The Bookwoman's Last Fling

by John Dunning

  “Is that what Candice was?”

  “No!” He recoiled from the question, shriveling behind the wire cage and growing smaller for a moment. “Candice was the sweetest girl. Goddammit, you know better than that.”

  I shrugged an apology.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard from others how wonderful Candice was.”

  I nodded.

  “A finer woman never drew a breath of air.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  He shook his head vigorously and retreated from the question. “Candice was a superb woman. I never would have hurt her. She was a lady.”

  She was the great love of his life. She was all he could think about from the first time he saw her. This went on for quite a while and his voice settled into a soft droning. An hour later I said, “Carroll,” and he nodded. “I know,” he said. “I know, I know.”

  We sat through several quiet minutes. Then he said, “I’ve got a deal for you. Something you can’t refuse.”

  I put both hands in my pockets, a gesture that was lost on him.

  “I’ve got a deal,” he said again.

  I nodded and he got to it in time, in his own way.

  In exchange for certain favors, he would answer my questions. But I had to be willing to understand his side of it. I had to listen with an open mind.

  I had conditions of my own. “I want a list, every book you ever got from Cameron, anything that might even remotely be connected to Candice.”

  That would be easy, he said: He remembered them all in detail, he knew each title intimately, and he had them all stored in one place in the library’s new acquisitions room. I knew it would not be quite that simple: Many other books would have to be examined, but his list would be an essential starting point. And this is how, late that first afternoon, we began to talk.

  I stayed there two days. And at night I studied his list and reconstructed what he’d said in my notebook. There was a sameness to it, a gush of words that amounted to a few important facts, the rest justification, babble, and occasionally the crazy hope that I would still be his bookscout when he got back to work at the library. “You always were my best pair of eyes, Cliff.”

  I tried to smile. Didn’t quite make it.

  “For what it’s worth, you were the only one I could count on to buy me a book and I knew sight unseen that it would be a beauty.”

  “Trust goes a long way in this business, Carroll.”

  I was looking in his eyes when I said that, but he looked away.

  “We’ll do it again, you watch and see if we won’t,” he said. “When I get out of this goddam hole, we’ll be the greatest team since Batman and what’s-his-face.”

  “Robin,” I said.

  “Yeah.” He laughed and finally, in that moment, Charlie fused into Carroll.

  “You know I never meant to hurt anybody.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  That night I wrote his words in Sharon’s journal. A short entry: two pages of dialogue.

  You know I never meant to hurt anybody. Especially not Candice.

  I loved her.

  Why couldn’t she understand that? All I ever wanted was for her to let me love her.

  But as time went on, I could see I was losing her. What had started in such joy had become frightening to both of us. Maybe sometimes I did become too possessive but I was always afraid she would leave me. She was afraid as well, but of what?

  Me? How could she be afraid of me? I only wanted what was best for her, always.

  Always.

  At least now she’s beyond all that hurt. I gave her that. I set her free. Wherever she is, you can bet she’s thanking me.

  She was never happy.

  Never.

  Candice was born with a broken heart.

  I could have helped her, but she said she was leaving me. On that last day I ground the peanuts into a pulpy mush and worked it carefully into her cereal. She was helpless after one bite.

  I sat beside her and held her hand, and watched her die.

  Then I cried. Don’t suppose you’ll understand that but I loved her. It’s important that you understand how much I loved her. And she loved me too; I know she did. But she was mixed up. All her life she was tortured and confused.

  Now you know what I did and why I did it. Don’t forget your promise. Don’t betray me.

  She’s better off, that’s why I did it. I did it for her.

  Because I loved her.

  She’s better off.

  She’s better…

  …better…happier…

  She is so much happier now.

  I was at the Blakely four days. It’s easy when you have a list and the books are all in one place, but I took my time and looked through the entire library anyway.

  When I was satisfied I drove out to Golden Gate, where the spring season was going strong. I looked up Cappy Wilson and we had coffee in the kitchen.

  Rick had died one morning in February. “He just never got up,” Cappy said. “The poor bastard never got out to work. What a sad way to end a sad life.”

  I felt deeply diminished by this news. “You did what you could for him, Cap,” I said, but I knew how he felt.

  Rick’s spirit followed me across the desert.

  I stopped in Idaho on the long trip home. Sharon was sitting on her porch half asleep when I pulled into the yard. I shut the car door and her eyes fluttered open; she smiled and began stirring on her chair.

  She was alone. Martha had stayed with her three weeks and had reluctantly left for racetracks in Florida, where there wasn’t much chance of running into people. “She doesn’t ever want to see Baxter again after calling him a killer.”

