Chapter 10 Chapter IX Blackmail

one "I called him a reptile," Liz began, "and I'm sorry he's dead...but he's still a reptile. I don't know if real reptiles are born or made, but either way they crawl to the dirty Place, so I don't think it matters if it's nature or nurture. Frederick Clausen happened to be in Washington, D.C., and he went to the world's largest law lunatic asylum to study law. "Ted, the kids are having a fight - can you give them a bottle for the night? I'd like a beer." He brought her a beer and went to the kitchen to warm up a bottle.He left the kitchen door ajar so he could hear better...and patted his kneecap.He used to do it so often that it was almost a habit.

"The sparrows are flying again," he thought, rubbing the scar on his brow as he poured hot water into the saucepan and put it on the stove. "Now I know what the hell that line means." "We actually get most of the story from Clausen himself," Liz continued, "but his perspective is naturally a little twisted—Ted likes to say we're all heroes in our own lives, and to Clausen To Sen, he is Boswell rather than a reptile...But we can get a more objective view by referring to the material provided by Darwin Press. Darwin Press publishes Ted's novel written under Stark's name, Rick Cowley also forwarded us some material."

"Who's Rick Cowley?" Alan asked. "Ted's agent." "What does Clausen—the reptilian you call—want?" "Money," said Liz dryly. In the kitchen, Ted took two bottles from the refrigerator and put them in a pot of water.What Liz said was right...but it was also wrong, Clausen wanted more than money. Liz seemed to have guessed what he was thinking. "Money wasn't everything he wanted, I'm not even sure that was his main thing. He also wanted to be known as the guy who exposed George Stark for who he really was." "Kind of like the guy who finally debunks The Incredible Spider-Man?"

"Completely correct." Thad dipped a finger into the pot to test the temperature of the water, then leaned against the stove with his arms folded and listened.He realized he wanted to smoke a cigarette—for the first time in years he wanted to smoke another cigarette. Ted fought a cold war. two "Clawson had too many opportunities to discover the secret," said Liz, "not only was he a law student, he was a part-time bookstore clerk; He's probably the only George Stark fan in the country who also read the two novels written under the name Ted Beaumont." In the kitchen, Ted grinned—a little sourly—and tried the water temperature in the pot.

"I think he was trying to use his suspicions to create some kind of drama," Liz continued. As well, he called Darwin Press." "The publishing house that published Stark's book." "Yes. He found Elle Golden, who was the editor of Stark's novels. He cut to the chase and asked—please tell me if George Stark is actually Ted Beaumont, and Elle said that's the idea. Ridiculous. Clausen then asked for the author's photo on the back of Stark's novel, and he said he wanted the address of the person on the photo. Elle told him that she couldn't give out the publisher's author's address.

"Clawson said, 'I don't want Stark's address, I want the address of the guy in the picture, the guy pretending to be Stark'. Allie told him he was ridiculous - the man in the author's photo That's George Stark." "Before this, the publisher never publicly said it was just a pseudonym?" Pang Bo asked, sounding very curious. "They kept saying he was a real person?" "Ah, yes—Ted insisted on it." Yes, Tad thought, taking the bottle out of the pot and trying the milk on the inside of his wrist.Ted insisted on this.In retrospect, Ted didn't know why "he insisted on it, didn't really understand why at all, but Ted insisted on it."

He returned to the living room with the bottle, avoiding a collision with the kitchen table on the way.He gave the twins a bottle each.Majestically, sleepily, they lifted the bottle and began to suck.Tad sat down again, listening to Liz and telling himself he didn't want to smoke at all. "Anyway," Liz said, "Clawson's going to ask more questions—I guess he's got a truckload full of them, but Allie doesn't want to go with her, and she tells him to call Rick Cowley and hang up." The phone was cut off. Clausen called Rick's office and found Miriam, Rick's ex-wife and partner in his firm. It was a weird arrangement, but they got on well.

"Clawson asked her the same thing—whether George Stark was actually Ted Beaumont, and according to Miriam, she told him yes, and said she was Dooley Madison.'I Divorced James,' she said, 'Ted and Liz divorced, we're getting married in the spring!' before hanging up. Then she rushed into Rick's office and told him there was a spy in Washington, D.C. Ted's secret identity. Clausen then called the Cowley Association, got nothing, and was immediately hung up on." Liz took a swig of her beer. "However, he didn't give up, and I don't think real reptiles ever give up. He just didn't think it would work if he asked."

