Chapter 22 Chapter Twenty Two

Kari Close settled it all for me, but poor patriot Frank Alcor was prosecuted, discharged from active duty and reinstated as a civilian, tried and found guilty, and served a year in prison.When the major called me into his office a week later, he wasn't angry, in fact he had an amused smile on his face. "I don't know how you did it, Merlin," he told me, "but you won this fight. Congratulations. I don't care, the whole thing is a fucking joke, they should throw those kids in Prison. I'm happy for you, but I've got an order to fix this and make sure it doesn't happen again. Now, as a friend, I don't want to push you. My advice is, resign from public office, immediately."

I was shocked and a little sick.I thought I was safe and now I lost my job.How the hell am I going to pay all the bills?How to support my wife and children?And how will I pay for the mortgage on the new house in Long Island that I will be moving into in a few months?So try to keep your face the same as I say the following words. "Why did I have to resign when the grand jury found me not guilty?" But the major must have seen my thoughts.I remember in Las Vegas, Jordan and Cary were joking and everyone could see what I was thinking.When the major spoke, there was pity on his face: "I am telling you for your own good. The above will send internal investigators here, and the FBI may continue to investigate. Those children in the reserve will continue to want to use you. Try If you want to make a deal with them, they will keep the pot burning. But if you resign, soon, everything will disappear, and the investigators will calm down and leave with nowhere to go."

I wondered what happened to the other bribe-takers, and the Major anticipated my question. "I know at least ten consultants and administrators like you who will quit and some have already. Trust me, I'm with you and you'll be fine. It's a complete waste of your time doing this job. You should be able to do more at your age." I nod.I was thinking about this too.I haven't done anything in my life so far.Of course, I published a novel.As a civil servant, I can get home one hundred yuan a week, and I can earn another three or four hundred yuan a month writing articles for magazines. Now that this illegal gold mine is closed, I have to find another way out.

"Okay," I said, "I'll write my resignation letter two weeks in advance." The major nodded, then shook again. "You've got some paid time off," he said, "use it up in these two weeks and get a new job. I'll be here all the time, you just come in two or three times a week to do the paperwork. .” I went back to my desk and wrote my resignation letter.Things weren't as bad as they looked, I got about twenty days of paid vacation, I figured it was about four hundred dollars.I still have about fifteen hundred dollars in the government pension fund, which I can also withdraw, but then I give up my right to a pension after sixty-five.But that will be more than thirty years later, and I may be dead by then.A total of 2,000 yuan, and the bribe money I hid in Cary, more than 30,000 yuan.For a moment, panic gripped me. What if Kari breaks his promise and doesn't give me the money?I can't do anything.We were good friends and he saved me from trouble.But I don't have any illusions about Cary. He's a big-time casino hustler. What if he says the money was paid for me?I can't argue with that.I would definitely pay to keep myself out of jail.God, I'm sure I'll pay!

My biggest fear was having to tell Valerie I was unemployed, and having to explain it to her father, who was going to ask around anyway. I didn't tell Valerie that night.The next day I went to see Eddie Lancer at his magazine.I told him everything and he sat there shaking his head and laughing.When I finished, he said, almost in surprise, "You know, I'm going to be taken aback. I thought you were the most upright person in the world except your brother Artie." Telling Eddie Lancer that I took bribes and turned into a half-criminal made me feel better.In a sense, I released a lot of the bitterness I felt before, the public rejection of my novels, the boredom of life, the failure of my career, and how I was never happy.

Lancer looked at me with one of those subtle smiles on his face. "I thought you were the least neurotic person I knew," he said. "You're happily married, have kids, live a secure life, make money. You're writing another novel. You fucking What else do you want?" "I need a job." I told him. Eddie Lancer thought for a moment, and strangely, I wasn't ashamed to ask him. "I'll just tell you one person, I'm leaving here in six months," he said, "and they're going to put another editor in my place. I'm going to recommend a successor so he owes me a favor. I Let him give you enough freelance work to live your life."

"That would be great," I said. Eddie said briskly, "Until then, I can help you get some more work, adventure stories, junk romance, and some book reviews that I usually write, okay?" "Of course," I said, "when are you going to finish that book?" "Two or three months," Lancer said. "What about you?" I've always hated this question so much.The truth is, I only wrote the outline of the novel I wanted to write about a famous case in Arizona.I gave the outline to my publisher, but he refused to pay the manuscript fee in advance, and said that this kind of novel is absolutely impossible to make money, because there are children kidnapped and killed in it, no one will sympathize with the kidnapper - he is the main character in the book .I was aiming for another one, but that scared off the publishers.

