The Sign of the Book

by John Dunning

  I walked to the window and looked down the drive. It looked like some still-life painting. Not even a breeze to flutter the dead leaves.

  I watched and I waited. I had enough now, I could button it up, lock everything back the way it had been, and get the hell out. But I couldn’t pull myself away.

  The thing that bothered me as I dipped back into the file was that the deal between Bobby and the Preacher had no beginning. The earliest letter just appeared, as if their acquaintance had begun in a vacuum, telling nothing of any prior contact. It spoke of a meeting they would have in Gunnison, but there was no indication that they had had others before it. The letter dealt with books as if each knew perfectly well what the other was talking about, yet there had been no foundation to indicate that this was so. One day they might have been strangers, the next day they were partners in crime. Why? Where had this begun? Whose idea had it been? None of those questions, or any of a dozen others I might ask, had even a hint of an answer.

  I am bringing some books out next month, the Preacher wrote at one point.

  Don’t come out to the house, Bobby had written. I will meet you in Gunnison.

  A time and a date was mentioned.

  I want to keep our transactions strictly between us, Marshall wrote. And yet the Keeler boys had come driving up to the house, bold as brass, three weeks after the murder. What did that mean? Had they changed their plans by telephone? I looked at more letters but could find no evidence that they had ever spoken on the phone.

  Four large book exchanges were discussed in the letters I saw. These spanned two years, and Marshall, in an early letter, insisted that no record be kept of the money that changed hands. But the Preacher had cheated: he was a compulsive record-keeper and a born-again cheat, so he had these crude notes tucked away, chicken scratches on common loose-leaf paper. He had paid Marshall $15,000, cash in a suitcase, for delivery of five hundred books. No mention was made whether this was a full or partial payment. I did the arithmetic and guessed it had been paid in full. Five hundred times two hundred was a hundred grand. The books had probably cost an average of $10—$5,000 for basic seed money—still an $80,000 profit. My best guess was that $200 each would be a very low retail average. And they’d want to keep it low retail to move ’em fast.

  Suddenly I saw how I would do it if I were running this scam. I would pay Marshall as little as possible and blow the books out as cheaply as I could. If I went to a book fair with John Wayne’s book signed, I’d have a reasonable chance to sell it for four bills. Price it at half that and it would fly out the door. I would want to move them fast without selling much to other dealers. No matter how good the forgeries were, there would be talk if too many turned up at once, so I wouldn’t put these out at all before the gates opened. I’d wait until the unwashed public got in, then I’d slip them onto my table two or three or half a dozen at a time. Maybe I’d also have a far-flung little network of dealers I could sell to around the country, dealers who didn’t do book fairs and wouldn’t think twice about buying a signed book that looked real. As long as I didn’t get too greedy in any one place, I’d be fine. Spread the stuff around, let it get absorbed into the vast wasteland, and if the signatures were good enough, they’d never be questioned by anyone. Once they were out there, strewn across the country like manure in a garden, who would know where they had come from? Who would ever see them again?

  Many would disappear for years, till the collector died and his widow liquidated his estate. Then they would pass, again largely unnoticed, into some other collector’s hands. If they had been good enough to pass muster once, why not again?

  A forger is like any other con man: he counts on the greed of his customer. The buyer wants it to be real, and if it quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck and has webbed feet and a duck face, well, damn, it’s probably a duck. If the price is way down near wholesale, why wouldn’t he buy it? Why wouldn’t the next generation of collectors buy it as well?

  Provenance? Forget it, we weren’t talking about Hemingways or signed Salingers here. Who asks at this level?

  The more I read the more I believed that the Preacher was following my own game plan almost to the letter. Five hundred books sounds like a bunch, but I could sell these like hotcakes.

  Marshall was a good forger. None of the signatures I had seen looked in any way suspicious. The Robert Frost I had bought looked real enough to fool me, until a question arose and I looked closer. Even then a specialist had to tell us for sure. It was a damned good fake.

