by Stephen King
"An assistance package," Alan said, bemused. "Is that what they're calling it these days?"
Thad threw back his head and laughed.
"That's what Clawson called it, anyway. I think I can quote the last bit by heart. 'I know this must seem a very forward request to you on first reading, ' he said, 'but I am sure that if you studied my work, you would quickly understand that such an arrangement might hold advantages for both of us. '
"Thad and I raved about it for awhile, then we laughed about it, then I think we raved some more. "
"Yeah," Thad said. "I don't know about the laughing, but we sure did do a lot of raving. "
"Finally we got down to just plain talking. We talked almost until midnight. We both recognized Clawson's letter and his photographs for what they were, and once Thad got over being angry--"
"I'm still not over being angry," Thad interjected, "and the guy's dead. "
"Well, once the yelling died down, Thad was almost relieved. He'd wanted to jettison Stark for quite awhile, and he'd already gotten to work on a long, serious book of his own. Which he's still doing. It's called The Golden Dog. I've read the first two hundred pages, and it's lovely. Much better than the last couple of things he churned out as George Stark. So Thad decided--"
"We decided," Thad said.
"Okay, we decided that Clawson was a blessing in disguise, a way to hurry along what was already coming. Thad's only fear was that Rick Cowley wouldn't like the idea much, because George Stark was earning more for the agency than Thad, by far. But he was a real honey about it. In fact, he said it might just generate some publicity that would help in a number of areas: Stark's backlist, Thad's own backlist--"
"All two books of it," Thad put in with a smile.
"--and the new book, when it finally comes out. "
"Pardon me--what's a backlist?" Alan asked.
Grinning now, Thad said: "The old books they no longer put in the fancy dump-bins at the front of the chain bookstores. "
"So you went public. "
"Yes," Liz said. "First to the AP here in Maine and to Publishers Weekly, but the story popped up on the national wire--Stark was a bestselling writer, after all, and the fact that he never really existed at all made for interesting filler on the back pages. And then People magazine got in touch.
"We got one more squealing, angry letter from Frederick Clawson, telling us how mean and nasty and thankless we were. He seemed to think we had no right to take him out of things the way we had, because he had done all the work and all Thad had done was to write a few books. After that he signed off. "
"And now he's signed off for good," Thad said.
"No," Alan said. "Someone signed off for him . . . and that's a big difference. "
Another silence fell among them. It was short . . . but very, very heavy.
3
Alan thought for several minutes. Thad and Liz let him. At last he looked up and said, "Okay. Why? Why would anyone resort to murder over this? Especially after the secret had already come out?"
Thad shook his head. "If it has to do with me, or the books I wrote as George Stark, I don't know who or why. "
"And over a pen name?" Alan asked in a musing voice. "I mean--no offense intended, Thad, but it wasn't exactly a classified document or a big military secret. "
"No offense taken," Thad said. "In fact, I couldn't agree more. "
"Stark had a lot of fans," Liz said. "Some of them were angry that Thad wasn't going to write any more novels as Stark. People got some letters after the article, and Thad's gotten a bunch. One lady went so far as to suggest that Alexis Machine should come out of retirement and cook Thad's goose. "
"Who's Alexis Machine?" Alan had produced the notebook again.
Thad grinned. "Soft, soft, my good Inspector. Machine's just a character in two of the novels George wrote. The first and the last. "
"A fiction by a fiction," Alan said, putting the notebook back. "Great. "
Thad, meanwhile, looked mildly startled. "A fiction by a fiction," he said. "That's not bad. Not bad at all. "
"My point was this," Liz said. "Maybe Clawson had a friend--always assuming Creepazoids have friends--who was a rabid Stark fan. Maybe he knew Clawson was really responsible for blowing the story wide open, and got so mad because there wouldn't be any more Stark novels that he . . . "
She sighed, looked down at her beer-bottle for a moment, then raised her head again.
"That's actually pretty lame, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid so," Alan said kindly, then looked at Thad.
