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through without breaking it. She wanted to go outside. She wanted to sing for the people. I’d seen that haunted need in her eyes and the eyes of the other shut-ins for a couple of years now. I wanted to ask her why she didn’t just step outside and do her thing. But even I knew it was impossible. Time had moved on without her and she wouldn’t be able to get back up to speed. Her photos and her gold record and the lyrics to her one song were all she had left now. She’d chosen that path and it would have to be enough for her. She said nothing more to me and I grabbed my toolbox and got out of there, back into the world. It felt very much the same on one side of the door as the other.
    I got downstairs into my place and sat in front of the computer screen willing the words to come. They wouldn’t. Every time I thought of King Carver in Danish, a flutter of nausea worked through my guts.
    I shut my eyes. I let my fingers move across the keypad on their own. I started typing. Corben and I used to clown around with automatic writing back in college. I did it every now and again when I wanted to clear my mind. I forced my focus to some far corner of my brain and left it there. The typing grew louder.
    My hands pounded away. I wondered who the hell was writing Mojo letters to me and why. There had been a craftiness to the note, a kind of witty petulance. It seemed a direct insult to the aluminum foil guy. Someone had done his online research on Dr. Lauber. But to what end? And why send it my way? And why pose as the monkey? A thin shard of fear scraped inside me and my hands seized for a moment. What if the note had come from the ice pick killer? Who even used an ice pick anymore except for killers? This was the fucking age of refrigerator door ice cube makers, baby. Sweat broke across my upper lip. What if the note had really come from Mojo? The paper was the size of the sheets on the chimp’s little pad. Why hadn’t I seen Gabriella in over a week? My focus snapped back into the keyboard and I felt my fingers type her name. Gabriella . What kind of a damn fool dedicates a book as a codicil to his wife, and does so by simply calling her My wife ? My thoughts twisted to Corben’s book on Stark House. What had he learned about this place that I should know? How far along was he? Who would he dedicate this one to? What if the chimp were dancing up behind me right now with an awl in his little monkey fist?
    I opened my eyes and turned around. I was alone. My face dripped sweat. I checked the clock. I’d written for twenty minutes. I scanned the computer screen. Much of it was gibberish with a few random whole sentences found in the muck. I spotted Death to King Carver in there among a kind of repetitive bitter ranting about lack of royalties and stolen foreign translations. I’d fallen back into some of the same old traps. It was bound to happen. A few maudlin phrases cropped up. I wrote Come get me, fucker and had a partially completed scene of a disemboweling. A filleting blade eased through flesh. There were slithering intestines and someone trying to hold together his fish-white belly with his fingers. I was getting the feeling that my mental state might currently be a bit skewed . Where has he hidden my love ? Deep among the mire stood out She speaks .
    It took some of the edge off but not nearly enough. I deleted the file and stared at the blank monitor willing some kind of answers that refused to appear. It didn’t matter much. I didn’t even know what questions I was asking. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to try writing another novel. There didn’t seem to be much point anymore. I wasn’t as wrecked about not giving a damn as I thought I would be.
    I picked up the Mojo note and read it again. I wondered if a man made of aluminum foil might be preparing to step from my closet as well. Why should Dr. Lauber command anybody’s soul?
    I hadn’t talked to Corben on any kind of a significant level in fifteen years. If