  Either Marshall himself had been that good or he’d had access to a good forger.

  I stood at the file, trying to imagine who that might be.

  I was still standing there when the horn blew.

  32

  Everything I did in the next few minutes was driven by instinct. First I lifted one of Marshall’s letters, a one-pager that did nothing but confirm a meeting. I folded it carefully along the original folds and slipped it into my pocket.

  Insignificant…small enough, I hoped, that they wouldn’t miss it.

  Almost in the same motion I pushed the file back into the cabinet. I slammed the drawer shut and shoved in the long steel rod that was supposed to lock it.

  The lock wouldn’t catch.

  I shoved it again and banged it with my palm. Finally had to leave it that way.

  I faced the open window. I heard a bump.

  Another bump, closer now. I was out of time.

  I heard the squeak of a loose board on the porch and a soft breath from the breathless room next door. Footsteps came in through the kitchen. There was a pause, then the unmistakable ratcheting noise of a shell being jacked into the chamber of a gun.

  “I knew it.” The Preacher’s voice had a soft, steely edge that I hadn’t heard from him before. “He’s been in here.”

  Wally grunted. “Everything looks the same to me.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I got eyes, Preacher. Maybe I’m not as dumb as you think I am.”

  The footsteps came closer. I flattened myself against the wall.

  “I think you’re just lettin’ him spook you,” Wally said.

  “A lot you know. Every time I turn around, he’s there. I can’t even take a leak without running into that guy in the same stall.”

  “You got him on the brain is all.”

  “Don’t tell me what I’ve got. Go look back in your room. I’ll stand here where I can see both doors.”

  I heard Wally move down the short hallway. They’d be in here next. I stepped back into the bathroom and eased my way around the toilet.

  The floor creaked under my foot.

  “What was that?”

  “Jesus, Preacher, it’s just me. That guy’s gonna give you a nervous breakdown.”

  I stepped into the shower stall and carefully, noiselessly, pulled the scummy curtain tight. A moment later I heard Wally say, “Well, he ain’t back there.”

  “Never mind the sarcasm. You go look around outside. I’ll check in my room and we can bring over the truck and load this stuff up and get out of here. The sooner we clear this town, the better I’ll feel.”

  I heard his footsteps coming close. In the distance a door closed as Wally went out. The Preacher started across the bedroom and stopped. I heard the filing cabinet open and close.

  “Wally! Get in here! He’s been here! He’s broken into my filing cabinet.”

  “Maybe you just left it that way.”

  “Shut up, Jesus, shut up. Just get out there and find him. I need to look through these files and see if anything’s missing.”

  “You think he might still be out there?”

  “How do I know where he is, he’s like some phantom, he turns up everywhere.”

  “Look, Preacher—”

  “Just shut up and get him.”

  “Yeah? What am I supposed to do if I do see him?”

  The Preacher said something in a low voice. Wally said, “Yeah, right,” but he clum
ped out anyway. I heard him a minute later, walking through the weeds outside the bathroom window. In the other room the Preacher had begun talking to himself.

  “God damn it.”

  A moment later, barely audible: “Oh, that fucking bastard.”

  I heard the rustle of papers, a quick shuffle through the mound of files. This went on for some time, until Wally came in again.

  “Anything missing?”

  “Doesn’t seem to be.”

  “There you go, then.”

  “There you go what? For God’s sake, just go! Go find him!”

  I heard him slam the cabinet drawer.

  Footsteps, coming my way. Very close now…he was in the bathroom, a few feet away. The toilet seat banged up. The Preacher broke wind loudly as he peed.

  He stood back, breathing hard. I could see his shape in the light coming in from the window. I thought he had turned and was facing the shower but couldn’t be sure. I put my hand on my gun and waited. I heard him breathe. I lifted my gun to my side.

