Prompt Care: A Mike Dodge Mystery

“CUT!”

I recalled Sir Laurence Olivier’s presumed advice to young thespians, and instinctively clenched my sphincter as the director barked.

I glanced about for red faces, overt mortification, or the possibility that our star Wesley Brett hisself might have neglected the barn door during the recent pee break. And concluded that as usual over the past 64 years, I was the problem.

“Man with Pug, a word, please?” the aging director called. “No, just you. The pug was fine.”

I’d seen the director in a creaky ‘80s Britcom once when I’d been too lazy or pizza-bloated to change the channel after Red Dwarf. I looked to my patron, who shook his head sadly. The set wrangler retrieved the dog, who appeared somewhat relieved, I stepped behind the cameras, and Chuck Paris placed a hand on my shoulder. It was actually more a clamp, if you have a low bar for upper body strength.

“Actually, Man with Pug…”

“Mike.”

“That won’t be necessary. What about Mr. Brett’s foot pursuit made you decide a high-pitched yelp was the right creative call? I appreciate you’re here as a favor, though not at all certain how you might have garnered one. But even as an extra, with, I might add, a non-speaking role, you truly should take all pains to retain your day job.”

“I’m retired.”

The director’s fingers went soft. “Pick up some lunch at the craft services table – tell ‘em I sent you.”

Chicago’s a tough, toddling town, and Hollywood will spit you out. However, Lou Malnati’s had catered, so I ended my TV career on a reasonably high note.

**

Six Weeks Earlier)

Contest #167: Isolation

Write about a character suddenly forced from his, her, or their cocoon.

Your protagonist is the last human on Earth or another planet where he/she/they have been on holiday.

A story about the creeping mental and emotional effects of physical or voluntary isolation.

Write about a powerful antagonist who must be removed from remote isolation to be brought to justice.

I wouldn’t have thought about it if I’d lost, which I’d fully anticipated. For one, AllWritey.com was a UK-based site, despite sounding vaguely McConaughesque, and a majority of the weekly winners tended to use a lot of “our”s where an “or” would have sufficed here in the short-cutty former colonies. Those who claimed the weekly $250 prize usually poured heart and soul and pain into their prose; I’d poured about an hour of Internet research and five hours of post-mowing/post-meal prep time into the least-invested prompt. I was one of 21 entries in my bunny slope category; 146 other authors who hadn’t simply rubbed one out, literarily speaking, were vying across the category.

Having won after 23 consecutive fails, I might simply have paid down a quarter of my roll-the-dice long-term health care premium, let Sarah feign lavish pride, and questioned the state of contemporary short fiction. I didn’t see a huge reprint potential for “Manila Extract: A Duke Lodge Mystery by Mike Dodge.” But I did get one great pull-out from the comments: “Ingenuous concept. Philippines has one ‘L’ and 2 ‘P’s, BTW. Nice job overall, tho.” Guess I could save Stephen King and whoever’s James Patterson this week for the back cover.

It was three weeks after my ApplePay account flourished with literary spoils when, stymied by “Cryptocurrent Affair: A Duke Lodge Mystery,” I wandered upstairs for a Coconut Hint and heard they’d pulled Colombian drug lord Sandoval Henao Luis Calvo out of a deeply fortified secret hidey hole off the coast of Brazil. It was, to quote David Muir, “a brilliantly conceived and executed extraction.”

“Fucking right it was,” I muttered. Sarah turned with an admonitory glare. “Damn right it was,” I amended.

“I don’t even know who this guy is,” Sarah said.

“Like a cartel guy, killed a few hundred folks,” I supplied dismissively. “The thing is, that was my idea.”

“And you think you know your spouse...”

“No, no -- the way they found Calvo’s lair, the capture. I came up with that.”

Sarah sighed, paused the anchor in mid-preposition. “Not what he said.”

“The story, the one I won the contest with. The one I asked you to read?”

A flush of guilt replaced reproving confusion.

“Really?”

