by John Dunning
I liked Ruby: I admired the old bastard for his savvy and grit. He had pulled himself out of the gutter the hard way, cold turkey and alone. He was a bottle-a-day drunk and he’d kicked that; he had been on cocaine and later heroin and had kicked that. He had been busted for possession, beginning in the days when, in Colorado, you could get two years for having a leaf of grass in your car. Ruby had served a year on that bust, another year for speed, and two years of a seven-year rap for heroin. By then the laws had been liberalized or he might still be languishing at Canon City. I had known him all this time because I was into books, and Ruby, when he was straight, was one of the keenest book dealers in town. A lot of what I knew I had learned watching Ruby work. “I’ll tell you something, Dr. J,” he had said to me long ago. “Learn books and you’ll never go hungry. You can walk into any town with more than two bookstores and in two hours you’re in business.”
You did it the same way the scouts did, only on a higher level. While the scouts looked for $2 books that could be turned for $10, you looked for the $100 piece that would fetch a McKinley. You bought from guys who didn’t know and sold to guys who did. If nobody in town knew, you wholesaled to people on the coast. You worked the AB when you could afford the price of it; you put a little bankroll together and before you knew it, you had three or four thousand books. Ruby had done this more times than he could remember.
Seals & Neff was the last store on the block, but I went there first. It was in their store, about a month ago, that I had last seen Bobby Westfall. I vaguely remembered it now: Bobby had come in to sell something, and there had been a dispute over how much and in what manner Ruby would pay for it. I hadn’t paid much attention then: I was wavering on the price of a nice little Steinbeck item. There wasn’t much to the argument anyway, as I remembered it: Bobby didn’t want to take a check and Ruby didn’t have the cash, so Bobby had left with the book. But that was the last time I had seen him and it seemed like a good starting place.
Ruby and his partner, Emery Neff, were sorting books from a new buy when I came in: they were hunkered over with their asses facing the door and didn’t see me for a moment. The stuff looked pretty good: lots of fine modern firsts, some detective novels, a Faulkner or two. My eye caught the dark blue jacket of Intruder in the Dust. Carol’s birthday was coming up: maybe I’d buy it for her, see how she liked it when she actually owned a book like that. A $100 bill flitted through my mind. That’s what the book was worth, though I expected a good deal of preamble before we got to that point. I didn’t like haggling. I wasn’t one of those cheapskates always trying to pry a book away from a dealer for half its value, but I didn’t want to pay twice retail either. I knew how Seals & Neff operated. They tended to go high with stuff they’d just bought. That sometimes worked with pigeons and sucker books. But then the rent would come due or the sheriff would call for the sales tax, many months delinquent, and they’d scramble around, wholesaling their best books for pennies on the dollar in a mad effort to keep from being thrown out or padlocked.
Ruby was dressed in his usual country club attire: jeans, a sweatshirt, and sandals. He wore a heavy black beard that was streaked with gray. His partner was neater. Emery Neff had blond hair and a mustache. Taken together, they were a strange pair of boys. Ruby was gritty, down-to-earth, real; Neff put on airs, oozed arrogance, and, until you passed muster, seemed aloof and cold. Ruby could sell birth control to a nun; Neff seemed reluctant to sell you a book, even at high retail. Neff wasn’t quite a horse’s ass, but he was close: I guess it was his deep well of knowledge that saved him. He really was a remarkable bookman, and I seemed to like him in spite of himself.
They still hadn’t seen me: they were engrossed in the hypnotic, totally absorbing business of the bookman—sorting and pricing. I had seen the ritual before and had always found it interesting. Ruby would pick up a book and fondle it lovingly, then they’d bat the price back and forth and finally they’d settle on something, which Neff would write in light pencil on the flyleaf. They were just getting to the Faulkner when I leaned over their backs.
“Buck and a half,” Neff said.
“Too high,” Ruby said.
“It’s a perfect copy, Ruby. I mean, look at the goddamn thing, it’s like it was published yesterday, for Christ’s sake.”
“You never see this for more than a bill.”
“You never see a copy like this either.”