  Suddenly his shadow filled the shower curtain like the image of that old-woman figure in Psycho. He jerked it back, we stood looking at each other with guns ready, and in that second all the worst consequences of my breaking and entering were there in my face. This was why I had been spooked, that half-formed hunch that I would not help Laura but would ruin her case. He could have shot me then and been legally justified: he had the law on his side and if I shot him, I’d be up the creek. I thought he must know that. If I thought anything in that wild, crazy instant, that would probably be it, but who can tell whether instinct in the heat of a moment is the same as thought?

  He must know that. He knows it, but he’s no killer.

  He can’t kill me. It takes a certain kind of man to do that and he’s no killer.

  He didn’t move for what seemed like a long time. In fact it was all part of the same few seconds. The sun coming through the window broke over his shoulder and fell on my face. I felt his eyes burning out of the shadows. Neither of us spoke: there was no outrage or fear or anything else. But what I did then may have saved one or both of us. I grinned at him…and I winked.

  I heard a little cry come up from his throat. He shook his head and closed his eyes as if he could blink me away, then he took a step back and lost his balance. He almost fell, almost lost the gun as he grabbed frantically for something to hold. The gun went off and blew a hole in the roof. He kept flailing and finally grabbed the shower curtain and it ripped halfway off its rod, then the whole rod came loose and he fell back against the sink, tangled in the scummy plastic. I heard him cry out as he struggled like a live fish in Saran Wrap. “Ah!” he yelled. “Ah!…Ah!”…and he rolled over and fell again, this time through the open doorway and flat on his back in the middle of the bedroom. He scrambled up and crawled out into the hall. I couldn’t see him now but I could hear him, running through the house and out onto the porch.

  I heard the car start as I went cautiously into the bedroom. His tires sent gravel flying into the air, and from the doorway I saw Wally, running along the road, yelling for him to stop.

  I looked back just once. The filing cabinet was still wide open with the files in plain sight, and in that last crazy instant I was tempted to go at them again. Common sense said, What are you, out of your mind? I had pushed luck far past its limit, and Prudence, that cautious old whore, wanted me to get the hell gone. I hustled out the back way and across the yard, around the garage, and into the trees, on through the thick underbrush in the general direction of town. The day felt suddenly warm in the wake of my near disaster, and again I thought, Damn, I’ve gotta change my ways, even as I knew I probably wouldn’t. If I had ever listened to Prudence, I wouldn’t be here now, shooting my own case full of holes. I’d still be a career cop. Laura Marshall would sink or swim without my help. I wouldn’t have become a bookseller or made these discoveries, wouldn’t have met Erin in the first place.

  I turned back up toward the warehouse. It never crossed my mind that Todd might be gone: it was the kind of day when no one does what he’s supposed to and nothing quite happens according to Hoyle. I got in the car beside him and he drove us away without a word. It was clear enough what had happened here: the Preacher had come roaring up and he and Willie had taken the truck and vanished in about two minutes. I didn’t need a crazy man’s Baedeker to figure that out, and Todd didn’t want to talk about it. We drove past the open ramp door and I glanced into the room. I could see books scattered across the floor, out onto the loading dock, and down the ramp. A few had fallen into the tall grass across the yard and their pages billowed at us in the wind. I had a sudden hollow feeling and a strong premonition that I would never see the Preacher again.

  So is this where it ends? Does it just fizzle away with disappearing perps and me with no good answers?

  This was the damnedest case. We had a crazy judge and a crazier deputy, at least two hundred grand of worthless books, and none of our suspects or their motives made any sense at all. I thought of Lennie and the Preacher, linked only by their arrogance and in the similar ways I had backed them down, and I wanted to laugh.

  We passed Wally, trudging along and muttering under his breath. He glared at us as we sped by but I looked straight ahead as if he didn’t exist. An hour later we were in the air, banking north-northeast toward Denver. It was a quiet ride, almost stilted. Todd asked me no questions and I told him no lies. He was a smart guy, Todd, and he understood that the less he knew the better. Better for himself, better for Laura Marshall’s prospects, better for Erin, and most of all for me. I had nothing to say to any of them. Soon enough I’d reflect on what it all might mean, but for the moment I was happy just to be alive. Moses had been right, and one day over a deep highball I would tell him so. But I wouldn’t take any pride in my sudden enlightenment or how I got that way.

