Case File - a Collection of Nameless Detective Stories

by Bill Pronzini

  "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Turner."

  He nodded, stepped aside to let me come in. While he was relocking the door I glanced around the main floor. The cashier's desk was on the left, flanked by the wide gateway for the sensor alarm; you had to go through the gateway both entering and leaving, because there was a six-foot-high partition on the right-hand side. Beyond, several long display tables filled with sale books and recent arrivals were arranged for easy browsing. Floor-to-ceiling shelves covered the side walls, and stacks with narrow aisle-ways between them took up the rear half of the room. Off to one side toward the back, a flight of stairs led up to the second floor and another down to the basement.

  I let Turner precede me through the gateway. He looked to be in his mid-sixties, nondescript and mild, but his rheumy blue eyes were alert and intelligent, and I thought that they would not miss much.

  I asked him, "Is Mr. Rothman here?"

  "Yes. He's in his office, upstairs on the second floor. He asked me to send you right up; he'll show you around personally."

  "Thanks."

  Most of the second floor was given over to stacks; according to a number of neatly painted signs, all of the books here were used hardcover fiction—general novels, mysteries, Westerns and science fiction. Another flight of stairs led to the third floor, but there was a chain drawn across the bottom and a sign that said, No Admittance. A wider corridor than the aisle-ways between the stacks extended the length of the far wall, and when I got over there I saw three doors, the middle one standing open. I stopped in front of the open one. Inside was a good-sized office—Rothman's, probably, judging from the size of the desk and the big old-fashioned safe in one corner—but nobody was in it.

  I was standing there looking in when I heard a toilet flush. Then the third door opened and Rothman appeared. He saw me, caught up his cane from where it was leaning against the wall and limped over to me.

  "One of the signs of advancing age is a weak bladder," he said, and gave me a rueful smile. "Have you been waiting long?"

  "No, I just came up."

  "You spoke to Adam, of course. I didn't tell him you were a detective; I thought it would be best if only you and I know your real purpose here."

  I nodded. "Does he always come in this early?"

  "Most days, yes. Sometimes he's here before I am, and I usually arrive by eight-thirty. His wife died a few years ago; he's lonely, and the shop is a second home to him."

  "I see."

  "Would you like to see the Antiquarian Room before I show you the rest of the shop?"

  "Yes, please."

  We went back to the stairs, and Rothman unhooked the chain and led me up to the third floor. There was a door at the top of the stairs; he unlocked it with his key, switched on the lights inside.

  The Antiquarian Room was divided into two sections—the first and larger one containing several hundred books and pamphlets, the other one about a fifth as many prints, etchings, engravings, broadsides and maps. Half of the items were in glass display cases or inside glass-doored bookcases; the rest were openly shelved, most of those being sets of books: encyclopedias, histories, the collected works of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century authors. Refectory tables were set in the middle of each section, presumably so potential buyers could sit down and inspect whatever they were interested in. The good, musty smell of old books and old leather bindings was strong in the room.

  I asked, "Are all the things in here valuable?"

  "Comparatively, no," Rothman said. "Some are worth less than fifty dollars; they're kept here because of their age and because they're of interest only to serious collectors. I transferred a dozen or so of the most valuable items to my office safe several months ago, but there are still quite a few here worth a thousand dollars or more."

  "Are most of those prints and the like?"

  "No. Books."

  "But the prints and engravings and maps that were stolen were worth more, weren't they?"

  "Only in the case of the two Dürer etchings."

  "Then why would the thief have taken prints and maps instead of the more expensive books?"

  "I suppose because the people he's selling them to specialize in that sort of thing."

  I moved around the room, examining the cases. Most of them were locked, but the locks were pretty flimsy; once the thief had got in here, it wouldn't have taken him long to break them open. The lock on one in the print section had scratches on it, as if it had been picked with a sharp instrument. That was the case, Rothman told me, which had contained the Orient map that had disappeared three days ago.