“Go ahead, if you want the son of a bitch to grow mold over there on the shelf.”
“Buck and a quarter, then. That’s rock-friggin’-bottom.”
Neff penciled in the price. I cleared my throat and got their attention.
“Well, Dr. Janeway, I do believe,” Ruby said, brightening. “We just got in some stuff for you.”
“So I see. The masters of overcharge are already at work.”
Neff gave me a pained look, as if the mere discussion of money was a blow to one’s dignity.
“Always a deal for you, Dr. J,” Ruby said, and Neff’s pained look drifted his way.
I put the Faulkner out of my mind for the moment. I never could split my concentration effectively.
“I want to ask you boys a few questions.”
“Jesus, Mr. Janeway,” Neff said seriously. “This sounds official. Let me guess what it is. Somebody knocked off the sheriff and right away you thought of us.”
I gave him a mirthless little smile. “When was the last time you saw Bobby Westfall?”
“Jeez, I don’t know,” Ruby said. “He ain’t been coming around much.”
“What’s he done, rob a bank?” Neff said.
“See if you can pin it down for me,” I said.
“Well,” Ruby said, “he come in here maybe two weeks ago. Ain’t that right, Em? About two weeks ago.”
“About that,” Neff said. “What’s it about?”
“I told you, I’m trying to pin him down,” I said. “Did he have something to sell when he came in?”
“Just a few turds,” Ruby said. “Nuthin’ I wanted.”
“Bob was on a losing streak,” Neff said. “He hadn’t found much all month long.”
“He was bitchin’ up a storm about it,” Ruby said. “Bobby never bitches much, but I guess he needed the money and for once in his life he couldn’t find any books.”
“You have any idea what he needed the money for?”
“Hell, Dr. J, I just buy books from these bastards, I don’t go home and sleep with ’em.”
“They always need money,” Neff said.
“Who doesn’t?” Ruby said. “But bookscouts… yeah, Em’s right. Those guys’re always scraping like hell just to get two nickels to rub against each other. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”
“When was the last time Bobby had a big strike?”
“Oh, Jeez,” Ruby said, shaking his head.
“What do you call big?” Neff said.
“I don’t know, Neff,” I said. “What do you call big?”
“Big to him might be this Faulkner you’re looking at. We’d give him thirty, forty bucks for that. Nothing to sneeze at if you got it for a quarter.”
“Bigger than that,” I said.
Ruby’s eyes went into mock astonishment. “You mean like maybe he found Tamerlane in the Goodwill? Something like that, Dr. J?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re kidding.”
They had stopped grinning now and were hanging on my next words. I let them wait, and finally Neff stepped into the breach.
“That’s been done. Remember the guy who found Tamerlane in a bookstore for fifteen dollars a few years ago? Do you know what the odds are of that happening, anywhere in the world, twice in a lifetime?”
“I’m not talking about Tamerlane,” I said. “Just maybe something like it.”
They both looked at me.
“What’s going on, Dr. J?”
“Somebody beat Bobby’s brains out last night.”
�
��Holy Christ,” Ruby said.
“Killed him, you mean,” Neff said numbly.
I nodded.
“Now who the hell would do that?” Ruby said.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Let’s go back to what I asked you. When was the last time Bobby had a big strike?”
“Oh, hell, I can’t remember,” Ruby said. “Jesus, Dr. J, this’s terrible.”
“You’re asking us when Bob might’ve had something somebody would kill him for,” Neff said.
“Let’s make like I’m asking you that.”
“Hell, never,” Ruby said.
Neff nodded immediately. “Even that big score he made a few years back, when he found all four of those big books in one weekend… I mean, that’s the biggest score any of them ever make, and all four of those books don’t add up to more than two grand. Who’d kill a guy for that?”
“Some people, maybe,” I said.
“Nobody I know,” Ruby said. “Goddamn, this’s terrible. I can’t get over it.”
“Let’s say he had something worth two or three thousand,” I said. “That’s a lot of money to guys on the street.”
“It’s a lot of money to me,” Ruby said.
