As a last-ditch effort to salvage the Max Fisher story, her career and — who was she kidding? — her life, she emailed her literary idol and old friend Laura Lippman, asking Laura if she would appreciate the honor of co-rewriting her self-published true crime book as a novel. In her delusion, Paula seriously believed Lippman would have to be an idiot to not jump at the chance and was shocked when Lippman ignored her notes, which, in retrospect, was not all that surprising since the last time she’d seen Lippman at that B&N in Manhattan, security had to remove Paula from the store. Bounced from a bookstore — oh, the irony!
But Paula didn’t give up trying to contact Lippman. She friended her on Facebook under a fake name — Megan Abbott. She knew Lippman had blurbed one of Abbott’s books and would accept the request.
Lippman did but only to IM: I know who you are and if you don’t stop harassing me, I’m calling the police.
Paula IM’d back, but Lippman had already blocked her.
Well, looked like the Lippman bridge had officially been burned. The last kick in the balls, Paula saw that Laura was co-writing with Reed Farrell Coleman. Coleman? Seriously? That guy truly had no shame, was there anyone he wouldn’t co-write with? Was he through writing with the Irish guy, the friend of Colin Farrell? What the fuck ever.
Paula felt dissed, marginalized, was ready to quit writing, or even jump from the Williamsburg Bridge.
Then, one morning, she had an idea that would change her life forever.
Swedish books were all the rage. After Stieg Larsson mania you just put an unpronounceable name on the cover, set the book in twenty-below weather in Sweden, and boom, Knopf was wining and dining you, David Fincher was filming you.
Simple, right?
She remembered how Max Fisher had told her that he’d learned Spanish from Berlitz tapes, so, inspired by the Max, she got Berlitz Swedish tapes. The first three words she learned:
book was boken
bestseller was saljare
money was pengar
Shit, she was gonna make some serious fucking pengar. So much that someday Lee Child would be coming to her parties at the mystery conferences.
“Show me the fucking pengar!” Paula shouted so loud her roommate banged on the wall.
She stayed up all night, reading translations of Swedish literary blogs. She came across info about an apparently bitter, shunned writer named... wait for it... Lars Stiegsson. At first she thought, okay had to be a dumb joke, like the Drunk Otto Penzler Twitter feed. But, nope, turned out Lars Stiegsson was the real deal. Claimed he’d written The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo, and Larsson, a rival from grade school, had ripped him off, trying to capitalize on the Lars Stiegsson name recognition by knocking off Lars’ work, and his name.
Sounded crazy, insane and Paula wondered if the years of rejection and torment she’d experienced as an ex-St. Martin’s Press author had finally taken its toll on her, if she’d officially lost it. But, nope, it was all true. She did more research, discovered that Stiegsson had written twenty-seven crime novels pre-Stieg Larsson. Stiegsson claimed that Larsson had read an unpublished manuscript of Stiegsson’s Girl Tattoo and was so jealous that he penned Dragon Tattoo. Larsson got the last laugh from the grave of course, as his books sold tens of millions of copies, and Stiegsson had disappeared from the publishing scene.
As dawn approached, an idea was forming for Paula, a way to get to the top of the mystery genre.
Stiegsson was near impossible to contact. Some in the blogosphere even speculated that he was dead. Then Paula met up in Manhattan with an old friend and ex-flame from her straight days — British noir writer Maxim Jakubowski. If you needed a contact to the underworld of crime fiction, Jakubowski was your go-to guy. Sure enough Maxim had an email address for Stiegsson and Paula was able to contact him at his home in Oxelösund, Sweden. They exchanged a few emails and then arranged a time to Skype.
Paula was wearing something low-cut, showing lots of cleavage. She was surprised at how decrepit Stiegsson was — scraggly beard and deep circles under his eyes. In the publicity photos on his old books he was always smiling and looked so debonair. She half-wondered if she was Skyping with Stiegsson’s Unabomber brother.
“It’s so great to finally meet you,” Paula said. “I’m so excited about the prospect of co-writing with such a respected Swedish author.”
Stiegsson maintained his sour glare and asked, “Is there money in the deal?”
“Yes,” Paula said. “I mean no. I mean not yet. I mean, I have several publishers in mind, it’s really just a matter of finding the right fit.”
“You don’t answer question,” Stiegsson said. Then he said very slowly, “Is... there... money?”
“Yes, there’s pengar, there’s pengar,” Paula said.
Stiegsson’s glare asked, Who are you kidding?
Figuring she might as well shoot straight with the disheveled Swede, Paula said, “Okay, there’s no publisher yet, but with a writer of my caliber teaming up with a writer of your caliber there will certainly be lots of interest.”
Stiegsson was staring grimly. Did anybody ever fucking smile in Sweden? If you tickled a Swedish baby would it glare back at you?
Finally Stiegsson said, “So I will get this straight. You have no money, you have no publisher, and you expect me, Lars Stiegsson, to write book with you?”
“Yes,” Paula said.
“Why you want me?” He leaned closer to the camera, making him look even uglier. “You’re famous American writer, friend of Laura Lippman. Why not ask her? Why not Dennis Lehane?”
“Actually I considered Den,” Paula said, “but we had a, well, falling out. Something about how he thought I was stalking Laura. I was stalking her, but that’s a whole other story. Besides, I think Den is too much of a moralist for this tale. I think your existential edginess would be a perfect fit for the material.”
She tasted vomit.
“Stop shitting in my pants with me, or shitting with the bulls or however you Americans say it,” Stiegsson raged. “You want me because I’m Swedish. Because you think it will sell your stupid little book to have Swedish name on cover.”
“That’s not the only reason,” Paula said, hoping the bullshit wasn’t too obvious. “I also am also truly a big admirer of your work.”
“My work,” Stiegsson spewed. “Name one book of mine you know.”
“Freeze My Margarita?” Paula said. Wait, shit, that was Lauren Henderson. “Or, no, I mean, The Black Rubber Dress?” Shit, Henderson again.
“You don’t know my books,” Stiegsson said. “My books never been translated. You know why? Because Stieg Larsson stole everything from me. I knew Stieg when he was poor homeless man, penniless, has no books. He see me, Lars Stiegsson, with great success, and what does he do? He steals everything from me.”
Paula could barely understand what this grizzled nut was saying, but she said, “I know exactly where you’re coming from. But that’s precisely why you need to do this book. To prove that you’re the real talent, not Stiegsson, I mean Larsson... You know what I mean.”
“You know,” Stiegsson said, almost smiling, “you are very attractive woman.”
Oh gawd, the little Rumplestiltskin wasn’t hitting on her, was he?
“Usually Lars not attracted to American women, usually Lars only like Mediterranean women, the dark skin, not bullshit pale skin like here in Sweden. But you’re beautiful pale woman. You know who you look like?”