“I’ll have to watch you.”
“Hey, I ain’t proud.”
I walked him through to the bathroom. I lifted the lid on the toilet and stood back in the doorway while he did his business. His eyes ran down the book titles on the back of the toilet, a natural bookseller’s habit.
“Some crap,” he said.
“Yeah.”
He zipped up his pants and flushed the toilet. “Thanks, Dr.J.”
We walked back to the door. Suddenly, I said, “What do you know about Rita McKinley?”
“The ice lady?”
“Is that what you call her?”
“That’s what everybody calls her. Once every year or so she makes a sweep through all the Denver stores. Drops a ton of dough. Buys anything unusual but cherry-picks like hell. She’s got the best eye I’ve ever seen. Won’t touch a book with a bumped corner, no matter how much it’s got going for it. She won’t take anything that’s got even a little problem, but doesn’t mind paying top money for those perfect pieces.”
“And that, I guess, is why she’s called the ice lady.”
“That’s part of it. The other part is that people in the trade think she’s got a cold shoulder. She don’t stand over the counter engaging in mindless bullshit. She don’t seem to be interested in shoptalk at all.”
“How do you like her?”
“Man, I love her. I wish she’d come twice a week; maybe then I could get out of the poorhouse. She’s not bad-looking, either. Brightens up the joint while she’s in there.”
“How come I never heard of her before today?”
“Beats me. Maybe ‘cause she don’t do retail.”
“How long’s she been here?”
“In Denver? I don’t know, a few years I guess.”
“Where’d she come from?”
“Back east, I think. Hell, I don’t know. I don’t exactly ask her this stuff when she comes in.”
“When was she in last?”
“It’s been a while… maybe a year? Longer than usual. I remember that last time because we had some great stuff for her. She dropped six grand in our place alone. Man, what I could do with six grand now.”
“What else do you know about her?”
“Not a damn thing, really. Is she mixed up in this?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“It don’t make much sense to me. I mean, Bobby Westfall and Rita McKinley? It just don’t play in Peoria.”
I had said the same thing a few hours before. But the human comedy makes some strange whistle-stops on the way to Peoria.
I kept looking at him, encouraging him.
“Look, Dr. J… almost anything you hear about Rita McKinley is gonna be rumors. Nobody knows her well enough to talk about her. That doesn’t stop ‘em from talking anyway, though. Sure, I hear some shit. You can’t help but pick up stuff in this business, but I hate to spread trash about people when I really don’t know. You see what I’m saying?”
“Ruby, I’ve got a dead man and no suspects. You see what I’m saying?”
He sighed. “Some people think she’s a gold digger.”
“What people?”
“Who the hell knows where something like that starts? One day you just start hearing it. If you hear it enough, you might even start believing it.”
I looked at him.
He shuffled and said, “For one thing, she didn’t always have money. Didn’t always have books. She’s got a lot of both now. I know plenty of rich book dealers, but very few who started with no money. It’s hard to work your way up in this business without a bankroll to start with. There are damn few ways, inside the law, to get that much money and that many good books in that short a time… divine intervention excluded.”
“Where do people think she got ‘em?”
“Oh, everybody knows where she got ‘em. There wasn’t any mystery about that—it was all wrapped up in a big AB spread a few years ago. What nobody knows is the circumstances of that deal. That’s what the mystery is. What I remember about it is this. She had been dating a book collector. She moved in with him. He died, and when he went he left her everything… books, estate, money… the whole works.”
“Was this man old?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you know anything about when and where he died?”
He shook his head. “I can’t remember. You could write to the AB, I’m sure they’d send you the article. There was another piece about Rita McKinley when she moved her stuff here and opened her business. I remember reading it. It wasn’t much of a piece, just a little one-column job saying she had come here and was open for business… about three, four years ago. The guy’s name escapes me just now… I ought to remember it, he was a good enough collector that the AB devoted two pages to his death.”
“Did the article say how he died?”
“Sure. That’s the part that keeps the tongues wagging. He killed himself.”
10
Ruby’s visit to Bobby Westfall’s apartment bothered me, and on second thought I decided to take the good books along with me when I left. Carol was sitting by the bed reading Faulkner when I came in. I put Bobby’s books on the floor and pushed the bag containing her birthday present behind the stack.
“Hi,” she said. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
“Just some stuff for the evidence room. I didn’t want to leave it in that empty apartment.”
She came over and looked. “These are valuable?”
“Yeah, but this is all of it. The rest is like total junk.” I looked at my watch: it was one-fifteen. “What’re you still doing up?”
“Couldn’t sleep. What’s your excuse?”
“Liftin‘ that barge. Totin’ that bale… payin‘ my debt to the company store.”
“So how was your day?”
“Ducky.”
“Did I ever tell you, Clifford, that the thing I love best about you is your communications skill? Did you go out to see Newton?”
“Uh-huh.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “And?”
“He’s gonna be my date at the policeman’s ball.”
“Wonderful. You girls will look great together.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I’d really rather talk about the cockroach problem some other time. Right now I’m gonna grab a shower and mount a major assault with heavy artillery on your body.”
Later, in bed, she lay in the crook of my arm. She was a great lover, good for what ailed me after a twenty-four-hour shift. Now, I thought, I could sleep. But again I found myself thinking about us, our situation, permanence, and me., I was in the middle of a vast sea change. I wondered what she would think of me if I suddenly wasn’t a cop anymore. She had been a tomboy: being a cop was all she’d ever wanted. She had never mentioned children: we had simply never talked of it. In my mind I could hear her saying, I’ve got to tell you. Cliff, I don’t want kids—I’m just not cut out for the motherhood bit. I could see her staring in disbelief when I told her I’d rather be a bookman, I think, than a cop, and not thirty years from now. Maybe she wouldn’t do any of those things. She had been in the department long enough now—almost eight years—to be building up her own case of burnout. Maybe she was getting ready to hear what I was thinking but was still not inclined to talk about.
“What’re you thinking?” she said.
“Think I’m gonna turn in my badge and become a book dealer,” I said.
But I said this in a safe, singsong voice, the same tone you use when you say you’re going to the policeman’s ball with Jackie Newton. She couldn’t do much with it but laugh.
Only she didn’t laugh. She just lay there in my arm and we didn’t speak again for a long time.
It was the telephone that finally broke the spell.
“God Almighty,” I said wearily. “If that’s Henness;ey I’ll kill the bastard.”