Dear Doris Boos,
I never reply to these things. That’s been my steadfast policy ever since butcher knives started showing up in the mail after “Die For Your Dinner.” All my fans know this. So when I saw the envelope with my address on it — my personal home address — I thought, Uh-oh, and called Mr. Lobanov, pronto-like. But then, as I was giving him the details, I noticed your list of questions. Next thing I knew, I had hung up on Lobanov, grabbed a pen, and started to write. I hope what follows will satisfy you.
1. Yes.
2. No.
3. Maybe. Presuming everyone wears helmets and goggles.
4. Louisville, KY.
5. “The Magus” by John Fowles.
6. “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel.
7. I don’t read other mystery writers. It’s voyeurism.
8. Probably my fatal allergy to peanuts. When I was a kid I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and nearly died. So from an early age, while other kids were reading “Dick and Jane,” I had to read epic lists of ingredients with things like “pyridoxine hydrochloride” or whatever. It made me literate, fast: my life literally depended on reading.
9. Later, after I lost Phoebe, it depended on writing.
10. Six hours a day, five days a week, never weekends. Otherwise on Wednesday I’ll say to myself, “I’ll just make it up on the weekend,” and then the weekend rolls around and I never do, which just makes me feel guilty. And as you’ve correctly deduced, I feel guilty enough already. I kill off enough narrators as it is, don’t I?
11. I don’t talk to anyone from Loomis Chaffee these days. I didn’t back then, either.
12. With peaches and a lemon drizzle.
13. Supercharged, almost 400 horsepower.
14. The bonobo.
15. No way. I’d have to live with myself afterward. And you can’t murder memory.
16. Since the accident, I don’t leave the house any more. I don’t even make it to the mailbox. Lobanov handles all that. The idea of dining with dozens of strangers in the same room. I mean, all those fingers. Plus, I live in the suburbs, so I’d have to drive somewhere. And I’ll never get in a car again.
17. Yellow legal pad. Numbered on the back. Orangina. One a day. And yes, the original, Bakelite-heavy Hancock Plus with the large nib, in blue. More weapon than pen. If you put that sucker in a crossbow you could probably take down a wild boar. Glory.
18. “A Bullet For Your Thoughts” was first, then came “Dead Men Don’t Write Back.” But they weren’t published in that order. How do you know this? Have you been talking to my editor?
19. Of course. I think about her every single day. Probably that’s why I write. When you write, you have an opportunity to make suffering meaningful. In life, it hurts for no comprehensible reason. When Phoebe died, I was sad, sure, heartbroken, the way anyone would be. But I also felt wronged. I wanted to punish someone. I still do, which is another reason to write: the state of New York wouldn’t execute a drunk driver, but Detective Smalls sure can.
20. For skin of her inner thigh I’d say “unripe cantaloupe.”
21. Snorkel.
22. Adult Underoos.
23. Echolocation.
24. Eerie — I thought about that, too. But a candlestick wouldn’t fit. And that would be too indelicate for Miss Sakamoto. Her murders had . . . élan.
25. And yes, it’s from the Thomas Dolby song. “Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto, you’re beautiful.” Doris, is there anything you don’t know?
26. And Jesus, yes, the villain’s name from “Dead Wrong” is an anagram for the drunk driver in real life. And Lobanov is the real life John Lester. And Phoebe . . .
27. O.K. Hang on. Time out for a second. I have to say something. I assume from your surname, and from your very correct grammar, that you are German, yes? Perhaps you’re aware that in English “boos” are the noises made by ghosts as they haunt the living. Is that what you are, Doris? Maybe I’m being fanciful, maybe I’m not. How can you possibly know these things about me? I haven’t given anything to an archive that I don’t know about, have I? Have you somehow seen discarded early drafts? Have you been talking to that asshole from the Post? I dated his ex. He hates me. He’ll say anything. Don’t believe him.
