The bookmans wake, p.10
The Bookman's Wake, page 10
“You must be on the right track, you’re starting to annoy me.”
“You asked for it. Shall I go on?”
“You mean there’s more?”
“You have an intense dislike of oppressive procedure. It galled you when the courts let creeps and thugs walk on technicalities. You nailed a guy one time on an end run that cops in Denver still talk about. . . probably illegal but they never stuck you with it. So the guy went up.”
“He was a serial rapist, for Christ’s sake. He got what he needed.”
“You’re getting annoyed all over again, aren’t you? They told me you would. That case still bothers you, it’s the one time you really stepped over the line and let the end justify the means. Your fellow cops remember it with a good deal of admiration, but it rankles you to this day, the way you had to get that guy.”
“I sleep just fine. My only regret is that I didn’t get the son of a bitch a year earlier, before he started using the knife.”
“You’re a guy out of time, Janeway. You were a good cop, but you’d’ve been great fifty years ago, when there weren’t any rules.”
“There’s probably a lot I’d appreciate about life fifty years ago.”
“You don’t like telephones, television, or computers. I’ll bet Call Waiting drives you crazy.”
“People who load up their lives with crap like that have an inflated sense of their own importance. You might not believe this, but I’ve never missed an important phone call.”
“I do believe it. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.”
“If it’s that important, they always call back.” I looked at her hard. “You really are getting on my nerves.”
“Good. If I can’t get you to talk to me, at least I can ruin your day. If I tell you enough about yourself, maybe you’ll understand something.”
“And what is that?”
“If you don’t talk to me, somebody else will.”
“I can’t help what other people tell you.”
“They tell me you’ve got this code you live by and you’ve got it down pat. You see a lot of things in black and white: if you give your word, people can take it to the bank. The problem is, you expect the same thing out of others. You tend to be hard and unforgiving when someone breaks the code. When you come up against a brick wall, your tendency is to go right on through it. You had little finesse when it came to official policy and no patience with politics.”
“I can’t think of anything offhand that’s as evil as politics. It turns good men into bad all the time.”
“You spend a lot of your time alone. You trust no one in a pinch as much as you do your own self. You’ve got such self-confidence that sometimes it strikes others as arrogance. Your reputation as a smart-ass is as high as the Rockies. Richly deserved would be my guess.”
“I work on it every day. I hire four people to sit on a panel, test me once a week, and tell me how I’m doing. Lately I’ve been unable to afford the sex therapist, but you could probably tell that. I don’t feel that my day’s properly under way unless I’ve run three miles and verbally abused someone of far less mental dexterity than myself—preferably in public, where the scars of their humiliation will be shattering and damn near impossible to shake off.”
She gave a little smile. “Actually, you’re a champion of the underdog. The strong never abuse the weak in your presence.”
“Now I’m a regular Robin Hood. You’ll have to make up your mind.”
“You’ve got quite a name as a fighter. People don’t mess with you much.”
“Some have.”
“But they didn’t come back for seconds.”
“Not since I killed that blind crippled boy last summer.”
She laughed. “You’re an American original, aren’t you? Listen to me, Janeway. I mean you no harm. I come in friendship and peace.”
“That’s what Custer said to the Indians.”
“You and I are probably a lot alike.”
“That’s what Sitting Bull said back to Custer.”
“And like the Indians and the cavalry, we’d probably end up killing each other. But I’ll tell you this, it’ll all be up front. I never break my word.” She leaned forward and looked me straight in the eyes. Our faces were closer than strangers ought to be. “Who is Slater?”
I looked at her hard and gave her nothing.
“Maybe it would make a difference if I told you what else I know.”
“What’s that?”
“That Darryl and Richard Grayson were murdered.”
Her sense of timing couldn’t have been better: I felt the tingle of her words all the way to my toes. Without taking her eyes from mine, she reached into her bag and took out a card. “Both my numbers are here if you decide you’d like to talk. Anytime, all off the record. If not, have a nice flight to Taos.”
She got up and walked out.
12
Who was Slater? The question lingered through the night.
Why was I here?
In my mind I saw him working his scam, dancing his way into my life with that cock-and-bull story about him and me and our brilliant future together. I watched again as he spread open that paper, where someone had written the particulars of Grayson’s Raven so long ago that it was beginning to fall apart. It wasn’t about me, it wasn’t about a bounty fee on a skip, it might not even be about Eleanor except in an incidental way. The real stuff had happened long ago, probably before she was born.
But it didn’t matter now, did it? I was under a court order, and I had to play according to Hoyle.
I sat up late reading a bad novel. I watched some bad TV. At three o’clock in the morning I sat at my window and looked down into the rainy Seattle street.
But I couldn’t forget Trish Aandahl, or that parting shot she had given me.
