Huckleberry Fiend

by Julie Smith

  “I thought,” I said, “you’d be a bespectacled old man.”

  “That was my dad.”

  I waved an arm. “I should have known this wasn’t built in a day.”

  Debay moved behind the counter, maybe to put a little distance between us. Jenny Swensen, one of America’s most touted authors, busied herself with the mundane business of dusting. “What can I do for you, Mr. Mcdonald?”

  “I’m working on a story about manuscript collecting.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Odd sort of news story.”

  “Yes, well, that’s what attracted me to it. No one cares about books anymore. Have you noticed?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’re fortunate. Out in the concrete jungles—” I turned around to point to the outside, but I found myself flustered. I’d been about to speak of the Philistines abounding in the lanes and hedgerows when I realized Debay was making it clear he thought me one of them. “In the age of TV, I wanted to write about some people who really care about books— care passionately, I mean.”

  “And how may I help you?”

  “I thought that, since the university has just published that wonderful new edition of Huckleberry Finn, I’d write about Mark Twain collectors. The people at the Bancroft Library say there are lots of them, and they’re quite colorful. I’ve even heard Pamela Temby is a collector.”

  “Have you?” His expression said he smelled rotten eggs, but I couldn’t tell whether it was aimed at me or Temby.

  I shrugged, hoping I seemed casual and worldly-wise. “I haven’t confirmed it yet. At any rate, the folks at the Bancroft sent me to you.”

  He looked as if I were speaking Bulgarian. “Whatever for?”

  “I’d like to interview some collectors. They thought you might be able to give me the names of some of the big ones.” Now I’d done it. I’d obviously made a request on a par with drinking the blood of his firstborn. I knew it before he spoke.

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly violate the privacy of my clients.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize privacy was involved.” But I should have, after Linda’s remark about collectors not wanting people to know what they had. Debay’s extraordinary standoffishness added another dimension to this urgent need for privacy— combined with the fact that dealers didn’t like to have documents authenticated, it had started to smell a little on the piscine side. “Without giving names of specific collectors,” I said, “can you tell me how I might go about meeting some?”

  More eggs seemed to be rotting. “There’s some kind of organization called the Huckleberry Fiends. But I’m afraid I really can’t tell you much about it.”

  “I’ll check it out. Thanks for your time, Mr. Debay.”

  I more or less staggered out, still reeling from one of the most thorough bum’s rushes I’d ever been treated to— and for an ex-reporter, that’s saying something. For a while I just stood on the sidewalk, staring into space and trying to get my bearings; and then I turned around and stared in the window. Jenny Swensen was putting on her coat, probably getting ready for lunch, and it occurred to me she might have a thing or two to say about working conditions in a rare bookstore.

  She came out looking purposeful. “Miss Swensen.” I tried to look nonthreatening. “I thought you might like to have lunch.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t think so.”

  “I’d consider it a very great pleasure. I’d love to treat a literary star.”

  “I only have half an hour—”

  “We’ll find a deli.”

  She knew one, of course— it was her turf. When we were seated over sandwiches, I said, “It must be hard trying to write and work at the same time.”

  I’d spoken out of firsthand knowledge of publishing poverty, and I couldn’t have hit on a better subject if I’d been psychic.

  “To write and work and raise two children? It’s hell. But Rick spells me for a couple hours a day so I can write in a back room. He thinks it’s classy to have me around.”

  “I didn’t think the pay could be very good.”

  “It’s shit— but a little better than I could make anywhere else. I have no marketable skills— not even typing.”

  “You write in longhand?”

  “Yes. And then pay to get my stuff transcribed.” She spoke bitterly.

  I shook my head in genuine sympathy. “A writer of your caliber ought to be able to make a living from her writing.”

  “Literary merit doesn’t sell. They want you to write what they call ‘big books.’ Swill like family sagas and mysteries.” Didn’t I know it, but she’d got it garbled about the mysteries— no books were “smaller.”

