Chapter Two

FODNOST: Finger Of Death, No Saving Throw

March 2014

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ LibriCon 2014 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

PR 5

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Special Events ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

SHOUT OUT to Cassandra Talmadge-Mallard of Papyrus Books for stepping up and rescuing our Authors' Events! In addition to the scheduled autograph sessions, we will be offering a private high tea with the authors on Saturday. Tickets strictly limited to 150; reservations open at midnight on 3/19/14 (Eastern Time). Reservations close at midnight (Eastern Time) on 5/1/14 (earlier if sold out). Limit of 2 tickets per request. Tickets must be paid for at time of reservation. If there are enough requests on wait list, a second tea (also 150 limit) will be scheduled on Sunday.

Want some cheese with that whine? A very, VERY special private party is scheduled on Friday. Cheese and W(h)ine cocktail hour with the authors. Firm limit of 75. Adults/under 21 with parent/guardian only; under 13 not allowed, period.

Murder in the Ballroom: details to be announced in a special progress report. Watch your email!

I was starting to wish Melanie hadn't failed in her method of ending her marriage. At least she would have had to deal with Patrice, not I.

It had taken me the better part of the weekend to get the message through her head: Marguerite DuPres had signed a contract. That contract gave her two choices. 1) She would be paid her speaker's fee and have her room and meals (and Patrice's) covered. Any expenses beyond that—any special requests, items not on the special meal list for room service or in the restaurant, anything beyond the basics—would be deducted from her speaker's fee. Or: 2) She would be paid her full speaker's fee and put a credit card on file with the front desk and special requests would bill to that card.

It had been a long weekend. By Monday I was ready to run a stake through the heart of Marguerite DuPres' personal assistant. It would make great Goth performance art, if nothing else.

The list of emails from her was over 10 the first night. I replied to the first email that 1) special requests would be dealt with by Banquet Services 2) anything not listed in the contract would be deducted from the final payment of Marguerite's participant fee. Further emails simply said, "please see first email."

Marguerite DuPres had a long, lingering reputation. She's actually kind of a horror wunderkind, got published as a high schooler. Back in the early days, one of the first conventions to sign her almost regretted it. They got her hotel bill and had a committee-wide heart attack. Fortunately, they were able to write it off as an expense, but it put a bite into profits. Within the year, word had gotten around: if she wanted to deduct the expenses on her taxes, great—but the convention committee wasn't going to deal with it.

And Patrice knew darn well how the drill went. Why she tried to get the concom to do her dirty work was simply a matter of being a control freak. And a bitch.

It was a weird relationship. Marguerite was a flaky bitch and Patrice was a bitchy flake. They seemed to cordially loathe each other; but, hey, I once had two cats who hissed and snarled during the day but slept curled up in a lump all night. Go figure.

The day after my trip to Millennium to sign my part of the contracts was uneventful. No further emails. None the next day, either. By Friday morning, I was no longer wincing when I opened my email. Yea, no further emails from Dingdong the Wonder Assistant.

That was because she was looking for my phone number.

"Just one moment."

I looked up from where I was laminating signs like a madwoman. Chanda stood in the doorway, handset held out like it was poison. Her voice had the cool civility reserved for mashers, unloved in-laws and political hacks. I could see by the flashing light she had the caller on hold. "Who's in the deep freeze?"

"I have Patrice what's-her-face on the line," she said formally.

"Oh, chocolate frosted pickle chips." My eyes almost rolled out of their sockets. "I may have to kill her."

"I'll help." She said grimly.

I held out a hand. "This is Cassandra." I was as enthusiastic as an uncooked dumpling.

Patrice has a great phone voice—for a 1-800-talk-dirty-to-me phone line. Very low and breathy, it was the demanding "you will do x" that turned off men from any commitment beyond the time to watch a Columbo rerun and made me determined to give no quarter. "Cassandra. This is Patrice Ingram-Ashcraft." (I swear you could hear a soft "hyphen" between the names) "You must get this resolved today. Marguerite will be in a state—"

"I understand," I broke in as smoothly as I could. "As I mentioned in my emails—" (every god damned time) "—you need to contact Banquet Services. They are alerted to many of the requests for some of our special participants—" (None of them more "special" than your boss. And you.)

