The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession

by Allison Hoover Bartlett

  In reading about this hunger, I had repeatedly come across evidence of the widespread fondness for first editions. Other than original manuscripts, they are the closest most readers can get to an author. This sense of a book as an extension of a person is not remotely new. In 1644, John Milton wrote: “For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.”2 Nearly three hundred years later, in 1900, Walt Whitman echoed that sentiment: “Camerado! this is no book, / Who touches this touches a man.”3 A collector of paintings can get his hands on the one and only; a book collector’s best option, aside from the original manuscript, is the first edition. Collectors can’t get enough of them. But according to a riddle I came across, this predilection can be problematic: Which man is happier, “he that hath a library with well nigh unto all the world’s classics, or he that hath thirteen daughters? The happier man is the one with thirteen daughters, because he knoweth that he hath enough.”4

  I plunged forward anyway and decided to start with a couple of books by Gay Talese, since he would soon be coming through San Francisco and might sign them. I had been warned about the dangers of ordering books from non-ABAA dealers, but I was in a hurry, and the few ABAA dealers I called didn’t have what I was looking for. I ordered first editions of The Overreachers and The Bridge, about $40 each, from two non-ABAA dealers I found online. When they arrived, I eagerly opened the bubble-wrapped packages. The Overreachers was in “very good” shape, my first first edition! The Bridge, while also in “very good” shape, was not a first edition at all—where The Overreachers’ copyright page clearly identified it as a “First Edition,” The Bridge made no mention of its printing. I had no idea what edition it was. I contacted the dealer, who admitted that she was mistaken and agreed to reimburse me the difference in price. Lesson learned.

  Gay Talese did sign my copy of The Overreachers, and when I brought it home, I put it on the shelf with my non- first editions. I felt that maybe it needed a place of greater honor, but I never got around to moving it. Having touched the pages of a Flaubert manuscript at the New York book fair, I could appreciate why someone might want an original manuscript. Yet, I had to admit, I could not fully grasp the ardor for printed first editions. So much of collecting is driven by emotions, probably most of it, and although I understood the attraction of first editions intellectually, I didn’t feel it. The strongest attachments I have to books are those with which I have a personal history. When I was a child sick with the flu, my mother gave me her childhood copy of Anne of Green Gables. I was as charmed by its old-fashioned beauty as I was by the story. It had faded taupe linen with an illustration of Anne in profile on the cover. Inside was an inscription: “To Florence from Aunt Freddie, Xmas 1911,” meaning that not only had my mother read it, but also her mother, Florence. I also treasure my father’s vividly illustrated Peter Rabbit (in which Peter looks like a lunatic with devilish eyes) and his family of cat books (Mother Cat, Fluffy Kitty, Muffy Kitty, and, best of all, Puffy Kitty). Of all my grandparents’ books, none is more bewitching than Lettres de mon moulin, a 1948 book with lovely watercolor illustrations of French country life. (Does the fact that I adore a book I cannot read a single word of indicate at least some leaning toward bibliomania?) It has a soft cover with an illustration of a windmill and is wrapped in cracked glassine. The way it obscures the illustration makes me think of an old train’s window. None of these books is of any value in the marketplace (I checked), but I will always appreciate them for the stories they hold, both on the page (those in English, that is) and in their histories. I doubt I’d feel any different if they were first editions—unless they were worth enough, say, to pay for my children’s education, in which case I’d have to part with them. But it would be a sad parting.

  So my Talese first edition sat on my shelf wedged between my second or third or twelfth editions of other books. As passionate as I am about reading, and as appreciative as I am of the aesthetic, historic charms of old books, the collecting bug hadn’t caught me yet.

