It was not a place for a claustrophobic: it was dusty, shabby, disorganized; books were piled on the floor and shoved into every nook. Buckley was a pleasant man, easygoing, shy, well liked, highly intelligent. I had spent a rainy afternoon a year ago talking with Buckley about politics, police work, and the intricacies of the book trade. He had just sold a $250 Naked and the Dead to another dealer for $85, knowing full well but not caring much what the price guides said the book was “worth.” The other dealer might eventually get that high-end money, but it wasn’t easy. Norman Mailer has lost a lot of luster since 1948. People don’t care much anymore, so let the other guy take the chance. If it worked, more power to him. The book had cost Buckley eight-five cents at a flea market. Buckley was the best example I had ever seen of the “keep the stock moving” school of bookselling.
I had put him fairly low on my list of people to see. Book-scouts didn’t do much business there: they don’t like to sell to a low retail man because the margin just wasn’t good enough. But Bobby had come in about a week ago with his pockets stuffed with cash. He had flashed a wad bigger than a man’s fist, and no small bills either. It looked like all hundreds from what Buckley could see: it must’ve been several thousand dollars at least. After much prodding, Hennessey had pinned Buckley down to a date. Last Tuesday it was, three days before the murder.
There was another thing. Bobby was dressed to the hilt, three-piece suit and tie, hair and beard trimmed and combed, shoes shined. It had taken Buckley some time to recognize him. He had come to the store at quarter to five, just before closing. Buckley had been on the phone and hadn’t paid much attention at first. Bobby just moved back into the store and started browsing the stacks. As time passed, Buckley began getting restless. He was a man who ran by the clock—he opened and closed on time and seldom stayed open late for anyone. At five-fifteen, Buckley began turning off the lights. At last he walked back and said, in a soft, apologetic voice, “I need to close now.”
Bobby looked up and grinned. Buckley had to take a few steps back, so great was his surprise. No one had ever seen Bobby the Bookscout in a coat and tie.
“My gosh, Bobby,” Buckley said. “Where you going, to a funeral?”
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Tonight I’m burying my old life.”
You could see right away how much he was enjoying it, Buckley said. There was always a tendency in these street people to strut when they got a little money—delusions of grandeur, you know. “Tonight I’m making the biggest deal of my life,” Bobby said expansively.
That wouldn’t be much of a deal, Buckley thought, but he was too much of a gentleman to say it.
“I’m not gonna be a bookscout anymore, Buckley,” Bobby said. “Not gonna be anybody’s doormat.”
“What are you gonna do?” Buckley said.
Bobby grinned, a sly that’s-for-me-to-know look crossing his face. “You’ll see soon enough. I’ll tell you this much. After tonight I’ll be a book dealer, same as you guys. That’s all I ever needed, just a stake.”
That’s when he pulled the money out, just for effect.
“Well,” Buckley said, “looks like you got it.”
“This is just pocket money. I’ll be shopping here a lot from now on, Buckley. It kills me to see you selling books for a quarter on the dollar and I can’t buy them myself. That’s all gonna change.”
“Well,” Buckley said, “whatever’s happening tonight, I wish you luck.”
“Don’t need luck; just need to be there at seven o’clock. This is the biggest deal Denver’s ever seen, and nobody even knows about it.”
“Good luck anyway.”
This was the gist of the conversation between Bobby and Buckley, as Buckley told it to Hennessey.
* * *
“So,” Hennessey said, “what’s it mean?”
“Exactly,” I said.
“Looks like a motive anyway.”
“You mean simple robbery?”
“Sure. The guy flashes a wad like that one time too many. There’s plenty of people who’ll kill you for a roll like that… especially out on the street where this guy worked.”
“That might make sense if it had happened the same night,” I said. “But he was going somewhere just to spend that money. He was due there in two hours: all he was doing in Buckley’s was killing time. That’s why he didn’t buy any books there— he didn’t have any money to spend.”
“You mean the big wad was spoken for.”
“To the last dime. In real life, Bobby was still broke.”
“What’s it mean, then?” Hennessey said again.
“Let’s think about it. Where’d he get the clothes, for one thing? I went through his place, you know, and I didn’t see anything that looked like a necktie or a three-piece suit.”
“You were looking for books. I’ve seen you lose track of time when you’re looking at books.”
“Maybe. I’ll go back and look again, but if there’s a coat and tie anywhere in that apartment I’ll eat your shorts.”
“Whether there is or whether there ain’t,” Hennessey said, “the question still remains, what does it mean?”
“It means Bobby had a coat and tie for one night only. It means he either borrowed or rented it. It doesn’t sound like a rental—not formal enough. Buckley didn’t say he showed up in a tux, did he?”
Hennessey gave a little laugh. “Suit and tie is what he said.”
“I think we’d better ask Buckley how well the clothes fit. I think he borrowed that coat and tie, from someone who was just about his size.”
“Could be anybody,” Hennessey said. “He was pretty average.”
“It didn’t have to be a perfect fit for one night. My guess is he got the coat and tie from the same guy who gave him the money. And I think he was as broke as ever two hours after Buckley saw him. Three days later he was in Goddard’s store trying to sell something. Lambert says he didn’t have anything with him, but maybe it was something small. The fact was, he didn’t have that money anymore. He had given that to someone on Tuesday night, and they didn’t have to kill him for it. I think the fact that he wasn’t killed till Friday night rules out robbery as a motive.”
“It might’ve still been robbery,” Hennessey said. “Maybe not for money. Maybe whoever did it took what Bobby got for the money.”
“That makes it robbery of a different kind, though, doesn’t it? Not your garden-variety thug. The average thug would walk right past fifty thousand dollars’ worth of books to lift twenty bucks from the cash register. This would’ve been somebody with a fairly sophisticated span of knowledge. And a damn cold motive for what he was doing.”
“Well,” Hennessey said, “there are guys like that.”
“There are a lot of guys like that.”
“I’ll tell you how it looks to me. Somebody pays Bobby to do a job. Say he was taking delivery of some literary masterpiece. At this point we don’t know how Bobby got involved—we don’t know why whoever hired him couldn’t‘ve taken delivery himself instead of hiring a bookscout to do it for him. Maybe that part of it isn’t important. The bookscout gets hired, then does a double cross and keeps the merchandise. It takes the client three days to track him down.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“How small can something like that be?”
I looked at him, not understanding the question.
“Bobby had several thousand dollars on him the night he went to Buckley’s,” Hennessey said. “Presumably he was going to buy something at a wholesale price.”
“Okay, I’m with you so far.”
“What’s the retail valuation on something you’d pay up to five grand for?”
“Hell, Neal, it could be anywhere from ten to twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“Could it be more than that?”