One Fifth Avenue

“Vintage,” the kid said. “There’s a difference.”

Lola gathered her papers and stood up.

“Leaving?” the kid asked. “So soon?” He stood up and fished around in the back pocket of his hideous plaid pants. They were not even Burberry plaid, Lola thought, which she could have excused. He handed her a card. THAYER CORE, it read. In the bottom right-hand corner was a 212 phone number. “Now that you know my name, will you tell me yours?” he said.

“Why would I do that?” Lola asked.

“New York’s a tricky place,” he said. “And I’m the joker.”

9

A few weeks later, James Gooch sat in the office of his publisher. “Books are like movies now,” Redmon Richardly said, waving his hand as if to dismiss the whole lot. “You get as much publicity as you can, have a big first week, and then drop off from there. There’s no traction anymore. Not like the old days. The audience wants something new every week. And then there are the big corporations. All they care about is the bottom line. They push the publishers to get new product out there. Makes them feel like their people are doing something. It’s heinous, corporations controlling creativity. It’s worse than government propaganda.”

“Uh-huh,” James said. He looked around Redmon’s new office and felt sad. The old office used to be in a town house in the West Village, filled with manuscripts and books and frayed Oriental carpets that Redmon had taken from his grandmother’s house in the South. There was an old down-filled yellow couch that you sat on while you waited to see Redmon, and you leafed through a pile of magazines and watched the pretty girls go in and out. Redmon was considered one of the greats back then. He published new talent and edgy fiction, and his writers were going to be the future giants. Redmon made people believe in publishing for a while—up until about 1998, James reckoned, when the Internet began to take over.

James looked past Redmon and out the plate-glass window. There was a view of the Hudson River in the distance, but it was small consolation for the cold, generic space.

“What we’re publishing now is an entertainment product,” Redmon continued. Redmon hadn’t lost his ability to pontificate about nothing, James thought, and found comfort in this fact. “Oakland’s a perfect example. He’s not so great anymore, but it doesn’t matter. He still sells copies—even for him, not as many. But it’s the same story with everyone.” Redmon threw his hands into the air. “There’s no art anymore. Fiction used to be an art form. No more. Good, bad, it doesn’t matter. The public is only interested in the topic. ‘What’s it about?’ they ask. ‘Does it matter?’ I say. ‘It’s about life. All great books are about only one thing—life.’ But they don’t get that anymore. They want to know the topic. If it’s about shoes or abducted babies, they want to read it. And we don’t do that, James. We couldn’t even if we wanted to.”

“We certainly couldn’t,” James agreed.

“’Course not,” Redmon said. “But what I’m saying is…Well, you’ve written a great book, James, an actual novel, but I don’t want you to be disappointed. We’ll definitely get on the list, right away, I hope. But as to how long we’ll stay on the list…”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” James said. “I didn’t write the book to sell copies. I wrote it because it’s a story I needed to tell.” And I won’t be corrupted by Redmon’s cynicism, he thought. “I still believe in the public. The public knows the difference. And they’ll buy what’s good,” he added stubbornly.

“I don’t want you to have your heart broken,” Redmon said.

“I’m forty-eight years old,” James said. “My heart’s been broken for about forty years.”

“There is good news,” Redmon said. “Very good news. Your agent and I agreed that I should be the one to tell you. I can offer you a million-dollar advance on your next book. Corporations are bad, but they’re also good. They have money, and I intend to spend it.”

James was so shocked, he couldn’t move. Had he heard correctly?

“You’ll get a third on signing,” Redmon continued, as if he gave away million-dollar advances all the time. “With that and the money we’ll get from the iStores’ placement, I think you can expect to have a very good year.”

“Great,” James said. He still wasn’t sure how to react. Should he jump out of his chair and do the watusi?

But Redmon was being calm about it. “What will you do with the money?” he asked.

“Save it. For Sam’s college education,” James said.

“That will about use it up,” Redmon agreed. “Six, seven hundred thousand dollars—what does it get you these days? After taxes…Christ. And with those guys on Wall Street buying Picassos for fifty million.” He put up his hands as if to push away this reality. “It’s our new world order, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” James agreed. “But one could always pursue the teenage fantasy. Buy a little sailboat in the Caribbean and disappear for a few years.”

“Not me,” Redmon said. “I’d be bored in two days. I can hardly stand to take a va

cation. I like cities.”

“Right,” James said. He looked at Redmon. How lucky to know one’s own mind. Redmon was always pleased with himself, James thought. While James did not, he realized, know his own mind at all.

“I’ll walk you out,” Redmon said. Standing, he made a face and put his hand to his jaw. “Damn tooth,” he said. “Probably needs another root canal. How are your teeth? It’s extraordinary, getting old. It is as hard as people say.” Exiting the office, they came out into a maze of cubicles. “But there are advantages,” Redmon continued, his overweening confidence firmly back in place. “For instance, we know everything now. We’ve seen it all before. We know there’s nothing new. Have you noticed that? The only thing that changes is the technology.”

“Except we can’t understand the technology,” James said.

“Bullshit,” Redmon said. “It’s still a bunch of buttons. It’s only a matter of knowing which ones to press.”

“Like the panic button that blows up the world.”