“But to a guy who lives like they live, it’s more money than you’ll ever see again in one place.”
“You think that’s what happened… Bobby found something and some other bookscout took it away from him?”
“I don’t think anything,” I said. “I’m trying to find out something and put it together with what I know. It’s unlikely Bobby found anything worth a real fortune. You said so yourself. Pieces like Tamerlane don’t just drop off trees into somebody’s lap. The reason they’re worth a quarter of a million dollars is because there are no copies out there to be found. A guy would have a better chance of winning the Irish Sweepstakes, right?”
“I’d give him a better chance,” Ruby said.
“And yet it happens.”
“In movies it happens.”
“Once in a while it really happens.”
“I’d sure hate to chase that down,” Ruby said. “Talk about a needle in a goddamn haystack.”
“On the other hand, if Bobby found something worth a few thousand, you’d have to ask yourself a different set of questions. Anybody might kill for a quarter of a million, but who’d kill for three grand?”
“Three grand wouldn’t begin to solve my problems,” Ruby said. “Hell, I owe the sheriff more than that.”
“But it’s a lot of money to a bookscout,” I said.
“I see what you’re saying.”
“So,” I said, “who did Bobby go around with?”
“Well, there’s Peter. I’ve seen the two of ’em walking together, that’s all. Doesn’t mean they were fast and tight. Other than that, old Bob ran alone. I’ve never seen him with anybody else.”
“Who’s Peter?”
“I can’t remember his last name. You remember it, Em?”
Neff shook his head.
“Just called him Peter the Bookscout, just like Bobby. Hell, half those boys never had a name, or don’t want you to know it if they do.”
“Does Peter come by often?”
“He was in here yesterday,” Neff said.
“Comes in three or four times a month,” Ruby said.
“When did you see Bobby and Peter together?”
“Oh, maybe a year ago,” Ruby said. “They were going up to Boulder together, to a book sale. Bobby didn’t drive, so he was hitching a ride with Peter.”
“What do you mean Bobby didn’t drive?” Neff said. “I’ve seen him drive. Don’t you remember that old car he had?”
“That was a long time ago, pardner,” Ruby said. “The cops busted him for no valid license, no insurance. He cracked up the car and ain’t had one since. I know damn well he didn’t have a license.”
“I think you’re wrong about that,” Neff said.
“There was no driver’s license found on the body,” I said.
Neff shrugged. “Then I guess you’re right.”
“I know I’m right,” Ruby said.
“Why would one bookscout drive another one up to a sale?” I said. “It sounds like cutting your own throat to me.”
“That’s what makes me think maybe they were friends,” Ruby said. “At least as much as those guys get to be friends.”
I made a note in my book. “Any idea where I can find this Peter?”
“The only time I see him is when he comes by,” Ruby said.
“If he comes by again, tell him I want to see him.”
“Sure, Dr. J. You bet.”
I looked through my notes. There are many reasons why people get murdered, but 99 percent fall into four broad motive categories: love, hate, greed, insanity. I had looked at two of these.
“Did Bobby have any girlfriends?” I said.
“Not that I ever saw,” Ruby said.
“He ever talk about women he knew, or might have known in the past?”
They shook their heads.
“Anybody you boys can think of who’d want to see Bobby dead?”
“Oh no,” Neff said.
“He was the easiest of ’em all to deal with,” Ruby said.
“Who’d he sell most of his books to?”
“Us, as much as anybody,” Neff said.
“Not so much anymore, though,” Ruby said.
“Why not?”
Neff gave a little shrug. “We’ve been going through some lean times, Mr. Janeway. We’ve had a few setbacks.”
“Oh, let’s call a spade a bloody fucking shovel,” Ruby said. “We bounced a few checks on him. That’s no big deal, people do it all the time. We always made it good. But these bookscouts hate to take a check anyway. They go all the way down to the bank and the check’s no good. I know where they’re coming from. I understand why they get pissed off.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“You mean write a hot check? You know that, Dr. J, I know you do. It’s book fever. You’ve got it just like I have. You see a book you want, you do what you have to do to get it. My intentions are honorable, it’s my performance that lags a little.”