I repeated Scott Chamber's number a few times until she finally gave up. It took less than an hour for Mr. Chambers to call.

"Mrs. Mallard…" There was the faintest tone of distress in his voice. "I need your approval on a few items. I was speaking with Patrice Ingram-Ashcraft—"

"I'll bet you were," I said with a grin, heading toward the office.

"She has a list of—requests—" (I'm sure he edited the word "demands.") "—for Marguerite DuPres. She wants a dozen long stemmed black roses in cut glass vases. A dozen vases. Fresh. Every day. All five days."

Five? That's right, she was coming in Thursday and staying through Monday night. "Yep." I dropped into the chair behind my desk and woke the monitor from sleep mode.

"After the bed is made, housekeeping is to scatter the petals of three dozen MORE roses, red roses, on the mantle." His tone was bordering on incredulous.

"Yep. Go ahead." I clicked on the link for my email server.

"She wants a coffin—!" His voice strayed into a tone of stunned beyond words for a moment. "—set up on the second bed—and a magnum of champagne every evening at nine?!" He must not have dealt with many egocentric entertainers over the years.

"Go for it." I pulled up Cilly's email from a couple of weeks ago, clicked on the attachment of Marguerite DuPres' contract and forwarded it to Scott's email address. "Scott, I just sent you an email. Let me know when you see it."

After a moment: "I have it."

"That is Marguerite DuPres' contract," I said in my best student teacher voice. "Patrice Ingram-Ashcraft has two choices. If she has not given you a credit card to keep on file for Marguerite… During the convention, I want you to keep a list… A detailed list. If it is not a meal that's from the list we have prearranged, she gets charged. Any special requests—roses, champagne, coffins for two—she gets charged. No discounts. If she doesn't don't pay for it directly… it gets deducted from her fee. So if she doesn't put a credit card on file… could you please get me a running total every day? That would be great…"

"…everything…?"

"If she wants a bar of soap that isn't the standard, charge it. If she wants red and black towels—"

"Pardon?"

"Oh, she didn't get to the towels? She will. Black drapes to cover the mirrors—one hotel removed the mirrors and, boy, was that a big bill."

He was starting to laugh. "You mean—she—"

"Yep. So if she doesn't pony up that credit card, you keep a list like it's coming right out of your pocket. Every. Last. Penny. Oh, hey—you might send her an estimate list, that might spur her along."

"Would I be… out of line to intimate that if she files a credit card… we might be able to arrange for a discount?"

"If you can keep that mess in her nest, you do whatever you see fit. If we pay for it, we can deduct it as our expense. But it's a royal pain in the patoot."

"It fits her." I almost didn't hear his mutter.

"My dear Mr. Chambers, you have an excellent grasp of the situation."

"Mrs. Mallard… are there any… other…"

"A couple of people who travel with pets; they know about the pet deposit. Some really hard drinkers, nothing worse than any normal convention. Nope, she's the only whackadoodle," I said cheerfully. "Well—the only one I know of."

"I am going to make sure I'm on duty that weekend."

"Really? I thought you'd want to be far away. Far, far away."

"Mrs. Mallard…" I could hear his grin over the phone. "I wouldn't miss seeing this in person for all the chocolate in Hershey, Pennsylvania."

"I'm a chocoholic. That says a lot."

"I know it does," he laughed. "I'm one, too."

Except for a chilly note thanking me for Mr. Chambers' phone number, I didn't hear from Patrice Ingram-Ashcraft again for the next couple of months. Just broke my heart.

May
T-minus-two weeks…

The lists were closed. We were slated for the Cheese and Whine party (at great outcry, we added the Tudor rooms to the Georgian suite and doubled the attendees) and two teas (also doubled and the panels shuffled around to make more room). Registration was now only 'at the door' and pre-registration had hit over two thousand. No offense to any of our usual participants, but hearing Thom E. Gemcity was coming really knocked our numbers out of the park. Tim was actually getting nervous.

Using the scheduled participant list, I gave Geoff a pull list and Ducky's "if you like x, you might like y" list. I took care of the signed and vintage and oddball stuff and Valerie—who would be running the dealer's tables, with Cherie and Chanda to assist—organized the packing and created last minute labels and signs.

