The Missing Chapter

Ott curled his narrow lower lip. “No, and I should have realized it, but hope springs eternal. Not much of Darius Sawyer’s stuff ever got picked up by the movies or TV through the years, and I learned that wasn’t about to change. There’s not a whole lot of Hollywood interest in an eccentric Pennsylvania bachelor geezer who lives in a farmhouse and goes around spouting Ben Franklin proverbs and drinking iced tea on his way to solving murders. The homespun approach may have worked on Murder, She Wrote, but nobody — and I mean nobody — on the Left Coast had the slightest interest in turning the Barnstable stuff into a TV show or a mini-series or a movie. Lord knows, I’ve spent enough time trying to make something happen. And all I got for my efforts from Charles was a lot of bitching that I just didn’t know the right people out there.”

I nodded in sympathy. “Sounds like he was a real sweetheart to deal with.”

Ott snorted. “You don’t know the half of it. Things between us just kept getting worse. Charles never thought his first contract was big enough — that was for just one book, because Vinson wanted to see how well Charles could handle a Barnstable story before committing to more. I got him a better overall deal on the second contract, which was for two books, but he still wasn’t happy. And several months ago, when we began negotiations on another two-book Barnstable contract, Charles insisted that I ask for about eighty percent more than the previous deal. I damn near spilled a cup of coffee into my lap When he came up with that. It was an insane proposal, and I told him so. You know what he said to me? ‘You’re supposed to have so much goddamn clout with people like Vinson and Monarch. Well, prove it.’

“What could I do?” Ott complained. “I told Vinson our asking price over lunch one day, and he looked at me like I’d lost my reason. Of course he knew damn well Childress was pushing me, and he also liked Charles, although I’ll never know why. Well, we — Vinson and I — must have hashed things over for close to two hours, and the most I could get out of him was a bump of about fifteen percent over the previous contract, which I felt was fair, although I didn’t tell him that.”

“How did Childress react to the offer?”

“Hah! How do you think? Charles started screaming at me, right here in this office. The son of a bitch said I was worthless, and that he’d find himself a new agent, somebody who knew what he was doing. I told him to go ahead — that I didn’t need the grief, which was true. Hell, I’ve got plenty of writers, and losing Childress wasn’t about to break me. What really teed me off was that Charles couldn’t stand his editor, Keith Billings, and I was the one who put pressure on Vinson to sack the guy, or at least take him off Charles’s books, which he did.”

“Is Billings a poor editor?”

“I’d say so, yeah. He’s arrogant, although that hardly makes him an oddity in our business. But he’s also arbitrary and heavy-handed. He does way too much rewriting — not very skillfully, I might add. And he thinks all authors are totally incapable of taking a detached look at their own work. Well, dammit, I got him off Charles’s back, and some thanks I received for the effort.” He gave a stack of manuscripts on his desk a vicious shove.

“Then came that article of Childress’s in Book Business, right?”

“Yeah. It shouldn’t have surprised me, knowing what kind of a jerk he could be, but I’ve got to admit it was a jolt. Have you read it?”

I said I hadn’t, and he went on, his thin face reddening. “He didn’t mention me by name, but he didn’t have to. Everybody between the Village and the north end of Central Park knew who he was talking about when he wrote that, quote, ‘Too many of today’s agents are basically lazy, uninspired, and reactive.’ He went on to say some more, too, none of it much fun to read, at least for me.”

“Did you talk to Childress after the piece ran?”

“I did not,” Ott snapped. “But I did call Vinson, and I blew, I mean I really blew. I’ve always had a good relationship with Horace, but that day I took my anger out on him, in spades. Hell, I told him I was going to sue both him and Childress.”

“Were you serious?” I asked.

He gave me a semi-smile. “I guess I was at the time. I thought the piece was going to really kill my business. But you know, almost every reaction I got was sympathetic. In the next couple of days, I’ll bet seven or eight people called me, including three of my writers, and they all said Charles was an ass, or words to that effect. And obviously I’m not angry anymore, especially after what’s happened. But I do have to call Vinson and apologize for what I said to him.”

“Did you lose any writers because of the article?”