Mike Nelson's Death Rat! by Michael J. Nelson

rubbing his stomach. No. Make me, lady.
    Besides, each Dogwood book was nothing if not new. Each word was hand-selected from the hundreds of thousands of words available at any given time. Its placement in the Dogwood firmament was not fickle, not based on past successes, not put there by rote experience. It was selected fresh, each and every time, you hockey-loving rube! What do you want from me, stark Russian novels set in gulags? Moist Southern gothic? Military techno-fiction, like that idiot Bunt Casey? Bunt Casey who, when he dons one of those ridiculous—and too tight, mind you—flight suits, actually stuffs to his advantage, the poor, insecure, underendowed idiot!
    No, Mrs. Sweatpants. You’ll get Dogwood and like it, do you hear?
    A S HE CRUISED past the timidly seedy shops of East Lake Street, Jack Ryback wrestled with his conflicting emotions. In part he was ecstatic over the sale of his book, yet he was also severely apprehensive over the fact that when he’d called Ponty to tell him the news, Ponty had cut him off abruptly, then given him an unknown address and told him to show up there at two o’clock the next afternoon. He was to ask for “Earl.” Jack was not used to going to mysterious addresses on East Lake Street and asking for unknown people by name. Earls in general, he felt, were not to be trusted. Those lurking about at the old buildings and shops across 35W at two in the afternoon waiting to be asked for by name were especially suspect.
    He parked his Buick Somerset on a side street, found the address he needed, and entered the narrow building, a pool hall called The Rack, situated between a massage parlor disguised as the “Utopia Health Club” and a store selling military memorabilia. Inside, there were three people: a middle-aged woman behind a counter reading a book, a man in a dirty T-shirt lining up a rail shot, and, sitting on a bench along the wall with his hands on his knees, Ponty, inexplicably decked out in a pair of stiff new blue jeans, cowboy boots, an embroidered gabardine western shirt with pearl snap buttons, and, pasted on his upper lip, a large, crepe-hair, “cookie duster”–style mustache. Jack wondered briefly if there were any conceivable way that Ponty could look more uncomfortable and out of place, but his effort yielded no fruit. He strode up to him.
    â€œAh, good, you’ve gone mad,” he said.
    â€œQuiet. Sit down.”
    â€œEarl?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œPonty, why are you Earl?”
    â€œSit down.”
    Jack sat down next to him.
    â€œWell?” Ponty asked.
    â€œ Death Rat . . . is officially sold,” Jack said, patting the breast pocket of his jacket.
    â€œYes!”
    They embraced briefly and clumsily, simultaneously hopping excitedly up and down on their bench, before parting just as clumsily. The man in the dirty T-shirt looked over at them.
    â€œFor the amount we discussed?” Ponty asked, his voice quite low.
    â€œWhat?” Jack whispered.
    â€œThe amount? For the amount we discussed?”
    Jack narrowed his eyes in thought. “I don’t remember what that was the last time we talked.”
    â€œIt was—” Ponty began, before stopping himself and looking around the pool hall with great suspicion. Then, with some difficulty, due to the snug fit and fresh-off-the-rack stiffness of his boot-cut jeans, he reached into his back pocket and fished out his wallet. He produced a short stack of business cards from a subpocket of the wallet and shuffled through them, peering at each side, dismissing one, then moving to the next, finally finding one that seemed to satisfy him. Jack looked on in confusion as Ponty then patted his chest, produced a ballpoint pen from his right breast pocket, and leaned over to write on the card. Ponty could get nothing from his pen, so he shook it, tried again, and, when it failed, touched the tip to his tongue and tried again. It would not