Oh, the other thing with Stiegsson — he was constantly trying to have cybersex with her. In the Skype sessions he’d say, “Please, one time, your naked breasts, I save screenshot.” No matter how many times she told him she was gay it didn’t seem to register. Didn’t they have dykes in Sweden?
Though there were times she regretted the decision to write with the horny Swede, they somehow hit their stride in the book while writing the chapters with Dillon and Angela — Stiegsson, maybe from personal experience, did write great psychos — and they seriously got in gear writing the chapter where Bobby Rosa, the paraplegic, busts into the hotel room and takes the damning photo of Max and Angela. That’s when Paula sent Lars an excited email of her own in the middle of the night — I have the title: how about BUST??? — and after that the book seemed to take on a life of its own.
As the publication date approached, expectations were low. Lars wasn’t even planning to come to America for the book launch as there was no money for a tour. Paula had done many St. Martin’s tours, on her dime, for low-print-run books, and knew this was a surefire way to get dropped and go broke — a double kick in the cunt. Charles had arranged for a few features, including one by Tom Callahan in Penthouse. Paula was disappointed that they didn’t ask her to pose in the buff — it prompted her to write a long tirade about ageism in the pictorial biz on her blog — but it was a nice shout-out for the book.
Then came starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, and even one from the noir hater at Booklist. Thanks to Ken Tucker, the book was number one on EW’s Must List and the TV rights were purchased by Darren Becker, an A-list Hollywood producer, and the show was immediately set up at Lionsgate, the studio behind some of the biggest TV shows and movies — Mad Men, The Follower, The Hunger Games, Blitz.
A few days later, a call from Janet Ortiz, Paula’s new literary agent: “I have some great news for you, Paula. Bust is debuting at Number 7 on New York Times bestseller list.”
Paula wasn’t shocked. The news really only proved what she’d always known about herself. For years she’d been a literary sensation trapped in the skin of a midlist author, and now this was her time to shine.
With number one on the list in sight, Hard Case had arranged for Lars to come to the city after all, for press interviews and to read at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square, and then go on to events in several other cities.
Paula got a call from Charles: “Can you turn Bust into a trilogy?”
Paula replied: “Does Reed Coleman co-write?”
Paula revealed that Bust would become a trilogy in a New York Times Magazine feature, saying that the second book in the series would be called Slide and the third The Max. Hard Case was already busily designing the covers.
The day Darren Becker’s check cleared, it was goodbye Williamsburg couch, hello loft in DUMBO. And it was goodbye IKEA, hello Bobby Flay’s decorator.
Celebrate? You better fucking believe it. Dressed to kill, short black leather mini, the drill heels, white silk top and short leather jacket, looked in the mirror, cooed, “Girl, I could bed you myself, you hot author, you.”
There were rumors Bust was the frontrunner for the Edgar Award for best paperback original, and Paula was already preparing her speech, a blend of humility and humor, finishing with, “Lippman, you my bitch now.”
At a bar in Bushwick. Dangerous? She sure hoped so. Had her can of pepper spray and a cute silver .22 she’d got from a Russian wino. She knew about the bar from Crimespree Magazine, Jon Jordan wrote how Open Road Media used it to film mystery writers at play.
What-the-fuck-ever.
Place was hopping. She ordered a large vodka, slim-line tonic, moved to the rear to see if maybe she might set a scene from Slide in here. A sharp-looking guy literally handed her a joint as he cruised by; it was that kind of evening and she thought, as she inhaled deep, she might persuade Charles to have the next launch party here, get that street vibe jumping. Show that even though she was literary now, she could still slum it with the mystery writers.
Her mind was on overdrive, she could already see Stephen King writing an intro to the ninth edition of Bust, or Stevie, as she would then be calling him.
Then she felt eyes on her and turned to see a goth, or at least a chick in all black, glaring at her.
The fuck with that.
Paula was armed in every sense. As a now-successful writer, she was bulletproof, snarled, “Help you with something?” Paused, then added, “B... I... T... C... H.”
The woman — girl, really — moved closer. She had jet-black hair, deep brown eyes and a body to melt for. She asked, “Did you just call me bitch?”
Paula felt a frisson, as the A-list might term it, cooed, “Just to get your attention, babe.”
Indecision hovered over the girl for a moment, then curiosity won. She asked, “Are you like... somebody?”
Paula gave her best smile, part warmth but mostly manipulation, said, “Oh, you have no idea.”
The girl seemed to visibly relax, said, “Oh good, I’m somebody too.”
Paula seriously doubted it, the chances of two celebrities in one dive, like, hello?
But she was feeling mellow from the weed, so went, “Really...” It came out almost British: Railly! “...and pray tell, child, who that is?”
Summoning up all her energy, the girl said, “The forgotten one, the invisible member of the most famous American family.”
Paula thought, the Obamas? No. Surely not the Brady Bunch? No, those chicks had to be grandmothers by now.
She fake yawned, went, “I give up.”
The girl stared at her dainty feet, whispered, “Kat... Kat Kardashian.”
Paula would’ve laughed, thought it was a bad pickup line, if, holy shit, the chick didn’t look like a combo of Kim and Khloe and a little Kourtney in there too. And, yessirree, she had the family big ass. Paula was a fan of a nice derriere.
Though it was still hard to believe to believe that a Kardashian was out looking for rough trade at a dyke dive bar in Bushwick.
“You’re really one of them?” Paula asked.
Kat rattled off a story of how she’d been estranged from her family for years.
“I wasn’t into money and material things so they rejected me. Since high school I’ve been living on a kibbutz in Israel. You don’t believe me, look...” She took out her iPhone and thumbed through old photos from her childhood and, son of a bitch, there was the young Kat, with Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, and the dad — the one whose claim to fame was that he’d helped Marcia Clark fuck up the O.J. case — on exotic beach vacations and ski trips. There were more recent pictures of her on a kibbutz, hugging a rabbi.