The following "press release," which was totally ignored by all San Diego media, was the kick-off announcement to Ken Kuhlken and Alan Russell's "Universal Book Tour."

THE KEN AND ALAN SHOW

Kenallan was a world famous orangutan who resided for many years in the San Diego Zoo. He was featured in many articles and shows, and touted as the Houdini of the simian world. Kenallan was an escape artist.

Ken Kuhlken would never be mistaken for Kenallan. He has much less hair. Kuhlken also claims to have a flexible thumb. The only thing Kuhlken ever escaped was the draft.

Alan Russell is also not an orangutan, even though he has aspirations. Russell knows something about apes, however, knowledge gained in part during his book tours with fellow mystery writer Kuhlken (he also wrote about gorillas - the hairy kind - in his first novel, No Sign of Murder). If prompted, or even slightly urged, Russell might attempt to prove that Kuhlken is the missing link.

San Diego has the dubious distinction of being home to both Ken and Alan (hereafter referred to as Kenallan). Both authors have published a number of mystery novels and amassed more wonderful reviews than they have book sales. They will be glad to read you those reviews and even more glad to sell you their books, if you show up for the Kenallan Show.

"Hecklers are welcome," said Russell. "Ken and I are going to be doing that to each other anyway, so you might as well join in."

"Alan always has something to say," said Kuhlken. "It usually doesn't make any sense, but at least it fills the void."

"Ken's much funnier in person than he is in his books," said Russell, "but then he'd have to be."

Kuhlken won the Private Eye of America contest with his novel The Loud Adios. His first novel, Midheaven, was nominated for a Hemingway Prize. Russell has also won several literary awards, from organizations of which nobody has ever heard. He also likes to remind Ken that he was Mr. June in the Men of Mystery Calendar.

Jenny Craig

Director

Lardage Loss Centers

San Diego, CA

Dear Jenny,

I am writing this letter to you while on the road hawking books with fellow San Diego mystery writer Ken Kuhlken. Consider this brainstorm we just had: we want you to sponsor our next tour.

Yeah, yeah, I know Kuhlken and I aren't former cheerleaders or talk show hostesses. But consider this: one of my novels was entitled The Fat Innkeeper, and Kuhlken has a novel called The Fat Lady in the works. With titles like that, we think it only fitting that we go on The Cellulite Tour. And what better sponsor than hometown weight guru Jenny Craig?

My idea is that Kuhlken and I go around in one of those Winnebagos. On the sides we’ll have these big signs which say: Jenny Craig Presents San Diego Mystery Writers Alan Russell and Ken Kuhlken on their Fatbuster Tour. In smaller letters we can announce the titles of our books.

Okay, so we don’t have the marquee value of some of those athletes or stars who pop up on the tube endorsing various weight loss plans. Sure, we’re not the Duchess of Pork, and it’s hard to top Her Royal Thighness.

But we have these fat characters in our books. And while Ken and I might not make for the best before and after pictures you've ever displayed (I mean it is kind of hard to beat Tommy LaSorda), it wouldn't hurt to have both of us shed a few pounds.

Here's the idea: Ken and I get weighed at your headquarters at the start of the trip. Now if you know anything about book signing tours, it's virtually impossible not to gain weight on them. What you do is drive from bookstore to bookstore eating fast food and junk along the way. The only exercise you get is signing your name on a cover page, and that's by no means a sure bet. At night, when you've just driven two hundred miles and sold two paperbacks, getting drunk seems not only like a good idea, but a necessity. So what we propose is a combined book circuit/weight loss tour. Ken and I will eat your food along the road and won't stop in bars along the way bemoaning the decline of western civilization (a decline both of us believe is inimically traced to our having to become hucksters to get people to buy our books). We'll just drive, eat Jenny Craig food, and show up to book signings/weigh-ins.

If you want, we'll wear Jenny Craig Cellulite Tour shirts. Even the Day-Glo kind. Maybe you can even get Ken to do a Richard Simmons kind of thing. We'll smile and say we feel great. Maybe you can feature us in those national ads: We Dropped Twenty-Five Books Apiece (Ten Pounds) On Our Forty-Eight State Tour!

Did I mention that? Yeah, I think it would be effective if you sponsored us for the lower forty-eight. Maybe our goal could be to lose forty-eight pounds. Your P.R. people could contact all the newspapers and say "The Fat Boys Are Coming." Or how's this? WEIGHT LOSS NO MYSTERY!

But you're probably saying, "These boys are artists. They're literary. They write books, for God's sake. They wouldn't pander." I got a little response to that, Jenny. Try signing at a chain bookstore in one of those malls. Try sitting at a table with a big pile of books in front of you and patrons avoiding you like the plague and you having to maintain a smile the whole time, Jenny. It's no picnic, lady.

You want to know my definition of a writer, Jenny? It's someone who pulls down his pants in public. And sometimes, when you get a frosty reception, there's not much to show, Jenny.

Kuhlken breaks the silence. I've been scratching on a pad for too long and he doesn't trust me when I'm quiet. "Jenny Craig's not going to sponsor us," he said.

"Kuhlken, you make Eyeore look like an optimist."

"She only wants celebrities. Or really fat people."

"What about Elliot Gould? He wasn't really either."

"We need a different patron of the arts."

"The Medicis are dead."

"Taco Bell."

"And what's our slogan? Make A Run For the Odor?"

Kuhlken doesn't respond. He figures that since the Bell is our fast food of choice that they should sponsor our book tour. Somehow I don't want my books associated with gas. I have that much pride, but the trip's still young. We're about fifty miles north of Santa Maria. Thus far we've only had one fight. Kuhlken lost his temper big time when I questioned the sense of having to drive along 101. I forgot that when you travel with Kuhlken you travel on Ken-Time. It's the kind of pace that even mystics find slow. But Ken's anger, as he admitted, was probably misdirected. He had received a message that David Brown, the film producer, had called him. But things weren't what they seemed. In retrospect, it wasn't a good time to harp on Ken for the traffic backup. Cal Trans has decided to make our lives miserable by working on the highway.

