An Agent's Inbox #15

Dear Agent,

When attempting to topple a crime boss you think is framing your wife for murder and your son for arson, it would be a good idea to check that they're not on his payroll. Doubting their innocence is another stumbling block. In IS THERE A WITCH DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE (Adult Mystery, 80,000 words), a satire of our greatest American pastimes: baseball, fame, gambling, adultery, murder, motherhood, fatherhood, and political corruption, our reigning pop idol is the son of the crime family Lou believes responsible for poisoning his pal and setting fire to the club they owned together. But Lou’s son is in the idol’s band and Lou’s former radical wife is wanted for questioning by the corrupt chief of police. Though Lou suspects his wife is guilty of many things, murder has not been high on the list. Until she mysteriously disappears, along with their son. Then Lou must confront his doubts while he fights to save his family, as only an out of shape, unemployed, former high school pitcher can.

Sincerely,

B.P.

IS THERE A WITCH DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE

At two minutes to noon, two weeks before Christmas, Lou Cooper was summoned into his boss’s office at Marvelous Memories, Inc. in Durham Crossing, Connecticut, where he’d toiled in pleasant anonymity for the past twenty five years writing catalog copy. There he was given two choices. He could take the generous package they offered, or be escorted from the building by security without benefit of fifty weeks of severance pay. Twenty minutes later, after choosing the former, he entered Gwen’s Styling Salon for his regular monthly trim, giddy and disoriented.

“I am now presiding over the waning days of my hair,” he announced as he stumbled toward the backless shampoo seat. “Why don’t you gimme a buzz cut,” he then told Gwen. “And, what the h***, let’s dye it blond.”

With an unexpected afternoon off--with perhaps the rest of his life off--Lou decided this would be the perfect opportunity to look in on Crunchtime, the heavy metal nightclub into which he and his wife had just sunk a boatload of money. Maybe he could persuade the owner, Hank Saunders, to offer him the Crunchtime account to launch his nascent PR firm, or an assistant manager position, or a role as part-time bartender or even a gig as talent scout. Gunning his eighteen-year-old Zephyr toward a familiar forbidden crossroads of a district no assemblyman had ever claimed, almost out of Bordenville but not quite East Ferry, Lou was more excited than he’d been in a dozen years.