She recovered quickly. “By the way, did you ever find out if you need a 1099 or anything from the Okeydokey people?”

“AllWritey. And, well, no… Look, I’ll be up by 7.”

“Win us more money!” Sarah called. Always gracious in a draw.

**

Great minds, I finally decided, despite Jean Dodge’s and half the Cruft Elementary and Sarah Scott Junior High faculty consensus opinions. I’d posted the “coincidence” on Facebook (with a link to the story, of course) and in the AllWritey comments that ensued as my masterwork accumulated views.

The email from AllWritey came two days later. “Response to your story ‘Manila Extract: A Duke Lodge Mystery’ has been phenomenal. However, while we at AllWritey LOVE your work, we strive to be socially and publicly conscious. We therefore regret to inform you that we have withdrawn ‘Manila Extract: A Duke Lodge Mystery’ from our archive and potential publication in our monthly anthology of prizewinning stories. Recent global events echo key elements of your story, and while this obviously is neither yours nor AllWritey’s fault, we wish to remain a wholly fictional forum for our authors and avoid any reader misapprehension. We have deposited an additional $300 inconvenience fee in your ApplePay account, and we will be considering one of your fine alternate stories for possible inclusion in the next issue of AllWritey. Happy writing, The AllWritey Team!”

Without dwelling on the technical details, Sarah was gratified my writing had indeed “won us more money.” When I jumped on FB to delete the post, I was perplexed but not unduly concerned to find it gone. I’d landed in Facebook prison more than a few times, usually around election time or after The New SCOTUS’ latest decision, but I thought The Zuck and I were good these days.

I was a little more concerned after Sarah encountered my full voicemail box and suggested tersely a housecleaning might be in order. For the most part, my missed call log comprised parties worried that the Tucson might no longer be under warranty protection or following up on the student loan I’d never taken out 45 years ago when Indiana State was handing out bachelors’ like, well, Bachelors were handing out consolation roses.

“This is Laverne Grace with the Chicago Regional Office of the U.S. Natural Security Agency. If this is Michael Dodge, I wonder if you might contact me at your latest convenience. We have a few totally routine inquiries we should be able to clear up within 10 to 15 minutes.” The timestamp was four days previous, the area code 773 – Chitown indeed.

“NSA,” some dude finally grunted.

“Yeah, this is Mike Dodge. I got this weird call from you guys.”

“Yeah, I see it,” the functionary muttered immediately. “This was your earliest convenience, huh?”

I don’t pay taxes for snark, but this didn’t seem the time. “Yeah, sorry. Is Ms. Grace there?”

“Agent Grace is not available at this time. And I got a note your matter has been resolved.”

“What matter is that, precisely. Because I can’t think of any, er, outstanding matters I might have, um, before…you.”

“Well, it’s been resolved, soooo…”

“Come on.”

 “OK, since you pushed. You received notification from an organization called AllWritey regarding a recent piece of fiction, correct.”

“Yeah, they pulled it. Geez, was that you guys? Hey, did you delete my Facebook post, too?”

“We don’t do that. But yes. Agent Grace asked that you consider refraining from any further discussion or publication of, let me see, ‘Manila Extract’? What the hell’s that even mean?”

“There’s an extraction of a fugitive dictator in the Philippines, so instead of vanilla extract, I went with ‘Manila Extract.’”

The line went silent. My taxes also don’t cover literary critics. “Whatever the case, your story touched on some fairly sensitive natural security issues, so let’s just move on.”

“It was on the Nightly News,” I protested. “The whole strategy with the Colombians and Interpol and the DEA. You think people are actually gonna think the feds are getting ideas from an amateur fiction site?”

The previous silence was a thrash metal festival by comparison. “Nevertheless,” NSA Guy finally said.

You can’t argue with ironclad logic. “Ok, then,” I sighed. I was ahead like $550...

“Ok, then,” he echoed. And that was that.

