‘If the lawyers can work it out..’
‘…. as my personal property. That the deal?’
‘That’s the bare bones of the deal. Johnny. The way these things feed each other, it’s just amazing. You’ll be a household word in six months, and after that, the sky is the limit.
The Carson show. Personal appearances. Lecture tours. Your book, of course, pick your house, they’re practically throwing money at psychics along Publisher’s Row. Kathy Nolan started with a contract like the one we’re offering you, and she makes over two hundred thou a year now. Also, she founded her own church and the IRS can’t touch dime-one of her money. She doesn’t miss a trick, does our Kathy.’ Dees leaned forward, grinning. ‘I tell you, Johnny, the sky is the limit.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘Well? What do you think?’
Johnny leaned forward toward Dees. He grabbed the sleeve of Dees’s new L.L. Bean shirt in one hand and the collar of Dees’s new L.L. Bean shirt in the other.
‘Hey! What the hell do you think you’re-…’
Johnny bunched the shirt in both hands and drew Dees forward. Five months of daily exercise had toned up the muscles in his hands and arms to a formidable degree.
‘You asked me what I thought,’ Johnny said. His head was beginning to throb and ache.
‘I’ll tell you. I think you’re a ghoul. A grave robber of people’s dreams. I think someone ought to put you to work at Roto-Rooter. I think your mother should have died of cancer the day after she conceived you. If there’s a hell, I hope you burn there.’
‘You can’t talk to me like that!’ Dees cried. His voice rose to a fishwife’s shriek. ‘You’re fucking crazy! Forget it! Forget the whole thing, you stupid hick sonofabitch I You had your chance! Don’t come crawling around…’
‘Furthermore, you sound like you’re talking through a Saltine box,’ Johnny said, standing up. He lifted Dees with him. The tails of his shirt popped out of the waist-band of his new jeans, revealing a fishnet undershirt beneath. Johnny began to shake Dees methodically back and forth. Dees forgot about being angry. He began to blubber and roar.
Johnny dragged him to the porch steps, raised one foot and planted it squarely in the seat of the new Levi’s. Dees went down in two big steps, still blubbering and roaring. He fell in the dirt and sprawled full length. When he got up and turned around to face Johnny, his country-cousin duds were caked with dooryard dust. It made them look more real, somehow, Johnny thought, but doubted if Dees would appreciate that.
‘I ought to put the cops on you,’ he said hoarsely. ‘And maybe I will.’
‘You do whatever turns you on,’ Johnny said. ‘But the law around here doesn’t take too kindly to people who stick their noses in where they haven’t been invited.’
Dees’s face worked in an uneasy contortion of fear, anger, and shock. ‘God help you if you ever need us,’ he said.
Johnny’s head was aching fiercely now, but he kept his voice even. ‘That’s just right,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t agree more.
‘You’re going to be sorry, you know. Three million readers. That cuts both ways. When we get done with you the people in this country wouldn’t believe you if you predicted spring in April. They wouldn’t believe you if you said the World Series is going to come in October. They wouldn’t believe you if … if …. Dees spluttered, furious.
‘Get out of here, you cheap cocksucker,’ Johnny said.
‘You can kiss off that book!’ Dees screamed, apparently summoning up the worst thing he could think of. With his working, knotted face and his dust-caked shirt, he looked like a kid having a class-A tantrum. His Brooklyn accent had deepened and darkened to the point where it was almost a patois. ‘They’ll laugh you out of every publishing house in New York! Nightstand Readers wouldn’t touch you when I get done with you! There are ways of fixing smart guys like you and we got em, fuckhead! We…’
‘I guess I’ll go get my Remmy and shoot myself a trespasser- Johnny remarked.