Life moved quickly for Charlie. While the parole board considered Warden Pulliams’s recommendation for early release, he waded through offers from literary agents and movie producers. The offers were a surprise, and the fact that he was going to make a huge profit from Freddy’s death increased his guilt. An image of Freddy Clayton in flames seared his brain whenever he thought about the money he was going to make. This image didn’t deter him from hiring an agent or accepting a seven-figure movie deal and another seven-figure book deal for his autobiography, but it kept him from experiencing unfettered joy at his sudden reversal of fortune.

Freddy’s death was the only downer for Charlie in the whirlwind that became his life after prison. Within days of his release he was on Oprah and the Today show, and he learned that Tom Cruise was interested in playing him in the movie. No longer did Charlie sleep in the upper bunk of a prison cell; now he slept on silk sheets in a Manhattan apartment that his publisher let him use while he was working on the book.

Charlie stayed away from drugs, which were offered at the many parties he attended, and he didn’t get drunk, because he liked to keep his wits about him, but he did not stay away from the ladies. Charlie could not believe the variety of women who begged him to take them to bed. There were black women, white women, and Asian women. There were blondes, brunettes, and redheads. There were women who were attracted to celebrities; there were women who wanted to have sex with a rich man; and there were women who were fascinated by dangerous felons, which was how Charlie began portraying himself. No one in his new circle of acquaintances had ever heard of him or Freddy before the prison standoff, so they accepted his new and improved version of Charlie Marsh, the extremely violent felon who had experienced a miraculous conversion.

Mickey Keys, his newly acquired agent, a fast-talking, red-haired, freckle-faced man of forty-two who was frenetically cheerful, had given him the idea when he joked that it would help sell books if Charlie had a more exciting name. As soon as his agent made this comment, Charlie realized that not only was his name as dull as the image a marsh conjured, but so was his life story. His parents had been decent, hardworking folks whose only sin was spoiling their only child. Charlie had turned to crime because he was lazy, and the only violence his escapades ever caused occurred when he was beaten up by a mark who caught on to his scam.

On the other hand, Freddy Clayton’s life resembled a Shakespearean tragedy or a really good soap opera. Freddy had been an abused child. Television talk show hosts loved that dysfunctional-family shit. Freddy had committed murders and armed robberies. He’d had hairbreadth escapes from the law, and violent fights. Few people beside Charlie knew the facts of Freddy’s life-or his, for that matter. Who could contradict him if he took a few incidents from Freddy’s saga and claimed them for his own? Their parents were dead, and so were many of the witnesses to Freddy’s deeds. Oh, there was the odd living acquaintance, but most of those in the know had prison records. Who would take their word over a hero’s, and how many of them had outstanding warrants that would be executed if they stepped forward? Charlie convinced himself that his book would be a homage to Crazy Freddy if he claimed his friend’s life as his own.

Most of his interviews had focused on the prison standoff, and Charlie had been vague when an interviewer asked him about his past. He hadn’t started working with the ghostwriter who would actually write his book, either, so no one knew what he was going to say in his autobiography. Charlie spent the next month revising the outline his agent had suggested he write. By the time he met the ghostwriter, his autobiography contained accounts of knife fights and bare-fisted brawls, in which Charlie emerged victorious, as well as murders and other illegal endeavors. In his introduction, Charlie explained that the details of these incidents had to be kept vague because of potential criminal liability. There were also hints of a childhood in which he had been physically-and perhaps sexually-abused. Charlie knew that this would make his innocent parents look bad, but they were dead, and anyway, wouldn’t a parent be willing to tarnish his or her name a little bit if it helped their child succeed in life after a rocky start?

Of course, the book had an uplifting ending. Charlie talked about the Inner Light” that had infused him during his near-death experience, and how being filled with this light had led him to renounce crime and vow to help everyone else on earth find their own Inner Light”. Getting a trademark for this phrase was another idea of Mickey Keys’s.

There hadn’t really been any light, inner or otherwise. Charlie didn’t have a clear recollection of what had happened during the insane moment when he’d thrown himself between the guard and the shiv. The inner-light business had been Mickey’s suggestion, too. Well, not an outright suggestion, more a “memory” of Charlie’s that had been elicited by some very pointed questions, such as “Did you have any religious experience when you were stabbed? You know, some people who’ve had near-death experiences claim to see a blinding light. Something like that? That would be great, because talk shows love it when you have a religious conversion or a near-death experience.”

Charlie announced the formation of Inner Light, Inc., at the press conference heralding the publication of The Light Within You, which had been hurried into print while the action at the prison was still fresh in the public’s mind. At that conference, Charlie also announced that henceforth he would refer to himself as Gabriel Sun, a new name that would commemorate the death of the bandit Charlie Marsh and his rebirth as a bringer of light.

Charlie’s autobiography became an instant best-seller. It began in his deprived childhood, detailed the way poverty and abuse had made him a criminal, and explained how his experience with his Inner Light while saving Larry Merritt-and Warden Jeffrey Pulliams’s belief in him-had restored his faith in the goodness of man. Charlie told the attending media representatives how he looked forward to holding seminars in the cities on his book tour so he could help troubled people find their Inner Light. There would be a nominal fee for attendance but, Charlie promised, the benefits to an attendee’s personal and spiritual development would far outweigh the price of admission.

The seminars and the concessions that hawked Charlie’s book, CDs featuring Charlie’s words of wisdom, T-shirts, and other Inner Light paraphernalia produced a river of cash. Charlie had made a living swindling people out of their money, and he found a kindred spirit in Mickey Keys. The agent and his new client began sending the cash in the accounts of Inner Light, Inc., to secret bank accounts in Switzerland as quickly as it came in. Mickey, who had an accounting background, worked up a second set of books for the IRS, and Charlie and Mickey’s real financial picture looked very healthy even as it appeared to be anemic in their ledgers.

Charlie held his seminars at each stop on his book tour. They were attended by members of the middle class who longed to be wealthy and successful, and people with wealth who were troubled by their success. If the opportunity presented itself, he would fuck any rich woman who wished to purge her guilt by servicing an all-wise and dangerous ex-con. On occasion, he would have sex with one of the less well off groupies who hung around his book signings. That’s what he was doing after a very lucrative seminar at Yale University when he was startled in mid-thrust by Mickey Keys’s unannounced entry into his hotel bedroom.

“What the fuck!” Charlie shouted, furious at being interrupted. The coed he’d been banging was as delicious as a peach and as tight as a drum.