Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories (26 page)

Speaking of technical difficulties, your letter mentioned that you had a dilemma in your current project.—What’s this one called? I’ll put my name on the waiting list at the bookstore.—Can I be so bold as to make a suggestion about this gun and airplane problem? (I don’t want your next book delayed because the FAA has you locked away as a suspected terrorist.) You did say that the individual in question was a pro this time, I believe. (I’ll try to forget these details when I purchase the book. I want to figure it out fair and square with no advance warnings.) Probably the guy would pack his weapon in his checked luggage, dismantled and—it goes without saying—unloaded. This is a legal and therefore hassle-free mode of transport, but perhaps that lacks the necessary drama for the plot. Or maybe the guy doesn’t trust the airline to get his bags and him to the same destination—a very wise concern in my
experience. So he has to have the thing in carry-on or concealed about his person.

Let me recommend that you not make the weapon a 44 Magnum, since, with all due respect to the brilliant Mr. Eastwood, this is not what a gentleman in the sanction business would use professionally. There are some very nice firearms out now that are made of space-age polymers—the 9mm. Glock is very good—that can perform adequately in the field and still not be unduly ostentatious. This piece, dismantled in carry-on baggage, should make it through airport security, as the polymer parts of the pistol will not register on the metal detector, and the metal parts can be concealed in, say, a false-bottomed can of shaving cream. Not that I am trying to write your book. I’m happy to be just reading them. (Dare I hope that this mythical hit man will be dispatched to off a “pretentious dresser with prominent ears,” who is maybe also a lawyer?)

Of course, by the time you receive this you will probably have figured out your own brilliant solution to the airport problem. I have great faith in your inventive abilities. Just don’t try sneaking a rod on your next flight for research. They have no sense of humor, these bureaucrats.

I hope all is well with you in sunny Georgia. My garden is doing well despite the dry spell, as my water bill will no doubt show at the end of the month. I’m putting in chrysanthemums to try to keep summer around for a few more weeks. And if you should find yourself in need of zucchini, seek no further. I am begging people to take it.

Again, my deepest thanks for your generosity in autographing my favorite works of literature. It was a gracious gesture. I owe you one, Ms. Gunsel.

With gratitude and best wishes,
Monty                                   

Laurie Gunsel

Mr. Monty Vincent           
367 Calabria Road            
Passaic, New Jersey 07055

Dear Monty,

Signing your books was no trouble at all. Really. I still get a kick out of seeing my name on the title page. Anyhow, they’re all inscribed
To Monty
, as you requested, and they’re on their way back to you in New Jersey. Incidentally, I insured the package for you. My treat. Actually, I didn’t want to worry about the whereabouts of those books, considering their cumulative value. I trust the post office like you trust the airlines! I don’t mean to brag, but just for your information as an investor, that first Cass Cairncross book,
Dead in the Water
, is worth (they tell me) seven hundred and fifty dollars. Maybe more if it’s autographed. I don’t keep track of such things, but I thought you might like to know. In case the grandkids ever want a pony.

Thanks for your advice about the gun-and-airport caper. I can tell you’ve read a lot of crime fiction. You’re well-versed in the literary gambits! Do I detect an Ed McBain fan, or maybe John D. MacDonald?

Don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of trying to smuggle a gun onto an airplane for research. I know how grim airport officials are about weapons jokes. There’s a crime writer of my acquaintance with a bizarre sense of humor, who always travels with a laptop computer, and when he went through airport security, they always make him turn on the machine to prove that it really is a working computer. So one day before he left the hotel—I’m not sure this fellow was entirely sober at the time—he programmed the computer with an automatic boot, which means that when you switch on the computer, a message automatically appears on the
screen. At the airport screening gate, they made him turn on the computer as usual, and a sign on the screen said:
READY
 … 
ARMING
 … 
NINETY SECONDS TO DETONATION
. Needless to say he missed his flight, and if he wasn’t so rich and famous, he’d probably be playing racquetball at a celebrity prison these days, but apparently he managed to talk his way out of trouble, because he’s still turning up at conventions. (I wish I’d known how to do one of those autoboots. My ex-the-attorney used to travel with a laptop, and I’d have enjoyed getting him sent to prison. I don’t suppose I can use that computer story in a book, though, because my friend the prankster would probably see it and complain.)

