Shriver (14 page)

He lifted the cup to his lips. He'd forgotten there was no more whiskey, but he pretended to drink anyway. The room had grown quiet.

“And as all this was happening, a long, slow freight train rolled by, its wheels making that clacking sound that is so reassuring, right in time as it is with our heartbeat.”

He saw Simone raise her hand to her heart.

He waited a moment, not sure where to go with all this. The cheerleader, the train, the sky—what did any of this have to
do with reality or illusion? He heard someone cough. T. Wätzczesnam squirmed in his seat. Simone looked concerned, as if Shriver might have suffered a stroke. Everyone was waiting. So he leaned closer to the microphone and said, “Or maybe I made it all up,” then shrugged in an exaggerated fashion, his hands upturned, his shoulders rising to his ears. He sat back in his chair and resumed doodling.

There was laughter, then some scattered appreciative murmuring.

“Wonderful,” T. said, and Shriver was relieved to see Simone smiling.

As the panel discussion continued, Basil Rather spoke of Plato, Homer, Euripides, and Samuel Beckett. Zebra Amphetamine noted the influences of Catullus, Octavia Butler, and the women of the ancient court of Japan. And Shriver covered his paper, front and back, with drawings of horses and question marks. When asked by T. about what writers had influenced his style, he could only come up with “the people who write television programs, especially the news,” which elicited smiles and acknowledgment of his eccentric and playful profundity. Later, an audience member asked why he had not written in twenty years. He answered, “It hadn't occurred to me,” knowing he could have passed a polygraph exam.

After Professor Wätzczesnam concluded the panel discussion with a quote (“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance”), and the audience applauded affectionately, the cowboy turned to Shriver and said, “You're very good at this sort of thing, you sly bastard.” As a show of solidarity, the four authors shook hands while still onstage, though Basil Rather, perhaps because of last night's drama, seemed distant, his thin lips white as he pressed them hard together.

“I
also
love TV!” Zebra Amphetamine shouted as she pumped Shriver's hand. “McLuhan said it's a
cool
medium, but I find it
red hot
, don't you?”

“I don't really know.”

Simone, he could see, stood talking with T., who was touching her arm in a familiar manner.

“I mean, what is there to fill in?” Ms. Amphetamine asked. “TV fills you up to bursting. I love it!”

She turned and walked away, her earrings swinging with each long stride. Shriver was about to approach Simone when Jack Blunt appeared in front of him.

“You crafty old bugger,” the reporter said with a chuckle. “You're putting on quite a performance, aren't you?”

“What do you mean?”

“That whole bit about the cheerleaders, the television shows. You're making yourself out to be some sort of primitive type. Is this a kind of performance piece you're working here? Are you testing people—maybe gathering data for that next big novel we've all been waiting for?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'll get it out of you yet, Shriver,” Blunt promised. “I've got some calls in to New York, your old agent, all the usual suspects—someone's going to crack under the pressure.”

He began to walk away, his pen held aloft like a baton, then stopped and turned back.

“Almost forgot.” From under his arm he pulled a rolled-up newspaper. “Take a look,” he said, unrolling the paper. There, a headline:
FAMOUS AUTHOR REAPPEARS
, and underneath, in a small but crystal-clear black-and-white photograph, sat Shriver in the booth at the Bloody Duck Saloon. “I think it's a rather nice shot of you,” Blunt said. “Very flattering.” He cackled and headed off.

Well, that's it, Shriver thought. I'm done for.

Simone appeared at his side, having extricated herself from the cowboy.

“Nicely done,” she said, placing a hand on his arm.

“Excuse me?” Her hand—it was so warm.

“The panel,” she said.

“Oh, yes. I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.”

She squeezed his forearm and said, “Oh, no. It was great. Everyone's buzzing.”

Shriver followed her into the lobby, where he felt everyone's eyes on him. He waited for someone to shout, “Imposter!” Now that his face was in the papers, he needed to confess to Simone right away.

