by John Dunning
I walked up the street and looked in the window.
It was one of those old places with alcoves and side rooms and high ceilings. The house had been built, I guessed, around 1910: a residence long ago, before East Colfax had hardened and become Hustler’s Avenue. When the hustlers had moved in, the place had gone commercial: the porch had been stripped away and bricked up; a storefront had been added and grates put over the windows. The last tenants had not been kind: there was grime on the walls and grit on the floor; the ceiling sagged and the carpet, where it existed, was a nest for all the rats and bugs of east Denver. But if you could see past the dirt to what it could be, none of that mattered.
I copied the number from the sign in the window, went back to Ruby’s and called the man. He wanted $800 a month and a two-year lease: he would maintain the outside and I’d take care of the inside. The place was 2,500 square feet, which included two rooms in the basement. I told him I was interested, and we agreed to meet later in the afternoon and talk some more.
“If I do it we’ll be in competition,” I said to Ruby.
“That never scared me any.”
“Do it and in a year this block will be known from coast to coast,” Neff said.
“Believe that, Dr. J,” Ruby said. “Believe it. Have faith. Know that the good guys always win.”
“I’ve been a cop too long to buy into that, Ruby.”
“Believe this, then,” he said, holding the check between two fingers.
“He made the check out to us,” Neff said. “If you’ll allow us fifty for selling it, I’ll write you our check for three-fifty and we’re square.”
“Things must be looking up,” I said cheerfully. “You’re writing checks again.”
“Cash it fast, Dr. J,” Ruby said. “There’s still a little left over from your check the other day. I’m goin’ down to the bank and put this in right away. But you cash that check real fast.”
19
I met the guy and signed the lease. Then I quit the department.
I called in and told Steed. We talked for ten minutes. Most of what he said could be wrapped up in a couple of short sentences.
You’ve been a damn good cop, Janeway: don’t throw it all away because of a stupid mistake. Fight the bastards.
I didn’t have the heart for that fight anymore. I went home and put it in writing.
It swept through the department like wildfire. My phone started ringing and didn’t stop for three days.
20
I wanted to build it myself. I wanted to feel it going up around me. I had no sense of urgency: I hadn’t touched my savings yet, and what I’d get in mustering-out pay, back vacation, and my refund from the retirement pool would more than keep me going. I bought lumber, paint, and carpet. There was a bank less than a block away, perfect for a book fund checking account. Bookscouts, who hated checks, could cash them on the spot. I knew I’d need a name and I didn’t want the obvious: Clifford L. Janeway, Books. I wanted something soft and literary, not cute. I settled on Twice Told Books, and I called a sign man and told him what I wanted.
I knew it would take at least a month to get it ready. The first night I spent getting rid of the old carpet, a rotten job. Ruby came by and pitched in, unasked. He had been a carpenter in the old days, long before books, before booze and dope had jerked him screaming through life’s most ragged porthole. He wasn’t fast anymore but he was good. We walked through the store and he pointed out things and made suggestions, and he said he’d be back now and then with his tools to help. I slipped him a double sawbuck. He said he wasn’t doing it for money and I knew that, but he was too broke to refuse. He came two or three times that first week. Our evenings settled into a routine. I had pizza brought in and we worked till ten. We talked and laughed and I felt the first faint stirrings of a new camaraderie.
In the second week the book editor of the Denver Post called. He wanted to do a story on the cop-becomes-bookman motif. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea, since the papers were still gorging themselves on my resignation under fire, as they called it, but I knew I’d need all the help I could get. The piece ran in the Sunday supplement. The headline said, HE SWAPPED HIS BADGE FOR A BOOKSTORE. The picture of me looked almost human. “Look at that,” I said to the empty store. “I ain’t such a bad guy after all.” The article was okay, too. There were a few disparaging remarks from unnamed sources within the department: there was a brief recap about the two guys I had killed, and a couple of lines about Jackie Newton. All this I could’ve done without. But there was a quote from Ruby, too. Ruby Seals, longtime Denver antiquarian book dealer whose store is half a block east of Janeway’s new establishment, said, quote, Janeway is the best bookman I’ve ever seen outside the trade; I know he’s been thinking of this move for years, and he’ll do extremely well. He has an eye for books that will carry him to the very top of his new profession. Unquote. “Aw damn, did you really say that?” I asked incredulously. He gave me his scholar’s profile and farted loudly. “I think what I said was, he ain’t bad for an old flatfoot. Jeez, that shrimp curry does it every time.”
