not yet. Rob would find out about that soon enough, and justifiably feel screwed, but a delayed stab in the back was preferable to in-your-face treachery.

  At that moment, I came close to telling Rob that I had changed my mind, that I wanted to remain his client after all, but the thought of Andrew Wilde flogging my book, of hinting to editors that they’d better give The Connections some serious thought or else they might not get the chance to bid on other potential bestsellers from his bestselling authors (rumor had it that Wilde wasn’t above such implied threats), of the likelihood that he would nail an advance for me far above anything Rob was likely to negotiate, kept me shamefully silent.

  Rob ran his agency with one assistant. Andrew Wilde had a junior partner, six assistants bearing various titles, three secretaries, and had two lawyers who were specialists in copyright law and intellectual property rights on retainer, all of whom deluged me with a mountain of paperwork as soon as Andrew took me on as a client.

  Well over two reams of paper sat on my desk, having been sent to me by Del Murton, Andrew’s junior partner, and delivered by FedEx in their largest box. I had expected that Andrew Wilde, Ltd. would require more in the way of an agreement than a handshake, but what sat in front of me was the size of a Tom Clancy manuscript. I had rarely done more than scan the contracts Rob sent to me to sign, which had increased in size, complexity, and number of clauses with each successive book; by the time I perused all of this paperwork, Andrew Wilde might be ready to retire.

  He wouldn’t have taken me on as a client if he didn’t think I would pay off; he represented too many critically acclaimed and prosperous writers to waste his time on anyone he thought wouldn’t sell. Important editors with their own imprints, the sorts of editors who would never have so much as read one of my title pages in the past, would give my novel serious consideration when Andrew Wilde brought it to their attention. Did I really have to go through all of his agreement forms and start nitpicking over clauses that probably didn’t matter all that much in the end?

  I leafed through the pages, noted all the places where my signature was required, packed up the documents, and drove to the nearby UPS Store, where a notary public and Joanne Montoya had agreed to witness the signing. Andrew had insisted on two witnesses, for various legal reasons, but I was more than willing to go to the extra trouble.

  Six months later, after patching myself through with more book reviews and feature stories for the Gazette and another parental loan, my faith was rewarded with an advance of four hundred thousand dollars for The Connections from Fran Morrese of CotterRollins. And that wasn’t all; Andrew had talked her into picking up two of my earlier novels, to be reissued later on in a uniform trade paperback format with The Connections.

  All of this, Andrew assured me, was only the beginning.

  I came to New York to sign the contract and to mark the abrupt change in my literary prospects. Andrew had set up a number of appointments for me, including lunch with Fran Morrese and a session with a publicist.

  “A publicist?” I asked, entranced by the notion of someone whose job would be to plant items about me in various media in order to create mucho buzz for my book.

  “Joni’s one of the best in the business,” Andrew replied. We were sitting in his office, in two Eames chairs in front of his Jere Osgood desk; Andrew’s office was full of the kind of furniture that had names. There was a look of strain on Andrew’s long face; he had admitted to suffering from back pain. The pressure of certain recent events in his life might have been responsible for his complaint. Minty Arban and he had gone through a breakup so acrimonious that people were still gossiping about the breach. According to the New York Observer, Minty’s main beef with Andrew involved unspecified dealings with her late client Joe Waldo Bender, who it turned out had been very briefly represented by Wilde while Bender was still turning out copy for the Tallahassee Democrat, trying to peddle a nonfiction book about Florida politics, and only dreaming about being a novelist. Apparently Andrew had retained some sort of claim on Joe Waldo’s future earnings, a claim that Minty Arban considered way out of line, but the Observer was vague on that point.

 

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