Booked to Die

by John Dunning

  “Clockwork Orange,” I prompted. “I saw that one myself.”

  “Yeah, and that lovely Eastlake thing, Go in Beauty. What a goddamn book, Dr. J, what a total and complete killer. You ever read that?”

  I shook my head.

  “A killer book. And let’s see, there was some black stuff, a Richard Wright, a Ralph Ellison, and half a dozen horror titles. Just a super Hell House, by Matheson… that’s two and a half now for one this nice… and a couple of Lovecrafts, and, oh yeah, another great Matheson title, I Am Legend. Now there’s a real vampire book, scared the living bejesus out of me one night when I had nothing else to do. So much better than Salem’s Lot, even King says so, but King’s such a nice guy he always puffs everybody else’s books and pooh-poohs his own. He’s right this time, though. And listen, speaking of black stuff, we got Toni Morrison’s first book, The Bluest Eye… hell, even I never saw that book before. Killer copy, I bet we get five bills for it. Let’s see what else… great Crazy in Berlin, a couple of bills on that, and some Van Guliks with that chink detective, you can get two-fifty easy for those, and a great Chesterton Father Brown with a jacket that’ll knock your damn eye out…”

  I looked at my watch. I had stopped listening. I knew he was lost, drifting through that vast and wonderful world that all true bookmen know. The most hypnotic business a man can do, like making love to a beautiful woman.

  “You ever read that novel, Dr. J?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know what novel he was talking about.

  “My kinda stuff, baby. Just makes my blood go all tingly when I take it out of the box and it looks like it came off the press an hour ago. Yeah, we’ll do great on this buy, even if we have to wholesale a few items to keep the wolf at bay. It’s like a shot of new blood, you know what I mean? It puts joy back in your heart, makes the world right again for a little while. Wait a minute, there was more….”

  “That’s enough, Ruby.”

  “Oh wait, I haven’t given you much more than half of it, yet.”

  “It’s enough anyway. I think I’ve got what I need.”

  “I don’t understand you. What the hell’re you lookin’ for?”

  I looked at my watch. “How’s your sense of time, Ruby?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “How long do you think we’ve been sitting here talking—just since I asked you what was in those boxes? How long do you think it’s been?”

  “Couldn’t be much more than a minute. Two minutes at the outside. Couldn’t be any longer than that.”

  “How about seven minutes and twenty seconds.”

  Surprise flicked across his face.

  Then a flash of horror.

  50

  I juggled the pieces on the drive north. It gave me a sick, hollow feeling that deepened as we drove.

  Rita knew that something had changed between us. She was very sharp that way.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I shook my head and shrugged it off.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she insisted.

  “Nothing.” I looked at her and raised my voice to emphasize the point.

  I saw her back stiffen. You couldn’t bully her or force your will. You could mandate silence by being silent, but you couldn’t make the mistake of believing that her own silence meant she was putting up with it.

  We went at least ten miles before she spoke again.

  “Where’re we going? You mind telling me that?”

  “Going to see a fella.”

  “What fella?”

  I looked at her again. “You ever hear of Emery Neff?”

  “I don’t know… I guess I’ve heard that name. He owns one of the bookstores, doesn’t he?”

  “You never met him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You never had occasion to sell him any books?”

  “How do I know? Do you remember everybody you ever sold books to? I’ll tell you something, I don’t much like the way you’re acting.”

  “I’m not acting.”

  She watched me for a moment, then turned away and lapsed into a curious wooden silence that matched my own. We couldn’t talk and we couldn’t be quiet: it was so deadly I had to turn on the radio, something I never do when I have people in the car. A couple of educated idiots were screaming at each other on KOA, giving a bad impression of what passes today for talk radio. I couldn’t stand it. Eventually I found KEZW, a nostalgia station. They were playing “Sam’s Song,” a vocal banter by Bing and Gary Crosby that I had heard four thousand times by actual count. At least I could stand that.

  Ruby had answered my one essential question by drawing me a map. He had only been here once, almost a year ago, but he remembered it well enough to get me here. I spread the map on the seat as we rolled up the back highway, the mountains sprawling whitely to the left. I caught Rita glancing at the map. Our eyes met again. I stopped at a light and we just looked at each other for a moment. On the radio they were playing “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You.” Tommy Dorsey. Jack Leonard was singing the vocal refrain.

  “Light’s green,” she said, and I started off again.

  Then, without looking my way, she began to take me apart. She did it like a surgeon, without a tremor in her voice to betray her.

  “It would seem that I’ve become a suspect again. I don’t like that, not from you.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Trust is a precious thing to me,” she said. “If I didn’t think you understood that, I promise you last night wouldn’t’ve happened.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then talk to me, you bastard.”

  Even when the words were loaded, her voice remained calm, icy.

  “There may be a woman involved in it,” I said. “I don’t know what she did or why.”

  “But you think it was me.”

  “I don’t think anything.”

  “Wrong answer, Janeway, and a lie to boot.”

  I nodded.

  “This is turning ugly,” she said.

  “It’s always been ugly.”

  “That’s funny, I thought it was something else. What happened to love at first sight?”