• • •
I never saw Emery Neff at all that week. “Neff don’t like to sweat,” Ruby said with a laugh. He told me he and Neff had become partners a few years ago after an on-and-off ten-year acquaintance. “Man, we thought we’d grab the book business by the ass,” Ruby said. “Neff knows everything about early books. He knows seventeenth-century English poetry like I know the whorehouses of Saint Louis, Missouri. Neff’s an expert on magic and ventriloquism. He used to perform and give shows but he don’t do that anymore. Too much hassle, not enough pay. He had one of the best collections of magic books in this state, but like everything else he sold the high spots and the rest just trickled away. Me, I know illustrated books, American lit, and offbeat stuff. I like books about strikes, headbusters, radical politics. I got a real feel for what can be milked out of a good book that nobody’s ever heard of. Both of us have good juice in all the other fields. Turn the two of us loose in a store that hasn’t been picked in a while and it’s tantamount to rape. We’re damn good bookmen, Dr. J: between us, we thought we’d have all the bases covered. The problem is… well, you know what the problem is. You said it yourself. We got too many bad habits, especially together. We see a book we’ve got to have and we pay too much. Then we’ve got to wholesale for less than we paid to cover the rent. You can’t keep doin’ that, but we can’t seem to stop. Books’re like dope, and me and Neff seem to feed off of each other’s worst habits. We egg each other on.”
“Then why don’t you split?”
He shrugged. “For one thing, we really like each other. I’ve still got the feeling we could be the most dynamic duo since Batman and Robin if we could just get our shit together. And we’d damn near have to declare bankruptcy and start all over again if we split. I’m too old for that. So we keep after it, day after day, trying to keep from losing too much ground, looking for the big score.”
“Big scores don’t come along every day, Ruby.”
“Tell me about it. They do happen, though. They happen when you least expect ’em. But I’m beginning to believe what Neff’s always said, the big score always happens to the guy who isn’t looking for it.”
We were at the end of another night. I was packing the tools and putting things away.
“And then there’s the problem of gettin’ old,” Ruby said. “I can’t do this forever, I can’t keep hauling books all my life. Frankly, I don’t care if I never see another ten-dollar book. I want to do expensive stuff, like Rita McKinley. But almost everybody I know who does that has money to begin with. The rest of us just break our backs and get old.”
“You sure find your perspectives changing.”
“Ain’t that the damn truth. Everybody gets old in different ways. Me, I’m just slowing down. Neff’s becoming a recluse. His uncle died a year or so ago and left him a scruffy broken-down ranch in Longmont. He lives up there on weekends now, and you k
now what?… He won’t even give me his goddamn phone number. He’s like Greta Garbo, he vants to be alone. He says if the store burns down he don’t want to know about it anyway, and he doesn’t want to be bothered for anything less. But I’ll tell you a secret, Dr. J, if you don’t tell anybody you heard it from me. I think he’s gettin’ in that Millie Farmer’s pants. She let something slip last week about the ranch, so I know she’s been up there. She thinks Neff’s the most brilliant bastard she’s ever met. Hard to believe, considering she’s also met me.”
• • •
I was still at least two weeks from opening, but already the books were piling up. Bookscouts were coming by at all hours, tapping on the glass, offering their wares. People were curious and that was good. Neighbors looked in and some gave me a thumbs-up gesture as they walked away.
I knew I would open with good stock, but it wouldn’t begin to fill the place up. I had to decide about the books in Arizona. Ruby waved his hand, a gesture of dismissal. “I’ll tell you something, Dr. J, and I’ll tell you this in good faith because you and me, we’re becoming friends, I hope. You don’t need that stuff. I would really give my left nut for that finder’s fee, but if I were you I’d build this mother from the ground up. That’s how you learn, that’s how you keep deadwood off your shelves. Trust me. You’ll be up to your ass in books before you know it. As soon as people find out you’re paying real money, you won’t know where all the damn books came from.”
We had barely begun work that night when the girl arrived. It was still midsummer and the door was open to catch the early-evening breeze. I looked up and she was standing in the doorway, looking about seventeen in her spring-green dress. She had long coppery hair and when she spoke her voice had Scotland stamped all over it.
“Is this the bookstore? The new one the paper wrote about?”
“You’ve found us,” I said. “You’re a little early, though. I haven’t put out the Shakespeare folios or the Gutenbergs yet, and we won’t open for another week or two. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for a job. I’m honest and I work hard, I’m pleasant to be around and I like books.”
“You’re hired,” Ruby said from across the room.
“Pay no attention to this street rat,” I said. “I’m the boss.”
“I knew that from your picture. I did think when he spoke up so forcefully that perhaps he’s the power behind the throne.”
“Hire this kid, Dr. J,” Ruby said. “In addition to all the obvious stuff, she sounds smart.”
“I am smart. I’ve got a brain like a whip. Ask me something.”
“What’s your name?”
“That’s too easy. Ask me something bookish.”
“What’s the point on The Sun Also Rises?” Ruby said. “Every bookman knows that.”
“What’s a point?”
We laughed.
“You can’t expect me to know something I never learned. But tell me once and I’ll never forget it. Oh, I forgot to mention one other thing. I work cheap.”
“Hire this woman, Dr. J, before the word gets out,” Ruby said.
“Don’t pressure the man, I can see he’s thinking it over. Why don’t you make yourself useful and tell me what a point is.”
“Three p’s in ‘stopped,’ page 181,” Ruby said. “That’s a point.”
“In other words, the first edition has a mistake and the later ones don’t. Now that I know that, I’m a valued employee.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“What difference does that make?”
“I’d like to know I’m not aiding and abetting a runaway.”
“For goodness sakes! I’m twenty-six.”
“In a pig’s eye.”
