The Salinger Contract (7 page)

T
he Hilton pool had gotten too crowded. A busload of college boys wearing Valparaiso University gear were horsing around and swearing. Conner and I headed back to Jerome Salinger's room, where we toweled off, showered, dressed, and sat at the desk he had wedged between the two beds. On the table, Conner had placed the checks Dex had given him—the address was 680 N. Lake Shore Drive; the amounts were for $10,000 and $833,333.33. I could see Dex's loopy, old-style handwriting.

I imagined I would have felt far more nervous than Conner in the presence of the mysterious Dex Dunford and the hulking Pavel Bilski, and yet I wondered if the arrangement Dex had proposed wasn't where literature was heading anyway. Book sales were plummeting, publishers and editors were losing their jobs, pleasure reading was becoming an increasingly rare pastime, authors were forced to devise increasingly creative means to make their living. Maybe this was the future—writers being paid to create books for only one reader who would measure his status on the basis of which author he had paid to write a book solely for him. Fewer readers, but richer readers. Donald Trump would commission the next Joyce Carol Oates novel; Warren Buffett would pay Don DeLillo to write his memoirs; Jarosław Dudek, Harper Lee, Conner Joyce, and whoever else would write whatever book Dex requested, and he would place it in his private library where no one but he and Pavel Bilski would ever read it. I didn't know who would commission me to write his personal, private book—maybe my usual burrito maker at the Laughing Planet; maybe the tamale chef at Feast or the beer sommelier at the Uptown Café; maybe I'd have to pay myself—the ultimate vanity publication. Or I could live like one of those farmers paid by the government
not
to farm, and convince my mother and anyone else I might conceivably libel to pay me not to write my next novel.

Maybe there wasn't much difference between writing for one reader and writing for thousands. In a previous life, when I wasn't rewriting wire copy for radio or going to class at UIC, I used to make extra money performing stand-up comedy in sleazy little clubs in Lyons and Rosemont, Illinois—clubs with names like the Comedy Womb and the Last Laugh. I remember one night when I was standing before a crowd of about twenty drunk, hostile spectators. All of them were glaring at me as I performed my act, save for one big bearded guy in the first row who smiled and laughed the whole time. I never met that smiling big guy, but he made my entire evening worthwhile, made me feel as if I were connecting with one human being. Maybe the idea of trying to write for the masses was foolish and egotistical; maybe all that mattered was communing with one other human being. Maybe one smiling big guy was all any writer or performer ever needed. Maybe one Dex Dunford was as good as one million readers.

“So,” I asked Conner, “did you sign the contract?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I wanted to ask a friend's advice. The only one I could think of was you.”

“Why me?” I asked.

“Don't be modest,” he said.

“Believe me, I'm not.”

“Don't be naïve, either.”

“I'm not trying to be,” I said. “Anyway, what's it like?”

“The contract? I can't find anything wrong with it. Take a look.”

I stared at the contract just as Conner had stared at it in Dex's apartment, hoping and despairing, fretting and dreaming. Pavel showed him the documents the other authors had signed—Salinger's contract, Mailer's, Hetley's, Capote's, and Dudek's—all more or less the same as Conner's with perhaps a modification here or there. Sitting at that desk with a view out onto Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan beyond it, Conner asked Dex what sort of book he was supposed to write. He expected Dex to issue strict parameters that would make writing the book difficult, if not impossible. But the assignment was vague. Dex said he liked crime stories, particularly the sort that Conner wrote—dutifully researched, exceedingly detailed. He said he wanted Conner to write as attentively as he always did. He wanted an original crime story, an idea neither of them had ever read before. He preferred for Conner not to write another Cole Padgett thriller, but said he wouldn't put that stipulation in writing; he just thought writing something different would be liberating for Conner. Conner kept asking Dex specific questions while Dex responded with more vague answers. When Conner pressed further, Dex finally said he wasn't a writer, but if Conner really wanted an idea, why didn't he try this one?

“Just in case I lose all my money someday and I have to try to make it all back, why don't you write a book about a man who loses $2.5 million and finds a very original way to steal that very amount,” he said. “I would like to see what you would do in a book about that.”

That's what Dex had told Conner. But the contract itself didn't say anything about subject matter. It only stated that Conner would write a novel of a typical length and that Dex would pay him in three installments. There were a few peculiar items, but none of them seemed like deal-breakers. For example, Dex insisted that Conner write the book either longhand or on a manual typewriter. Conner was not to make any Xerox copies or carbons of any pages he wrote. If he took any notes, they were to be shredded or burned. Ditto for any drafts, which were to be kept in a locked drawer to which only Conner would have a key. Attached to the contract was a confidentiality agreement, stating that, once Conner had signed, he wouldn't discuss the book with anyone other than Dex, Pavel, or any of the authors who had previously written for Dex. But there was little danger of that happening—Norman Mailer wouldn't rise from the grave to debate the fine points of the contract. Since Conner hadn't yet signed the contract and wasn't bound by its terms, he apparently felt he wasn't obligated to keep the matter secret from me. Still, given that we were meeting at the West Lafayette Hilton, he didn't seem to be taking too many chances.