This is our second major tour together. Last year we did the southwest, Arizona, Colorado, Utah (the state does have one or two bookstores), New Mexico and California. Now we're covering the northwest. We're calling it the Russell/Kuhlken (the order changes when he does the announcing) International Tour. We figure we can be pretentious. On our first trip, in Albuquerque, mystery writer Judith Van Giesen joined us at our signing. Her publisher, Harper Collins, had the temerity to call her three city book tour (Albuquerque, Phoenix, and Santa Fe) a "national tour." We figured by doing three states, and a foreign country (if you can call Canada that), ours would be an international tour. Problem is, we've just learned Canada is out because of a weasel named John Stuhr.

"It's not an international tour," I said, "unless we go to Canada."

"Screw Canada," Kuhlken said. "The bookstore manager said we could sign stock, and I said, 'You think we're going to drive three hours from Seattle, and three hours back, just to sign stock?'"

Ken, as I've often told him, is not going to be a member of the diplomatic corps any time soon.

"What happened exactly?"

"They told me that John Stuhr (the bookstore's signing facilitator) up and quit without informing them of our signing. They made it sound like he embezzled, or something."

Stuhr had predicted to Kuhlken that he thought my latest novel "was going big time." That should have clued me to his flim flam status. He had also told Ken he was going to arrange some radio interviews for us.

"But it won't be an international..."

Kuhlken interrupts: "We'll go to Mexico. We'll give a book each to some Tijuana bookstore and pretend we're doing a signing. There. That's an international tour."

We're scheduled to do twelve bookstores in twelve days. Ken and I have different publishers, so it's been a case of "your publicist talking to my publicist." In most cases, that's been Ken talking to me. For publishing houses, authors are a necessary evil. To date, Ken and I are what is called "mid-list authors." That means we're not John Grisham. Our books keep getting published to wonderful reviews, and yet we haven't "broken through." That means we do things like this. Some days I contemplate taking my word processor to an intersection, setting up a table, and hoisting a sign which says: WILL WRITE FOR FOOD.

As we approach King City I see the first Winchester Mystery House billboard. I suppose that means the tour has officially begun. I know we'll see about three hundred more of those things as we drive. As writers, the only thing that Ken and I really want to do is write. But here we are on the highway looking at billboards and bumper stickers. "Life is a gift, dare to unwrap it," says one. A Toyota flatbed truck passes us. I wonder if the driver intended irony. The bumper sticker reads: "Buy American while there is still time."

"I’ve got to take a leak," Kuhlken tells me. "Look for a gas station."

Law #1 of the Road: There's Never a Gas Station When You Need One.

"You know, I got stuck in a restroom yesterday," Kuhlken says. "It's not a place you want to get stuck. I'm banging the door and these attendants are outside muttering in Farsi or Arabic. I'm yelling, 'Break the damn lock. I want to get out of here.'"

"Sounds like a lawsuit to me," I said. "You can say you're sexually impotent because of your imprisonment. You can say you have flashbacks of your time in the restroom."

"Pull over," Kuhlken tells me. "Now."

I do as directed. Ken goes outside. A few seconds later I yell, "Watch out which way the wind is blowing." Too late. Ken has apparently not taken the wind factor into effect. I hope his bathroom phobia doesn't extend to the rest of the trip. I can see him now, afraid to go into rest rooms. I can envision his nightmares, Kuhlken screaming out in Arabic.

On our last tour I learned to be afraid for my life. Ken claims to be a light sleeper. Paranoid sleeper would be more accurate. If he even suspects a snore coming on, the man goes into his tactical mode. He shouts or throws things in an attempt to either stave off snoring or induce a heart attack. I'm not sure which.

Ken and I are very much the odd couple. We don't look alike, act alike, or write alike. We fight like Oscar and Felix. And yet at the core of our relationship is this respect for the written word. It's the glue upon which we agree. Words can be holy, words can be magic. Both of us respect the other's words. It's enough.

Like military men, we look back on our "tours of duty." The San Diego bookstore with the obnoxious reader from hell who wouldn't leave for two hours; the Palm Springs Literary (misnomer) Guild where a room full of carny barkers were trying to outshout one another and tell us why their lives would make bestselling biographies (where Ken sold one hardcover, and I sold a solitary paperback); the mystery conference where we both heard from editors that male writers were out of vogue, and male protagonists were about as welcome as leprosy. We know that by the end of this trip there will be new stories, new horrors.

"There's no such thing as a bad signing," Kuhlken insists.

It's a mantra he likes to repeat. I don't know if he really believes it. Most of the time I'm convinced he's whistling in the dark.

We exit the freeway south of San Francisco and notice two Mormons (or are they Jehovah's Witnesses - how do you tell?) going from door to door.

"Maybe that's what we should do for our next tour," I said. "Wear black suits and skinny ties and tell people we have the answers, then open up a suitcase and start doing a spiel on our books. It could be like one of those Ronco things. Today we have a special. We'll throw in an autograph and a bookmark. And if you act right now, we'll even throw in a Bic pen all for the price of a book."

"I always thought a guy could go around stealing his own books until he got caught," Kuhlken said, "then have some writer pal do a syndicated story about the author claiming he had to steal them or perish because his publisher refused to spend a nickel on publicity."

"Isn't that going to make the author's next sale to a publisher a little tough?"

"Not if they think they could make money on him," said Ken. "You've got to be loud. When I lived in Europe I used to play a 12-string guitar, and because it was so loud I'd always make more money than all of the other street performers."

