I don’t dare have anything in my name anymore. I’ll throw this away and use a different disposable as soon as I hang up. This will most likely be the only call I can make to you, so I’m pleading with you, Cullen, for God’s sake, don’t write me off as a crank.”“You’re not a crank,” I said. “You’re a brilliant writer.”“I haven’t written a word in over three years, and if five minutes from now I don’t sound like a crank, then I’m doing a piss-poor job of getting the gravity of the situation across to you, because the truth is crazier than a rabid monkey on methamphetamine.”“I’ve had some experience of crazy truths,” I said. “Go on.”“When Waxx’s review of your new book appeared on Tuesday, I didn’t see it. I only read it a few hours ago. Been trying to get your number ever since. You didn’t take his criticism to heart, I hope. It’s the bile and vomit of an envious and ignorant man, the stench of which he thinks he has disguised with mordant wit, except that his mordancy is no sharper than a sledgehammer and his wit is not wit at all but the raillery of an intellectual fop, a popinjay who wheezes when he thinks he pops.”Survival instinct told me to trust John Clitherow.
