The Great Pursuit (12 page)

'So I don't grab you,' said Baby, 'well you don't grab me either. The last time you had it up
was the fall of fifty-five and you were drunk then.'

'I must have been,' said Hutchmeyer and immediately regretted it. Baby pulled the rug from
under.

'I've been looking into your affairs,' she said.

'So I have affairs. A man in my position's got to prove his virility. You think I'm going to
get financial backing when I need it if I'm too old to screw.'

'You're not too old to screw,' said Baby, 'and I'm not talking about those affairs. I'm
talking financial affairs. Now you want a divorce it's all right with me. We split fifty-fifty
and the price is twenty million bucks.'

'Are you crazy?' yelled Hutchmeyer. 'No way!'

'Then no divorce. I've done an audit on your books and those are the affairs I'm talking of.
Now if you want the Internal Revenue boys and the FBI and the courts to know you've been evading
taxes and accepting bribes and handling laundered money for organized crime...'

Hutchmeyer didn't. 'You go your way I'll go mine,' he said bitterly.

'And just remember,' said Baby, 'that if anything happens to me like I die suddenly and like
unnaturally I've stashed photocopies of all your little misdemeanours with my lawyers and in a
bank vault too...'

Hutchmeyer hadn't forgotten it. He had an extra seat belt installed in Baby's Lincoln and saw
to it she didn't take any risks. The interior decorators returned and so did actors, painters and
anyone else Baby fancied. Even MacMordie got dragged one night into the act and was promptly
docked a thousand dollars from his salary for what Hutchmeyer lividly called fringe benefits.
MacMordie didn't see it that way and had protested to Baby. Hutchmeyer reimbursed him two
thousand and apologized.

But for all these side-effects Baby remained unsatisfied. When she wasn't able to find someone
or something interesting to do, she read. At first Hutchmeyer had welcomed the move into literacy
as an indication that Baby was either growing up or dying down. As usual he was wrong. The strain
of self-improvement that had manifested itself in her numerous cosmetic operations combined now
with intellectual aspirations to form a fearful hybrid. From being a simple if scarred broad Baby
graduated to a well-read woman. The first intimation Hutchmeyer had of this development came when
he returned from the Frankfurt Book Fair to find her into The Idiot.

'You find it what?' he said when she told him she found it fascinating and relevant. 'Relevant
to what?'

'To the spiritual crisis in contemporary society,' said Baby. 'To us.'

'The Idiot's relevant to us?' said Hutchmeyer, scandalized. 'A guy thinks he's Napoleon and
icepicks some old dame and that's relevant to us? That is all I need right now. A hole in the
head.'

'You've got one. That's Crime and Punishment, Dummkopf. For a publisher you know but
nothing.'

'I know how to sell books. I don't have to read the goddam things,' said Hutchmeyer. 'Books is
for people who don't get satisfaction in doing things. Like vicarious.'

'They teach you things,' said Baby.

'Like what? Having apoplectic fits?' said Hutchmeyer who had finally got his bearings on The
Idiot.

'Epipleptic. A sign of genius. Like Mohammed had them.'

'So now I've got an encyclopedia for a wife,' said Hutchmeyer, 'and with Arabs. What are you
going to do? Turn this house into a literary Mecca or something?' And leaving Baby with the germ
of this idea he had flown hurriedly to Tokyo and the physical pleasures of a woman who couldn't
speak English let alone read it. He came back to find Baby had been into Dostoyevsky and out the
other side. She was devouring books with as little discrimination as her bears were now devouring
blueberry patches. She hit Ayn Rand with as much fervour as Tolstoy, swept amazingly through Dos
Passos, lathered in Lawrence, saunaed in Strindberg and then birched herself with Celine. The
list was endless and Hutchmeyer found himself married to a biblionut. To make matters worse Baby
got into authors. Hutchmeyer loathed authors. They talked about their books and Hutchmeyer under
threat from Baby found himself forced to be relatively polite and apparently interested. Even
Baby found them disappointing but since the presence of even one novelist in the house sent
Hutchmeyer's blood pressure soaring she was generous in her invitations and continued to live in
hopes of finding one who lived in the flesh up to his words on paper. And with Peter Piper and
Pause O Men for the Virgin she felt sure that here at last was a man and his book without
discrepancy. She lay on the waterbed and savoured her expectations. It was such a romantic novel.
In a significant sort of way. And different.