I picture Kuhlken on his guitar, and myself flailing away on a tambourine. Somehow I never pictured writing this way. Writing was pure. It was the ultimate tabula rasa. It was noble. Now we're just two nouns getting verbed. I can empathize with Willy Loman out on the road. We're strangers going into a strange land, wannabe prophets looking for meager profits. Now we're salesmen, not writers.

“Between us there was . . . the bond . . . making us tolerant of each other's yarns."

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Actually, here's how our argument began. In Santa Maria. We had to stop there to pick up some books my publisher had shipped. They arrived late. I'd had them sent there because Alan was supposed to ride the Greyhound to Santa Maria and meet me where I'd been hiding out, bumming a room off my friend Steve. But Alan decided he was too big to ride the Greyhound. Meaning his legs wouldn't fit and he's a hotshot novelist. A distinguished man of letters. That's why he's hustling Jenny Craig.

To wriggle out of the Greyhound he got the Carmel Valley Friends of the Library to invite us to give a talk. "We can sell a few books," he said. "Donate the profit to the library."

"And make me drive all the way back from Santa Maria because you're too cool to ride the Greyhound and too cheap to take the airplane."

"Did I tell you how much the plane costs to Santa Maria?"

"Take it to Oakland. I'll pick you up there."

"And disappoint Victoria?"

"Who's Victoria?"

"The woman with the sexiest voice on the west coast. Our contact with the Friends of the Carmel Library."

"Oh, all right. I'll be there."

I headed south the day before the books would arrive at Steve's place in Santa Maria, the morning of our library appearance. Early afternoon, I stopped in Thousand Oaks for gas, at a Chevron. I sprinted to the restroom. The door was locked. I paced and grumbled. After a couple minutes the toilet flushed. A guy started whistling. The water in the sink turned on, stayed on for several minutes, turned off. A paper towel rustled. Then another. Still another. Finally the door creaked open. A swarthy fellow appeared.

"Sure you got your hands clean enough?" I inquired.

He regarded me severely. I might've stayed and traded evil eyes, except I was set to explode. I bolted inside, slammed the door. Maybe too hard. When I tried to open it, the knob just spun. I shook and kicked for a while, then started pounding. At last footsteps sounded.

"Hey, I'm stuck," I shouted. "Help me out of here, would you?"

The footsteps retreated. Within the hour, two pair of footsteps returned. "We're going to get you out. Be patient."

The doorknob spun a few times. The door rattled. "It's really stuck," a man said, then he and the other guy talked Arabic for about half the afternoon, probably discussing the wholesale price of various motor oils and now and then asking each other how long they should let the wisecracking infidel remain in the latrine.

I was beginning to wonder if people ever died from claustrophobia when they finally used the screwdriver to bust me out. I staggered to the junkheap I'd bought three years ago when I had presumed that large advances were my destiny. A Ford Explorer. It was a gem until the warranty expired and I let Alan drive it.

The only benefits in driving back to San Diego were that I got to play wiffleball with Alan's kids and meet Victoria. A sultry voice. A tall, sleek blonde who is single and pretty and makes time to volunteer for the Friends of the Library and a literacy project. Otherwise, the trip was a bust. I sold four books, and gave the profit to the library. Instead of offering to subsidize my gas, Alan fed me day old pesto and a couple of the cheap beers he keeps on hand. A Pabst and a Lucky.

This morning we sped north. I was anxious to solve the mystery of the message that Laura, Alan's wife, took last night. I'd gotten called in Santa Maria, at Steve's number, by somebody named Brown. When I called back, early morning, Steve was already gone. His son tried to read the message. All he could decipher was "Brown." And "Call Joe."

A week before, Joe Publicist from St. Martin's called to tell me that David Brown, producer of such literary classics as "Jaws," had asked for a copy of my new book, The Angel Gang. So this Brown who called, I figured, must be the same guy, phoning to say that he's read the book and decided to make a blockbuster out of it. And now, I imagine, Joe Publicist has called to announce that St. Martin's, on account of the movie deal, decided to sponsor our tour. Tonight, I tell Alan, we dine, drink and sleep at the St. Francis.

All the way to Santa Maria, I'm whistling, wondering who'll play Tom Hickey in the movie, if the story could adapt to accommodate a shark, whether my check would be six or seven figures, should I accept David Brown's invitation to write the screenplay. I'm feeling so lighthearted and secure, I wonder if my friend Stan Cutler's goddaughter Kathryn, who'd recently divorced Lorenzo Lamas, would care to spend an evening with me. Even driving through L.A. can't break the spell. Neither can Alan's grousing about our having to take 101 instead of I-5, which would get us to San Francisco about six hours sooner, the way Alan drives. On 101, there's traffic. Top speed's about 70.

But in Santa Maria, Steve translates the note. It's from Maggie Brown, editor of a mystery tabloid. Wearily, I call her, learn that she only wants me to write an article about Sue Dunlap. "Write it yourself," I mutter, then hang up and call Joe Publicist. He's out to lunch. At four p.m. New York time.

I let Alan drive, so I can brood more darkly. All the way to King City, he tailgates and gripes. The one-hundred-twenty-third time he says, "If we were on I-5 . . . ," I roar, "Listen, I just drove all the way to (blah blah blah), and you just keep making a big (expletive) deal on account of we won't get dinner until eight o'clock when your dinner time is at six and your wife spoils you to death, and I don't see how she puts up with your . . . (and so on)."

For ten minutes, heavy silence reigned. Alan chopped off semis and zoomed past two highway patrol cars parked on the shoulder. The officers wore dark glasses and must've been dozing.

At last I muttered, "Sorry."

"No problem," Alan said icily.

Trying to lighten things up, I talked about my friend Steve. Alan had liked Steve, who's a warm, gentle, strange character. He owns a sign business and does pinstriping. His house is full of old gas pumps, neon signs, pinball machines. He made his new grandaughter a rocking cow, all out of wood, with wooden rockers, and pinstriped the whole cow. He drives a Harley Davidson.

