Potboiler Read online

  ALSO BY JESSE KELLERMAN

  The Executor

  The Genius

  Trouble

  Sunstroke

  JESSE KELLERMAN

  POTBOILER

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2012 by Jesse Kellerman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kellerman, Jesse.

  Potboiler / Jesse Kellerman.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-399-15903-9

  1. Writers—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3561.E38648P68 2012 2012001823

  813’.54—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  To Gavri

  Praise for William de Vallée and the DICK STAPP novels

  “There’s no one like William de Vallée. Every time I finish one of his books, I feel like washing the blood off my hands. And after Fatal Deadliness, I had to take a twenty-minute shower. Dick Stapp sends Mike Hammer to the slammer, and Jack Reacher looking for a preacher. No mystery here; this is a thriller reader’s thriller by a thrilling thriller writer.”

  —Stephen King

  “Of all the books I have read this year, this is one of them.”

  —Lee Child (on Mortal Grave)

  “If noir is your thing, you won’t find a blacker black than the blackness in William de Vallée’s postmodern darkness. Every word sent me reeling! Dick Stapp is harder than a body left in the sun, and twice as much fun.”

  —Robert Crais (on Risk of Peril )

  “No one does stomach-turning violence better.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “Writing that grabs you by the throat and wrings you like a chicken on the eve of Yom Kippur.”

  —Woonsocket Potato Pancake

  “Stand back, Maxwell Smart, there’s a new agent in town. . . . [Stapp] is a tough guy’s tough guy’s tough guy, the kind of hero who makes women swoon and men wish they had another testicle.”

  —New Haven Calumniator

  “Mr. de Vallée’s stock-in-trade are plots twistier than those little wire twisty ties that come with bakery bread but that always go missing, forcing you to spin the plastic bag and tuck its neck underneath in order to maintain freshness.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Jesse Kellerman

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Praise for William de Vallée

  ONE ART

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  TWO COMMERCE

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  THREE A NOVEL OF SUSPENSE

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  FOUR (Welcome to West Zlabia!)

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  FIVE (Welcome to East Zlabia!)

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  SIX (Welcome [Back] to West Zlabia!)

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  SEVEN DEUS EX MACHINA

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  Acknowledgments

  ONE ART

  1.

  After one hundred twenty-one days, the search was called off. The Coast Guard had stopped looking after three weeks, but the presumptive widow had paid for a private company to drag the entire Pacific Ocean, or as much of it as they could. With all hope lost, funeral arrangements were now under way. It was front-page news.

  There was no obituary as such. A related article outlined the missing man’s life and described his many accomplishments, professional and personal. A third surveyed various people connected to him through the business of writing: his agent, editor, critics, and peers. All agreed that William de Vallée had been a master of his craft, a titan whose loss was the world’s. One interviewee submitted that the full extent of the tragedy would be felt only in due time, once the initial shock had worn off.

  Disgusted, Pfefferkorn tossed the paper aside and resumed eating his breakfast cereal. Nobody had called to ask for his opinion, and it was this that upset him so dreadfully. He had known Bill longer than anyone, including Bill’s own wife. She was not quoted in any of the articles, either, having declined to comment. Poor Carlotta, he thought. He considered calling her. But it was impossible. He had failed to call even once since news of the disappearance had broken. Though the odds of finding Bill alive had never been good, Pfefferkorn had been reluctant to offer comfort preemptively, as though by doing so he would be confirming the worst. Now that the worst had come to pass, his silence, however well intentioned, seemed horribly callous. He had made a mistake and he felt embarrassed. It wasn’t the first time. Nor would it be the last.

  2.

  By the next morning, other stories claimed the front page. Pfefferkorn bypassed news of a celebrity divorce, an arrested athlete, and the discovery of a major gas field off the West Zlabian coast, finding what he wanted on page four. The memorial service for William de Vallée, noted author of more than thirty internationally best-selling thrillers, would be held in Los Angeles, at a cemetery catering primarily to celebrities. It was to be a closed ceremony, by invitation only. Pfefferkorn once again felt disgusted. It was typical of the press to feign respect for a person’s privacy while simultaneously destroying it. He left the kitchen and went to dress for work.

  Pfefferkorn taught creative writing at a small college on the Eastern Seaboard. Years ago he had published a single novel. Called Shade of the Colossus, it concerned a young man’s bitter struggle to liberate himself from a domineering father who belittles his son’s attempts to find meaning in art. Pfefferkorn had modeled the father after his own father, an uneducated vacuum salesman now deceased. The book received mild acclaim but sold poorly, and Pfefferkorn had published nothing since.

  Every so often he would call up his agent to describe something new he had written. The agent would always say the same thing: “It sounds simply fascinating. Get it on over to me, would you?” Dutifully Pfefferkorn would mail in the material and wait for a response. Eventually he would tire of waiting and pick up the phone.

  “Well,” the agent would say, “it is fascinating. I’ll give you that. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I can sell it. I’m willing to try, of course.”

  “You know what,” Pfefferkorn would say. “Never mind.”

  “It’s not a good time for short stories.”

  “I know.”

  “How’s that novel coming?”

  “Not bad.”

  “Let me know when you’ve got something to show me, will you?”

  “I will.”

  What Pfefferkorn did not tell his agent was that the very pages the agent deemed unsellable were not in fact short stories but abortive attempts at a second novel. By his count, Pfefferkorn had started seventy-seven different novels, abandoning each after hearing his first five pages dismissed. Recently, on a lark, he had placed all seventy-seven five-page segments in a single stack and attempted to stitch them together into a coherent whole, an effort that cost him an entire summer but that ultimately yielded nothing. Upon realizing his failure, he kicked out a window in his bedroom. The police were summoned and Pfefferkorn let off with a warning.

