“—give in to it, Koss,” said Anders.
Kossweiller, shaking his head, took a drink.
“Maybe a minority writer?”
“Who, you?” asked Anders.
“Sure,” said Kossweiller. “Why not?”
“Koss, you don’t know the first thing about publishing a multicultural writer.”
“I don’t? But I’ve published minorities,” Kossweiller said, and began to tick off a list.
“Yeah,” said Anders. “And some of your best friends are black, I bet. For starters, you can stop calling them minorities and call them multicultural. Maybe that’s out now, too. Koss, you approach the problem that way and you’ll just end up publishing another literary book and pissing Cinchy off.” He moved his glass around on its coaster.
“Well, what then?”
“H. H. just came in,” said Anders, looking toward the register. “Let’s ask her.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“I’ll ask her, then,” said Anders. “You stay here. Just wave when we look over, and look sexy. H. H. likes you.”
“What do you mean H. H. likes me?”
“She gave you another chance, didn’t she? The world’s like grade school, Koss, nothing but crushes. You may have to sleep with her before this is all over. Are you straight, Koss? I’ve never asked and one can’t always tell.”
“But—”
But Anders was already up. He had taken H. H. softly by the shoulder, was speaking smoothly into her ear. After a moment, he pointed over to the booth, and H. H. looked over. Kossweiller waved half-heartedly. She waved back, smiled.
After a few minutes, she went off to join a friend. Anders slid back into the booth.
“Well?” said Kossweiller.
“You’re having dinner with her,” said Anders. “Vaguely. I didn’t set anything specific up, but you probably shouldn’t wait more than a week.”
“Anders…,” said Koss.
“Mysteries,” said Anders.
“Mysteries?”
“A mystery series. A brand-new name she can pump money and publicity into. H. H. has been wanting a new mystery series to play with for a while, she says. She thinks it’ll be fun. If the books are even passable, she can make it work. She’s pleased, ergo the boss of the people will be pleased. Mysteries.”
“But I don’t read mysteries,” said Koss. “Did you actually say ergo?”
“Doesn’t matter, Koss. We’re doing this high-concept. We’re not going to go looking in the slush pile, we’re not putting out a call for manuscripts. We’re building this baby from the ground up. Like the Monkees. Except mysteries. Let’s order some lunch.”
“But it’s not even eleven.”
“Brunch, then,” said Anders. “Waiter!”
By the time they’d worked through the dizzying combination of blintzes and burgers that Anders insisted on calling brunch, it was mostly figured out. We need a snappy title, Anders had begun with, something that sticks in the head and keeps coming back.
“Foodstuffs have been done,” he said. “Cooking’s been done. ‘The Cat Who’ has been done, days of the week have been done to death. Seven deadly sins.”
“Subway stops.”
“Maybe,” said Anders. “But probably not snappy enough for H. H. You can’t woo a girl with subway stops, Koss.”
“I’m not trying to woo anybody,” said Kossweiller.
“Maybe start with a name. Something foreign but without too many consonants packed together. Nothing Eastern European or Finnish. Those goddamn Finns. Swedish?”
“All right,” said Kossweiller. “Why not?”
“Bjorn?” said Anders. “Like the tennis player? Last name has to end in son. Son says Swede better than anything.”
“Swenson?”
“Too common, too American. Verenson. Bjorn Verenson. I like it.”
“Is Verenson even a legitimate Swedish name?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Anders. “Nobody cares about that.”
“I care about that.”
“You got to stop caring, then. Remember: the three b’s. So, a Swedish detective, phlegmatic but friendly, someone people can relate to and at the same time laugh at. A slight but pleasant accent. Now titles,” said Anders. He looked up at the ceiling. “Swedes.”
“Swedes?”
“Sure,” said Anders. “Titles like Swede Eater.”
“Swede Eater? What the hell does that even mean?”
“Like weed eater, but with Swede in it. It’s clever. But maybe that one’s too clever. We’ll leave that one for late in the series. How about Blue Swede Shoes?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Have you looked at mystery titles lately? Blue Swede Shoes is good for at least fifteen thousand sales. With good marketing, a lot more. Now and Sven.”
Kossweiller groaned.
“First Bjorn Child. Now they’re really solid, Koss. Rebjorn. No, make that Bjorn Again. And how about Bjorn Free? Detective’s named Bjorn too, maybe even pass it off as Bjorn Verenson’s own experiences: ‘Based on a True Story.’ I see a TV movie, movies plural. Not Bjorn Yesterday. Bjorn Under a Wandering Star. Stillbjorn. Maybe a travel one called Bjorneo. They’re coming a mile a minute,” said Anders. “Are you writing these down?”
“You have to stop.”
Anders took out his pen, scribbled on the back of a coaster. “Now we hire some hack out of New Jersey, give him the titles and have him write the fuckers.”
“Some Swedish guy?”
Anders shrugged. “Doesn’t make any difference. Your job is saved, Koss,” he said, “and all it cost you was brunch. I’m a genius. Get the bill.”
It was a process that, once begun, Kossweiller didn’t know how to stop. Suddenly he was the editor of a fake Swedish mystery series. He and Anders met with Cinchy and H. H., who were instantly very excited. There was even talk of doing graphic-novelizations under the moniker “A Bjornographic Book.” Anders came to this meeting with the name of the person who would write them, a sixty-eight-year-old Jewish lady living in Jersey City whom he’d used in the past — for The Secret Life of Housewives, among other things. Cinchy, boss of the people, shook Koss’s hand.
“I didn’t think you could pull it off, Karse,” said Cinchy. “But you did. You’ve turned over a new leaf. You must be very proud.”
Kossweiller, as quickly as he decently could, took his hand back and left the room.
Anders had been right. The first Verenson book (First Bjorn Child) was a hit, and the second (Bjorn Again), published six months later, was even bigger. The most disturbing thing, Kossweiller felt, was that two men could sit down over drinks and in a few moments create a best-selling series. It didn’t matter who wrote it, it didn’t really matter how good it was; all that mattered was concept. Or maybe it did matter that it wasn’t too good. And he could tell from the calls he got from editors at other houses that any of them would have been happy to have Bjorn Verenson on their list, even the editors he had considered literary. It was depressing to think about.
True, it wouldn’t have been possible without H. H. and Cinchy to pump money into the books, but they got back a lot more than they had pumped in.
There was the matter, too, of H. H. Anders kept coming by to remind him he had promised her dinner.
“Actually, it was you that promised her dinner,” said Kossweiller.
“But on your behalf, Koss. It was all for you. You don’t want to go?”