Good behavior, p.1
Good Behavior, page 1
Two Ways to Read
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A NOTE FROM BLAKE CROUCH ON
GOOD BEHAVIOR
Letty Dobesh is hands-down the coolest thing creatively that has ever happened to me as a writer. Writing living, breathing people who are multidimensional and feel like someone you actually know is something I strive for; to me it has always been the hardest part of the job, and often I fall short of the goal. And if I do reach the goal, it’s only after draft seven or eight of a novel—more an act of attrition than inspiration. A steady forming of the clay.
But the inception of Letty was a completely different and singular experience.
In March of 2009, I wasn’t even thinking about Letty. I had become obsessed with a story idea, a sneakily simple premise: What if, during the course of your daily life, you accidentally got entangled in a contract killing? More specifically, what if you discovered that a contract killer were going to murder someone? Would you intervene? Try to stop it from happening? Go to the police? I tried to attack that idea a half dozen times but kept striking out. In all my failed attempts to write this story, my protagonist, the person who accidentally gets themselves involved in this mess, would simply go straight to the police, identify the contract killer, and save the target of the hit. End of story. And that didn’t strike me as much fun. Kind of a one-note endeavor. The problem: all my protagonists were good people.
The first inklings of Letty occurred to me when I started asking myself what kind of character wouldn’t or couldn’t go straight to the police. I wondered, what if it were someone just out of prison on parole? Better yet, what if they were actually in the midst of a crime when they discovered this contract killer and his intentions? If that were the case, any attempt to go to the police would implicate them in their petty theft and send them back to prison. The story started to take shape, details beginning to fill themselves in. What if my antihero was robbing hotel rooms at a swanky resort when they overheard the details of this hit being discussed?
And with that question, a powerful image suddenly took hold of me. I saw a woman in a red wig, hiding in a closet with a duffel bag full of shit she’d spent the day stealing out of hotel rooms. I saw her staring through the slats of the sliding door, watching a man hire another man to kill his wife.
It still gives me chills when I think about it, because with that one image, I knew everything about this woman. Her spirit. Her fight. Her brokenness. Her struggles with addiction. I knew she had a son somewhere who she hadn’t seen in years. I knew she’d been in and out of trouble her entire life. That she was currently living out of a cheap motel room, struggling every day not to use. Not to kill herself. I knew she was brilliant, inventive, charismatic, self-destructive, a chameleon. I knew she wasn’t good or bad. She was authentic. Real. On a journey trying to discover who she really was, and wanting more than anything to make peace with that woman, even if she didn’t fit inside the box society had drawn for her.
I loved Letty that moment. It wasn’t like creating a character. It was like meeting a great friend for the first time. An instant creative connection. I just knew her.
In almost two decades of writing, the creation of Letty is one of the few moments of honest inspiration striking me like lightning out of a cloud. The only other moment that comes close is when I discovered the big mystery behind Wayward Pines.
I immediately got to work writing the first Letty Dobesh story, “The Pain of Others,” which I submitted to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Linda Landrigan, the editor at the magazine, chose to publish it in the March 2011 issue. And just like that, the rest of the world could know Letty, too.
I would go on to write two additional Letty novellas in the coming years; in between books in the Wayward Pines trilogy, her world was a great change of pace. Writing about her was fun—she always followed her gut and I never knew where she would take me.
Beginning in 2012, my life became busy with all things Wayward Pines (the books and the TV show), and I thought I’d seen the last of Letty for a while. But, true to her nature, Letty would not go quietly.
During the course of making Wayward Pines for FOX, I met a television writer and producer named Chad Hodge, who would become one of my best friends and a huge creative force in my life. Chad wrote the pilot script for Wayward Pines, created that show, and welcomed me into the process along the way. For context, our working relationship (TV writer and author) is generally unheard of in Hollywood, which typically tries to keep the writer of the source material as far removed from the process as possible.
Chad and I had such an amazing collaboration working on the first season of Wayward Pines that Chad started perusing the rest of my catalog for another potential project to work on. I told him I had these stories about this woman named Letty Dobesh. I warned him they weren’t high-concept sci-fi thrillers like my Wayward Pines books. These were grounded in our world, and the concept was the character.
Chad read all the Letty stories and called me a few days later. The way he talked about Letty was the way I felt about her. He thought she was incredibly special and suggested we write a pilot script for this new show together.
When Wayward Pines filming wrapped, we began work on the pilot script of what would eventually become Letty’s show, building the first episode primarily around “The Pain of Others,” the story you’re about to read. Chad came up with the title for the show, Good Behavior, and in April of 2015, we sold the pilot script and a pitch for a ten-episode season to Kevin Reilly at TNT, the same guy who had bought Wayward Pines from us when he ran FOX.
