Shriver (7 page)

“Will Professor Cleverly be there?” Shriver asked Nixon.

“Yes, I think so.”

Shriver turned to the reporter. “I really must be back by—”

“Six,” Nixon said. “At Slander's Restaurant.”

“No problemo,” Blunt said. “I'll have him there by then.”

Nixon appeared troubled. “Mr. Shriver—Professor Cleverly will kill me if you get lost or anything.”

“Time's a-wastin',” Blunt said, miming the tipping of a bottle to his lips.

“Don't worry, Mr. Nixon,” Shriver told his handler. “Tell Simone—er, Professor Cleverly—that I'll be there at six.” Poor Nixon looked stricken as Blunt led Shriver down the stairs and out the front doors.

“Goddamn, it's good to see you, old man,” the reporter said as they crossed the street. “To be honest, I thought you were dead.”

“Dead?”

“Where else would you be for twenty years? But the minute I heard you were appearing here, I made my plans.”

Shriver had to skip to keep up as the fast-walking Blunt
rounded a corner. The change in his jacket pocket jingled with each step, and mosquitoes buzzed noisily around his head.

“And that question of yours,” Blunt said. “Goddamn brilliant! How I despise the self-serving victim crap that dyke ladles out.”

They came to a one-story cinder-block building, painted brown. On the metal door adhesive letters spelled out
TH
e
BL
ood
Y
D
u
C
k. Inside, thick, gray cigarette smoke fogged the room, though there was only the bartender and a waitress in the place, neither of them smoking.

Blunt led Shriver to a booth and called to the waitress for two double whiskeys. Shriver winced as he sat on the cushionless bench. Initials and names and slogans adorned the wood of the booth. Directly over Blunt's left shoulder someone had carved
NOW THAT I'M ENLIGHTENED, I'M JUST AS MISERABLE AS EVER
.

The waitress brought their drinks. She had skin the color and consistency of alabaster, and green-apple eyes. She set the drinks down and walked away with the sultry air of a woman in a black-and-white movie set in a tropical bar frequented by mercenaries.

“Look at the keister on her,” Blunt remarked. “Cheers.” He held up his tumbler and the two men toasted.

Shriver relished the heat that cascaded down his throat.

“What I want to know,” Blunt said, “is what the hell you've been up to these past twenty or so years, besides living large off your royalty checks.”

Shriver thought back over the past two decades. They were as hazy as the bar.

“This and that,” he said.

“Have you been writing?”

Shriver patted the yellow pages in his jacket pocket.

“A little.”

“A novel? Stories? What?”

“Not sure.”

Blunt slapped his now-empty tumbler down on the table. “You're playing games with me, Shriver.” He signaled to the waitress for another round. Shriver hurried to catch up with him, draining his glass and setting it down beside its companion.

“No games,” he said.

“All right. So tell me why you've been out of the spotlight for so long. Is it the ol' sophomore slump?”

“I guess so.”

“Writer's block?”

“Sort of.”

“I mean, the first book goes nuclear, millions sold, a buttload of awards—who could follow
that
up?”

“Not
me
.”

The waitress delivered two more glasses of whiskey. Shriver drained his in one gulp. He felt like a man in an airtight wetsuit slowly submerging into an icy lake.

“Still able to put it away, I see.”

“What is it you want from me, Mr. Blunt?”

“Just
talk
to me. Tell me where you've been, what you've been doing.”

“Why would I do
that
?”

“Oh, come on, Shriver. You
need
me now, just like you needed me then. You may be a star at this little dog and pony show, but out there”—he waved toward the wall and beyond, toward the rest of the world—“nobody remembers you. I had to explain who you were to my editor. The ignorant twit.”

“Then why bother to talk to me at all?”

“Because as ridiculous and self-serving as these little events
are, it is a big deal that you're coming out of the woodwork, and it's a great opportunity for me.”

“You want a scoop.”

“Hell yes! And I can help
you
while I'm at it.”

“Help me how?”

“By getting your name out there! And your face too.”

From his coat pocket Blunt produced a small camera, the kind a spy might use.

“No!” Shriver cried, covering his face. “Absolutely not!”

