Hound

by Vincent McCaffrey

  Henry had long before learned the benefit of concentrating his efforts only on books in the best condition. Almost every entry began with the words “Fine, in dust jacket.” He knew it was easier to note a later printing than to fuss over the details of wear and damage. The reason his books sold easily whenever he posted a new catalogue was that his customers could be sure of what they were going to get, and, of course, because they got to determine the price. Not having to think beyond a certain point about accurately pricing each individual volume saved at least half his time. When his customers got the listing, they checked off the ones they wanted and inserted the price they could afford. The highest bidder got the book—in most cases. He had begun to limit the purchases of some of his customers to keep them from totally dominating his list. The more people who had some success in their bids, the more bids he got. Because most books sold at about a third of their potential retail price, he made less than the dealer who bought the book, but he risked less and turned his stock over quickly.

  Nearly all of his customers were registered dealers, and most of those dealers ran used-book shops. He had even required the few private individuals who ordered from him to register as dealers in their home states because he did not want to play games with taxes. All his sales were made to resellers and thus were not liable to tax. And each sale was automatically registered by the computer when he printed out the shipping form. Henry's accountant, Ralph, had designed the program for a computer-software outfit in Cambridge before they went bankrupt in the shakeout of the late nineties, and now Henry used it for all his book sales so that at the end of the year he could file his income forms in a matter of minutes. This one innovation alone, Henry considered a coup, and it pleased him no end when he spoke with Albert, who seemed always to be fighting over some tax problem or other.

  But Henry's great secret was in the shipping. He reused corrugated boxes from the liquor store which he cut apart and turned inside out so only the plain brown interior could be seen. Henry could cut a box and refold it in less than a minute. The cost of a brand-new shipping box would be more than a dollar. Thus, Henry calculated he was paying himself over sixty dollars an hour to cut up boxes. He usually packed the orders in the evenings, when he was tired and could listen to the ball game or an old phonograph record as he worked. Most days he received six or seven orders, usually for more than one book per order. Because he was selling the books wholesale, they averaged around twenty dollars apiece. More than twelve years into it, and he was making about seven hundred dollars a week, after expenses.

  And he liked his work.

  He showered and dressed and put one small Roycrofter volume in his pocket to go. Then, as an afterthought he grabbed his notebook as well.

  Passing Mrs. Prowder's closed door now with only a glance, he found himself wondering about what her Elwin would have done under these circumstances. What advice would Mrs. Prowder have passed on to him? There must be a method to such things. Henry was not about to play Sherlock Holmes or Perry Mason, but something in what he knew might be of importance.

  Henry paused at the top of the granite steps and surveyed the empty street.

  What could be sufficient motive for someone to kill Morgan? Dear Morgan. What could she have ever done to deserve such a thing? How would the killer benefit from such an act? There could be no possible gain for the loss of her.

  At the Paramount Cafe he sat at the counter as he always did and drank his first coffee quickly then finished his eggs before opening his notebook, using the empty space beyond his entries for upcoming library sales and auctions.

  Henry was fairly certain O'Connor had finished with him. It was in the tone of the detective's voice the evening before. Henry now followed Tim's lead and made a list of those people who might be suspects in Morgan's murder. Because he knew so little of the life she had been living recently, the list was short.

  There was the obvious possibility that it was a thief—a “bungled burglary” as Erle Stanley Gardner might say. He got the sense now that O'Connor was looking in that direction. There was Fred, the building superintendent, even if Henry's suggestion to O'Connor had not been accepted gratefully. And then there was Morgan's son, Arthur, the former drug addict, who lived in California. Henry put Arthur down as the prime suspect. If he had any special dislike for his fellow man, any prejudice he was consciously aware of, it was for druggies who habitually avoided reality by choice. Then there was the voice Henry had heard behind Morgan as she spoke to him late that night from the Cape. It was a man who had spoken, and Henry noted it simply as “the voice.” Henry included the weasel from the auction house who had come in to look at the furniture. There had to be a Realtor, too—but then what would a Realtor benefit if his client was murdered? There was the cleaning service. That would be the motive of theft again. He had never asked if the Mexican woman was alone. He put that down, believing he had covered every possibility he could think of.