“I should probably have my agent look at this. Or my lawyer,” Conner told Dex.

“No agents, no lawyers,” Dex said. “This agreement is between you and me only. If you reveal a word about our agreement to anyone other than the individuals enumerated in it, this contract will be null and void, and all the money I pay to you will have to be returned to me. Do you understand?”

Conner said he did, but added that he would probably have to discuss the matter with his wife at some point.

“Not with your wife,” said Dex. “Not even with your son.”

Conner laughed. “My son is only one year old, man.”

“One year and three months,” Dex corrected. “But you are not to discuss this assignment with him, either. Not when he's one and not when he's twenty-one. If you discuss it with him
at any time
, you must repay the money I have paid you.”

“But how would you even know whether or not I had discussed it with him?” Conner asked.

Dex said nothing.

“What would you do?” asked Conner. “Bug me? Bug my house? Tap my phone?”

“Would you really risk two and a half million dollars to find out?” asked Dex.

“I guess not,” Conner said. “So, when would I start?”

“The day my checks have cleared.” Dex looked at his watch. “You should probably head back to your hotel, so they don't think anything has happened to you. I'll expect the contract back by the end of the week.”

“And when I finish the book—” Conner began.

“Don't concern yourself with that,” said Dex. “I'll know how to find you.” He extended a hand and Conner shook it. “I do so look forward to doing business with you.”

Conner took the contract and the Montblanc pen with him as well as the checks. He gave the gun back to Pavel, who offered to walk Conner home; Conner demurred. He took a cab back to his hotel, and when he was in the Author's Suite, he called me and asked if I would meet him the following morning in West Lafayette.

Now, as he sat across from me in the Hilton, he asked, “So, what do you think, pal? You think I should do it, don't you?”

“Why're you asking me?” I asked.

“I told you. You're the only one who'd
get it
,” he said. “You think I should do it, right?”

“I don't see how you could say no,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I don't see how I could either.”

Conner uncapped his fountain pen and signed the contract.

“Nice pen,” I said.

Conner smiled. “Used to be Salinger's,” he said.

I
watched Conner sign the contract. Later, when he got back to his home in the Poconos, he would endorse Dex's checks and return the signed contract. The checks would clear, and more than three-quarters of a million dollars would appear in Conner's account. He would keep quiet about the agreement he had made with Dex, wouldn't even discuss it with Angie. He would tell her some story about how he had gotten the money. Even when he was rocking his son to sleep or jabbering to the child about this or that, he would make certain not to mention anything about the project he was working on. He didn't really think Dex and Pavel could eavesdrop on conversations he might have with a one-year-old boy. But at the same time, he knew Dex was right—it wasn't worth risking $2.5 million to find out.

I didn't learn about any of this at first, although, on a few occasions, Conner tried to make contact with me, phantom calls I didn't answer because I didn't recognize the number or because I didn't have time to speak with him and was too preoccupied to call him back.

By this time, I had my own concerns to worry about. The idea of the consequences a piece of writing could have on a person's life had become an all too pressing and personal issue for me, more so even than when I had published
Nine Fathers
and lost my mother's trust forever.

This isn't really my story, at least not yet. So, I won't bother you with all the details about what happened that changed my wife's and my secure lifestyle. Also, since I'm legally prevented from discussing some of these matters in detail, I could be putting both Sabine and myself in further danger by writing about it in more than the broadest of terms. Suffice it to say that there was a regime change at the Graduate School of Foreign Policy. Sabine's hang-loose, pot-smoking, reggae-playing department chair, Joel “Spag” Getty, who once told Sabine she reminded him of Uma Thurman in
Pulp Fiction
and said he would “shepherd” her through the tenure process, managed to get himself a better gig at Princeton. Rumor had it that he had become a hot commodity in the academic world, not because of his scholarship but because of the hot-tub parties he hosted in his Deer Park manse along with the other members of his band, the Rastabators.

Shortly after Getty announced his imminent departure, he was replaced as chairman by one of his colleagues, a slick number cruncher named Dr. Lloyd Agger, a product of Midwestern schools who had his eyes focused not only on the chairmanship of Sabine's department but also on a position high up in university administration. Since I still don't know the differences among a provost, a chancellor, and a dean, I can't say with certainty which position Dr. Agger coveted, but whichever it was, he apparently felt that making tough decisions, such as recommending cuts in his department, would make him appear to be a man who was not afraid to make deep sacrifices to maintain the bottom line. It was my wife's and my misfortune that Dr. Agger was elected to the chairmanship during the same year Sabine was going up for tenure. It was also our misfortune that when Sabine had her creaky Dell office computer replaced, she didn't think to wipe clean its hard drive. Somehow, one of Dr. Agger's henchmen, a busybody named Duncan Gerlach from the Informatics Department, discovered all the blog entries Sabine and I had written under the name Buck Floomington.