"Sandy, I've got to admit, I haven't heard of a lot of these authors," Geoff said as we worked the mystery section. "I'm doing better with the recommended list. Penny Rae, for example. For her, we get Craig Rice, James Anderson, Agatha Christie's 'Tommy and Tuppence' stories, Georgette Heyer—" He stopped and frowned. "I thought she was Mrs. Mallard's favorite romance writer."

"Mm-hmm. She also wrote a handful of mysteries in the 30s. Very good, too."

He stepped down to the next bookcase. "Janet Bascom. I know, cat stories," he said drily.

"You should. She did a signing here last Christmas."

"Yeah, and that goddamned cat barfed on my suede jacket."

"Language, language," I admonished. "Little pitchers, big ears."

"Dratted cat," he corrected with his best hoity-toity, stiff upper lip, veddy, veddy British accent.

"Better."

We continued to work in relative silence for a while. "Okay. After you got stuck running the costume competition for Con-Dor, you swore you wouldn't be on a concom ever again."

"So how did I get rooked into this?" I filled in. "Simple. I wasn't paying attention. I got blindsided. Let that be a lesson to you. When Silly Thing called, I thought she just wanted me to call around and get some more authors to beef up the list. It wasn't until I read the email a couple of weeks later that I realized I was taking over. And, hey—" I shrugged fatalistically. "It could be worse. Most of the authors are a little flaky—"

"A little?" He reached over to the cart and held up a copy of Half-Life Tale by Marguerite DuPres. "This woman sleeps in a coffin."

"So does Abby," I sweetly reminded him.

He blushed. "That's different. She's sane. Mostly. This woman supposedly converted her house into a mausoleum and had her teeth capped with fangs. I'm surprised she's even coming to the con; it's during the day."

I rolled my eyes. "The house—I don't know. The teeth—she's got slip on caps. There's a guy who's got a table, works out of his room, does dental grade fangs. Great stuff, worth the price. Marguerite? Believe me, it's not because we love her. You just know her publicity points. Her PA—" He cocked his head. "PA, Personal Assistant, just like SCA and Hollywood."

"Gotcha."

"Patrice Ingram-Ashcraft. Ingram-hyphen-Ashcraft. PIA, and boy is she one. Patrice drove me crazy sending her damned—darned—" I corrected at his gleeful 'tsk' finger. "—emails with Marguerite's needs. You would not believe it. But—and this is an important but—her devoted fans, who are flaky enough to make her look mundane, schlep to almost every con she goes to. When they added her name on the website, they added 145 people the first night. Total, they added about 400—just for her. So, yeah, they put up with her crap. 400 at 80 bucks a head—because she was added after the registration cut off for January—and nobody bitched at paying $30 more."

"Her fans are crazier that she is." He looked skeptical.

"Hun—ee, you have no idea." I put my stack of books on the cart and held up my hands in a 'wait, you gotta hear this' motion. "I went to a con about, oh, eighteen, twenty years ago. They made that horribly cheesy movie of Nightfall, it was her first book and it was a low-budget flick. She didn't start doing cons until later. It sucked—no pun intended. But it became a late night hit almost as big as Rocky Horror. And when it came out on tape, the loyal fans shelled out their twenty-five bucks for the VHS and forty bucks later for the DVD, and play them to death. The main character, Christoffe, was played by, a-h-h-h-h, what's his name, what's his name, oh, yeah, Barry Burgue. He was very, VERY in the closet, he was, hm, 40 or so, so he was still old school. Didn't make him any less sexy, but not everyone can be as "out" as GeorgeTakei."

Geoff laughed. "No, Uncle George is unique."

"Barry is like Rock Hudson. Roddy McDowall. Very popular with the ladies, and very closeted. Even though everyone knew it, nobody talked about it—until that nasty series of articles last year. He's in his 70s, his parents are still alive, it just devastated them… Back when the film came out, I was at a horror con, just hanging out in the consuite. Now, one of the concom was a film student doing her doctoral thesis on vampires in film. She said something about how interesting it was that appeal ignored sexual identity. 'When you consider Barry Burgue is so gay he could have his own pride parade—' and she didn't get any further. This chick in full Victorian regalia—fantastic costume, by the way—almost levitated off the couch, leaped across the room, attacked this woman, screaming, 'Christoffe isn't gay! Christoffe isn't gay!' She believed the whole saga. Believes there's a Matinswood mansion in Matinsport, Christoffe rises from his family crypt and preys on the local wenches."

