Potboiler

Pfefferkorn turned to the table of contents—it was clean, which brought him immeasurable relief—then to the acknowledgments. He read that he had thanked his agent, his editor, his wife, and various friends who had provided technical advice. He had not thanked Bill.

Stricken, he went back to the title page, intending to rip out the inscription in penance. But he could not bring himself to do it. He replaced the book on the shelf.

He sat for some time in a meditative silence. He thought of his failed novels. He thought of his failed marriage. He thought of Bill, good Bill, kind Bill, bashful Bill, Bill who had ever shown him only generosity, who had admired and studied him, who had loved him and whom he had loved in return. He thought of Bill leaving his mansion to sit in a tiny, ugly room. Bill, typing his two thousand five hundred words, day in and day out. Bill, wishing he had one great book in him. Bill, with his own jealousies, his own regrets. Outside, the birds began to sing. Pfefferkorn looked at the manuscript, seventy pages unread, the rest piled messily and dangling at the edge of the desk, and he thought that Bill never would have been so careless. He thought of Carlotta, the way she had opened herself to him, in punishment and in reward. He thought of his daughter, whose wedding he could not pay for. He thought of his students at the college, none of whom would ever succeed. They had no talent, and talent could not be learned. He thought of life and he thought of death. He thought: I deserve more.

19.

Pfefferkorn waited for the rental car shuttle bus to take him to the departure terminal. In order to fit the manuscript into his carry-on he had had to discard several items of clothing, two pairs of socks and two pairs of underwear and one shirt hastily stuffed into the waste bin of a hallway bathroom that, to his eye, had not been recently used, the bar of soap in the sinkside soap dish still wrapped in ribbon and wax paper.

He stood at the kiosk, waiting for his boarding pass to print.

He stood at the security checkpoint, waiting to be waved through the metal detector.

He sat at the gate in a hard plastic chair, waiting for his group to be called.

Once the plane was in the air and his seatmate asleep, he unzipped his bag, took out the manuscript, and thumbed off the unread portion.

The novel’s final scenes were full of action. Pfefferkorn read quickly, his tension growing in inverse proportion to the number of pages left. By the time he reached the second-to-last page, he was on the verge of panic. While the nuclear launch codes had been recovered, the villain responsible for their theft was still at large and in possession of a vial containing a virulent strain of influenza in sufficient quantity to wipe out Washington, D.C., and its environs. With a terrible foreboding, Pfefferkorn turned to the last page.

 

coming at them like a bullet.

“Dick!” Gisele screamed. “Dick! I can’t—”

A deafening roar cut her off as the bomb detonated. Rocks rained down from the roof of the cave. Dust filled Stapp’s lungs.

“Dick . . . I can’t breathe. . . .”

The weakness of her voice chilled Stapp to the marrow.

“Hang on!” he yelled hoarsely. “I’m almost there.”

Like a bat out of hell Stapp plunged into the icy water

That was all.

Pfefferkorn looked inside his carry-on. Had he missed a page? An entire chapter? But no. Of course the book would end that way. Bill hadn’t finished it yet. Disheartened, he put the incomplete completion away and zipped up his bag. He put his head back, closed his eyes, and slept.

20.

Pfefferkorn left his still-packed carry-on beneath the kitchen table and made himself busy. He sorted the mail, he checked the refrigerator, he called his daughter.

“Did you have fun?” she asked.

“For a funeral, it wasn’t bad.”

“How’s Carlotta?”

“Good. She says hello.”

“I hope you’ll keep in touch with her.” Then: “Maybe you could visit her again.”

“That, I don’t know about.”

“Why not? I think it would be healthy for you.”

“That’s how people get sick, on airplanes.”

“That’s not what I mean, Daddy.”

“Then what do you mean.”

“You know,” she said.

“I really don’t.”

“Call her.”

“And say what.”

“Tell her you had a good time. Tell her you want to see her again.”

He sighed. “Sweetheart—”

“Please, Daddy. I’m not stupid.”

“I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s good for you.”

“What is.”

“Having someone.”

He had heard this before, notably when she was in her teens and reading a lot of Victorian novels. “I have to go,” he said.

“Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

“I have to get to the market before it closes.”

“Daddy—”

“I’ll call you soon.”