A couple months ago, Steve phoned me. "Ken," he said meekly, "I've got to confess something. You know, being a Christian, I'm supposed to set a good example, right? Well, across the street from my shop, there's a guy named Foster, does auto body work. A while back, I got this urge to moon him. So I did. Then he mooned me. And now there's not a day goes by when one of us doesn't moon the other. Well, yesterday, I'd just got back from a job and there he is, standing in the doorway to his shop. I didn't see anybody else around, so I mooned him. And a while later he comes over and he's howling, slapping his leg, you know. He says, 'Way to go, Steve. Didn't you see the old lady I was talking to?' She must've been in the shadows. 'We were checking you out, and she taps me on the shoulder and says, Oh look, there's a homeless man going to the bathroom.'

Steve said he didn't think it was very Christian to be mooning people. But he kept doing it anyway. I suggested he find a mooners anonymous. If there wasn't one closer, I assured him, there'd be a chapter in San Francisco, only a few hours from Santa Maria.

Between the story and the traffic thinning so that Alan could floor the accelerator and drive fast enough to terrify me -- anything over 100 mph will do -- we put my tantrum behind us. Terrifying me pleases Alan immensely. So does abusing my Explorer. We were rattling over construction potholes, in the left lane even though the right lane was smoother. A black Kenworth chopped in front of us. Brakes screamed. Smoke rose from my tires, steam from Alan's forehead. Cussing demoniacally, he tailgated the Kenworth until it finally changed lanes. Then he roared past, flipping the guy off.

In the blur, I noticed the Kenworth driver wore a felt cowboy hat pulled low and a shiny blond beard. He was chomping a cigar butt. I knew he'd reappear, heavily armed, before the trip concluded. Maybe he'd conclude it.

A couple hours put us in the shadow of Oakland Coliseum, where according to a sign, Grateful Dead fans clean litter from the highway. It appeared they'd last swabbed the area in 1964.

Another sign pointed the way to Jack London Square. I convinced Alan we should make a pilgrimage there. It's a tourist village. We only stopped long enough for me to scribble graffiti on a few white walls. I wrote, "Jack London is dead. Buy our books instead. Ken Kuhlken and Allen Russel." Every time, hypersensitive Alan insisted I correct the spelling of his name.

In Alameda, we saw the world's ugliest auto paint job, on a Volkswagen bug. Flat purple.

Laura Russell's folks live in Alameda. Their house is full of books. They're gracious people who either enjoy Alan or pretend to in exchange for access to their grandchildren. They gave us each a room with a sliding glass door that opened onto an atrium. With the curtains open, we could see each other, on account of which I got unjustly branded with a nickname.

I blame myself for telling Alan about Steve's confession. Not to be outdone, no sooner had Mike and Ann gone to bed than Alan knocks on his window. I look over, and cringe. He's mooning me.

While recovering from that ghastly vision, I curled up snuggly, read for a while, inserted my ear plugs so I wouldn't wake up when Alan's snoring shivered the plate glass, and fell asleep. Sometime during the night, Alan had drawn a sketch of a moon -- not the heavenly kind -- and taped it onto his window, facing out.

I woke early, opened the shade and there it was. Behind it, Alan stood cackling. What choice did I have but to moon him?

Immediately, he branded me Mooner.

The whole routine was a set up, I'll bet. He'd have mooned me from there to Seattle if necessary, until one time he got me to drop my guard and moon him back. Alan considers imparting nicknames as one of his vocations. Even over breakfast with Mike and Ann, he called me Mooner. I know it's going to stick. He'll see to it. Fifty years from now, at age 98, I'll have to explain to my great great grandkids why people call me Mooner.

That is if we survive this tour.

Alan's out strolling the bayside, staring at birds. I'm going to go remind him that a great author's desire should be to honor people, to paint them larger than life, to immortalize them. Not to slander them with nicknames.

He'll say, "Good point, Mooner." I know he will.

“Ugly? Yes it was ugly enough."

Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Jenny Craig

Have Fun Losing a Ton

San Diego, CA.

Dear Jenny,

Please disregard that letter you received from me yesterday.

My friend, Mooner, that is, Ken Kuhlken, is currently suffering from psychological problems. To synopsize, Jenny, the man can't keep his pants on in public. Give him any excuse and he drops his drawers. Mooner is not the kind of fellow I want to share a marquee with, let alone a Winnebago. I can see how his antics would play in Alabama as he shows his all to one of the local constabulary.

The one possible benefit I can see from Mooner's condition is that we might gain some notoriety. We'd show up to book signings and the audience would be waiting with baited breath. Would Mooner do his thing or not? I mean Allen Ginzburg used to be famous for doing readings sans clothes. Problem is, if Mooner shined the audience it would clear them out and they wouldn't come back. There's a reason Mooner wasn't included in the Men of Mystery Calendar (Just call me Mister June, Jenny). Maybe Ken can make lemon out of his lemonades, though. As Ken would tell you, he's "hair-challenged." On his head at least. But if he's looking to transplant some hair there's an obvious solution. Then, in the future, when people say the usual "You're an ass" to Ken, he could run his hand through his wavy locks and reply, "You don't know the half of it."

The tour's not going that well, Jenny. I think Kuhlken sabotaged me. It doesn't bode well when you go into bookstore after bookstore and find your name misspelled on sign after sign. I get the feeling that Ken sat there cackling one day saying, "How am I going to misspell Alan's name on this press release. A-L-L-E-N? A-L-L-A-N? Or maybe, A-L-I-E-N?" The spelling for Russell has also been butchered. Not so Kuhlken. Curious and curiouser as the British say.

More later, Jenny. Ken's beginning to sing some song and I'm feeling sick.

Sincerely,

Alan (that's how you really spell it) Russell

By any stretch of the imagination, Redwood City was not a good signing.

