Free Gun Church by Reed Farrel Coleman

called?” I asked, pretending I’d noticed the red message light flashing. I hadn’t.
    “You haven’t listened to the message yet?”
    “Come on, Donovan. You know how it is with me and the phone. The last time someone called with good news, the Mets won the World Series.”
    “You’re an asshole.”
    “Yeah, well, I’ve spent the better part of my life lending credence to that assertion.”
    “Shut up and listen. Your second fifteen minutes of fame might pay off.”
    “A reality show? Survival of the Fittest Has-beens? I’ll kick Webster’s little black ass.”
    “Very cute, but no. Besides, my money would be on the dwarf.”
    “Isn’t it your job to be on my side, Meg?”
    “It’s a lonely place, being on your side. My job’s to tell you the truth.”
    “Agents and the truth, now there’s unexplored territory.”
    “If you haven’t managed to alienate me after all these years, you’re not going to do it now.”
    “Okay, Meg, what are we talking about?”
    “A book deal.”
    Book
deal
: those two words made me weak. If I’d been born with a vagina, it would have been wet.
    “What kind of book deal?” I asked.
    “Haskell Brown at Travers Legacy has had a big Eighties retrospective series in the works for a year or so and—”
    “A year, huh? And this is the first I’m hearing about it?”
    “Don’t be a dunce cap, Weiler.”
    “So I wasn’t part of the original retrospective.”
    “Very good. You should take the
Jeopardy
home challenge. Now can we talk money?”
    “Who was in the original deal?”
    “Don’t do this to yourself, Kip.”
    “If I don’t, who will? Names, ranks, and serial numbers, please.”
    “The usual suspects: Bart, Nutly, Kate Silva, Marty Castronieves … ”
    I couldn’t believe how much hearing those names hurt me. Surely the omission of my name should have come as no shock. I think maybe it was that I knew the Kipster had once been able to write circles around them all, even his Highness, Marty Castronieves.
    “Earth to Planet Weiler, are you reading me? Over.”
    “Sorry, Meg. I was lost there for a minute. Do the others know I wasn’t part of the original package?”
    She hesitated. “Come on, Kip, of course they know. Publishing makes
Oedipus
Rex
look like a play about distant cousins. Now can we stop talking about what was and get to what is? This could be a nice paycheck for us both.”
    “Sure.”
    Meg wasn’t exaggerating. Travers Legacy was willing to pay me big bucks for my backlist, which—not having published a novel in about fifteen years—was all the wares I had to sell.
    “They’re going to do big print runs on your first three novels and might send you guys out on tour. Lots of press, lots of stores, even late night TV. Think of it: you, Bart, and Nutly back on the road together, and you could get away from that dreadful Garden State Brickface Community College.”
    “Yeah, it could be just like one of those British Invasion tours with Freddie and the Dreamers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and the Swinging Blue Jeans.”
    “Weiler, this is your chance to get out of Dodge.”
    “Maybe I don’t want to get out of Dodge.”
    “What?”
    “It’s a rights deal, not a book deal,” I said.
    “It’s a money deal.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What’s not to know? No one’s pounding down the door for you, honey. I’m the one who parlayed your saving those kids into this deal and, trust me, it wasn’t easy. You may have really straightened yourself out, but it’s the Kipster people remember in this town. Around here, you’re still that boorish, coked-up horn dog who turned his silk purse talent into a sow’s asshole.”
    “And,” I said, “if the sales numbers were good on
Clown
Car
Bounce
,
The Devil’s Understudy
, and
Curley
Takes
Five
, they’d still be lining up to suck my dick.”
    “If my bowling ball had square corners, it wouldn’t roll. If, if, if … ”
    “Look, Meg, I’m not ungrateful and I know it’s a