Chapter Five

Chapter Five is a revision of what had been the last two-thirds of Chapter Four in the previous version. In this scene, Drayton meets an attorney, Morris Hepplewhite, who gives him a mysterious message from the now deceased William Briarbrook.

In the previous version, Hepplewhite was waiting for Drayton at his office, but I changed it to have him waiting for Drayton outside Drayton's apartment. This connected it more directly to the previous scene, and I just liked the idea of it being in a less formal setting. I even toyed with the idea of doing away with Drayton having an office at all, but didn't want to go back and do that much rewriting. Laziness, too, is a creative force.

Just for the record, I got the name Morris Hepplewhite from Ernie Kovacs, either stealing it outright or making a variation on a theme, I forget which.

I significantly chaged Briarbrook's letter from beyond the grave, turning it from a collection of zany ravings into a kind of simple code. Take that, Dan Brown!

The entire chapter took about five days to write.