The Bookman's Promise

by John Dunning

  God, we have become such a depressing nation of numbers. Get a guy’s number and you can get almost everything about him. From Motor Vehicles I had his address and phone number on Sullivan’s Island. I had his Social Security number and the license plate number on his car. I knew he drove a Pontiac, two-tone blue, bought new in the year of his Pulitzer. But a check of his credit turned up a surprise. He had almost lost the car to repo boys in ’85 and again last year. If the Pulitzer had put Archer on Easy Street, he wasn’t there long. He needed another book, a big one, and soon.

  I bullshat my way from office to office, the good-old boy who made people want to help. If a clerk commented on my battered face, I turned on the charm and yukked him around, concocting tall yarns that made him laugh. In the courthouse I learned that Archer had been sued several times for nonpayment of bills. None of these had gone beyond the filing stage: he always coughed up when the wounded party got serious. He was one of those infuriating stonewallers who will not pay even a bona fide debt until he absolutely must, and now he was considered a bad risk by his plumber, his mechanic, and the man who had painted his house after a near-hurricane a few years earlier. He had several ugly defaults and a history of leaving others holding bags of various sizes. Some of them never did collect, and these days nobody loaned the famous Hal Archer money. He had kept up the payments on his beach house, but by then I had a hunch that it was always by the skin of his teeth. He had bought the property in 1983, leaving me to wonder why he had moved here from Virginia, where he had spent his entire life until then.

  I stopped at the public library just off Marion Square. As I’d figured, Archer was in the latest Who’s Who. Son of Robert Russell Archer and Ann Howard Archer of Alexandria, Virginia, he had married and divorced long ago: a woman named Dorothea Hoskins, who had lived with him only long enough to have a son in 1957. In a vertical file of clippings the library kept on local notables, I learned that Archer had had little to do with his son, and today the boy was a man, living in California with his own family. Archer was a grandfather three times over and he’d never seen his grandchildren. The source of all this was a tabloid tearsheet, not great, but in Archer’s case it had a ring of truth. Suddenly the bitter picture looked tragic: a life wasted, with the big prize little more than a hollow victory. I found it unimaginable that anyone could have a child and not die to be part of that kid’s life.

  There were no other marriages cited, no business affiliations, no memberships, and he did not seem to be religious. He had turned fifty-four on his last birthday. He had never served in the military, even though Korea was still causing trouble on his nineteenth birthday. His residence was listed as his business address: the same Sullivan’s Island street number I had gotten from Motor Vehicles. There was a list of his books, unhelpful since I already knew them.

  His father, Robert Russell Archer, had been a powerhouse Virginia politician, prominent enough to earn his own entry in past Who’s Who s. Born in Alexandria, Virginia, 1905, he was an academic whiz, graduating from high school at sixteen and with honors from Rutgers in 1925. Married Ann Howard of Baltimore, 1926. Two children, the first named Robert Russell after himself and a few years later our boy Hal, William Harold Archer. Admitted to the Virginia bar 1928. Read law and studied under a prominent judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Public servant prior to starting own law firm: assistant DA in the mid-thirties; U.S. Attorney just before World War II. Too young to be killed in one generation’s war, too old to be maimed in the next. Never a candidate in his prime but always a power behind the scenes: worked hard for Dewey against FDR, even harder for the same poor loser against Truman. Chairman of his state’s Republican party in the early postwar years; a presidential elector from Virginia in 1948. The firstborn son, the namesake, died in 1945, at fourteen. I made a note to find out how.

  Many honors were attached to his name. Slowly as I listed them I began to imagine a powerful patriarch, some Burl Ivesian codger from a Tennessee Williams play. He had come out of his shell to run for the U.S. Senate in the early sixties, but had served only five years of his term, retiring because of illness. He died in 1966, aged sixty-one years.

  I read it again and thought, What’s wrong with this picture?

  The Archers had been like the Huxleys—money, position, power—but Hal Archer was the exact opposite of all that. Hadn’t Lee Huxley described him as dirt poor when they were kids? Maybe it was the Depression. A lot of people lost a lot of money in those days.

  I looked deeper and found an earlier Robert Russell Archer, also a lawyer, who had dominated his state’s Republican party in the First War era, all through Prohibition until his own death in 1939. Grandpa, dead at fifty-three. The Archers had a nasty little gene in their makeup that did them in young. At fifty-four, Hal must be looking over his shoulder.

  Born in rural Virginia, 1886, Gramps was a real log-cabin kinda guy. Put himself through the U of Virginia, then law school, and in 1907 married a woman named (I kid you not) Betsy Ross.Damn, I love that—I can almost hear “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Only one child, the already mentioned Robert Russell Archer. Apparently the family never used “Jr.” or “the third,” so at least their kids didn’t have to battle that all their lives. Like his son he missed the carnage of his day, 1914–18, but you knew he’d have gone in a heartbeat if he’d been a little younger. He was patriotic to the bone: tireless on Liberty Loan drives, a four-minute man always on the stump. Grandpa took a hand in everything that crossed his path. He never saw a civic need that he didn’t just yearn to fill: worked on an impossible number of worthy campaigns, and later, with his law career in full bloom, was involved in trusteeships, arbitration societies, and a debating club. He held retainers from half a dozen major companies in the twenties. And with all this real life going on, the old boy had still found time for a hobby. I took in a long, slow breath as I read it.

