Dead Men Don't Blog: A John Ray Mystery - Chapter 1

It was a day like any other in this rummy business. I had given my secretary Lana the afternoon off to go hat shopping. I was sitting in my office, feet up on the desk, honing my computer solitaire skills and thinking about editing some corporate illiterate's white paper that was due by close of business, when she walked in. Said her name was Eustacia Vye, but I knew that was phony. I didn't start reading yesterday, I just look like it. She wore a skirt far too short for office appropriate, showing off a pair of getaway sticks that ran all the way up to the top floor of my building and back; a tight knit sweater defining a set of curves that made Lombard Street look like a wheelchair ramp. No, she wasn't corporate: no Blackberry, no planner, no cell phone hanging onto the Chanel bag she was slinging. I don't get to see a lot of dames like that in my line of work, and she had my attention. I put my feet on the floor.

"Mr. Ray?" she said. "John Ray?"

"That's right," I said. "But you can call me Jack, Sugar."

"Jack Sugar?" she said, taking the seat across from my desk. She wasn't very bright, but I wasn't going to hold that against her. If I limited my clientele to bright people, I'd be steaming soy milk down at the local java joint to earn my kale.

"Whatever you like, Doll. What can I do for you?"

"I need you to write something for me."

"That so?"

"For a Web site," she plucked nervously at her skirt.

"No kidding? Okay, you need some Web content. What's your site?"

"Well, it's not Web content per se. I need a piece -- just a page or two, really -- to submit to a site. Something about writing, about being a novelist. An essay. I'm not picky."

"Sorry, sister," I said, "I don't do that kind of writing. Strictly technical these days. You've got the wrong ink jockey."

"But...but I was told you were the best. Fast. Clever. Discreet."

"All true, Gorgeous, all true. But whoever told you that I'm sure also told you that I don't take creative assignments. Not my bailiwick."

"But it used to be?" She batted those long lashes at me so vigorously that I thought she'd lift out of her chair and float there like a hummingbird. I wondered who'd given her this information, who'd put her on to me. I don't make a practice of discussing my past with very many people, and that business was so old I couldn't imagine who was still left in this town that might remember it. Didn't matter. Sure, this dame was one in a million: the kind of looker that would send just about any Web content developer tripping over his network cable to get to his thesaurus. But I wasn't buying it. Contrary to what you might have read about me so very long ago, I still had some scruples.

"Ancient history," I said. "Besides, you've got a whole blogosphere of long-hairs out there to choose from. Or hang out by the cheese section at Whole Foods; you'll find someone willing to help you out in five minutes."

"All amateurs. And I don't have time for that," she said briskly. Suddenly she didn't seem so dim. "You come highly recommended, and I need this piece written quickly. I'll pay you twice your hourly rate, and on a time-and-materials basis. Whatever it takes. I'll even give you as much up front as you'd like."

I'll admit, I was intrigued, though more by this broad than by what she was asking me to do. And she was a hell of a lot easier on the eyes than my Dell flat-screen at the moment. I cracked open a deck of Luckies and offered her one. She took it, looked at it for a second, then dropped it in her purse. What a dame.

"You don't need a writer, Precious, you just need a little self-discipline. I recommend you go home, sit down in front of your laptop, and just write."

"No, that won't work."

"Why not?" I said.

"That's my business. You just need to write it for me."

"Well, Sugar, I wish I could help you. But even if I still did this kind of work -- which I don't -- I don't ghost for anybody."

"It's just a few hundred words, Mr. Ray," she said, getting up out of her chair. She put her pocketbook on my desk, pulled out a wad of lettuce thick enough to choke a yak, and started peeling C-notes from the stack. "A page, page-and-a-half."

"Put your money away, Dollface."

She made a moue and started batting those eyelashes again. Then she stepped slowly around to my side of the desk and propped that tightly skirted bottom against it, affording me a better look at those gams and a little flash of garter. Oh, she was good, this one. Good and dangerous.

"Money's really no object," she said in a low, throaty whisper. "Nor is inspiration, if you need some of that."

Then she leaned over and started a little let-your-fingers-do-the-walking routine up the front of my tie. I grabbed her wrist hard.

"Save it, Baby," I said. "You don't seem like the chippy type, and I ain't no set of Yellow Pages."

"Let go," she whined.

"I don't know what the Chinese angle is on this, but I don't care," I said, talking fast. "I don't do creative pieces for hire, and even if I did, I wouldn't let some skirt put her Jane Hancock to it and publish it all over Information Alley, see."

"You're hurting me!"

"Yeah, I know what you're thinking: what difference should it make to a mug and a two-time loser like me? Well let me tell you something, Sweetheart: I'm still a writer, and I've still got an ego. And principles. You savvy? Yeah, they're writer's principles, sure, but they're principles just the same."

I let her go. She rubbed her freed wrist, looking down at the floor, and that's when the waterworks started.

I hate it when dames cry. Whether it's from something I've said or something I've written. Emotion has no place in this game as far as I'm concerned; it makes you write down things you shouldn't, things that no one needs to know. It makes you weak, confessional. It makes you write to people's sympathies rather than their intellect. My old friend Gus Flaubert said, "Everything must be done coldly, with poise," and I've tried to follow that advice. Besides, emotion gets to me. Makes me a sucker, a sap. Which is the only way I can explain what happened next.

She was blubbering pretty emphatically, so I snapped open my handkerchief and held it out. She took it, dabbed her red-rimmed eyes, and then bugled into it juicily.

"I just want feedback," she said weakly.

"Say again?"

"Feedback. Comments. Interaction. I'm a member of this Web site, and I publish things there-stories, personal pieces. I belong to groups, I take part in writing contests, challenges. But I never get any feedback. No one ever comments on anything I do. I know people are looking at the things I write, at least sometimes, but no one ever has anything to say. It's like I don't exist."

"That's tough," I said. "I feel for you."

"If I could just publish one good piece. One thing that people will feel compelled to comment on, I'll be in. I just know from that point they'll give me the benefit of the doubt, and start giving me feedback on all my stuff. Maybe advice even. Some direction. Encouragement. There's nothing wrong with that, is there, Mr. Ray? Just looking for a little encouragement? Is it wrong for a writer to want that?"

Is it wrong for a writer to want that? Hell, I don't know, I couldn't tell anymore. I've been in this writing game a long time, and I've seen a lot of unpleasant things. The kind of things that would make a writer set fire to his Powerbook and chuck it through the front window of the Barnes & Noble. The kind of things that might make him strap his OED to his leg and toss the boxed set off a bridge into the waters of the bay.

Maybe of all the reasons people write, a little encouragement was the least addle-minded thing to want.  

Stay tuned for Chapter 2: An Unpleasant Encounter