"Tell me," said Galosh/Zintarus, after thinking for a good long while. "Tell me straight. Do you have any money? I need money."
"I sold my farm before I moved here."
"You sold your farm. Beautiful! And you put half in a suitcase? Hundred-dollar bills?"
"Just like you said."
"I'll meet you," said Galosh/Zintarus. "But it'll cost you. My services don't come cheap. Every second I'm away from this phone is a potential disaster on a scale you cannot begin to comprehend. Missing this call has far-reaching karmic implications. This is an interstellar hotline, my friend, and I am expected to answer."
"What are we talking here?"
"I have a one-grand callout fee. That buys you an hour of one-on-one tuition. Then it's five hundred for every hour after that. For that you get class-A advice. I'll make you the writer you want to be. And if you sell a script...I'll want twenty-five percent of any proceeds. And you get the money up front every time, or, and this I swear by the Many-Tentacled Space Jesus, I'll strangle you to death with my bare hands. I'm an old man but I'm not too old to strangle a back-end schmuck."
It sounded fair. It sounded like the Joe Galosh I'd grown to admire, reading by the strange blue-green light of all that crusty old gay porn.
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