"I'm working on it," I said, "and I have a long way to go." Lancer smiled sympathetically. "You're a good writer," he said, "you'll be famous someday, don't worry." We chatted for a while, about writing and books.We all think we write better than most famous authors on bestseller lists.I walked away confident, as I always do after talking to Ranser.For some reason, he's one of the few people I can get along with easily, plus I know he's smart and talented, and his compliments on my talents always cheer me up. That's it, everyone is happy.Now, I'm a full-time writer and will continue to live honestly.I escaped jail, and in a few months, I was able to move into my first house of my own.Maybe crime really pays off.

Two months later, I moved into a newly built house on Long Island.The children have their own bedrooms.We have three bathrooms and a special laundry room.I no longer have to wait for the kids to finish their bath, or lay in the tub with fresh laundry hanging over my head and water dripping down my face.I get that almost trembling luxury: privacy.I write in my room, with my own garden and lawn.I was cut off from everyone else and it was a dreamland.Of course, many people take this for granted. Most importantly, I feel my family is safe and we leave the poor and hopeless behind.They will never catch up with us, and their tragedies will never cause our tragedies.My children will never be orphans.

One day, I was sitting on the back porch and suddenly realized that I was truly happy, probably never in my life, at a happier time. This makes me a little unhappy.If I were an artist, why would I be happy with such mundane pleasures—a wife I love, children who delight me, and a cheap house in the suburbs?One thing is for sure, I am not Gauguin.Maybe that's why I didn't continue to write, I was too happy.I even developed a bit of hatred for Valerie.She has me hooked, God. But even that doesn't stop me from feeling content that everything is going so well and the joy I get with my kids is so routine.They're just annoyingly "cute."When my son was five, I was taking him for a walk in the street when a cat jumped out of some wine cellar and slithered past us.My son turned to me and said, "Is that a frightened cat?" Valerie was so happy when I told the story that she wanted to send it to some magazine that would pay for cute little stories .My reaction was quite different.I wondered if one of his friends had teased him for being a scared cat, and he wasn't offended because he didn't understand the meaning of the word.I pondered all the mysteries of language and my son confronting them for the first time in his life.I'm jealous of his innocence, just as I'm jealous of his good fortune to have parents who hear him say this and worry about him.