Just because you sell a TV show, it doesn’t necessarily mean that show is destined to get made. More often than not, nothing ever happens. We knew that Good Behavior would live or die based on the casting of Letty, and here’s where we got extremely lucky.
In the summer of 2015, Downton Abbey, one of the most iconic shows of the last decade, was in the process of wrapping up its final season. Which meant that one of its stars, Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary), was beginning to consider what her next acting role might be.
She read the script and loved Letty the same way Chad and I had.
Two months after that, on the strength of the pilot episode and three episode scripts written by Chad and me, TNT officially ordered Good Behavior to series.
So what exactly is this book?
First and foremost, it’s the three stories I’ve written: “The Pain of Others,” “Sunset Key,” and “Grab.” After each novella I have added some commentary about the work and the show, images, and other additional content from the journey I have taken with Letty. I like to think about it a little like a “choose your own adventure”—you can feel free to skip the additional content and come back another time, or never even look at it.
I hope this experiment turns out to be something more—a window into how an idea and a character evolve over time through different media.
I had the first notion of Letty in the spring of 2009 in some notebook scribbles. Over the next seven years, Letty went from an idea, to a story, to a script, to auditions, to table reads, to a cable-television show. Along the way, so many amazing people helped to make her the flawed, irresistible, broken, lovely, and brave character you’re about to meet, and who you’ll hopefully watch.
The best part of this experience is that Letty isn’t just mine anymore. She belongs to my cocreator of Good Behavior, Chad Hodge. She belongs to Michelle Dockery, who delivers a devastating performance and takes Letty to places I could never have reached in a million years. She belongs to Charlotte Sieling, the director of the pilot episode, who set the “poetic noir” tone for the entire series. To Curt Beech, the production designer, Alonzo Wilson, the costume designer, and literally hundreds of people who worked long days and nights to help us make ten hours of television about a meth-addicted grifter who meets a contract killer and discovers that he may actually be her path to redemption.
This book isn’t just three stories. It’s the idea that a character doesn’t only exist in prose. Letty is the amalgamation of prose and scripts and performances and finally, most importantly, the impression she leaves on you.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for watching.
I hope you enjoy the ride.
Blake Crouch
Durango, Colorado
May 3, 2016
THE PAIN OF OTHERS
— 1 —
Letty Dobesh, five weeks out of Fluvanna Correctional Institute on a nine-month bit for felony theft, straightened the red wig over her short auburn hair, adjusted the oversize Jimmy Choo sunglasses she’d lifted out of a locker two days ago at the Asheville Racquet Club, and handed a twenty-spot to the cabbie.
“Want change, miss?” he asked.
“On a $9.75 fare? What does your heart tell you?”
Past the bellhop and into the Grove Park Inn, carrying a small leather duffel bag, the cloudy autumn day just cool enough to warrant the fires at either end of the lobby, the fourteen-foot stone hearths sending forth intersecting drafts of warmth.
She sat do wn at a table on the outskirts of the lounge, noting the prickle in the tips of her ears that always started up right before. Adrenaline and fear and a shot of hope because you never knew what you might find. Better than sex on tweak.
The barkeep walked over and she ordered a San Pellegrino with lime. Checked her watch as he went back to the bar: 2:58 p.m. An older couple with glasses of wine cuddled on a sofa by the closest fireplace. A man in a navy blazer read a newspaper several tables away. Looked to her like money—top-shelf hair and skin. Must have owned a tanning bed or just returned from the Islands. Two men washed windows that overlooked the terrace. All in all, quiet for a Saturday afternoon, and she felt reasonably anonymous, though it didn’t really matter. What would be recalled when the police showed up? An attractive thirtysomething with curly red hair and ridiculous sunglasses.
As her watch beeped three o’clock, she picked out the sound of approaching footsteps—the barkeep returning with her Pellegrino. He set the sweating glass on the table and pulled a napkin out of his vest pocket.
She glanced up. Smiled. Good-looking kid. Compulsive weight lifter.
“What do I owe you?”
“On the house,” he said.
She crushed the lime into the mineral water. Through the windows she could see the view from the terrace—bright trees under gray sky, downtown Asheville in the near distance, the crest of the Blue Ridge in the far, summits headless under the cloud deck. She sipped her drink and stared at the napkin the barkeep had left on the table. Four handwritten four-digit numbers. Took her thirty seconds to memorize them, and a quick look around confirmed what she had hoped—the window washers and the hotel guests remained locked and absorbed in their own worlds. She lifted the napkin and slid the keycard out from underneath it, across the glass tabletop and into her grasp. Then shredded the napkin, sprinkling the pieces into the hissing water.
— 2 —
One hour later, she fished her phone out of her purse as she stepped off the elevator and onto the fifth floor. The corridor plush and vacant. No housekeeping carts. An ice machine humming around the corner.
