Each man kills the thing he loves. Who said that? It’s me. I’m back. And this is definitely the final curtain. What made me do it? What made me think I could get away with it? What if every biographer went around shooting his subject?
I went to see Carlton, still unsure whether I’d have the guts to go through with it or not. He was in a shabby sort of sanatorium.
There were a couple of Bowies there. Later models. One or two Olivettis, and a Harrison Ford. It was like a museum. Eerie kinda place. Nurses in white lab coats and computers sitting around playing five-dimensional chess with each other. He was in a room of his own. I think he knew from the minute he saw me what I was intending to do. He said a very odd thing. “I have been expecting you.” Now that is weird, isn’t it? How could he possibly know? Did he suspect someone was tracking him all the time? Had he finally developed enough sense of irony to predict what was going to happen to him? He looked pretty good for something over a hundred years old. He still had that young blond Bowie look, though he was a bit dusty. They weren’t polishing him too well, I’d say. I was pretty shaken coming face-to-face with him like that. I knew more about him than he did. And I was there to blow him away. That’s heavy. So maybe there was just the slightest hesitation that was enough to give the nurse time to alert Security. I don’t know. I saw him, he smiled, said “I was expecting you,” then I fired, and the next thing the door was off its hinges and security was trying very hard to hurt me. What could I do? I shot the nurse and ran. And now there isn’t much time, well for me anyway. They’ll find me shortly.
I’ve decided pills are the easiest way out. I’m not bold enough for the full Hemingway bullet-in-the-temples job. Bit messy. And I’ve done one good thing. I’m sending this whole story to the Nobel Committee, along with a letter of apology and a strong recommendation that they forget DNAcism, bite the bullet, and award Carlton the Nobel he deserves. I think I can be forgiven for giving them the impression that I was going to do that anyway. Maybe they’ll believe me. Maybe I might have in time. I’d like to think so anyway. Of course shooting a nurse and being pursued by five security agencies won’t look too good on the record. But that’s another reason I’m leaving this story behind. It’s my confession, my justification, and my valediction. Thanks for staying with me. You have been my companion on the long and lonely nights. It turned out to have a different ending than I had anticipated. But isn’t that often the way with stories? And don’t feel too harshly about me. I know intellectual fraud isn’t particularly nice, but wouldn’t you have been tempted to do the same? As I said, fame is a terminal disease.
§
There is a final chapter which was found on his computer after Reynolds’s suicide.