"Three."

"Goddamn fucking stupid people."

These were the words of one Calvin "Catholic" Spires as he woke up that morning, not really conceiving of what had brought him here at this exact moment in time to this exact hotel room. Named Calvin (Cal to people whom considered him his close friends. He considered he had no friends at all really) after, well his parents never told him that, and nicknamed Catholic after his insane parents religious zealotry and Spires after god knows what the people of Ellis Island where thinking when his ancestors came over all those years ago, he was not blessed but cursed by two forgotten names and one name that connected him and his world forever with a tightly woven significance to a religion that he could not only care less about but not really ever want anything to do with at all because of its centuries of infamy and empty pageantry.

He sat on the side of the bed, legs draped over, cradling his forehead in the palms of his head. An anonymous blonde girl lay fast asleep next to him, naked and unarmed, her leather skirt and tube top scattered in a pile of passion on the floor. He looked at her make-up spread around her face like some twisted demented clown and thought,

"I thought whores supposed to leave after they've finished their jobs."

Whether that was an actual thought and maybe had slipped out between his lips into the empty stale air conditioned room remained to be seen as it was early and he was still wiping the sleep sand from the corners of his eyes.

He hadn't even had any coffee yet.

Cal was an asshole. With or without his coffee. Of this there was no doubt. Whether his fans, that he was hours from meeting, would believe or not, some people are just simply distempered. All day and all night. This distemper can be mistaken for genius at the write time and place, as it had been for years with Cal. Cal was one of these people. Brought up in a world of neglect and sarcasm, it's a matter his smart mouth didn't get him killed along the way (and it very nearly did on many an occasion.) The only thing that seemingly saved him was smarter (Pulitzer Prize winning in fact) mind and an extreme aversion to stay as far away from people in general as possible as he had grown later in life. The publication of his first novel made both of these things possible in spades.

A knock invited itself to Cal's door.

"Mr. Spires sir? Umm...ahh...sir...umm...ahh...we have to leave in approximately ninety minutes to get to the signing in time."

Cal bellowed at the door.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE...WE'LL LEAVE WHEN I'M FUCKING GOOD AND READY."