"He didn't call Ted?" Pangbol asked. "No, never." "I assume your phone numbers are not released." Ted made a rare addition: "Pangbo, we're not listed in the public phone book, but my home in Ludlow is listed in the university faculty phone book, which I have to because I'm a teachers, and I have students." "But that guy never approached you directly, you the most authoritative person?" Pang Bo was surprised. "He found ... by letter," Liz said, "but that was later. Shall I go on?" "Please," Pangbol said, "it's a fascinating story in its own right."

"Ah," said Liz, "it only took three weeks and probably less than five hundred dollars for our reptile to find out what he's sure of—Ted and George Stark are the same person." "He started with The Literary Market, which compiled the names, addresses, and business phone numbers of everyone in the literary field—writers, editors, publishers, agents. ', which identifies a dozen Darwin Press employees who left the company between the summers of 1986 and 1987. "One of them knew the inside story and was willing to give it away. Elle Golden was convinced the culprit was a girl who was secretary to the chief financial officer for eight months between 1985 and 1986. Elle called her from Slutty woman with bad-nose Tradition Wasser."

Pang Bo laughed. "Ted believed it was her, too," Liz went on, "because their evidence turned out to be the photocopies of George Stark's royalty report from Roland Bright's office." "He's the financial director of Darwin Press," Ted said.He listened and watched the twins.They were lying on their backs now, their pajama-clad feet pressed together intimately, their bottles turned toward the ceiling, their eyes dull and indifferent.Soon, he knew, they were going to sleep...and when they fell asleep, they fell asleep at the same time. "They do everything together," Ted thought. "The baby is going to sleep and the sparrow is going to fly." He touched the scar on his head again. "But the address says it all, it's George Stark, PO Box 1642, Brewery, Maine 04412, which is far from Mississippi where Stark is supposed to live. Just look at a map of Maine , he knew that just south of Brewery was Ludlow, and he knew that the writer Ted Beaumont lived there, what a coincidence. "Neither Ted nor I have met him in person, but he has. He knows from the photocopies when Darwin Press sends out their quarterly royalty checks. Most royalty checks go to the author's agent first. , and asked the broker to send a new check with his commission deducted. But in Starkey’s case, the chief financial officer mailed the check directly to the Blueway P.O. Box.” "What about the broker's commission?" "Darwin Press deducts the commission and sends another check to Rick," Liz said, "and that will be another clear signal that George Stark is not who he claims to be. . . One step further, Clausen didn't need any more clues, he needed solid evidence, so he started looking. "By the time the royalties checks were mailed, Clausen flew here. He stayed at the Holiday Inn at night and 'stalked' the Post Office at Brewer for several days, as he later wrote to Ted. ...stalking indeed, very much like a movie scene, although it's a very cheap investigation. If 'Stark' doesn't come to pick up his check on the fourth day, Clausen will have to call it quits and go home I did, but I don't think it will end there. When a real reptile bites you, it won't let go without taking a big piece off." "Or until you knock out his teeth," Ted grumbled.He saw Pangbo turn to him, raising his eyebrows and making a grimace.That's a poor choice of word, someone obviously just did that to said reptile, not just knocking out teeth. "Anyway, that's an open question," continued Liz, and Alan turned to her again. "Not long after, on the third day, he was sitting on a bench across from the post office when he saw Ted's car pull into the makeshift parking lot next to the post office." Liz took another sip of her beer, wiping the foam from her upper lip, and when she took her hand away, she was smiling. "Now comes my favorite part," she said, "which is really fun. Clausen carries an X-9 camera, one of those tiny cameras you can hold in the palm of your hand, and when you're ready to take pictures, just Slightly spread your fingers out of the way of the camera, wow! That’s it.” She giggled for a moment, shaking her head. "He said in his letter that he bought them from a shop that specialized in espionage supplies—telephone bugs, liquids that you put on envelopes to make them clear in ten minutes, self-destructing briefcases, things like that. The Agent Clausen was very conscientious, as he reported to us himself. I am sure that if there were a possibility to sell dentures filled with cyanide, he would buy one, and he fits the profile." "Anyway, he took half a dozen pictures that were okay, not artistic, but you could see who and what he was doing. There was one of Ted approaching the letterbox in the hallway, one of Ted De inserted the key into mailbox 1642, and one was for him to take out the envelope." "He sent you these pictures?" Pangbol asked.She had said he wanted money, and Pangble guessed she knew something of that, and that the whole thing wasn't just some sort of blackmail, it was a blatant blackmail. "Ah, by the way, there