Geoff looked fascinated. And aghast. "You know what's really scary…?" he mused. I waited. "She probably votes."

He was right. It was scary.

We continued to march through the mystery section. By creative arrangement of furniture—replacing most of the tables with bookcases and setting some out at 90-degree angles—I would have a total of 14 bookcases which would take five to eight boxes each to fill. Have I done this a few times before? Yes, I have.

"I still don't get it. Why these authors?"

"You mean why are we inviting Marguerite DuPres instead of Stephen King?" Geoff nodded. "Well, for starters, we can't afford Stephen King. Though he donated an autographed one-sheet from The Shining for the charity auction. And Stephen King doesn't need us—Lana King does." I waggled a copy of My Heart Belongs to You. "Boy, does she. And while we can't afford Stephen King, we can afford Lana. And even though I think her books are total drek—someone buys them, someone reads them. So we send her an invite, she's one who is willing to come for free. If we give her some autograph sessions and a table to sell her books, she's happy to come. Even if her name only draws twenty people—"

"—that's twenty people paying registration," he finished.

"Smart boy."

This was the first time he had helped me cull for this convention, so he was curious about some of the authors and continued to quiz me. "Penny Rae looks like she publishes pretty regularly—"

"She does. She's a niche writer, like a lot of the guests. Specializes in stories set in the early 20th Century—twenties and thirties, mostly. Cozies. Murder at the manor type of stories. She's pretty good, but she's kind of quiet and reserved. Wears period clothes, too. She's got the figure to get away with it," I said wryly. She does; I don't.

"Adrian Collier?"

"Lesbian romances," I said cheerfully. "Very well written, I hear, just not a big seller." Geoff looked like he was going to say something, then checked himself. "Guys would rather watch it than read it." Bingo; he looked only faintly embarrassed.

"A guy… writing lesbian romance?"

"Adrian used to be Adrienne. He's transgender." Welcome to the 21st Century! "Definitely got the inside track."

He nodded a 'got it' nod. "Like Ian Harvie the comedian."

"Yep. Oh, make sure to pull Vivian Austin's books. I forgot to add her—her granddaughter will be there, the books are still filed under Vivian's name."

"Like Dick Francis and his son."

"Or Tony Hillerman and his daughter. Right."

Geoff held up a copy of Murder Makes Waves. "Okay, I know some people call these chick-lit mysteries, but I think they're funny as he—heck," he stumbled. Any chance she'll be at the convention?"

"Not without a séance," I said with a sad sigh. "Anne died about ten years ago."

"I'm starting to feel like a curse," he muttered. "As soon as I like an author—they die."

"She died while you were in, what, high school? Community college? Not guilty."

"Well, they either die or I find out after I get hooked on their books that they already died. Close enough."

"So go back to reading Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews. Don't damage the stock!" I yelped when he batted me on the head with the book.

Romance was done. Horror was done. Sci-fi was done. General/miscellaneous was just getting started.

"Wow. P. R. Bedicker really churned 'em out."

I glanced up from my floor position. By craning my neck, I could see a gaping hole in the shelf. "I remember reading his stuff back in—mmh, no, not college, it was an extension class I took on writing mysteries. The guy had really intricate plots, great detail in his research. Don't know why he didn't catch on like Tom Clancy or Wilbur Smith. But he's always been in print, so that's good."

Geoff flipped through the list. "Yeah, he's had something in print every eight to twelve months, wow. Past few years—hmm. Almost a year and a half gap between the last three. Including his newest book—last December."

"Even John Creasy and Isaac Asimov slowed down eventually."

"Yeah," Geoff snorted. "Death will do that."

"Smartass." I muttered.

"Better than a dumbass," he sang out.

We strive for professionalism at Papyrus.
We often miss.