The Bookwoman's Last Fling

by John Dunning

  She was a grown woman. “But I had to use restraint.”

  Still they would meet quietly: he would come to her; wherever she was he would get there and they would walk and talk of things far away. “Those were the best years, the only years. Everything before then was childhood nonsense, everything afterward…

  “There was nothing afterward.”

  He coughed. “How can I tell you about her father?”

  Picture a man who loved his only child so much that he became terrified of everything most people would call the best things in life. “I know he never meant to lock her away from the world…he had to, like he was compelled to hold her close and never let her be touched by anything or anybody. This affected her in a real and profound way. She became extremely dependent. In time, I was her only friend, and nobody knew about us.

  “I was so sure we would eventually marry, and I was determined I would never touch her until then. Today that sounds silly, but that’s how I was. I would rise up and save her from that insular world old Ritchey had consigned her to. But then he died suddenly and she married Geiger. I had a funny reaction to that, I almost expected it. It’s okay, he’s just another old man, I thought. Let him have her for a year or two; this too will pass. But it didn’t pass. Who would ever think that old bastard would outlive her?”

  “And when she married Geiger, you followed them.”

  “As far as I could. To the racetrack at least, and I saw her there, and sometimes we talked, and in time this became my life. I moved west from New York to Bay Meadows and Golden Gate and the fairs, wherever he went, I could always get some kind of half-assed walking job to tide me over. And I waited for him to die, and he never did.”

  “What about her mother?”

  “Candice never knew her. She died years ago.”

  I waited but he seemed to have run out of steam, so I prompted him.

  “Did you know about her peanut allergy?”

  “You couldn’t know her and not know that.”

  “Which may have been another reason for Ritchey to have his paranoia.”

  “It scared the hell out of him, with good reason.”

  “Do you think she just got careless?”

  “Not a chance. She was way smarter than that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Maybe she killed herself.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I know she was very unhappy after her dad died. She once told me, ‘I never should’ve got married.’ But if you’re asking for my opinion, no, she wouldn’t do that.”

  “Then what did happen?”

  He shrugged. “Some awful mistake…”

  “Or somebody did it to her.”

  He gave a mighty shudder and sat shivering for most of a minute. “Nobody could do that,” he said. “Who the hell would do such a thing?”

  “We don’t know who was around her then. At least I don’t.”

  “I mean, why would anybody…”

  “Don’t think of it that way. Think of motives and see if a face pops up.”

  He furrowed his brow, then shook his head. “I can’t imagine any motives.”

  I ran the list of murder motives through my mind. “There aren’t that many. Jealousy, revenge, money, a threat to somebody…” I stared into his eyes and said, “Books.”

  His eyes opened wide. “Man, that’s just crazy. I mean, fuckin’ books?”

  “Same as money, except it’s peculiar to certain people. And got a lot more sex appeal.”

  “Books,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Surely you knew about her books.”

  “Well, yeah. I know she had some nice stuff…”

  “What an unwashed schlemiel might consider a real fortune.”

  “An unwashed schlemiel.” He smiled wryly. “That would be me.”

  “Somebody who truly coveted her books.” I thought about the most extreme cases of bibliomania. “There’s only one thing wrong with that idea. Most of the books are still there.”

  “Still where?”

  “Back in Idaho. There are some significant missing titles there.”

  “You mean somebody took them?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Jesus,” he said.

  “Does any of this make sense to you? I mean, why would a thief take certain titles and leave other, more valuable, titles right in plain sight on the same shelf?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s like he didn’t know what he was after. Not even enough to cherry-pick ’em.”

  “And you think this, whoever he was…k-k…oh Christ, you think he killed her?”

  I shrugged. “It may be weak but it’s the best motive I’ve come up with.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. Said nothing for several moments. Then slowly his eyes came up to meet mine. “Where do you come into this?”

  “Her daughter has asked me to find out about her.”

  “Her daughter,” he said numbly.

  “Sharon.” I nodded. “Do you want to meet her?”

  He looked horrified. “Jeez, I don’t know. Oh, man, I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe she can help you put away some ghosts.”

  “Or maybe not. Might just make things worse.”

  “Well, you’ve got time to think on it. She’s not going anywhere.”

  His eyes were open wide now. “Jesus,” he said. “After Candice married Geiger, we never saw each other much at all. Except in the stable area…in the distance sometimes I’d see her and she’d wave. Like I was any old friend.”

  I leaned up and tried to encourage him with a hand gesture.

  “It was hard for her to get away, but she did come to see me a few times when Geiger went off from the barn for an afternoon. Just to talk, like the old days.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing. Everything. All the storybook stuff we had always talked about. But it was different then. I knew she wasn’t happy.”

  “Did you ever ask her?”

  “Oh sure. And one day she got teary and said, ‘I’ve really made a mess of things, Ricky. I never should’ve…’”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t remember. Maybe she never finished what she was saying.”

  “Then guess. What do you think she’d say?”

  “She never should’ve married Geiger.”

  “What might you have said to that?”

