“And the thought of Mrs. G’s books never occurred to you?”
“Of course it occurred to me, do you think I’m stupid? That’s the first thing Lee and I did when the subject came up: I sat him down and went point by point over what had happened to the old woman, and what would happen if this turned out to be a stolen book.”
“And what conclusion did you come up with?”
“That Lee would be at risk if that turned out to be the case.” She shrugged. “He wants to take that chance.”
“And give up the book if he has to.”
“Yes, of course. That’s the chance you take if you want to play the game. In all likelihood there’ll never be a challenge. All the people are dead.”
“As far as you know.”
The moment stretched.
At last I said, “That would be a pretty good book, wouldn’t it? It might even put a new slant on history. I don’t think we’re talking about a revision on the order of, say, the South suddenly wins the war, but you can bet historians as well as book collectors will be interested.”
“Yes,” she said.
“The book would get a lot of attention.”
“Yes, it would. If the owner wanted it to.”
“I can see a story like that on the front pages of quite a few newspapers. And that might make it worth a lot more as a rare book.”
“That’s been Archer’s point all through the negotiations, and we agree with him. Where our negotiations break down is over how much that should be.”
“What are you offering?”
She stared at me.
“I tend to ask impertinent questions,” I said. “I guess that was one of them.”
“Yes, it was. But Lee wants me to tell you everything, so our offer was $250,000.”
“Wow.”
“So? You’re a bookman. Is that fair?”
“You want me to be your arbiter now? Somehow I don’t think Archer will go for that.”
“Not for attribution, just for my own information. I’m curious.”
“A quarter of a million is a helluva price for any book. You could get Tamerlane for less, if you could find one to buy.”
“Then you agree it’s a fair price.”
“I haven’t seen the book. And remember, I’m no expert.”
She looked annoyed.
I said, “Hey, I’m sorry, but content is everything. I’d have to read it to offer even an incompetent opinion.”
“All right, forget I asked. We haven’t seen it yet either.”
The waitress came with my breakfast, set it nicely on the table, and left.
“Archer wants half a million,” Erin said.
I laughed. “That’s our boy.”
“Certainly is. We should be glad he’s not asking a full million, or two, or ten. It wouldn’t matter. What he does want is still out of the question. Lee is not a poor man, as I’m sure you know, but he hasn’t got that kind of money to throw around on something this shaky.”
Abruptly I said, “I hear you were pretty hard on Archer last night.”
She scoffed, “You hear, indeed.”
“I hear you even threatened him, in an oblique way, with legal action.”
“You’d better get your hearing checked. Whatever I might’ve said was nothing more than part of a negotiation.”
“Tactics.”
“Exactly.”
“Still, you’ve got to have a valid reason for a threat like that.”
“I never threatened him. If he thinks I did…” She shuddered.
“The deeper I get into this deal, the less I like it. I wish Lee would just tell Archer to get lost and be done with it. But he thinks the book is so historically important that it’s got to be bought.”
“I understand that, all right. There are books like that, that must be bought. So does Lee think Archer might actually have stolen this book? How would he have done that?”
“That’s the rub, isn’t it? We just don’t know.”
“But they had a falling-out over something.”
“Over Archer’s greed. Lee thought they had a deal, then Archer got greedy. In Lee’s mind, you don’t do that to a friend. You know, as kids they were almost like brothers. But Archer was different then. He was a grand guy. I know that’s hard to imagine, but if Lee says it was so, I believe him. Hal Archer was a kind, generous, wonderful friend in those days.”
“So what screwed him up?”
“Everything, starting with his grandfather. He was never good enough, either for his father or grandfather. His older brother was named after the father and grandfather. He was the one who was supposed to rule the estate, like some stupid progression in royalty, and he would have if he hadn’t been killed in an auto wreck. Hal’s first mistake was being born second; his second mistake was not wanting to be a lawyer.”
“So the Archers loved books but wouldn’t let their son write ‘em.” “I don’t think that’s so unusual. Would you want your son to be a writer? Or your daughter to marry one?”
“If that made them happy, why not?”
“Because most of the time it doesn’t make them happy. Most writers I know lead difficult, hand-to-mouth lives. In the first place the odds against selling a book are enormous. A big New York publishing house may get twenty thousand manuscripts in a year and publish two hundred. Most of those slush-pile books are horrible, so there’s an expectation of failure that’s tough to overcome even with decent work. Those first-readers can’t expect to find much, so they don’t.”
“And this is what you want to give up law for?”
“That’s probably exactly what Archer’s father said, in far stronger terms.” She shrugged. “At least I’ve got some money in the bank. I’m not going to starve and I can always go back to law, but I’m still a good case in point. I suppose I’m like every other wannabe writer with a huge ego. I believe my talent and sheer persistence will overcome the odds, even when I know what the odds are. I’m facing a long, uphill battle, but at least I know it. That’s why I can talk about Archer’s life with some understanding even if I don’t like him much as a man.”
“So Archer was estranged from his family fairly early.”
“To put it mildly. He was sent to the University of Virginia, the old man’s alma mater, in the hope it would straighten him out. But he was put on notice and given no money for anything. He dropped out after a year and the family made him an outcast. In effect he was on his own from then on. He went to New York, lived in a hole in the wall, and started to write stories.”
“And had a terrible time selling them.”
“Oh yeah. Miranda’s right: Archer’s a real bastard, but what a great talent. That should have been evident from the start, publishers should have been clamoring to get at his stuff. Instead he met a wall of indifference that broke his spirit and finished the job his family had started. Can you imagine what it’s like to write for years and get nowhere? To know in your heart that you’re something special and watch your books get rejected and rejected and rejected, over and over till the paper they were typed on begins to come apart. I’ll tell you what happens to writers like that. One day they wake up and they’re old. All that promise just seems to flush away overnight and they’ve got nothing to show for it except a wasted life. It comes faster than they could’ve imagined. Archer was in his forties when he published his first book. It had gone everywhere and finally David McKay bought it. McKay was a small house and the book sank like a lead balloon. Then they rejected his next book, and there he was, starting from scratch, looking for a publisher. His book had made him less than three thousand dollars, and that was spread over several years. Try to live anywhere on that. Try living in New York.”