  Bob and Louie had gone to Montana to pick up some sick horses. “I think Bob wants to stay here,” Sharon said. “At least for a while.”

  “You’re an easier boss than Sandy.”

  “Sandy turned out strange, didn’t he?” she said. “He still hasn’t called me.”

  “He’s not going to, now.”

  “So what do you think? Is he my father?”

  “There’s no way to tell if he won’t cooperate.”

  “The hell with him,” she said, suddenly angry. “He knows where I’m at.”

  A moment later: “I’m never gonna hear from him, am I?”

  I shrugged. Probably not.

  Sandy had returned to Golden Gate. He had run eight of Barbara’s horses in Santa Anita stakes races and had done no better than one fading fourth-place finish. But the final blow had come when he entered his own horse in a $50,000 claimer and had won pulling up by twelve lengths. Barbara fired him loudly that same afternoon.

  Sharon took this news with quiet amusement. “Junior and Damon aren’t setting the world on fire either,” she said. “Five starts, zilch to show.”

  “Time wounds all heels,” I said and she laughed sadly.

  “Here’s a question for you,” she said later. “What am I gonna do with Bob?”

  “I don’t know, Sharon. What do you want to do?”

  “He’s a good hand. Works hard. Likes it here.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back at the blue Idaho sky. “He’s in love with me. A girl can tell.”

  “So where does that lead?”

  “Not where he wants it to. He’s way too young.”

  “He’s not that young.”

  “How old do you think?”

  “As a guess…mid-twenties maybe.”

  “Oh God,” she said.

  “Play it as it goes, Sharon. Be loose and see what happens. Since you asked.”

  I asked how Billy was doing.

  “Fairly well, I think,” she said. “One of these days he may show up on your doorstep.”

  “I can handle that. I’ve still got a few friends in the Denver cops and I’d like him to meet them. It’s no slam-dunk, you still have to take the tests and do better than the other guys. That’s life in the city.”

  She leaned over. “I’ll bet you w
ere a helluva cop, Janeway.”

  “I was pretty good,” I said modestly. “But let’s face it, this wasn’t my greatest moment. This time I was way too slow on the uptake.”

  “You were quick enough when the chips were down.”

  “Thanks to Billy I’m here to tell about it.”

  She had a package for me. “Don’t open it now. Wait till you get home and just accept it with my love and gratitude.”

  She brushed off my objections. “Accept it with grace or I swear I’ll give it to Goodwill.”

  I thought there was a hint in that.

  “Looks like books. Feels like books.” I sniffed at the wrapping. “Smells like books.”

  “Just a few old things. Some second copies I had lying around.”

  I helped her with the chores, and that night I stashed my stuff in the tack room over the barn. We went to the Sandpiper for dinner and afterward she came over and we sat in the open loft and looked out over the road and talked.

  She asked about Erin.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said. “Right now there’s something pretty deep that’s dividing us.”

  “You’re a magnet for killers. She doesn’t like that.”

  “Yeah. It’s hard to believe but she’s lost her taste for it.”

  “Give this some serious thought, Cliff. She’s a good woman.”

  “She’s a very good woman. I just can’t give her what she wants anymore.”

  “Your wants change when you reach a certain age, you need some peace and quiet. That’s where Erin is now. She wants stability. At the same time, you are what you are. If you get too lonely, you can come up here and stay with me.”

  I slept alone in the tack room and struck out for Denver the next day. It was an all-day drive and I got home after dark. That night I opened Sharon’s box and was floored at what she had given me. Inside was a note. I may send you something else from time to time if you promise to keep happy. Love and thanks from Idaho.

  And that night, unable to sleep, I went out and drove the streets of Denver. It was a windy, rainy night along East Colfax. I went to my store and began working on my promise to Charlie. The next day I sent out a case of books. Junk fiction. Dupes. Second copies I had lying around. Third copies, fifth copies, old books, stuff that had been in the store forever—stuff I would never sell, but the beginning of an exciting new stash for Charlie.

  The perfect gift for a bibliofreak.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  John Dunning is the author of four previous novels in the Cliff Janeway series: Booked to Die, The Bookman’s Wake—a New York Times Notable Book of 1995—The Bookman’s Promise, and most recently The Sign of the Book. An expert on rare and collectible books, he owned the Old Algonquin Bookstore in Denver for many years, and now does his bookselling online. He is also an expert on American radio history and the author of a novel, Two O’Clock, Eastern Wartime, about the radio world, as well as a nonfiction book, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. He was for many years host of the weekly Denver radio show Old Time Radio. In the 1960s he worked as a ginney on the California racing circuit, at Bay Meadows, the state fair in Sacramento, and at Golden Gate Field and Santa Anita. John Dunning lives in Denver, Colorado.