  When I was done looking around, Rothman locked the door again and we descended to the second floor. He gave me a brief tour of the fiction section; took me down to the first floor, where most of the nonfiction was kept; and pointed out the location of the various categories. With the exception of a wall devoted to Western and regional Americana, and to travel books, the basement was full of trade and mass-market paperbacks of various types and back-issue magazines. There was also a stockroom down there, at the rear.

  By the time we came back up to the main floor, it was a quarter to ten and the other employees were beginning to arrive. The first of the three to show up was Harmon Boyette. He was about forty, gaunt, with curly black hair, ascetic features and a bushy mustache. Judging from his bloodshot eyes and splotchy skin, the faint trembling of his hands, he'd had another rough night with the bottle.

  Rothman introduced us. Boyette gave me a brief, appraising look, seemed to decide I was nobody he was much interested in and said he was glad to meet me without meaning it. He didn't offer to shake hands.

  Neal Vining came in five minutes later. Rothman had excused himself and gone back upstairs to answer another call of nature, so it was Adam Turner who performed the introductions this time. Vining had brown eyes, lank brown hair, a bright smile with a lot of teeth in it and one of those lean, athletic bodies that make you think of long-distance runners. He was dressed in a sports jacket and slacks, very spiffy, and he looked older than the twenty-six Rothman had told me he was.

  "Marlowe," he said, pumping my hand. "English name. But you don't look a bit English, I'm afraid."

  "My mother was Italian," I said truthfully.

  "Lovely people, the Italians. Have you ever been?"

  "To Italy? No, I haven't."

  "You should go someday, if you have the chance. Do you know books well, Jim?"

  "Not as well as I'd like to."

  "You'll learn them here, then. Won't he, Adam?"

  "If he chooses," Turner said.

  I did not get to meet Tom Lennox right away because he hadn't shown up yet when Turner hustled me down into the basement stockroom and put me to work. There were a couple of hundred newly acquired paperbacks on a table; my job was to sort them into categories and shelve them alphabetically in the proper sections. 1 figured I had better complete that task, to make the proper impression, before I did any roaming around. It took me more than an hour, and the place was full of customers when I finally went back upstairs.

  Vining was over in the Occult section, trying to sell a fat woman a book on witchcraft; I could hear him regaling her with esoteric information on the subject when I passed. Turner was behind the cashier's desk, and so was a short, stocky guy with not much hair who was talking on the telephone. I didn't see any sign of Boyette.

  The stocky guy finished his conversation and replaced the receiver as I came up. He was around thirty, freckled, with sad eyes and the sad, jowly face of a hound; what hair he had was a dark reddish color. I thought he must be Tom Lennox, and Turner confirmed it when he introduced us.

  "Good to have you with us, Mr. Marlowe," Lennox said. He had a soft, cultured voice that belied his appearance. "Thanks. I'm glad to be here."

  "You've had previous bookstore experience, have you?"

  "Some," I said. "I'm also a collector."

  "Oh? What do you collect?"

  "Pulp magazines."

 
; He wasn't impressed. Maybe he was a literary snob, or maybe he just had no interest in pulps; in any case, he said, "You have plenty of company these days. The prices tend to be highly overinflated."

  "I know," I said. "Supply and demand. That's why I collect the more inexpensive variety."

  Lennox nodded and turned away. So much for me, and so much for pulp magazines.

  Turner asked me if I'd finished shelving the paperbacks, and I told him I had. Then he said, "Harmon is upstairs working in hardcover fiction. I'd like you to go up and give him a hand."

  When I got upstairs I found Boyette in the mystery section, weeding out the stock—evidently to make room for new acquisitions. Books were stacked on the floor to one side.

  "Mr. Turner sent me up to give you some help," I said.

  "I don't need any help."

  "Well, those were my instructions."

  He ran a hand over his splotchy face; he was sweating and he looked sick. "All right, then. Take that stack of books downstairs and put them out front in the bargain bins. But make sure you stop at the desk first."

  "Why is that?"

