They paid. I’d met an extremely attractive woman during that stopover in Columbus, Ohio; a reporter for the Dispatch. We liked each other, and we spent time together. After I’d returned to Los Angeles, and she got wind that OSU was refusing to pay for the appearance, she called me and told me she’d be delighted to do a follow-up story on their perfidious behavior.
I thanked her and said perhaps merely the threat of public disclosure would do the job. I called the comptroller or whoever it was who’d said I could whistle for my fee, and I advised him that I was on the other line with a reporter who wanted to do such an article, and did he want to interdict the process by some salutary action? He raged for about thirty seconds, and promised the check would be in my hands by special delivery the next day. I thanked him prettily, and assured him if the check wasn’t in my hands in a day or two—and I made it clear it had damned well better be a certified cashier’s check, not an OSU check they could stop-pay—that I had the reporter’s number and would take up where we’d left off.
I thanked Cynthia, and two days later OSU had paid off.
Living well is the best revenge. And making them eat it ain’t bad, either.