“Here. I’ll give you a small peek.” She unzipped a corner of her portfolio and peeled it open for him.
Fenderson leaned in, squinting. What he could see of the artwork inside was pretty damn impressive: crisp, bold, even slightly cinematic. It wasn’t as dynamic as the stuff the big man in the Luke Skywalker outfit had been hawking earlier, but it was close. Maybe even close enough.
“Not bad, huh?” Alcott said. “Some people tell me that my work reminds them of Jack Kirby.”
Fenderson had no clue who Jack Kirby was, but if he could draw like Jennifer Alcott apparently could, he’d probably go far in the comics business.
“So,” Alcott said, zipping the portfolio back up before Fenderson could ask to see more of what it contained, “shall we go?”
Fenderson wanted to say no. He’d been hoping to partner up with somebody who was more than just another face at the Con, maybe one of the superstars sitting in on a panel or signing books for a line of people winding through the hall like an endless snake. But that hope was a long shot and Alcott was a bird in the hand. If the lady was as good as the sample she’d let him see, and she could be bought for next to nothing, he could avoid all the hassles of negotiating with a stranger by cutting a deal with her instead. Rather than a pain-in-the-ass distraction he could have done without, maybe running into Alcott like this had been a genuine stroke of luck. The kind of luck, he knew, that only came to people destined for greatness.
“Sure. Lead the way,” Fenderson said.
She drove an old shitbox Honda that would have had him laughing out loud had it not been a big step up from the ancient Toyota he’d driven down to San Diego at a crawl. The A/C was on the fritz so they had to ride around with all the windows down, Alcott’s hair blowing in her face like a damn sheep dog.
She took him to a café that sat on a corner at the feet of the old El Cortez Hotel, up in the hills above downtown where the one-way streets could make you crazy if you didn’t know the territory. The café was mundane and the place wasn’t even a hotel anymore—all the building played host to these days were business seminars and wedding receptions—so Fenderson couldn’t figure what they were doing there until they were seated at a table and Alcott explained the irony in her choice of setting. Apparently, during its infancy, Comic-Con used to be held at the El Cortez, down in a basement that was far too large for the meager turnout it was able to generate at the time. Alcott knew this because she’d been coming to the Con forever, even back then when she was just a pimply faced kid, having dreamed of drawing comic books years before the thought of being a screenwriter ever entered her mind.
Fenderson nodded and pretended to give a shit. He still couldn’t recall anything about Alcott as she’d appeared in his Learning Bridge extension class, but her mention of screenwriting gave him an idea as to how he might discretely refresh his memory. “So how’s the script going?” he asked.
“The script?”
“The one you were writing in class.”
“Oh. That,” Alcott said, clearly embarrassed the subject had come up. “I gave up on it. Everybody I showed it to said it was awful.” She flashed that eerie smile again. “Just like you did.”
“Me? Did I say that?”
“In so many words. You told the whole class. But I didn’t take it personally, because you liked to say similar things about everyone’s writing.”
Fenderson briefly considered denying it, then decided to save his breath. Of course he’d said some terrible things to the morons in that class; they’d paid their tuition to have a working professional assess their writing in an honest and straightforward manner, and he wouldn’t have been doing them any favors by killing them with kindness. The sooner they realized they’d just be muddying the waters real writers like Fenderson had to swim in, glutting the market with unsolicited screenplays that were all but unreadable, the better. Cruel? Fenderson liked to think he was simply giving them their money’s worth.
“Remind me what it was about. I’m drawing a blank,” Fenderson said.
“It’s not important. I’ve moved on. And it’s not my writing we came here to discuss anyway. It’s my abilities as a comics illustrator.”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“Why don’t you tell me a little about your novel. So I’ll know whether or not it’d even be worth your while to see more of my work.”
Rather than argue, Fenderson gave her the bare bones of it, as careful as ever not to say more than was absolutely necessary. People were always on the lookout for what Fenderson had to offer, a fresh, new idea with endless commercial possibilities, and even a nobody like Alcott could get him ripped off if he took her too far into his confidence.
She listened to his pitch without comment, sipping her tea and picking at her salad, her face as devoid of expression as a porcelain doll’s. If he hadn’t known better, Fenderson would have thought she was bored by it all, until he wrapped things up and she nodded her head and said, “Wow. That’s really something.”
“It is, right? It’ll make a hell of a movie, but I thought selling it as a graphic novel first would be the best way to get a film deal done.”
“Sure.”
“Which brings us back to you and your work. I’d love to have you onboard as the illustrator, but I haven’t seen enough of what you can do to know whether or not you’d be right for the project. Have I?”
Without further encouragement, Alcott opened the portfolio propped against the chair beside her and eased a page out of it, handling it with the care of an obstetrician delivering a newborn. It was the pencil-and-ink page she’d allowed Fenderson to have a look at earlier; the text seemed to suggest some kind of weird superhero/sci-fi hybrid. The words meant nothing to Fenderson but the artwork was striking, proving that his initial impression, based on just the first panel, had been accurate. Alcott was damn good. Certainly good enough to illustrate his proposal. And beyond that, who gave a rat’s ass? Once he had his novel sold, the publisher could sign Alcott up or replace her with whomever they liked.
“Yeah. I think you’re my illustrator,” Fenderson said.
Alcott took her artwork back and returned it to her portfolio. “Wonderful.”
He thought she’d be excited, but she almost looked more sad than happy.
“Now, about what I can pay you …” he started to say.
But Alcott cut him off: “I know. It won’t be much. I’m just a beginner and you’re a real pro. I’m sure whatever you offer me will be more than fair.”
Fenderson couldn’t believe it. This had to be fate, the Big Break he’d been waiting all his life to get. There was no other explanation for how easily it was all falling into place. He would have felt better if the fog lifted and he could remember something, anything, about this frumpy broad from her time as a student in his classroom, just so he’d have a frame of reference as he continued to play her for the fool he was counting on her to be. But what he knew about her now was enough, at least for the moment: she was talented, hungry, and willing to work with him at any cost.
“Cheers,” Fenderson said, lifting his beer mug.
“Cheers,” Alcott replied, tapping it with her water glass. And now the smile that stretched across her face seemed to hold no hidden meaning at all; it was just the smile of a lady on the brink of having her greatest dream come true.
“Ken Fenderson. Wow,” she said. “Do you know how long I’ve been hoping to run into you again?”
Fenderson couldn’t remember much of anything after that. He ordered another beer, went to the bathroom, they finished their meals and asked for the check.
Then, boom, the next thing he knew, he was in Alcott’s apartment, or what he assumed was her apartment. Between the dim lighting and the excruciating pain he was in, it was hard to be sure where he was.