I still remember, one Sunday afternoon, our family went for a walk on Fifth Avenue.Valerie was looking at the dresses in the window that she would never be able to afford, and a woman barely three feet tall approached us.She was wearing an elegant moccasin jacket, a white frilly blouse, and a dark woolen skirt.My daughter pulled Lavalerie's coat, pointed at the short lady and said, "Mom, what's that?" Valerie was ashamed and terrified, and she was always afraid of hurting other people's feelings.She told her daughter to shut up until the woman had walked past safely, then she explained to her daughter that the woman was one of those people who would never grow taller again.My daughter didn't really get it, she asked, "Are you saying she didn't grow taller to be an old lady like you?" Valerie smiled at me. "Yes, my dear," she said, "don't think about it now, there are very few people like that." When I got home that night, my daughter was lost in thought as I told the children a bedtime story.I asked her what was wrong and her eyes widened and she said, "Dad, am I really a little girl, or just an old lady who hasn't grown taller?" There are thousands of people with similar stories to tell about their children and I know it's all so normal, but I still can't help feeling that sharing a part of my child's life has enriched me so much , my life picture is woven by these seemingly inconspicuous little things. It's my daughter again.At dinner one day, she kept messing around, throwing food at her brother, spilling a drink and knocking over a bowl of broth.This annoyed Valerie, who finally yelled at her: "If you make trouble again, I'll kill you." Of course, this is just an exaggeration, but my daughter stared at her very intently and asked, "Do you have a gun?" It's funny because she clearly believes that unless her own mother has a gun, there's no way to kill her.She knew nothing about wars, plagues, rapists and sexual assaults, car accidents and plane crashes, cue smashes, cancer, poisons, being thrown out windows.Valerie and I laughed, and Valerie said, "Of course I don't have a gun, don't be stupid." The wrinkles on my daughter's face from worry disappeared.I noticed that Valerie never said anything like that again in her rage. Valerie sometimes surprises me too.As the years went by, she became more Catholic and more conservative.She was no longer the bohemian Greenwich Village girl who wished to be a writer.Pets are not allowed in tenements in the city, and Valerie never told me she likes animals, and now that we have a house, Valerie bought a puppy and a kitten.I'm not too happy, even though the picture of my kids playing with pets on the grass is nice.The truth is, I've never been a fan of domestic cats and dogs, they're nothing short of a caricature of orphans. I was so happy with Valerie, I didn't know how rare and precious it was.She is the perfect mother a writer needs.She never panicked or bothered me when the kids wrestled and needed stitches.She didn't mind doing all the work that men usually do and I just don't have the patience for.Her parents' house is only thirty minutes away from us now, and she will drive the children there in the evenings and weekends.She knew I hated that kind of visit, so she didn't ask me at all, so I could use the alone time to write my book. For some reason, perhaps because of her Catholic faith, she would have nightmares.I need to wake her up at night because she makes little desperate cries even when she is asleep.One night she was terribly frightened. I held her tightly in my arms and asked her what she had dreamed. She whispered, "Don't tell me I'm dying." It scared the hell out of me and I pictured her going to the doctor and getting the bad news.But when I asked her about it early the next morning, she didn't remember anything.When I asked her if she'd been to a doctor, she laughed at me and said, "It's because of my religion, I guess I'm just worried about going to hell." For two years, I freelanced for magazines and watched the kids grow.It makes me feel sick to enjoy married life so happily.Valerie sees her family extremely frequently, and I spend a lot of time in my basement writing room, and we don't see each other much.I write at least three articles a month for the magazine, as well as a novel that I hope will make me rich and famous.The novel about kidnapping and murder was my toy, and the magazine was my bread and butter.I predicted it would take another three years to finish that book, but I didn't care.Whenever I felt alone, I read through more and more manuscripts.Watching the children grow up, Valerie became more and more happy and content, and her fear of death gradually eased.But nothing lasts forever, and the reason it doesn't go on like this is because you don't want it to go on, I think.If everything is perfect, you're asking for trouble. After writing ten hours a day, watching a movie once a month, and reading everything I saw, after two years of living in my suburban house, I was delighted to get a call from Eddie Lancer telling me to come into town and talk to him have dinner.For the first time in two years, I saw New York at night.I tell my editor that my magazine job is always during the day and then drive home for dinner, Valerie has become a great chef and I don't want to miss out on spending time with the kids and bedtime work in my workshop time. But Eddie Lancer just got back from Hollywood, and he promises great stories and good food.As usual, he asked how my book was going.He always treats me like he knows I'm going to be a great writer, and I love that.He is one of the few genuinely friendly people I know who is not tainted by self-interest at all.He's also super funny, which makes me jealous.He reminded me of Valerie who wrote stories in school, she had this wit in her writing and sometimes in her everyday life.Even now, there are occasional flashes.So I told Eddie that I would pick up a job at the magazine the next day, and after that, we could have dinner together. He took me to a place I had never heard of, called Pearl Restaurant.I was too stupid to know that it was the most "fashionable" Chinese restaurant in NYC at the time.It was my first time eating Chinese food and when I told Eddie he was amazed.He did his best, introducing me to different Chinese dishes, pointing out famous people in restaurants, and even opening a fortune cookie for me and reading the note inside.He also stopped me from eating fortune cookies. "No, no, you mustn't eat them," he said, "that's very unprofessional. If there's one valuable thing you'll learn tonight, it's to never eat your fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant." .” This whole thing is only interesting in the context of the deep emotion between the two friends, but a few months later I read one of his articles in Esquire magazine about it, and it's a heartwarming one. A moving story, laughing at himself who was laughing at me at the time.After reading this story, I know more about him, his humor is just a mask to cover his essential loneliness and his alienation from the world and people around him.I also vaguely know what he really thinks of me.He portrayed me as someone who was in control of my life and knew where I was going.It made me laugh out loud. But he was wrong to say that fortune cookies were the only thing I got that night, because after dinner, he convinced me to go to one of the literary parties in New York, where I met the great Osano again. We were eating dessert and drinking coffee, and Eddie forced me to order chocolate ice cream, which he told me was the only dessert that goes with Chinese food. “Remember this,” he said, “never eat your fortune cookie, and always have chocolate ice cream for dessert.” Then he casually invited me to join him at a party.I was a bit reluctant, it was an hour and a half drive back to Long Island, and I wanted so badly to go home and work another hour before bed. "Come on," Eddie said, "you can't hang around your wife all the time and be a hermit. Have a good time tonight. There's going to be wine and good talk and nice women. You might meet some worthwhile people, too." It's hard to call you worthless if a critic has a personal relationship with you. If a publisher sees you at a party and thinks you're nice, maybe your stuff will look more respectable to him too Read some." Eddie knew I couldn't find a publisher for my book and that the publisher of my first book never wanted to see me again because my book only sold two thousand copies and there was absolutely no chance of a hardcover Version. So I went to the party and met Osano, and he didn't say he remembered the interview, and neither did I.But a week later I got a letter from him asking if I would like to meet him, have lunch with him, and talk about a job he wanted to give me.