Camino Island

by John Grisham

  shaky, but it’s impossible to look at a book and say it’s stolen. Take The Convict. Its first printing was small. Over time most have disappeared, and as this happens the remaining ones, those in fine condition, become more valuable. But that’s still a lot of copies out there in the market and they’re identical, or at least they were when they came off the press. Many are passed from one collector to the next. I suppose a few get stolen.”

  “Can I be downright nosy and ask what’s your most valuable first edition?”

  Bruce smiled and paused for a second. “You’re not being nosy, but let’s be discreet. A few years ago I bought a pristine copy of The Catcher in the Rye for fifty thousand. Salinger rarely autographed his masterpiece, but he gave this one to his editor, who kept it in his family for years, virtually untouched. Perfect condition.”

  “How’d you find it? I’m sorry, but this is fascinating.”

  “For years there were rumors about the book, rumors probably stoked by the editor’s family, who smelled a big score. I tracked down a nephew, flew to Cleveland, stalked the guy, and pestered him until he sold me the book. It was never on the market, and as far as I know, no one knows I have it.”

  “And what will you do with it?”

  “Nothing. Just own it.”

  “Who’s seen it?”

  “Noelle, a couple of friends. I’ll be happy to show it to you, along with the rest of the collection.”

  “I’d like that. Back to business. Let’s talk about Cormac.”

  Bruce smiled and picked up Blood Meridian. “Do you read him?”

  “I’ve tried. He’s too violent.”

  “I find it somewhat unusual that a person like Tessa would be a fan of Cormac McCarthy.”

  “She read all the time, as long as the books came from the library.”

  He examined the dust jacket and said, “A couple of chips here on the spine, probably due to aging, with a bit of fading. Overall, the jacket is in good condition.” He opened the book, examined the endpapers, turned to the half-title page and the copyright page, and read it carefully. He turned more pages, almost slowly enough to read the text. Softly, he said, as he flipped through, “I love this book. It’s McCarthy’s fifth one and his first novel set in the West.”

  “I hung in there for about fifty pages,” she said. “The violence is explicit and gruesome.”

  “Indeed it is,” Bruce said, still turning pages, as if he reveled in the violence. He gently closed the book and said, “A near-fine copy, as we say in the trade. Better than the one I already own.”

  “And you paid how much for it?”

  “Two thousand, nine years ago. I would offer four thousand for this and I would probably just keep it in my collection. Four thousand is the top.”

  “That’s ten thousand for these two books. I had no idea they could be worth that much.”

  “I know my stuff, Mercer. Ten thousand is a good deal for you, and for me as well. You want to sell?”

  “I don’t know. I need to think about it.”

  “Okay. No pressure from me. But, please allow me to keep these in my vault until you decide. As I said, the salt air is brutal.”

  “Sure. Take them. Give me a couple of days and I’ll make up my mind.”

  “Take your time. No rush. Now, about that champagne.”

  “Yes, of course. It is pushing seven o’clock.”

  “I have an idea,” Bruce said as he stood and took the books. “Let’s drink it on the beach and go for a walk. I don’t get much beach time, not in this business. I love the ocean and most days don’t even get the chance to see it.”

  “Okay,” she said with a slight hesitation. Nothing like a romantic stroll in the surf with a man who claimed to be married. Mercer took a small cardboard box from the counter and handed it to him. He placed the books in it as she removed the champagne from the refrigerator.

  10.

  It took an hour to walk to the Ritz and back, and by the time they returned to the cottage shadows were falling across the dunes. Their glasses were bone dry and Mercer wasted no time refilling them. Bruce fell into a wicker rocker on the deck and she sat nearby.

  They had covered his family: the sudden death of his father; the inheritance that bought the bookshop; his mother he hadn’t seen in almost thirty years; a distant sister; no contact with aunts, uncles, cousins; grandparents long gone. Mercer had matched him story for story, then went one up with the tragedy of her mother’s mental illness and commitment. That was something she told no one, but Bruce was easy to talk to. And to trust. And since both were scarred by the wreckage of abnormal families, they were on common ground and felt comfortable comparing notes and talking about it. The more they revealed, the more they managed to laugh.

  Halfway through the second glass of champagne, Bruce said, “I disagree with Myra. You shouldn’t write about families. You’ve done it once, and brilliantly, but once is enough.”

  “Don’t worry. Myra is perhaps the last person I would take advice from.”

  “Don’t you love her, though, crazy as she is?”

  “No, not yet, but I’m growing fond of her. Does she really have a lot of money?”

  “Who knows? She and Leigh seem to be quite comfortable. They wrote a hundred books together, and by the way Leigh was far more involved in the romance fiction than she will admit. Some of their titles still sell.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “It’s hard to write when you’re broke, Mercer, I know that. I know a lot of writers and very few of them sell enough to write full-time.”

  “So they teach. They find a campus somewhere and get a steady paycheck. I’ve done it twice and I’ll probably do it again. Either that or sell real estate.”

