I didn’t mean that! I meant I didn’t know he stole that much!

Stole! That’s the right word. Robbed. [With vigor] Extorted. That’s a better word. But even that. Even that wasn’t as bad as what he did later. Was it? It wasn’t as bad as what got him thrown in hacks’ prison for five years, was it?

No. [Almost whispering] It wasn’t.

Well. You’re telling it. Your memory’s coming back now, isn’t it? Why don’t you just tell us what he did do? After he was already on probation for the same crime?

I told you. It was plagiarism. Why do I have to say all this? You know it already. You know what he did!

Didn’t it ever strike you that Mr. Varrick might have been just a little bit stupid?

Well. I suppose so.

You suppose so? Is that all you can say? You suppose so?

All right. It was stupid.

Who did he plagiarize the next time, Mr. Lawrence? The five-year sentence. And please don’t tell me what you believe.

[Grim, fatalistic conviction of lethargic hopelessness] It was Cormac McCarthy.

Well, well. Now we’re getting somewhere again. Now we’re talking about living writers. Now we’re getting up to a new level of theft. We’re getting up into grant country now. Now we’re talking about the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The big time.

Yes. [Whispered]

You’re telling it so good I think I’ll just let you go on. Why don’t you just tell us what Mr. Varrick did to Mr. McCarthy?

[Studying fingernails] He stole different passages from three of his novels.

And?

And submitted—

Wait, wait. First—

First he put them into his own novel.

It was actually a novella, wasn’t it?

I don’t know. I never read it.

You never read it because it was never published. It was never published because it was submitted to the same house that originally published those same three novels. Ladies and gentlemen, the act of a stupid man. He stole ten thousand words, whole, uncut scenes, dialogue, ripped them up a little, tore them up some, and mixed them with ten thousand of his own miserable words and called it his own. Didn’t he?

Yes. Yes, he did.

And he got caught.

Yes.

Just like you got caught.

Yes.

In a blatant, vicious act of plagiarism. Literary theft. And it got him five years.

Yes.

Did Mr. Varrick ever confide in you? Did he ever tell you any of his secrets?

Secrets? [Shrugs shoulders, still studying nails] We talked. Some.

Did he ever say to you that he thought his sentence was unfair?

[Looking up] Yes. He did.

What exactly did he say?