  WHEN LANE HELDFOND was notified that the credit card number used for the purchase of the first editions of Joseph in Egypt and The Patchwork Girl of Oz was fraudulent, she was shocked, but assumed insurance would cover their loss—enough money, she realized, for her and Erik and their six-year-old daughter to take a vacation in Hawaii. She was mistaken; insurance didn’t cover it. (Unless merchants obtain signatures from bona fide cardholders, they must absorb the cost of the stolen goods.) Furious, she e-mailed Ken Sanders the details. She had read his recent notices, and unlike so many of her colleagues who are loath to expose their vulnerability, she felt it was important to get word out of their missing books. She wrote that a fairly knowledgeable man had called about buying books as gifts. Like the thief Sanders had warned the trade about, he had used a credit card to pay for them and said a relative would pick them up. But this thief was not elderly. He was in his thirties, she guessed, with dark hair.

  Sanders had been sending “Northern California Credit Card Thief” notices to the trade, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe it was “thieves” he should be warning them about. Was this a gang? He felt as though he were chasing phantoms. His detective work might have been easier had all his fellow dealers been willing to talk about their losses.

  THE PLEASURE of Gilkey’s extended vacation with his father was heightened by his success at getting so much for free. Gilkey had two ways to wrangle a night in a hotel: using a stolen credit card number or telling hotel management that the toilet in his room had overflowed, thereby getting a refund. He found that most hotels guaranteed one-hundred-percent satisfaction, so if he complained to the general manager, most of the time they wouldn’t charge him. The same went for meals. Only a couple of times did his methods not work: at the St. Francis Hotel, in San Francisco, where they held his luggage until he could come up with cash to cover the room, and at the Mandarin Oriental, also in San Francisco, where he’d stayed because he had wanted to experience a five-star hotel. When they didn’t offer a refund after he said the toilet overflowed, he cleared the room of the shampoos, soaps, and complimentary slippers, which gave him a small sense of vindication.

  As the weeks passed, and June drew near, Gilkey picked up his pace, about two books a week. Although it wasn’t very valuable, one of his favorites was Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, because of how he got it. One of the greatest pleasures of beholding one’s collection is remembering how each volume came to rest on the shelf. Gilkey had ordered The Dead Zone from a pay phone in the Beverly Hills library, right across the street from the police station.

  This was an exciting time for Gilkey. He took precautions, always watching book dealers closely to see if something was wrong in case they’d called the police. He made up rules for himself: appear relaxed, chat for five to ten minutes, always check for suspicious cars or people, make sure the bookseller doesn’t seem nervous, compliment the stock. While he usually picked up the books himself, sometimes he would use a taxicab driver. He would tell the driver, “I’m lazy, I’ll give you a good tip.” Or to give the impression that he was not up to the task himself, he would limp, or say he had a headache, or that he wasn’t feeling well. He figured cabbies were “greedy enough, they would do anything for money, even five dollars.” Once, he considered wearing the costume of a priest during a pickup, but felt he had to draw the line somewhere.

  Between January and June of 2001, Gilkey was picking up books worth $2,000, $5,000, $10,000. Together, they totaled at least $100,000. He realized that at this rate if he were to stop working entirely and dedicate himself to book collecting, he might end up with a collection worth millions.

  He sensed, however, that he might be setting a pattern that would attract attention, especially in Northern California. So he decided he would expand his reach, steal from one major rare book store after another, and get
himself fifty rare books. If the authorities were looking for a pattern, they wouldn’t find one. He would order one book from Oregon, another from Idaho, and yet another from Arizona. He’d hit New York, Philadelphia, all over the world. He knew that the market was international, so, as he said, “I could buy a rare book in Argentina, another in England, in South Africa, the Bahamas.”

  He also decided to change his MO and stop picking up the books himself (or having someone else do it). Instead, he would have them delivered to hotels, where he would pick them up later. It wasn’t necessary to tell the bookseller it was a hotel; he could just give them an address.

  In June, Gilkey finally went to jail to serve time for the bad check he’d written back in January. He would have three and a half months behind bars to think about his next moves. Before he left, he told his father to disregard his past vow.

  “Forget about an estate,” he said, “I’m going to build us an empire.”