  “I don’t think that’s an option for you.”

  “Got any other ideas?”

  “Actually, I have one great idea. Top me off and I’ll tell you a long story.” Mercer got the champagne out of the refrigerator and emptied the bottle. Bruce took a long drink, smacked his lips, and said, “I could drink this stuff for breakfast.”

  “Me too, but coffee’s a lot cheaper.”

  “So I had this girlfriend once, long before Noelle. Her name was Talia, a sweet girl who was gorgeous and talented and really messed up in the head. We dated off and on for about two years, more off than on because she was slowly losing her grip on reality. I couldn’t help her and it was painful watching her deteriorate. But she could write, and she was working on a novel that had enormous potential. It was a highly fictionalized story of Charles Dickens and his mistress, a young actress named Ellen Ternan. Dickens was married for twenty years to Catherine, a really stern woman in the Victorian sense. She bore ten children, and in spite of the obvious physical attraction the marriage was notoriously unhappy. When he was forty-five, and perhaps the most famous man in England, he met Ellen, who was eighteen and an aspiring actress. They fell madly in love and he left his wife and kids, though divorce was out of the question in those days. It’s never been clear whether he and Ellen actually lived together, and there was even a pretty strong rumor that she had a child that died at birth. Whatever the arrangement, they did a good job of hiding and covering up. However, in Talia’s novel, they had a full-blown affair that is narrated by Ellen and no details are spared. The novel got convoluted when Talia introduced another famous affair, one between William Faulkner and Meta Carpenter. Faulkner met her when he was in Hollywood cranking out screenplays for a buck, and from all indications they were in love. This got fictionalized too and was very well done. Then, to make the novel even more complicated, Talia introduced yet another affair between a famous writer and his girlfriend. There was a story, one that was never verified and is probably not true, that Ernest Hemingway had a quick romance with Zelda Fitzgerald when they were living in Paris. As you know, facts often get in the way of a good story, so Talia created her own facts and wrote a highly engaging account of Ernest and Zelda carrying on behind F. Scott’s back. So the novel h
ad three sensational, literary love affairs raging by alternating sections, and it was just too much for one book.”

  “She let you read it?”

  “Most of it. She kept changing the stories and rewriting entire sections, and the more she wrote the more muddled it became. She asked for advice, I gave it to her, and she always did the opposite. She was obsessed with it and wrote nonstop for two years. When the manuscript passed a thousand pages I quit reading. We were fighting a lot then.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Talia said she burned it. She called one day out of her mind and said she had destroyed it for good and would never write another word. Two days later she overdosed in Savannah, where she was living at the time.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Twenty-seven years old and more talent than I’ve ever seen. A month or so after her funeral, I wrote to her mother and rather gently asked about what, if anything, Talia might have left behind. Never heard a word, and the novel has never been mentioned. I’m convinced she burned it, then killed herself.”

  “How awful.”

  “It was tragic.”

  “You didn’t have a copy?”

  “Oh no. She would bring the manuscript here for a few days and make me read it while she kept working. She was paranoid about someone stealing her masterpiece and guarded it closely. Poor girl was paranoid about a lot of things. In the end she was off her meds and hearing voices, and there was nothing I could do. Frankly, by then I was trying to avoid her.”

  They pondered the tragedy for a minute or so, each sipping slowly. The sun was gone and the deck was dark. Neither had mentioned dinner, but Mercer was prepared to say no. They had spent enough time together for one day.

  She said, “That’s a great story.”

  “Which one? Dickens, Faulkner, Zelda, or Talia? There’s a lot of material there.”

  “And you’re giving it to me?”

  Bruce smiled and shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

  “And the Dickens and Faulkner stories are true, right?”

  “Yes. But the best one is Hemingway and Zelda. It was Paris in the 1920s, the Lost Generation, all that colorful background and history. They certainly knew each other. F. Scott and Hemingway were pals and drinking buddies and the Americans all partied together. Hemingway was always on the prowl—he married four women—and had a kinky side. In the right hands, the story could be so salacious that even Myra would approve.”

  “I could only hope.”

  “You’re not too enthused.”

  “I’m not sure about historical fiction. Is it history or make-believe? For some reason it seems dishonest to tamper with the lives of real people and make them do things they didn’t really do. Sure they’re dead, but does that give writers the license to fictionalize their lives? Especially their private matters?”

  “Happens all the time, and it sells.”

  “I guess, but I’m not sure it’s for me.”

  “Do you read them? Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald?”

  “Only if I have to. I try to avoid old dead white men.”

  “Me too. I prefer to read the people I’ve met.” He drained his glass and set it on the table between them. He said, “I’d better go. Enjoyed the walk.”

  “Thanks for the champagne,” she said. “I’ll show you out.”

  “I can find the door,” he said, and as he walked behind her gently kissed her on the top of her head. “See you.”

