The next few weeks passed in a blur. Thrilling times! I went into Stanley ’s office almost every day. We did everything together: chose the typeface, reorganized the chapters. He asked me to ask the mystery author to pen a preface and Harry went to work on it, day and night, guarding it from my eyes. Stanley had sold everything he owned to get the money to pay the printers. “They won’t know what hit them,” he kept saying. “They’ll be in an uproar when it lands on the shelves. Then it’ll be banned. Free publicity! There’s nothing like censorship to boost a book’s sales. There’ll be moral outrage! Banned copies will pass surreptitiously from hand to hand! The book will live in the shadows and grow like mushrooms in the dark and the damp! Then a lone voice, someone will say, ‘Ho! This is genius!’ Then the other heads who were shaking in disgust will start nodding in assent! Our champion will be someone who may not believe a word of what he’s saying. That doesn’t matter to us. Luckily, some critics just have to go against the grain, no matter what the grain is. The grain could be ‘Love your neighbor’ and the critic will say, ‘No! Detest him, the worm!’ ”
Stanley went into this rant every day. It was always the same. He was predicting big things for Harry’s book, although he kept pressing me to reveal the author’s name. “Nothing doing,” I always said. “On the day of printing, all will be revealed.” Stanley hit the desk. He did everything he could to wheedle it out of me. “I’m putting myself on the line here, Marty- how do I know the author isn’t a pedophile? I mean, scandal is one thing, you know I’m not afraid of it, but no one would touch the book if the author’s hands had been all over some kid.”
I gave him my word Harry was just an ordinary run-of-the-mill murdering thief.
One day Stanley ’s wife came in to see what he was up to. She was a thin attractive woman with a pointy nose that didn’t look sculpted so much as it looked like it had been sharpened on a grinder. She circled the office and tried to take a peek at the manuscript on his desk, but he threw a newspaper on top of it.
“What do you want, hag?”
“You’re up to something.”
He didn’t answer, just gave her a smile that said, “Maybe I am, you rotten wench, but it’s none of your fucking business.”
She turned to me and started examining. “I know you from somewhere.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you ask me for money on a train once?”
I said I had never asked anyone for money on a train, which was not true, because once I had asked someone for money on a train.
“All right, visit over,” Stanley said, grabbing her by the shoulders and pushing her out of the office.
“OK, OK! I just came to ask you for a divorce!”
“Whenever you want. Although I’d prefer to be a widower.”
“Fuck up and die, you bastard!”
Once he had her in the corridor, he slammed the door in her face and said to me, “Call a locksmith. We have to get the locks changed, then let’s get back to work.”
Stanley had given Harry a couple of little tasks to do. The first was the title, and Harry had handed me a sheet of paper with his suggestions. I sat down and read over the list. A Handbook for Criminals, A Handbook for Young Criminals, The Handbook of Crime for Young Criminals and Toddlers, Crime: How to Do It, Breaking the Law by Numbers, Felony for Dummies, Step-by-Step Guide to Crime, Lawlessness Is Easy!… The list went on.
Then came the problem of the preface. Harry had given me his first draft and asked me to pass it on to Stanley untouched. I couldn’t touch it even if I wanted to. It was the outpouring of a man on the edge. It went like this:
There are men put on this earth to make laws designed to break the spirits of men. Then there are those put here to have their spirits broken by those put here to break them. Then there are those who are here to break the laws that break the men who break the spirits of other men. I am one of those men.
– the author
Stanley sent it back and told him to try again. Harry’s second attempt was no better.
They have you in their sights. They have you on their list. They want to turn the product of your semen’s blood into steam engines that churn out power to light up their lives. Well I’m here to tell you if you read this book and follow its advice you can fill your own pockets with gold for a change and let someone else’s children carry the stone tablets for the corpulent Egyptian taskmasters. I say, why not get them first?
– the author
Stanley didn’t think anything that sounded bitter or insane would be good for sales. I could see his point. I gently asked Harry to take one more crack at it. His third attempt I opened and read as the bus rolled toward the city. It read simply:
Ah-ha! Worship me! You cunts!
– the author
I tore it up and composed my own preface and put Harry’s name to it.
The world’s a fat place, so fat you’d think there’s enough to go around. There isn’t. So some have to grab what they can without following the rules because the rules state that they get next to nothing. Most stumble along this path unguided, unmapped. By writing this book, I am not trying to cause a revolution, just giving some roadside assistance to the disadvantaged on the road less traveled by lighting it a little, showing the potholes and the pitfalls, putting up entry and exit signs and speed limits.
Drive well, you young thugs, drive well…
– the author
Finally the day of printing arrived. I had to go to Stanley ’s office and disclose the author’s name. Harry and I sat in the backyard smoking cigarettes for breakfast. He had gone beyond anxiety; his hands were shaking vigorously. We both tried not to notice it, and when I had to light his cigarette for him, we pretended it was because I was his long-serving houseboy. I said, “There you go, sir,” and he replied, “Thanks, boy.”
Above us the sky was a strange color, the same algae green as his swimming pool.
“This publisher. Can we trust him?” Harry asked.
“Implicitly.”
“Is he going to screw us?”
“No.”
“When you speak to him next, tell him I’ve killed seventeen men, two women, and a child.”
“You killed a child?”
“Well- a young adult.”
Harry handed me a sheet of paper. On it was a list of acknowledgments. I took it and went off to fulfill our destinies, hitting the streets with my arms swinging at both sides. That’s how you walk when you’re doing destiny’s dirty work.
I met Stanley at his office. He was too excited to sit. In the first two minutes after I arrived, he went from the door to the window three times, making strange gestures with his hands as if strangling chickens.
“This is it, mate- the printers are standing by. I’m ready for the name now.”
“OK, here it is. The man who wrote The Handbook of Crime is Harry West.”
Stanley ’s mouth opened and stayed that way as he let out a long throaty exhale.
“Who?”
“Harry West!”
“Never heard of him.”
I ran through his rap sheet, not leaving anything out. “Harry West,” Stanley said as he wrote the name down, sounding a little disappointed. Then, as I fed him information, Stanley composed a biography for the “about the author” section. It ran like this:
Harry West was born in Sydney in 1922. For the next fifty-five years he broke every law in the Southern Hemisphere. He escaped from custody and is currently a fugitive from justice.