[Steven Lyle Jordan]

7: The E-book Author

Gail had seen the dog coming, too. Without hesitation, she pivoted on a heel, leaned back, threw her arms out and caught the dog on the fly around its midsection. The momentum caused her and the dog to spin completely about on her planted foot, and when she stopped spinning, she was laughing, and the dog was happily licking her face like she was made of milk-bones. “Hi, Frosty! How’s my good boy? You’re such a good watchdog, yes you are!”

After a few more seconds of this, Gail put the dog down, pausing a moment to brush the dirt off of her suit, while the dog came over to me. He got up on his hind legs and leaned into me, sniffing at my chest (because that was as high as he could reach) and giving me one of those looks that tells you, if you were a foot shorter, you’d be getting the milk-bone treatment, too.

Apparently having bestowed the Good Frosty Seal of Approval on me, he then dismounted and headed for the front door, waiting for me and Gail to meet him there. He barked twice at the door while he waited, and by the time we got to the landing, the door opened.

Inside was a tall, lanky guy with stylishly-tousled black hair, wearing shorts and a T-shirt with the Jeff Wayne War of the Worlds album cover art on it. He looked like that “Deiter” guy from the Volkswagon commercials. He saw Gail, and opened the screen, allowing her to step in (after Frosty), and giving her a fraternal hug and a kiss.

Then he looked up at me and Pete. “So, these are the guys?”

Gail, in response, nodded at me. “He’s the guy.”

He looked at Pete next. “Isn’t that your ex?”

Gail shrugged. “Yeah, but he might be useful anyway.”

Pete narrowed his eyes at her. “After that, I’d wait in the car, but I’m afraid I’ll be caught in it if it shrinks in the rain.”

Fritz finally smiled, and waved his hand. “Come on in.”

Fritz’s place was relatively clean and sparsely-furnished, not a lot of bric-a-brac. Against the wall of the living room was an inexpensive LCD TV, a sofa facing it, and a coffee table between them. The dining room had a round table and four simple chairs. In one corner of the living room was a corner devoted to a desk, the laptop sitting on it, and a file cabinet next to it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the contents of the house as you walked in. No throw rugs, magazines on the tables, football by the door, car keys on a hook, or even pictures on the walls. This guy could teach Spartans what “Spartan” means.

He waved us at the dining room table, and asked, “Anyone want a Dos Ex?” Pete and I said sure, and he went to the kitchen, returning a few seconds later with three open bottles. He asked Gail again if she wanted anything, but she indicated she had to go back to work, so she wouldn’t drink anything. We all sat down at the table, and Fritz leaned back in the chair, which creaked just a bit underneath him. Frosty bravely curled up behind Fritz’s leaning chair and dozed off.

“So,” I said, “you’re trying to push a sci-fi e-book.” It came out sounding lame, like I was judging him, which I hadn’t meant it to.

But Fritz just shrugged. “Yeah, I know it sounds lame.” (I was gonna have to check my inner monologues for leaks.) “But if you know how to write ‘em, you can get quite a following going.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “Have you sold e-books before?”

“Yeah,” he said. “My last book was released as an e-book after the paperback came out. It sold some, but the hardback and paperback had already grabbed most of the sales, and my publisher wouldn’t let me discount the e-book enough to get any good numbers of its own.”

“But now you’re going without your publisher,” I said, and he nodded. “So what’s the real problem here?”

Fritz paused. As a web guy, you have to know how to listen to clients, what they say, and what they don’t say. When they say things that sound overly simple, it usually means they don’t know how something works. When they get overly technical, it means they know how it works, but they don’t want to be bothered to do it themselves. And when they get quiet, it means there’s something besides web building going on.

“Are you expecting trouble from someone?” I ventured.

Fritz looked at me, and I knew I struck nerve. “My mortgage guys,” he finally said.

I could tell by the look on Pete’s face that he made the same notation of his words as I did. “Mortgage guys? As in, not a company?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Fritz said. “Just some local guys with money… sort of the neighborhood’s ‘unofficial bank.’ But when things go wrong, they don’t cut you as much slack as the bank.”

“Loan sharks,” Pete named them. He glanced at me. “Trying to move up in the world.”

“And they know,” Fritz added, “that if they can get me out of here, they can sell this place for twice what I bought it for in this market. They’ve been buying up and reselling all kinds of properties up here in Californian Hills… that’s the name of the neighborhood. They already know about my e-book plans, and they got tech guys of their own. Based on what I’ve heard of their IT savvy, they’re likely to set up a DOS attack on my site. Anything to make sure I get little to nothing from the sales.”

I nodded, thinking hard. Threatening the guy with a DOS attack. There must have been some kind of revenge-karma at work here, and it was certainly pushing my buttons. “Is the book online anywhere yet? Is there any chance they have the book already?”

“No,” Fritz said, and he reached into his T-shirt and fished out a small device I recognized. It was a USB storage key, but one with a powerful biometric encryption system in it… you needed a fingerprint and a password to open it. “The book’s in here, and I haven’t put in online yet. I haven’t even e-mailed it to anyone, other than the copyright office for registration.” He stuffed the key back into his shirt. “Can you help me?”

I looked at Pete and Gail. “I think so,” I said. “I need to know a little more about the e-book first. But if your ‘guys’ are that intent on getting you, they might have the place bugged. Let’s do some travelling.”