  Then he added the name Ranulf Richter.

  This was an odd thing. He certainly did not remember exactly how the books had been placed on the shelves in the inner-office library. But when he had first come in with O'Connor, he had noticed something, along with the rest of the displacement of chairs and the ashtray at the center of the table. He was fairly certain that those things had been at one end of the table before. And he had noticed a narrow space beside the three books of Ranulf Richter.

  Morgan knew Richter better than most of her husband's other clients. There had been some passing mention, but Henry could not remember what. There had been an envelope—when?—the second day—only a few days ago, when she was still very much alive—after he had begun to look at the books. It was in the kitchen on the side with other opened mail when she had given him a glass of water. It was addressed to Morgan, at her Cape house. The return address had been a distinctive signature, simply “Richter” in the corner of the envelope. And then, when he had been appraising the books in the library, he had noticed that even though most of the books were inscribed to Heber Johnson, the inscription in at least one of Richter's books had been “To Morgan."

  No. As he thought about it again, that book had not been with the others in the library. He had noticed that book in the small study by Morgan's bedroom.

  Henry was fairly certain there was something more between Morgan and Richter, and he could say little else. He had not mentioned this yet to O'Connor, because he wondered if it was fair to cause that kind of trouble for someone he did not know, and because, at the moment, he felt some small jealousy. He worried that it was Ranulf's voice he had heard behind Morgan when she called from the Cape.

  It only made sense that Morgan, in her loneliness, and having not seen Henry for over six years, might have found someone else to comfort her. And it was none of Henry's business, except that now Morgan was dead and someone was responsible.

  He began another page in the notebook now. A page for motive. Only one thing occurred to him, however, through his third cup of coffee, and it sat on the page in a single word.

  He wished he had a cigarette. He had quit at the wrong time. Too much was going on. He had always been able to think better when he smoked.

  Still, only one motive came to mind, to fill an entire page of empty lines: money.

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  Chapter Nine

  Ranulf Richter had the appearance of a savage even in church. In warmer weather, he famously wore a navy blue blazer jacket with no shirt and shorts and sneakers with no socks—to all occasions. It was reported in frequent newspaper coverage that he disdained underwear. Though his body seemed to grow a sufficient mat of red-black hair to keep him warm in cool weather, he did alter his wardrobe in winter to a Harris tweed to replace the blazer and a pair of corduroy pants, but still avoided shirts. He was known to strip naked at parties and swim in whatever pool of water was near at hand. Though he was a professed vegetarian, he had established a reputation for biting photographers, reporters, and presumed g
irlfriends. Additionally, he was known to have some expertise in martial arts. This was probably useful in his frequent encounters with the enraged boyfriends of his artfully bitten women.

  Ranulf, as he was known to all, was the son of a Norwegian diplomat who had served the interests of his government during World War Two, and, as a quisling, been unable to return home. The boy had been raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, sent to private schools, and for an uncertain period of time attended the Sorbonne in Paris.

  Ranulf had entered the literary world through the New York party scene, on a public challenge, after he had loudly criticized the work of one established New York writer after another, and then written a novel in one month, while not missing a single evening of social events. That book, now justly forgotten by everyone but book collectors of first novels, concerned a famous-for-being-famous social buffoon who could find neither true love nor a good cup of coffee. The critics hailed it as social satire. Some critics said it was infused with Swiftian genius. It sold poorly, so the authorities felt their judgment confirmed.

