Potboiler (12 page)

47.

Except he didn’t know what the mission was, and his duty—to send in the novel, sit back, and let events play themselves out—turned out to be far harder than he had anticipated. Against all odds, he was going to accomplish something he had long thought impossible: he was going to publish a book that changed the world. It might be a large change. It might be a small one. It might be a change he approved of, politically and morally. It might not. He had no idea, and he agonized over the thought that he had sold his soul. He was surprised at himself. He had never been much of an activist. Even during his student days, his crusades had been primarily artistic, rather than political, in nature. Moreover, he had assumed—incorrectly, it seemed—that his soul was already gone, sold on the cheap along with the first manuscript. To combat his anxiety, he ran through all the good things that had come about as a result of his deal with Savory. He no longer had his agent, editor, and publisher breathing down his neck. He had been able to put an offer in on the house his daughter wanted. These had to count for something, didn’t they? Besides, the mission’s aims weren’t necessarily objectionable. He just didn’t know. But his conscience would not be quieted, and as the publication date loomed, he began to feel suffocated by a sense of powerlessness.

He went downtown to see Savory.

“I need to know what the message is.”

“That’s not important.”

“It is to me.”

“You’re going to have to learn to live with ambiguity,” Savory said.

“It’s about the Zlabias, right? Tell me that much.”

“Bill never asked,” Savory said. “It’s better if you don’t, either.”

“I’m not Bill.”

“You’re having qualms,” Savory said. “That’s to be expected. You have to remind yourself that your government has your best interests in mind.”

“But I don’t believe that.”

“You goddamned boomers always have to drag everything before a fucking ethics committee. Do you think we beat the Nazis sitting around worrying about hurting people’s feelings? Go home, Artie. Buy yourself a watch.”

He didn’t buy a watch. Instead, he spent several afternoons at the university library, enlisting the help of a friendly student worker (who became even friendlier after Pfefferkorn handed him a hundred-dollar bill) to make photocopies of the front pages of all major American newspapers for the two weeks following the publication of every Dick Stapp novel. It came to more than a thousand pages in total, and he stayed up all night, jotting down the headlines in a notebook he had divided by subject. The pattern that emerged confirmed his hunch: the novels of William de Vallée anticipated every twist of Zlabian political fate from the late 1970s on. On the half-dozen occasions Pfefferkorn could not find a coup or riot linked in time to the publication of a Dick Stapp novel, he assumed there was cloak-and-dagger going on, the kind of stuff that would never be known outside select circles. He shut the notebook, his heart racing. He was blithely toying with the fate of people whose countries he couldn’t find on a map.

He looked at the clock. It was eight-thirty a.m. He ran downstairs to find a cab.

As he rode along, he prepared his speech. I want out, he would say. Or: I’ve had it with this rotten business. Savory would try to dissuade him, of course, and then would come the threats. He would have to stand tall. Do your worst, he would say. I am not your tool. Mentally, he revised: I am not your plaything.

He got in the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. Listen here, he would begin. I am not your plaything. No:
you
listen here. That was better. It made clear who was in charge. He tried again, once with Savory’s name and once without. Using Savory’s name pinned Savory to the wall, giving him no way to pass the buck. On the other hand, it gave Savory an identity, and Pfefferkorn was aiming to reduce the man, to make him as small and squashable as possible. You listen here. It had a staccato rhythm, like a handgun. You listen here, Savory, sounded more like a slice from a sword. He still hadn’t made up his mind when a chime sounded and the elevator opened. He stepped briskly forth to knock. There was no answer. He knocked again, assertively. Still there was no answer. He tried the knob. It turned. “You listen here,” he said, stepping into the doorway. He went no further. The room had been stripped bare.

48.

Pfefferkorn called his agent.

“We need to hold the book.”

His agent laughed.

“I’m serious,” Pfefferkorn said. “It can’t go out the way it is. There are too many mistakes.”

“What are you talking about? It’s perfect. Everybody says so.”

“I—”

“
You
said so yourself.”

“I need to make changes.”

“Look,” the agent said, “I understand you’ve got butterflies, but—”

“It’s not butterflies,” Pfefferkorn shouted.

“Whoa there.”