“I was hoping we could have lunch,” he told her.

“Oh gosh, I'd like that, I really would, but there's this problem with Gonquin, and . . .”

“Still no word?”

“Nothing. Her friend is going ballistic, the police are talking to people. It's crazy.”

“Do they suspect foul play?”

Simone shrugged. “They're going to want to talk to you too.”

“To me?”

“I guess you were the last person to see her.”

“I was?”

“I'm sorry, I have to go. Edsel will take care of you.”

Then she was gone.

Several people approached and asked Shriver to sign copies of
Goat Time
.

“You're a breath of fresh air, sir,” one elderly gentleman declared. “I've been coming to this conference for many years,
and you hear a lot of hooey at these panels.” He cocked his gray head toward Basil Rather nearby. “But you were a real person up there. Thank you.”

Two older women appeared.

“Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior?” one of them asked.

The other woman frowned and said, “Leave him alone with that stuff, Jillian.” She handed Shriver a copy of
Goat Time
. “Please make it out to Jillian and Lillian.”

The two women appeared remarkably similar: pale eyes, button noses, even their silver hair was cut in the same style.

Jillian said, “I can see that you're lonely. I used to be lonely before I found Jesus.”

Shriver kept his head down and wrote,
To Jillian & Lillian
.

“Jesus fills up your life. Yes, sir. Fills you up more than whiskey. Fills you up more than women. Fills you up more than writing or reading or—”

“Jillian!” the other woman said. “Let the man be.”

Shriver wanted to write something clever but was stuck.

Jillian leaned uncomfortably close and whispered, “I know who you are.”

“You do?”

“Jillian, I'm warning you,” Lillian said.

Feeling suddenly sweaty, Shriver looked at Jillian's face, just inches from his own, and wondered how she could possibly know who he was. Had they met? Surely he would remember her. She was an attractive woman, about sixty, her teeth straight and white, her eyes wide and lively.

“Who am I?” Shriver asked, not at all certain he wanted to know.

“Just a man,” she answered. Then she stood up straight and said, “But with the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you could be much, much more!”

Relieved, Shriver wrote,
From just a man
, then signed his name.

“Thank you,” Lillian said, taking the book. She grabbed Jillian by her elbow and pulled her away.

“Good luck!” Jillian called over her shoulder. “You'll need it without Jesus!”

Shriver waved as Lillian dragged her off. Perhaps Jillian was right—perhaps he should pray to get out of this mess he'd gotten himself into. As he considered this option, the man in the bright red suit coat quickly approached. He had no book to be signed.

“Mr. Shriver, is it?” Extremely short, he had a trim, wide-shouldered physique, like a teen gymnast. His dark eyes, set far apart, blazed beneath a full head of brown hair so neatly combed that a line of pale skin showed at the part. “Detective Krampus,” he said, displaying a shiny badge inside a leather wallet. He then pulled a pencil and a small notebook from his jacket pocket. “I'd like to ask you a few questions about Gonquin Smithee.”

“She still hasn't turned up?”

“I understand you were with her late last night.”

“Well, there was a whole group of us.”

“Where was this?”

“In my hotel room.”

“Room number nineteen?”

“That's right,” Shriver answered, a little unnerved.

“Who was present?”

“Uh, let's see. It was very late, and everyone had been drinking . . . There was Professor Wätzczesnam . . .”

“Yes,” the detective said, scribbling loudly in his notebook.

“Ms. Amphetamine . . .”

“Yes.”

“Edsel Nixon, a graduate student . . .”

“Yes.”

“Ms. Malarkey-Jones . . .”

“The ample woman?” Krampus asked, displaying a copy of
Harem Girl
.

“Correct. And the folksinger from the café.”

“Christo?”

“You seem to know all this, Detective.”

“Anyone else in your room last night?”

“And Ms. Smithee, of course.”

“That's all?”

