“Come on out. I have a great place this year. Plenty of room. Pool and tennis court.”
“Sounds tempting, but-”
“I’m going to the Southampton Library fund-raiser tomorrow afternoon. Fifty, sixty big authors under the tent, all signing their latest for a good cause. You can poach.”
“I don’t poach, Jack.”
“You can make their acquaintance, buy a signed copy of their book, and leave your card on their table. They all hate their agents, anyway.”
There was a short silence, then Stan said, “Well…”
“Take the train out. I’ll pick you up at East Hampton station, we’ll go to The Palm for a few drinks and a steak, then maybe we can prowl. Call me with your ETA.”
“Well…”
“I can’t promise we’ll get laid, but I can promise we’ll get drunk. And tomorrow you’ll have fifty potential victims under one tent. Plus a cocktail party afterwards with lots of top editors who you’ll know. See you later.” He hung up.
Jack sat back in his rocker and finished his gin and tonic. Well, he thought, this story is going to have a twist. Author bites agent. Plus a happy ending. Author keeps a hundred percent of what he makes.
Jack met Stan Wykoff at the East Hampton train station, and by 8:30 P.M. they were at the bar in the celeb-studded Palm restaurant. The Palm in Manhattan and the one here in East Hampton were Jack’s kind of place: overpriced, which kept the riffraff out, great steaks, Alpha male clientele, waiters who knew who he was, and women who appreciated all of the above. And if things went right this weekend, he could continue to be a regular at both Palms. If things did not go right, he’d be getting his beef at Burger King.
Jack had a scotch and Stan had white wine. Jack chatted up the lady bartender who was young enough to be his daughter. Stan played with his BlackBerry, probably, Jack thought, texting his ex-wife, imploring her to come back. Stan Wykoff was the antithesis of the macho male characters that Jack Henry created in his novels, and the antithesis of Jack Henry himself. And yet, they’d once been friends and still called each other friend. The truth, however, was that they’d grown to dislike each other, and the only bond that remained was professional. And even that had been weakened when they’d stopped making money for each other. It was like a bad marriage-worse, actually, because they both secretly feared they might be worse off without the other. So they continued the charade.
Their table was ready and they sat. Stan had a salad and fish, and Jack had a bloody red steak and more scotch. This, Jack thought, was why he hated Stan Wykoff. The man ate like a bird, drank like a worm, and took care of himself like he was going to live forever. Plus, Stan was cheap and never picked up the tab for anything. Agents were supposed to give back a little of the 15 percent. Like send a limo now and then or maybe buy a goddamn lunch once in a while.
Jack Henry was a generous man, and he had the Amex bills to prove it. Cheap people pissed him off. He wanted to remind Stan that he couldn’t take it with him. But he could leave five million behind.
They talked about the publishing business, and Jack realized, not for the first time, that Stan Wykoff was not current on the new challenges facing the industry. Nor was he up on any good gossip. In fact, Stan had no clue about what was going on along Publishers Row. Stan did not read the trade journals or online publications or go to seminars or trade fairs or do many lunches with editors. In fact, Stan Wykoff mostly sat in his Upper West Side apartment doing who knew what all day. Meanwhile his midtown agency was run by two clueless, underpaid recent college grads whose most outstanding attributes were their tits. How, Jack wondered, did this guy survive? Well, partly on his past reputation and mostly on his stable of authors who hadn’t fired him yet. In fact, most of his authors lived out of town and weren’t around enough to figure out that Stan Wykoff was lazy and out of the loop. The editors knew this, of course, but they liked Stan Wykoff because he never drove a hard bargain. Jack Henry could attest to that.
And to add insult to injury, Stan Wykoff’s reputation, such as it was, was enhanced by his being the agent of best-selling author Jack Henry. It occurred to Jack, perhaps because of the alcohol, that both their careers and reputations were in decline and that this relationship-symbiotic or parasitic-was no longer working for them. They were both dying. The writer couldn’t write, and the agent couldn’t agent. And that, Jack knew, was the truth. In scotcho veritas.
But one of them could survive if the other was dead. Thanks to the National Life Insurance Company.
The bill came and Jack said, “I’ll get it.”
“Thanks,” Stan replied.
Bastard.
