“Now, now, buck up. Look. Suppose you’ve got your hero sailing along with his two ladies, one good, one bad. Nice tension there. Suppose, Louis, he’s got a Bad Guy chasing him, say the chief of the pirates, only this guy isn’t just a pirate, he’s the Pirate of Pirates, powerful, intelligent, interesting—maybe he’s some kind of magician, picked it up in the islands—maybe he has something weird about his appearance, in a fascinating way. Huh? Huh, Louis?”
“You even intrigue me with it.” Stevenson turned listless eyes on him. “You persuade. You seduce. I want to take pen in hand and write the awful thing and gain immortal fame thereby. Oh, God, this is the real temptation.”
“Ah, come on, Louis. We’re not talking about sin, we’re talking about Dramatic Conflict.”
“What if Dramatic Conflict were a sin?” Stevenson said in a small frightened voice, looking back at the flames. “What if my old nurse were right and storytelling does imperil men’s souls? Because we do pander to their worst instincts. We do. Let me make my hero as brown as I will, he’ll still be the innocent, the Fool. He’ll still inspire contempt by his virtue. All my art is spent on making my villain fascinate and charm.”
“Hey, look, Louis, don’t get sore. I don’t dictate public taste, I just try to accommodate it. People live such sad lives. Why not take their minds off the fact by entertaining them?”
“And this is to be my choice, isn’t it? I can die an unknown scribbler of essays or I can write the kind of thing you want for your photo-plays and live a successful and famous man.” Stevenson shut his eyes tightly. “Well, you can get straight back to Hell with your infernal trunk. I won’t sell my soul for eternal fame and you can tell your master so from me. Thee and all thy works I utterly reject.”
“Believe me, Louis, you’re taking this all the wrong way,” the other said soothingly, getting down on his knees beside him. “Isn’t it possible to use people’s appetites to instruct them in a, uh, positive moral way? Sell ’em tickets to the Palace of Excess and then slip ’em out the back to Wisdom by putting up a sign that says This Way to the Egress? Sure it is. Sure you can. You will. Dickens did it all the time. And even if there is something wrong with the entertainment business, can’t you atone for what you do? You can use your loot to do something good. Fight injustice. Defend the brown guys oppressed by white guys, maybe. Louis, you can use this talent of yours to do such good.”
“This is just the way you’d have to talk to convince me.” Stevenson was trembling, clenching his poor scabbed hands. “Fiendish. Fiendish. Can’t you let me die in peace?” The other looked at him with something like compassion. He leaned forward and said:
“Has it occurred to you that you might be wrestling with an angel, Louis?” Stevenson opened his eyes again and stared at him, sweat beading on his high brow. “Come on now. We’ve almost got it right. Tell me why the pirate is chasing after our hero. Is he after a treasure map? Is he in love with one of the girls? Are they rivals from childhood? Tell me the story, Louis.”
Stevenson’s breathing had grown steadily harsher. “Very well,” he began, covering his face with his long hands and staring up through his fingers at the stars, “your damned pirate’s the man for me. Perhaps he’s got a cloak that blows about him as he makes his entrance in a storm, black as shadows dancing on the wall of the night-nursery, black as devil’s wings. And if you’re good, and he very still, he can’t see you… why can’t he see you? Evil’s not blind, no, Evil walks in the sun with a bland and reasonable face.” He lowered his hands and glared at Joseph. “But there’s some horror to him as he searches for you there in the dark. You can hear him coming. He’s a limping devil, you can hear his halting step—or his wooden leg! The man is maimed, that’s it, he’s had a leg clean gone by a round broadside of twenty-pound shot!” He sat up in excitement, taken with his creation.
“And that’s the mark by which you may know him, for you couldn’t tell, else, he looks so big and bluff and brave, like somebody’s father come to chase the night horrors away. There’s your subtle evil, man, there’s the Pirate as honest seaman in plain broadcloth, a man full of virtues to win your trust—until he finds it convenient to kill you. Yes! And the damnable thing is, he’ll have those virtues! Not a mask, d’you see? He’ll be brave, and clever, and decent enough in his way—for all his murderous resolution—oh, this is the man, ecce homo, look at him there large as life! Dear God, he’s standing there beside you even now, leaning on his crutch, and there’s the parrot on his shoulder—”
He threw out his frail arm, pointing with such feverish conviction that Joseph, who had been sitting spellbound in spite of himself, turned involuntarily to look. Louis’ voice rose to a hoarse scream:
“Oh, give me paper! Give me even a scrap of that yellow paper, please, you can have the bloody soul, only let me get this down before he slips away from me—” and he groped at his pockets, searching for a pencil; but then he went into a coughing fit that sprayed blood across the other man’s trousers. Aghast, Joseph pulled out a tiny device and forced it between Stevenson’s teeth.
“Bite! Bite on this and inhale!” Stevenson obeyed and clung to him, strangling, as the other fumbled out another needle and managed to inject another drug.
“Jeez, this wasn’t due to happen yet! I’m really sorry, Mr. Stevenson, really, just keep breathing, keep breathing. Okay? You’ll be okay now. I promise. This’ll fix you up just fine.”
After a moment Stevenson fell back, limp. His coughing had stopped. His breathing slowed. Joseph had produced a sponge and a bottle of some kind of cleaner from the trunk and was hastily dabbing blood from his trousers.
“See what you made me do?” Stevenson smiled feebly. “Blood-red ensign’s hoisted at last. Disgusting, isn’t it?”
“Hey, you’ll be okay. What I gave you ought to keep it off for months. You won’t even remember this.” He finished with his clothes and went to work on Stevenson’s. “Besides, I’ve seen worse.”
“I dare say you have.” Stevenson giggled again. “My apologies for the blood. But it’s a sort of a metaphor, isn’t it? And now you’ve foxed your own design, for I’ll die and he’ll never live, my limping devil… though he’d have been a grand piece of work…”
“Oh, you’ll live long enough to write about him.” Joseph peered critically at his cleaning job and decided he’d gotten everything out. “Not that it’ll do my masters any damn good.”
Stevenson closed his eyes. Joseph gave a final swab at his shirtfront. As he was doing so the trunk made a chattering noise and spewed out another sheet of paper. Almost absently he reached out to tear it loose, and glanced at the reply:
CLIENT SAW “NOTES” ON KNIGHTS IN ARMOR STORY, LOVES IT. DE GUSTIBUS NON EST DISPUTANDEM. SOME ADAPTATION POSSIBLE. SECURE RIGHTS ON FORGERY BELOW AND PROCEED TO NEXT ARTIST.
Stevenson had opened his eyes again at the sound the trunk made. Joseph looked up from his communication and met his gaze with a frank smile.
“Well, Louis, you’ve won. Your soul has been tested and found pure. You’re one of the Elect, okay? Congratulations, and let me just ask you one last favor.”
“What’s that?” Stevenson was groggy now.
“Can I have your autograph? Just sign here.” He put the pen in Stevenson’s hand and watched as Stevenson scrawled his name on the paper, just below the cleverly faked holograph of plot outline and character notes.