  “Alive and well. It’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “Then it can’t be much good.”

  “Not true,” I said. “I’m just doing what a cop always does. Following my nose.”

  “Is that what you were doing last night? You may’ve been following something, but it sure wasn’t your nose. You know what I think?”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “You should be. It doesn’t put you in a good light.”

  We were getting close to Longmont. My eyes scanned the road for the turnoff.

  I knew the question was coming before she asked it: knew and dreaded.

  “How long have you been thinking these things?”

  I took a deep breath. “You want an honest answer?”

  “You bet.”

  “It’s always been there. I push it back in my head and try to smother it, but it won’t ever go away.”

  “Then it was in bed with us last night.”

  “It’s that goddamn appraisal. I just can’t square it.”

  She gave a dry little laugh. “You’re pretty good, though, I’ll have to say that. You have a way of saying I love you that makes a girl believe it.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “It is, Rita.”

  “Ah,” she said in a small voice.

  I thought that might be the end of it, but she said, “What I can’t figure out is why I’m supposed to have done this. It couldn’t be for money. You want to see my bankbook?” She flipped open her checkbook from First Federal Savings. It made me dizzy, trying to drive and look. What really made me dizzy were all those digits, and not a decimal anywhere in sight. It was like standing on the edge of a deep cliff, looking straight down.

  “This is my traveling money. My book account is about four times this big. I have another a
ccount that I use for business not related to books. I have another account for investments: my accountant talked me into doing that last year. I seem to take in more money than I can decently spend now; I can’t even give it away fast enough. I make money while I’m lying in bed. Would you like to know how much I made last night while you were, ah, following your nose? I can calculate it, give or take a little. I’m making money this minute, for Christ’s sake. I don’t ever have to lift another finger. What work I do, I do because I’ve got to do something or go out of my mind. I was never made to be gracefully rich; I’m too restless to be idle. I don’t want any more money, don’t even want what I’ve got. So please tell me why I would lie and steal and kill for more stupid money.”

  I shrugged sadly. Maybe for kicks, I thought: maybe for love. Who can ever know what people will do, or why?

  “I’ve got one other account,” she said. “You could call it my fuck you account.”

  I knew what she meant. I know all about fuck you money, mainly because I’ve never had any.

  In that same flat voice, she said, “You are the most exciting man. All I have to do is think of you and I just tingle. Even that first night. I walked out of your bookstore and it was so powerful I had to stop and lean against something. I thought, there’s my guy. It was absolutely terrifying, the most thrilling moment of my life. Couldn’t wait to see you again. But you’ve got no faith, Janeway. I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

  “I need to know. You’ve got to understand that.”

  “You need to believe. I know it’s not quite fair. A just God wouldn’t try us like this, before we even know each other. I’m not blaming you, but don’t blame me either. This is what I am. At this particular point in my life, I need faith more than love. An equal moment of each would be nice.”

  “I guess I was a cop too long.”

  She sighed. “And there isn’t any God, and life’s not fair.”

  51

  The road snaked away to the left, a narrow blacktop five miles south of Longmont. Houses were sprinkled on both sides. The pavement ended with a bump and the houses fell away and we clattered along a dusty washboard road. Trees appeared on the rolling edge of the prairie.

  There was a rutted side road, just where Ruby’s map showed it: then the house, peeping through the seams of a wooded arroyo. I turned in and stopped. My odometer showed that we had come twenty-six miles from downtown Denver.

  “Looks like nobody’s home,” Rita said.

  “We’ll see.”

  I left her there with the motor running and walked the hundred yards to the house. It was an old country house, American gothic. The windows were dark and in the midmorning light it looked deserted. A rambling front porch flitted in and out of view through a blowing hedge. The wind was strong, whipping down the front range. Some of the windows had been boarded up: the front railing was down in places and the steps looked rickety and dangerous. On the east end some scaffolding had been erected and there was evidence of recent work. There were no cars in the yard. I watched for a while but saw nothing that mattered.

  I moved to the edge of the house, then around to the front. The place was like a crypt: not even a bird to break the monotony, only that steady beating wind. I eased up the steps to the porch, flattened myself beside the door and listened.

  Nothing.

  How many times have I done this, I thought: how many times when I was a cop did I jack up my courage and walk into trouble with this same gun pointing the way? It never loses its charm: the prospect of sudden death, maybe your own, always comes with a clutching at the throat and a rush of adrenaline. I tried the door. It creaked open and I looked in at a picture of frontier America. Broken old furniture. Antique pictures. Farm relics from another time. A kerosene lamp stood on a table, its glass charred black. An old wooden yoke had been thrown in a corner.

  I took one step inside. The floor creaked and in the silence it sounded like a gunshot. I flattened against the door and caught my breath. I waited, listening. I waited so long a mouse scurried across the room.

  It didn’t look promising. The dust in the parlor was half an inch deep. No one had been through here in at least six months.

  Doesn’t seem to be Janeway’s year for hunches.

  If it didn’t pan out I was back to zero. Square one. Lookin’ for a turtle-faced man and a whole new gambit.