  "So Turner can clear them before you go out. They told you about the alarm, didn't they?"

  "Oh, right. I guess that's a pretty good safeguard, the alarm system."

  "Is it?"

  "It prevents thefts, doesn't it?"

  "Sometimes," he said. "Not always."

  "You mean people can still manage to steal books? I don't see how."

  "There are ways."

  "What ways?"

  "Didn't anybody tell you about the thefts we've been having?"

  "No," I said. "What sort of thefts?"

  "Valuable items from the Antiquarian Room upstairs. A half-dozen over the past few months. Nobody knows how it's been done." His mouth turned sardonic. "Rothman thinks one of us is responsible."

  "One of the employees?"

  "That's right."

  "Is that what you think, too?"

  "I don't get paid to think," Boyette said. "Personally, I don't give a damn who's responsible. Whoever it is can steal Rothman blind for all I care."

  "You sound as though you don't like Mr. Rothman much."

  "Maybe I've got reason not to like him."

  "He seems like a decent sort to me. . ."

  "He is if you suck up to him. I've got five times as much bookselling experience as Lennox and Vining, but I'm the one who gets all the scut work around here. That's because I don't brownnose anybody."

  "But Lennox and Vining do?"

  Lennox goes to garage sales, buys books, and resells them to Rothman for a few cents apiece. Vining gives him fancy presents from his father-in-law's men's store. All I give him is a good eight hours of work."

  "That ought to be enough."

  "It isn't," he said bitterly. He narrowed his eyes at me. "What about you, Marlowe? Are you a brownnoser?"

  "No."

  "Then we're in the same boat. But I wouldn't care if you were. I wouldn't even care if you went to Rothman and told him everything I just said."

  "I wouldn't do that —"

  "He could fire me tomorrow and I wouldn't give a damn. I don't like him and I don't like this place and I don't like being under suspicion all the time."

  "If you feel that way, why don't you quit?"

  "That's just what I intend to do. As soon as I can find another job."

  A customer came clumping up the stairs just then and over into the aisle where we were, and that put an end to the conversation. Boyette said, "Go ahead and take those books downstairs," and returned his attention to the shelves.

  I carried the stack of books down to the cashier's desk, waited while Turner cleared them across the sensor strip and then took them outside to where two rolling bins of bargain items were set in front of the display windows. When I got back to the second floor I tried to talk to Boyette again, to see if I could get anything else out of him, but he had lapsed into a moody silence. He didn't have more than a dozen words to say to me over the next two hours.

  Rothman went out for lunch at twelve-thirty, Vining around one and Boyette at one-thirty. Lennox and Turner ate brown-bag lunches on the premises, Turner right there at the desk. I also ate lunch in the shop—I'd made myself a couple of sandwiches before leaving my flat that morning—up on the second floor where I could watch the stairs to the Antiquarian Room. Rothman had told me that all of the thefts had occurred between eleven and two; I didn't want to leave, even for a half-hour, and risk missing something.

  But there was nothing to miss. Nobody went near the Antiquarian Room and nobody did anything else of a suspicious nature, at least as far as I could tell.

  Boyette came back at two-fifteen. He no longer looked quite so sick; his face was flushed and his eyes were a little glassy. I was downstairs when he came in, working in the section marked Belle Lettres. Lennox happened to be nearby, and I moved over to him as Boyette climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  "Looks as though Harmon drank his lunch," I said.

  Lennox made a disapproving noise. "He generally does."

  "An alcoholic?"

  "That's rather obvious, isn't it?"

  "I guess it is. He seems to be a pretty bitter man, from some of the things he said to me this morning."

  "Don't pay any attention to him," Lennox said. "The man has a chip on his shoulder. He thinks he deserves better than his present lot, and he can be damned unpleasant at times."

  "Do you think he's honest?"

  Lennox frowned. "What sort of question is that?"

  "Well, he told me about the thefts from the Antiquarian Room," I said. "He says Mr. Rothman believes one of the employees is responsible."

