The Great Pursuit (4 page)

'I should have thought that was an impossibility,' said Geoffrey. 'Castrated herself. Now
himself I '

'You're probably thinking of In Cold Blood by someone called McCullers,' said Mr Tate. 'Never
did read the book myself but people tell me it was foul.'

'Then we are all agreed,' said Geoffrey to change the subject from one so close to the bone.
Mr Tate and Mr Wilberforce nodded sadly.

Frensic greeted their decision without overt enthusiasm.

'We can't be sure of Hutchmeyer yet,' he told Geoffrey over lunch at Wheelers. 'There must be
no leaks to the press. If this gets out Hutchmeyer won't bite. I suggest we simply refer to it as
Pause.'

'It's appropriate,' said Geoffrey. 'It will take at least three months to get the proofs
done.'

'That will give us time to work on Hutchmeyer.'

'And you really think there's a chance he will buy?'

'Every chance,' said Frensic. 'Miss Futtle exercises enormous charms for him.'

'Extraordinary,' said Geoffrey with a shudder. 'Still, having read Pause there's obviously no
accounting for tastes.'

'Sonia is also an excellent saleswoman,' said Frensic. 'She makes a point of asking for very
large advances and that always impresses Americans. It shows we have faith in the book.'

'And this fellow Piper agrees to our ten per cent cut?'

Frensic nodded. He had spoken to Mr Cadwalladine. 'The author has left all the terms of the
negotiations and sale entirely in my hands,' he said truthfully. And there the matter rested
until Hutchmeyer flew into London with his entourage in the first week of February.

It was said of Hutchmeyer that he was the most illiterate publisher in the world and that
having started life as a fight promoter he had brought his pugilistic gifts to the book trade and
had once gone eight rounds with Mailer. It was also said that he never read the books he bought
and that the only words he could read were those on cheques and dollar bills. It was said that he
owned half the Amazon forest and that when he looked at a tree all he could see was a dustjacket.
A great many things were said about Hutchmeyer, most of them unpleasant, and, while each
contained an element of truth, added together they amounted to so many inconsistencies that
behind them Hutchmeyer could guard the secret of his success. That at least no one doubted.
Hutchmeyer was immensely successful. A legend in his own lifetime, he haunted the insomniac
thoughts of publishers who had turned down Love Story when it was going for a song, had spurned
Frederick Forsyth and ignored Ian Fleming and now lay awake cursing their own stupidity.
Hutchmeyer himself slept soundly. For a sick man, remarkably soundly. And Hutchmeyer was always
sick. If Frensic's success lay in outeating and outdrinking his competitors, Hutchmeyer's was due
to his hypochondria. When he hadn't an ulcer or gallstones, he was subject to some intestinal
complaint that necessitated a regime of abstinence. Publishers and agents coming to his table
found themselves obliged to plough their way through six courses, each richer and more alarmingly
indigestible than the last, while Hutchmeyer toyed with a piece of boiled fish, a biscuit and a
glass of mineral water. From these culinary encounters Hutchmeyer rose a thinner and richer man
while his guests staggered home wondering what the hell had hit them. Nor were they allowed time
to recover. Hutchmeyer's peripatetic schedule London today, New York tomorrow, Los Angeles the
day after had a dual purpose. It provided him with an excuse to insist on speed and avoided
prolonged negotiations, and it kept his sales staff on their toes. More than one contract had
been signed by an author in the throes of so awful a hangover that he could hardly put pen to
paper, let alone read the small print. And the small print in Hutchmeyer's contracts was
exceedingly small. Understandably so, since it contained clauses that invalidated almost
everything set out in bold type. To add to the hazards of doing business with Hutchmeyer, most of
them legal, there was his manner. Hutchmeyer was gross, partly by nature and partly as a reaction
to the literary aestheticism he was exposed to. It was one of the qualities he appreciated about
Sonia Futtle. No one had ever called her aesthetic.

'You're like a daughter to me,' he said hugging her when she arrived at his suite in the
Hilton. 'What's my baby got for me this time?'

'One humdinger,' said Sonia disengaging herself and climbing on to the bicycle exerciser that
accompanied Hutchmeyer everywhere. Hutchmeyer selected the lowest chair in the room.

'You don't say. A novel?'

Sonia cycled busily and nodded.

'What's it called?' asked Hutchmeyer for whom first things came first.

'Pause O Men for the Virgin.'

'Pause O Men for the what?'