“Listen to me. Listen. Listen: I need you to call them up and tell them we’re going to hold it another month so I can make revisions.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“You can. You have to.”

“Are you hearing yourself? You sound nuts.”

“Fine,” Pfefferkorn said. “I’ll call them myself.”

“Wait wait wait. Don’t do that.”

“I will unless you do.”

“What is going on here?”

“Call me back after you’ve spoken to them,” Pfefferkorn said and hung up.

Forty-five minutes later the phone rang.

“Did you talk to them?” Pfefferkorn asked.

“I talked to them.”

“And?”

“They said no.”

Pfefferkorn began to hyperventilate.

“You have a first printing of four hundred thousand,” the agent said. “They’re already shipped. What do you expect them to do, pull them all? Look, I understand how you feel—”

“No,” Pfefferkorn said. “You don’t.”

“I do. I’ve seen this before.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“I have. I’ve seen it dozens of times. This is not unusual. You’re having a normal response to a stressful situation. You’ve got people counting on you, the stakes are high. I get it, okay? I know. It’s a lot to shoulder. That doesn’t change what you’ve done. You’ve written a fantastic book. You’ve done your job. Let them do theirs.”

Pfefferkorn stayed up all that night as well, rereading the book and dog-earing every instance of a character hurrying for lack of time. The pace was supercharged—he could all but hear a ticking clock—and he counted nineteen flags. He copied out the surrounding paragraphs, studying them for patterns. Who am I kidding, he thought. He needed the decryption key or whatever. He needed training. He went online and read about code-breaking. Nothing he tried worked, although he did accidentally discover that the instructions on his washer/dryer formed a substitution code for the opening scene of
Waiting for Godot
.

Pfefferkorn despaired.

49.

“Poor Arthur.”

No sooner had he gotten on the phone with Carlotta than he realized he’d made a mistake. He had called seeking solace, but how could she give it to him when he couldn’t tell her the truth? Instead, her sympathy came off as grating.

“Bill always got like this right before a book came out. Like something terrible could happen.”

Pfefferkorn said nothing.

“You’re two of a kind,” Carlotta said.

“You think?”

“Sometimes I do, yes.”

“Am I a good lover?” Pfefferkorn asked.

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Am I?”

“Of course you are. You’re wonderful.”

“I’ve had to shake off a lot of rust.”

“If so, I never noticed.”

“Am I as good as Bill?”

“Arthur. Please.”

“I won’t be offended if you say him. It’s only natural. He had more time to learn what you like.”

“I like
you
.”

“Be honest,” he said. “I can handle it.”

“It’s a ridiculous question and I’m not going to answer it.”

“I’m afraid you just did.”

“I did no such thing. I refused to answer a ridiculous question. That’s all.”

There was a silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been under a lot of strain.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll be a smashing success.”

That was precisely what he was afraid of. He wondered how Bill coped. Presumably it got easier with each go-around. Also, the chain of events was elaborate enough to make his contribution appear relatively minor and therefore forgivable. He wasn’t pushing a button or pulling a trigger. He was publishing a book.

“Are you excited for tour?” she asked.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you,” he said.

“I’m bringing a big crowd to the reading.”

He felt a frisson of dread. He preferred to keep her away from anything at all having to do with the book. He didn’t want her tainted. “I thought you had a tango session that night.”

“I canceled it.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said.

“Arthur, don’t be absurd. I can dance whenever I want.”

“But it makes you so happy.”

“I’d much rather see you.”

“Please,” he said. “It’ll make me nervous if you’re there.”

“Oh, stop.”

“I’m serious,” he said. “Don’t come.”

The words came out harsher than he had intended, and he hastened to clarify. “I’m sorry. But it really will trip me up.”

“Well, we don’t want that, do we.”

“Please don’t,” he said. “Not tonight.”

She sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Never mind that. Let’s plan to meet afterward. Pick someplace relaxing. Will you do that for me, please?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

“Travel safely,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Arthur?” She paused. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He hung up and paced around his apartment. It was eleven p.m. In ten hours the first bookstores would open and
Blood Night
would be unleashed upon the world. He had stock signings all the next day and his first reading at seven-thirty. He had a grueling three weeks ahead of him. He needed to rest. But there was no way he was getting any sleep, not tonight. He turned on the television. He watched the first twenty seconds of a special report about the Zlabian crisis before switching the television off and getting up to pace once more.

