“May I speak frankly? We’re talking about a book, are we not?”
“Yes.”
“And you wish to purchase it?”
“I have it for sale.”
A pause. “I see. You actually own a copy. You have it in your possession.”
“ ‘…The jackal growls while the monkey howls / Like a woman struck insane…’ ”
“What did you say?”
“I’m reading from the top of page forty-two.”
“That would hardly seem necessary.” Another pause. “This is confusing. Perhaps I should give you my name.”
“That’d be nice.”
“It’s Demarest. Prescott Demarest, and I don’t suppose it will mean anything to you. I’m acting as agent for a wealthy collector whose name would mean something to you, but I haven’t the authority to mention it. He was recently offered a copy of this book. The offer was suddenly withdrawn. I wonder if it’s the same copy?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“The copy he was offered was represented as unique. It was our understanding that only one copy of the book exists.”
“Then it must be the same copy.”
“So it would seem. I don’t think you gave your name.”
“I’m careful about my privacy, Mr. Demarest. Like your employer.”
“I see. I’d have to consult him, of course, but if you could let me know your price?”
“It hasn’t been set yet.”
“There are other potential buyers?”
“Several.”
“I’d like to see the book. Before you offer it to anyone else. If we could arrange to meet-”
“I can’t talk right now, Mr. Demarest. Where can I reach you this afternoon at, say, four o’clock? Will you be near a telephone?”
“I can arrange to be.”
“Could I have the number?”
“I don’t see why not. Take this down. WOrth 4-1114. You did say four o’clock? I’ll expect to hear from you then.”
“I think that’s it,” I told Carolyn, after I’d summarized the Demarest conversation for her. “I don’t think there are going to be any more calls.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can’t, but it’s one of my stronger hunches. The first caller was foreign and he’s the one who sicced the Sikh on me. The Sikh came around Thursday afternoon, so he’s known at least that long that I had the book, but he made me read it to him over the phone.”
“What does that prove?”
“Beats me. Right now I’m just piling up data. Interpreting it will have to wait. The second call was from Whelkin and he wasn’t terribly interested in howling jackals or growling monkeys.”
“I think it’s the other way around.”
“Monkeys and jackals aren’t terribly interested in Whelkin?”
“The jackal was growling and the monkey was howling. Not that it makes a hell of a lot of difference. What are you getting at, Bernie?”
“Good question. Whelkin seemed to take it for granted that I killed Madeleine Porlock. That’s why he wasn’t surprised I had the book. Which means he didn’t kill her. Unless, of course, he was pretending to believe I killed her, in which case…”
“In which case what?”
“Damned if I know. That leaves Demarest, and there’s something refreshing about him. He was very open about his name and he didn’t have to be coaxed into supplying his phone number. What do you suppose that means?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.” I helped myself to more coffee. “The murder’s what screws things up. If somebody hadn’t killed Madeleine Porlock I wouldn’t have a problem. Or if the police weren’t looking to hang the killing on me. I’d just sell the book to the highest bidder and spend the next two weeks in the Bahamas. One of those three killed her, Carolyn.”
“One of the ones who just called?”
“Uh-huh.” I looked at my watch. “We don’t have a hell of a lot of time,” I said. “I’m supposed to call them at hourly intervals, starting with Demarest at four. That gives us a couple of hours to set things up.”
“To set what up?”
“A trap. It’s going to be tricky, though, because I don’t know who to set it for or what to use for bait. There’s only one thing to do.”
“What’s that?”
“What I always do in time of stress,” I said. “Bribe a cop.”
CHAPTER Fifteen
When he came to the phone I apologized for the intrusion. “Your wife didn’t want to disturb you,” I said, “but I told her it was important.”
“Well, I got Wake Forest and ten points,” he said. “So all I been doin’ is watch twenty bucks go down the chute.”
“Who are they playing?”
“ University of Georgia. The Bulldogs got what they call the Junkyard Dog defense. All it means is they’re chewin’ the ass offa poor Wake Forest.” There was a long and thoughtful pause. “Who the hell,” he said, “is this?”
“Just an old friend and enemy who needs a favor.”
“Jesus, it’s you. Kid, I seen you step in it before, but I swear this time you got both feet smack in the middle of God’s birthday cake. Where are you callin’ from, anyway?”
“The Slough of Despond. I need a favor, Ray.”
“Jesus, that’s the truth. Well, you came to the right place. You want me to set up a surrender, right? First smart move you made since you iced the Porlock dame. You stay out there and it’s just a question of time before somebody tags you, and what do you want to get shot for? And the word is shoot first on you, Bern.” He clucked at me. “That wasn’t too brilliant, you know. Shootin’ a cop. The department takes a dim view.”
“I never shot him.”
“C’mon, kid. He was there, right? He saw you.”
“He saw a clown with a beard and a turban. I never shot him and I never shot her either.”
“And all you do is sell books. You told me the whole story, remember? How you’re straight as a javelin and all? Listen, you’ll be okay now. I’ll set up a surrender, and don’t think I don’t appreciate it. Makes me look good, no question about it, and it saves your ass. You get yourself a decent lawyer and who knows, you might even beat the whole thing in court. Worst comes to worst, so you do a couple of years upstate. You done that before.”
“Ray, I never-”
“One thing that’s not so good, this Rockland kid’s young and feisty, you know? If it was an old-timer you shot, he’d probably take a couple of kay to roll over in court and fudge the testimony. ’Course, if it was an old-timer, he probably woulda shot you instead of waitin’ to get hisself shot in the foot. So I guess you break even on that one, Bern.”
We went a few more rounds, me proclaiming my innocence while he told me how I could cop a plea and probably get off with writing “I won’t steal no more” one hundred times on the blackboard after school. Eventually I shifted gears and told him there was something specific I wanted from him.
“Oh?”
“I have three phone numbers. I want you to run them down for me.”
“You nuts, Bernie? You know what’s involved in tracin’ a call? You gotta set up in advance, you gotta be able to reach somebody at the phone company on another line, and then you gotta keep the mark on the phone for a couple of minutes and even then they sometimes can’t make the trace work. And then if you-”
“I already know the three numbers, Ray.”
“Huh?”
“I know the numbers, I want to know the locations of the phones. As if I already traced the calls successfully and I want to know where I traced them to.”
“Oh.”
“You could do that, couldn’t you?”
He thought it over. “Sure,” he said, “but why should I?”
I gave him a very good reason.
“I don’t know,” he said, after we’d discussed my very good reason for a few minutes. “Seems to me I’m takin’ a hell of a chance.”
“What chance? You’ll make a phone call, that’s all.”
“Meanwhile I’m cooperatin’ with a fugitive from justice. That’s not gonna go down too good if anybody ever hears about it.”
“Who’s going to hear?”
“You never know. Another thing, how in the hell are you ever gonna deliver? You make it sound good, but how can you deliver? If some rookie with high marks on the pistol range whacks you out, Bern, where does that leave me?”