“Just one shot. No one remembers what you look like.”

“Good!”

“They didn't even put your photo in your goddamn book.”

“Honest to God, Blunt, if you take a picture of me I will not speak to you at all.”

“Oh, all right.” The reporter slid the tiny camera back into his pocket. “Still cranky. That hasn't changed.”

As Shriver scratched at the mosquito bite on his hand, the waitress emerged from a wall of smoke with two more drinks.

“On me,” she said. “I'm a big fan.” Then she turned and wiggled away.

“Yum yum,” Blunt said. “Play your cards right, Shriver, and . . .” His eyebrows flapped suggestively.

Shriver ignored him.

“I'm onto you, old boy,” Blunt said, eyeballing him over the rim of his tumbler.

Shriver's adrenal gland pumped madly away. “What do you mean?”

“You're up to something.”

“Such as?”

“It's some sort of stunt. I don't have it all worked out yet, but . . .”

Shriver's lips began to quiver a little.

“What I can't understand,” Blunt said, “is why you would agree to attend this puny little conference.”

“It's simple. They asked me.”

“Is that all it took?”

Shriver nodded.

“So you've been hiding away for two decades because no one asked you out?”

Shriver finished his drink and peered through the foglike smoke at the clock on the wall.

“Sorry, Mr. Blunt, but I really must go. I am expected for dinner.”

“You haven't changed much, Shriver.”

“You don't know how pleased I am to hear you say that. Thanks for the drinks.”

“Anytime. How about tomorrow? An on-the-record chat over lunch?”

“I don't think so. Have a nice trip back home.”

“Oh, I'm not going anywhere. I'll see you around town, old boy.”

Shriver squeezed himself out of the booth. “Bye!” the waitress called out with a wave. “Come again!”

Shriver walked stiffly from the tavern, trailing a wispy tail of cigarette smoke.

Shriver stood outside Slander's Restaurant, peering in through the large plate-glass window. Located on Main Street between the Church of Pornocology and the Dusty Rose Rodeo Museum, the place looked elegant in an old-fashioned way, with dark wood tables and chairs, and sepia-toned historical photographs hanging on the wide-plank walls.

Mosquitoes buzzed madly around Shriver's ears. They were growing in number now that the sun had started to set. The clock near the entrance read six thirty.

“There you are!”

Shriver turned to see Edsel Nixon standing beside him.

“You have an unnerving habit of materializing out of nowhere,” Shriver shouted over the pounding of his heart.

“Sorry, sir. I'll try to be more noisy from now on. It's just that Professor Cleverly is worried about you.”

“I got a little lost.”

It was true. Along the way Shriver had been forced to ask several people for directions, with mixed results. Fortunately, he'd stumbled upon a liquor store, Big Chief's Liquorarium, where the proprietor, a squat fellow of Native American descent, silently drew a detailed map on a brown paper bag. To thank him, Shriver used part of his per diem to purchase a pint of whiskey, which he now kept inside his jacket pocket.

Nixon led him through the restaurant to a back room
where the conference people sat at a long table—seven in all, plus Shriver. Simone sat in the far corner. Unfortunately, the seats on either side of her were spoken for.

“Shriver!” A hatless T. Wätzczesnam sat at the far end of the table, to Simone's left. He was bald, Shriver now saw, with a graying comb-over made sweaty from all those hours of dank confinement. “Where ya been, buddy?”

Shriver waved hello and sat at the near end of the table, to the left of Edsel Nixon. “Ouch,” he hissed as his sore rump collided with the seat.

“We thought you got lost,” Wätzczesnam said.

“Mr. Shriver was talking to the press,” Simone explained to the group.

“Ah,” the cowboy said with a chuckle, “fraternizing with the enemy, eh?”

The waiter—young, tall, with dark hair and deep-set eyes—arrived with a menu.

“I'll have a double whiskey,” Shriver told him.

Simone took it upon herself to make introductions.

“This is Basil Rather,” she said, indicating the gentleman to Edsel Nixon's right. The playwright sat ramrod straight in his seat, his face narrow and jagged, a thin, ink-black beard lining his jaw. He wore a maroon turtleneck beneath a houndstooth jacket.

