“How about dinner some night?”
“I don’t think so,” she said in the same heartbeat. “Thank you for asking, but no.”
The door pulled shut in her wake. I stood again in an empty room on an empty world. A faint trace of her cologne lingered. Her memory lingered a good deal longer.
25
I dreamed about her. We swam together through a sea of books, in my dream. This was wonderful stuff. I hadn’t had much to do with love, quote-unquote, in a very long time. Perhaps a bachelor heading into senility doesn’t believe in the quote-unquote; maybe it’s the one thing he’s truly afraid of. But Rita McKinley had lit a fire under me and I knew it. I had gone up like an ember doused with gasoline. This may be normal for an adolescent, but for a man in his thirties who deals in “relationships” rather than “love,” the feeling was heady and strange. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, but with it came the unease of knowing that it would probably turn out to be.
In the morning I called Hennessey to square things away. I was still enough of a cop to do that. I told him about McKinley’s after-hours visit, what we’d said, and how much I’d given away. He didn’t seem to care much. The mayor wasn’t exactly demanding that cops be called in on overtime to solve Bobby Westfall. He would be happy to talk to McKinley, when they made connections, but he wasn’t hopeful that anything would come of it.
Two hours later, he called back and said McKinley was coming in around eleven o’clock. After that she was fair game.
Fair but elusive.
I called her number around two. She had the recording on, but she called back less than an hour later.
Her voice was cool and distant. “Well, Mr. Janeway, have you figured it out yet?”
“Figured what out, the murder or the book business?”
“If you ever get the book business figured out, let me know how you did it. What can I do for you?”
“Help me figure it out.”
“I told you last night, and I told your Mr. Hennessey again this morning, I don’t know anything about it.”
“I was talking about the book business. I’d like to come up and see your books.”
I felt completely transparent, stripped before the world. I braced for another rebuff and got it.
‘There’s no margin for you up here,“ she said. ”Everything I’ve got is very high retail.“
“I bet I’ll find something.”
“1 don’t think so. You couldn’t possibly make any money, and look, I’m very busy now. I just got home, I’m still tired, and I’ve got a million things to catch up on. Add to that the fact that I’m just not feeling very hospitable. I don’t feel like having company.”
“Well, that’s plain enough.”
“I’m sorry. Good-bye.”
Strike two on Janeway: bottom of the ninth, two out, and the fans begin to head for the turnstiles. I left the store in Miss Pride’s care and made my rounds. I reached the DAV on Montview just as books were being put out. It looked like crap. I looked at it through Rita McKinley’s eyes, and all I could see was crap: small-time books eagerly coveted by eternally small-timers. Book club mysteries. Book club science fiction. Dildo books: the Cosmo Book of Good Sex, How to Make Love to a Man, screwing seven ways from Sunday, blah blah blah. I hope these aren’t the books we’re judged by, by archaeologists of the future.
I’d been staring, thinking of Rita McKinley, when my eyes focused on the title JR and the name Gaddis. I reached out and plucked it just in time. A shadow loomed over my right shoulder.
“Hiya, Dr. J.”
I turned. “Hi, Peter. How’s tricks?”
“Could be better. Y‘ almost missed that one. What’s it worth?”
I opened the book, took off the jacket, sniffed for mold. It was a nice enough first: the flyleaf had been creased and some bozo had written his name in it.
“Oh, for this copy, thirty, forty bucks.”
Miss McKinley probably wouldn’t pick it up, even at $2. But to a guy like Peter, it was a little shot of life.
“Damn,” he said. “Another minute and I’da had it.”
“You can have it anyway,” I said, and I gave it to him.
“Jesus, Dr. J…”
“Merry Christmas, two months early.”
“Jesus.”
We walked out together. In the parking lot we stood and chatted for a moment. I asked if he was finding any books. He said yeah, he had some nice stuff to show me. One or two real honeys. Maybe he’d come in later in the week.
Then he seemed to go stiff. I looked at his face and thought he might be having a heart attack. He tottered and would’ve fallen if I hadn’t grabbed his arm.
“Hey, Pete, you okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He didn’t look okay. He looked like a gaffed fish.
“I gotta go,” he said.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”
“No…no ride. Here comes the bus.”
He broke away and ran across the street. A car swerved and almost hit him. He spun around and without breaking stride ran full-tilt to the bus stop. He had dropped the copy of JR at my feet.
I picked it up and watched the bus roll away. What the hell was that all about? I wondered.
It was about fear. Peter had been so scared of something that his mind had stopped working. Something had scared the hell out of Pete.
I stood where I was and looked around. A busy but harmless intersection: cars raced through on four lanes and people hustled along the sidewalk. Two convenience stores faced each other across the street. On the third corner was a little shopette and a Mexican cafe. The thrift store took up the fourth corner. I tried to remember what Peter had been doing, where he’d been looking, when it had happened, but I couldn’t be sure. I walked across the street and went into one of the convenience stores. I bought some gum. Then I shrugged it off and went back to work.
26
“Rita mckinley called,” Miss Pride said when I came in. “About fifteen minutes ago.”
I played it cool. Checked the day’s receipts. Verified my suspicion that it had been a lousy day. We had barely broken a hundred: cleared expenses was all.
I walked up the street and visited Ruby. He was getting ready to pack it in. Neff had gone home for the day. The firm of Seals & Neff had taken in less than fifty dollars.
It had been a lousy day on Book Row all around.
I didn’t go down as far as Jerry Harkness. I could see a light coming from his window, so I knew he was there. I could see a light in Clyde Fix’s place as well.
Night had come with a vengeance. I felt alone in the world and I had a hunch that, whatever Rita McKinley had to say to me, it wouldn’t make that feeling go away.
But it did. When I called her, she was full of apologies.
“I’m not usually rude to people, Mr. Janeway. Put it down to jet lag.”
“I didn’t notice at all,” I lied.
She spoke into the sudden yawning silence. “If you still want to come up, of course you’re welcome.”
“Just say when.”
“Tomorrow afternoon would be as good a time as any. Make it late afternoon and that’ll give me time to wind down from the trip.”
I felt light-headed, almost giddy. Janeway’s still at bat, folks: as incredible as it is to believe, he’s been standing at the plate popping fouls into the bleachers for more than twenty-four hours, and the game’s still hanging in the balance.
Miss Pride was watering her plant, which had been repotted twice and was growing into a small tree. I had never seen anything grow like that in just three months.
“What kind of thing is that?” I said.
“I have no idea. Just something I dug up myself.”
“If it grows teeth, kill it.”