Hutchmeyer came through from the bathroom wearing a quite unnecessary truss.

'That thing suits you,' said Baby studying the contraption dispassionately. 'You should wear
it more often. It gives you dignity.'

Hutchmeyer glared at her.

'No, I mean it,' Baby continued. 'Like it gives you a supportive role.'

'With you to support I need it,' said Hutchmeyer.

'Well, if you've got a hernia you should have it operated on.'

'Seeing what they've done with you I don't need no operations,' Hutchmeyer said. He glanced at
Pause and went through to his room.

'You still like that book?' he called out presently.

'First good book you've published in years,' said Baby. 'It's beautiful. An idyll.'

'A what?'

'An idyll. You want me to tell you what an idyll is?'

'No,' said Hutchmeyer, 'I can guess.' He climbed into bed and thought about it. An idyll? Well
if she said an idyll, an idyll was what it would be to a million other women. Baby was
infallible. Still, an idyll?

There was nothing idyllic about the scene that greeted Piper when the ship berthed in New
York. Even the fabulous view of the skyline and the Statue of Liberty, which Sonia had promised
would send him, didn't. A heavy mist hung over the river and the great buildings only emerged
from it as they moved slowly past the Battery and inched into the berth. By that time Piper's
attention had been drawn from the view of Manhattan to a large number of people with visibly
different backgrounds and opinions who were gathered on the roadway outside the Customs
shed.

'Boy, Hutch has really done you proud,' said Sonia as they went down the gangway. There were
shouts from the street and a glimpse of banners some of which said ambiguously, 'Welcome To Gay
City', and others even more ominously, 'Go Home, Peipmann'.

'Who on earth is Peipmann?' Piper asked.

'Don't ask me,' said Sonia.

'Peipmann?' said the Customs Officer not bothering to open their bags. 'I wouldn't know.
There's a million hags and fags out there waiting for him. Some are for lynching him and others
for worse. Have a nice trip.'

Sonia hustled Piper away with their luggage through a barrier to where MacMordie was waiting
with a crowd of reporters. 'Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Piper,' he said. 'Now if you'll
just step this way.'

Piper stepped this way and was immediately surrounded by cameramen and reporters who shouted
incomprehensible questions.

'Just say "No comment",' shouted MacMordie as Piper tried to explain that he had never been to
Russia. 'That way nobody gets the wrong idea.'

'It's a bit late for that, isn't it?' said Sonia. 'Who the hell told these goons he was in the
KGB?'

MacMordie grinned with complicity and the swarm with Piper at its centre moved out into the
entrance hall. A squad of cops fought their way through the newsmen and escorted Piper into an
elevator. Sonia and MacMordie went down the stairs.

'What in the name of hell gives?' asked Sonia.

'Mr Hutchmeyer's orders,' said MacMordie. 'A riot he asks for, a riot he gets.'

'But you didn't have to say that about him being a hit man for Idi Amin,' said Sonia bitterly.
'Jesus wept!'

At street level it was clear that MacMordie had said a great many other things about Piper,
all of them conflicting. A contingent of Survivors of Siberia surged round the entrance chanting,
'Solzhenitsyn Yes. Piperovsky No.' Behind them a band of Arabs for Palestine, acting on the
assumption that Piper was an Israeli Minister travelling incognito on an arms-buying mission,
battled with Zionists whom MacMordie had alerted to the arrival of Piparfat of the Black
September Movement. Farther back a small group of older Jews carried banners denouncing Peipmann
but were heavily outnumbered by squads of Irishmen whose information was that O'Piper was a
leading member of the IRA.

'Cops are all Irish,' MacMordie explained to Sonia. 'Best to have them on our side.'

'And which goddam side is that?' said Sonia but at that moment the elevator doors opened and
an ashen-faced Piper was hustled into public view by his police escort. As the crowd outside
surged forward the reporters continued their indefatigable quest for the truth.

'Mr Piper, would you mind just telling us who and what the hell you are?' one of them shouted
above the din. But Piper was speechless. His eyes started out of his head and his face was
grey.

'Is it true that you personally shot...?'

'Can we take it that your government isn't negotiating the purchase of Minutemen rockets?'

'How many people are still in mental...'

