The Great Pursuit (35 page)

'Stop it. Stop it. I don't want to hear any more. Just go away and leave me alone.'

Frensic shook his head. 'And have you send me yet another manuscript and tell me to sell it?
Oh no, those days are over. You're going to learn the truth if I have to ram it down your
snivelling '

Piper covered his ears with his hands. 'I won't,' he shouted, 'I won't listen to you.'

Frensic reached in his pocket and took out Dr Louth's letter.

'You don't have to listen. Just read this.'

He thrust the letter forward and Piper took it. Frensic sat down in the chair. The crisis was
over. He was no longer afraid. Piper might be mad but his madness was self-directed and held no
threat for Frensic. He watched him read the letter with a new sense of pity. He was looking at a
nonentity, the archetypal author for whom only words had any reality, and one who couldn't write.
Piper finished the letter and looked up.

'What does it mean?' he asked.

'What it doesn't say,' said Frensic. 'That the great Dr Louth wrote Pause. That's what it
means.'

Piper looked down at the letter again. 'But it says here she didn't.'

Frensic smiled. 'Quite. And why should she have written that? Ask yourself that question. Why
deny what nobody had ever supposed?'

'I don't understand,' said Piper, 'it doesn't make sense.'

'It does if you accept that she was being blackmailed,' said Frensic.

'Blackmailed? But by whom?'

Frensic helped himself to snuff. 'By you. You threatened me and I threatened her.'

'But...' Piper wrestled with this incomprehensible sequence. It was beyond his simple
philosophy.

'You threatened to expose me and I passed the message on,' said Frensic. 'Dr Sydney Louth paid
two million dollars not to be revealed as the author of Pause. The price of her sacred
reputation.'

Piper's eyes were glazed. 'I don't believe you,' he muttered.

'Don't,' said Frensic. 'Believe what you bloody well like. All you've got to do is resurrect
yourself and tell Hutchmeyer you're still alive and kicking and the media will do the rest. It
will all come out. My role, your role, the whole damned story and at the end of it, your Dr Louth
with her reputation as a critic in ruins. The bitch will be the laughing-stock of the literary
world. Mind you, you'll be in prison. And I dare say I'll be bankrupt too, but at least I won't
have to put up with the impossible task of trying to sell your rotten Search for a Lost
Childhood. That'll be some compensation.'

Piper sat down limply in a chair.

'Well?' said Frensic, but Piper simply shook his head. Frensic took the letter from him and
turned to the window. He had called the little sod's bluff. There would be no more threats, no
more manuscripts. Piper was broken. It was time to leave. Frensic stared out at the dark river
and the forest beyond, a strange foreign landscape, dangerously lush, and far from the
comfortable little world he had come to protect. He crossed to the door and went down the broad
staircase and across the hall. All that was needed now was to get home as quickly as
possible.

But when he got into his rented car and drove down the drive to the ferry it was to find the
pontoon on the far side of the river and no one to bring it across. Frensic rang the bell but
nobody answered. He stood in the bright sunlight and waited. There was a stillness in the air and
only the sound of the black river slurping against the bank below him. Frensic got back into the
car and drove into the square. Here too there was nobody in sight. Dark shadows under the tin
roofs that served as awnings to the shop fronts, the white-painted church, a wooden bench at the
foot of a statue in the middle of the square, blank windows. Frensic got out of his car and
looked round. The clock on the courthouse stood at midday. Presumably everyone was at lunch, but
there was still a sense of unnatural desolation which disturbed him and back beyond the river the
forest, an undomesticated tangle of trees and underbush, made a close horizon above which the sky
was an empty blue. Frensic walked round the square and then got back into the car. Perhaps if he
tried the ferry again...But it was still there across the water and when Frensic tried to pull on
the rope there was no movement. He rang the bell again. There was no echo and his sense of unease
redoubled. Finally leaving the car in the road he walked along the bank of the river following a
little path. He would wait a while until the lunch hour was over and then try again. But the path
led under live oaks hung with Spanish moss and ended in the cemetery. Frensic looked for a moment
at the gravestones and then turned back.

Perhaps if he drove west he would find a road out of town on that side which would lead him
back to Route 80. Blood Alley had an almost cheerful ring to it now. But he had no map in the car
and after driving down a number of side streets that ended in cul-de-sacs or uninviting tracks
into the woods he turned back. Perhaps the ferry would be open now. He looked at his watch. It
was two o'clock and people would be out and about again.

