“All right, forget it,” Goddard said.
But it wasn’t over yet. “What can you boys tell me about Rita McKinley?” I said.
“I can’t tell you a thing,” Goddard said. “I never met the lady, wouldn’t know her if I saw her on the street.”
“You’re aware of her reputation, though?”
“I know she has some good books. That’s what I’ve heard. But I don’t scout the other dealers. I don’t do business that way.“
I looked at Lambert. Again he had gone red around the ears. He’d be a terrible witness in court, if he had anything to hide.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t kill Bobby, Lambert,” I said.
“All a cop would have to do is ask you.”
He looked up shakily. “I went up there once,” he said.
Then, after a long pause, he said to Goddard, “I didn’t say anything to you because I knew you wouldn’t like it.”
Goddard didn’t like it. The temperature in the room dropped another five degrees.
“I wanted to see her stock, that’s all,” Lambert said. “There’s been so much talk, and I wanted to see what she had.”
“I hope you didn’t represent yourself as a buyer for this store,” Goddard said.
“I didn’t have to. She knew exactly who I was. She knows everybody.”
“When did you go up there?” I asked.
“Last fall, before Thanksgiving.”
“Could you show me how to get there… draw me a map?”
“Sure. It’s not that hard to find. You’ll need more than a map, though. There’s a high fence all around her place, and nobody gets in without calling ahead. You have to call and leave a message.”
“Is she pretty good about calling back?”
“She called me back. I heard from her within a couple of hours.”
“What was she like?”
“All business.”
“But she gave you no trouble about coming up?”
“Why wouldn’t she have me up? She’s in the business to sell books.”
“I just heard that she doesn’t exactly roll out the red carpet.”
“You won’t hear that from me. She’s a real lady,” Lambert said, his face reddening. “She’s got perfect manners and I’ll tell you this. She knows her stuff. I was damned impressed.”
“Obviously,” Goddard said.
“What did you think of her stuff?” I asked.
“Absolutely incredible. I’ve never seen books like that. She’s got a This Side of Paradise, signed by Fitzgerald, with H. L. Mencken’s bookplate and a personal note from Fitzgerald practically begging Mencken for a review. The book is in a bright, fresh jacket with no flaws. She’s got a whole wall of detective stuff—prime, wonderful books. Have you ever seen perfect copies of Ross Macdonald’s first three books, or the first American edition of Mysterious Affair at Styles‘? She’s got a Gone With the Wind signed by Margaret Mitchell, Clark Gable, and Vivien Leigh. Gable wrote a little note under his name that said, ’And now, my dear, everyone will give a damn.‘ There’s so much great stuff, you don’t know where to start.”
Goddard grunted.
“Here’s another thing,” Lambert said. “You remember that old rumor about Hemingway and Wolfe signing each other’s books?”
It was a rumor I had never heard, so I asked him to fill me in.
“Sometime in the thirties, a woman in Indiana was supposed to have sent a package of Hemingway and Wolfe books to Max Perkins, begging for signatures. The books sat around in Perkins’s office for months. Then one night Hemingway and Wolfe were both there and Perkins remembered the books and got them signed. But both of them were three sheets to the wind and Hemingway thought it would be a great joke if they signed all the wrong books. He sat down and wrote a long drunken inscription in Look Homeward, Angel, and signed Wolfe’s name. Wolfe did the same with A Farewell to Arms. They started trying to outdo each other. Wolfe’s inscription in Green Hills of Africa fills up the front endpapers and ends up on the back board.”
“Thomas Wolfe never could write a short sentence if a long one would do just as well,” Goddard said sourly.
“But the point is,” Lambert said unnecesarily, for by then even I knew what the point was, “McKinley has all those books, with the handwriting authenticated beyond any question. She seems to look for unusual associations, offbeat sig-natures, and pristine condition. Hey, she’s got a Grapes with a drunken Steinbeck inscription and a doodle of a guy, drawn by Steinbeck, who has a penis six feet long. I mean, a guy would fall on his face from the force of gravity if he had a schmuck like that. Under the picture, Steinbeck wrote, ‘Tom Joad on the road.’ All I can say is, I’ve looked at a lot of books, but I’ve never seen a collection quite like that.”
I had some more questions, mostly insignificant, which they asnwered in terms that were generally inconsequential. Then I had Lambert draw me a map to Rita McKinley’s house and I left them to their unfolding squabble. I called headquarters and talked to Hennessey. Rita McKinley had not yet returned my call. I gave Hennessey the names of additional book dealers to check out, and twenty minutes later I was in the foothills, heading for Evergreen.
It was pretty much as Lambert had said, a waste of time. She lived near the top of a dirt road that snaked up the mountainside. You went through Evergreen, a bustling little mountain town about thirty minutes from Denver; then, eight or ten miles out of town, doubled back onto a road that was clearly marked private. There were half a dozen places up there, McKinley’s being at the far end. She had the entire mountaintop to herself. Her privacy was protected, just as Lambert had said, by a locked gate and a fence ten feet high. I wondered about covenants: I didn’t know you could build a fence like that anymore, but there it was. I looked through the chain links and followed the fence through the woods, until it became clear that I was simply circling the mountaintop and the fence went the distance. At one point the trees thinned out and I could see her house, the glass glistening two hundred yards above my head. I called up through the break—cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted her name—but no one came.
I talked to people on the way down: stopped at each of the houses and asked about the mystery woman at the top. She remained that, a faceless enigma. No one knew her. She never stopped to chat. All people saw as they passed on the road was a figure, obviously female, in a car. One man had put together a Christmas party last year for all the neighbors on the mountain. Everyone had come but Rita McKinley, who had sent regrets.
In Evergreen, I called her number again and got the re-cording. I left her a stiff message, telling her I wanted to see her right away. But I had a hunch that I wasn’t going to hear from the lady, that I’d have to track her to earth and pin her down. I had another hunch, that that might prove to be heavy work.
12
For all my alleged expertise, it was Hennessey who got the first break in the case. While I was spinning my wheels in the mountains, Neal had hit the streets and talked to more book dealers. He had come to a store on East Sixth Avenue where Bobby had sometimes been seen. The owner was a man in his forties named Sean Buckley. He had a good eye for books and he sold them cheap. His store was dark and was sometimes mistaken for a junk palace, but Buckley was no Clyde Fix. He knew exactly what he was doing. His books were priced intentionally low, sometimes drastically low. People talk when they find bargains like that, and Buckley’s store was always crowded with eager treasure hunters.