  Ranulf had found his real success with his second book, in a character named Bent. The orphaned son of a Nazi father and a Jewish whore, Bent is an out-of-work circus clown and proto-performance artist whose creative expression is displayed in flamboyant dress and impromptu street theatrics. Bent dwells in the twilight of a New York perpetually shadowed by skyscrapers, supporting himself by taking from the rich, giving to the poor, and sleeping in whatever bed is offered. Bent steals a Steinway grand piano from the penthouse apartment of a famous concert pianist who had been saved as a boy from the Holocaust but would now only play for exorbitant fees, and leaves it in the plaza fountain at Lincoln Center. Bent robs a bank vault of a hundred million dollars in venture-capital bonds only days before a new computer company goes public with a software device stolen from a young inventor and then drops the paper from a World War I-era biwing over the length of Wall Street during lunch hour. When the mob uses its knowledge of a key player's sexual proclivities, Bent stops play by throwing pink basketballs onto the court at Madison Square Garden during a fixed New York Knicks game. Bent releases helium-filled party balloons decorated with dollar signs from beneath manhole covers during mayoral campaign speeches.

  Ranulf's conceit is that the poor are always demanding more of his character, and the rich give away their money too readily, to assuage their sins. Bent is never prosecuted for his crimes, no matter how outrageous, simply because his intentions are good. But it is his hyperbolic comment on errant political programs which caused a new concern among the intelligentsia who cannot bear to have their motives questioned. Over time, Bent falls from favor. Bent's final punishment arrives when he goes virtually unnoticed in a city which has adopted his theatrics into its daily life. His stunts pale beside the reality that has become the norm. On the last page he is drinking a fifty-cent cup of bitter coffee in a greasy spoon in Chelsea, unrecognized, and accepts a card from a Salvation Army worker for a warm place to sleep that night.

  This book had sold over a million copies in hardcover and been made into a disastrous movie which badly miscast the character of Bent. The enigmatic thief of the original was now the flesh and blood of a well-known Hollywood actor who lacked even the flare of Bent's author—and all mystery lost in the detail of how the pranks are executed.

  Two other less successful satires followed, a Hollywood roman à clef rejoicing in the disdain of film makers toward the written word, and then a gynecologic examination of the feminist art world. Ranulf's fifth novel—a sequel to the second—wherein his hero, Bent, is finally eaten alive by a roving band of starving musicians unable to find an audience willing to pay for the privilege of sitting still for a silent concert of performers refusing to play their instruments—all in protest against world hunger—had failed with critics as well as the public. The resulting stacks of remainders had created a lack of interest in Ranulf's sixth book, for which Heber Johnson was unable to find the right publisher.

  This was the man who sat in the second pew on the right, visibly positioned by the center aisle, black silk scarf tied around his neck, thankfully wearing pants and not shorts, as the minister addressed them.

  In front of Ranulf were family members Henry had never seen before, and from their advanced ages, and appearance, he assumed they were Heber's blood relatives. Morgan's son, Arthur, sat in the first row on the left, where Henry could barely see him behind the taller heads. The middle pews on both sides were only half-full, but the faces were familiar. These were the three-dimensional-but-aged representations of dozens of photographs he had seen many times on the dust jackets of countless books.

  Henry sat in the last row on the left, just in from the center, alone except for a tall, thin man with an abundance of uncut blond hair. Directly across the center aisle from Henry, Detective O'Connor sat with another man who also looked very much like a cop.

  The interior of the church was a single long chamber darkened by the shadowed aisles at the sides behind the arching piers and by the blackened wood of the pews and the soiled stone and stained glass left uncleaned. The echo of voices and the shuffle of feet mimicked the sound of an empty stage, as if a hollow space lay just beneath the marble floor. The small electric lights suspended candle-like in tarnished metal fixtures from above were harsh to look at in the amber of the room.