  "He had no business talking to you about that," Lennox said stiffly. "The thefts are none of your concern."

  "Maybe not, but I do work here now —"

  "Yes. And if you want to continue working here, you'll do well to tend to your work and mind your own affairs."

  He stalked away toward the cashier's desk. As he did, Neal Vining appeared around the corner of the neat stack and came up beside me; he had a fat book on archaeology in one hand.

  "Harmon isn't the only fellow who can be unpleasant," he said.

  "Tom's a bit tight-assed himself, you know."

  "You overheard?"

  "Accidentally, yes."

  "What's Lennox's problem?"

  "Oh, he takes himself and his work much too seriously. One would think he owned this shop, the way he acts."

  "Those thefts do seem pretty serious," I said.

  "They are, of course. Nasty business. I expect we're all on edge because of them."

  "Do you agree with Mr. Rothman that someone who works here is responsible?"

  He shrugged. "So it would seem, given the circumstances."

  "Who do you think it might be?"

  "I really don't have any idea," Vining said. "For all I know, Mr. Rothman himself could be slipping out with the spoils. Not that I believe that's the case, you understand," he added hastily. "He's quite above reproach. The point is, the thief could be anyone."

  "Even Adam Turner?"

  "Adam? I hardly think so. But then, two of the missing items were etchings attributed to Albrecht Dürer, and Adam does have considerable expertise in that area. He once wrote an article on Dürer's work. He was also the person who arranged for Mr. Rothman to purchase the two etchings from the estate of a private collector."

  "Oh? How was he able to do that?"

  "The collector was an acquaintance of Adam's," Vining said. "They struck up a correspondence when the article was published."

  Lennox returned and called Vining away to the telephone, so I didn't have a chance to press him for any more information.

  But what he'd told me was food for thought. If Turner was the guilty party, there was no real mystery in how he'd managed the thefts. He could have cleared the stolen pieces through the sensor at any time, working as he did on the cashier's desk, and walked out with t
hem hidden in his clothes. Or he could have simply arrived early in the morning, as Rothman had told me he did periodically, and removed them from the store before Rothman showed up.

  I decided that on Monday I would run a background check on Turner, after all.

  The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. I spent most of it on the main floor, with occasional trips upstairs to check on Boyette. He was still uncommunicative, and by four o'clock, when the drinks he'd had for lunch had worn off, he had turned surly; he snapped at me and at a customer who asked him a question about a book. When closing time rolled around, he was the first one out the door.

  I stayed until six-fifteen, making myself look busy; Vining and Lennox were gone by then. When Rothman came down he sent Turner and me on our way so he could shut off the sensor alarm and lock up as he usually did. I waited around for him outside. The rain had stopped and there were patches of clear sky among the clouds to the east; with any luck, the weather would be good for my weekend with Kerry.

  Rothman came out a couple of minutes later. "Where's your car?" he asked when he finished locking the front doors.

  "In the lot two blocks down."

  "That's my direction. We can talk as we walk."

  He set off at a brisk pace, in spite of his game leg. I asked him, "Everything okay in the Antiquarian Room?"

  "Yes. I checked it this morning, and again tonight before I came down. Nothing's been touched. Have you found out anything so far?"

  "Nothing specific, no," I said. I saw no purpose in telling him about Boyette's references to him, in making trouble for Boyette, unless it turned out to have some bearing on my investigation. And I didn't want to press him on Turner until I ran the background check. "I'm afraid this is the kind of job that may take some time, Mr. Rothman."

  "I don't expect you to perform miracles," he said. "Time isn't important to me; finding out which of them is guilty, and how he's doing it, is what matters."

  We had gone a block, and when we crossed the street Rothman stopped in front of a building that bore a sign reading: Pacific Health Club. "This is where I'm going," he said.

  "You belong to a health club?"

  He smiled. "I don't lift weights or play racquetball with Neal Vining, if that's what you're thinking. Mostly I use the Jacuzzi; it helps me relax and eases the pain in my leg."