“I think so.”

“You think so, or you
know
so?”

“I know so.”

Shriver then recounted for him the events of the night before.

“And you didn't notice Ms. Smithee's departure?”

“I don't know when she left.”

“Did you spend the night together, Mr. Shriver?”

“Are you asking if I slept with Ms. Smithee?”

Krampus raised one thin eyebrow.

“The answer is no,” Shriver said.

The detective wrote furiously in his little book.

“If you knew anything about the poor woman,” Shriver continued, “you wouldn't need to ask such a question.”

“Why do you say ‘poor' woman?” Krampus asked.

“I don't know. Obviously she's in some sort of bad situation. You don't just up and leave in the middle of a conference.”

“Hm.” More scribbling in the notebook. “Any ideas about what happened to her?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Did you notice any friction between her and anyone else?”

“Well, she was squabbling with Ms. Labio,” Shriver said. He hadn't intended to mention this because, he thought, it might look bad for Ms. Smithee's friend.

“They were fighting?”

“Not
fighting
, I would say.”

“A lovers' spat?”

“I suppose so.”

“About . . . ?”

“Ms. Labio objected to Ms. Smithee's drinking.”

“Was she imbibing a
lot
?”

“She had a few, I'd say.”

“Anything else about her behavior last night?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“No problems with any of the other authors?”

“I don't think so.”

“I was told she took exception to a question you posed to her yesterday.”

“Oh. Yes. She didn't like my question, but then last night she told me she'd changed her mind.”

“When? While you were together in your hotel room?”

“No. Right here in the lobby. During Mr. Rather's reading.”

“You didn't attend Mr. Rather's reading?”

“I left when the sound system started acting up.”

“I see.”

More scribbling.

“And how did Ms. Smithee get along with Mr. Rather?”

“Okay, I suppose.”

“Didn't he accuse her of sabotaging his reading?”

“Not directly.”

“Do you think she
did
sabotage the reading?”

“I hadn't considered it. But no, I don't think so. I think it was an accident.”

“Did
you
sabotage the reading?”

“Of course not!”

Detective Krampus slid the notebook and pencil into his jacket pocket.

“Thank you, Mr. Shriver. I hope you'll be available for more questioning, if need be.”

The little man turned and marched off. Shriver felt a mounting sense of anxiety as he watched the bright red suit coat disappear around a corner. Still, he supposed it was preferable that everyone obsess on Ms. Smithee's disappearance rather than on the scandalous impersonation taking place right under their noses.

“Is that police detective a midget?” Edsel asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Or a dwarf? What's the difference, anyway?”

While his handler attempted to distinguish for himself the difference between a dwarf and a midget—“Which one has the short arms and legs?”—Shriver noticed in his peripheral vision a dark figure over by the exit. His immediate assumption, from years of habit, was that Mr. Bojangles had entered the room. He turned and was about to call out the cat's name when he remembered where he was. There was no Mr. Bojangles, of course, nor any black figure at all. The exit door was empty. He felt a pang of sadness and wondered how the little kitty cat was holding up all alone.

“Do you think there was foul play?” Nixon asked.

“Like what?”

The graduate student shrugged. “I dunno. Murder?”

/

Since there was some time to kill before Zebra Amphetamine's reading, Edsel Nixon offered to drive Shriver around town, to show him “the few sights worth seeing in our little burg.” Shriver accepted, intending to have the young man stop at a liquor store along the way.

They rode beneath a sleek blue dome of sky. The temperature had risen into the eighties. Students traversed the campus in thin T-shirts and short pants, sunglasses hiding their eyes.

Edsel Nixon pointed out the college football stadium and hockey arena. In between these two enormous structures stretched a practice field where hundreds of ponytailed girls in colorful uniforms ran, leaped, and shouted on the grass. As the jeep sputtered past, Shriver watched a pyramid of cheerleaders rise, and at the top stood the brunette girl from the hotel, waving.