In 1995, the world's most successful actor strapped himself to the mast of a catamaran in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

A helicopter nearly decapitated him, and he almost drowned. He did it for his art. He did it for what he loved. He did it for Waterworld.

My name is Chris Winterbauer, and I believe that every movie is a miracle, even the bad ones.

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The Library of Poisonville by Robert Lopresti from the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine July, August 2020 issue.

Are you familiar with the Library of Babel? Those were the first words Emil Fafner said to me

after we had shaken hands and he had taken my coat. We were in the hallway of his home, a mansion

which, well, I found somewhat disappointing.

I had never been in the residence of a software billionaire before, but somehow I expected more.

Exactly what I can't say.

Picasso's plastered on every wall, half-naked supermodels strolling the grounds,

guards carrying Uzzies, not that I would recognize an Uzi, even if one were pointed at me.

The house was large and lovely, but not ostentatious. It stood in front of a tree-covered hill in

Northern California, a few hours from Silicon Valley, which was the gold mine where Fauffner had

acquired his bootle. We had not met before, but had engaged in an email and social media

friendship for years, fueled by our affection of, if not downright, obsession with mystery fiction.

Such digital friendships rarely grow into anything analog in my experience, but Fafner had proclaimed for some time that if I were ever in his part of the world, I must drop by.

I live alone, he had written.

It would be a pleasure to show off, especially to a jealous rival, L.O.L.

Jealous, I might be, but no rival. If I ever attempted to spend my life savings on some rare

first edition, Foffner could have outbid me from his petty cash drawer. But I had been drooling to see

the man's collection, and when a cousin's wedding brought me to San Francisco, I decided to go the

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