Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

“All kidding aside, Damon. Helen’s the sharpest mind in the game today. She’s worked her way up through the ranks, and she knows every crooked kink of a publisher’s subnormal brain. She’s already got a couple major paperback publishers interested in The Sending— and, baby, we’re talking five figures! It’s a break for us she’s just starting out and hungry for clients — and I’ve sold her on you, baby! Hey, think about it — she’ll buy all those stamps and manila envelopes, and collect all those rejection slips for you!”

That last sold Harrington. They celebrated with lunch at the Four Winds, and when Hohenstein revealed that she had read most of Harrington’s scattered short fiction and that she considered him to be a writer of unrealized genius, Damon knew he had hitched his wagon to the proper star.

A month later, Harrington knew so for a certainty. Hohenstein tore up Fairlane’s contract for the sequel to Iron Night , wrote up a new one that did not include such pitfalls (unnoticed by Damon in his ecstasy to be published) as world rights forever, and jumped the advance to $3500, payable on acceptance instead of on publication. Fairlane responded by requesting four books a year in the “Saga of Desmond Killstar” series, as they now designated it, and promised not to say a word about Conan. Damon, who would have been panic-stricken had he known of Helen’s machinations beforehand, now considered his literary career assured throughout his lifetime.

He splurged on a weekend phone call to Nordgren to tell him of his success. Nordgren concurred that Hohenstein was a genius; she had just sold paperback rights to The Sending to Warwick Books for $100,000, and the contract included an option for his next novel.

The Sending had topped the paperback bestseller lists for three straight weeks, when Trevor Nordgren flew first class to Los Angeles that next World Fantasy Convention. He took a suite at the con hotel and begged off Harrington’s invitation to put him up at his two-room cottage in Venice afterward. Helen was flying out and wanted him to talk with some Hollywood contacts while he was out there, so he wouldn’t have time for Damon to show him the sights. He knew Damon would understand, and anyway it was due to be announced soon, but Warwick had just signed a $250,000 paperback deal for The Rending , so Trevor had to get back to New York to finish the final draft. McGinnis & Parry had put up another $100,000 for hardcover rights, and Helen had slammed the door on any option for Nordgren’s next — that one would be up for bid.

Harrington could hear the clatter of loud voices as he approached Nordgren’s suite. A pretty redhead in a tank top answered his knock, sizing him up with the door half open.

“Hey, it’s Damon!” Nordgren’s voice cut above the uproar. “Come on in, baby! The party’s already started!”

Nordgren rose out of the melee and gave him a sloshing hug. He was apparently drinking straight Jack Daniel’s out of a pewter mug. He was wearing a loose shirt of soft suede, open at the throat to set off the gold chains about a neck that was starting to soften beneath a double chin, and a silver concho belt and black leather trousers that had been custom tailored when he was twenty pounds lighter.

Harrington could not resist. “Christ, you look like a peroxide Jim Morrison!”

“Yeah — Jimbo left me his wardrobe in his will. What’re you drinking? JD, still? Hey, Mitzi! Bring my friend James Dean a gallon of Jack Daniel’s with an ice cube in it! Come on, Damon— got some people I want you to meet.”

The redhead caught up with them. “Here you are, Mr Dean.”

It was a stronger drink than Damon liked to risk this early in the afternoon, but Trevor swept him along. Most of the people he knew, or at least recognized their faces. There was a mixed bag of name authors, various degrees of editors and publishers, a few people Harrington recognized from his own Hollywood contacts, and a mixture of friends, fans, groupies and civilians. Helen Hohenstein was talking in one corner with Alberta Dawson of Warwick Books, and she waved to Damon, which gave him an excuse to break away from Trevor’s dizzying round of introductions.

“I must confess I’ve never read any of your Killstar books,” Ms Dawson felt she must confess, “although I understand they’re very good for their type. Helen tells me that you and Trevor go way back together; do you ever write occult fiction?”

“I suppose you could call my story in the new Black Dawns anthology that Helen is editing a horror story. I really prefer to think of myself as a fantasy writer, as opposed to being categorized as a specialist in some particular sub-subgenre.”

“Not much profit to be made in short stories.” Ms Dawson seemed wistful. “And none at all with horror fiction.”

“I gather The Sending is doing all right for you.”

“But The Sending is mainstream fiction, of course,” she said almost primly, then conceded: “Well, occult mainstream fiction.”

The Rending , it developed, was about a small New York bedroom community terrorized by werewolves. Nordgren’s startling twist was that the werewolves were actually the town children, who had spread the curse among themselves through a seemingly innocent secret kid’s gang. However Alberta Dawson would categorize the novel, The Rending went through three printings before publication at McGinnis & Parry, and the Warwick paperback topped the bestseller charts for twenty-three weeks. Harrington was no little amused to discover that the terrorized community included a hack gothics writer named David Harrison.

Fairlane Books filed for bankruptcy, still owing the advance for Harrington’s latest Killstar opus and most of the royalties for the previous six.

“This,” said Damon, when Helen phoned him the news, “is where I came in.”

In point of fact, he was growing heartily sick of Desmond Killstar and his never-ending battles against the evil mutant hordes of the Blighted Earth, and had been at a loss as to which new or revived menace to pit him against in #8.

“We’ll sue the bastards for whatever we can salvage,” Helen promised him. “But for the good news: Julie Kriegman is the new science fiction editor at Summit, and she said she’d like to see a new fantasy-adventure series from you — something on the lines of Killstar, but with a touch of myths and sorcery. She thought the series ought to center around a strong female character — an enchantress, or maybe a swordswoman.”

“How about a little of both?” Harrington suggested, glancing at the first draft of Killstar #8. “I think I can show her something in a few weeks. Who’s this Kriegman woman, and why is she such a fan of mine?”

“Christ, I thought you knew her. She says she knows you and Trevor from way back. She remembers that you drink Bloody Marys.”

Death’s Dark Mistress , the first of the Krystel Firewind series, was good for a quick five grand advance and a contract for two more over the next year. The paperback’s cover was a real eye-catcher, displaying Krystel Firewind astride her flying dragon and brandishing her enchanted broadsword at a horde of evil dwarves. That the artist had chosen to portray her nude except for a few certainly uncomfortable bits of baubles, while Harrington had described her as wearing plate armor for this particular battle, seemed a minor quibble. Damon was less pleased with the cover blurb that proclaimed him “America’s Michael Moorcock!”

But Summit paid promptly.

Trevor Nordgren was Guest of Honor at Cajun Con VII in New Orleans in 1979, and Harrington (he later learned it was at Trevor’s suggestion) was Master of Ceremonies. It was one of those annual regional conventions that normally draw three to five hundred fans, but this year over a thousand came to see Trevor Nordgren.