June 10

June 10 is the date George Stark imposed a one-week deadline on Thad Beaumont: he was to begin the novel about an armored-car heist that Stark wanted written. The call made an abstract threat immediate, setting a countdown that Thad would later recognize as already overdue—and giving him a reason to risk another confrontation with Stark.

The call at Dave’s Market

Two days after an earlier call, Stark rang again while Thad was inside Dave’s Market, a small, family-run store about a mile and a half from the Beaumont house. It served as a nearby alternative when making the longer trip to the supermarket in Brewer seemed like too much trouble. On Friday evening, June 10, Thad had gone there for Pepsi, chips, and dip, accompanied by one of the state troopers assigned to watch over his family.

The call came at about six-thirty, with plenty of daylight left. Thad was looking over the store’s assortment of dips when the telephone rang, and he immediately suspected who was calling. The ordinary errand, the trooper waiting outside, and the bright summer evening formed the setting for a demand that would govern the days that followed.

The deadline and its terms

Stark told Thad he would give him a week to get started on the armored-car-heist novel. He warned Thad not to try to deceive him, and his pronunciation of the last word suggested that he was upset. Thad took particular satisfaction in having unsettled him: the exchange showed that their intimate, frightening conversations could leave Stark vulnerable as well as Thad.

Stark also knew Thad had already conceived the story before a young man tried to blackmail him. The projected novel involved a wedding and an armored-car robbery. That knowledge made the deadline more than a fresh assignment: Stark was claiming a story Thad had considered independently and insisting that it be developed on his timetable.

The countdown’s return

When Thad woke on the morning after the week had run out, he understood that Stark’s deadline had passed. He had still not begun the novel, though he could see its possibilities more clearly with each passing day and had even dreamed about it. The missed week changed the date of the call into an immediate problem: Thad expected Stark to be angry and knew he would have to speak with him again.

Thad also saw a possible use in that anger. If he could provoke Stark until he lost control, he hoped Stark might make a mistake and reveal something. The deadline therefore worked in two directions: it pressured Thad to write, but its expiry also became an opening for the confrontation he was considering. The date’s force lies in that reversal—from Stark’s attempt to command Thad’s work to Thad’s attempt to turn Stark’s impatience against him.