In the grand scheme of things, writing puerile remarks about colleagues' sexual proclivities, professional indiscretions, weapons collections, and poor hygiene habits might not have ranked high on the list of potential misdeeds for an employee. Surely, it didn't compare with, say, dating students or stalking them when they worked the register at Bloomingfoods natural grocery, or only giving teaching assistantships in exchange for hummers performed on moonless nights in the clearing in the IU woods known as Herman's Hideaway.
Allegedly
. Still, writing these blog posts on the office computer was probably not the smartest thing for a Columbia University PhD and her trailing-spouse husband to do. And even so, all this might not have posed such a great problem had Duncan Gerlach not sent copies of our blog entries to each member of the personnel committee shortly before they met to discuss my wife's tenure case.

Perhaps at a later date, perhaps after the statute of limitations has passed or the confidentiality agreement has expired, or perhaps when I decide to write at length about my own experiences and not Conner's, I could go into greater detail about all the letters and character references Sabine and I had to solicit for her appeal. Perhaps then I could talk more about the sudden stress we were feeling now that we knew staying in this town was far from a sure thing. Perhaps then I could talk about Ramona's insomnia, or Beatrice's fits of rage, or our dog Hal's new allergies.

Before I learned anything further about Conner, a rough autumn and an even rougher winter passed. We were still waiting for the university to weigh in with a ruling about Sabine's appeal. Sabine, a doggedly determined pragmatist if ever there was one, was becoming increasingly morose. She and I would stay up with Ramona and Beatrice until ten or ten thirty before we would talk and hash out what we would do if we had to move. Academic departments weren't hiring, and even if they were, whom could we get to write recommendations on Sabine's behalf? Dr. Ellsworth Crocker, whom I had nicknamed “The Retired COINTELPRO Mole” in one blog entry? Dr. Baynard Ruttu, who was so obsessive-compulsive he wrapped the SFP toilets in cling wrap whenever he used them, but did not remove the pee-splattered plastic upon exiting the bathroom? As for me, I was more than willing to work full-time, but journalism and publishing were dying, and who wanted to hire a one-book author with a résumé and Rolodex more than five years out of date?

Sabine's and my conversations were frustratingly circular. Though each night we vowed to get more rest, invariably one or both kids would awaken at six and we'd be back at the coffeemaker, rubbing the sleep out of our eyes, waiting to get the kids to school and day care before we'd go back to polishing our résumés and packing clothes and furniture to give to Goodwill.

To deal with all the stress and uncertainty, I had been taking Hal out for unusually long morning walks. Sometimes we'd drive out to Nashville, Indiana, where we'd hike along the trails of Yellowwood Forest, sidestepping shotgun shells. Or I would drive twenty miles out of town to Spencer, and Hal would join me as I looked for salamanders and bluebirds in Hoot Woods and by McCormick's Creek. Lately, we had been exploring the trails that circled Griffy Lake, a man-made reservoir that was good for perch fishing. The trails I chose weren't particularly strenuous, but they were scenic and leaf-strewn, and when Hal and I walked upon them, time seemed to stop. There were raccoons, foxes, and families of deer; every so often, I would happen upon a crinoid or some other fossil that I could bring home to Ramona for her geology collection. And since I was usually the only hiker on these trails during work hours, I could spend as long as I wanted brushing Hal's fur on a bench without being disturbed.

One morning, I was driving our Volvo station wagon along the I-46 Bypass heading toward Griffy Lake when I noticed a silver Nissan Sentra in my rearview mirror. The bypass was a well-traveled road, and the Nissan wasn't an unusual car—but it was following too closely and I had to take the curves and hills quickly, for fear of getting rear-ended. When I pulled into the trailhead lot and found a space, the Nissan pulled in beside me. Conner was at the wheel. He had a few days' growth of beard and was wearing sunglasses, blue jeans, and a faded maroon Philadelphia Phillies T-shirt. He looked skinnier, and somehow menacing. As Conner got out of the car and approached, Hal pawed the back window of my car and howled. At first, I didn't even recognize him. I figured he was either some hippie who wanted to sell me nonpasteurized milk, or a tweaker hawking meth.

Conner took off his sunglasses and gave me a weary, dimpled smile. “Sorry to sneak up on you like that, buddy, but you're a hard guy to track down.” He leaned in through my window. A few caresses and a scratch behind the ears, and Hal stopped barking. I should have expected Conner would be good with dogs.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Looking for you, man,” he said. I hadn't answered his calls and he hadn't wanted to bother me at home with my wife and kids around. He said he had driven by my house a couple of times and, when he saw me leave and I had finished dropping off my kids at school and day care, he followed me to the nature preserve.

“That's a little creepy,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” said Conner. “Sorry about that.”

“It's OK. You want to join Hal and me for a hike?”

“Sure,” he said. That way he could look down from the path to make sure no one was following him.

“Who's following you?” I asked. “That Dex Dunford guy?”

“Or Pavel,” he said. “Probably nobody, probably it's OK, but who knows—I don't feel sure about anything anymore.”