"You ought to be down on your knees thanking God for your alibi now, even if you weren't before. You do realize this makes you look even tastier as a suspect, don't you?"
"I suppose in a way it does," Thad agreed. "Thaddeus Beaumont has written two books hardly anybody has read. The second, published eleven years ago, didn't even review very well. The infinitesimal advances he got didn't earn out; it'll be a wonder if he can even get published again, with the business being what it is. Stark, on the other hand, makes money by the fistful. They're discreet fistfuls, but the books still earn four times what I make teaching each year. This guy Clawson comes along, with his carefully worded blackmail threat. I refuse to cave in, but my only option is to go public with the story myself. Not long after, Clawson is killed. It looks like a great motive, but it's really not. Killing a would-be blackmailer after you've already told the secret yourself would be dumb. "
"Yes . . . but there's always revenge. "
"I suppose--until you look at the rest of it. What Liz told you is perfectly true. Stark was just about ready for the scrap-heap, anyway. There might have been one more book, but only one. And one of the reasons Rick Cowley was such a honey, as Liz put it, was because he knew it. And he was right about the publicity. The People article, silly as it was, has done wonders for sales. Rick tells me Riding to Babylon has a shot at going back on the bestseller list, and sales are up on all Stark novels. Dutton's even planning to bring The Sudden Dancers and Purple Haze back into print. You look at it that way, Clawson did me a favor. "
"So where does that leave us?" Alan asked.
"I'll be damned if I know," Thad replied.
Into the silence that followed, Liz said in a soft voice: "It's a crocodile-hunter I was thinking about them just this morning. It's a crocodile-hunter, and he's just as crazy as a loon. "
"Crocodile-hunter?" Alan turned to her.
Liz explained about Thad's see-the-living-crocodiles syndrome. "It could have been a crazy fan," she said. "It's not that lame, not when you think about the fellow who shot John Lennon and the one who tried to kill Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. They are out there. And if Clawson could find out about Thad, someone else could have found out about Clawson. "
"But why would a guy like that try to implicate me, if he loves my stuff so much?" Thad asked.
"Because he doesn't!" Liz said vehemently. "Stark's the man the crocodile-hunter loves. He probably hates you almost as much as he hates--hated--Clawson. You said you weren't sorry Stark was dead. That could be reason enough right there. "
"I still don't buy it," Alan said. "The fingerprints--"
"You say prints have never been copied or planted, Alan, but since they were in both places, there must be a way. It's the only thing that fits. "
Thad heard himself say, "No, you're wrong, Liz. If there is such a guy, he doesn't just love Stark." He looked down at his arms and saw they were covered with goosebumps.
"No?" Alan asked.
Thad looked up at them both.
"Have you thought that the man who killed Homer Gamache and Frederick Clawson might think he is George Stark?"
4
On the steps, Alan said: "I'll keep you in touch, Thad." In one hand he held photocopies--made on the machine in Thad's office--of Frederick Clawson's two leters. Thad thought privately that Alan's willingness to accept photocopies--at least for the present--rather than insisting on taking the originals in
to evidence was the dearest sign of all that he had given over most of his suspicions.
"And be back to arrest me if you find the loophole in my alibi?" Thad asked, smiling.
"I don't think that's going to happen. The only thing I'd ask is that you keep me in touch, as well. "
"If something comes up, you mean?"
"Yes. That's what I mean. "
"I'm sorry we couldn't be more helpful," Liz told him.
Alan grinned. "You've helped me a lot. I couldn't decide whether to hang on another day, which would mean another night in a cinderblock Ramada Inn room, or drive back to Castle Rock. Thanks to what you've told me, I'm opting for the drive. Starting now. It'll be good to get back. Just lately my wife Annie's been a little under the weather. "
"Nothing serious, I hope," Liz said.