“How do you do?” he said in a theatrical voice.

“And to his right,” Simone continued, “is Mr. Rather's assistant, uh . . .”

“Lena,” the young woman said. “Lena Brazir.” A busty redhead, she was perhaps twenty years old, less than half the age of the playwright.

“You know T., of course,” Simone said. The cowboy raised his tumbler in salute.

“I don't know if you've
officially
met Gonquin Smithee.” Simone indicated the poet to her right, who nodded minimally. Up close her face appeared softer, unlined, with full, sensuous lips. “And her friend Ms. Labio,” Simone added, gesturing toward the woman to Gonquin Smithee's right, directly across from Shriver. She closely resembled the poet, with erratically trimmed hair above a smooth, shapely face, except instead of a man's tailored suit, she wore a rather frumpy dress with a squared-off neckline.

“That was an interesting question you asked, Mr. Shriver,” Gonquin Smithee said just before taking a sip of white wine.

“ ‘There are no other questions than these,' ” Wätzczesnam intoned from the far end of the table. “ ‘Half squashed in mud, emerging out of the moment / We all—' ”

“
Thank
you, T.,” Simone said.

“Nixon?” Wätzczesnam shouted.

“Ashbery, sir,” the graduate student answered.

“Very good.”

“I've read your novel,” Gonquin Smithee continued, aiming her green, laserlike eyes at Shriver. “Well, I didn't finish it, but from what I did read I was struck by the fact that you seem taken with writing from the point of view of villains and abusers.”

“Er . . . ,” Shriver started, as the mosquito bite on his hand began to itch.

The waiter appeared like a guardian angel with a tumbler of whiskey. Everyone watched as Shriver grabbed the glass and sipped greedily. The waiter removed a pad and pencil from his pocket and asked if Shriver was ready to order. The young man gazed down upon him intently, as if all the world depended upon the answer.

“Go ahead,” Simone told Shriver. “We've ordered already.”

“Do you have any soup?” Shriver asked.

“This evening we have a cabbage and smoked sausage soup, and a Peruvian lamb soup.”

“Uh-huh. How about a sandwich?”

“We have a bison sandwich, sir.”

“Bison?”

“Live well, Shriver!” Wätzczesnam exclaimed.

“Do you have anything less, uh, fleshy?” Shriver asked the waiter.

“A Caesar salad?”

“I'll have that.”

“Excellent choice,” the waiter said. Then, sotto voce, “I'm a big fan.”

When the young man had retreated, Shriver turned to the group, hoping that a new subject had been introduced, but they seemed to be awaiting his response to the poet.

“Er . . . ,” he repeated.

“I prefer to speak for the victims,” Gonquin Smithee declared. “I think the violent, sexist patriarchy has had its time to speak, and now it's our time.”

“Good Lord,” Basil Rather said with a snort. “I've time-traveled to 1975!”

Shriver gripped the tumbler tightly and mumbled, “You're probably right about that, Ms. Smithee.”

Ms. Labio sighed dramatically. “That is so patronizing.”

“Tell me, Ms. Labio,” Rather said, “what do
you
do for a living?”

“She's an artist,” Gonquin Smithee answered for her friend.

“No kidding?” Rather said with a tight little smile. “And what is your medium?”

“Sculpture,” the artist replied.

“Clay? Stone?”

“Cake.”

“Cake?”

“I sculpt nudes made of cake.”

“How delicious!” the playwright said.

“Male?” T. Wätzczesnam asked. “Female?”

“
She-
male,” the sculptress answered with a satisfied grin.

“Well, I'll be,” the cowboy said.

“How long do they last?” Edsel Nixon asked.

Ms. Labio shrugged. “A week or so, depending on the conditions.”

“Sometimes we eat them,” Ms. Smithee said.

“I find temporary art to be baffling,” Rather said. “What do
you
think, Shriver?”

Shriver turned to Simone, who, recognizing his distress, piped up, “Well, this distinguished group of writers has certainly created some permanent art.” She hoisted her glass of Chianti. “To a great conference!”