“I am twenty-six. What are you looking at, don’t you believe me? That’s another of my virtues—I never lie. My judgment’s good, I’ll always give you a sound opinion, and I’m compulsively punctual. What more do you want for the pittance you’re paying me?”
We looked at each other.
“I have a great sense of humor,” she said.
“You don’t look a day over fifteen,” I said.
“I’m twenty-six. When I come back tomorrow, I’ll bring you something to prove it.”
“We won’t be open tomorrow. I won’t be ready for a couple of weeks.”
“I know that. I’m coming in to help you paint and stuff.”
“Look, miss, I haven’t even opened the door yet. I don’t know if I can afford an employee.”
Ruby cleared his throat. “May I interject, Dr. J?”
“I haven’t found a way to stop you yet.”
“A word to the wise is all. You don’t want to shackle your legs to the front counter. You don’t want to be an in-shop bookman. You want to keep yourself free for the hunt.”
“Exactly,” the girl said.
“You need to be out in the world. Meet people. Make house calls.”
“House calls are important,” the girl said.
Our eyes met. Hers were hazel, lovely with that tinge of innocence.
“If you’re twenty-six, I’m Whistler’s mother,” I said.
“I’m nineteen. Everything else I’ve told you so far’s the truth, except that I do fib sometimes when I have to. I’m hungry and tired and I desperately need a job. I need it bad enough to lie, or to fight for it if I have to. I’ll come back tomorrow in my grubbys if you’ll let me do something—no charge, just a bite to eat during the day. I’m wonderful with a paintbrush. I could save you a lot of time staining those shelves.”
I started to speak. She cried out: “Don’t say no, please! Please, please, please don’t say anything before you at least see what I can do! Just have something for me tomorrow; in a week you’ll wonder what you ever did without me. I promise… I promise… I really do.”
She backed out the way she had come and hustled off down the street.
“Well,” I said. “What do you make of that?”
“I told you what I think,” Ruby said. “She’s a Grade-A sweetie, right off the last boat from Glasgow. She’s just what this place needs, the pièce de résistance. She might even be two pieces.”
We went back to work. After a while Ruby said, “Remember what Neff told you about the book business, Dr. J? Honey draws flies. Truer words were never said, and it works on more levels than one.”
“She never even told us her name,” I said. “Five’ll get you ten she’ll never come back.”
• • •
But there was something relentless about her, something that didn’t give up, something I liked. She was sitting on the sidewalk in the morning when I got there; she was wearing an old gingham dress that had seen better times.
“You’re late,” she lectured. “I’ve been here since eight. Here, I brought you a plant for the front window.”
She handed me a tin can in which grew a pathetic little weed.
“It’s a symbol,” she said. “It starts out little and insignificant, almost nonexistent like your business. Both will get strong together.”
“If this thing dies, I guess I can give up and close the doors.”
“It won’t die, Mr. Janeway. I won’t let it.”
I opened the door and we went inside. The early-morning rays from the sun came through the plate glass, making everything hazy and new. The place smelled like fresh sawdust, tangy and wonderful.
“Are you gonna tell me your name or is that some deep secret you’re keeping?”
“Elspeth Pride.” Her hand disappeared into mine. “What friends I’ve had have called me Pinky, for my hair. You may call me Miss Pride.”
I laughed.
“I believe in keeping things professional,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let’s get to work.”
She started in one of the back rooms, staining while I worked the shelving up front. In a while the smell of the stain mingled with the sawdust and made a new smell, pleasant
but strong. I propped open the front door. The sound of the saw buzzed along the street: people stopped and looked in and some of them asked questions. I’ve never been good at idle chatter, but these were potential customers and I was now a businessman. I didn’t get as much done as I might have, but Miss Pride worked steadily through the morning and never took a break. At noon I went back to ask if she’d like some lunch. She had done two-thirds of the room and her work was excellent.
I went to a fast-food joint and brought back some sandwiches. We ate together in the front room. She was very hungry, and it didn’t take long and she didn’t say much. Personal questions were put on a back burner. Now there was just the job: the work finished and the work yet to come. She was relentless. When she spoke it was to make suggestions about color schemes and decorating and what the walls would need. “Are you going to do art as well as books?” she asked. When I told her I believed in learning one difficult trade at a time, she said, “Then you’ll need a picture for that wall, not for sale, for show.” The interest she took was personal and real, and by midafternoon I found her promise coming true: I was beginning to wonder what I’d have done without her.
At three o’clock I looked up and Peter was standing in the door. “I got a box of sports books, Dr. J.” They had all taken to calling me that, taking their cue from Ruby. I went through his books and bought about half. I bought with confidence and paid fair money. I knew what I wanted and nothing else qualified. I would buy no book that had a problem: no water stains, no ink underlined. I set a standard that still holds: if one page of a book is underlined, that’s the same as underlining on every page; if the leather on one volume of a fine set is chipped, the whole set is flawed. I would have only pristine copies of very good books. I would do only books of permanent value, not the trendy cotton-candy junk that’s so prevalent today. I paid Peter out of my pocket and reminded him that Hennessey still wanted to see him about Bobby Westfall’s death. “I don’t know nuthin’ about that,” he said, and went on his way.