"Migraine," Alan said briefly. He started down the walk, then turned back. "There is one other thing. "
Thad rolled his eyes at Liz. "Here it comes," he said. "It's the old Columbo crumpled-raincoat zinger. "
"Nothing like that," Alan said, "but the Washington P. D. is holding back one piece of physical evidence in the Clawson killing. It's common practice; helps to weed out the crazies who like to confess to crimes they didn't commit. Something was written on the wall of Clawson's apartment." Alan paused and then added, almost apologetically: "It was written in the victim's blood. If I tell you what it was, will you give me your word you'll keep it under your hats?"
They nodded.
"The phrase was The sparrows are flying again. ' Does that mean anything to either of you?"
"No," Liz said.
"No," Thad said in a neutral voice after a momentary hesitation.
Alan's gaze stayed on Thad's face for a moment. "You are quite sure?"
"Quite sure. "
Alan sighed. "I doubted if it would, but it seemed like a shot worth taking. There are so many other weird connections, I thought there just might be one more. Goodnight, Thad. Liz. Remember to get in touch if anything occurs. "
"We will," Liz said.
"Count on it," Thad agreed.
A moment later they were both inside again, with the door closed against Alan Pangborn--and the dark through which he would make his long trip home.
Ten
LATER THAT NIGHT
1
They carried the sleeping twins upstairs, then began to get ready for bed themselves. Thad undressed to his shorts and undershirt--his form of pajamas--and went into the bathroom. He was brushing his teeth when the shakes hit. He dropped the toothbrush, spat a mouthful of white foam into the basin, and then lurched over to the toilet on legs with no more feeling in them than a pair of wooden stilts.
He retched once--a miserable dry sound--but nothing came up. His stomach began to settle again . . . at least on a trial basis.
When he turned around, Liz was standing in the doorway, wearing a blue nylon nightie that stopped several inches north of the knee. She was looking at him levelly.
"You're keeping secrets, Thad. That's no good. It never was. "
He sighed harshly and held his hands out in front of him with the fingers splayed. They were still trembling. "How long have you known?"
"There's been something off-beat about you ever since the Sheriff came back tonight. And when he asked that last question . . . about the thing written on Clawson's wall . . . you might as well have had a neon sign on your forehead. "
"Pangborn didn't see any neon. "
"Sheriff Pangborn doesn't know you as well as I do . . . but if you didn't see him do a double-take there at the end, you weren't looking. Even he saw something wasn't quite kosher. It was the way he looked at you. "
Her mouth drew down slightly. It emphasized the old lines in her face, the ones he had first seen after the accident in Boston and the miscarriage, the ones which had deepened as she watched him struggle harder and harder to bring water from a well which seemed to have gone dry.
It was around then that his drinking had begun to waver out of control. All these things--Liz's accident, the miscarriage, the critical and financial failure of Purple Haze following the wild success of Machine's Way under the Stark name, the sudden binge drinking--had combined to bring on a deep depressive state. He had recognized it as a selfish, inward-turning frame of mind, but recognition hadn't helped. Finally he had washed a handful of sleeping pills down his throat with half a bottle of Jack Daniel's. It had been an unenthusiastic suicide attempt . . . but a suicide attempt it had been. All of these things had taken place in a period of three years. It had seemed much longer at the time. At the time it had seemed forever.
And of course, little or none of it had made it into the pages of People magazine.
Now he saw Liz looking at him the way she had looked at him then. He hated it. The worry was bad; the mistrust was worse. He thought outright hate would have been easier to bear than that odd, wary look.
"I hate it when you lie to me," she said simply.
"I didn't lie, Liz! For God's sake!"
"Sometimes people lie just by being quiet. "
"I was going to tell you anyway," he said. "I was only trying to find my way to it. "
But was that true? Was it really? He didn't know. It was weird shit, crazy shit, but that wasn't the reason he might have lied by silence. He had felt the urge to be silent the way a man who has observed blood in his stool or felt a lump in his groin might feel the urge to be silent. Silence in such cases is irrational . . . but fear is also irrational.