  3.

  The invitation to the funeral arrived later that week. Pfefferkorn set down the rest of his mail to hold the heavy black envelope in both hands. It was made of beautiful paper, expensive paper, and he hesitated to break it open. He turned it over. The back flap was engraved in silver ink with the de Vallée family crest. Pfefferkorn snorted. Where had Bill dug up such nonsense? Pfefferkorn decided it must have been Carlotta’s idea. She did have a flair for the dramatic.

  He opened the invitation and out leapt a six-inch pop-up cutout of Bill, showing him at his happiest: in his sailing getup, wearing a captain’s hat, about to take to the water, a broad smile splitting his broad, grizzled face. He resembled the older Hemingway. Pfefferkorn had not been to visit the de Vallées in a long time—it pained him to think just how long—but he remembered their yacht, of the kind most often found on the cover of a big, soft, glossy magazine. He assumed it had since been replaced by a more luxe model, one he lacked the wherewithal to envision.

  The memorial was to take place in three weeks’ time. No guests would be permitted. The invitee was requested to reply at his earliest convenience.

  Three weeks seemed a long time to wait for a funeral. Then Pfefferkorn remembered that there was no body and therefore no urgency of decay. He wondered if Carlotta planned to bury an empty casket. It was a morbid thought, and he shook it off.

  Though there was never any question as to whether he would attend, he nevertheless made a brief accounting. Between transportation, accommodations, and a new suit (nothing he owned would do), this trip could end up costing him well over a thousand dollars—no trouble for most of Bill’s friends, Hollywood types who anyway had to travel no farther than down the freeway. But Pfefferkorn earned a meager salary, and he resented the expectation that he should sink his entire paycheck into paying his respects. He knew he was being selfish but he could not help himself. Just as he was incapable of picturing the de Vallées’ latest boat, a rich woman like Carlotta could never grasp how severely a quick nip across the country could damage a person’s savings. He filled out his response card and licked the back flap of the tiny return envelope, thinking of Orwell’s remark that, as a writer, he could not hope to understand what it was like to be illiterate. He wondered if this might make an interesting premise for a novel.

  4.

  That evening Pfefferkorn received a phone call from his daughter. She had seen the news on television and wanted to offer her condolences.

  “Are you going out there? It looks like it’s going to be a big deal.”

  Pfefferkorn replied that he had no idea how big a deal it would be.

  “Oh, Daddy. You know what I mean.”

  In the background Pfefferkorn heard a man’s voice.

  “Is someone there?”

  “That’s just Paul.”

  “Who’s Paul?”

  “Daddy. Please. You’ve met him at least a hundred times.”

  “Have I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I must be getting old.”

  “Stop it.”

  “I can never seem to learn any of your boyfriends’ names before there’s a new one.”

  “Daddy. Stop.”

  “What? What am I doing?”

  “Is it really so hard to remember his name?”

  “When something’s important, I remember it.”

  “It is important. We’re getting married.”

  Pfefferkorn swayed, gripped a chair, made noises.

  “The nice thing to say would be ‘congratulations.’”

  �
��Sweetheart,” Pfefferkorn said.

  “Or you could try ‘I love you.’”

  “It’s just that I’m a little taken aback to learn that my only child is marrying someone I’ve never met—”

  “You’ve met him many times.”

  “—and whose name I can hardly remember.”

  “Daddy, please. I hate it when you do this.”

  “Do what.”

  “Play at being doddering. It’s not funny and this is important.”

  Pfefferkorn cleared his throat. “All right, sweetheart, I’m sorry.”

  “Now can you please be happy for me?”

  “Of course I am, sweetheart. Mazel tov.”

  “That’s better.” She sniffed. “I’d like us to all have dinner together. I want you to get to know Paul better.”

  “All right. Tomorrow night?”

  “That’s no good, Paul’s working late.”

  “What . . .” Pfefferkorn hesitated. “What does Paul do, again?”

  “He’s an accountant. Does Friday work?”

  Pfefferkorn never did anything in the evenings except read. “It works fine.”

  “I’ll make us a reservation. I’ll call you.”

  “All right. Eh—sweetheart? Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. I’ll see you on Friday.”

  Pfefferkorn hung up the phone and looked at the picture of his daughter he kept on his desk. The physical resemblance between her and his ex-wife was striking. People had often pointed it out to him, much to his irritation. That his daughter could be anything but entirely his seemed to him a vile affront. He had been the one to raise her after his ex-wife had deserted them and then died. Now he admitted to himself that he had been overly jealous, and foolish to boot. His daughter was neither his nor his ex-wife’s but her own, and she had chosen to give herself to an accountant.

  5.

  Paul cut short his speech on the value of annuities to excuse himself to the restroom.

  “I’m so glad we’re doing this,” Pfefferkorn’s daughter said.

  “Me too,” Pfefferkorn said.

  The restaurant was no place Pfefferkorn had eaten, nor would he ever again. To begin with, the prices were obscene, more so considering the size of the portions. In vain he had searched the menu for something that didn’t contain one or more obscure ingredients. Then he had embarrassed his daughter by questioning the waiter as to the identity of a certain fish. Paul had leapt in to explain that it had become fashionable recently due to its sustainability. Pfefferkorn had ordered the hanger steak. It came in the shape of a Möbius strip.