  “What I did say. I told her what a great girl she was; how she didn’t have to stay with anybody if he made her unhappy.” He looked as if another thought had come to him. “Geiger was a rigid taskmaster, almost from day one. He had to run everything. If you want to know why his sons turned out like they did, it was old man Geiger. Acorns don’t fall far from the old tree after all. You had to know him; he was just a dominant man. Even with all her money Candice couldn’t stand up to him. Once they married she was his and after a while I knew she’d never leave him.”

  Then he said, “Sometimes I thought of killing him.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No, but I thought of it. She needed to be set free again.”

  “Maybe someone killed her in a rage. Did you ever think of that?” I looked at him keenly, but he only shook his head, and then, a long moment later, said, “Man, I can’t see that.”

  But maybe he did see it. “There was a guy who hung around her here for a while.”

  “What guy?…You mean a fortune-hunter type?”

  “I never knew who he was or what he wanted. I saw him a few times from a distance.”

  “Saw him how? When? Under what circumstances?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

  “Was he a racetracker?”

  He shook his head. “I remember every little thing about her, but I haven’t given him more than a passing thought in years.”

  “This might be important. Was it maybe Sandy Standish?”

  “No. I know Sandy and this wasn’
t him.” He leaned over and looked down at his feet. “I guess I’m not much help after all.”

  “Don’t write yourself off too soon.” I leaned forward and looked at him seriously. “Did you ever hear her refer to anybody as the Mad Hatter?”

  “No. Doesn’t sound like one of her whimsical names, does it? Sounds dark…crazy.”

  “If you remember it, I’d like to know. It may be important.”

  “Right now I’m getting a helluva headache. Just want to lie down somewhere.”

  I took the hundred out of my wallet. “No,” he said. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  I stuck it in his shirt pocket as he hurried out. I hoped he wouldn’t drink it away. But he did.

  21

  This time he went to a new place where I couldn’t easily find him. It took me most of the night, tramping along San Pablo, asking questions, chasing a will-o’-the-wisp, but I got a few leads and went quickly from one bar to another. I found him sometime after midnight, bleary-eyed in a dive down toward Oakland. This was long and thankless work, but I pulled him out of there, and got him in my car, and finally got him back to the racetrack. I left him in his tack room, went back to my own, and two hours later I was up and walking.

  Sandy came in at five, Ms. Patterson materialized out of some ether-like fog; we walked half the stable, sent the rest to the track, and by nine-thirty I was finished.

  I walked over to Cappy Wilson’s barn. He was an old man with stooped shoulders, thin white hair, pale gray eyes, and gray stubble on his chin.

  “Rick around?”

  “He’s sleepin’. If you want him, take him on out of here. I got no more use for him.”

  I followed him up the shedrow. At the tack room he turned and said, “You his friend?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Look, I don’t want to fire him, but I can’t put up with this shit.”

  “No,” I said, but I didn’t go away.

  He looked at me with sad eyes and said, “What does he want from me? I already gave him more chances than anybody on the racetrack. This is a tough business, son. I gotta have people I can count on.”

  “Sure you do,” I said. “It’s just that I think he’s trying now. I know last night was bad, but how about one more chance? I’ll pay his salary for two weeks; it won’t cost you anything.”

  “Now why the hell would you do that?”

  “Because he’s at the end of his rope. And maybe I just think he’s worth saving.”

  He stood there shaking his head. “By God, you’re crazier than he is.”

  “That’s a strong possibility, Mr. Wilson.”

  “Call me Cap. But don’t try to pay me anything, I’ll give him one more chance on my own. But I’m gonna make it clear to him; another slip and his ass is gone for good.”

  “Thanks, Cap.”

  I called Sharon and left her a message, recapping the news.

  Called Erin’s room number downtown but no one answered. Left a message that I would get back with her tonight.

  Walked through the stable area and talked to people. Today no one I met remembered Candice or the old man except in general terms that didn’t add anything to what I already knew. I was beginning to see the end of the trail. Same old faces: nobody new, nobody interesting, nobody who cared. I had covered a lot of ground in two days.

  I was eating a late lunch in the kitchen when some racetrackers I knew came in, three old-timers I had talked to yesterday. One nodded vaguely my way and I raised my coffee cup. He looked like he wanted to say something but I didn’t push him and I didn’t rush away. They got some food and sat one table over. “Hey,” the one finally said. “You ever find out what you wanted about them Geigers?”

  “A little but it’s slow work. You remember something?”

  “Not much.”

  I waited but he didn’t seem inclined to go into it. They ate and talked about horses long dead, about lost times and mythic stretch drives and faraway races. Ghost riders in the sky. They looked at each other and watched life slipping away, and after a while they began to leave. But the one lingered and I felt his eyes, and that hunch kept growing. There was something I had missed, some fact or impression perhaps hidden for years. Again I asked him if he remembered anything new; again he said not much and smiled. I put my wallet on the table and said, “I don’t want to insult you, friend…”

  “Hey, I don’t get insulted. Knock yourself out.”