  “Know how long I’ve been writing? Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century and I still can’t support myself.” I was thunderstruck— only three books in twenty-five years, and one of them a short-story collection! But they did read as if she took forever over them— they were squeezed out and stingy; dark, depressing and bitter. Revengeful and hateful. Worst of all, oblique and elliptical— they asked the reader to fill in a lot of blanks, and when he did, to my mind there still wasn’t much there. I couldn’t stand them, but I was beginning to understand the shadowy cave they came out of. Jenny Swensen wasn’t what you’d call a cockeyed optimist.

  She was still talking. “I started writing in college. My first story was published in a ‘little magazine’— infinitesimal, almost— and so was my check. Twenty dollars they paid me. Twenty big ones and I had writer friends a generation older who said that’s what they were paid for their first stories. Then I got married and used to get up at five a.m. to write when the kids were in diapers. And then—” she threw open her arms and let her eyes fill with tears— “my husband left me and I had to work full time.”

  “I’ll bet you kept writing even then.”

  “I tried, but I couldn’t turn out more than about a short story a year.”

  “It must have been tough.”

  “Dear God! They talk about movie rights and foreign rights and paperback rights and hard-soft deals— spare me! Do you want to know what my dearest ambition is? To support myself. That’s all. Just to be able to support myself by my writing and to quit working for that miserable little—” She stopped, apparently remembering she didn’t know me from Noah.

  I gave her an encouraging smile. “It’s okay. I didn’t care much for him either. He seemed needlessly closemouthed. Almost suspiciously so.”

  She looked over her shoulder, as if worried about being overheard. “I guess he has good reason.”

  “Do I detect something rotten in the collectors’ market?”

  “Tell me, Mr. Mcdonald—”

  “Paul.”

  “Of course. And you call me Jenny.” She was actually quite pretty when she smiled— very white skin against stark, straight black hair, and red, red lips. Not my kind of face at all— much too sad, too melodramatic— but she was striking if you could bring yourself to concentrate on the features instead of the sour expression. “Tell me,” she said, “is that what your piece is really about? An exposé of some sort?”

  Though the piece was the merest fabrication, I almost laughed to think how little the reading public would care about chicanery in such a rarefied atmosphere. Instead I said, “No. But I suppose if I found out something—”

  “Oh, please, no. I wasn’t suggesting that. I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “No fear of that. I’m doing a perfectly harmless story— just like I told Debay.”

  “You know why he wouldn’t give you any names?”

  “I’m beginning to suspect. Does he deal in forgeries or something?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “But you don’t know for sure.”

  She shrugged. “Not exactly.”

  “Wait a minute. Not forgeries. Hot stuff.”

  This time she lifted an eyebrow.

  “You mean the guy’s a fence?”

  “Oh, hell, I don�
�t know. Let’s put it this way— I’ve heard some pretty questionable conversations in there.”

  “Can I ask you something? Why are you telling me all this?”

  Fear leaped into her eyes. “You said—”

  “I know. I said I was harmless. But still— why tell a perfect stranger?”

  She stared past me, out towards another galaxy, and she looked for a moment as if her youngest child had been had for breakfast by a pack of wild dogs. I thought I saw a way out of her financial pickle— she could rake in big bucks modeling for tragedy masks. And then fury replaced the misery.

  “Because it’s all I can think about! That’s why I told you. Frankly, I’ve gotten to the point that I tell anyone who’ll listen to me— I can’t stop myself. I buttonhole strangers at parties and pour it out to them. Goddammit, I can’t even afford a shrink to tell things to! Do you know what it’s like for me to work there? For that man? To hear the things I hear and keep my mouth shut? Shut to keep from spitting on Mr. Stanford Business School? I’m a writer, do you hear me?”