The aspect of Pfefferkorn’s new reality to which he had devoted the least amount of attention was the implications it held for his past. He had been strenuously ignoring that line of thinking, afraid of where it might lead. Whole swaths of his identity had been formed in reaction to Bill. He had defined himself as a writer unwilling to sacrifice art for the sake of material gain: the anti-Bill. But it made no sense trying to be the opposite of something that did not exist, and it devastated him to grasp that he had spent his life wrestling a phantom.

And in the final analysis, how worthwhile had that struggle been? Where had it gotten him? Certainly he hadn’t distinguished himself through his writing. What made him so different from Bill, other than his own, mulish insistence that they
were
different? What if he, not Bill,
had been the one recruited for clandestine activities? Would he be the one married to Carlotta? Would he have a daughter? Would he even be alive right now? The fabric of the universe had been irreparably shredded, and through the holes he saw new worlds, some tantalizing, some terrifying beyond belief.

High atop a shelf in his closet was a box containing old snapshots he had never found the time to organize. Desperate for evidence of an independent self, he hauled it down and dumped it out on the floor. He knelt and grabbed the topmost photo: a black-and-white image of a much younger him hunched over a desk at the university literary magazine. A plaque read

ARTHUR S. PFEFFERKORN, DICTATOR-IN-CHIEF

—a gag presented to him by Bill in honor of his managerial style. Where, Pfefferkorn wondered, had he gotten the idea that he had an artistic birthright? His mother had never finished high school. His father never read anything more sophisticated than the racing form. He himself had not been a studious child, preferring to listen to baseball games on the radio or to sneak cigarettes from his father’s coat pocket. When had the transformation occurred? How had he become who he had become? He used to think he knew, but now everything seemed up for grabs. He picked up another photo and was startled to see himself mouth-kissing his daughter. But it was not his daughter. It was his dead ex-wife. The resemblance that so often annoyed him here verged on pornographic. He hurriedly turned the snapshot over. His ex-wife would be in lots of these photos, if not most. It gave him pause. How much of those years did he want to revisit? He remembered the day she called to tell him she was dying.
I want to see her.
It was an extraordinary demand to make of a seven-year-old girl who hadn’t seen her mother in three years. To bring her into that room, with its tubes and its smells . . . But he couldn’t rightly say no. A mother was a mother. His daughter had refused to come, though, and Pfefferkorn’s ex-wife had called to scream at him.
You’re poisoning her against me.
He tried to reason with her but it was no use. A month later, she was gone.

He picked up another photo.

There they were: he and Bill, Piazza Navona, their shadows humpbacked by large canvas rucksacks. The summer after graduation they had wandered across Europe. In those days a rail pass cost eighty-five dollars. Bill paid for those as well as for their airfare, using money he’d gotten from his grandparents as a graduation gift. Pfefferkorn had always intended to reimburse him. He never had. He wondered about the real origins of Bill’s “graduation gift.” Grandparents? Or the Boys? Was Bill working for them as early as then? Pfefferkorn could never know. He felt doubt beginning to hollow out his memories. He remembered a night in a Berlin hostel (it was West Berlin back then), opening his eyes to catch a glimpse of Bill leaving the room at two in the morning. The next day Bill pled insomnia.
I went for a walk.
Pfefferkorn remembered it and doubted. Berlin, of all places—and like that, his happy memories of the city caved in on themselves. He doubled over as though gutshot. It hurt to breathe. Eventually he rose to his hands and knees and reached for another photo. Their high school prom. He saw the ruffled cuffs and the powder-blue tuxedos and their shining red faces. But he doubted. He doubted all of it. The memory imploded. He reached for another and the same thing happened. And another and again. Piece by piece his history disappeared. The cursing parakeet they kept in the apartment. Bill’s green Camaro. The canoe trip with their young wives. The first time Bill held Pfefferkorn’s daughter. He knew he should stop. He was destroying himself. He could not stop, not until the sun came up. He had gone through the whole box and his life lay in shambles. He had thought himself done with grief, yet here he was, sobbing again. Not for the death of a friend but for the death of a friendship. He wept for the friend he never had.