And there was something else: he was a writer, an imaginer. He had never met one--including himself-- who had more than the vaguest idea of why he or she did anything. He sometimes believed that the compulsion to make fiction was no more than a bulwark against confusion, maybe even insanity. It was a desperate imposition of order by people able to find that precious stuff only in their minds . . . never in their hearts.
Inside him a voice whispered for the first time: Who are you when you write, Thad? Who are you then?
And for that voice he had no answer.
"Well?" Liz asked. Her tone was sharp, teetering on the edge of anger.
He looked up out of his own thoughts, startled. "Pardon?"
"Have you found your way to it? Whatever it may be?"
"Look," he said, "I don't understand why you sound so pissed, Liz!"
"Because I'm scared!" she cried angrily . . . but he saw tears in the corners of her eyes now. "Because you held out on the Sheriff, and I still wonder if you won't hold out on me! If I hadn't seen that expression on your face . . . "
"Oh?" Now he began to feel angry himself. "And what expression was it? What did it look like to you?"
"You looked guilty," she snapped. "You looked the way you used to look when you were telling people you'd stopped drinking and you hadn't. When--" She stopped then. He did not know what she saw in his face--wasn't sure he wanted to know--but it wiped away her anger. A stricken look replaced it. "I'm sorry. That wasn't fair. "
"Why not?" he said dully. "It was true. For awhile. "
He went back into the bathroom and used the mouthwash to rinse away the last of the toothpaste. It was non-alcoholic mouthwash. Like the cough medicine. And the ersatz vanilla in the kitchen cupboard. He had not taken a drink since completing the last Stark novel.
Her hand touched his shoulder lightly. "Thad . . . we're being angry. That hurts us both, and it won't help whatever is wrong. You said there might be a man out there--a psychotic--who thinks he is George Stark. He's killed two people we know. One of them was partly responsible for blowing the Stark pseudonym. It must have occurred to you that you could be high on that man's enemies list. But in spite of that, you held something back. What was that phrase?"
"The sparrows are flying again," Thad said. He looked at his face in the harsh white light thrown by the fluorescents over the bathroom mirror. Same old face. A little shadowy under the eyes, maybe, but it was still the same old face. He was glad. It was no movie star's mug, but it
was his.
"Yes. That meant something to you. What was it?"
He turned off the bathroom light and put his arm over her shoulders. They walked to the bed and lay down on it.
"When I was eleven years old," he said, "I had an operation. It was to remove a small tumor from the frontal lobe--I think it was the frontal lobe--of my brain. You knew about that. "
"Yes?" She was looking at him, puzzled.
"I told you I had bad headaches before that tumor was diagnosed, right?"
"Right. "
He began to stroke her thigh absently. She had lovely long legs, and the nightie was really very short.
"What about the sounds?"
"Sounds?" She looked puzzled.
"I didn't think so . . . but you see, it never seemed very important. All that happened such a long time ago. People with brain tumors often have headaches, sometimes they have seizures, and sometimes they have both. Quite often these symptoms have their own symptoms. They're called sensory precursors. The most common ones are smells--pencil shavings, freshly cut onions, mouldy fruit. My sensory precursor was auditory. It was birds. "
He looked at her levelly, their noses almost touching. He could feel a stray strand of her hair tickling against his forehead.
"Sparrows, to be exact. "
He sat up, not wanting to look at her expression of sudden shock. He took her hand.
"Come on. "
"Thad . . . where?"
"The study," he said. "I want to show you something. "
2
Thad's study was dominated by a huge oak desk. It was neither fashionably antique nor fashionably modern. It was just an extremely large, extremely serviceable hunk of wood. It stood like a dinosaur under three hanging glass globes; the combined light they threw upon the work-surface was just short of fierce. Very little of the desk's surface was visible. Manuscripts, piles of correspondence, books, and galley-proofs which had been sent to him were stacked everywhere and anywhere. On the white wall beyond the desk was a poster depicting Thad's favorite structure in the whole world: the Flatiron Building in New York. Its improbable wedge shape never failed to delight him.