  How many times had I wanted to shout out that last sentence myself? World, I’m a writer, goddammit! Treat me better! I wanted to say something sympathetic, but I felt too raw, too naked; so I said nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You should write about that.” I thought it as eloquent a statement of case as I’d ever heard.

  She looked pleased. “I am. That’s what I’m doing now— a nonfiction book on how hard it is to write if you’re poor and a woman. I think it’ll be my breakthrough book.”

  “I hope so,” I said, and also hoped she had the strength for another disappointment. I figured the audience for it was about a thousand writers so poor they’d have to get it from the library. “Could I ask you something else about Debay?”

  “After all that, I don’t see why not.”

  “Does he do business with Pamela Temby?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen her around, though.”

  “How about a guy named Russell Kittrell?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Herb Wolf?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell. But who knows? I don’t know all his clients.”

  “Doesn’t it strike you as a little pretentious to call them clients?”

  She laughed and I deemed the lunch a success— if you could make this one laugh, you’d done your good deed for the day.

  CHAPTER 9

  Driving home, I reassessed the problem. My original assignment had been to find the owner of the manuscript. But my current one was to assuage Booker’s guilt by finding out who killed Beverly. The murderer, as I saw it, was one of four people— the original owner or one of the three potential buyers. At least I knew where to look for the last three. And until I met the Huckleberry Fiends, I’d made about all the polite inquiries I could. Now it was time for more direct action.

  I went inside, fed Spot and petted him awhile, getting up my nerve. Finally I called Sardis. “How’s the painting going?”

  “Great. I’m taking a break. Have you had lunch?”

  “Uh-huh. With a literary dark— as opposed to light. I need some help. Could you make a phone call for me?”

  “Your dialing finger’s broken?”

  “I need a woman’s touch.”

  “Come on up.”

  I did, and told her my plan— to have her phone Pamela Temby as Sarah Williams, crooked manuscript dealer. After she identified herself, the conversation— as reported— went like this:

  “Wonderful, dear. Are you ready to talk now?”

  “I think it’s time.”

  “Splendid. One thousand Alpine Glen. I’ll be home till four-thirty.”

  “And then,” said Sardis, “she hung up without even asking if it’s convenient. Which it isn’t.”

  “Gosh. Who knew she’d do that?”

  “I certainly didn’t, or I’d have never made the call. But no matter, it’s not your fault. You’ll go with me, won’t you?”

  “Are you kidding? She might be a murderer.”

  “Does that mean no or yes?”

  I didn’t dignify that with an answer.

  I might not have cared much for Jenny Swensen’s work, but I had a feeling I’d care even less for Pamela’s. Yet hundreds of thousands of book-buyers put me in the wrong. She was on top of the heap, and, fittingly, lived on top of the East Bay, on about an acre of land in something resembling an English stately home. I made a mental note to read one of her ten-pound opuscules— maybe I’d pick up some tips.

  The front door was a football field away, and every blade of grass appeared to have been hand-clipped. Yet smack in the middle of what might otherwise have been a croquet court was a mean-looking Harley under the loving attendance of a scruffy human. The grease monkey was tall, lanky, filthy, crowned with a spiky shock of purple hair, and female. She stood and put up a hand against the afternoon sun. “Welcome to Miniseries Manor. Is one of you Sarah Williams?”

  “I am,” said Sardis.

  “Mummy’s waiting.” She stuck out a tentative hand but, noting the condition of it, used her better judgment and plunged it into her shorts pocket. Her voice was husky and her manner masculine. “I’m Rosamund Temby, by the way.” Despite her punky hair and get-back vehicle, there was something about her that said, “Like me, like me.” She was oddly appealing.

