Chapter Sixty. The Honeymoon

The Honeymoon

Planetary Publishing was having a "soft" year. Sales were down. New releases  were delayed.  Readers were complaining that the publisher wasn't turning out stories with enough "punch." Known for finding authors who flew under the radar of mainstream fiction, much of their success had come from quirky, first time novels, from unknown writer's, usually who hadn't been published prior to being picked up by PP.

Derby had briefly researched the independent publisher, a huge firm,  based in New York City, after being contacted by them in the Spring of last year. The Ripleys had been struggling financially, after a series of set-backs, so of course the prospect of being paid for his writing was a thrilling proposition.

PP started making deals in Hong Kong about a decade ago because the printing costs were significantly less to produce the standard paperback of 85 thousand to 100 thousand words in China, compared to printing the same book in the US. He had read this and other details about the publisher and the man at the helm of the firm that had contacted him. What Derby didn't know is that Justin Scoville meant business.

When Scoville found a story and a writer he liked, he wasted no time. Within weeks he brought the writer to Hong Kong. As soon as the deal was made, he set his team in motion on the legal details and contracts, promotion schedules, editing, movie rights, PR, speaking engagements, radio tours, book signings.  Cases of books were shipped from Guangzhou, China within three weeks of the contract being signed.

So, when Derby Joshua Clearwater Ripley wasn't delivered as planned last Spring, Scoville would have typically ordered an investigation. This wouldn't have been the first time one of PP's unknown writers mysteriously disappeared prior to showing up at a scheduled first meeting with Scoville and his crack team. But on that fateful Spring day in the Pearl of the Orient, when Derby woke up in the suite of the luxurious Peninsula Hotel, Justin Scoville had found himself in his own unexpected adventure.

Scoville wasn't sitting impatiently, looking at his watch and wondering where his new man, Derby Ripley was, because he was absent from the meeting place as well. Even though both men were on the same property, neither would make their scheduled meeting to discuss the publication of The Children of Zol.

Instead of Scoville being downstairs at the Peninsula Hotel, in the business lounge, reserved exclusively for VIP meetings of this nature, he was lounging upstairs in an apartment, overlooking the Bay. Coincidentally, Derby was just next door, also enjoying the view (or not enjoying it, depending how you remember it). Had Scoville been downstairs and had Derby been more than an hour late, the Planetary Publishing founder would have wasted no time in dispatching a covert team of commandos to find him.

Rare Flesh, Inc, the second largest independent publisher of fantasy and unusual first novels, operated in very non-conventional ways. So certain would Scoville have been that Rare Flesh was behind the plot of a missing Derby, he wouldn't have hesitated to flex the muscle of his publishing empire, to rescue his new author, and leave Rare Flesh to deal with the dust and rubble of the skirmish.

It wasn't the least bit unusual for a new writer of a Rare Flesh novel to sign a contract with very little financial benefit for the author. By the time Rare Flesh had tricked their kidnapped victims into believing that Up is Down and the speed of light isn't actually related to speed or light, the writers usually would prefer to give away their story than to stay trapped in bizarre circumstances and psychedelic adventures.

But no walls were being stormed, no publishing wars were being fought on that morning. Justin Scoville had met a beautiful young Japanese princess just days before and suddenly his publishing empire was left unattended. Instead of war, Justin was making love to his new bride, Tsu Yen.