I called the first travel agency that opened at seven-thirty and told them to get me to Taos with a fellow traveler ASAP. It was a heavy travel day. United had two flights that would put us in Albuquerque early and late that afternoon. From there I could rent a car or hook up with a local airline that would jump us into Taos. But both flights were packed. The agent could squeeze us in, but our seats would be separated by the length of the plane. The next viable flight was a red-eye special, leaving Sea-Tac at 11:18 P.M., arriving in Albuquerque at 2:51 A.M., mountain time. I took the red-eye, told the agent to deliver the tickets to the Hilton, and put the tariff on my charge card. The tickets were $800 each, typical airline piracy for last-minute bookings. I sucked it up and hoped to God I could get some of it back from the good people of New Mexico.
Then I called Slater and got my first surprise of a long and surprising day.
“Mr. Slater’s not available,” said his woman in Denver.
“When will he be available?”
“I’m not sure. He will be calling in. Who is this, please?”
“My name’s Janeway. I’ve been working a case for him. Something’s come up and I need to talk to him.”
I heard her shuffling through some papers. “I’m afraid I don’t know you.”
“Then I must not exist. I’ll bet if you tell him I’m here, though, he’ll talk to me anyway.”
I heard a spinning sound, like a roulette wheel in Vegas. “Everyone who works for us is in this Rolodex. Your name’s not here.”
“Then it’s Slater’s loss. Give him a message, tell him I tried.”
“Wait a minute.”
I heard her talking to someone, but her hand had covered the phone and I couldn’t make out the words.
“I could maybe have him call you back.”
“Won’t work. I’m heading out in about five minutes.”
“Hold, please.” She punched the hold button: elevator music filled my ear.
There was a click. Another woman said, “Mr. Janeway? . . . I’m sorry for the hassle. It’s just that we don’t know you and Mr. Slater’s out of town.”
“How could he be out of town? He hired me because he didn’t have time to go out of town. Where’s he gone?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that. I guess I’ll have to take a message.”
“Tell him Janeway called, I’ve got the girl and I’m taking her on to Taos myself.”
“Is that what he wanted you to do?”
“It doesn’t matter what he wanted me to do. Tell him I’m not working for him anymore.”
∗ ∗ ∗
I sat on my bed feeling the first faint gnawing of a mighty hunch.
I placed another call to Denver.
“U.S. West.”
“Howard Farrell, please.”
I listened to the click of a connection, then a woman’s voice said, “Mr. Farrell’s office.”
“Mr. Farrell, please.”
“May I say who’s calling?”
“Cliff Janeway.”
Another click, followed by the familiar resonance of an old and confidential source.
“Hey, Cliff! Where the hell’ve you been?”
“Cruising down the river, you old son of a bitch.”
“Jesus, I haven’t heard your voice for what? . . . seems like a year now.”
“More like two. So how’re things at the good old phone company?”
“Same old shit.”
“Howard, you need to start breaking in a new act. But then what would guys like me do when they need a favor out of old Ma Bell?”
“Uh-oh. You’re not official anymore, are you?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Damn right it is. Just for old-time’s sake, what do you want?”
“Clydell Slater.”
“My favorite cop. He still playing smashmouth with Denver’s finest?”
“He does it on his own now.”
“What an asshole. Look, Cliff. . . this isn’t likely to cause Mr. Slater any grief, is it?”
“It might pinch his balls a little.”
“Then I’ll do it. Same ground rules as always. Give me a number, I’ll call you right back.”
Five minutes later Farrell called and, for my ears only, gave me Slater’s home number.
I placed the call.
It was answered by a recording, a woman’s voice. “Hi, this’s Tina. Me’n’ Clyde are out now. We’ll call ya back.”
I hung up on the beep.
∗ ∗ ∗
I lingered over breakfast in a downtown café. Read the high points in last night’s Times. Looked for her byline but it wasn’t there. Drank my third cup of coffee over the local homicide page.
Went back to the hotel. Took a shower and went upstairs to the lobby. My tickets had arrived. I slipped them into my inside jacket pocket with my court papers and went to the jail to see Eleanor.
It was still early, well before ten. They led her in and we sat with glass between us, talking through a bitch box.
“How’re you doing?” I said.
“Just wonderful.”
“I wanted to see you and say a few things.”
“You don’t have to.”
“What are you now, a mind reader?”
“I know what you’re gonna say, I can see it in your eyes. I know you’re bothered by all this. Don’t be . . . you don’t owe me a thing.”
“In a cold-blooded dog-eat-dog world, that would be one way to look at it.”
“Well, isn’t that what it is?”
“Only sometimes.”
“I’ll bet this was your big failing as a cop. People can look in your face and see what’s in your heart.”
“Would you believe nobody’s ever said that to me? . . . Not once. In some circles I’m known as a helluva poker player, impossible to read.”
“Amazing.”
We looked at each other.
“If you’re waiting for absolution, you already have it,” she said. “You were doing a job. You’ve got a strange way of doing it, but I’ve got no kick coming. If it makes you feel better, you’ve got my unqualified permission to deliver me up and get on with your life, forget I ever existed.”
“That’s not going to happen, Eleanor. That’s one promise I’m making you.”
“What can you do, tell me that. . . what can you do?”