'Virgin,' said Sonia and cycled more vigorously than ever. Hutchmeyer glimpsed a thigh.
'Virgin? You mean you've got a religious novel that's hot?'

'Hot as Hades.'

'Sounds good, a time like this. It fits with the Jesus freaks and Superstar and Zen and how to
mend automobiles. And it's women's year so we got The Virgin.'

Sonia stopped peddling. 'Now don't get carried away, Hutch. It's not that kind of virgin.'

'It's not?'

'No way.'

'So there's different kinds of virgin. Sounds interesting. Tell me.' And Sonia Futtle, seated
on the bicycle machine, told him while her legs moved up and down with a delicious lethargy that
lulled his critical faculties. Hutchmeyer made only token resistance. 'Forget it,' he said when
she had finished. 'You can deepsix that crap. Eighty years old and still fucking. That I don't
need.'

Sonia climbed off the exerciser and stood in front of him. 'Don't be a dumbcluck, Hutch. Now
you listen to me. You're not going to throw this one out. Over my dead body. This book's got
class.'

Hutchmeyer smiled happily. This was Fuller Brush talking. The sales pitch. No soft sell.
'Convince me.'

'Right,' said Sonia. 'Who reads? Don't answer. I'll tell you. The kids. Fifteen to twenty-one.
They read. They got the time. They got the education. Literacy rate peak is sixteen to twenty.
Right?'

'Right,' said Hutchmeyer.

'Right, so we've got a seventeen-year-old boy in the book with an identity crisis.'

'Identity crises is out. That stuff went the way of all Freud.'

'Sure, but this is different. This boy isn't sick or something.'

'You kidding? Fucking his own grandmother isn't sick?'

'She isn't his grandmother. She's a woman a '

'Listen baby, I'll tell you something. She's eighty, she's no goddam woman no more. I should
know. My wife, Baby, is fifty-eight and she's drybones. What the beauty surgeons have left of
her. That woman has had more taken out of her than you'd believe possible. She's got silicon
boobs and degreased thighs. She's had four new maidenheads to my knowledge and her face lifted so
often I've lost count.'

'And why?' said Sonia. 'Because she wants to stay all woman.'

'All woman she ain't. More spare parts than woman.'

'But she reads. Am I right?'

'Reads? She reads more books than I sell in a month.'

'And that's my point. The young read and the old read. You can kiss the in-betweens
goodbye.'

'You tell Baby she's old and you can kiss yourself goodbye. She'd have your fanny for a
dishcloth. I mean it.'

'What I'm saying is that you've got literacy peak sixteen to twenty, then a gap and another LP
sixty on out. Tell me I'm lying.'

Hutchmeyer shrugged. 'So you're right.'

'And what's this book about?' said Sonia. 'It's '

'Some crazy kid shacked up with Grandma Moses. It's been done some place else. Tell me
something new. Besides, it's dirty.'

'You're wrong, Hutch, you're so wrong. It's a love story, no shit. They mean something to one
another. He needs her and she needs him.'

'Me, I need neither of them.'

'They give one another what they lack alone. He gets maturity, experience, wisdom, the fruit
of a lifetime...'

'Fruit? Fruit? Jesus, you want me to throw up or something?'

'...and she gets youth, vitality, life,' Sonia continued. 'It's great. I mean it. A deep,
meaningful book. It's liberationist. It's existentialist. It's...Remember what The French
Lieutenant's Woman did? Swept America. And Pause is what America's been waiting for. Seventeen
loves eighty. Loves, Hutch, L.O.V.E.S. So every senior citizen is going to buy it to find out
what they've been missing and the students will go for the philosophomore message. Pitch it right
and we can scoop the pool. We get the culture buffs with significance, the weirdos with the porn
and the marshmallows with romance. This is the book for the whole family. It could sell by the
'

Hutchmeyer got up and paced the room. 'You know, I think maybe you've got something there,' he
said. 'I ask myself "Would Baby buy this story?" and I have to say yes. And what that woman falls
for the whole world buys. What price?'

'Two million dollars.'

'Two million...You've got to be kidding.'

Hutchmeyer gaped.

Sonia climbed back on to the bicycle machine. 'Two million. I kid you not.'

'Go jump, baby, go jump. Two million? For a novel? No way.'

'Two million or I go flash my gams at Milenberg.'

'That cheapskate? He couldn't raise two million. You can hawk your pussy all the way to Avenue
of the Americas it won't do you no good.'

'American rights, paperback, film, TV, serialization, book clubs...'