**

Well, kinda, anyway. It was a slow couple days – the lawn was mowed, the grand-girl’s much-anticipated weekend overnight had ended with us guzzling electrolytes, and I was between freelance gigs and community projects. I surfed up this week’s prompts.

Contest #169: Festive Folly

Write about a character who makes a foolish mistake at a festival or fair, with lasting personal consequences.

Tell your story from the POV of a carny or vendor who must watch others celebrate and enjoy.

A vital piece of information has been concealed somewhere at a crowded carnival or street fair. Your narrator must find that data within a specified timeframe, or others may suffer or die.

Two people meet at the fair and learn a valuable life lesson.

Okay.

I set the dial on the Wayback Machine, otherwise known as the AllWritey archives.

Contest #98: Rebel Souls

Write a character study of an activist about to make a huge social statement.

Contest #34: Masquerade

You’re on the run, and they’re closing in. How would you remake yourself to avoid capture? The more detailed the better.

Not every challenge included a loaded prompt, but enough to rouse the suspicion of the amateur scribe who’d been waved off by Zuckerberg, the NSA, and the gang at AllWritey. The conclusion seemed ludicrous, and I had virtually no way of confirming it – my press pass had expired years ago.

Plus, I was $550 up. Minus, my sole literary prize was now a matter of my conjecture. I mean, we’re all human – even after 31 years of crafting fact, it’d be nice to get a few lame props for some made-up shit. And made-up shit, mind you, that had caused a federal fracas.

But why? If U.S. intelligence had reached the point of non-consensually brainstorming rookie authors, why draw undue attention? The cartel strike was a front page win-win for all parties, and at least according to the DEA, had been in the works for weeks before I struck AllWritey gold. I hadn’t exactly cracked the da Vinci Code.

And the National Security Agency? The nation’s most covert, omniscient, and purportedly invasive agency had left me a “Call me maybe?” over a piece of digi-pulp that likely would be forgotten a week after I wasted my AllWritey money on speculative health care? With a name and callback number and a Comcast call center reject manning the line?

I Googled. Quoth “5 Myths About the National Security Agency” (David Brown, November 2019): “The NSA doesn’t have that many field agents. Most of its thirty thousand or so employees work at Ft. Meade, MD. . . . Still, the agency does have men and women who work in the field. They belong to the NSA’s Special Collection Service, a group of signals intelligence spies who work jointly with the CIA abroad to penetrate foreign communications networks. Because the SCS is so secretive, what, precisely they do in the field is likely a moving target. When a hard drive needs to be stolen, that assignment is probably going to go to the CIA’s National Clandestine Service.”

So who was “Agent” Laverne Grace? Something else – a lingering something from my productive days working my carpals on a land line. I took a flyer, and was surprised when the NSA’s Chicago Field Office number and address actually popped up in the browser. 342 South Dearborn, in the Loop. In Chicago, the NSA’s “spy hub” occupies “an earthquake-resistant skyscraper in the West Loop Gate area,” according to The Intercept.      

A few years back, they’d monkeyed with the Cook County area codes, but the Loop is always area code 312 – an “enclave” number assigned to the sprawling but contained eye of the Windy City. The 773 area code surrounds the 312 zone, and where the 872 prefix was added to facilitate a growing metro population, nowhere in my Venn Diagram does 773 poke its snout into 312. It was conceivable the NSA might have a few geeks with headphones in the outlying, but, shit, why lay out for an apocalypse-proof tower and then sublet cheesy office park digs near the Hyde Park Panera?

So, maybe Laverne’s personal cell? If 2016 taught us one nearly fatal thing, it’s never use the Friends and Family plan for your national bidness. I suspected Ms. Grace was no spymaster, and if not, well, as I said, we’re all human. Some more than others: The Spokeo.com reverse lookup for my “agent”s number yielded one Grace Lavelle Schendler of Addison. Now, I went back to AllWritey.com.