They were. As he drove into the little square a group of gaunt men standing on the sidewalk
outside the courthouse moved across the road. Frensic stopped the car and stared unhappily
through the windshield. The gaunt men had holsters on their belts and the gauntest of them all
wore a star on his chest. He walked round the car to the side window and leant in. Frensic
studied his yellow teeth.

'Your name Frensic?' he asked. Frensic nodded. 'Judge wants to see you,' continued the man.
'You going to come quietly or...?' Frensic came quietly and with the little group behind him
climbed the steps to the courthouse. Inside it was cool and dark. Frensic hesitated but the tall
man pointed to a door.

'Judge is in chambers,' he said. 'Go on in.'

Frensic went in. Behind a large desk sat Baby Hutchmeyer. She was dressed in a long black robe
and above it her face, always unnaturally taut, was now unpleasantly white. Frensic, staring down
at her, had no doubt about her identity.

'Mrs Hutchmeyer...' he began, 'the late Mrs Hutchmeyer?'

'Judge Hutchmeyer to you,' said Baby, 'and we won't have anything more about the late unless
you want to end up the late Mr Frensic right soon.'

Frensic swallowed and glanced over his shoulder. The sheriff was standing with his back
against the door and the gun on his belt glinted obtrusively.

'May I ask what the meaning of this is?' he asked after a moment's significant silence.
'Bringing me here like this and...'

The judge looked across at the sheriff. 'What have you got on him so far?' she asked.

'Uttering threats and menaces,' said the sheriff. 'Possession of an unauthorized firearm.
Spare tyre stashed with heroin. Blackmail. You name it, Judge, he's got it.'

Frensic groped for a chair. 'Heroin?' he gasped. 'What do you mean heroin? I haven't a single
grain of heroin.'

'You think not?' said Baby. 'Herb'll show you, won't you, Herb?'

Behind Frensic the sheriff nodded. 'Got the automobile round at the garage dismantling it
right now,' he said, 'you want proof we'll show it to you.'

But Frensic was in no need of proof. He sat stunned in the chair and stared at Baby's white
face. 'What do you want?' he asked finally,

'Justice,' said Baby succinctly.

'Justice,' muttered Frensic, 'you talk about justice and...'

'You want to make a statement now or reserve your defence for court tomorrow?' said Baby.

Frensic glanced over his shoulder again. 'I'd like to make a statement now. In private,' he
said.

Baby nodded to the sheriff. 'Wait outside, Herb,' she said, 'and stay close. Any trouble in
here and...'

'There won't be any trouble in here,' said Frensic hastily, 'I can assure you of that.'

Baby waved his assurances and Herb aside. As the door closed Frensic took out his handkerchief
and mopped his face.

'Right,' said Baby, 'so you want to make a statement.'

Frensic leant forward. It was in his mind to say 'You can't do this to me,' but the cliché
culled from so many of his authors didn't seem appropriate. She could do this to him. He was in
Bibliopolis and Bibliopolis was off the map of civilization.

'What do you want me to do?' he asked faintly.

Judge Baby swung her chair and leant back. 'Coming from you, Mr Frensic, that's an interesting
question,' she said. 'You come into this little town and you start uttering threats and menaces
against one of our citizens and you want me to tell you what I want you to do.'

'I didn't utter threats and menaces,' said Frensic, 'I came to tell Piper to stop sending me
his manuscripts. And if anyone's been uttering threats it's him, not me.'

Baby shook her head. 'If that's your defence I can tell you right off nobody in Bibliopolis is
going to believe you. Mr Piper is the most peaceful non-violent citizen around these parts.'

'Well, he may be around these parts,' said Frensic, 'but from where I'm sitting in
London...'

'You ain't sitting in London now,' said Baby, 'you're sitting right here in my chambers and
shaking like a hound dog pissing peach pits.'

Frensic considered the simile and found it disagreeable. 'You'd be shaking if you'd just been
accused of having a spare tyre filled with heroin,' he said.

Baby nodded. 'You could be right at that,' she said. 'I can give you life for that. Throw in
the threats and menaces, the firearm and the blackmail and it could all add up to life plus
ninety-nine years. You had better consider that before you say anything more.'

Frensic considered it and found he was shaking even harder. Hound dogs having problems with
peach pits were no comparison. 'You can't mean it,' he gasped.