  AFTER SERVING his sentence, Gilkey walked out the doors of Los Angeles County Jail and within several weeks was hired again at Saks Fifth Avenue. Over the next year, while on parole, he sold expensive designer garments, surreptitiously jotted down the credit card numbers of customers who bought them, then used the numbers to steal, according to his estimate, about a book a month, maybe more.

  By the end of 2002, with the holiday shopping season in full swing, Gilkey’s employers were so pleased with his performance they offered him a promotion to the customer service center, where he would have access to cash, plus all the credit slips and gift cards. Fearing the move might trigger a background check that would reveal his criminal history, he tried to decline the offer. His caution was inconsistent, though. When his boss persisted and pushed some forms on him, Gilkey carelessly wrote down his Modesto address, where in 1998 he had done sixty days in jail for writing a bad check. Arriving at work one morning shortly after that, he was summoned by the VP of human resources, who confronted him with his falsified records, and that was the end of his employment.

  Gilkey had enjoyed his job at Saks more than any other. His coworkers were nice to him, and customers seemed to appreciate his cordiality, all of which a coworker from the men’s department, Tony Garcia, confirmed. “Mostly quiet, very professional” is how Garcia described Gilkey. “Always willing to help.”5

  Being forced to leave made Gilkey feel once again that the world had been unfair to him, singled him out. With his stockpile of receipts, though, he had the means to get even. Just thinking about it brightened his mood.

  A couple of weeks later, on Tuesday, January 28, 2003, Gilkey woke at his mother’s house and got dressed. He skipped breakfast, took the bus to downtown Modesto, wandered around a little, then went to the Doubletree Hotel, where he settled into a comfortable chair next to the phones in a spacious alcove off the lobby. Gilkey was scrupulous about keeping records, of both books he desired and books he stole, noting which credit cards he had used and the circumstances of each swindle. One of his rules was not to place more than two or three orders in one day, but since not all his attempts would necessarily be fruitful, that morning’s list included seven or eight places to call. In addition to books, Gilkey had his heart set on a few antique documents and an antique sterling silver baby rattle he had seen in a catalog. He reached a dealer in Idaho and successfully ordered a copy of The Monkey Wrench Gang, coincidentally by Sanders’s friend Edward Abbey. Gilkey had the book shipped to an address in Palo Alto that was actually the Westin Hotel.

  Gilkey then called a dealer in New York, and another in Chicago, but either they didn’t have what he was looking for or the credit card numbers were rejected. Last, he dialed the number of Ken Lopez, a dealer in western Massachusetts. He had noticed Lopez’s advertisement in Firsts, the magazine devoted to book collecting. He identified himself as Heath Hawkins6 and said he wanted to get something in the $5,000 to $7,000 range. “Hawkins” then asked about their copy of The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. Lopez described the book for him, noting that it cost $6,500, and the two men chatted for a while. “Hawkins” seemed genial and somewhat knowledgeable. After their discussion, Lopez agreed to bring the price down to $5,850.

  Then “Hawkins” asked Lopez if he thought he should have a clamshell box made for the book, and something clicked in Lopez’s memory. About six months earlier, another man, “Andrew Meade,” had called him, inquiring about a first edition of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, priced at $7,500—and he had asked about having a clamshell box made. The credit card had not gone through, and although “Meade” had said he would call back with another credit card number, he never did, because it was Gilkey, and he had only one card in Meade’s name.

  Lopez knew that a colleague of his, Kevin Johnson of Royal Books in Baltimore, had also been hit by “Andrew Meade” months before and lost a first edition of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, worth $4,500. Lopez had read enough of Sanders’s e-mail warnings about the “Nor Cal Credit Card Thief” to be fairly certain that he had the man they were looking for on the line. After “Hawkins” gave Lopez an American Express number, Lopez told him he’d run the order through, and that “Hawkins” should call him back. A quick call to American Express revealed that the address “Hawkins” had given him was not the one listed on the account.