is also a zoomed-in photo. You can see part of the return address—the Darwin lettering, and you can clearly see the Darwin Publishing logo on it." "The X-9 camera again?" Pangbo said. "Yes, another X-9 camera. He burst out of the picture and flew back to Washington. A few days later, we got his letter with the picture attached. The letter was fantastic, he was on the verge of menace, But never beyond the edge." "He's a law student," Ted said. "Yes," agreed Liz, "obviously, he knows how far he can go. Ted can give you the letter, but I can repeat it line by line. He begins the letter by saying that he admires what he calls Ted 'Splitting mind', he described what he found and how he found it, then he talked about his business. He was careful to cover up his tricks, but it was obvious, and he said he aspired to be a writer himself , but he didn't have time to write—his law studies were demanding, but that was only part of the reason. The real conundrum, he said, was that he had to work in a bookstore to pay his tuition and other expenses. He said he would be happy to put Show some of his work to Ted, and if Ted thinks they're promising, maybe he'll give him a fellowship to help him develop them." "Scholarship money," Pangbol mused, "is that what they call it now?" Ted looked back and laughed. "That's what Clauson calls it, and I can recite the last paragraph. 'I know at first glance it seems like a very presumptuous request,' he said, 'but I'm sure that if you study my work carefully, You'll see right away that arrangement would be beneficial to both of us'. "Ted and I enjoyed the odd passage for a while, then we laughed and enjoyed it again." "Yeah," Ted said, "I don't know I laughed out loud, but we did appreciate it a lot." "Finally we could talk seriously, and we talked almost midnight, and we both saw what Clausen's letter and photograph were for, and once Tad stopped being angry—" "I'm not done being mad," Ted interjected, "even if the guy died." "Ah, Tad was almost relieved once he was done with that fantastic prose. He'd been wanting to ditch Stark for a long time, and he'd started and still was writing his own long, serious book called The Golden Dog. I read the first two hundred pages, and it was very interesting, much better than anything he wrote under the pseudonym George Stark. So Tad thinks—” "We think so," Ted said. "Yes, we think Clausen has been a blessing in disguise for us, speeding up what's already started. Ted's only concern is that Rick Cowley won't like the idea because George Stark has so far, Makes more money for the agent than Ted. But Cowley agrees, in fact, he says it will raise awareness, which is good in many ways: for Stark's old edition, for Ted's own The old book-" "I only have two books of my own," Ted interjected, smiling. "—and to the forthcoming book." "Excuse me—what's the old version?" Alan asked. Ted grinned and said, "No more used books in chain bookstores in the front bestseller." "So you made the secret public." "Yeah," said Liz, "first the Publishers Guild here, and then Publishers Weekly, but the story popped up on the national news network—after all, Stark was a best-selling author, and he wasn't The fact that it exists is also an interesting news filler. Then the magazine "Volkswagen" came to connect. "We got a complaining, angry letter from Frederick Clausen about how mean, dirty, and ungrateful we were. He seemed to think we had no right to exclude him because he did all the work , and all Ted did was write a few books. After that, he didn't talk anymore." "Now, he never talks," Ted said. "No," Alain said, "someone told him not to talk... that made a big difference." They fell silent again, for a short time...but very, very heavy. three Pangpo pondered for a few minutes, Ted and Liz didn't bother him, and finally he looked up and said, "Okay, so why? Why would someone kill someone for this? Especially after the secret has been made public?" Ted shook his head. "If this has anything to do with me or the book I'm writing under George Stark's name, I don't know who or why." "For a pseudonym?" Pangbol mused. "I mean—Ted, I don't mean to offend you—the pseudonym is not a classified document or an important military secret." "No offense," Ted said, "I actually quite agree with you." "Stark had a lot of admirers," Liz said, "and many of them were very angry that Ted was no longer writing under Stark's name. After the article was published, the Popular magazine got some letters saying that Ted Ted received a bundle. One lady went so far as to suggest that Alex Massin should come back to thwart Ted's plot." "Who is Alex Massin?" Pangbourne took out his notebook again. Ted grinned. "Relax, relax, my good sheriff, Marcin is only a character in two books written by George. The first and the last." "Fiction within fiction," Pangbol said, putting back his notebook. "It's amazing." Meanwhile, Ted looked a little taken aback. "A fiction within a fiction," he said, "that's a good thing to say, very good." "The way I see it," said Liz, "maybe Clausen has a friend—and reptiles always have friends—who's a big Stark fan, and maybe he knows what Clausen really wants to do for this one." He was responsible for the leak, and he was furious because there would never be a new Stark novel, so