  BOOK III CHRISTMAS IN PARADISE

  33

  Erin made plans to move over to Paradise in early December and we prepared for the hearing on our motion to suppress. Now I was wary of my involvement in the case and warier yet of telling Erin why. I would have to, of course, but not now and not by telephone. She sounded unusually optimistic as November winnowed down: “Apparently Lennie never heard of the Constitution,” she said. “Their investigation sucks. All their evidence is tainted.” I thought of my own potentially tainted evidence, if we should ever get that preacher on the stand as an alternate suspect. “The DA has no idea how badly his witness may have screwed things up,” she said. And you, sweetheart, have no idea how I have screwed up, I thought. In my mind, Lennie and I faced each other in a titanic battle of morons. Gunfight at the Dipshit Corral.

  I tried to redeem myself in legitimate work. The books were in limbo in the sheriff’s evidence room and I had spent three days examining them. I was certainly no handwriting expert, but I was reasonably certain that the majority and perhaps all were forgeries. Too many seemed signed with the same kind of pen, the same ballpoint ink. Erin was thinking of hiring an outside handwriting expert and was still mulling it over as December approached.

  She considered the usual battalion of expert witnesses, who would testify if needed about things they hadn’t seen based on textbook science and likelihoods and their own professional experience. I have never quite trusted professional witnesses: I understand the need for them in this day and age, but in the end they are hired guns lined up to discredit the same witnesses for the other side. An expert is impressive as hell until suddenly the opposite truth comes out. They are trained to know things, yet we have seen even the best of them make mistakes. I remembered the handwriting experts with impeccable credentials who got hoodwinked by that ingenious murderous forger, Mark Hofmann. The experts knew everything about paper and inks, they knew all the tricks, while Hofmann was nothing but a self-taught madman. And he fooled them.

  Our witnesses would talk about everything from the condition of the house to the condition of our defendant’s mind. Our psychologist, an
expert on coercion and mental stress, had interviewed Laura twice and could buttress her story of why she had initially lied. He was a solid guy Erin had used before, a young dynamo who had testified in dozens of cases and presented an unshakable demeanor, she said, in court. In Denver, Erin had spent a lot of time with Jerry and his guardian ad litem, trying to communicate with the kid and figure out what he might have seen, whether he could somehow give testimony in writing and what this testimony might reveal. She had found an expert on juvenile witnesses, but at this point none of us knew what Jerry had actually seen or done, or what we might want him to testify to. He was a risky wild card at best, and Laura was still trying to insist that he be left out of it.

  At the end of this parade Erin had her book expert, me. The DA had contacted his own rare-book authority, a dealer named Roger Lester, who had recently moved to Denver from New York. Lester had opened a shop downtown, on Seventeenth Street, and had taken out one of those splashy quarter-page phone-book ads, putting my own modest one-inch ad to shame. International book searches, it said. I didn’t do that. Expert appraisals, it offered. I did do that, at least well enough to know that one man’s expert is another man’s idiot. Highest prices paid for good books, it blared. Yeah, well, people could say whatever they wanted in the yellow pages, and in fact Lester might be very good. I fought back my drift toward reverse snobbery and prepared to like the guy.

  He would arrive in Paradise the second week in December to do his appraisal for the state. “They still don’t know that our own assessment of the books has changed,” I told Erin on the telephone. “They have no idea yet that any of them are forgeries, and unless he figures that out on his own, they’re going to assign the values as if they’re real.” I sensed Erin’s amusement and read between the lines. Gill was going on the old sucker’s assumption that one out-of-town expert was worth ten local guys, and Lester after all was from New York!—Jesus, he must know lots of good stuff. Let him come, I thought. Let him make his appraisal and we’d see then how good he was.