                        Helen Salle

You are Helen Salle, a country girl who is making it big in
the big city.  You were born in rural Virginia on a
farm...okay well it was a horse farm, and you lived in a
house that is now worth better than a quarter of a million. 
And your father was a Magazine publisher not a Farmer, though
he raised horses as a hobby.  

But you have made it on your own.  Since you graduated from
Columbia Prep and Mary Washington College, you have hit New
York, and there is nothing to stop you now.  Well, there is
your near total drug dependence, but hell, everyone in New
York has that.  Where would you be without it.  

You are currently in Science Fiction which is becoming a big
business.  Oh sure, scoff all you want.  But there haven't
been two months in the last two years that there weren't two
science fiction or fantasy titles on the New York Times
bestseller list.  And that isn't even counting horror.

You are primarily with Ace, a division of Berkeley, and you
are about to take a giant step up.  Your boss, Jonathan
Drake,  has a very good shot at editor and chief of Ace
paperbacks...he was having lunch with Nancy Coffey, the
editor-in-chief of Berkeley just the other day.  

Johnny was a very junior editor back in 1977, fresh out of
school, and pulled The Sickness in John Harrol out of a scrap
pile, and got it published.  It was a big success.  Then he
suffered through The Collection, and Dark Symbols, which
appealed to progressively smaller and more esoteric
audiences.  Johnny told Grantto get his act together.  He
did, and produced the fantasy-horror Trinity in 1982.  It was
the worst of his novels, but it sold better than any of the
others.  

Then Grantproduced The Sightless King, a boring pile of
mumbo-jumbo and boring prose that was so stiff and wooden you
almost wondered if someone else wrote it.  There were rumors
to that extent too, though Johnny seems oblivious to them.  

Not to mention the fact that Grantthen proceeded to get
nominated for a Nebula award for a science-fictiony short
called With Flames in our Eyes, showed up drunk for the
reception, and projectile vomited on about half of SFWA.  He
hasn't been seen much in public since then which may be just
as well.

You have heard rumors that Grantis dying, mostly from his
fans.  You have partially come south to see if the rumors are
true.  You also just got about a hundred pages of the most
pathetic schlock Granthas ever produced.  This isn't good bad
like Trinity, it is bad bad like Sightless King.

So Johnny told you to pack his bags, and prepare to hit the
road.  He is going to have a talk with Sam.  

Johnny wants Grantto collaborate with another writer. 
Basically, the idea is to take whatever he has and turn it
over to someone who is likely to remain coherent long enough
to write it into acceptable pulp.  You especially want to
secure rights to his new material if he is dying, since his
"last book" will be worth more.

You told Johnny that you had just the person.  Your friend
Leda Deerden, who is an artist was out of work.  You fished
around a few agents you knew until you found someone who did
a lot of cheap pulp work.  Then you got the name of one of
their contributors who had died recently.  The guy was named
Harold Poke, and he wrote trashy science fiction under then
name "Gary Starr," and had written two of the "Hyron the
Barbarian" books.  The guy had never published under his real
name, and this agent had never disclosed his name until after
he died. 

So you showed Johnny this stuff, only you said that Leda had
written it.  You said that this writer was now available. 
Johnny thought the stuff was really bad and was sold
immediately.  You all had dinner together, and Leda was drunk
and full of coke and babbled incoherently.  Fortunately Drake
passed out before she vomited.  You told Drake Leda was a
health food nut and that she had gotten light headed because
she almost never drank wine.  You must remember to tell Leda
this.  You flew Leda down to Washington on next to no notice,
and she went out to a club and vanished, and called you at
3:30 wanting to go back to New York.  You came and collected
her unconscious body, and delivered her to this social
engagement.  

You are beginning to wonder if it was a good idea to suggest
her for this job.
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