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eBook Category: Suspense/Thriller
eBook Description: Do you dare discover the next big thing? Back in the nineties, when patrons seemed dead, one truly needed a savage. America teetered on the brink of obsession with sickness until a lonely, unwitting patron named Olive disgraced her "Wellness Club" while allowing the reverend Jigsaw John, F. Mae Kloot, sexy Jude and mighty Andy Boone to shame fundraising. Her pitting fundraisers against one another caused even Simon to stiffen before she gasped, "Romance me for a hundred thousand dollars!" Never again will the origins of wellness be misunderstood. From sticky mistletoe to craps with the devil, underground hide and seek seems as suspect as woodsy Boona green. Is it possible that even an unfulfilled patron can recognize the true nature of giving from a most unlikely alter ego? Let the mystery unfold--indulge your senses with this scintillating second offering from acclaimed fiction author Mark Broderick. Give Simple Savages permission to seduce you within the industry of infinite need where you can discover a romance so wonderful it can reveal a gift to you every day for the rest of your life.

eBook Publisher: Coscom Entertainment, Published: 2005
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2005

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.3 MB], eReader (PDB) [259 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [244 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [219 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [251 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [272 KB], hiebook (KML) [623 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [369 KB], iSilo (PDB) [205 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [270 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [330 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [321 KB]
Words: 65067
Reading time: 185-260 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
ISBN: 1-897217-31-5

Scene 1

"Simon, isn't it?"

Despite the prickling sensation her breath sent as it seemingly inched up his spine, the actor kneeled over her prostrate body. An ancient patron, Olive played the stiff. His pulse roared, yet Simon did not break. His character kneeled in front of the audience ... in front of God and--

"Been with anyone lately?" she added.

The actor continued to retreat from their scene ... inside his lines ... it should have been easy. He had finished six weeks of method acting. Kneeling before "Dead Olive," Simon wondered if Humphrey Bogart had ever stooped so low. He realized that even though he leaned directly over the ashen woman, he detected no motion. Nothing from those greasy lips but an acting job that would earn him acting classes. He maintained character. Then whispered, "No more."

"Closer, I'm just playing dead, not married. One hundred thousand dollars to the best fundraiser, to the nonprofit who romances me."

Simon felt a series of fundraising phantoms tempt his wallet. Innocence? Easy does it, he felt like retorting. Still unmoving, he stared hard past her smooth skin. No emotion! Stick to the lines. For the script to succeed, the person stroking him must maintain stillness. His hand cautiously lifted. Somehow, he intended to shut off those dark, reddish-flecked fluids that slipped from the low side of her mouth like greasy lipstick smears.

Olive whispered, "Solve this little ol' murder mystery for a hundred thousand dollars?"

The young actor panned the rear of the Victorian lobby in left-to-right timed shots. Must be at least three stories. Six days before the start of the Wellness Telethon and a peroxide blonde stood thirty paces to Simon's far left, hands firm on her too-wide hips.

"Know who killed her?" she mouthed.

Who believes fundraisers? Simon mistrusted his old-fashioned sonar. Seemed only he played at acting because he stared longer than a leading man should--Would not mind involvement--and finally tossed back the long bangs of his sandy hair.

The peroxide blonde's glance conveyed little agenda, except probably wishing the murder mystery was not phony, that Olive would just up and donate. Then Jude snapped, "Don't tip over yer outhouse!"

Simon watched her stalk past a plaster column.

If any of the leading fundraisers from the nonprofits in the big town of Boona noticed, and one could bet the net proceeds from any recent telethon they did, then at that moment, every one saw Simon stiffen straighter than Jimmy Stewart.

"Is the blonde the best?" asked Olive. Her ashen face betrayed faint blood splotches while the gaze from her sienna eyes burned up toward the actor. Her wellness affected her each moment; color hues applied as needed. "Don't look like Tricky Dick 'fore he got on Chopper One."

Inhaling the scent--Simon imagined what he guessed as embalming fumes, but the thawed stink closely matched fish. He wished for shades.

"Hey, Klenzendorf said you'd watch 'em."

"Ma'am?" Old Klenzendorf? He froze, cued with lifeless almond-shaped eyes that never blinked twice. His generation had watched all the great ones do the "one-thumb" to close their victims' eyes. Got to get a death certificate. The actor wiped his own baby blues. Should he touch? Now, tasting the sensation--

"Stay tuned."

"Ma'am?" Simon asked, looking close, watching her blend with the decorative tiles. Damn good method. Olive happened to be "The Boona Community Theatre Patron" and any fundraiser worth their community contacts now believed Simon existed--at least in this life--to act.

"Klenzendorf."

On that cue, Simon's tongue polished his teeth. Glistening like the opposite of dull, he remembered class. What star never needed a patron? So, the young actor pushed out enough breath and whispered, "Been in enough school plays to lead."

Her breath...

Simon leaned until he tasted her breath. Wham! Sucked him in close and he watched another spit bubble surface between greasy lips and he guessed if she'd dabbed petroleum jelly to her teeth, no spit would have risen past that widened smile.

"Said you were a good actor, just not enough of the act. Didn't say how cute you are, course my Savage-Man's older. È morto. Nothing like the retired Klenzendorf." She looked too personal, deflated, lacking any promise of funds. "Met the nubby stoop-shouldered guy in Rome. Say, care to give a dying lady her last wish?"

Instead, Simon checked the lead-framed skylight for a spotlight. None. Then bangs fell. What actor other than Bela Lugosi preferred an invisible lead?

Lips blew old air. "Better watch me."

Yes, he thought, so grinned.

She rolled her head slightly.

"I'm looking at you, Olive," he said, weighing the comforts of the décor until he saw her staring faintly, probably remembering that first boy years ago with his own clumsy, probably handsome grin. "More view," the actor added. Then abruptly, Simon regressed, guessing when that ancient patron had last felt so invigorated. Hadn't there been gossip of some dance when Klenzendorf first cast himself as Savage-Man?

"No, no, Sweetie, better not. I'm playing dead."

Suddenly, Olive looked as mischievous as when she must have when she first touched her lover because she knew things would change after that. Her eyes drilled him hard as tile. Lightly, almost imperceptibly, she fondled his wrist. "Those others know."

"No!"

She continued stroking.

The actor had learned boys saw; girls planned. Olive played dead.

Her thumb moved rhythmically. "Told them you were my spy."

"No," Simon repeated. Too late to admit he had never spied? He gulped. Too blanched and baby blue to rebel. The columns in the rear seemed to back that confrontation had never been his forte.

"Am I breathing too fast?"

'Course Bobby DeNiro had been that raging taxi driver. Only his brother knew his best paid part--till this Wellness Club--had been what Andy referred to as the "Dancin' Gorilla Gig." Yet without cue, and disregarding complications, Simon mirrored the scene. He moved close as an actor could to her greasy lips.

"My accountant?"

Simon blinked. "For how long? For a week?" A hundred-and-ten bucks for that last acting class and all he got was: get business cards. "Right? A week till next Sunday."

"Honey, watch the fundraisers solve my little ol' murder mystery till the end."

He nodded, thinking he should double his fee, but fumbled away that emotion, tucking in his T-shirt.

She loosened her lips. "Can you belong? You know, on the seventh day, she returned to life."