The Salinger Contract by Adam Langer Page B

dough, they didn’t hassle you about sticking around all night.
    But to Conner, stepping into the Coq d’Or was like stepping into a world he had only read about in books, or perhaps seen in movies about ad execs in the early 1960s. The place was a piano bar populated largely by well-heeled, martini-swilling tourists and the occasional regular from Chicago’s Gold Coast aristocracy, some of whom owned apartments in the Drake, many of whom were alcoholics; some of the men were accompanied by high-dollar escorts; some of them paid their bills with Drake Hotel credit cards, a perk offered to hotel regulars. There were white tablecloths, maroon leather booths, a long oaken bar behind which a white-clad bartender operated a cocktail shaker. In the air was the scent of lobster and clam chowder. On the night Conner entered the bar, a tuxedoed pianist was playing “Stardust” and doing a surprisingly good job of it. In another era, Conner would have expected to see women smoking long cigarettes and men puffing on stogies, but what Conner actually saw was a man he immediately knew was Dex Dunford.
    â€œWas that his real name?” I asked Conner.
    â€œI doubt it,” he said.
    The man was sitting alone at a table with copies of Ice Locker , Devil Shotgun , and Conner’s other three novels placed atop it. Clad in a dark-blue, pinstriped suit with a pale-blue pocket square, he looked dapper, even debonair. As he sipped his Rob Roy dry on the rocks with a twist, he could have been nominated for “America’s Best Dressed Executive” during a time when people were still nominated for such titles. Dex was a small man—slim, yet authoritative. His hair was full and white, and upon first viewing him, Conner couldn’t decide whether he looked more like a fifty-year-old man from another decade or a well-preserved seventy-five from the present one. Propped up against the wall behind Dex was a hand-carved walking stick with the face of a yellow-eyed falcon for a handle.
    â€œWhat would you care to drink, Mr. Joyce?” Dex asked. His accent sounded vaguely British, but that seemed more a function of class than geography; he spoke with what passed for a generic, wealthy cadence, favored by actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood, such as Clifton Webb or Ray Collins; he didn’t pronounce the r ’s at the ends of his words.
    Conner didn’t answer Dex’s question. He wasn’t sure he would be drinking anything at all.
    â€œPlease, sit,” Dex said. “What harm could possibly come to you by merely sitting down for a drink?”
    Conner didn’t immediately answer. “Well, I suppose you’re right, after all,” said Dex. “Why, all sorts of harm could come to you. After all, we’ve never met. I do feel I know you, though, Mr. Joyce.” He said he was a fan of Conner’s work. He had read all the Cole Padgett books. He liked the new one, Ice Locker , he said, and thought it was one of Conner’s better works. He said he always loved his attention to detail, the specificity of Conner’s locations. “But it’s hard for any writer to outdo his first success,” Dex said.
    Conner began to relax. He was familiar with this sort of conversation; it was the same sort he had with the people who attended his book readings or interviewed him on public radio shows.
    â€œAre you in the business?” he asked.
    â€œWhich?”
    â€œPublishing.”
    â€œNot exactly,” Dex said. “I collect.”
    Conner took the seat across from Dex, and when a waiter asked if Conner would be eating or drinking anything, Conner agreed to take a glass of ice water.
    â€œA collector,” Conner said. “You mean first editions?”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking,” said Dex. He asked Conner how Ice Locker had been selling, and when Conner muttered something about how it was too early to know, Dex asked if the book was doing