Two old ladies showed up. They could have been straight out of casting for those Denny's commercials. But the show had to go on. We waxed poetic. We told our stories. And we gorged on all the chips and bean dip and desserts ("No wine?" Kuhlken muttered under his breath. "We've got to talk to the Miss Marple twins for half an hour without any wine?"). Early on, touring authors learn the secret of eating and drinking whatever the bookstore puts out before it disappears. For this signing, that wasn't a problem.

The two old ladies bought one of my paperbacks (they share books, they told us), and explained to Ken that they didn't buy hardcovers. Ken has heard the same speech before and still manages to smile through it. To date all of his books are in hardcover and none in paperback. This is not a matter he is pleased with. Even the Redwood City bookstore owners don't buy one of his hardcovers. Ken is fuming by the time we hit the car.

"I don't need to go on the road for rejection," he said. "I can find enough of that in my own home town."

I am tempted to repeat his line about there not being such a thing as a bad book signing, but even I recognize this isn't the right time. Five or ten minutes from now we'll be able to laugh, but not now.

We pull out the maps and figure out our route to Modesto for our second signing of the day. Before our trip began I collected a bunch of maps. When Ken first saw them he said, "Maps?", intoning the word as if it was a novel concept.

"Yes, maps."

"What do we need maps for?"

"For our International tour," I said (there was a map of Canada in the lot). "We're going places we don't know. How are we supposed to get around without maps?"

"You pull into a gas station and you ask the attendant," he said.

"And we do that in every damn city?"

"Why not?"

I wonder how many people there are like Mooner out there. I think up a plot for a future mystery, with a gas station attendant murdering people like Mooner for constantly bothering him for directions.

Ken assiduously studies the map. He's now a born-again believer in cartography, after too many gas stations wherein the attendants knew only a dozen words of English and couldn't give directions to the Taco Bell across the street. "Is the way to hell on there?" I ask.

There is this feeling, four days into our trip, that we are descending into hell. Our eyes are getting a little glassy, our hygiene a little sloppy. It wouldn't be too much a push of the imagination to see us both hunched over typewriters typing: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy..."

Ken belches. Too much bean dip. We start our drive. I try to jolly him up. I suggest that he might consider mooning our audiences.

"Yeah," he says. "I'll moon and you fart. That ought to bring them out in droves. How's that?"

I demur. But not without a little thought.

Ken is a little skittish about my driving. He thinks I drive a tad fast. Just as I'm making the comment about how the route into Modesto isn't that bad, two lane highway and all, a produce truck pulls out in our path, and I have to do the kind of driving that always warrants a disclaimer on commercials about how such stunts shouldn't be attempted.

"I want to live!" Kuhlken yells.

The last bookstore is forgotten. Shock therapy brings Kuhlken back to life.

Mooner offers a theory. "You can tell how a community is doing by the price of their Motel 6," he said.

The prices of the Motel 6's heading into Modesto are on the lower scale. We pass a ranch which has a sign advertising: "Home of Ton Bulls." We also pass Lord's Cafe and Faust Road.

"Russell Road," Mooner says, "should be between those two."

You wouldn't think Modesto would have a mystery bookstore, but it does.

"My name better be spelled right this time," I said.

"Quit griping about your name," said Mooner.

"Amazing how your name has been spelled correctly everywhere," I said.

Mooner doesn't even try to hide his delight.

We're meeting up with fellow mystery writer Karen Kijewski for the signing. Karen's sort of a local, hailing from Sacramento. Maybe that's why they have a picture of her in the window of The Perfect Crime. At least my name is spelled right. Mooner scrutinizes the listing of names: Karen's first, mine is second, his third.

"That lineup is exactly the opposite of how it should be," he says.

Out loud he opines how Karen's picture would look with a mustache drawn on it. It's hot in Modesto and we have ninety minutes to kill before the signing. We walk over to a strip mall and spend our time in a religious bookstore. Pat Robertson's face is everywhere. I never thought I would be nostalgic for Tammy Faye Baker, but given the alternative...

Ken is disappointed at the fictional Christian offerings. There are no copies of The Robe or Ben-Hur or The Devil's Advocate. What's there are the kind of books for people who move their lips big time when they read. Ken was hoping his latest book, The Angel Gang, would find a home in just such stores. That will happen, I reluctantly think, when hell freezes over.

We walk across the street to do our signing and receive more bad news. We are told "the printers" were late in producing the postcard announcing our signing, and subsequently the mailing went out late. Patrons arriving in the store tell us they only received the announcement that day. It was enough, though, to bring out more than twenty people. Karen arrives half an hour late in the time honored Hollywood and big shot author tradition. She claims to have gotten lost, but Mooner and I don't buy it. Not that we really minded the wait. At this bookstore there was plenty of wine and appetizers.

In a weak moment Karen offers to host us for one night. We make ourselves at home at her place. Like bears fattening up for winter, Ken and I ingest copious quantities of food and drink. I start referring to him as "my friend Mooner," and Karen asks how he received his name. The conversation, Kierkegaard and Sartre if I remember, quickly degenerates. The evening gets even worse when Karen and Mooner insist upon listening to country music. Karen's next Kat Colorado novel is going to have something to do with country music. Karen and Ken start howling together, and I ask them what you get when you play country music backwards.

"What?"

"You get your dog back, you get your job back, you get your wife back, and you get your pickup back."

The two of them boo me out of the room. I leave them to their Kat-erwauling (all of Karen's books have Kat something or other in their titles - Ken and I suggested she start a young adult series with Kitty Colorado as the protagonist, with the first book to be called Kitty Litter, but for some reason Karen didn't go for it).

We leave early the next morning with most of Karen's refrigerator in the car. Two more book signings on the docket. Hope springs eternal.

