in the shock department. What do you do, anyway? - I m writer, I guess. - You guess? Don t you know? - OK, positive statement. Ringing affirmative. I m writer. - The only writer I ve been out is Benny Shacklett. He s written an awful lot of TV Stuff, but «quel» rat! Tell me. Are you real writer? I mean, does anybody buy what you write or publish it or anything? - They bought what s in that box. - Yours? All these books? - There s just one book, 12 copies of it. - «Nine lives» by Paul Varjak. They re stories. - Hmm ... Nine of them. - Tell me one. - There re not the kind of stories you can really tell. - Too dirty? - Yeah, I ... suppose they re dirty too, but only incidentally. Mainly they re angry, sensitive ... intensively felt, and that dirtiest of all dirty words ... Promising.