  I left deep black prints in the dust. I crossed the scurry marks left by the mouse. It’s going to be a wash, I thought, another dead end. I had reached a long dark hallway and still nothing had happened. A thick ribbon of dust, undisturbed since time began, stretched out toward the back of the house.

  I lowered the gun. My forces were still on alert, but the condition was downgraded from red to yellow.

  There were two rooms on each side of the hall. At the end was another hall that went into the east wing. There was a door, which was closed.

  But it opened without creaking when I tried it.

  On the other side was a different world. A world of paint and glass and fresh-hung wallboard. A bright world where music played and people lived.

  I went back on red alert, following my gun to whatever lay ahead.

  A skeleton key was stuck in the door. The radio was playing so softly it could barely be heard a room away. The floor was shiny and new. I saw a kitchen off to the left: well lit, papered yellow, with shiny new appliances. There was a half-finished den and, across from that, a bedroom. A radio sent soft tones down the hall from the kitchen: elevator music from KOSI. The scaffold’s shadow leaped across the room.

  I peeped into the bedroom.

  He was on the bed, fully dressed, lying on top of a bright blue bedspread. He seemed to be sleeping, but his face was to the wall so I couldn’t be sure. I had a vision of him lying there, eyes wide, waiting. I went in cautiously and he didn’t stir. His breathing was deep and rhythmic, as if he’d been asleep for some time. I eased my way to the side of the bed. I still couldn’t see his face. He lay with one arm under him, his hand out of sight. I didn’t like that, but I was as ready as a guy ever gets. I leaned over and shook him lightly.

  “Get up, Neff,” I said, “and bring that hand out very slowly.”

  He was awake at once: too quickly, I thought, but a man standing over your bed with a gun will bring you up fast. He drew himself up till he was sitting. It was when he tried to look surprised that I knew I had him. He wasn’t enough of an actor to pull it off.

  “Stand up real easy,” I said. “Just like that. Good boy. Now. I want you to go to that wall and put your hands against it, just like you see on TV.”

  I patted him down. He didn’t have anything.

  “Sit down over there,” I said. “Not there… over in the plain wooden chair. Just sit there and face me.”

  He sat and watched while I did what a good cop always does: checked the obvious, easy places for weapons and found none.

  He moved.

  “Sit still,” I said.

  “I was gonna scratch my leg.”

  “Don’t scratch anything. Don’t even look at me funny. This gun of mine gets nervous.”

  “You wouldn’t shoot me.”

  “I sure as hell would.”

  “So what’s going on?”

  That was his total and token attempt at denial. He knew he couldn’t act and now I knew it too. Ruby had said he had been a magician and maybe that was true, but he’d never win an Oscar for bluffing his way out of a tight one. I had known a few others like that, guys who could lie as long as you didn’t suspect them. Look them in the eye, though, and accuse, and they’d fall apart.

  Neff was trying to avoid my eyes. He looked at the ceiling, at the window—anywhere but at me. “You like my place, Mr. Janeway? My uncle left it to me; I’ve been working on it a year. Sealed off this part and I just do a little at a time. Eventually I’ll do it all. This isn’t really my thing… carpentry… painting… but I do like the way it’s coming together. I just do a little here and th
ere. I don’t like to sweat much.”

  “That’s what Ruby tells me.”

  He gave a little laugh: wry, affectionate, almost tender. “Ruby,” he said. “What a swell guy. Do anything for anybody. Great guy.”

  “Would you like to tell me where you put the books?”

  He shrugged. Jerked his head to one side. Couldn’t seem to find the words.

  He looked through the window. He had a clear view of the road from here. “I saw you coming. I knew the way you were coming, cautiously like that… well, I just knew. I could’ve shot you.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Gun’s in the barn. You’d’ve seen me run for it. And wasn’t sure how much you really knew. I thought maybe I could… talk you out of it. Shoulda known better. How’d you find out? What’d I do wrong?”

  You were born, I thought.

  “Tell me,” he said. “I need to know.”

  “Maybe I’ll make you a deal. I might tell you if you tell me where the books are.”

  “Sure… I’ll tell you…. What’ve I got to lose?”

  I thought about it, and wavered. The evidence was slippery, fragmentary. I feared for its life in a court of law. I had proceeded without regard for its welfare and now I had a strange, almost chilly reaction, talking about it calmly with the killer. Neff gave a little smile and the chill settled in. I didn’t need him, I thought: I’d find the books anyway, sooner or later.

  But I was a bookman, not a cop, and I wanted to see them now. I had the fever, the bookseller’s madness, and I wanted to see what had driven an otherwise sane man to murder.

  How do you figure it out? You think about it all the time. How does a sculptor carve an elephant out of a block of wood? Takes a block of wood and carves away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant. When you’re sleeping your mind’s working on it. When you drive through a snowstorm, dead people whisper in your ear. You even think about it when you’re making love and it’s then, in fact, that the first glimmer comes working through the haze. Writers and sculptors work that way, why can’t cops? Books have been written about the creative process: tens of thousands of words from dusty academics about the writer’s vision. The funny thing is, I’ve always worked that way as a cop, but nobody writes books about that.