Twisted

by Steve Cavanagh

  Reaching into her hip pocket, she brought out the bank statement. Unfolded it and laid it flat on the table.

  All of the payments came from a company called LeBeau Enterprises. Something about that name felt familiar. LeBeau had some resonance to it. Sounding out the name in her head, she tried to remember if it was her husband who’d mentioned it. Nothing came to mind immediately, yet she knew if she thought hard enough about it, she would remember.

  ‘You ever hear of LeBeau Enterprises?’ she said.

  While he thought over the question Maria watched Daryl’s eyes searching the floor. After a few seconds he shook his head gently, creased his forehead but didn’t say anything. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth.

  ‘There’s something about that name, isn’t there?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t know. It’s weird. There’s something at the back of my head … I just can’t bring it to mind. Maybe I’m not thinking straight.’

  Maria looked around the dismal bar, her husband’s betrayal a knot in her throat so that when she spoke, her words fluttered with emotion. ‘Who am I kidding? I know I’m not thinking straight.’

  ‘Mind if I take another look?’ said Daryl.

  He’d said it with a trace of optimism. Enough for Maria to let him have the statement. While looking through the entries, Daryl brought out a cell phone and began typing on the screen, scrolling through the results and checking the statement.

  He smiled and said, ‘Son of a bitch.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It matches. Holy shit, it matches!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Maria, slipping her phone out.

  ‘Just a sec, let me double check,’ said Daryl.

  Maria couldn’t wait. She typed the words LeBeau Enterprises into the search bar, hit return. The screen changed to white and a blue line began to struggle across the top of the page. Signal strength looked poor in the bar. Maria was tempted to ask the bartender if they had WiFi. She glanced over at him, watched him paw at the remote control for the TV then thought better of it.

  Reversing his phone, Daryl pointed the screen at Maria and said, ‘Maybe you’re married to this guy.’

  Maria took the phone from his hand. On the screen was a web page displaying books by a writer named J. T. LeBeau.

  ‘The date these payments are made on the bank statement tally with the publication dates for the last J. T. LeBeau books,’ said Daryl.

  She clicked on the image of one of the books that showed a gun and a snake on the cover, scrolled down to the information section and checked the publication date. Glanced at the bank statement. Same date. Repeating the exercise for another two books, she saw the exact same pattern. Payment of one million dollars on publication date.

  ‘What does this mean? What does it have to do with Paul?’ she said.

  Daryl folded his arms, smiled in a manner that displayed his own self-satisfaction.

  ‘Don’t you get it? This is huge. Your husband, Paul Cooper, is the J. T. LeBeau,’ said Daryl.

  Maria put the phone down on the table, realized her mouth had fallen open and said, ‘Who the fuck is J. T. LeBeau?’

  The New Yorker, May 2013

  Who Is J. T. LeBeau?

  by Brian Everett

  Everyone loves a mystery. Sales of mystery, thriller and crime novels frequently eclipse that of literary fiction. One author who is clearly reaping the benefits is J. T. LeBeau. His (for we know it is a ‘he’) books have racked up sales in excess of 75 million copies. Someone in the world buys a J. T. LeBeau thriller every five and a half seconds. He is a household name in most countries. Chances are there’s a copy of at least one of his novels somewhere in your home. Readers can’t get enough of these page-turners. But a compelling, pacy plot with well-drawn characters doesn’t begin to account for this author’s appeal. Readers, booksellers and publishers all believe his incredible success is down to one major factor – the twist.

  You never see it coming. And when you’ve put the book down, and gone through multiple twists and turns, the first thing you want to do is make one of your friends read the book so you can talk about it! (Editor’s note – ‘I’ve done this with every one of his books.’) And his publishers know it. There are no publicity tours, no appearances on This Morning on CBS, no bookstore signings, no interviews on NPR. Whatever the opposite of publicity might be – this is it. J. T. LeBeau is a pseudonym. A pen name. For whom? We don’t know. Nobody, not even his publishers, knows his real name. All we know is that the author is male. That’s as much as his publishers know, or maybe that’s all they’re willing to say.

