“It’s a whole bag of stuff,” she said. “All Ayn Rand, all in this condition.”
There were two Fountainhead firsts, both binding states, red and green, in those lovely crisp red jackets. There was an Atlas Shrugged , signed Ayn in old ink and inscribed with endearment as if to an old friend. Finally there was the freshest copy of We the Living that I ever hoped to see in this lifetime. A Rand specialist had once told me that there were probably only a few hundred jacketed copies of We the Living in existence.
Six, seven grand retail, I thought. Sitting by the door in an open bag, in an unattended store.
“It doesn’t make much sense, does it?” Eleanor said.
I shook my head.
“If the door blew open, they’d get screwed by the rain in a minute,” she said. “Jesus, Otto must’ve really lost it.”
“Look, you know this guy—do you think he’s so far gone that he wouldn’t know what he could get for these?”
“I doubt that. Otto might not know about the new guys—the Graftons, Paretskys, Burkes—but he’d sure as hell know about Ayn Rand.”
We stood there for a minute and touched them.
“What’re you gonna do?” Eleanor said.
“Damned if I know. I’m dying to buy these from him.”
“What would you offer him?”
I pondered it. “Three grand. Thirty-five hundred if I had to.”
“You could get them for less than that. There are some guys in this town who’d pay him that kind of money, but Otto’s burned his bridges here. I’ll bet you could get ‘em for two.”
“I’d give him three in a heartbeat.”
“Take ‘em, then. Leave him a note, make him an offer like that, and you’ll be doing him the biggest favor of the year. Tell him you’ll send the books back if he doesn’t like it. I guarantee you you’re doing him a favor, because nine out often people would come in here and see those books and take ’em and run like hell. You know that’s true. Take ‘em and leave him a note.”
“That’s probably against the law,” I said, but I knew it probably wasn’t. In most states, theft requires evil intent.
I put the books back in the bag, folded the top over carefully, and tucked it under my arm. “What’s in the back room?”
“Just more of the same,” she said.
We went on back. The room was cluttered with books and trash. In a corner was an ancient rolltop desk half-buried in junk books and old magazines.
“I see he still reads the AB ,” I said.
“That’s probably how he sells most of his books.” Eleanor looked along the shelves behind the desk. She held up a thin canvas bag. “Here’s his briefcase. He never goes anywhere without this. In the old days, when he and Morrice were top dogs, you’d see him at book fairs and stuff, and he’d always have his two or three best pieces in this book bag. It was his trademark: if he liked you, you’d get to look in the bag; if he didn’t, you wouldn’t.”
She fiddled with the straps. “Wanna look?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Reluctantly, she pushed the bag back to the corner of the desk. “He probably hasn’t used it in ten years, except to carry a bottle around.” She sighed. “Not a Grayson book in sight. So much for my good intentions.”
“That looks like another door over there.” I walked across the room and opened it.
A set of steps disappeared into the dark upper floor.
“Try calling him again,” Eleanor said.
I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted Murdock’s name up the stairwell.
“He’s just not here,” she said.
“I don’t know. Something’s not right.” I moved into the stairwell.
“Don’t go up there. That’s how people get blown away.”
I turned and looked at her.
“Otto’s got a gun. I saw it once when I was here last year.”
“Good argument.” I backed away from the stairs.
“He’s gotta be up there sleeping one off. He’ll wake up in a panic over those books, come running down the stairs, and when he finds your note, he’ll be so relieved he’ll drop dead right there on the spot.”
I wavered.
“Goddammit, take the books,” she said. “Don’t be a fool.”
She’s right, I thought. I went back and sat at Otto’s desk, pulled out a sheet of paper, and wrote out my offer. I made it three thousand and signed it with both my Denver phone numbers, then taped it to his canvas bag where he’d be sure to find it.
In the car we sat fondling the merchandise, lost in that rapture that comes too seldom these days, even in the book business.
It was just six o’clock when I happened to glance in the mirror and saw Pruitt watching from the far corner.
14
He appeared like a single frame in a set of flash cards. You blink and he’s gone, and you’re not quite sure he was ever there at all. I was as sure as I needed to be: I was suddenly tense, keyed up and ready to fight. We headed down to the Hilton. I was driving now, handling the freeway traffic with one eye on my mirror. If he was on my tail as I swung into town, I didn’t see him. He was a magician, good enough to make you doubt your eyes. The invisible man, Slater had called him, the best tail in the business, and he wasn’t keeping after me because he liked my looks. Who is Slater ? The voice of Trish Aandahl played in my head. I had a hunch I was about to find out who Slater was and what he wanted. He had just five hours to break the stalemate: if Pruitt didn’t play Slater’s hand by then, we’d be in the air and it would all be academic.
I parked in the hotel garage and took Eleanor to my room. I poured us drinks, cutting hers slightly with water. She asked if she could use the shower and I said sure. I sat on the bed at the telephone, happy for a few minutes alone.
I punched up Slater’s number in Denver.
A woman answered. “Yeah?”
The lovely Tina, no doubt.
I tried to sound like someone from their social set, a cross between George Foreman and Bugs Moran: “I need Slater.”
“So who’re you?”
“I’m the man with the money.”
“I’m not followin‘ ya, Jack.”
“Just put Slater on the phone, he’ll be glad you did. Tell him it’s the man with the money.”
“Clyde’s not here.”
“So where’s he at?”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about a bagful of money, sweetheart, and I’ll tell ya what, if I don’t get to give it to him pretty damn quick, I’m out of here. Slater can fly to Jacksonville and pick it up himself.”
“I don’t know anything about this.”
“That’s how you want to keep it, hon. Let’s just say Slater did a little job for me and this is the bonus I promised him.”
“Well, damn.”
“Oh, let’s not agonize over it. If you don’t wanna tell me where the man is, it’s no skin off my nose.”
She was breathing in my ear. “Is it…”
I waited.
“…is it a lot of money?”
I couldn’t help laughing: I had played her just right. “Let’s say there’s a good reason he wanted it in cash.”
“Wait a minute, I’ll give ya a number.”
I could hear her fumbling around. “Call him at area code two oh six. It’s six two four, oh five hundred. Ask for seventeen twelve.”
I sat staring at the phone. Slowly I straightened up and looked at the far wall.
Slater was in the room next door.
And I knew I might as well have him in my lap.
Eleanor came out of the bathroom in a swirl of steam. She sat at the mirror sipping her drink and combing out her incredible hair. I thought she was lovely, alive with the sparkle of youth in spite of her trouble. She wanted to talk. Our short mutual history was the topic of the moment, to which was added her general assessment that we were a damned exceptional book-hunting team. “Today was special,” she said, “a real toot.” I looked at the far wall, where Slater was, and told her the pleasure was all mine. To her way of thinking, it was the perfect day, one she’d remember: “This is how I’d live my life, every day of the year, if I had my way. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, some good books…”