The Salinger Contract by Adam Langer

his agent’s e-mail address and the name of his editor; he told the women he was busy and, if pressed further, married. The conversations usually ended there, but when Conner offered to give Pavel the name of his editor and publicist, Pavel said no, that wouldn’t do.
    â€œThis proposal Dex has to make to you, he will do it in person,” said Pavel.
    Conner almost laughed out loud. He wondered whether Pavel’s use of commanding phrases—you will do this; he will do that—was intended to sound as threatening as it did or if Pavel’s English was just that lousy.
    â€œOh, he will, will he?” Conner asked.
    â€œYes, he will,” Pavel said. “Tonight, in fact.” And after Conner asked him what Dex’s rush was, Pavel smiled slightly. “This is because you are leaving on the seven forty-five a.m. flight for LaGuardia, are you not? There would not be time tomorrow, would there?”
    â€œSeven forty-five?” Conner’s voice wavered.
    â€œUnited Airlines, Flight 110, to be exact,” said Pavel. “This is true, yes?”
    Conner got up from the signing table and, as he did, Pavel added, “Or, Dex could meet you at your hotel. You’re staying at the Drake, this is also true?” Conner said nothing. He maintained his silence when Pavel added that Dex would be happy to meet either in the hotel’s Coq d’Or cocktail lounge or in the Palm Court.
    â€œOr,” Pavel added with a sly smile, “if you prefer, the two of you can meet in the Author’s Suite, Room 813, is it not?”
    â€œHow do you know all that?” Conner asked, but before Pavel could respond, Conner decided he didn’t want to hear the answer. He headed for the door. His Spidey sense was tingling big-time, he said. Conner reached the front door of Borders in time to hear Pavel tell the bookstore manager, “I will take the rest of these. And I would like to have them delivered to Six Hundred and Eighty North Lake Shore Drive.” When Conner looked back, he saw that Pavel was buying every one of his books and taking out a phone to make a call.

9
    C onner stepped out of Borders and flagged down a cab. He didn’t have much of a plan in mind other than to return to his hotel, pick up his suitcase, and check out. He didn’t understand how Pavel had known where he was staying and what his travel plans were. Maybe Pavel was a friend of his editor, or maybe he worked for a publisher from the former Eastern Bloc, one as yet unschooled in Western codes of conduct. But Conner didn’t want to stick around to find out. When he had worked as a crimereporter, he had no fears of interviewing gangbangers, of flashing press credentials at the wardens of Rikers Island, of hanging around precinct station houses well past midnight, then walking all the way home—in fact, he had met Angie at the Twenty-Fourth Precinct headquarters on 100th Street, and they routinely walked home to her mother and aunt’s apartment in Hamilton Heights, where she continued to live until she and Conner got married. But now that he was a husband and father, he preferred to let his characters take risks while he enjoyed cups of hot tea and mugs of home-brewed beer on the back deck of his house in the Pokes.
    Traffic was heavy on Diversey Avenue. The Margot Hetley reading had just let out, and all the tweens and Goth kids who had been waiting for Hetley to sign books were pouring onto the streets; they were heading for the bus stops and elevated train stations, forming a flash mob as they threw “vampard” signs at one another and roughly shoved passersby while Hetley’s limo sped away from the store. Conner exited Borders before Pavel, but by the time his taxi managed to make an illegal U-turn to start heading south toward his hotel, he could see that Pavel was getting into a cab too. At that moment, Conner felt an urge to say all the things detectives say to taxi