Blake Crouch - Serial Uncut

"Oh."

"It was great to meet you."

Lucy lifted her stack of books and headed out of the book room. She might have cried if she didn't have something else to look forward to.

"What about her?" Lucy said.

"No, I know who that is," Orson said. "She's a pretty well-known cozy writer. She'd never go for it."

Lucy was sitting between Orson and Luther on a sofa at the edge of the hotel bar, the conference booklet open across her lap. Every writer in attendance was pictured in the booklet, along with a brief bio. It made the hunting so much easier.

"I see a possibility," Luther said.

"Where?"

"Guy standing alone at the corner of the bar, looking around, talking to nobody."

"Gotcha. Can you read his nametag?"

"No. Too far." Luther stood up and pushed his way through the crowd, passing within several feet of the mark. He circled back around and sat down on the couch again, said, "Richard Bryson."

Lucy flipped through the booklet and found the man's picture and bio. She read it aloud: "Richard Bryson is not only the author of Against the Law, a thriller about a corrupt police force, but the publisher as well. He is currently working on a new book."

"Perfect," Orson said. "Luther, head on up. We'll be there in ten."

Orson sat with Lucy after Luther had left, watching Bryson drink his beer alone.

"All right, Lucy, tell me how you'd get this man we've never met up to our hotel room."

"Um, I'd tell him we have a party going on and invite him to come."

"Okay. If some person you'd never met invited you up to their hotel room, would you go?"

"I don't know."

"The answer is no. You wouldn't. Listen, look at me. You're small and young, you have no physical strength, so if you want to do this, over and over and over again, without getting caught or killed, you have to be smart."

She rolled her eyes. He was sounding a little like her mother.

"Oh, am I boring you? Get the fuck out of here then, you little brat."

"You're not. I'm sorry."

"I'm trying to help you. So tell me. How would you get Bryson up to our hotel room?"

"I don't know."

"You ready to learn something?"

"Yes."

"Vanity. Know what that is?"

She nodded. "When you're in love with yourself."

"Exactly. We're all in love with ourselves. It's our weakness. Our main failing. If you can play on that, if you can appeal to someone's vanity without them knowing you're doing it, you can get them to do anything you want."

"I don't understand."

Orson stood up. "Follow me. Keep your mouth shut. And watch and learn."

She followed Orson through the throng of people, stood behind him as he leaned his elbows on the bar and waited for the bartender to notice him.

After a minute, Orson began to look around, and when his eyes fell upon Richard Bryson standing right beside him, Lucy saw a huge smile break across Orson's face.

He said, "Oh my God, you're Richard Bryson!"

As the man glanced over at Orson, Lucy got her first decent look at him. He seemed old as shit to her, at least fifty. His coarse blond hair was long and wavy and on the verge of turning gray, and he had what she thought was a gross mustache.

The man gave a skeptical smile that belied insecurity and said, "Um, yeah, who are you?"

"Well, for starters, I'm a huge fan of Against the Law. I thought it was the best book I've read this year."

"Oh, well thank you. You know, I just made it available as an ebook."

"A what?"

"An electronic book. I put it up on my website as a free download."

"Oh, neat."

Oh stupid, Lucy thought. Like people would ever want to read books on an electronic screen.

"Ebooks are going to be the future of publishing. I'm sure of it."

"Are you working on a new book?" Orson asked.

"Yeah, I am actually." Orson was right. Lucy saw Bryson beginning to come alive as he talked about himself.

"Can you tell me anything about it?" Orson asked.

"Well, it's a sequel to Against the Law."

"Oh, fantastic."

"You know how Rodriguez died at the end?"

"Yeah, sure. That was so heartbreaking."

"Well, he's not really dead."

"No kidding?"

"And he's back and pissed off and looking for revenge."

"I can't wait to read it. Look, Mr. Bryson-"

"Please, Richard."

"Richard, my name's Vincent Carmichael, and I'm a freelance reviewer. I do stuff for Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly. I would love to do an interview with you and pitch it to PW or Kirkus. I think they'd be all over it."

"That'd be great."

"Do you have some time right now?"

"Um, sure."

"What do you say we go up to my room? My recorder is up there and we can see what happens. By the way, this is my niece, Michelle."

"Hi, Michelle."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Bryson," Lucy said.

Bryson pulled out his wallet. "Let me just pay for my beer."

"Get out of here." Orson pulled a five dollar bill from his pocket and tossed it on the bar. "It is so good to finally meet you, Rich."

He patted the man on the shoulder and pulled him away from the bar.

As they rode up in the elevator, Lucy marveled at the persona Orson had adopted: an attentive, personable book reviewer who was utterly fascinated with the life and work of Richard Bryson. She didn't know how he controlled himself, because as the doors opened and they walked off the car onto the fourteenth floor, her body was beginning to buzz with anticipation.

At last, they reached the door to 1428, and Lucy pulled the keycard out of her pocket, her hands trembling.

She swiped the card as Bryson said, "You should ask me about my publishing company, too. I hate the big New York publishers, so I've decided to…" He stopped talking as Lucy pushed the door open, and she knew exactly why. A subdued but foul odor seeped out of the room into the hallway.

"After you, Rich," Orson said. He was glancing up and down the hallway, which for the moment, was empty.

Bryson hesitantly entered the hotel room and Lucy and Orson followed after him. Lucy heard the subtle click of Orson locking the door.

"My goodness," Bryson said. "Smells like something died in here."

"You can smell that?" Orson said. They had all passed the closed bathroom door and now stood in the dark bedroom. "It must be that sandwich half I threw away last night. It sure went bad quickly."

Bryson took off his sports jacket. "Do you mind if I use your restroom before we get started? That beer is moving right through me."

"Of course. Right through that door."

Lucy stood next to Orson, watching Bryson disappear into the bathroom.

"Where's Luther?" she asked.

"About to have some Luther fun."

She could see the light come on under the door, the sounds of Bryson shuffling around inside.

"Orson?"

"Shhh," he whispered. "Let's just enjoy this moment together."

Bryson said, "Oh God!"

Something crashed to the floor, and through the door came the sound of a desperate struggle, something banging into cabinets and walls, and then the meaty thud of hard punches.

Bryson went quiet, but there was still movement inside the bathroom. After a minute, the door opened, and Luther walked out smiling.

"Come see," he said.

Lucy hurried over to the open door.

Bryson lay unconscious on the floor, hog-tied with zip-ties, and a ball-gag in his mouth.

"Nice work, Luther," she said.

"You should've seen his face. He sat down on the toilet to take a dump, and just as he was starting to notice all the blood, I swept the shower curtain back and had Mark Darling waving to him. Good thing he was on the toilet, 'cause he shit."

"Can I have my straight razor back?" Lucy said.

Orson glanced down at her. "Of course. But you know we aren't just going to kill him right away."