I
had
thought of killing him again in this new book. (The Ex, I mean, not the Prankster.) This book is called
Buck in the Snow
(thank you for asking!), and the title comes from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, a favorite poet of mine from my shady past as an English major, before I turned to crime. Buck is going to be the hit man. (I thought
Vito
might be too obvious. No white ties this time, either.) Or maybe I’ll make Buck a serial killer. Serial killers are very popular with readers these days.

As you may have guessed, I’m still fine-tuning the plot. Actually, I’m finding it a little difficult to concentrate on a new book just now, because I have another court date coming up with the monster ex-husband. (Tennis courts, racquetball courts, magistrate’s courts—it’s all recreation to them.) He’ll have fun, play golf while he’s back in Georgia, and visit all his old buddies. I’m losing sleep, and getting no writing done, worrying about the whole thing. Why did I ever let him talk me into a mutual-incompatibility no-fault divorce? I should have hired a private detective and got the evidence on him and the law firm
bimbo. (Except I wasn’t all that solvent back then. My first couple of books went for peanuts. Anyhow, Malcolm convinced me that my pride wouldn’t let me stand up in court and admit what a patsy I’d been. He’s a great convincer, thanks to me. I put him through law school! The student loans were in
both
our names, and he insisted that I pay half—even after the divorce!) And you wonder why I’ve been knocking him off from book to book. At first it was cheaper than a therapist. Now I can’t afford to get well.

How embarrassing. This is what I get for using a typewriter. If I were on the word processor, I’d have deleted that last paragraph. Sorry to be such a bore, Monty. I’m depending on the kindness of strangers, as a better writer once said. Unfortunately, there’s a thunderstorm here in Peachtree, and I’m afraid that if I use the computer, lightning could zap my hard drive and take out what little I’ve got on this damned new book. And I don’t have time to rewrite the letter, so I’m afraid you’ll have to pardon my pathetic ramblings. Maybe you can write out rage, but it must take more words than I’ve already used.

I hope I didn’t let too much daylight in on the magic for you, Monty. Thanks for listening.

Your friend,
Laurie        

P.S. You
really
have a lot of technical know-how, Monty. I hope you’re a retired cop, because if you’re Elmore Leonard or Donald Westlake writing me prank fan letters, I’ll just fall apart. Are you going to be at the Charlotte, North Carolina, mystery convention Labor Day weekend? If so, introduce yourself. I’m on a panel, and I’m giving a talk on characterization. L.G.

367 Calabria Road             
Passaic, New Jersey 07055

Dear Ms. Gunsel:

The package of signed books arrived with impressive alacrity, and I thank you again for being so kind as to inscribe them. Also thank you for your thoughtfulness in warning me about the value of my investment, but, believe you me, I wouldn’t take a million dollars for any of the Cass Cairncross novels, so the book dealers’ valuations are not a major concern, except maybe that I will brag once in a while to my poker buddies about what good taste in books I have. They may have to become a codicil in my will.

Also, you needn’t worry about your last letter “letting daylight in on the magic,” as you so eloquently put it. And though I’m overwhelmed with the honor of being suspected of being Mr. Leonard or Mr. Westlake—would that I could write one sentence like either of them!—no, I’m an honest-to-God fan, Ms. Gunsel. While I am also not Father Andrew Greeley, let me add that, like him, keeping secrets was part of my business, and you may rest assured that not a word of your most sincere and anguished missive will I divulge to anyone, ever. You may trust my discretion absolutely. Allow me to state how very sorry I am for the emotional distress this bum, your former spouse, is causing you. I do not approve of attorneys who use their skills for sport and personal vendettas, just as I do not care for the so-called serial killers who impose their sickness on others at random. Indeed, one of my favorite things about the Cass Cairncross novels was the fact that good and evil are not watered down with all this psychological mumbo jumbo we get in those devil-made-me-do-it books. The world would be a better place without those sleazy types.