Of Grace Lavelle’s five stories, the single winner was “Me, But Better” (meh), focusing on a paralegal on the run after reading an incriminating client document that could bring down her firm (Grisham much, Grace?). Our spunky legal beagle performs some fairly impressive acrobatics to virtually vanish and reappear on a Caribbean beach (geesh). Yup, Contest #98. And Grace’s final work, at least for AllWritey.

That led to Hunch #2. I Wiki’d AllWritey, founded in 2015 by a consortium of popular authors to foster creativity in promising unknowns. The site continued to support youth writing seminars and the weekly challenge, but in 2018, a clutch of European and U.S. publishers assumed control as a way of vetting editors, agents, and literary promoters and ensuring industrywide quality control.

I located the All-Writey Board listing. Clark Schendler’s Amazon page noted he now lived in the unspecified Chicago burbs with his wife Grace. He was the author of 15 thrillers featuring “manhunter with a cause” Sean Peevish. The latest, Powder Burned, had already been optioned by Netflix. The novel itself wasn’t due for release until next month, but the Amazon teaser was gripping – and familiar.

**

I borrowed Sarah’s Samsung. It had been two weeks, but Grace’s memory might be stronger than her depth of characterization. That wasn’t fair, quite – the plot had been devised by a former No. 1 New York Times bestselling author who lacked depth of characterization.

“Grace Schendler? Hi. This is Michael Dodge, manhunter with a grudge. Might I speak to your husband, please?”

“How, ah, how did you get this number?” the former author demanded.

“Yeah, you should have led with the rising inflection. Here’s the thing: I still have your voicemail, and the NSA might like to know who’s been impersonating federal field agents. And not very well.”

Grace mumbled for my indulgence and set off in search of Clark.

“Mr. Dodge.” It was cranky NSA Helpline Guy. “How in the hell--?”

I settled back on the dog park bench. “Why the NSA? They’re nosy, they got the access, and the idea of them is scary. Plus, since they seem to want to stay in the shadows, you felt it was a lot safer than pretending to be the DEA or CIA. You figured some schmuck who writes half-baked thrillers would be easily persuaded to forget he ever wrote ‘Manila Extract.’”

“I do like the title,” Schendler offered. “The narrative needed some work, but what you came up in one week…” He trailed off.

“The basic plot of Powder Burned, right? Which has a two-season commitment from Netflix and probably will put you back in the brackets with Connelly and Child and Deaver. If your novel and the show get linked to the big raid on Tony Montana’s cousin, all the better – you’re ripped from the headlines, a hot-button hit. But if some schmendrick’s story is out there before yours is released, it doesn’t matter what documentation you have – you’re vulnerable for a plagiarism suit.

“My guess is you’ve kept your hand in with AllWritey, consulting on weekly story prompts and, what, maybe influencing winning entries? And when one of their founders and patrons asks them for one little favor, on a story that admittedly wasn’t that great to begin with, how do they say no? You tell them the truth, or simply argue you made an initially bad judgment?”

Schendler was genially silent.

“I mean, jeez, why even recommend me in the first place?”

The author breathed heavily. “Look, I started all this to encourage new writers with potential. You got that – just write what you know or feel or imagine. Meantime, what do you want? I guess you can pretty much name it.”

“I got paid. I really just wanted to know what the deal was.”

The line went silent again. “Look, I think maybe I got something. You ever been on TV?”

**

When I told my cop buddy Curtis a few months later, over a cup of the old Starbucks, he nodded soberly and then laughed his ass off until every hipster and would-be author looked peevishly up from their laptops and pads.

“So you wound up on the editing room floor?” he wheezed.

“I don’t think you understand how Hollywood works. They took my doggie and gave me a doggie bag before I could even make it to the editing room. I think Schendler genuinely felt bad, and he comped Sarah and I’s Palmer House stay and the Amtrak tickets. Oh, and I got this.”

I’d brought my computer bag, and pulled out a thick sheath of paper. Several names were scrawled on its cover.

“Powder Burned : Season 1, Episode 1,” Curtis read as he took a sip of his Sumatran.

The resulting coffee stains destroyed the script’s resale value. But I was $550 up.