he..." She sighed, looked down at her beer bottle, then looked up. "That's not a good reason, is it?" "I think so," Pumble said kindly, then looked at Tad, "if you hadn't before, you should be on your knees now and thanking God for your alibi, which you realize makes you more like Is there a suspect?" "I think so," Ted agreed. "Ted Beaumont has written two books that almost no one reads. The advances were so insufficient that he thought it would be a miracle if he could publish books again. On the other hand, Stark made a lot of money and now makes less money, but the money made by the books is my Four times what a year of teaching. Then Clausen came, and this guy made carefully worded blackmail threats. I refused to budge, but my only choice was to leak the secret first. Clausen was killed shortly thereafter. It looks like a good motive, but it’s not. It would be foolish to kill a would-be blackmailer after you’ve told the secret yourself.” "Yeah...but there's always a sense of revenge." "I don't think you'd think so if you'd seen the other side of things. What Liz told you is absolutely true, and I'm going to give up on Stark anyway, and probably write another one, but only This one. One of the reasons Rick Cowley endorsed it is because he knew it, he was right about the leak, that stupid article in the popular magazine had a huge impact on sales. Rick Tell me Sail To Babylon is back on the bestseller list, all the Stark novels are doing well, and Dutton is even planning to reprint The Wild Dancers and The Purple Mist. If you look at it that way, Clausen actually did me a favor." "What conclusion do we draw from this?" asked Pangbourne. "I have no idea," Ted replied. Liz broke the silence softly: "The murderer is a crocodile hunter. I still thought so this morning. This is a crocodile hunter. He is as crazy as a lunatic." "Crocodile hunter?" Pangbo turned to her. Liz explains Ted's so-called watching-live crocodile syndrome. "Probably a fanatical admirer," she said, "that's not so bad, you think about the guy who shot John Lennon or the guy who tried to kill Ronald Reagan to give Jodie Foster Impressive guy, they did that. If Clausen can find Ted, someone else can find Clausen." "If the murderer loved my novel so much, why did he try to involve me in it?" "Because he's not your admirer!" Liz said excitedly. "The crocodile hunter likes Stark, who probably hates you as much as Clausen. You claim you don't feel sorry for Stark's death." , this sentence is enough to make him hate you." "I still don't believe it," said Alain, "the fingerprints—" "You say the fingerprints were never copied or transplanted, Pangbo, but since there are fingerprints in both places, there should be a way of copying or transplanting. That's the only logical explanation." Ted couldn't help but say, "No, you're wrong, Liz. If there is such a guy, he's not just Isdaq." He looked down at his arm and saw that it was covered with goosebumps. "Don't love?" Pang Bo asked. Ted looked up at them both. "Did it ever occur to you that the man who killed Homer Gammazzi and Frederick Clausen thought he was George Stark himself?" Four On the steps, Pangbourne said, "I'll keep you in touch, Ted." He held in one hand two copies of Frederick Clausen's letters—using the photocopier in Ted's office. printed.Tad secretly thought that Pangbol's willingness to accept the copy and not take the original was the clearest sign that he had dispelled most of his suspicions. "If you find a loophole in my alibi, come back and arrest me," Ted said, smiling. "I don't think so. My only request is that you keep in touch with me too." "You mean if something happens?" "Yes, that's what I mean." "I'm sorry we couldn't be more helpful," Liz told him. Pang Bo grinned: "You have helped me a lot. I am uncertain whether to stay another day or drive back to Castle Rock? Thank you for telling me so much. I choose to drive home right away. It is better to go back. Recently I Wife Annie is a little unwell." "I hope it's not serious," said Liz. "Migraine," Pangbol said succinctly.He started to walk down, then turned around, "One more thing." Ted rolled his eyes at Liz. "Here comes," he said, "the last important counter-evidence." "That's not the case," Pangble said, "but the Washington Police Department kept a piece of evidence secret in the Clausen murder case as a matter of routine, mostly to rule out lunatics who like to admit to crimes they didn't commit." .something was written on the wall of Clausen’s apartment.” Pumble paused, then added apologetically, “It was written in the blood of the victim. If I told you what it was written, would you Promise to keep it secret?" They nodded. "That phrase is 'The sparrows are flying again.' Do you know what that means?" "I don't know," Liz said. "I don't know." Ted replied with an expressionless voice after hesitation. Pang Bo stared at Ted's face for a moment: "Are you sure?" "Definitely." Pangborn sighed: "I doubt it makes sense, but it's always okay to ask. So many odd things have happened, and now one more. Good night, Ted, Liz, remember, if something happens Contact me." "We will," Liz said. "Trust us," Ted said. After a while, the two of them went back into the house and closed the door.Leaving Alain Pangble alone to drive home through the dark.