Baby smiled. 'You'd better believe I mean it. The warden of the penitentiary's a deacon in my
church. You wouldn't have to do the ninety-nine years. Like life would be three months and you
wouldn't last in the chain gang. They got snakes and things to make it natural death. You've seen
our little cemetery?'

Frensic nodded. 'So we've got a little plot marked out already,' said Baby. 'It wouldn't have
no headstone. No name like Frensic. Just a little mound and nobody would ever know. So that's
your choice.'

'What is?' said Frensic when he could find his voice.

'Like life plus ninety-nine or you do what I tell you.'

'I think I'll do what you tell me,' said Frensic for whom this was no choice at all.

'Right,' said Baby, 'so first you make a full confession.'

'Confession?' said Frensic. 'What sort of confession?'

'Just that you wrote Pause O Men for the Virgin and palmed it off on Mr Piper and hoodwinked
Hutch and instigated Miss Futtle to arsonize the house and '

'No,' cried Frensic, 'never. I'd rather...' He stopped. He wouldn't rather. There was a look
on Baby's face that told him that. 'I don't see why I've got to confess to all those things,' he
said.

Baby relaxed. 'You took his good name away from him. Now you're going to give it back to
him.'

'His good name?' said Frensic.

'By putting it on the cover of that dirty novel,' said Baby.

'He didn't have any sort of name till we did that,' said Frensic, 'he had never published
anything and now he's so-called dead he isn't going to.'

'Oh yes, he is,' said Baby leaning forward. 'You're going to give him your name. Like Search
for a Lost Childhood by Frederick Frensic.'

Frensic stared at her. The woman was mad as a March hare. 'Search by me?' he said. 'You don't
understand. I've hawked that blasted book round every publisher in London and no one wants to
know. It's unreadable.'

Baby smiled. Unpleasantly.

'That's your problem. You're going to get it published and you're going to get all his future
books published under your own name. It's that or the chain gang.'

She glanced significantly out of the window at the horizon of trees and the empty sky and
Frensic following her glance gazed into a terrible future and an early death. He'd have to humour
her. 'All right,' he said, 'I'll do my best.'

'You'll do better than that. You'll do exactly what I say.' She took a sheet of paper from a
drawer and handed him a pen. 'Now write,' she said.

Frensic hitched his chair forward and began to write very shakily. By the time he had finished
he had confessed to having evaded British income tax by paying two million dollars plus royalties
into Account Number 478776 in the First National Bank of New York and to having incited his
partner, the former Miss Futtle, to arsonize the Hutchmeyer residence. The whole statement was
such an amalgam of things he had done and things he hadn't that, cross-examined by a competent
lawyer, he would never be able to disentangle himself. Baby read it through and witnessed his
signature. Then she called Herb in and he witnessed it too.

'That should keep you on the straight and narrow,' she said as the sheriff left the room. 'One
squeak out of you and one attempt to evade your obligation to publish Mr Piper's novels and this
goes straight to Hutchmeyer, the insurance company, the FBI and the tax authorities, and you can
wipe that smile off your face.' But Frensic wasn't smiling. He had developed a nervous tic.
'Because if you think you can worm your way out of this by going to the authorities yourself and
telling them to look me up in Bibliopolis you can forget it. I've got friends round here and no
one talks if I say no. You understand that?'

Frensic nodded. 'I quite understand,' he said.

Baby stood up and took off her robe. 'Well, just in case you don't, you're going to be saved,'
she said. They went out into the hall where the group of gaunt men waited.

'We've got a convert, boys,' she said. 'See you all in Church.'

Frensic sat in the front row of the little Church of The Servants of The Lord. Before him,
radiant and serene, Baby conducted the service. The church was packed and Herb sat next to
Frensic and shared his hymnbook with him. They sang 'Telephoning to Glory' and 'Rock of Ages' and
'Shall we Gather by the River', and with Herb's nudging Frensic sang as loudly as the rest.
Finally Baby delivered a virulent sermon on the text 'Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber,
a friend of publishers and sinners,' her gaze fixed pointedly on Frensic throughout, and the
congregation launched into 'Bibliopolis we Hold Thee Dear.' It was time for Frensic to be saved.
He moved shakily forward and knelt. Snakes might no longer infest Bibliopolis, but Frensic was
still petrified. Above him Baby's face was radiant. She had triumphed once again.