Potboiler

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.