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it; and the writer might peruse whatever you write afterward, to see if you’ve ‘plagiarized’ from him—or her. It isn’t uncommon, Andrew. You’re lucky to have been spared until now.”
    Desperately I was trying to think: had I ever received anything from “C. W. Haider”? I was too embarrassed to tell Grossman that over the years I had occasionally read manuscripts sent to me by strangers, and, naïvely, I’d even written back to some of them with suggestions for revisions; in most cases, the writers expressed gratitude, though next they usually wanted an introduction to an agent or an editor, which took the correspondence to another level entirely—not always happily.
    I told Grossman that I was almost certain, I’d never received any manuscripts or letters from “C. W. Haider” nor had I written to her; and Grossman said, with a chuckle, “If you have, Andrew, we will soon find out. She’ll have the letters with her.”
    He went on to tell me that, of the writers he’d represented over the course of a twenty-year career, it was Stephen King who, not surprisingly, was the most frequent target of crank lawsuits; but that King had managed to avoid really serious litigation so far since the cases were usually demonstrably ridiculous.
    “You’ve represented Stephen King?”—this was encouraging to me.
    “Of course. More than once.”
    “Was he—upset at being sued?”
    “Initially. But Steve got used to it, as a ‘public figure’—it’s like wearing a large target on your back. The flip side of fame, drawing the attention of the mentally unstable. And the litigious, who are a separate category, though they can also be mentally unstable.”
    “Were you always successful in defending Stephen King?”
    Though it was not like me to be so rudely inquisitive I had to ask this question. Grossman laughed, obscurely.
    “Well, Andrew—I think, in fairness to Steve, I shouldn’t discuss his legal problems any further. Some of these cases are in the public record and you could look them up—others were settled out of court, and privately. And when Steve changed publishers, a few years ago, naturally I no longer represented him. I have no idea what has happened, if anything, in subsequent years. I just wanted you to know, to assuage your anxiety, because you’ve been sounding very anxious on the phone—I wanted you to know that you are not alone. Bestselling writers have always been targets for litigation.”
    “‘Settled out of court, privately’—does that mean that Stephen King had to pay ? Why on earth would he have to pay ?”
    “Andrew, please. It isn’t uncommon for a well-to-do client to settle with an aggressive plaintiff, just to clear the air and avoid ugly publicity. A settlement doesn’t have to be millions of dollars, as you might think from the media; I’ve managed settlements for as little as ten thousand, one notable time just nine hundred ninety-nine dollars. ”
    “But if the writer is ‘innocent’—”
    “Of course! Of course the writer is ‘innocent’! Writers of the stature of Stephen King and Andrew J. Rush are hardly likely to ‘plagiarize’ their material from amateurs and lunatics.”
    Stammering I told Grossman that I thought, in this case, that the complainant was actually accusing me of breaking into her house and taking something . . .
    But a seasick sensation had come over me. I could not have said with any clarity what I did think and I could not have brought myself to re-examine the summons which by this time I’d read, reread and reread to the point of nausea.
    Grossman laughed. “Andrew, that’s wild! As long as it doesn’t get into the media, it’s really funny—you must admit. ‘Breaking and entering’—crawling through a window—to steal ideas for your novels from ‘C. W. Haider.’”
    I did not think this was funny. I did not laugh.
    As long as it doesn’t get into the media.
    Better to erase the accuser at once.
    In his exuberant way,