The man squints his eyes a little and makes a noise, sucking air through his clenched teeth. His manner suggests he’s weighing a difficult decision. Finally, he shrugs and says, “I think you’re going to want to go with paperbacks.”
“Paperbacks,” Cortez repeats.
The man nods. “I know, I know. It’s like you can feel the decay in your hands as you’re reading the first line. But you’ve got limited luggage capacity, correct? And if you’re going to be on the road for any length of time … Let’s just say you stuff a first-edition Chesterton down into the Samsonite before you turn it over to the airline people. Come the end of your trip, I don’t want to look. I mean, it’s a question of respect.”
Cortez decides this is the kind of man who could wander off into endless oblique stories with no apparent meaning. He says, “Do you have any Hammett?”
The man takes a breath and smiles indulgently, as if to say, please, think about your questions before you ask them.
“Okay, how about the obvious choice?”
“That’s not so obvious to me.”
Cortez nods. “Sorry. Maltese Falcon. Any paperback edition.”
“I’ve got one by Vintage. Two ninety-five, plus tax. Good-sized print.”
“Sold.”
Mr. Beck smiles and starts to move for a wall of paperbacks toward the rear of the store. He throws his voice back over his shoulder as Cortez follows. “Now we’re moving. What else can we get? You said it would be a long trip.”
“Yes, but now that I think about it, that one tide should do it. There’ll be some books waiting for me at my first stop.”
The clerk stops at a shelf, runs a finger parallel to the books’ spines without touching them, stops, and pulls down a black-covered book with green lettering and a picture of the famous bird sitting like an Egyptian sphinx.
He turns back toward Cortez and presents it. “First published in ’30. Still tremendously popular today.”
“I’ve read it before.”
“I would think so,” the man says, and then seems to regret it.
Cortez lets him off the hook and says, “There’s a part of this book that gets to me. One particular scene. A small bit. You know what I’m talking about?”
The man smiles as if they’d just become conspirators. As if they’d sealed some kind of mutually beneficial agreement.
“You know the scene? With Spade and Bridget O’Shaughnessy? At Spade’s place?”
“The story of Flitcraft,” the man says.
“Exactly,” Cortez says. “I knew you’d know.”
The man’s head slopes to the side a little. His lips stay together.
“I’ve always wondered what other people thought about that.”
When the man realizes that Cortez is waiting for a response, he says simply, “Of course.”
“Why do you think that scene is in there?”
The man lets his head roll slightly. His tongue slides out of his mouth and wets his lips. “It’s a great story,” he says.
They stare at each other for a few seconds, then Cortez reaches into his pocket and pulls out a roll of bills. Without looking, he fans them slightly, lets his fingers run through the fan, in decreasing denomination, until he stops and yanks loose a five. He hands it to Beck and says, “Keep the change.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ike has left the clock radio on and now, as he sleeps, the talk-show host warns the public about the dangerous epidemic of skinheads, racist teenage males who shave their scalps and engage in hideous violence in our urban cesspools. These skinheads, according to the talk-show host, are one of the greatest dangers facing our society today, a horrible blight on the landscape of freedom and truth, a perversion of all the values that America has fought and died for in bloody wars on foreign shores. They are monsters, beasts, scum of the earth, and must be dealt with as such.
HOST: Thank you for waiting, you’re on WQSG, tell the city what’s on your mind.
CALLER: Ray? Hello? Ray?
HOST: Yes, ma’am, you’re on the air.
CALLER: Hello? I don’t … Hello?
HOST: Go ahead, dear, we don’t have all night. You’re on the air.
CALLER: Oh yes, thank you, love the show, listen all the time.
HOST: Thank you. Your question, please.
CALLER: Yes, well, I was wondering, this skinhead problem, this problem you’ve been discussing, I was wondering, is this an inherited problem, what you would call a genetic problem, because my husband’s brother — oh, I was going to say his name, but never mind, he has no hair, he lost all his hair, all at once, just gone, not even any left around the ears, like, you see. Now, they called that, the doctor he went to called that alopecia, and his hair never came back, but he was always the same man we’ve known, wonderful man, nothing like these people you’ve described, he had none of these side effects …
HOST: Okay, one of those nights. All right, dear, now listen to me closely. These young men shave their heads, they don’t lose their hair, they shave their heads. Voluntarily. You understand? They do it to themselves. It has nothing to do with any disease. It’s a way to identify themselves as part of a hate group. And I’ll take a moment to say that I wish people would listen just a little more carefully before they call in. Next caller.
CALLER: Hello, Ray. It’s Johnny Z calling.
HOST: Johnny, haven’t heard from you in quite a while.
CALLER: You’re a popular man these days. Tough getting through those lines.
HOST: And what does my friend Johnny have to say about tonight’s topic?
CALLER: Clean and simple, Ray. Long as we’re castrated by the liberal courts in this state it’s up to each man to protect his family in whatever way necessary.
HOST: Amen, brother. Amen to that.
CALLER: These faggots are one more reason we got to protect our constitutional right to bear arms. I’ve got a beautiful double-pump Winchester I keep right on the back of the bedroom door, loaded and ready to go. I say, come on in, skinheads. Come on and visit. I’m all ready and waiting. Wouldn’t think twice.
HOST: I hear you, Johnny.
CALLER: Just wanted to say it.
HOST: Thanks for calling. Next caller, you’re on the air.
CALLER: Yes, Ray, just wondered if you people down at the station would like the real truth about all this?
HOST: About all what, caller?
CALLER: About how these skinheads are just one branch in Mayor Welby’s secret army and as we speak they’re mapping out the final details in their plan to round up all the blacks and Jews and—
HOST: Next caller, you’re on the air.
CALLER: Yeah, Ray, this is Vin from down San Remo. I thought this was going to be UFO night? What happened to UFO night?
HOST: Next Wednesday, Vin. Next caller, you’re on City Soapbox.
CALLER: Raymond, what’s gotten into you? You sound as bad as these skinhead people you’re complaining about. “Throw them in a pit and bulldoze the earth right over them.”
HOST: This is Mrs. G, isn’t it?
CALLER: You know my voice, Raymond.
HOST: Poor Mrs. G, we’re never going to see eye-to-eye. But let me tell you, dear lady, when you’re out there, day after day, the way I am, and you see this constant erosion of everything that was once good and pure in our town, well, I’m sorry, you start to think that maybe drastic measures are called for before it’s just too late and we wake up one day and the whole thing has been taken away from us. History tells a sad story, Mrs. G, believe me, it’s happened before. And we’ll be back in a short minute after this word from your friend and guide in your darkest hour, Loftus Funeral Home over on Patterson Ave.