Hutchmeyer yawned. 'Tell me something new. They're mine already.'

'Not on this book they're not.'

'So Milenberg buys. You get no price and I buy him. What's in it for me?'

'Fame,' said Sonia simply, 'just fame. With this book you're up there with the all-time
greats. Gone With The Wind, Forever Amber, Valley of The Dolls, Dr Zhivago, Airport, The
Carpetbaggers. You'd make the Reader's Digest Almanac.'

'The Reader's Digest Almanac? said Hutchmeyer in an awed voice. 'You really think I could make
that?'

'Think? I know. This is a prestige book about life's potentialities. No kitsch. Message like
Mary Baker Eddy. A symphony of words. Look who's bought it in London. No fly-by-night firm.'

'Who?' said Hutchmeyer suspiciously.

'Corkadales.'

'Corkadales bought it? The oldest publishing '

'Not the oldest. Murrays are older,' said Sonia.

'So, old. How much?'

'Fifty thousand pounds,' said Sonia glibly.

Hutchmeyer stared at her. 'Corkadales paid fifty thousand pounds for this book? Fifty
grand?'

'Fifty grand. First time off. No hassle.'

'I heard they were in trouble,' said Hutchmeyer. 'Some Arab bought them?'

'No Arab. It's a family firm. So Geoffrey Corkadale paid fifty grand. He knows this book is
going to get them out of hock. You think they'd risk that sort of money if they were going to
fold?'

'Shit,' said Hutchmeyer, 'somebody's got to have faith in this fucking book...but two million!
No one's ever paid two million for a novel. Robbins a million but...'

'That's the whole point, Hutch. You think I ask two million for nothing? Am I so dumb? It's
the two million makes the book. You pay two million and people know, they've got to read the book
to find out what you paid for. You know that. You're in a class on your own. Way out in front.
And then with the film...'

'I'd want a cut of the film. No single-figure percentage. Fifty-fifty.'

'Done,' said Sonia. 'You've got yourself a deal. Fifty-fifty on the film it is.'

'The author...this Piper guy, I'd want him too,' said Hutchmeyer.

'Want him?' said Sonia, sobering. 'Want him for what?'

'To market the product. He's going to be out there up front where the public can see him. The
guy who fucks the geriatrics. Public appearances across the States, signings, TV talk shows,
interviews, the whole razzamattaz. We'll build him up like he's a genius.'

'I don't think he's going to like that,' said Sonia nervously, 'he's shy and reserved.'

'Shy? He washes his jock in public and he's shy?' said Hutchmeyer. 'For two million he'll chew
asses if I tell him.'

'I doubt if he'd agree '

'Agree he will or there's no deal,' said Hutchmeyer. 'I'm throwing my weight behind his book,
he has to too. That's final.'

'OK, if that's the way you want it,' said Sonia.

'That's the way I want it,' said Hutchmeyer. 'Like the way I want you...'

Sonia made her escape and hurried back to Lanyard Lane with the contract.

She found Frensic looking decidedly edgy. 'Home and dry,' she said, dancing heavily round the
room.

'Marvellous,' said Frensic. 'You are brilliant.'

Sonia stopped cavorting. 'With a proviso.'

'Proviso? What proviso?'

'First the good news. He loves the book. He's just wild about it.'

Frensic regarded her cautiously. 'Isn't he being a bit premature? He hasn't had a chance to
read the bloody thing yet.'

'I told him about it...a synopsis and he loved it. He sees it as filling a much-needed
gap.'

'A much-needed gap?'

'The generation gap. He feels '

'Spare me his feelings,' said Frensic. 'A man who can talk about filling much-needed gaps is
deficient in ordinary human emotions.'

'He thinks Pause will do for youth and age what Lolita did for...'

'Parental responsibility?' suggested Frensic.

'For the middle-aged man,' said Sonia.

'For God's sake, if this is the good news can leprosy be far behind.'

Sonia sank into a chair and smiled. 'Wait till you hear the price.'

Frensic waited. 'Well?'

'Two million.'

'Two million?' said Frensic trying to keep the quaver out of his voice. 'Pounds or
dollars?'

Sonia looked at him reproachfully. 'Frenzy, you are a bastard, an ungrateful bastard. I pull
off '

'My dear, I was merely trying to ascertain the likely extent of the horrors you are about to
reveal to me. You spoke of a proviso. Now if your friend from the Mafia had been prepared to pay
two million pounds for this verbal hogwash I would have known the time had come to pack up and
leave town. What does the swine want?'