The Dark Half(9)

'George's never did.'

He glances up and drops a cryptic little wink.

'Hon?' he looked up at his wife, who was concentrating on getting the last of William's peas into him. The kid appeared to be wearing quite a lot of them on his bib.

'What?'

'Look over here for a sec.'

She did.

Thad winked.

'Was that cryptic?'

'No, dear.'

'I didn't think it was.'

The rest of the story is another ironic chapter in the larger history of what Thad

Beaumont calls 'the freak people call the novel.'

Machine's Way was published in June of 1976 by the smallish Darwin Press (Beaumont's 'real' self has been published by Dutton) and became that year's surprise success, going to number one on best-seller lists coast to coast. It was also made into a smash-hit movie.

'For a long time I waited for someone to discover I was George and George was me,' Beaumont says. 'The copyright was registered in the name of George Stark, but my agent knew, and his wife - she's his ex-wife now, but still a full partner in the business - and, of course, the top execs and the comptroller at Darwin Press knew.

He had to know, because George could write novels in longhand, but he had this little problem endorsing checks. And of course, the IRS had to know. So Liz and I spent about a year and a half waiting for somebody to blow the gaff. It didn't happen. I think it was just dumb luck, and all it proves is that, when you think someone has just got to blab, they all hold their tongues.'

And went on holding them for the next ten years, while the elusive Mr Stark, a far more prolific writer than his other half, published another three novels. None of.them ever repeated the blazing success of Machine's Way, but all of them cut a swath up the best-seller lists.

After a long, thoughtful pause, Beaumont begins to talk about the reasons why he finally decided to call off the profitable charade. 'You have to remember that George Stark was only a paper man, after all. I enjoyed him for a long time . . . and hell, the guy was making money. I called it my f - you money. Just knowing I could quit teaching if I wanted to and go on paying off the mortgage had a tremendously liberating effect on me.

'But I wanted to write my own books again, and Stark was running out of things to say. It was as simple as that. I knew it, Liz knew it, my agent knew it . . . I think that even George's editor at Darwin Press knew it. But if I'd kept the secret, the temptation to write another George Stark novel would eventually have been too much for me. I'm as vulnerable to the siren-song of money as anyone else. The solution seemed to be to drive a stake through his heart once and for all.

'In other words, to go public. Which is what I did. What I'm doing right now, as a matter of fact.'

Thad looked up from the article with a little smile. All at once his amazement at People's staged photographs seemed itself a little sanctimonious, a little posed. Because magazine photographers weren't the only ones who sometimes arranged things so they'd have the look readers wanted and expected. He supposed most interview subjects did it, too, to a greater or lesser degree. But he guessed he might have been a little better at arranging things than some; he was, after all, a novelist . . . and a novelist was simply a fellow who got paid to tell lies. The bigger the lies, the better the pay.

Stark was running out of things to say. It was as simple as that. How direct.

How winning.

How utterly full of shit.

'Honey?'

'Hmmm?'

She was trying to wipe Wendy clean. Wendy was not keen on the idea. She kept twisting her

small face away, babbling indignantly, and Liz kept chasing it with the washcloth. Thad thought

his wife would catch her eventually, although he supposed there was always a chance she would tire first. It looked like Wendy thought that was a possibility, too.

'Were we wrong to lie about Clawson's part in all this?'

'We didn't lie, Thad. We just kept his name out of it.'

'And he was a nerd, right?'

'No, dear.'

'He wasn't?'

'No,' Liz said serenely. She was now beginning to clean William's face. 'He was a dirty little

Creepazoid.'

Thad snorted. 'A Creepazoid?'

'That's right. A Creepazoid.'

'I think that's the first time I ever heard that particular term.'

'I saw it on a videotape box last week when I was down at the corner store looking for

something to rent. A horror picture called The Creepazoids. And I thought, 'Marvelous. Someone.made a movie about Frederick Clawson and his family. I'll have to tell Thad.' But I forgot until

just now.'

'So you're really okay on that part of it?'

'Really very much okay,' she said. She pointed the hand holding the washcloth first at Thad and then at the open magazine on the table. 'Thad, you got your pound of flesh out of this. People got their pound of flesh out of this. And Frederick Clawson got jack shit . . . which was just what he deserved.'

'Thanks,' he said.

She shrugged. 'Sure. You bleed too much sometimes, Thad.'

'Is that the trouble?'

'Yes - all the trouble . . . William, honestly! Thad, if you'd help me just a little - '