  This was not Morgan's church. It had undoubtedly been chosen for the memorial service because it was close by, and probably selected by her son. Henry knew that Morgan was Episcopalian only because her parents had been. This minister had never known her. The minister's words were spoken with the flat resonance and mechanical modulation appropriate to a classroom reading of chosen boilerplate, obviously taken from a book filled with such words for all occasions. The service had been requested by her brother, Aaron, and Henry assumed it might be a smaller occasion meant only for family and friends. The faces of so many authors Heber Johnson had once represented made it clear again to Henry the influence of Morgan in that relationship.

  Her brother, Aaron, spoke next. He had little to say that was not commonly felt. However, he told a small story from their childhood which appeared to evoke more of his own sense of life than Morgan's. She had camped in the little woods behind their home all night to catalog the nocturnal sounds for a classroom project. Aaron, younger and jealous of his sister's adventure, had gone out repeatedly to check on her, causing an argument about his scaring the night creatures into silence. In her final project she had included Aaron's whispers as one of the catalogued sounds.

  After Aaron, several childhood friends spoke, recalling another time and the society of military families trying with difficulty to live normal, everyday lives in extraordinary places marked by incidents of little consequence except to themselves.

  Then George Duggan arose, walking with clear reluctance to the pulpit, seeming unsure of his purpose. Henry knew that Heber had been Duggan's agent since his very first book sale in 1982. Duggan's large figure folded over the lectern for support as he spoke, as if the weight of the words were difficult to bear. He was not yet sixty years old, but he had grown a full beard since the photo on his last book jacket, and the gray of it, rather than the short cut of the receding hair on his head, made him appear older.

  He took a breath, squinted at the assembled, perhaps trying to find a face in the crowd, and then spoke.

  "I was remembering just now my first meeting with Morgan. I had already met Heber. He had asked me to come by to sign something. We were sitting in that windowless room in their apartment that he used as his office—some of you know the one—with the books surrounding us on all four walls. Heber was keen on having me understand the rights I was giving up. It involved a great deal of money, more than I thought I would ever see in a lifetime. I was giddy. I was simply ecstatic about finally selling something to a major publisher. The real amount of the money had not dawned on me."

  Duggan hesitated with the memory, his eyes turned down
ward. “As we were sitting down, Morgan asked how long I had been writing, and I told them that I had started when I was nine and never stopped, like a spigot with the handle busted, and that I really never wanted to do anything else but write stories till the day I died. Heber then began to go over each point of the contract, when abruptly Morgan interrupted. I did not know at the time that she was more than Heber's wife. But at that moment, her face was the face of a mother."

  Duggan paused again, the silence suddenly magnified. He cleared his throat. “She said, ‘Wait! You must think about this. I can see that you still don't understand. This is not just a matter of serial rights, paperback rights, or movie rights. It's your human rights that are being sold here. Your life will never be the same again. You will be indentured. You will be a slave, owned only in part by George Duggan. Your talent, which makes you feel so powerful and free, will be your chain. You will be writing for the rest of your life just to support a plantation that includes editors and proofreaders, printers and binders, publicists and lawyers, distributors and booksellers—and your agent. And your agent's wife. That spigot you were telling us about will now become a word factory. And if ever you falter or fail, the collapse will be a kind of unforgiving bankruptcy you will never be able to overcome, and it will leave you with debts you'll never be able to repay. Publishing is cruel. Success is a burden. This book will sell. We both think it will sell like crazy, but you will have to write another. And another ... We believe in you. We think you can carry that weight. Even though most authors are one-book wonders, we think you are the one to make it beyond. That's why so much money is involved. But is that what you want? You can keep your job as a waiter and write your stories for the rest of your life without any other cause than your own love of it—find a quiet happiness and never fail yourself. You can continue to publish in the little magazines. I can give you the name of a small press that would gladly publish your book.... Are you aware that your soul is involved in this? You will never be happy simply being a waiter again. You think the choice is obvious, but it's not. In a year you will be famous. I predict you will be very famous. And that will mean you are a freak. A sideshow. Your life will be as publicly owned as any corporation."