'I know one who soon will be if you don't do something fast,' said Sonia thrusting MacMordie
forward. MacMordie launched himself into the fray.

'Mr Piper has nothing to say,' he yelled gratuitously before being hurled to one side by a cop
who had just been hit by a bottle of Seven-Up thrown by an Anti-Apartheid protester for whom Van
Piper was a White South African racist. Sonia Futtle shoved past him.

'Mr Piper is a famous British novelist,' she bawled but the time had passed for such
unequivocal statements. More missiles rained against the wall of the building, banners
disintegrated and were used as weapons, and Piper was dragged back into the hall.

'I haven't shot anyone,' he squawked. 'I've never been to Poland.' But no one heard him. There
was a crackle of walkie-talkies and an urgent plea for police reinforcements. Outside the
Survivors of Siberia had succumbed to the Gay Liberationists who were fighting for their own. A
number of middle-aged dragsters broke through the police cordon and swooped on Piper.

'No, I'm nothing of the kind,' he yelled as they tried to rescue him from the cops. 'I'm
simply a normal...' Sonia grabbed a pole which had once held a sign saying 'Golden Oldies Love
You', and fended off the falsies of one of Piper's captors.

'Oh no he's not,' she shrieked, 'he's mine!' and dewigged another. Then flailing about her she
drove the Gay Liberationists out of the lobby. Behind her Piper and the cops cowered while
MacMordie shouted encouragement. In the medley outside Arabs For Palestine and Zionists For
Israel momentarily united and completed the demolition of Gay Liberation before joining battle
again. By that time Sonia had dragged Piper into the elevator. MacMordie joined them and pressed
the button. For the next twenty minutes they went up and down while the struggle for Piparfat,
O'Piper and Peipmann raged on outside.

'You've really screwed things up now,' Sonia told MacMordie. 'It takes me all my time to get
the poor guy over here and you have to arrange Custer's Last Stand for a welcome.'

In the corner the poor guy was sitting on the floor. MacMordie ignored him. 'The product
needed exposure and it's sure getting it. This will hit prime time TV. I wouldn't wonder there
aren't news flashes going out now.'

'Great,' said Sonia, 'and what have you got laid on for us next? The Hindenburg disaster?'

'So this is going to hit the headlines...' MacMordie began but there was a low moan from the
corner. Something had already hit Piper. His hand was bleeding. Sonia knelt beside him.

'What happened, honey?' she asked. Piper pointed wanly at a frisbee on which were painted the
words Gulag Go. The frisbee was edged with razor blades. Sonia turned on MacMordie.

'I suppose that was your idea too,' she yelled. 'Frisbees with razor blades. You could
guillotine someone with a thing like that.'

'Me? I didn't have a thing ' MacMordie began but Sonia had stopped the elevator.

'Ambulance! Ambulance,' she shouted, but it was an hour before the police managed to get Piper
out of the building. By that time Hutchmeyer's instructions had been carried out. So had a large
number of protesters who had been rushed to hospital. The streets were littered with broken
glass, smashed banners and tear-gas canisters. As Piper was helped into the ambulance his eyes
were streaming tears. He sat nursing his injured hand and the conviction that he had come to a
madhouse.

'What did I do wrong?' he asked Sonia pathetically.

'Nothing. Nothing at all.'

'You were great, just great,' said MacMordie appreciatively and studied Piper's wound. 'Pity
there's not more blood.'

'What more do you want?' snarled Sonia. 'Two pounds of flesh? Haven't you got enough
already?'

'Blood,' said MacMordie. 'Colour TV you can tell the difference from ketchup. This has got to
be authentic' He turned to the nurse. 'You got any whole blood?'

'Whole blood? For a scratch like that you want whole blood?' she said.

'Listen,' said MacMordie, 'this guy's a haemophiliac. You going to let him bleed to
death?'

'I am not a haemophiliac,' protested Piper but the siren drowned his voice.

'He needs a transfusion,' shouted MacMordie. 'Give me that blood.'

'Are you out of your fucking mind?' screamed Sonia as MacMordie grappled with the nurse.
'Hasn't he been through enough without you wanting to give him a blood transfusion?'

'I don't want a transfusion,' squeaked Piper frantically. 'I don't need one.'

'Yea but the TV cameras do,' said MacMordie. 'In Technicolor.'