“I don’t know. Did you do the burglary?”
“Yes, I did. So there you are.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Personal reasons.”
“Did you take a gun into the house?”
“Does it matter?”
“Does it matter? Hell, yes, it matters. It can be the difference between a first-time offender asking for probation and a gun moll doing heavy time.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You said something back in the restaurant when we were talking about your stalker. The subject of a gun came up. Do you remember what you said?”
She looked at me through the glass. “I’ve never fired a gun in my life.”
“Did the cops do a gunshot residue test?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“So I’ll ask you again. Did you take a gun into that house?”
“No. Believe it or not.”
“Okay, I believe it. Did you get a gun while you were in the house, maybe from the guy’s gun rack. Was it you that did the shooting?”
“I never shot at anyone. I was the one shot at. I’m lucky to be alive.”
“If we can prove that, you’ve got a fighting chance. You were still wrong to be there. You broke in, they had every right to shoot at you. But almost any judge would wonder why they’d lie about it.”
“I guess they want me to go to jail.”
“For a long time, apparently.” I leaned closer to the glass. “I’d still like to know why you broke in, what you were looking for.”
“Maybe I’ll tell you sometime. But not today; I don’t think I know you well enough to get into the wired-up hell of my life with you. When do we leave?”
“Late tonight. I’ll come for you around seven-thirty.”
“Lots of dead time for you to fill. What’ll you do, hit the bookstores?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s the only part of this that really surprises me. I never had a hint you were a book dealer. You played that card very well.”
I tried to smile at her. “I’d better go.” But something powerful held me there. Then, so quickly that I didn’t know how it happened, I stepped off the straight and narrow for the first time that day. I stepped all the way off and said something that could never be unsaid.
“How’d you like to get out of here? ... go with me? ... be my guide through the Seattle book jungle?”
She looked like a person half-drowned who had suddenly been brought back to life. “Can you do that?”
“Probably not. The jailer will look at my tickets and wonder what the hell I’m doing taking you out ten hours early. The judge’ll schedule a new hearing, I’ll get drawn and quartered, and you’ll end up riding back to Taos handcuffed to a deputy.”
I shrugged. “We could try.”
She reached out as if to touch my face. Her fingertips flattened against the glass.
“You’ve got to promise to behave.” I felt a sudden desperation, as if I’d taken a long step into the dark. “I’m taking a big chance, Eleanor. It’s my responsibility now. I’ll take the chance because I like you. I owe you one for the big lie. And it just occurs to me that you’d probably rather spend the day in bookstores than chained by your neck to the wall of some crummy jail cell. But you’ve got to behave.”
“Absolutely. Who wouldn’t love a deal like that?”
The jailer gave our tickets a cursory glance. He looked at my papers, read the judge’s order, and at half past ten Eleanor Rigby and I walked out into a drippy Seattle day.
13
It was a day of magic. The two of us were charmed: Seattle was our oyster and every stop coughed up a pearl. She took me to a place called Gregor Books on Southwest California Avenue. The books were crisp and fine and there were lots of high-end goodies. You don’t steal books out of a store like that—the owner is far too savvy ever to get caught sleeping on a live one, but Rita McKinley’s words echoed in my ear. You can double the price on anything if it’s fine enough. Gregor had the finest copy of Smoky I had ever seen. Signed Will James material is becoming scarce, and James had not only signed it but had drawn an original sketch on the half title. Gregor was asking $600, $480 after my dealer’s discount. I took it, figuring I could push it to $800 or more on the sketch and the world’s-best-copy assertion. I figured James was a hotter property in the real West, Colorado, than here in Seattle, and when the day came for me to go in the ground, I could rest just fine if they threw this book in the hole with me. Speaking of dying, Gregor had a dandy copy of If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O’Brien’s 1973 novel of the Vietnam War. He had marked it $450, but I was making his day and he bumped my discount to 25 percent for both items. I took it: the O’Brien is so damn scarce that I thought it was overdue for another price jump, and I left the store poorer but happier. Eleanor directed me downtown. We stopped at the Seattle Book Center, a lovely store on Second Avenue with half a dozen rooms on two floors. I bought a Zane Grey Thundering Herd in an immaculate 1919 dust jacket for $ 160. I was flying high now. There were books everywhere we looked, and even if the Seattle boys weren’t giving them away, I saw decent margin in almost everything I touched. “This is one of those days, isn’t it?” Eleanor said. “I’ll bet if you went back there and flushed the toilet, books would come pouring out.” We went to a mystery specialist called Spade and Archer. It was in a bank building downtown, in a fifth-floor office that old Sam Spade himself might have occupied in the thirties. The owner was a young blond woman whose credo seemed to be “keep ’em moving.” She had two of the three Edgar Box mysteries at a hundred apiece, cost to me, and I took them, figuring they’d be good $200 items in the catalog I was planning. As mysteries they’re just fair. But Gore Vidal had written them, hiding behind the Edgar Box moniker when he was starting out in the early fifties, and there’s always somebody for a curiosity like that.