  In writing this article, I sought to avoid the dozens of pieces that have come before which speculate on the author’s true identity. Because that’s all it amounts to – speculation. Instead, I want to ask why?

  Why does one of the world’s most beloved, bestselling and richest authors remain in hiding? Ask yourself, would you? I have been a writer for twenty-five years, I’ve published four books and nothing would give me greater pleasure than a room full of adoring fans waiting for me to pronounce my genius before signing their books.

  Someone once said that being an author is show business for shy people. And that may be true. I’m definitely in the introvert category (I whisper my name to the barista at Starbucks and never complain when they get it wrong), but come on!

  How shy do you have to be?

  I do not believe that it is shyness. Nor any form of chronic introverted behavior. There just isn’t anyone on the planet who could resist the temptation to reach out and accept the love of millions of adoring fans.

  My theory, for I recognize that theory it must be, is that there is a darker reason for J. T. LeBeau’s anonymity. It could be that J. T. LeBeau is an ex-con with a rap sheet that would make Hunter S. Thompson blush. Or perhaps LeBeau is a guy with two heads and some horrific skin disease who believes that the merest glimpse of his visage would put readers off his books for life. The former, rather than the latter, is my guess. For one reason alone.

  At the heart of every good mystery, lies a crime.

  And yet I cannot in good conscience accuse an unknown of misdeeds. There is of course a more commercial reason for the success of the J. T. LeBeau novels – the mystery of the author himself. The speculation surrounding the identity of the author feeds his audience just as much as the pace and twists of his stories. On publication of a LeBeau novel you can bet on at least a dozen print media articles, TV news pieces, and furious social media traffic on the continuing mystery surrounding the identity of the author. If all that went away, and we saw the man behind the mask, there is a chance, probably a very good chance, that the sales of the books would suffer as a result.

  For now, J. T. LeBeau, the most famous unknown man in the world, will remain a mystery.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The bookstore on Main Street was virgin territory to Maria. They’d quickly finished their beers and Daryl led her across the street and down a block to Mission Books. On the right side of the window Maria saw a half dozen Christian books with strange titles like Jesus and Me, or Christ in the Digital Age. On the other side she saw what she supposed were the bestsellers: romance novels with limp-limbed women on the covers who were all being propped up from behind by a ripped guy with no shirt on, mysteries with ticking clocks or silhouettes of men on the covers, and children’s books with bright colorful drawings on the sleeve.

  However, in the center of the window, in what was the prime position, she saw a number of books with a similar type of cover. The images on the books were all different, but the name on the front cover was the same. Bold type. Inch-high white lettering.

  J. T. LeBeau.

  Beneath the name of the author was a single sentence. The same one on each book. In the exact same place.

  Seventy-Five Million Copies Sold.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ she said. ‘This is Paul? Paul wrote these?’

  ‘Come on, let’s go inside. I need
to check something,’ said Daryl.

  She followed him inside, felt the air conditioning on the back of her neck as soon as she walked through the door and was tempted to stand there for a moment under the cool air. Pine flooring and solid wooden shelves painted pale blue set a neutral tone for the space, allowing the books to be the only sources of bold color. The store had a few customers. Two elderly women browsing in the true crime section. One of them had to be in her eighties. She was eagerly reading the blurb on the back of a book called The World’s Worst Sex Killers.

  A tall, separate stand near the counter housed a display of books by J. T. LeBeau. She watched Daryl grab one of those titles and open it. He bowed his head, scanning the first pages. He stopped. Folded the book, keeping his index finger between the pages as a marker and beckoned Maria to him. He moved further into the store, into the corner dedicated to Christian works. There were no casual browsers in this section. She followed him and stood close. He opened the book and handed it to her.

