It was a terrible book, even by its own standards: crass and inelegant and sodden with cliché. The plot was overwrought and reliant on coincidence. The characters were flimsy. The language was enough to make Pfefferkorn’s throat pucker in distaste. Yet millions of people had rushed to buy it, and millions more would follow suit, especially now that Bill’s death was the latest scoop. Were they truly blind to the book’s faults, or did they willingly ignore those faults in exchange for a few hours of mindless diversion? Pfefferkorn tried to decide which was worse: having no taste or having taste and setting it aside. Either way, this was not the purpose of literature. He finished reading during his second leg, from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. Rather than leave the book on the airplane for someone else to find, he discarded it while walking to the rental car shuttle bus.
8.
Pfefferkorn checked into his motel with several hours to spare. He decided to take a walk. He put on his tennis shoes and a pair of shorts and ventured out into the glare.
The motel was located along a seedy stretch of Hollywood Boulevard. Pfefferkorn passed cut-rate electronics dealers, sex shops, emporia of movie-related trinkets. A young man handed him a flyer redeemable for two tickets to the taping of a game show Pfefferkorn had never heard of. An unshaven transvestite with foul body odor brushed against him. A woman in hot pants smiled toothlessly as she hawked aromatherapy kits. The streets swarmed with tourists under the impression that movies still got made here. Pfefferkorn knew better. None of the four movies made from Bill’s books had been shot in California. Canada, North Carolina, and New Mexico all provided filmmakers with tax breaks that made Los Angeles, however storied its streets, financially unworkable. That didn’t stop people from coming to have their picture taken in front of the Chinese Theatre.
A few blocks on, he ran a gauntlet of people brandishing clipboards in support of various causes. Pfefferkorn was asked to lend his voice to the fight against fur, the death penalty, and atrocities allegedly committed by the West Zlabian government. He dodged them all, pausing as he came to a woman kneeling on the sidewalk to light a candle inside a hurricane glass. Bunches of flowers were strewn all around the concrete square wherein William de Vallée’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star was set. The woman noticed him staring and offered a smile of shared misery.
“Care to sign?” she asked. She pointed to a card table, atop which sat a red leather–bound book and several pens.
Pfefferkorn bent to the book and leafed through it. There were dozens of inscriptions, many of them quite heartfelt, all made out to Bill or William or Mr. de Vallée.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” the kneeling woman said.
She began to cry.
Pfefferkorn said nothing. He flipped to the back of the book and found a blank page. He thought for a moment. Dear Bill he wrote. You were a lousy hack.
9.
Pfefferkorn pulled the pins from his shirt. It had been years since he had purchased new clothes, and he had been shocked by how expensive everything was. Once dressed, however, he decided the money had been well spent. The suit was dark gray rather than black, a more practical choice if he wanted to get further use out of it. He wore a silver tie. He grimaced to see that he had forgotten to shine his shoes. But it was too late for that. He had less than an hour and he didn’t know his way around town.
The desk clerk gave him directions. They were wrong, and Pfefferkorn got stuck in traffic. He arrived at the cemetery chapel as the ceremony was ending, slipping in to stand at the back. The room was packed, the air close with flowers and perfume. He picked Carlotta out with ease. She sat in the front row, her gigantic black hat bobbing and wagging as she wept. No clergy were present. On the dais was a lustrous black casket with brilliant silver fixtures. A life-size version of the pop-up of Bill in his captain’s hat stood off to the left. Rock and roll played over the stereo, a song that Pfefferkorn recognized as an old favorite of Bill’s. In college, Bill would play the same record over and over until Pfefferkorn couldn’t stand it any longer and threatened to break the hi-fi. Bill had always been a creature of habit. He’d kept an immaculate desk, bare save a typewriter, a jar of pens, and a neatly stacked manuscript. By contrast, Pfefferkorn’s desks tended to look like a child had been opening presents nearby. A similar distinction held in other parts of their lives. Pfefferkorn wrote irregularly, when the mood took him. Bill wrote the same number of words every day, rain or shine, in sickness and in health. Pfefferkorn had careered through a series of messy love affairs before ending up alone. Bill had been married to the same woman for three decades. Pfefferkorn had no nest egg, no vision for his retirement, no idea of what he ought to do except continue to live. Bill always had a plan.
But what, Pfefferkorn wondered, did those plans amount to in the end? Here, in lustrous black, lay the refutation.
The song concluded. The mourners rose. People were referring to an ivory-colored piece of paper. Picking up a spare, Pfefferkorn saw a map of the cemetery, with arrows indicating walking directions from the chapel to the grave site. On the back was the program for the just-concluded ceremony. Pfefferkorn read that he had been scheduled to speak third.
10.
Last in, first out, he stood at the base of the chapel steps, waiting for Carlotta so he could apologize for his tardiness. Two by two, the mourners poured out. Sunglasses were unfolded or brought down from foreheads. Handkerchiefs were returned to pockets. Frighteningly thin women clung to much older men. Pfefferkorn, who did not own a television and who rarely went to the movies, knew he ought to recognize some of these people. As a group they were exceedingly well dressed, and he felt his new suit put to shame. A woman encrusted in jewels approached him to ask where the bathroom was, reacting with perplexity when he said he did not know. As she tottered away, Pfefferkorn realized she had taken him for a cemetery employee.
“Thank God you’ve come.”
Carlotta de Vallée broke free of the man escorting her and gripped Pfefferkorn fiercely, her woolen jacket bunching itchily against his sweaty neck.