Manifesto for the Dead by Domenic Stansberry Page A

him in. Her eyes had flashed with something that surprised him. He wondered if it would be there again.
    No, he told himself.
    He couldn’t go to the Château. Not in this state, disheveled as he was.
    Thompson caught the bus back to the Aztec Hotel. He walked though the lobby, past the snoozing clerk, upstairs to his room.
    He wanted out. Away from Billy Miracle. All these years writing about murderers and their victims, men trapped by their desires—by swell-looking babes and no account virgins—and now here he was, trapped too. He wasn’t so different from the drifter in the book he was writing maybe, working his way toward a fate scrawled in someone else’s hand. But he went ahead anyway and sat down at his desk. He was under contract, after all.

FOURTEEN
    Belle Lanier could get her old man to dance naked in the street, if that’s what she wanted, so getting me the job at her father’s place was a pretty straightforward business.
    Daddy Lanier treated me like a prince. He paid me fair, and patted me on the back, and didn’t seem to want anything in return. Maybe he was a good man like he seemed. Or maybe he was a fool.
    Either way, my plan, it was to take these people for a ride. To milk them good and be on my way.
    Then one day the younger sister, Gloria, showed up at the office. She wore her hair tied back and a brand new dress: a wide-collared thing that hung down below the knees. She had sincerity written all over her face.
    â€œHi,” I said, and gave her my brightest grin. “What can I do for you?”
    I took her for a stroll, and talked it up big. I told her how much I loved the town, and the people here, how it reminded me of my childhood. It was all lies, but she smiled, sweet as sap, and for a little while I believed my own words.
    Finally we went back to the office. I looked through the window, watching her walk. I thought for a minute how I wished everything was good and wholesome as she made it seem. Just then I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Daddy Lanier. He had been watching me study his youngest daughter as she strolled away under the pecan trees.
    â€œYou want to come over to dinner?”
    He looked at me with the eyes of the father I’d never had. The good father. Who cared for me and wanted to see me do well in the world. Who would never treat me like that lousy voice in my head.

FIFTEEN
    The next day, Thompson got a call from Matthew Roach, his agent in New York. They’d known each other for twenty years, back to the days when Thompson wrote for the crime magazines. Thompson liked hearing from him: the cheering lilt in his voice, all camaraderie, like a pat on the back that said:
    Give ’em hell, buddy. They ’re all bastards, but hey, you, Mr. Million Bucks, you got what it takes.
    The truth was, Roach was a swindler like all the rest. They’d fallen out a dozen times over the years, but none of that mattered. Thompson liked him anyway.
    â€œToo bad about Jack Lombard. A damn shame.” Roach’s voice sounded odd. He wants something, Thompson thought. But why is he bringing up Lombard?
    â€œNothing’s too bad for him. That son of a bitch.”
    â€œThat’s a hell of a thing to say.”
    â€œI’m a hell of a guy.”
    â€œThe reason I called, Hector Sally talked to me, about your book deal. I think we can make this thing swing.”
    Thompson hesitated. He had hoped to do this without Roach, to save himself the commission. “Hector says they’ll do the book. Contingent on the film. Any advance you get, though, that has to come from the production house.”
    â€œI was hoping …”
    â€œThat’s the best I can get you.”
    Roach’s voice was firm, and Thompson felt his old dislike of the man returning. He enjoyed the feeling. It felt good to hate his agent again. To hate agent and publisher at the same time, in the same moment, this was one of life’s true