  It was a hardback novel, with a sleeve. He showed her the inside of the sleeve and there were no author photos on either inside fold. The bio for the author simply said, J. T. LeBeau is a pseudonym. Please respect the author’s privacy.

  ‘Half of the publicity around these books comes from journalists and bloggers who think they’ve tracked down the real author, but they never did find out for sure. There are theories and that’s about it. No one knows who LeBeau really is,’ said Daryl.

  He then opened the book at the title page. On the other side of that page was the legal stuff. The fine print from the publishers that seemed to be on the inside pages of every book, although Maria had never read a word of it.

  While she held the book open, Daryl said, ‘Let me check out the statement again.’

  She reached into the hip pocket of her jeans, drew out the bank statement and gave it to him. Even though he said nothing, his eyes spoke of some wonderful discovery. He placed the statement on the title page of the book in front of her.

  ‘Look at the fine print,’ he said.

  Maria read a series of bewildering numbers, probably something to do with the printing of the book, and then read the legal disclaimer. Whatever realization Daryl had experienced seemed to elude Maria, and she gripped the pages tightly.

  Whispering through clenched teeth, she said, ‘What am I looking for exactly?’

  ‘Copyright,’ said Daryl, with a California smile.

  Her eyes scanned further down the page. She stopped. Read the line from the page again and then looked at the bank statement. For half a minute she repeated this process, carefully examining the small text of the legal page against the spelling on the bank statement.

  There was no doubting it. The deposits in Paul’s account had been made by LeBeau Enterprises. There it was again, on the page in the book in front of her.

  © LeBeau Enterprises.

  She felt sick. Covering her mouth, Maria turned and quickly left the store, ignoring Daryl’s calls for her to wait. Not knowing which way to turn, or what to do, Maria stood at the edge of the curb, bent over at the waist, and grabbed her knees. She sucked at the air, closed her eyes, swallowed down the bile threatening to rise up from her stomach. A foul taste filled her mouth and she knew she was going to vomit if she didn’t get a hold of herself.

  Forcing herself to dry swallow helped. Her throat was still burning. The tequila had proven to be a bad idea. Somewhere, way down inside, she had retained skepticism of Daryl’s theory – surely Paul wouldn’t lie to her about this. How could he? A secret life as a multi-millionaire celebrity author. A life that he would not share with her.

  Maria had grown up the hard way. A brutal father and a mother who loved her but could not save her. There was no money, no security and only small bouts of intermittent happiness. A trip to the movies, or a picnic in Central Park were the only times that Maria remembered being happy as a child. And even then, the happiness lasted no longer than an afternoon and it was always shadowed with the threat of what was awaiting her mother and her when they returned home.

  Then at the age of ten, the accident happened.

  After that, it was just her mother and her in the apartment in the Bronx. Until she was seventeen. They lived on her mom’s salary working six days a week at a deli counter. Times were tough. They didn’t have much, but they got by. When her mom died, she did what she could to make a life for herself. A cheap one. She got a job as an intern in an advertising agency in Manhattan that managed publicity campaigns. She wasn’t offered a job at the end of the internship – the agency made clear they didn’t employ young women who couldn’t afford their dress code. Maria managed bands instead, made a little money and blew through some boyfriends, each one worse than the last.

  And one night, in a small bar on the Lower East Side, she met Paul. They met by chance. Maria ignored most men that hit on her. She saw him at the bar, and he looked so sad, so fragile. She struck up a conversation with him. He told her the band on stage were awful. They were Maria’s band. She told him and he laughed – said they had the best manager in the country, but they were still shit. He bought her a drink and they talked all night. They met up a few days later, and Paul didn’t seem so sad anymore. She had given him something, and that made her feel good. He was the first guy she’d met who didn’t want anything from her. He was just happy to be with her and, incredibly, also happy to take things slow.

  He often said this, but not in a manner that made Maria feel rejection.

  Let’s take things slow.

