Potboiler

That evening he sat at his desk with two large piles in front of him. One was a long-neglected stack of mail. The other was made up of hundreds of stories his students had written over the years. He had always kept copies on the off chance that one of them became famous and the story turned out to be valuable. That was not his present purpose in browsing. Rather, he was trying to find something he could use. A recent Herculean effort had pushed the word count to one hundred ninety-eight, but he still hadn’t gotten past the second page. Perhaps somewhere in this yellowing tower of mediocrity was the key to kickstarting his creativity. He told himself he wouldn’t steal anything word for word. That wasn’t his style. All he needed was to get the juices flowing.

Four hours and two hundred pages later, he put his head in his hands. He was headed for the rocks.

He turned his attention to the mail. Most of it was junk. There were bills, many of them overdue. His agent had sent royalty statements, along with a few medium-sized checks—nothing to sneeze at, but nothing that would cover a large suburban house, either. A padded envelope contained paperbacks of the Zlabian edition of Blood Eyes, all but one of which he planned to get rid of. Already his new office was overrun with author’s copies. He crumpled a circular and spied an envelope addressed to him in a large, shaky hand. It was postmarked several weeks prior. There was a return address but no name. He opened it. Inside were several folded pages and a note written on heavy-stock cardboard.

Pfefferkorn shuddered as he remembered Bill’s agent with the huge, veiny head. There was no phone number on the note. Nor had Savory indicated when to come. Was Pfefferkorn supposed to show up at the return address at a time of his choosing? How would Savory know he was coming? It was an altogether bizarre—and officious—way to schedule a meeting. Schmuck, Pfefferkorn thought. He had no intention of honoring the request until he unfolded the enclosed pages. Then he understood immediately.

41.

Lucian Savory’s office was downtown, not far from Pfefferkorn’s agent’s office. The next day Pfefferkorn stepped from the bus and was pummeled by a blast of wind, funneled through a chasm of high-rises. He hurried into the lobby, locating Savory’s name on the directory and taking the elevator to the penthouse.

No other tenants shared the floor, leading Pfefferkorn to expect a suite of offices, fronted by a secretary or three. He was surprised to be met at the door by Savory himself.

“About fucking time,” Savory said. “Come in.”

Pfefferkorn stepped into an enormous room, perfectly beige and almost as bare. Two beige chairs stood on opposite sides of a beige desk. A bank of beige file cabinets ran the length of one beige wall. The color scheme gave him the sensation of being smothered in putty.

“I would’ve called first,” Pfefferkorn said, “but you didn’t leave a number.”

“I don’t have a number,” Savory said. He looked exactly as he had at the funeral. Pfefferkorn assumed that someone at such an advanced age would show greater daily wear and tear. But Savory was like a living fossil. He shuffled behind the desk and sat down. “I take it you finally decided to wise up.”

“You didn’t give me much choice.”

Savory smiled.

Pfefferkorn sat down. He took out the pages and flattened them on the desk. The first page read

SHADOWGAME

a novel of suspense

William de Vallée

“Some of your edits were decent,” Savory said. “I’ll grant you that much.”

“Thanks,” Pfefferkorn said.

“Nice title.”

“It was your idea.”

“Still, you had the good sense to use it.”

Pfefferkorn said nothing.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” Savory said.

“I thought I had the only copy.”

“What the hell gave you that impression?”

“Carlotta told me he never showed his unfinished work.”

“Not to her, maybe. And then you went ahead and used my title? It’s like you were screaming for my attention.”

Pfefferkorn shrugged. “Maybe I was.”

“Oh,” Savory said, “I see. It was a cry for help. You wanted to get caught.”

“Sure,” Pfefferkorn said.

“Some sort of deep-rooted Freudian thing. ‘Spank me.’”

“Could be.”

“That’s one theory,” Savory said. “I have my own, though. Want to hear it? Here goes. You didn’t bother to take any of that into account because you’re a lazy, greedy son of a bitch with poor executive function.”

There was a silence.

“That’s possible,” Pfefferkorn said.

Savory slapped the desk. “Well, we’ll never know.”

Pfefferkorn looked at him. “What do you want from me.”

Savory cackled. “Perfect.”

“What is.”

“I was taking bets with myself whether it would be that or ‘Why are you doing this to me.’”

“I don’t see why we have to drag it out. Just tell me how much you want and I’ll tell you if I can afford it. Otherwise we have nothing to talk about.”

“Au contraire,” Savory said.

42.

“A spy?”

“Not quite,” Savory said, “but for simplicity’s sake, we can call it that.”

“But that’s ludicrous,” Pfefferkorn said.

“Says you.”