  When “Hawkins” called back, Lopez asked him, “What about this billing address?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said “Hawkins,” “that’s not the billing address. The billing address is actually in New York.”

  “Oh, really?” said Lopez.

  “Hawkins” then gave the correct billing address.

  “I’m going to run this order through again,” said Lopez. “So why don’t you call back in a few minutes.”

  Lopez quickly Googled the shipping address “Hawkins” had given him. It was the Sheraton Hotel in Palo Alto, just down the street from the Westin. (Gilkey was planning to pick up both books on the same day.) Lopez called American Express, who contacted the cardholder, Heather Hawkins, in New York, and asked if she had ordered a rare book. She had no idea what they were talking about.

  When “Hawkins” called back to make sure the order had gone through, Lopez’s partner asked him to hold a moment while Lopez completed a call on another line. The man on the other line was Ken Sanders, whom Lopez had just alerted to what was going on. When Sanders heard the details, he suggested that Lopez string “Hawkins” along, complete the order, and agree to send the book by overnight delivery. After hanging up, Lopez picked up the other line, where “Hawkins” was waiting, and confirmed that the order was ready to go.

  While Gilkey was pleased that he’d “nailed it,” Sanders wasted no time. He contacted San Jose police detective Ken Munson, whom Kevin Johnson, the Baltimore dealer, had spoken with when he filed a complaint about On the Road having been stolen. Sanders reminded Munson of that theft and the string of other thefts he suspected were committed by this man “Hawkins” with whom Lopez had just spoken. The “trilogy of Kens,” as Sanders calls himself, Lopez, and Munson, got to work.

  Detective Munson is a reader of detective novels, Michael Connelly’s especially.7 He’s an inquisitive man, often bored by the usual Internet fraud cases he pursues, and was intrigued by this guy stealing books. It wasn’t the kind of case he usually took on, especially since the victim was a citizen of Massachusetts, not San Jose; but his high-tech unit, which dealt mostly with fraud, was fairly autonomous. And it was true that the hotel was in his jurisdiction.

  Once Munson got Sanders’s message, he had to work fast: the book—a facsimile library edition Lopez had sent, in case the sting was not successful—was to be delivered the next morning. Munson thought this thief seemed pretty sharp. The dealers and credit card holders he had ripped off wouldn’t know of the fraud until a month or two afterward, when the bills arrived. And once notified, when they looked back over their records, all the dealers would find was a phone number, which would turn out to be a pay phone, and an address, which would t
urn out to be a hotel. Plus, this thief had been hitting different geographic areas, different jurisdictions. Even if the police could get a warrant on somebody in another state, the DA was not going to spend a thousand dollars to have him extradited, or pay his airfare. Munson had come across criminals who know that if they steal a small enough amount from a large enough group of people from different states, they may never be touched. He figured Gilkey was one of them. Munson agreed with Sanders and Lopez that whoever had stolen from Kevin Johnson was probably the same thief who had just called Lopez. Worst case, he thought, they’d spend five hours on it, and call it off if the thief didn’t show.

  Munson contacted the Sheraton and found that there was a reservation for Heather and Heath Hawkins, which Gilkey had made shortly before he asked the hotel to hold all his packages. The hotel sits near Stanford University and appears to suffer from a split personality: Spanish-style architecture (stucco arches, red-tiled roofs) on the outside, pan-Asian details (Chinese lions, lacquered screens) on the inside. Also inside now were two undercover detectives, a woman and a man, seated comfortably in jeans and polo shirts, looking like a couple on vacation. They had arrived early, to be sure to be there for the FedEx delivery, which was guaranteed by ten thirty. They assumed the thief would try to arrive soon after the delivery. Outside, Munson had set up surveillance with unmarked cars in the parking lot. Inside, hotel employees had been alerted to give a signal when “Hawkins” came up to the desk and asked for his package. Of course, none of them really had any idea who or what they were looking for. The thief could be a man, a woman, two men—they didn’t know.