“I’m not hurting for money.”
“Who said you were? I know all about you. Three novels and a brownstone and a sports car. What is it, a Porsche or something?”
“A Mazda RX-7,” Sandy said curtly.
“Yeah, and you live with a realtor, so don’t lecture me about selling out, Sandy old boy.”
“What do you want, Jared?” Sandy said, stung. “I’m getting tired of sparring.”
“We’ve got a story that would be perfect for you. We want to play it up big, too, and I thought maybe you’d be interested. It’s a murder.”
“What are you doing now, Jared, trying to turn the Hog into True Detective? Forget it, Jared, I don’t do crime shit.”
“Jamie Lynch was the guy that got himself murdered.”
The name of the victim brought Sandy up short, and a wisecrack died in his mouth. “The promoter?”
“None other.”
Sandy sat back, took a swig of beer, and mulled on that. Lynch had been out of the news for years, a has-been even before Sandy was fired from the Hog, but in his day he had been an important man in the rock subculture. It could be an interesting story. Lynch had always been surrounded by controversy. He’d worn two hats: promoter and manager. As a promoter, he’d organized some of the biggest tours and concerts of his day. He’d ensured their success by booking in the bands he controlled as manager, and by denying those bands to rival concerts. With hot talent like American Taco, the Fevre River Packet Company, and the Nazgûl under his thumb, he’d been a man to reckon with. At least up until 1971, when the disaster at West Mesa, the breakup of the Nazgûl, and a couple of drug busts started him on the long slide down. “What happened to him?” Sandy asked.
“It’s pretty kinky,” Jared said. “Somebody busted into his place up in Maine, dragged him into his office, and offed him there. They tied him to his desk, and, like, sacrificed him. Cut his heart out. He had one after all. Remember the old jokes? Ah, never mind. Anyhow, the whole scene was kind of grotesque. Mansonesque, y’know? Well, that made me think of the series you did back around the time that Sharon Tate got offed, you know, that investigation of . . . what did you call it?”
“The dark side of counterculture,” Sandy said dryly. “We won awards for that series, Jared.”
“Yeah, right. I remembered it was good. So I thought of you. This is right up your alley. Real Sixties, y’know? What we’re thinking of is a long meaty piece, like those in-depth things you used to go for. We’ll use the murder as a news peg, see, and you could investigate it a bit, see maybe if you could kick up something the police miss, y’know, but mostly use it as a springboard for a sort of retrospective on Jamie Lynch and his promotions, all his groups and his concerts and his times and like that. Maybe you could look up some of the guys from his old groups, the Fevre River gang and the Nazgûl and all, interview ’em and work in some where-are-they-now kind of stuff. It would be sort of a nostalgia piece, I figure.”
“Your readership thinks the Beatles were the band Paul McCartney was with before he got Wings,” Sandy said. “They won’t even know who Jamie Lynch was, for Crissakes.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. We still have lots of our old readers. The kind of feature I see on this Lynch business will be real popular. Now, can you write it or not?”
“Of course I can write it. The question is, why should I?”
“We’ll pay expenses, and our top rate. That ain’t nothing to sneeze at, either. You won’t have to sell the paper on street-corners afterward. We’re beyond that.”
“Terrific,” Sandy said. He wanted to tell Jared to go get stuffed, but much as he hated to admit it, the assignment had a certain perverse attractiveness. It would be nice to be in the Hog again. The paper was his baby, after all; it had turned into a pretty wayward and superficial kid, but it was his, nonetheless, and still had a lingering hold on his loyalties. Besides, if he did this Lynch piece, it would help restore some of the old Hog quality, if only for an instant. If he passed, someone else would write the article, and it would be more trash. “I tell you what,” Sandy said. “You guarantee me that I’ll get cover billing with this, and you put it in writing that the piece will be printed just the way I write it, not one word changed, no cuts, nothing, and maybe I’ll consider it.”
“Sandy, you want it, you got it. I wouldn’t think of messing around with your stuff. Can you have the piece in by Tuesday?”
Sandy laughed raucously. “Shit, no. In-depth, you said. I want as much time as I need on this. Maybe I’ll have it in within a month. Maybe not.”
“The news peg will go stale,” Jared whined.
“So what? A short piece in your news section will do for now. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right. Those are the conditions, take ’em or leave ’em.”
“Anybody but you, I’d tell ’em to get shoved,” Patterson replied. “But hell, why not? We go way back. You got it, Sandy.”
“My agent will call and get everything in writing.”
“Hey!” Jared said. “After all we been through, you want things in writing? How many times did I bail you out of jail? How many times did we share a joint?”
“Lots,” Sandy said. “Only they were always my joints, as I recall. Jared, seven years ago, you gave me three hours’ notice and bus fare in lieu of severance pay. So this time we’ll get a written contract. My agent will call.” He hung up before Patterson had a chance to argue, turned on the answering machine to catch any attempted call-backs, and leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head and a faintly bemused smile on his face. He wondered just what the hell he was getting himself into this time.
DYING OF THE LIGHT
A Bantam Spectra Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Baen Book edition published February 1990
Bantam Spectra trade paperback edition / October 2004
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 1977 by George R. R. Martin
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eISBN: 978-0-553-90097-2
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