Potboiler

Pfefferkorn, one leg in the khakis, hopped to the nightstand. He was angry at himself for having missed the quarters. In unsticking them he took care not to tear the delicate paper. The verse revealed was John 8:32: “And ye will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

“In a minute you’re going to leave your room,” the man said. “Don’t do it yet. Down the hall to the left you’ll find vending machines. I want you to buy a grape soda. Is that clear? Once I hang up, this phone will cease to function. Drop it in the toilet tank before you leave.”

“But—” Pfefferkorn said.

He was talking to the air.

59.

The man had instructed him to go left, but Pfefferkorn turned right, toward the stairs, and went down to the first floor in search of a phone. There was movement in the window of the motel’s front office. He did not go in, concerned that the clerk might be in league with his abductors. He crossed the parking lot, hoping to get his bearings.

The motel was on the side of a freeway running through the desert. Baked earth kissed bleached sky. He could have been anywhere in the American Southwest. Setting out on foot was out of the question, so he waited, hoping to flag down a passing car. None came. He was left with two choices: solicit help from the clerk or obey the mysterious caller’s instructions.

A bell rang as he entered the office. A clock on the wall read six fifty-seven. Behind the desk, a small television set was tuned fuzzily to the morning news. Two well-formed people made light banter about a plane crash.

An obese young man emerged from a back room. “Can I help you.”

Pfefferkorn inferred from the clerk’s apathy that the fellow knew nothing of Pfefferkorn’s captivity. This was both encouraging and discouraging. On one hand, he could speak without fear of alerting the mysterious caller. On the other hand, everything he could think to say sounded insane.

“Would you mind please printing out a statement of charges?”

“Room number.”

Pfefferkorn told him. The clerk typed with two fingers. It looked as though the act required intense concentration. A graphic flashed on the television screen.

TOP STORIES

“Good morning,” the male anchor said. “I’m Grant Klinefelter.”

“And I’m Symphonia Gapp,” the female anchor said, “and these are our top stories. A renowned suspense novelist is sought by police.”

Pfefferkorn’s jacket photo appeared on the screen.

Pfefferkorn felt the blood leave his head. His knees began to jellify and he braced himself against the counter. Meanwhile the clerk was still typing, his tongue poking between his teeth.

“Following a daring jailbreak, best-selling author A. S. Peppers is wanted for questioning in connection with the brutal slaying of his Lambada instructor.”

Pfefferkorn listened as the news anchors cheerfully proceeded to implicate him in Jesús María de Lunchbox’s murder. The clerk finished typing and pressed a button. A printer whined. Pfefferkorn’s jacket photo was shown again, accompanied by the number for a tip hotline. A reward was being offered.

“Sad stuff,” Symphonia Gapp said.

“Indeed,” Grant Klinefelter said. “When we come back: more trouble on the Zlabian border.”

“And later: a local kitten does his part to win the war on terror.”

“Anything else?”

The clerk was holding out the statement. Pfefferkorn took it. The motel’s address was printed at the top of the statement. It listed a route number Pfefferkorn had never heard of, in a town he had never heard of, in a state adjacent to the one in which he had been abducted. The box marked NAME OF GUEST brought an unwelcome shock.

The room had been rented to Arthur Kowalczyk.

“Anything else,” the clerk said again.

Pfefferkorn shook his head absently.

The clerk lumbered out.

Pfefferkorn remained standing there, leaning against the counter, the jingle of the commercial fading away, the walls fading away, the dusty heat and the desert glare fading, fading away, everything canceling itself out. Only one sensation remained: a strange, nonphysical itch insinuating itself throughout his entire body, starting from his chest and spreading to the tips of his toes, the back of his throat, the hairs on the tops of his thighs. He was paranoid. It had happened that easily. Much like Harry Shagreen, or Dick Stapp, or any man ensnared in a tangled web of deception, treachery, lies, and intrigue, he did not know whom to trust. Unlike Harry Shagreen or Dick Stapp, Pfefferkorn had no experience upon which to draw. He headed back to the second floor.

60.

The vending machines were set in a nook around the bend in the hall. One sold snacks, another sold drinks, and a third dispensed ice. The sight of packaged food behind glass turned Pfefferkorn’s stomach. He fed the quarters into the drink machine and pressed the button for a grape soda.

The machine hummed.

A can banged into place.

Pfefferkorn waited. Was that it? He was now out of instructions, and he had spent all his money on a beverage he did not want.