Where the Summer Ends Part 23

Harrington found himself staring at two b.l.o.o.d.y Marys.

The visit with Nordgren in New York was a lot of fun, and Damon promised to return Trevor's hospitality when the World Fantasy Convention came to Los Angeles the following year. Aside from the convention, Harrington's visit was chiefly remarkable for two other things-Nordgren's almost embroiling them in a street fight with a youth gang in front of the Hilton, and their mutual acquisition of an agent.

"Damon, my man," Nordgren introduced them. "Someone I'd like you to meet. A boxer needs a manager, and a writer needs an agent. There is Helen Hohenstein, and she's the G.o.dd.a.m.n smartest, meanest, and best-looking agent in New York. Helen, love, this is our young Robert E. Howard."

"I saw your panel," she said.

"Sorry about that," Harrington said.

Helen Hohenstein was a pet.i.te woman of about forty whose doll-like face was offset by shrewd eyes-Harrington balked at deeming them predatory. She had pa.s.sed through the revolving door in various editorial positions at various publishers, and she was now starting her own literary agency, specializing in science fiction and fantasy. She looked as if she could handle herself well under about any situation, and probably already had. Harrington felt almost intimidated by her, besides not especially willing to sacrifice 10 per cent of his meager earnings, but Nordgren was insistent.

"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 a.s.sured 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 cla.s.s 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 Moorc.o.c.k!"

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.

The film of The Sending had already grossed over $40 million, and Max de Lawrence was rumored to have purchased film rights to The Rending for an even million. Shaftesbury had outbid McGinnis & Parry, paying out $500,000 for hardcover rights to Nordgren's latest, The Etching, and Warwick Books was paying a record $2 million for a package deal that gave them paperback rights to The Etching, Nordgren's next novel, and a series of five paperback reissues of his earlier work.

Nordgren was tied up with a barrage of newspaper and television interviews when Harrington checked into the Monteleone, but by late afternoon he phoned Damon to meet him in the lobby for a quick look at the French Quarter. Harrington was just out of the shower, and by the time he reached the lobby, Nordgren had been cornered by a mob of arriving fans. He was busily signing books, and for every one he handed back, two more were thrust toward him. He saw Damon, waved, and made a quick escape.

They fled to Bourbon Street and ducked into the Old Absinthe House, where they found seats at the hollow square bar. Nordgren ordered two Sazeracs. "Always wanted to try one. Used to be made with bourbon and absinthe, or brandy and absinthe, or rye and absinthe-anyway, it was made with absinthe. Now they use Pernod or Herbsaint or something instead of absinthe. Seems like they still ought to use absinthe in the Old Absinthe House." Harrington watched with interest the bartender's intricate preparation. "Thought they were going to eat you alive back there in the lobby."

"h.e.l.l, let them have their fun. They pay the bills-they and a few million who stay at home."

Nordgren sipped the dark red c.o.c.ktail that filled the lower part of a highball gla.s.s. "Hey, not bad. Beats a Manhattan. Let's have two more-these'll be gone by the time the next round's ready. So tell me, Damon-how you been?"

"Things are going pretty well. Summit has accepted Swords of Red Vengeance, and I'm hard at work on a third."

"You're too good a writer to waste your energy on that sort of stuff."

"Pays the bills." Damon swallowed his Sazerac before he reminded Trevor that not all writers were overnight millionaires. "So what's after The Etching?"

Nordgren was already on his second Sazerac. "This one's called The Bending. No-just kidding! Christ, these little devils have a kick to them. Don't know what they'll want me to t.i.tle it. It's about a naive young American secretary who marries an older Englishman whose previous wife was lost when their yacht sank. They return to his vast estate, where the housekeeper makes life miserable for her because she's obsessed with her worship of the previous wife, and..."

"Was her name Rebecca?"

"d.a.m.n! You mean somebody beat me to the idea? Well, back to square one. Let's have another of these and go grab a quick bite."

"My round, I believe."

"Forget it-my treat. You can buy us dinner."

"Then how about a po' boy?"

