Bad Girl

“Okay. If some person you’d never met invited you up to their hotel room, would you go?”

“I don’t know.”

“The answer is no. You wouldn’t. Listen, look at me. You’re small and young, you have no physical strength, so if you want to do this, over and over and over again, without getting caught or killed, you have to be smart.”

She rolled her eyes. He was sounding a little like her mother.

“Oh, am I boring you? Get the fuck out of here then, you little brat.”

“You’re not. I’m sorry.”

“I’m trying to help you. So tell me. How would you get Bryson up to our hotel room?”

“I don’t know.”

“You ready to learn something?”

“Yes.”

“Vanity. Know what that is?”

She nodded. “When you’re in love with yourself.”

“Exactly. We’re all in love with ourselves. It’s our weakness. Our main failing. If you can play on that, if you can appeal to someone’s vanity without them knowing you’re doing it, you can get them to do anything you want.”

“I don’t understand.”

Orson stood up. “Follow me. Keep your mouth shut. And watch and learn.”

She followed Orson through the throng of people, stood behind him as he leaned his elbows on the bar and waited for the bartender to notice him.

After a minute, Orson began to look around, and when his eyes fell upon Richard Bryson standing right beside him, Lucy saw a huge smile break across Orson’s face.

He said, “Oh my God, you’re Richard Bryson!”

As the man glanced over at Orson, Lucy got her first decent look at him. He seemed old as shit to her, at least fifty. His coarse blond hair was long and wavy and on the verge of turning gray, and he had what she thought was a gross mustache.

The man gave a skeptical smile that belied insecurity and said, “Um, yeah, who are you?”

“Well, for starters, I’m a huge fan of Against the Law. I thought it was the best book I’ve read this year.”

“Oh, well thank you. You know, I just made it available as an ebook.”

“A what?”

“An electronic book. I put it up on my website as a free download.”

“Oh, neat.”

Oh stupid, Lucy thought. Like people would ever want to read books on an electronic screen.

“Ebooks are going to be the future of publishing. I’m sure of it.”

“Are you working on a new book?” Orson asked.

“Yeah, I am actually.” Orson was right. Lucy saw Bryson beginning to come alive as he talked about himself.

“Can you tell me anything about it?” Orson asked.

“Well, it’s a sequel to Against the Law.”

“Oh, fantastic.”

“You know how Rodriguez died at the end?”

“Yeah, sure. That was so heartbreaking.”

“Well, he’s not really dead.”

“No kidding?”

“And he’s back and pissed off and looking for revenge.”

“I can’t wait to read it. Look, Mr. Bryson—”

“Please, Richard.”

“Richard, my name’s Vincent Carmichael, and I’m a freelance reviewer. I do stuff for Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly. I would love to do an interview with you and pitch it to PW or Kirkus. I think they’d be all over it.”

“That’d be great.”

“Do you have some time right now?”

“Um, sure.”

“What do you say we go up to my room? My recorder is up there and we can see what happens. By the way, this is my niece, Michelle.”