28. Djuna Barnes.
29. Originally: “No pants, no problem.”
30. Behind the old jai alai fronton in Hartford, CT, with Lori Ploof and my brother.
31. For a while, in the 90s, yes. But never without taking along the mask and pipe I kept in the briefcase. You’d be amazed at how often in life you need a disguise. Or maybe you wouldn’t.
32. No. Unlike Smalls, I never proposed. On the day I was going to do it we had the argument, and I had those drinks. I sat down in the passenger seat and had the ring in my pocket and those words coming out of my mouth. Equal and opposite forces of love and hatred. Newtonian, no? I’d trade every bestseller I’ve ever written if I could take back those words. I’d trade anything.
33. Because I was drunk, like I said, and she was driving. The truck came from that side. If I hadn’t been drinking, I would have been driving. It would have hit me instead. I’ll never drink again, either.
34.This just occurred to me: When you are responsible for the death of the woman you love, you see the world almost entirely in terms of what you can’t and won’t do. If I just stay inside, typing away, I can’t hurt anyone.
35. With the money from that first book I bought the truck. I built a garage that attaches to the house just so I can see it. Every day, before I write, I go into that garage and touch the smashed grill. How can I explain that I both love and hate that bent metal? It’s the last thing that Phoebe touched while she was alive. It’s bent into the shape of her last moments on earth.
36. Sometimes I think of it as morality bowling. “Set ‘em up so you can knock ‘em down.” That’s probably most clear in “Dead Wrong.”
37. Yes, it’s my favorite. First loves always are. Funny how the critics reacted. “An outrageous blazon of torture and obscenity.” Idiots. I wanted to write them a letter saying, “No, you chowderheads, it’s a plea for forgiveness. Forgiveness.” But readers aren’t interested in what you mean. Why should they be?
38. When I was sixteen. Sort of. Her name was September Stephens. We were in a hotel in Moscow as part of an excursion with my prep school. She had been eating peanuts half an hour earlier, which is why I say “sort of.” About two seconds into it I had to stop because I was going in anaphylactic shock. She had given me, literally, the kiss of death. It was a dramatic first lesson in the relationship between sex and death.
39. Because they don’t have any choice but to be writers. If they did, they would.
40. Love, naturally. But what are the chances?
41. “Hippodrome” and “ramekin” and “panties.”
42. They repel each other like beads of mercury.
43. She played pool like an angel.
44. A “five-point kill,” obviously, is choking someone with a Scrabble K-tile.
45. Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
46. A better question is: Why am I telling you? I haven’t told anyone this. Not even Lobanov. It feels good, though. I’m amazed to say it. It’s like the feeling I get after I finish a book, after I’ve killed another detective. Emptied. But no one was hurt in doing it. “No characters were hurt in the making of this letter.” That’s refreshing, isn’t it?
47. Do I think in terms of an epigraph for my life? No. But I do often think of my life in terms of epitaphs. No doubt you already intuited this.
48. From a tombstone in Père-Lachaise: “I told you I was sick.”
49. From Padua: “I was not, I was, I am not, I care not.”
50. Sometimes, when I’m transported from reality to a time before the accident — if I’m dreaming, if I’m writing — I think of this one, from an ancient Roman plasterer to his wife. “You who read this, go bathe in the baths of the Apollo, as I used to do with my wife. I wish I still could.”
51. I’ve been trying, over the course of sixteen books, to find a way to say something like that.
52. When I do, I’ll probably stop — reading, writing, living. My job will be done.
53. Or maybe I’ll let a narrator live.
54. Or maybe I’ll walk this letter to the mailbox myself.
55. I don’t know what I’ll do. You probably know. You seem to know everything. I need guidance. I need an affirmation of life. Could you please tell me what to do?
56. Tijuana Blue.
57. Mythmaking.
58. The flute.
59. Garbanzo.
Sincerely,
Raymond Reilly
* * *
Infinite FiveChapters continues tomorrow with “Drift” by Jennine Capó Crucet.
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