"Seriously-I'd like that. Not really very hungry, but I know I've got to keep something in my stomach, or I'll be dead before the con is half over."

At a hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop they picked up a couple meatball po' boys to go. Harrington wanted to try the red beans and rice, but Nordgren was in a hurry to get back to the Monteleone. Fans spotted Nordgren as they entered the hotel, but they caught an elevator just in time and retreated to Trevor's room, where he ordered a dozen bottles of Dixie beer.

Nordgren managed half his sandwich by the time room service brought the beer. "Want the rest of this, Damon? I'm not all that hungry."

"Sure!" Harrington's last meal had been plastic chicken on the flight from Los Angeles. "Say, you're losing weight, aren't you?"

"My special diet plan." Nordgren unlocked his suitcase and dug out a chamois wallet, from which he produced a polished slab of agate and a plastic bag of cocaine. "Care for a little toot before we meet the ma.s.ses?"

"For sure!" Damon said through a mouthful of sandwich. "Hey, I brought along a little Columbian for the weekend. Want me to run get it?"

"Got some Thai stick in the suitcase." Trevor was sifting c.o.ke onto the agate. "Take a look at these boulders, man! This s.h.i.t has not been stepped on."

"Nice work if you can get it."

Nordgren cut lines with a silver razor blade and handed the matching tooter to Harrington. "Here. Courtesy of all those hot-blooded little fans out there, standing in line to buy the next bestselling thriller from that master of chills-yours truly, Trev the Ripper."

Trevor did look a good deal thinner, Damon thought, and he seemed to have abandoned the rock star look. His hair was trimmed, and he wore an expensive-looking silk sport coat over an open-collared shirt. Put on the designer sungla.s.ses, and welcome to Miami. Wealth evidently agreed with Nordgren.

"You're looking fit these days," Harrington observed between sniffles. Damon himself was worrying about a distinct mid-thirties bulge, discovered when he shopped for a new sport coat for the trip. He was considering taking up jogging.

"Cutting down on my drinking." Nordgren cut some more lines. "I was knocking back two or three fifths a day and chasing it with a case or so of brew."

"Surprised you could write like that." Privately, Harrington had thought The Etching little more than a 200,000-word rewrite of The Picture of Dorian Gray, served up with enough s.e.x and gore to keep the twentieth-century reader turning the pages.

"c.o.ke's been my salvation. I feel better. I write better. It's all that psychic energy I'm drawing in from all those millions of readers out there."

"Are you still on about that?" Damon finished his lines. "Can't say I've absorbed any energy from my dozens of fans."

"It's exponential," Nordgren explained, sifting busily. "You ought to try to reach the greater audience, instead of catering to the cape-and-pimples set. You're getting labeled as a thud-and-blunder hack, and as long as publishers can buy you for a few grand a book, that's all they'll ever see in you."

Damon was stoned enough not to take offense. "Yeah, well, tell that to Helen. She's been trying to peddle a collection of my fantasy stories for the last couple years."

"Are these some of the ones you were writing for Cavalier and so on? Christ, I'll have to ask her to show me a copy. You were doing some good stuff back then."

"And pumping gas."

"Hey, your time is coming, baby. Just think about what I've said. You wrote a couple of nice horror stories a few years back. Take a shot at a novel."

"If I did, the horror fad would have peaked and pa.s.sed."

The phone rang. The con chairman wanted them to come down for the official opening ceremonies. Nordgren laid out a couple monster lines to get them primed, and they left to greet their public.

Later that evening Nordgren made friends with an energetic blonde from the local fan group, who promised to show him the sights of New Orleans. When it appeared that most of these sights were for Trevor's eyes only, Damon wandered off with a couple of the local S.C.A. bunch to explore the fleshpots and low dives of the French Quarter.

Soon after, much to Harrington's amazement, Warwick Books bought his short story collection, Dark Dreams. They had rejected it a year before, but now Trevor Nordgren had written a twenty page introduction to the book. Helen as much as admitted that Warwick had taken the collection only after some heavy pressure from Nordgren.