  “Twenty-five bucks no matter what it is. More if it helps.”

  “How much more?”

  “We’ll have to see about that.”

  He smiled easily. “There was a rumor goin’ around about Geiger’s wife. Didn’t want to say nuthin’ yesterday, but then I thought, hell…”

  “What about her?”

  “She was kinda his own last hoo-rah, if you know what I mean.”

  “Really? I always heard he was a slick old cocksman.”

  “Them’s the worst kind, when the old pencil runs out of lead. The guys that used to be red-hot papas but ain’t so red hot anymore.”

  He moved over to my table. “When Geiger was young he’d take on anything. Guys used to say, Lock up your mares, boys, old Geiger’s in town. Then his motor just stopped, if you know what I mean.”

  “Like many aging men.”

  “Don’t look at me when you say that, son, I can still do a night’s work between the sheets. But everybody my age can’t, and some a helluva lot younger. It hits some of ’em pretty hard, and Geiger was one of ’em that got hit hardest. But he wanted something to show people, and she was it. She was something special.”

  “Did you know Geiger had a daughter with Candice?”

  “That’s what I heard. I guess somebody must have.”

  “How’d you know all this?”

  “Couple of women of our mutual acquaintance, old drinking pals of mine, bed pals with Geiger.”

  “So when did all this talk begin?”

  “Oh, at least a year or two before he brought Ms. Candice around.”

  We lingered over our coffee and I gave him a fifty.

  I walked over to Cappy’s shedrow and found Rick up, mucking a stall. He was still green around the gills and he didn’t want to talk, especially to me. But I stood there looking over his shoulder until he began to squirm.

  “Go away,” he said. “You don’t need to say anything, I know I screwed up.”

  “I try not to say the obvious. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don’t.”

  “I don’t know why but Cappy’s giving me one more chance.”

  “Maybe because he’s a good guy. Now you pay him back by making the most of it. You don’t get many extra chances in life.”

  “I know, I know, even low in life. Where the hell am I gonna go if I lose this job? I’ll be out on the street. I’ll be in the gutter.”

  “Don’t lose it, Rick.”

  “Cappy wants me to make it, but he can’t be stupid about it. I understand where he’s coming from.”

  “Then hold that thought. You got any money left?”

  “Nothing from the hundred, some from the other day—eighty dollars maybe.”

  “Give it to me if you want, I’ll hold it for you.”

  He surprised me by digging it out right there. “Ninety-two bucks. More than I thought.”

  “Better keep some for food.”

  He kept out a sawbuck, then changed his mind and took just three dollars. “Can’t have much of a drunk on three bucks.”

  “Can’t get much dinner either.”

  We sat quietly for a while. At some point I eased him back into our discussion of Candice, Sharon, and old Geiger. “You been giving it any more thought?”

  “I had a dream about them last night.”

  “Feel like sharing it?”

  “If you want to hear it, but it’s like a lot of dreams, it doesn’t make much sense.”

  I nodded and he said, “We were all in some shedrow together…Geiger, Cand
ice, and some grown girl I knew was her daughter. You were there too, but you must’ve been working in one of the stalls; I couldn’t see you but I knew you were there. I don’t know where I was, but I could see and hear everything that went on, close-up like I was in everybody’s face at the same time. Geiger was angry; I could see that right away. He was furious with Candice, and the daughter—Sharon, you said—was standing up to him, telling him to leave her alone. He seemed to be on the edge of some violent outburst; had this cruel smirk on his face the whole time. Finally he looked at Sharon and said, ‘You just shut up. I know what you are and you got nothing to say about anything we do.’ And Sharon faced him down and said, ‘What am I? Tell them all if you know so much.’ She looked at Candice and said, ‘Mamma?’ but Candice only shook her head. ‘Tell them, Mamma,’ Sharon said. ‘I’m not ashamed of who or what I am.’ I said, ‘Why should you be?’ and suddenly Geiger exploded. ‘You stay out of this, Lawrence. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep quiet about it.’”

  I spoke into the sudden quiet. “About what?”

  “Apparently something I was supposed to know. I have no idea what.”

  “Think about it.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing? It was just one of those screwy dreams.”

  We sat some more.

  “Sharon was his daughter…wasn’t she?”

  I shrugged. “All I can tell you for sure is, Sharon was her daughter.”

  He blinked at me. “You’re saying Candice was screwing around? Christ, I don’t believe it.”

  We lapsed into another long silence. His eyes flitted around the stall, then he closed them, then he opened them and stared at nothing. Another long minute passed.

  “This is totally unlike her. Not Candice…she wouldn’t…”

  “You’re still thinking of her as a child, afraid and under the thumb of her father.”

  “Just because a person grows up, her whole personality doesn’t change.”

  “Sometimes it does, Rick. Sometimes she discovers what was hidden there all along.”

  He looked anguished. “Why the hell didn’t she come to me?” he said.

  I shrugged, but the message was there anyway. She tried but you had fantasized her. You had idealized her like her father. Maybe all she ever wanted was to be a woman.