Down the north wing, Letty flushing with the satisfaction that came when things went pitch-perfect. She could have quit now and called it a great haul, her duffel bag sagging with the weight of three high-end laptops, $645 in cash, one phone, two tablets, and three fully raided minibars.
Standing in front of the closed door of 5212, she dialed the front desk on her stolen phone.
“Grove Park Inn. How may I direct your call?”
“Room 5212.”
“Certainly.”
Through the door, she heard the phone ringing, and she let it ring five times before ending the call and glancing up and down the corridor.
The master keycard unlocked the door.
5212 was the modest one of the four—a single king-size bed (unmade), tiled bathroom with a shower and garden tub, the mirror still beaded with condensation. In the sitting area, an armoire, a love seat, a leather chair, and floor-to-ceiling windows with a $350-a-night view of the Asheville skyline, the mountains, and a golf course—greens and fairways lined with pines and maple trees. A trace of expensive cologne lingered in the air, and the clothes on the bed smelled of cigar smoke.
She perused the bedside-table drawer, the armoire, the dresser, the drawers under the bathroom sink, the closet, the suitcase, even under the sofa cushions, which occasionally yielded big scores from the rich too cheap or lazy to use the hotel safe.
Room 5212 was a bust—nothing but three Romeo y Julieta cigars, which she of course pocketed—bonuses for the bellhop and barkeep.
On her way out, Letty unzipped her duffel bag and opened the minibar, her phone buzzing as she reached for a 1.5-ounce bottle of Glenlivet 12 Year.
Pressed “Talk.”
“Yeah?”
“What room you in?”
“Fifty-two twelve.”
“Get out of there. He’s coming back.”
She closed the minibar. “How long do I have?”
“I got tied up giving directions. You might not have any time.”
She hoisted the duffel bag onto her shoulder, started toward the door, but the unmistakable sound of a keycard sliding into the slot stopped her cold.
A muffled voice: “I think you’ve got it upside down.”
Letty opened the bifold closet doors and slipped in. With no doorknob on the inside, she had to pull them shut by the slats.
People entered the hotel suite. Letty let the duffel bag slide off her shoulder and onto the floor. Dug the phone out of her purse, powered it off as the door closed.
Through a ribbon of light, she watched two men walk past the closet, one in a navy blazer and khaki slacks, the other wearing a black suit, their faces obscured by the angle of the slats.
“Drink, Chase?”
“Jameson, if you’ve got it.”
She heard the minibar open.
The man who wasn’t named Chase poured the Irish whiskey into a rocks glass and cracked the cap on a bottle of beer, and the men settled themselves in the sitting area. Letty drew in deep breaths, her heart slamming in her chest, her knees soft, as if her legs might buckle at any moment.
“Chase, I need to hear you say you’ve really thought this through, that you’re absolutely sure.”
“I am. I only went to Victor when I realized there was no other way. I’m really in a bind.”
“You brought the money?”
“Right here.”
“Mind if I have a look?”
Letty heard locks unclasp, what might have been a briefcase opening.
“Now, you didn’t just run down to your bank, ask for twenty-five large in hundred-dollar bills?”
“I went to Victor.”
“Good. We’re still thinking tomorrow, yes?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I understand you have a son?”
“Skyler. He’s seven. From a previous marriage.”
“I want you to go out with your son tomorrow morning at ten. Buy some gas with a credit card. Go to Starbucks. Buy a coffee for yourself. A hot chocolate for Skyler. Wear a bright shirt. Flirt with the barista. Be memorable. Establish a record of you not being in your house from ten to noon.”
“And then I just go home?”
“That’s right.”
“Can you tell me what you’re going to do? So I can be prepared?”
“It’d be more natural—your conversations with the police, I mean—if you were truly surprised.”
“I hear you on that, but I’ll play it better if I know going in. It’s the way I’d prefer it, Arnold.”
“Where does your wife typically shower?”
“Upstairs in the master bath, right off our bedroom.”
“As you’re stepping out of the shower, is the toilet close?”
“Yeah, a few feet away.”
“You’re going to find her on the floor beside the toilet, neck broken like she’d slipped getting out of the shower. It happens all the time.”
“Okay.” Chase exhaled. “Okay, that’ll work. I like that. Then I just call the police?”
“Call 911. Say you don’t know if she’s dead, but that she isn’t moving.”
“The police won’t suspect I did this?”
“They may initially.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Then don’t have your wife killed. It’s not a neat, easy transaction, and you shouldn’t do business with anyone who tells you it is. The husband will always be suspected at first, but please understand I am very good at what I do. There will be an autopsy, but assuming you hold it together, it’ll be ruled an accident. Now, what does your wife do for a living?”
“Not really anything now. She used to be a registered nurse. Why?”