The afternoon signing is scheduled for Book Passage in Corte Madera. We drive quickly, figuring out the maze to get us there. It's time to figure out the "80 Syndrome" again. Travel around Oakland and San Francisco and you'll see a plethora of "80's" - 980, 880, 580, and 80.

We make it to Book Passage on time. There's a sign out front that welcomes Erica Jong. She's appearing several days later. No sign for us. A former student of Ken's works in the store. Maybe that explains why his name is spelled right on the sign inside, and mine is spelled wrong.

Mooner's too busy to hear me point out the mistake. He's making time with his former student. I talk with one of the bookstore managers and he tells me they only managed to get two copies of my latest hardcover and none of my paperbacks. I'm convinced Kuhlken is behind all of this.

There is actually a very large crowd, about forty people. Ken and I do our thing. Sometimes you really have to work a crowd. You're like comics trying to win them over. There are times when you get a room you're sure is straight from Missouri, complete with their tattoos "show me." This isn't that kind of crowd. They laugh. They applaud. They cheer. They think we're better than ice cream.

They're a bunch of prick teasers.

They've all had tea and crumpets, all had a good time watching the zoo animals perform, and when we finish they troop out. Half a dozen stop to tell us how much they enjoyed our talk. We smile. We manage to refrain from saying, "Then buy our goddam books." Just barely.

"What happened there?" Ken asks in the car.

"I don't know."

"It's like someone hired that group to tantalize us."

No one bought a book. Not a solitary book. Problem is, we don't have time to be depressed. We have another signing to get to in Berkeley.

"You got any literary enemies?" Mooner asks, still hardpressed to find an answer to what just occurred.

"No," I said. Then I reconsidered. "Maybe one."

I tell Ken about this letter I received from a Judith Muck (signed Judy Muck) of Hannibal, Missouri. At first I thought it was a fan letter, but Judith wasn't writing to say anything nice. She wanted to take exception with a grammatical error in my first novel. First old Judy gave me a browbeating for making the mistake, then she took my publisher to task for promulgating it. Judy's advice was that I take some remedial copyediting courses.

People who live in glass houses...

Much to my pleasure (for perhaps the first and only time), I noticed that Judith made the mistake of misspelling my first name. In red ink I circled her mistake, and then wrote: "So much for your vaunted proofreading ability." Then I added a P.S. - "Muck you. Oops. Was that a misspelling?"

We decide to blame Judy Muck for what happened. And, Ken adds, the Palm Springs Literary Guild. "They've probably sent mailers all over the northwest," he said, "convincing hecklers and jokers and misanthropes to join them in their conspiracy to drive us nuts."

The ride over to the Black Oak Bookstore is a depressing one. Our balloon has definitely been punctured. While going over the Richmond Bridge, Ken comments, "All males should wear cups over this damn bridge." It is rather bumpy.

As should have been expected, we get lost in Berkeley. Ken had claimed to know exactly where we were going. I pull out a Berkeley map and start navigating. I'm the first to admit I have no sense of direction. Ken thinks he's a modern day Lewis & Clark, which is why he's gotten totally lost in Palo Alto, Redwood City, Walnut Creek, Alameda, and even Modesto.

We still make it to the Black Oak in time for our signing. About fifteen people are sitting in the audience. This time we're not fooled. We know Judy Muck sent them. Our talk isn't all that warm, and our replies have a surly edge. We expect nothing, and that's pretty much what we get. We both sell a few books.

"Where's a bar?" we ask. "We don't need any ferns or view."

We get directions. We both drink two beers, almost enough anesthesia to feel human again.

It's dark. We don't know where the hell we are. All we want is a cave. We get in the car and start driving. Mooner tunes in a radio station. Sweet jazz plays, and then some blues.

"You know," Ken says, "sometimes you have to hit rock bottom. That way you can only go up."

"Are you saying that sinking to the depths is good?"

"Yeah."

"That this descent into hell is necessary?"

"Yeah. Hell yeah."

"That we should just go with the dismal flow?"

"The lower, the better."

I start laughing. Kuhlken makes the route to hell sound not only attractive, but essential. He joins me in the laughter. We sound like two madmen. Judy Muck and the Palm Springs Literary Guild and John Stuart have succeeded. We roll the windows down, our laughter pealing along some freeway with an 80 in it.

"Fine sentiments, be hanged!"

Conrad, Heart of Darkness

There is such a thing as a bad signing, damn it.

Once, life was good. Sausalito, 1991. My first book signing in eleven years. The Loud Adios had just hit the shelves. I was suddenly a mystery writer. Besides the store keeper who tried to salve my feelings by reminding me that the locals fled Sausalito in summer, making way for the tourists, the only people who showed were my cousin and her boyfriend. "So what?" I said. I got to eat more cookies, drink more wine, spend more time with my cousin than otherwise, get to know and love her better.

Colorado, 1993, promoting The Venus Deal. All day, Alan's been saying we should've skipped Colorado Springs. Another writer or two had sold only a couple books there.

"It's on our way," I kept saying. "What's the big deal? At the very least, we'll get a free coke."

"Humiliating ourselves for a free coke," Alan mumbled.

"You want to humiliate yourself, go ahead. I'm just going to sit there."

At the bookstore, my old friend Rick showed up. He'd seen my name in the window, hadn't even known I'd turned to mysteries, like I didn't know he lived in Colorado. He brought a six pack.

"Okay, okay," Alan said later. "For a coke I won't humiliate myself. For a couple beers I'll do it gladly."

The next evening, in Boulder, I got to observe the way Alan deflects the advances of particularly adoring females. During question and answer, he'd proclaim, "My ideas usually come from my wife and children. . . . Well, yes, I enjoy traveling, except that I'm forced to travel with Ken rather than my wife and children."

And I got to listen to Alan and the bookseller debate the correctness of a certain gay character in No Sign of Murder. "I'll grant you that stereotypically swishy gay men do exist," the bookseller contended, "but to portray them in a novel only proliferates the stereotype, don't you see?"