  The first Robert Russell Archer—Grandpa—had been a noted book collector.

  By then it was almost dusk. Koko would be waiting for me at the motel but at the moment I had an urge to see Archer’s natural habitat. I cruised over the newer spire of the Cooper River Bridge, on through Mount Pleasant, and then, pushed by an incredible sunset, headed east across a broad expanse of marsh. I crossed a drawbridge and came onto the long narrow island, yellow in the fading day. The road dead-ended at a continuous stretch of rolling sand dunes. I knew from my map that Fort Moultrie was a mile to the right, the beach lay just ahead, and Archer’s place was two miles north. I turned left and drove up the island.

  The island wasn’t complicated—no more than half a dozen streets running north and south and a grid of short crossing streets, numbered from First to Thirty-second. Archer’s house was near the far end, not far from the inlet that separates Sullivan’s from a sister island called the Isle of Palms, and it took me less than ten minutes to find it. It was built on stilts, eight feet above the beach, with a grand wraparound porch, room under it to walk or park cars, and stairs on both the street side and the beachfront. As I drove past I saw a light somewhere inside and a car parked under the porch: couldn’t tell from there if it was Archer’s car, but all this made it look very much like someone was home. I parked my own car a block away, locked it, and walked along a path through the dunes.

  In those few minutes the beach had gone from yellow to purple. The sea was rough, with whitecaps and large breaking waves closer in. I was pelted by heavy gusts of wind as I came abreast of the inlet. Far out at sea a light flashed from an incoming ship. The horizon was already dark, but the sky behind me was still showing a last spectacular sun splash through a thin layer of clouds. I went to the edge of the water and tried to look like some tourist out for a stroll.

  I thought about what I had learned that afternoon and what it might mean. The editors at Who’s Who had a standard for brevity, with no word ever wasted on trivial information. When they said Grandpa had been a noted book collector, they weren’t talking about the Little Leather Library or
The Rover Boys Whistle Dixie. Grandpa had been a substantial collector of expensive first editions, his collection worth mentioning to an international readership. Wouldn’t this put Josephine’s dream, if that’s what it was, in a new light? If her reference to Archer had meant Grandpa, not Hal, that could make her dream, recalled under recent hypnosis, more than fifty years old.

  I walked up a long stretch of hard, wet sand. Archer’s house was just ahead. I could see only enough of the car to know it wasn’t his blue Pontiac, and in the room facing the sea was a light, in addition to the one I had seen out front. As I stood still on the beach, someone moved past the window. I came closer, skirting the house yet drawn toward it, wishing the dark were a little darker but unwilling to wait for that to happen. I stepped into Archer’s yard and went quickly into the dark place under his porch. From there I could hear the faint ringing of a telephone and someone moving around inside the house. The footsteps stopped: I heard a woman’s voice but she spoke too softly for anything more than that fact to be clear. I had a hunch that whatever was going on in that room was germane, important enough to take a chance, so I moved into the pale light at the bottom of the stairs and started up.

  She was standing just above me and a bit to my left; the window was open and I could hear soft music playing in the background. It covered what she was saying and what her voice sounded like saying it, so I moved closer. I took the stairs slowly, making no noise, and at the top I eased across the porch and flattened myself against the house. Whatever was happening, the other party was now doing all the talking. I heard an uh-uh and an uh-huh and more silence. I stood against the wall just outside the window, close enough to be charged with groping. She said, “Okay,” and that single clear word turned my head around. I knew that voice and knew it well.

  She said, “Yeah, right,” and if I’d had any doubt I kissed it good-bye.

  “He should be here soon,” she said. “I’ll let you know when there’s something to report.”

  Oh, Erin, I thought.

  23

  I eased back toward the stairs, felt my way down, and stood under the house listening. I could hear her up there pacing. She was nervous. Whatever she was here for, the outcome was far from certain. And me, I had only two choices: announce myself or drop back into surveillance. Take the option while you’ve got one, I thought, and surveillance felt right on second guess. But cover your ass, Janeway. Get the car in case you need it.

  By then it was quite dark: My cover was as good as it gets, so I walked away from the house, down the beach to the inlet, through the dunes, and up to the road where the car was parked.

  A minute later I pulled into Archer’s street and parked in front of the house. It didn’t matter much where I parked: there were other cars along the road and my rental slipped in nicely among them. Archer would have no reason to know that I was within six hundred miles of here.

  Nothing was happening on this side of the house. Erin had confined herself to that beachfront room and I played it boringly safe for now.

  An hour passed. I watched the clock, imagining Koko tearing her hair.

  Of all the jobs I had done as a cop I had always hated surveillance. It’s bad enough when you have a partner to talk to; alone, it’s a killer. But I waited, slumped in my seat, only my eyes moving from the road to the house and back again.

