Albert had stayed behind the wheel to keep an eye on the parking-meter bee who was visiting her metal flowers in the morning sun, one by one.
He said, “Leave the clothing here. We’ll bring the books to the library. They still have sales at the library, don’t they?”
The cover of the top book in the last bag made Henry hesitate as he set them back into the bed of the truck. It was covered in clear plastic like the other ex-library books—but the plastic was clean and new like the Arkham House title Henry had purchased from Eddy. Henry had actually looked at the book before and dismissed it as another book club edition. No price on the dust jacket. No printing stated. He realized suddenly how tired he really was, and pulled the book out now, and sat in the cab with it in his lap, unopened.
“You going to read Clancy?” Albert said. “You need thrills and adventure in your poor book-hound life?”
“No.” He did not have to look at the book again. He knew the joke. “But Eddie didn’t read Clancy either. I’ll bet you a thousand dollars on that.”
All the other books he had seen piled on that mantle in Eddy’s apartment were there to hide just this one: Clancy’s first, and the only one that was rare. Albert turned the key in the ignition, his eye sliding over to the black, red, and grey of the cover in Henry’s lap, then he shifted, let his foot off the clutch, and wheeled the truck smoothly into traffic.
“I’ll pass.”
Chapter Seven
Henry was awakened by the sound of pounding from downstairs. Half consciously calculating that Mrs. Murray must have gone out and locked the front door, he stumbled through his own door, grabbed the stair rail, and bent down to see the face through the glass. It was Bob. What in hell was Della’s Bob doing at the front door?
Henry went back to bed before realizing he was completely awake and then got up again to take his shower. The phone rang. He ignored it.
He was not in a good mood. He wished he still smoked as he drank his coffee. It had been less than six months since he last quit, and for him, mornings were the hardest.
Eddy’s manuscript lay on the floor beside his Morris chair. Henry had finished it less than twenty-four hours after pulling it from the trash. Now his sleeping schedule was completely off. Reading all night was a student’s game. He was getting too old to do that and then have the energy to hit the road.
There was knock on his own door, and his first thought was that Bob had come back and found the front door unlocked, but the knock was hesitant and not very strong. Henry guessed correctly that it was his landlady, Mrs. Murray.
She said, “You woke me up last night.”
“I’m sorry. I was just reading.”
“You were tapping your foot. You told me you’d stop doing that.” She was smiling. It was her joke. She told him when he moved in that she would cure him of all his bad habits, for no extra charge. She got him to quit smoking the very first week.
He looked over at his chair. He had not promised to stop tapping his foot when he read, only to take care of the problem. The rug he had used to cut down on the sound was gone—still at the cleaners.
“Sorry. I spilled my coffee the other day. I haven’t gotten the rug back yet.”
Her smile grew almost to a grin, with her eyebrows slightly elevated. He had never noticed her do that before.
“I heard that. Your friend was here, wasn’t she?”
He wondered what else Mrs. Murray had heard. He said, “Yes.” He could think of no other response, given his mood.
She spoke each word with care, as if preparing to spell it afterwards. He imagined her as the teacher she had been before she retired, driving her students crazy.
She said, “I have a rug you can borrow.”
“Thanks, but it’ll be fine. I’ll take care of it today.”
“You’ve been up at night a lot lately.”
“Right. Well … I’ll get another rug for the middle of the floor.” There was some tension he had not noticed before between them. He smiled back.
“If you need anything, you know you can ask.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She frowned. The wrinkles on her face darkened. She was a handsome woman. Her eyes were a sapphire blue. He once had a teacher in the ninth grade as pretty as Mrs. Murray was. He had been so infatuated with her, he had raised his grade in English from C to A. One of those small matters of fact that had changed his life. The question was, why should he be suddenly remembering old teachers? Her eyes still studied
him.
“Sarah. I’ve asked you to call me Sarah. I’m not that much older than you, I believe.”
It was a gentle scold.
“Yes, Sarah.”
The phone rang, and this time he picked it up as a means of escape. It was Della.
“Have you seen Bob?”
He hesitated before he answered.
“Why should I see Bob?”
“He came to my office, looking to take me to lunch. Goof-ball Diane said I was having lunch with you. She doesn’t like Bob.”
“Why would he know where I live?”
“Because I told him. Once. … It was a mistake. It’s a long story. I’m sorry.”
What story? Why would she have given out his address? Especially to Bob? Had he forgotten something?
“Were we supposed to have lunch today?”
“No, but it’s a good idea. You want to have lunch?”
“No.”
“Well, what are you doing?”
“Talking to you.”
“Besides that.”
“Trying to make a living.”
“You’ll have to get out your door to do that.”