  “Good night.”

  11.

  At eight the following morning, Mercer was sitting at the breakfast table, staring at the ocean, ignoring the laptop, daydreaming about something she couldn’t describe had she been asked, when she was startled by her cell phone. It was Noelle, calling from France, six hours ahead. She greeted Mercer with a hearty “Bonjour,” and apologized for disturbing her creative time, but she needed to check in before the day got away from her. She explained that a man named Jake would be at her store the next day and could meet with Mercer. Jake was her favorite restorer and painter and stopped by periodically. He would be repairing an armoire in the basement workroom, and it would be an excellent time for Mercer to discuss painting the writer’s table. The store would be closed and locked, but Jake had a key and so on. Mercer thanked her and they chatted for a few minutes about things in France.

  As soon as she said good-bye, Mercer called Elaine Shelby, who was in Washington. Mercer had sent her a lengthy e-mail the night before with all the details of the day’s events and conversations, so Elaine was fully briefed. Suddenly it looked as though Mercer might get to see both basements on the same day.

  She called Bruce at noon and said she would take his offer for the two books. She would be downtown the following day to see Jake, and she would pop in the bookstore to pick up the check. Plus, she really wanted to see that copy of The Catcher in the Rye.

  “Perfect,” he said. “How about lunch?”

  “Sure.”

  12.

  Elaine and her team arrived after dark and too late for a meeting. At nine the following morning, Mercer walked the beach and stopped at the boardwalk leading to their condo. Elaine was sitting on the steps with a cup of coffee and sand between her toes. She shook hands firmly, as always, and said, “Nice work.”

  “We’ll see,” Mercer said.

  They walked to the condo, where two men were waiting, Graham and Rick. They were sitting at the kitchen table with their coffee and a large kit or box of some variety. In it, as Mercer was about to learn, were the toys of the trade. Mikes and bugs and transmitters and cameras so small she wondered how they could possibly capture any image. They began pulling out the various devices and discussing the pros and cons and possibilities of each.

  At no time had Elaine asked Mercer whether she was willing to wear a hidden camera. It was just assumed that she would, and for a moment this irritated her. As Graham and Rick talked on, Mercer felt a knot in her stomach. She finally blurted, “Is this legal? You know, filming someone without their permission?”

  “It’s not illegal,” Elaine answered with a confident smile. Don’t be ridiculous. “No more so than taking a photograph of someone in public. Permission is not required, nor is full disclosure.”

  Rick, the older of the two, said, “You can’t record a telephone conversation without full disclosure, but the government has yet to pass a law prohibiting camera surveillance.”

  “Anytime, anywhere, except for a private residence,” Graham added. “Just look at all the surveillance cameras watching buildings and sidewalks and parking lots. They don’t need permission to film anyone.”

  Elaine, who was very much in charge and outranked the two men, said, “I like this scarf with a buckle ring. Let’s try it.” The scarf was a flowery mix of colors and appeared to be expensive. Mercer folded it into a tri-fold and put it around her neck. Rick handed her the buckle ring, a golden clasp with tiny fake jewels, and she slipped the ends of the scarf through it. With a tiny screwdriver, and moving in far too close, Rick examined the buckle ring as he tapped it with the screwdriver.

  “We’ll put the camera right there and it will be virtually invisible,” he said.

  “How big is the camera?” Mercer asked.

  Graham held it up, a ridiculously tiny device smaller than a raisin. “That’s a camera?” she asked.

  “High-def. We’ll show you. Hand me the buckle ring.” Mercer slid it down and gave it to Rick. He and Graham put on matching pairs of surgical magnifying glasses and hovered over their work.

  Elaine asked, “Do you know where you’re going to lunch?”

  “No, he didn’t say. I’m meeting Jake at Noelle’s store at eleven, then I’ll walk next door and see Bruce. Lunch will follow but I don’t know where. How am I supposed to use that thing?”

  “You don’t do anything, just act normally. The camera will be activated remotely by Rick and Graham. They’ll be in a van near the store. There’s no audio, the camera is too small, so don’
t worry about what is said. We have no idea what’s in either basement so try to scan everything. Look for doors, windows, more cameras.”

  Rick added, “And look for security sensors on the doors to the basement. We’re almost positive there are no doors that lead to the outside. Both basements appear to be completely below ground surface with no stairways on the exterior leading down.”

  Elaine said, “This is our first look and it could well be the only one. Everything is crucial, but obviously we’re looking for the manuscripts, stacks of papers that are larger than printed books.”

  “I’m familiar with a manuscript.”

  “Of course you are. Look for drawers, cabinets, anyplace they could possibly fit.”

  “What if he sees the camera?” Mercer asked, somewhat nervously.

  Both men grunted. Impossible. “He won’t, because he can’t,” Elaine said.

  Rick handed the buckle ring back and Mercer slid the ends of the scarf through it again. “I’m activating,” Graham said as he punched keys on a laptop.