  It was his mantra. And his escape clause. He knew everything about her. Apart from her father’s accident. She hadn’t told anyone what had really happened that night. She fell into a well-practiced lie about her father disappearing. He upped and walked out one night, never came back. A bad father walking out on his family was such a common story that no one ever questioned it. Certainly not Paul. Over the course of their relationship in those early days, Maria learned next to nothing about him.

  He worked as a marketing consultant. He didn’t like to talk about his work. It was boring. No, he didn’t have any interesting clients. The only good thing was the pay and the fact that he could work from home. His parents were both deceased. No brothers or sisters. No friends.

  When Maria pressed him, even gently, for a story about his childhood, or college or even how long he’d lived in New York – the shutters would come down. He would clam up, say nothing or change the subject. Eventually, Maria stopped trying.

  He’d promised her a better life. Maria knew now he could have given her a great life, one where she didn’t have to fear how much she could spend, one where she could escape the constant worry about ending up like her mom. But he’d chosen to keep that life for himself.

  As Maria bent over the curb, catching her breath, swallowing the bile, she caught sight of her two hundred dollar boots. The heel had cracked a week ago, and Paul reminded her how much those boots had cost. Told her to get them mended.

  The memory arrived too quickly and too fully in her thoughts – so fast that her head began to spin. She vomited into the street, dots of tequila and spit sat on her suede boots. Daryl put his arm around her, brought her to his car and into the passenger seat. She felt dizzy and her legs were weak.

  ‘Let’s get you back to the house. Tell me if you’re gonna be sick and I’ll pull over,’ he said.

  Slouching down into the passenger seat, Maria covered her eyes. A headache was coming – she could feel it. Getting out of the sun would help, and she asked Daryl to put up the top on the convertible. He huffed and muttered to himself while he fought with the vintage roof. The car was a classic, which meant it was a beautiful-looking pain in the ass.

  They drove back in silence. She didn’t look at Daryl for the whole journey, but she could feel his eyes on her every now and again; the nervous glances of a man who was ready to pull over even it if meant hitting a ditch or a cornfield rather than have her ruin his upholstery.

&nb
sp; Even though Daryl’s furtive glances were a distraction, Maria had time and silence in which to think. She wanted to confront Paul. At the same time, she knew he would just shut down. There would be no argument, no denials, he would just close himself off and leave the room, like he did whenever she tried to bring up his past.

  And she had no moral high ground. This discovery, whatever it was, came through an invasion of his privacy. Basically, a breaking and entering. He could be so defensive when it came to his study. Now she knew why. There was no good way to bring it up. Nothing that would invariably tilt the power balance in her favor. What if he decided to divorce her because she broke into his desk? Would she be allowed to use those documents in divorce court if she technically stole them?

  She rubbed her temples as Daryl pulled into her driveway.

  ‘Do you think it’s really him? That Paul is J. T. LeBeau?’ he asked.

  ‘He reads a lot. Mysteries, detective novels. That sort of shit. I don’t know. Could be? He sure isn’t getting paid millions of dollars to do marketing.’

  Shielding her eyes from Daryl, Maria tried to think. The desk was a big problem. Maybe she could get the desk repaired? Then just take the bank statement to a lawyer and use it against him that way?

  One thing she could not do was wait around any longer. He wasn’t due back for a few days. Could she sit on this for even one night? It felt like something that would eat into her every waking moment until she confronted him.

  And the mere thought of that confrontation sent her heart rate pumping faster, and sweat broke out on her lip.

  There had to be another way.

  Maria got out of the car, closed the door behind her, and began walking to the front door. Daryl’s feet crunched on the gravel as he followed her. She put the key in the lock, opened the door and went straight to the study.

  She wanted to look at the rest of the papers in that drawer. She found them on the floor, scanned through them again. The notes and scraps of paper were hard to decipher, but then she saw some words at the top of the page that made her stop and examine them closer.