As it was, Dark Dreams came out uniformly packaged with Warwick's much-heralded Trevor Nordgren reprint series. TREVOR NORDGREN Introduces got Nordgren's name across the cover in letters twice the size of Harrington's name, and only a second glance would indicate that the book was anything other than the latest Trevor Nordgren novel. But Dark Dreams was the first of Harrington's books ever to go into a second printing, and Damon tore up the several letters of protest he composed.

He was astonished by Nordgren's versatility. The Warwick package included a new, expanded edition of Time's Wanton, a reprint of AcidTest (with a long, nostalgic introduction), a collection of Nordgren's early short fiction ent.i.tled Electric Dreams (with accompanying introductions by the author), as well as Doors of Perception and Younger Than Yesterday- two anthologies of essays and criticism selected from Nordgren's writings for the Chicago Seed, East Village Other, Berkeley Barb, and other underground newspapers of the '60s.

Nordgren had by now gathered a dedicated cult following, in addition to the millions who snapped up his books from the checkout counter racks. Virtually any publication with a vintage Trevor Nordgren item in its pages began to command top collector's prices, Harrington noticed upon browsing through the hucksters' room at the occasional conventions he attended. Trevor Nordgren had become the subject of interviews, articles, and critical essays in everything from mimeographed fanzines to People to Time. Harrington was amused to find a Trevor Nordgren interview headlining one of the men's magazines that used to reject stories from them both.

Warwick was delighted with sales figures from the Trevor Nordgren Retrospective, as the reprint package was now dignified, and proudly announced the purchase of five additional t.i.tles-two new collections of his short fiction and expanded revisions of his other three Ess.e.x House novels. In addition (and in conjunction with McGinnis & Parry as part of a complicated contractual buyout), Nordgren was to edit an anthology of his favorite horror stories (Trevor Nordgren Presents) and would prepare a nonfiction book discussing his personal opinions and theories of horror as a popular genre (The View Through the Gla.s.s Darkly).

The Max de Lawrence film of The Rending grossed $60 million in its first summer of release, and The Etching was still on the paperback top ten lists when The Dwelling topped the bestseller charts in the first week. Nordgren's latest concerned a huge Victorian castle in a small New England town; presumably the mansion was haunted, but Nordgren's twist was that the mansion had a life of its own and was itself haunting the community. The idea was good for a quarter of a million words, several million dollars, and a complete tax write-off of the high Victorian castle on the Hudson that Nordgren had refurbished and moved into.

Julie Kriegman was fired by the new corporate owners of Summit Books, and the new editor called Krystel Firewind s.e.xist trash and killed the series with #5. Helen Hohenstein broke the news to Harrington somewhat more gently.

"At least Summit paid you."

Damon's only immediate consolation was that the call was on Helen's dime. "Can we sell the series someplace else, or do I wrap sandwiches with the first draft of #6?" Thank G.o.d he hadn't sprung for that word processor Nordgren had urged upon him.

"It doesn't look good. Problem is that every paperback house that wants to already has one or two swords-and-sorcery series going. Do you think you could write high fantasy? That's getting to be big just now. You know-lighten up a little on the violence and bare t.i.ts, give your imaginary world more of a fairy-tale atmosphere, maybe link in a bunch of Celtic myths and that sort of thing?"

"I can try it." Harrington imagined Krystel Firewind stripped of sword and armor and a few inches of bustline, gowned in shimmering damask or maybe flowing priestess' robes.

"Great! Keep this to yourself for now, but Columbine has hired Alberta Dawson away from Warwick to be their senior editor and try to rejuvenate their paperback line. She's looking for new material, and she owes me. So get me some chapters and a prospectus soonest. Okay?"

"Will do."

"Oh-and Damon. Plan this as a trilogy, could you?"

Harrington read over a few popular works on Celtic mythology and ancient European history to get some names and plot ideas, then started the rewrite of Krystel Firewind #6. This he was able to flesh out into a trilogy without much difficulty by basing his overall theme on the struggle of Roman Britain against the Saxon invasions. After her s.e.x-change from Desmond Killstar, it was simple enough to transform Krystel Firewind into a half-elfin Druidic priestess. All that was needed was to change names, plug in his characters, and toss in a little magic.