For my own selfish reasons as a reader, I hope that
you can put all this domestic turmoil behind you and get back to your true mission in life: writing the adventures of Cass Cairncross. It grieves me to think of you, sleepless and upset, persecuted by this gorilla in a three-piece suit. So I would advise you to remain calm, as your heroine Cass always does, because anger only gets you in more trouble. And remember how many friends and faithful readers you have out here wishing you well—and hoping for the next installment!

Sincerely your friend,
Monty                      

P.S. I don’t attend mystery conventions. I’m strictly a reader. But I know you’ll do a great job on your talk. Knock ’em dead.

Laurie Gunsel

Mr. Monty Vincent           
367 Calabria Road            
Passaic, New Jersey 07055

Dear Monty,

Thank you for your concern in my personal disasters. It did cheer me up to know that, in addition to the other bounties she’s given me, Cass Cairncross has made me some thoughtful and caring friends. I haven’t made very many friends for her in return, have I? Her boyfriends keep turning out to be crooked, and her friends get murdered. Maybe this reflects my own jaundiced view of the world. I don’t know. My outlook isn’t any rosier at the moment.

The piranha-at-law must have been staying up nights thinking up new ways to torment me, and he has hit upon a dandy. Why didn’t I see this coming when we were in college together? He seemed like such a
nice fellow back then. I was a dewy English major who had dated one engineer too many, and I suppose I lost my head when I found myself dating someone who didn’t think Hawthorne was a point guard for the Knicks. (Who even knew that the word
Knicks
should conjure up visions of Washington Irving!) We went to Ingmar Bergman movies together, and listened to Kris Kristofferson—enchanted by the idea that a Rhodes scholar could be a country singer. (So we were already prepared for the Clinton era.) Then we got married and I put Malcolm through law school, teaching high school English five periods a day for what felt like forty-seven years. People ask me how I can think up such convincing bad guys. Ha! They should teach for a year.

When was the last time Ingmar Bergman made a movie? Now Kris Kristofferson makes movies. The world changed. We changed. And we went different ways. Malcolm went
out
. With the law firm bimbo, now the second Mrs. Dracula. This might have been her idea. I expect it takes a lot of money to keep her in spandex. (It takes a lot of spandex to keep her in spandex. Trust me.)

But I digress. You are probably wondering why I am in such high dudgeon. I’ll tell you.

Malcolm wants in on the books. I mean, he wants to get paid a percentage of the earnings that I make from the Cass Cairncross novels. I thought they wouldn’t be an issue, because they didn’t come up in our fangs-bared no-fault divorce. Back then I wasn’t making enough per book to matter. He used to say that if the company opened a nursery business and sold the trees instead of making paper out of them to print my books, they’d make more money. He couldn’t be bothered with the chump change of my life’s work.

Now, of course, it’s different. Now they go book
club, and movie producers buy them to hoard the rights for a year while they threaten to cast Goldie Hawn in the role of Cass, before the one-year option expires, but still they pay—as do the book clubs, foreign publishers, audio people, and so on. The money adds up. Now, suddenly my “little hobby” is a valuable commodity. I guess one of his friends bought a Cass novel. I had hoped that wouldn’t happen, but it has. Malcolm scented money.

And not only does Malcolm the Merciless want part ownership of the early books, written when I was still Mrs. Bluebeard—
get this
—he also claims that he has an interest in all the books containing that character because he “provided financial, intellectual, and emotional assistance in the creation of the character and the series.” I quote from his latest legal torpedo.

Monty, you’ve been a dear friend and a faithful reader, so I thought I’d better explain this to you, so that you’ll understand. I can’t let my work be used to provide Malcolm and the Bimbo with sports car and spandex money. It would be like turning Cass into a hooker. So I’m afraid that my work in progress will be the last Cass Cairncross novel. When I turn this book in, I’ll be out of contract, and I’ll tell them I’m through. I’d rather go back to teaching sophomores about semicolons than pay blackmail to Malcolm.

Thanks for being such a great audience, both for Cass and for me. I’m sorry it has to end this way, but it was me or Cass—and either way,
she’d
be gone, so I figured this was a compromise on self-destruction. I hope you find another gumshoe to love. Try Kinsey Millhone.