  She led us into a parquet foyer roughly the size of my living room. “Mummy’s in the library.” We went through a living room that Architectural Digest would have doted on into a library out of the Musée de Cluny. Sun streamed through leaded-glass windows and French doors. Deep chairs, an antique desk, and more books than Rick Debay had in his store contrived an ecclesiastical effect, rather like that of a reading room in a Catholic college. Pamela Temby stood in Titian-haired splendor on an Oriental rug she could have traded for a Mercedes if money got tight. She was in her fifties, tall like her daughter, well padded, and handsome. Her red-gold hair was parted on the side, falling fetchingly over the right side of her face in a long, languid shoulder-length wave. Caftans, I’d thought, were regulation wear for writers of high-gloss tales of love and money, but Temby made do with baggy white pants and billowy shirt. No cat or Pekingese nestled in the crook of her arm, but the way Rosamund looked at her, she didn’t need another pet.

  She gave Sardis a relentlessly manicured hand. “Miss Williams.”

  “This is Joe Harper,” said Sardis, “my business associate.”

  “Joe. How’s the ransoming going?”

  She knew her Huck Finn. We’d picked a name out of Tom Sawyer’s Gang, which specialized in ransoming. “Tolerable slow,” I said. “It was more fun being a pirate.”

  “Ah, but that was another book.” (Tom Sawyer, if memory served.) “Darling,” she said to Rosamund, “could you excuse us now? And do get cleaned up— we’re taking Sukie to dinner.”

  “Nice girl,” said Sardis, “is she home for the summer?”

  “Rosamund? Heavens, no. She’s twenty-seven. But we don’t age quickly in our family— except those who become writers.” She positively smirked.

  “It must be a pretty stressful life,” I said, glad Jenny Swensen wasn’t there to bat her about the room. Truth to tell, I was feeling a little violent myself.

  “I’m so glad,” she said to Sardis, “to have finally gotten you in my house. I’ve so much wanted to show you some of my things. I collect all the great American authors, you see. I draw inspiration from them.”

  I was speechless, but Sardis was more amused than Mark Twain aboard the Quaker City. “I can see that in your work,” she said. I hoped she had the grace to cross her fingers.

  “You can? How nice of you to say so.”

  “You know, I once heard a dealer say that one day your letters will be worth as much as Twain’s.”

  “Oh, I doubt it.” She brushed hair out of her eyes, showing a face making little success of looking modest. (And I’d thought Sardis had gone too far.) />
  For the next hour we were treated to the collection— shelves of first editions, cabinets of manuscripts and letters. Everyone of any importance in American literature was represented, from Cotton Mather to Dashiell Hammett to Bellow, Mailer, and Joyce Carol Oates. Truly a wonderful collection, with lots of Mark Twain papers, not only the one letter the Bancroft folks had seen. Then there were the clips and letters of appreciation— she’d donated generously to libraries and universities; she’d invited distinguished scholars to use her papers and they’d accepted gratefully. Though the newspaper stories had run mostly in small university towns, they outnumbered her author interviews and reviews, a fact on which Sardis unkindly remarked in the guise of congratulations on Temby’s generosity.

  Again, the hand brushed the hair, and Temby shrugged. “It gets sort of old-hat, you know— just another best seller by Pamela Temby. Anyway, I’m not the point; Mark Twain is. I think you may possibly understand how seriously I take my little hobby.”

  “I think we’re beginning to.”

  “Tell me. Have you brought the holograph?”

  “Not today, actually. It’s in a safe-deposit box. However, I do have copies of a couple of pages.” I produced some I’d made. A moment before I could have sworn I’d seen naked greed in her eyes; now there was no mistaking a pair of real tears.

  “It’s authentic! There’s no question about it.” Her hands shook as she reached for one of her own Mark Twain letters to compare the handwriting. But she did it almost absently, having already made up her mind. “I’m so glad you got back to me. The condition is good?”

  “Mint.”

  “I want to withdraw my original offer—” She paused for effect. “I think now it was much too low. I want to go up another $250,000.”

  “That’s very generous,” said Sardis.

  “But of course,” I noted, “there’s other interest.”

  “I understand. I just hope you… fathom how much this would mean to me.” The pair of tears did an encore.