Alberta Dawson was delighted with Tallyssa's Quest: Book One of The Fall of the Golden Isles. She agreed to a contract for the entire trilogy, and confided to Hohenstein that she'd sensed all along that Damon Harrington was a major literary talent. Tallyssa's Quest was launched with a major promotional campaign, complete with dump bins and color posters of the book's cover. The cover, a wraparound by some Italian artist, was a rather ethereal thing depicting a billowingly berobed Tallyssa astride her flying unicorn and brandishing her Star of Life amulet to defend her elfin companions from a horde of b.e.s.t.i.a.l Kralkings. Harrington would much rather the cover hadn't billed him as "The New Tolkien," but Columbine had paid him his first five-figure advance.

Nordgren phoned him up at 2 in the morning, c.o.ked out of his skull, and razzed him about it mercilessly. He was just coming out of a messy paternity suit involving a minor he'd shacked up with at some convention, so Damon gave him an hour of his patience. Since Tallyssa's Quest had gone into a third printing in its first month, Harrington was not to be baited.

When The Dwelling premiered as a television miniseries, Nordgren was a guest on The Tonight Show. He was obviously wired and kept breaking up the audience with his off-the-wall responses to the standard where-do-you-get-your-ideas sort of questions. Trevor had taken to smoking a pipe, perhaps to keep his hands from shaking, and the designer sungla.s.ses were de rigueur Damon was startled to see how much weight he'd lost. Nordgren managed to get in enough plugs for his new opus, The Coming, to have qualified as a paid political announcement. Harrington had skimmed an advance copy of the thing-it appeared to be a 300,000-word rewrite of Lovecraft's "The Outsider"-and had pondered the dangers of mixing cocaine and word processors.

There was a major problem with crowd control at the World Science Fiction Convention in Minneapolis, so that they were forced to abandon their tradition of signing books together. The con committee had had to set a special room aside just for Trevor Nordgren. At one point a news reporter counted over 750 fans standing in line to enter the signing room, many with shopping bags filled with Trevor Nordgren books and magazine appearances. Con committee members tried in vain to enforce the one-person-one-autograph rule, and a near riot broke out when uniformed hotel security guards finally escorted Nordgren to his suite after two and a half hours of signing books. Nordgren placated them by promising to set up a second autographing session the next day.

Something that looked like an ex-linebacker in a three-piece suit greeted Harrington when he knocked on the door of Nordgren's suite. After all the Hammett and Chandler he'd read, Damon felt cheated that he couldn't see the bulge of a roscoe beneath the polyester, but he surmised one was there.

"Damon Harrington to see Mr Nordgren," he said to the stony face, feeling very much like a character in a Chandler novel. He wished he had a fedora to doff.

"That's okay, John. He's a lodge brother."

Evidently Nordgren was unscarred by last year's lawsuit, since neither of the girls who were cutting lines on the gla.s.s-topped table were as old as Trevor if they could have combined both their ages. Nordgren had lately taken to wearing his hair slicked and combed straight back, and he reminded Harrington of a dissolute Helmut Berger posing for a men's fashion spread in Esquire.

"After meeting your bodyguard there, I fully expected to find you seated in a wheelchair, wearing a silk dressing robe, and smoking Russian cigarettes through a long amber holder."

"Melody Heather. Meet my esteemed friend and drinking buddy, Damon Harrington. Damon, join us."

"Weren't you in Apocalypse Now?" one of them asked brightly.

"Quite right," Nordgren a.s.sured her. "And turn a deaf ear when he promises to get you a role in his next film."

They were almost certain Nordgren was kidding them, but not quite, and kept a speculative watch on Damon.

"The big party isn't until later tonight," Nordgren said, handing him the tooter, "but I felt I must unwind after sustaining terminal writer's cramp from all those autographs. Why not get a good buzz with us now, then rejoin the party after ten?"

"Can't see how you can go through all that."