Charlie finds Bowditch’s house ransacked—drawers overturned, furniture slashed, and the kitchen torn apart—yet the safe remains intact. After calling 911 and his father, he questions neighbor Mrs. Richland, who recalls a peculiar, skipping “magazine” salesman saying “right-o” and “ha-ha,” wearing a White Sox cap. Charlie suspects this man may be linked to Heinrich’s murder and the gold.

Detective Gleason arrives with Officers Witmark and Cooper, labels it the work of obituary thieves, and shows little interest. Cooper dusts the safe but finds it wiped—Charlie had cleaned it. That night, Charlie researches the supposed subscription service, doubts the salesman’s legitimacy, fears the man is hunting Bowditch’s gold, and wonders if he’ll return.

On Saturday, Charlie goes back alone, planning to clean but first plays Bowditch’s cassette. Bowditch claims he was born in 1894 as Adrian, later returning as his “son” Howard; he built the shed before the house and discovered a “well of the worlds.” He urges Charlie to look in the shed, promising the roaches aren’t dangerous, and to continue the tape afterward.

Armed with Bowditch’s .45 and a flashlight, Charlie unlocks the shed, switches on battery lights, and finds a cat-sized roach corpse rapidly decomposing and remnants of another. Beneath cinderblocked boards, he sees a spiral of ancient stone steps descending into darkness, hears chittering, and realizes this is Bowditch’s beanstalk—downward, toward gold. He relocks the shed and returns, shaken.

Resuming the tape, Bowditch explains the roaches die in earth’s air, recounts his 1919 fall into the well, the corridor of bats, a border that makes travelers ghostlike, and emergence into a land of red flowers and a distant city. He warns the city is cursed and perilous; AB blazes mark a safe route to a plaza by the palace where there is gold and a colossal turning sundial that grants youth. He urges Charlie never to ride it himself but suggests it might restore Radar.

Bowditch fears government discovery, eminent domain, and catastrophic exploitation, invoking the Flight Killer and a terrible god beneath the city. Mid-speech he suffers a heart attack, gasping out instructions about a lawyer and the wallet under the bed before the tape ends. Charlie pockets the cassette, contemplates the danger if anyone enters the shed, and goes home.