Stan did not want to go club hopping, and Jack was just as happy about that. Stan was not a good wingman. In fact, he had a knack for driving the women away, especially when he told them the long, sad story of how his wife had left him for a dweeby college professor-English literature-who she’d met when taking a class at NYU. As Jack liked to tell people, she got an A in the course and Stan got an F.U. Jack had always wanted to use that in a book but thought Stan might be offended.
They drove to Jack’s rental house, a big contemporary on Georgica Pond. Jack pulled into the long gravel driveway and said to Stan, “Do me a favor. I like to garage the car. Can you move that bicycle?”
Stan got out of the BMW and walked toward the bicycle that Jack had left in the driveway.
There wasn’t another house in sight and no traffic on the dark road. In fact, no witnesses.
Jack put one foot on the brake and pressed slightly on the accelerator. The engine revved, and the car strained forward.
Do it! Now!
Just as Jack was about to hit the gas and release the brake, a thought flashed into his mind. What if the impact doesn’t kill Stan? He’d have to back up and run him over again. Then he’d have a lot of explaining to do to the cops: Well, Officer, I… I don’t know why I backed up and ran him over again. I was distraught.
Do it!
Jack realized he was pressing harder on the brake and the accelerator, and the engine was roaring.
Stan turned and looked back at the car, and Jack saw him staring at him like that proverbial deer caught in the headlights.
Jack slumped in his seat and took his feet off the pedals.
Stan hesitated, then wheeled the bicycle onto the grass.
Jack pressed the remote and the garage door lifted-revealing a garage filled with sporting equipment, bicycles, storage boxes, and other junk. Not much room for a car.
Stan stared into the garage, then turned and looked back at the BMW.
Jack took a deep breath, killed the lights and the engine, and got out of the car, forcing a smile as he walked up the driveway. He glanced into the garage and said to Stan, “I thought I cleaned this out.”
Stan didn’t reply. They made eye contact in the dim light of the lamppost. Jack forced another smile and said, “Too much to drink.”
Stan walked back to the car, retrieved his suitcase, and both men entered the house.
It occurred to Jack that this would have been far from the perfect crime. His enthusiasm was interfering with his judgment. He wouldn’t write a scene with so many illogical mistakes. And if he did, he could write it over again. But in real life-real murder-there were no rewrites. You get one shot at this, Jack. If you get it right, you get five million; if you get it wrong, you get twenty years to life.
He noticed that Stan was standing in the middle of the living room, looking at him. Stan seemed to be disturbed about something. In fact, Jack thought, Stan, who was not usually a very imaginative man, may have imagined that his author was trying to kill him. Not good.
Jack smiled widely and waved his arms to encompass the big cathedral-ceilinged room, saying, “Isn’t this a great place? Boy, I could get some good writing done here. You gotta come out for a few weeks. You work too hard, buddy. I want to run a few proposals by you. We’ll sit by the pool. Tennis in the morning. Hey, I have a bottle of Chateau Montelena in the wine cooler. How ’bout a nightcap?”
Stan replied, “Where’s my room?”
Jack maintained his smile and good cheer and replied, “Terrific room. Overlooking the pond.”
He carried his agent’s suitcase up the stairs and showed him to a big guest room, saying, “If you need anything, I’ll be out on the back deck.”
Jack went downstairs and poured himself a scotch from the bar, then went out through the sliding glass doors to the deck and collapsed into a chaise lounge.
Stan definitely looked a bit… troubled, but Jack was sure that Stan would conclude that he had misinterpreted what happened in the driveway. Jack was drunk and Stan had also had a few. Plus, Stan was still alive, so that was proof enough that Jack-his author and pal-was not trying to kill him. Jack recalled the night when they had pretended to push each other in front of moving vehicles. Just a little drunken fun. Maybe that’s what Stan was thinking now. In fact, maybe that’s how Jack should have played it. Well, he couldn’t rewrite that, but he could write the next chapter.
He put his creative mind in gear and thought about ways for Stan Wykoff to have an accident.
“ Killing a friend, wife, or acquaintance is easy,” Detective Corey had told him. “ You have access and trust. What you also need is balls and brains. And a plausible story. You need imagination. ”
“Got all that,” Jack said to himself.
Detective Corey had cautioned, however, “ The only thing the cops and the D.A. will have on you is your motive. A strong motive equals a strong presumption of guilt. But motive is not enough to build a case. ” Right. The five million dollars would look like a good motive, but the policy was over ten years old. It wasn’t taken out last week. Right?