“Where else did he go to sell his stuff?”
“Might be any one of a dozen places. You know the scene, Dr. J: hell, there’s thirty bookstores in Denver. Probably half of ’em pay well enough for bookscouts to be able to deal with ’em. Not many places will pay forty percent across the board, but some do. You could narrow it down that way, I guess. Start with the boys up the street, see if they know anything.”
I thought for a minute. Then I said, “Do either of you know where Bobby lived?”
“I do,” Ruby said. “I drove him home a couple of times.”
“You think you could show me where it’s at?”
“Sure. You want to go now?”
“In an hour. I want to talk to the boys up the street first.”
“I’ll be here whenever you say. You better let me sell you this Faulkner before you leave. It’s the world’s best copy and it won’t last long.”
“How much?”
“For you… Today?… Ninety-five bucks.”
Neff groaned as I reached for my checkbook. “Oh, what the hell,” he said. “I get tired of selling Faulkner anyway.”
6
I walked up the street carrying Mr. William Faulkner under my arm. The next store along the row was Book Heaven, owned by Jerry Harkness.
Denver is a young man’s book town. In the old days there were only two dealers of note: Fred Rosenstock and Harley Bishop. Those boys died and the book trade fractured into twenty or thirty pieces. The new breed came in and the books changed as well. In Rosenstock’s day you could still find documents signed by Abraham Lincoln or the framers of the Constitution. The trouble was, you couldn’t get much for them. Forty years later, those papers and books are worth small fortunes but can’t be found. What can be found, and sold for good money, is modern lit. We live
in a day when first editions by Stephen King outsell Mark Twain firsts ten to one, and at the same price. You explain it: I can’t. Maybe people today really do have more money than brains. Or maybe there’s something in the King craze that’s going over my head. I read Misery not long ago and thought it was a helluva book. I’d put it right up with The Collector as an example of the horror of abduction, and that’s a heavy compliment since I consider Fowles one of the greatest living novelists. Then I read Christine and it was like the book had been written by a different guy. A bigger crock has never been put between two covers. What the hell do I know? I sure can’t explain it when a book like Salem’s Lot goes from $10 to almost $1,000 in ten years. That’s half again what a near-perfect Grapes of Wrath will bring, if you need a point of reference. You can buy five copies of Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea for that, or six copies of Thomas Wolfe’s Of Time and the River. You can buy first editions signed by Rudyard Kipling or Jack London for less money. So the business has changed, no question about it, and the people in it have changed as well. The old guard is dead: long live the new guard. But I can still remember old Harley Bishop, in the year before he died, stubbornly selling King firsts at half the original cover price. The big leap in King books hadn’t yet happened, but even then The Shining was a $100 book. Bishop sold me a copy for $4. When I told him he should ask more, he gave me a furrowed look and said, “I don’t believe in Steffan King.”
Jerry Harkness most definitely did believe in Steffan King. He specialized in King and his followers—Dean Koontz, Clive Barker, et al., the little Kinglets. Behind every big ship you’ll find a dozen little ships atrailing. Most of their plots make absolutely no sense, but again, they stand tall where it really matters in today’s world, at the damn cash register. There’s something seriously wrong with a society when its best-selling writer of all time is Janet Dailey. Don’t ask me to prove it: it’s just something I know. I don’t mind a good scare story once in a while, but Jesus Christ, the junk that goes down! The stupidity of some of these plots that sell in the billions is the scariest thing about them. The Exorcist is a truly scary book because it only asks you to believe one thing—that Satan does exist. There are no talking dogs or curses lingering from antiquity: there’s no literary sleight of hand, no metaphorical bullshit. Accept the guy’s premise (and who can totally deny it?) and he’s got you where you live. All it takes after that is talent. The trouble today (do I begin to sound like Mel Brooks’s two-thousand-year-old man when I get on one of these soap boxes?) is that show biz is often mistaken for talent. Get to the end, though, and ask yourself what it all meant, what was it all about? The answer’s usually nothing. Relieve the author from the obligation to make sense, and what’s there to be afraid of?