"My friend Ken resembles that remark," Alan said, and stood to his full 6'7" and 250 pounds to make his point. He actually acted like he was defending my honor. The bookseller gave him that round.

The trouble is, Alan doesn't crack me up so much anymore. Not at book signings. Because with each new book of ours that comes out, more illusions shatter. It used to be that we could rationalize -- when word gets around about these excellent reviews; when the trilogy's all available; when the paperback comes out -- then we'll get writer's cramp from signing, and our publishers will coordinate and pick up the tab for our tour, like they're doing for Michael Connelly whom we're going to meet in Seattle. Then, we can thumb our nose at the Taco Bell, shoot the finger to the Motel 6. At the first of every month we can sit down and pay our bills without cussing under our breath.

The kick I used to get from the little pleasures has gone. I'm jaded. Maybe it's the Taco Bell diet. Maybe Alan's Jenny Craig idea has merit. I don't know. I'm stumped.

The night before last in Berkeley, the editor of my first book showed up. During 1979, she had bought my novel Midheaven for Viking Press, done a superior job editing, then disappeared, leaving the book to get largely ignored until a year after publication when it was nominated for best first novel of 1980. By then it was out of print.

I'm not saying that's what knocked me into a ten year slump. Nor am I saying it wasn't. Who knows? I heard about a ballplayer who attributed a slump to the fact that his wife convinced him to wash the dishes. His image of a major league ballplayer didn't include washing dishes. It made him feel like a phony, which dented his confidence and so on.

Of course, writers aren't as sensitive as ballplayers.

Anyway, after our talk at Black Oak Books, Maureen the editor comes over, tells me who she is. We'd met, but long ago. We caught up a little, then she told me why she gave up on Viking in particular, and commercial publishing in general. She'd gotten disgusted because the bigshots decided to put zero into promoting Midheaven and another book she thought worthy of their efforts. So Viking tossed Midheaven into the world and watched it die. After all, it came out the same month as a new Stephen King, and Steve needed the publicity money more than I did.

I'm not inclined toward bitterness, but to leave that place knowing how close I might've come to an easier, more bountiful ten years -- I'll try understatement -- ripped my heart out and ground it into chili powder. That's why I let Alan lead me to a bar. That's why I say there are bad signings. That's why I'm going to deface every Norman Vincent Peale book I see.

This morning we navigated the 780 to 580 to 880 to 480 to 680 to 280 maze. When we made I-5, I gave the wheel to Alan, pinched my eyes closed and tried to relax. It was no use. Every time I peeked, saw him hunching over the wheel, he reminded me of Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights (not to be confused with Melrose Place). The passionate, overly intelligent, overly intense, overly sensitive oaf doomed by the very stuff that makes him heroic. Riding with such a driver does not comfort a troubled mind.

I started griping about the rough pavement. Alan grumbled, "What is it, Mooner -- is it missing church that's turning you irritable and profane?"

"That's half of it. The other half's hanging out with you. You're teaching me how to be a bastard."

"I didn't need to," Alan said. Fighting words.

Still, I attempted civil conversation. "Check this out. We go into every bookstore. If they've got our books, fine. We tell the clerk, put them on display. Sell them. Keep them in stock. We're coming back every couple weeks to check. Then you pat the clerk on the head and leer wickedly, as though you'd love to crack his head like a peanut shell."

"Why do I need to be the heavy?" Alan asked.

"Because it's in character."

"And you're what, Saint Francis of Assisi?"

"Look in the mirror," I said. "No, don't. Wait till you're not driving." We were pushing 100 mph.

"So, what you're saying," Alan speculates, "is that we need to act more assertive."

"Yep. To build a reputation. That bloody guy, Ellroy -- everybody talks about him because he plays this crude act. Anybody he doesn't cuss out he propositions. That's what I hear. Suppose we go on a crime spree. Look, mystery readers want to read about criminals, right? If the writers are criminals, they're going to love us."

"Don't they identify with the good guy?"

"Maybe. I'd like to think so. But that doesn't fit with my plan."

"Which is?"

"Well, threats and misdemeanors. We convince owners that they either sell our books at their stores or they need to buy home alarm systems and hire rent-a-cops. A simple protection racket."

"Suppose they report us?"

"Who are the cops going to believe, a bookseller or a couple of professional liars?"

Alan pretended to think for a while, then humored me. "Threats don't work unless a guy proves he'll follow through. You think protection racketeers just threaten? They also have to snuff and maim people, or at least knock them around."

"That's where John Stuhr comes in," I said.

Alan turned a wicked grin on me. "Continue."

"Stuhr made promises he didn't keep. Instead of reviewing our books and arranging radio interviews, he swiped the complimentary copies and beat it, without even setting up the signing. So, we send the message -- nobody humiliates Kuhlken and Russell and lives. When he becomes an official missing person, after we've informed every bookstore in the northwest that he offended us, word'll get around. Mystery clubs on the Internet will pick it up. Instant fame."

"Then the Royal Canadian Mounties will hunt us down and for the rest of our short, cold lives we'll write stories about some place like the Gulag Archipelago, only in the Yukon."

"Nope. Trust me, Alan. I've got a plan. See, we find the guy and offer him a choice. He disappears, takes a new identity and plays dead, or else he dies for real. He'll take option number one for sure. And we're clean. No body, no evidence, no crime. Only a lot of rumors that make us the hottest names going. You watch, before the end of the year, Jay Leno will invite us to his show. He loves crime stories."

"Suppose John Stuhr holds out for option two, calls our bluff."

"He won't. I talked to the guy. He's a wimp. Anyway, if that situation presents itself, we'll know how to deal with it. I mean you don't stop writing a story just because you don't know what's going to happen on page one-fifty, do you?"

"It's not a bad plan," Alan muttered.