  He finally came at ten-thirty. I saw his lights far down the road and I got down deep in my seat. Gradually his lights washed over my car and went away as he turned into his drive. I eased up and looked over the edge of the window. He had pulled under the house and his taillights shone out at the road. I heard the door slam and saw his shadow moving around to the beachfront steps.

  When he had gone into the house I got out of my car and walked up the drive. I stopped at his car and opened one of the doors, just enough for the momentary flash of light to confirm the ’83 Pontiac, two-tone blue. The literary lion had come home to his den. Now came the tricky part: getting close enough to learn something useful without getting caught.

  Again I went up the stairs and across the porch. I stood flattened against the wall, two feet from the open window, but so far nothing was going on: no sounds, not even a hint of talk from some other room.

  Suddenly the door opened and Erin stepped out. I held my breath. If she moved away from the house or went even partway to the edge of the porch, she couldn’t miss seeing me when she turned around. But a sound drew her back into the room and I heard Archer say, “These goddamn airlines, it’s getting so I hate to fly. How was your flight?”

  “It was okay. It got me here.”

  “I guess I’m lucky mine was only two hours late. Did you have any trouble finding the key?”

  “Right where you said.”

  I heard him move again, coming closer to the window: then the clink of a bottle on glass. “How about a drink?”

  “Only if it’s a very short one, please.”

  “Name your poison.”

  “Gin and tonic.”

  I heard the sound of pouring and ice. Someone sat down, probably Archer, in the easy chair just to the left of the window. “Come on, Erin,” he said. “Relax.”

  I pictured them looking at each other over their drinks, fencing with their eyes.

  “Cheers,” Archer said.

  A moment passed.

  “Do you want to get down to cases now?” Erin said.

  It had begun pleasantly enough but suddenly the mood got darker. Archer said, “I’lltell you when I do. I’ll tell you how it’s going to go too.” There was no missing his intent: he was putting her in her place, letting her know who was boss.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he said. “You fly all the way from Denver and now you act like you can’t wait to get out of here. Do I really bother you that much?”

  It took her a moment to answer that. “I wouldn’t drive you around if you did, would I?”

  “As a matter of fact I’ve been wondering about that. The night of Lee’s party, for example, how it came to be you who picked me up.”

  “You found that unusual?”

  “Considering how we parted after my book tour a few years ago.”

  She said nothing.

  “I should apologize for my lack of manners back then,” he said.

  “There’s no need for that.”

  “What if I feel a need?”

  “Don’t, please. It’s not necessary.”

  “You must like having that to hold over my head. Does it empower you having seen me in a bad light? Do you think you’ll get a better deal that way?”

  “Let’s just talk business, Hal.”

  “I am talking business and you’re starting to make me angry again. Do you think it’s easy for a man like me to apologize? About anything?”

  “Look, Hal…I told you before, we’re fine.”

  “But you’re lying, precious. Besides, maybe you’re not so fine with me.”

  “If that’s the case, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry, all right. Because now I’ve got something you want.”

  “Which we haven’t even seen yet. I don’t know whether this was written by Richard Burton or the man in the moon.”

  This was followed by another awkward silence. Then Archer said, “I’m not gonna give anything away. You’re good-looking, precious, but not that good,” and the tone changed again.

  “You know what?” Erin said. “I’ve just decided I’m not in the mood for this.”

  “Now there’s the Erin I know. She takes no prisoners. She goes straight for the gonads.”

  “Do you want to talk or not?”

  “I don’t know, what’s your offer?”

  “You know what the offer is.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “Then let’s hear your counteroffer.”

  “Double it for starters. And you be a lot nicer than you have been. A lot,lot nicer.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Hal.”

  “What isn�
�t?”

  “Either condition. Double would be five times what anybody else would pay. And I will be civil and professional and that’s all you’ll ever get from me. I hope we’re clear at least on that.”

  “Don’t put too high a premium on it, sweetheart. It’s just possible that I wouldn’t want anything you’ve got.”

  “Then we’re making progress. We have our first item of agreement.”

  “You really are one cold, calculating bitch.”

  “Another comment like that and I’m on the next flight back to Denver.”

  “So who’s stopping you?”

  I heard her get up. She moved across the room and came toward the door.

  Incredulous, he said, “You’d actually walk out of here? With all that’s at stake…”

  “You’ve got a lot more at stake than I do. And the answer is yes. Keep a civil tongue in your head or I’m gone.”

  He laughed without amusement. “You really are something else.”

  She waited.

  “All right, let’s talk,” he said.

  She sat. “Start with the offer you’ve got. It’s already generous, as I’m sure you know.”

  “That’s your opinion. How much is a lifetime worth? And let’s dispense with the notion that doubling it would be five times anything. There’s no telling what something like this would sell for in a well-publicized auction.”

  “I’ve looked at recent auction records.”

  “There are no auction records for this and you know it.”

  Silence. Finally he said, “We’re talking unique, precious.”

  “Maybe it’s so unique it doesn’t exist. You haven’t shown me anything yet.”

  Archer laughed. “Now who’s wasting time?”

  “Then show it to me. I’ll have to see it anyway, before anything real can happen.”