Lunar Park

This was the copy that had been rewritten before I handed the book to my agent.

This was the copy that no editor or publisher had ever seen.

This was the one chapter I had cut from the very first draft and that no one but me had ever read.

It included details of the murder of a woman called Amelia Light.

I flashed on the phone call I received on November 5.

“What did you do to her?”

“I’d check the text of that dirty little book you wrote again.”

The fictional details—the missing arms and head, the ropes, the blowtorch—were identical to the details of the murder in the Orsic Motel in a place called Stoneboat, according to what Donald Kimball had imparted.

As I kept turning pages, I realized even before I arrived at the next chapter that it would be titled “Paul Owen.”

The murder that followed Amelia Light’s would be Paul Owen’s.

Donald Kimball was wrong.

Someone was tracking the book.

And a man named Paul Owen in Clear Lake would be the next victim.

I reached for a phone to call Donald Kimball.

But something stopped me.

I reminded myself again, this time with more force, that no one except me had ever seen this copy of the manuscript.

This led to: What was I going to say to Kimball?

What was there to say? That I was going insane? That my book was now reality?

I had no reaction—emotional, physical—to any of this. Because I was now at a point at which I accepted anything that presented itself to me.

I had constructed a life, and this is what it now offered me in return.

I pushed the original manuscript away from myself.

I stood up. I was moving toward a wall of bookshelves.

I was flashing on something else now.

I pulled a copy of the Vintage edition of American Psycho from a shelf.

I flipped through it until, on page 266, I found a chapter titled “Detective.”

I sat back on the bed and began to read.

May slides into June which slides into July which creeps towards August. Because of the heat I’ve had intense dreams the last four nights about vivisection and I’m doing nothing now, vegetating in my office with a sickening headache and a Walkman with a soothing Kenny G CD playing in it, but the bright midmorning sunlight floods the room, piercing my skull, causing my hangover to throb, and because of this, there’s no workout this morning. Listening to the music I notice the second light on my phone blinking off and on, which means that Jean is buzzing me. I sigh and carefully remove the Walkman.

“What is it?” I ask in monotone.

“Um, Patrick?” she begins.

“Ye-es, Je-an?” I ask condescendingly, spacing the two words out.

“Patrick, a Mr. Donald Kimball is here to see you,” she says nervously.

“Who?” I snap, distracted.

She emits a small sigh of worry, then, as if asking, lowers her voice. “Detective Donald Kimball.”

Yes, the room turned sharply at that moment, and yes, my idea about the world changed when I saw the name Donald Kimball printed in a book. I forced myself not to be surprised, because it was only the narrative saving itself.

I did not bother rereading the rest of the scene.

I simply placed the book back on its shelf.

I had to think about this.

First thought: How did the person who said he was Donald Kimball ever see this original unread manuscript with the details of Amelia Light’s murder in it? A murder that was identical to the one that occurred on November third in the Orsic Motel.

Second thought: Someone was impersonating a fictional character named Donald Kimball.

He had been in my home.

He had been in my office.

I suddenly realized—hopefully—that everything he had told me was a lie.

I suddenly hoped that there had been no murders.

I hoped that the book I had written about my father was not responsible for the deaths “Donald Kimball” had relayed to me.

(Will I find out later that this Donald Kimball’s private number was, in fact, Aimee Light’s cell phone number? Yes.)

But then I thought: If Donald Kimball was responsible for the murders in Midland County, then who was Clayton?

As I thought about this I glimpsed something by my shoe.

There was a drawing from a children’s book I had made when I was a boy.

One of a number of pages that had scattered to the floor as I rifled through my closet.

These pages were from an illustrated book I had written when I was seven.

The book had a title.

The title was “The Toy Bret.”

I slowly reached down to pick up the title page but stopped when I saw the tip of a black triangle.

I pulled the other pages away until the entire sheet was revealed.

And I was confronted with the wrecked stare of the Terby.

As I moved the pages around, I saw the Terby replicated a hundred times throughout a book I had written thirty years ago.

The Terby emerging from a coffin.

The Terby taking a bath.

The Terby nibbling the white petal of a bougainvillea flower.

The Terby drinking a glass of milk.

The Terby attacking a dog.

The Terby entering the dog and making it fly.

It was at this moment in L.A. on that Saturday night in November—when I saw the children’s book about the Terby and knew that a person named Donald Kimball did not exist—that I made a decision.

If I had created Patrick Bateman I would now write a story in which he was uncreated and his world was erased.

I would write a story in which he was killed.

I left the house on Valley Vista.

Driving back to Bel Air, I began formulating a story.

I began making notes.

I needed to write the story hurriedly.

It would be short and Patrick Bateman would be killed.

The point of the story: Patrick Bateman was now dead.

I would never find explanations.

(That’s because explanations are boring, the writer whispered as I drove through a canyon.)

Everything would remain disguised and remote.

I would struggle to piece things together, and the writer would ultimately deride me for attempting this task.

There were too many questions.

This would always happen. The further you go, the more there are.