"It's a great plan."

"Not bad. Only we don't blatantly threaten the bookstore owners. We simply tell them how John Stuhr pretended to appreciate us but let us down. We need to be subtle."

"Literary."

"Right. To convince them, with our expressions and body language, that we're lunatics. You can do that easily."

"No sweat," I said. "Maybe we can get Connelly to join us. Imagine the headlines. World Famous Author Suspect in Murder Investigation."

"No good," Alan said. "That way Mike would get all the publicity."

I suspect it was the pressure of our transformation from supposedly upright characters into villains combined with our having called each other bastards that prompted our second feud, after Alan insisted on stopping at The Almond Tree.

"That's what I hate about your driving," I said. "You go petal to the metal, shaking loose every nut and bolt in my Explorer, endangering our lives. Then you want to stop and browse at every tourist joint."

"One," he snapped. "One tourist joint. I love ahmonds. You got a problem with that?"

"Yeah, you say it wrong. Up here, where they grow the damned things, the don't say ahmonds. They say aamonds. ‘A’ like in alabaster."

"They do not."

"Come on, Alan. Give me some credit. I lived in Chico five years. It's twenty miles from here. The natives and the with-it transplants all said aamonds. Not ahmonds."

"No way."

"Okay. Stop at the dumb place. We'll see."

North of San Francisco you enter the outskirts of espresso country. Espresso bars in groceries, convenience stores, auto repair shops. The Almond Tree had one. We sat at the counter, ordered iced latte and asked the waitress how she pronounced the name of the establishment.

"Why, the Ahmond Tree," she said.

Alan snickered at me. I told the girl she had it wrong. We wandered a while, looking at coffee mugs with golf jokes and garlic crushers, tasting the varieties of almonds stuffed with this or that. At the checkout stand, I asked the clerk if she was a native of those parts.

"Yep," she said. "Born and raised in Gridley."

"Okay, then. How do you say the name of this place?"

"The Ahmond Tree."

Alan laughed out loud. All the way to the car, he shot me his wicked leer. I tipped the seat back, closed my eyes and thought about murderous stuff. In my next novel, there'd be a 6'7" character, Heathcliff Russell. At the end, he and Clifford Hickey would battle on the edge of a seacliff at Torrey Pines golf course, pounding each other with nine irons. Clifford, a third degree black belt, would dodge. Russell would miss, spin and topple a hundred feel into the rocky surf.

When at last I mellowed and dozed, I had a dream. In it, Alan and I were driving through a smoky black cloud. I glanced at the speedometer. The needle was tickling the 230 mph line. The highway was a blur, but an overhead sign flashed distinctly. It read, HELL -- 847 miles.

I woke up trembling. Alan muttered, "Sorry for making you look like a fool."

"The maps. Where are the maps?"

"Since when did the directionally gifted Ken Kuhlken need maps?"

"Never mind. Where are they?"

"Under your feet."

I grabbed for Alan's briefcase that he prizes because it has a Dallas Sheriff's Department insignia on it and it was given to him by a fan. I flipped through about two hundred maps until I found one that showed the entire west coast and gave distances. After adding a few dozen figures, I discovered that according to my dream, Hell was in the neighborhood of Vancouver, B.C. The last known residence of John Stuhr.

"The horror! The horror!"

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Jenny Craig

Thin Is In Central

San Diego

Dear Jenny,

Things are rapidly degenerating on the road here. Kuhlken is using our maps more than Mother Teresa ever used her rosary. He keeps scanning them and muttering.

Mooner now claims the highlight of our trip was our stop at the Olympia Brewery. Maybe we're both degenerating. Instead of talking about our signings, we're figuring out how many breweries we can hit on the road. Blatz and Rainier are coming up.

Yesterday we had a few hours to kill before our signing in a Kirkland Washington bookstore, so we stopped in at their library. Authors always like to see if their books are stocked in libraries around the country. This particular library had one of mine, and one of Ken's. That wasn't good enough for him.

He went to the checkout counter, identified himself (acting as if they should have known who he was), then said, "Why don't you have all of my books?"

The librarian was slightly offput. "You'll have to talk to our head librarian," she said.

A man appeared. He explained about budget constraints, how the King County system shared books. His words were reasonable. He was articulate.

Mooner was possessed. "My books are a trilogy. You need the whole set." Spittle oozed from the corner of his mouth. His eyeballs were popping. He looked like Jack Elam on a bad day. I had to lead him away, talking in quiet, soothing tones. If the city of Kirkland has a Kuhlken book burning, it would be entirely justified. In my mind's eye I can envision Mooner going into Christian Science Reading Rooms and railing because they don't have his books.

I remind Ken of a story he once told me. His Tae Kwon Do Master said there were three rules in life: "One is patience. Two is patience. And three is patience."

On our drive into Seattle today Ken kept telling stories of death. The man knows more people that have killed themselves, or been killed, than a funeral director. His stories have touched me in a certain way. At odd intervals I find myself saying, "Red-rum, red-rum, red-rum!"

We have two book signings tonight. We'll be hooking up with Michael Connelly. The MichaelConnelly. “Mike’s on his publisher's expense account,” Ken said. “They're my publishers too. If he picks up the tab, I'm buying two orders of Maine lobster and a gallon of Glenlivet scotch."

In downtown Seattle we're walking, map in hand, searching for the bookstore. Connelly's rep was driving him there. "Probably in a limo," Ken muttered.

While we argued over the best way to get to the bookstore, a blind woman, tapping along with her white cane, approached us. "Where are you trying to get?" she asked.

"The Seattle Mystery Bookstore," I said. "It's on Cherry Street."

The blind woman pointed out the way, then continued onward, tapping.

"Did a blind woman just give us directions?" Ken asked.

"Even the blind can see we're lost," I said.

Mooner leaned against a brick wall. "Oh God."

More later, Jenny.