A small cry of the floorboards made him turn. Mrs. Murray was still there. She was looking at his kitchen, one hand fingering the clothesline he had rigged above his table.
“I’m trying.” He said into the receiver.
“Is someone else there?”
She had great instincts.
“No—well, Mrs. Murray.”
Hearing her name, Mrs. Murray turned and looked at him.
“Yes …” she said.
“Nothing.” he answered.
Della said, “She’s too old for you, Henry.”
He could think of no witty answer for that.
“I have to go. See you later.”
He turned again to Mrs. Murray. She smiled.
He had to ask. “Is everything okay?”
She sighed. “Just fine. But you have so little food. You should cook more.”
“I like to eat out. I don’t like doing dishes.”
She put her tongue against her teeth and made a sound of teasing disapproval. It was a habit he had noticed before and seemed sort of girlish and cute. It occurred to him suddenly that Mrs. Murray was in some ways a mature version of Sharon Green—a bit more developed, and a lot more interesting.
She said, “Men never change, do they?” as she made her way to the door and turned. “My Sam used to say things like that all the time. Why don’t men cultivate the gentle habits of everyday life? Doing dishes is like gardening. It’s a measure of the daily experience. It’s a repetition of the process of life—the turning of the wheel. Why don’t men appreciate that more?”
The image of turning wheels made Henry think of an old hippie song. It was easy to imagine that Mrs. Murray was once a hippie.
He answered in defense. “Because there is always something better to do?”
Her face fell, her head tilting sideways.
“Like a child. You’re forty aren’t you? You must appreciate by now that every moment cannot be an adventure.”
“Why not?” He felt silly saying it.
She shook her head, then smiled again as she left.
Now he was late. He had wanted to be out the door before this. Tomorrow he had an appointment to look at an estate in Salem. He liked Salem. He had always been lucky getting good books there. John Marquand was from Salem. And Nathaniel Hawthorne. For now he
had to get to the garage and make sure Benny had the truck ready. And he wanted to get copies made of Eddy’s manuscript.
Mrs. Murray had left her door open, and he heard some piece of classical cello music he could not identify as he passed on his way out. She was sitting, turned away from the door, in a high-backed chair, with the light from the window illuminating a book open in her lap. It reminded him of his mother.
This thought, and knowing that he found Mrs. Murray more than a little appealing, disturbed him. Della’s warning was not lost. She had warned him about Barbara, as well. But there was no way he was going to avoid that. His conversation with Barbara from the day before was in his ears again as he walked.
Why did people get themselves into such messes? Life was complicated enough.
The situation with Sharon was not simple, and it was coming at a bad time for Barbara. But then, there was usually a reason such things happened all at once. The bottom line, though she had never completely admitted it to him, was that Barbara was badly in debt. He jerked his head at the thought. No, the bottom line was simply that she had asked for his help.
During the years he had worked for her, she had rarely mentioned money. He had never seen her be careless, but never especially concerned with it either. Now the internet had combined with other changes in the market and stolen over a third of her business in just the past three years. She had admitted that much in conversation months before. In the late ’90s, when times were flush, she had spent everything she could to renovate the store—additional shelves, added space in the basement, and increased stock. Wasn’t that what a good business did—reinvest capital? The internet then looked like a bonus.
She had the best used bookshop in Boston. No contest. Other stores were bigger, but with nowhere near the general quality. She specialized in the good stuff. She had a few rare books, but most of her stock was simply the best writing she could find. Over time, twentieth-century authors had become her specialty, despite the store name, because she had learned as she went along. For the most part she had left the antiquarian trade to the older crowd of Boston booksellers who had frowned on her when she started out.
When Henry had begun working at Alcott & Poe, she had just rented the first-floor space. By the time he had left, she had taken over the second floor as well. She had opened the basement about ten years ago and filled it with cheaper books. This had been a big success, and a way to dispose of stock which had not sold well otherwise. For awhile, sales had continued to climb.
Now this was all in jeopardy.
She could no longer afford to keep prime real estate space on Newbury Street in Boston and remain competitive with mom-and-pop booksellers on kitchen tables in Indiana and Arizona, who sold their books over the internet with little or no overhead. Even relatively local customers had stopped braving the parking conditions in Boston and started ordering online. Then her largest clientele, students, had discovered the joys of the laptop computer, which had become commonplace. Whole course lists could be ordered online. Customers who used to come from out of state, where few good used bookstores could be found, no longer waited to visit Boston to buy, while browsing their favorite websites weekly.
But her greatest mistake was to go into debt, rather than close. She had believed, with the false hope of a mother in a bad child, that she could turn it around.
Sharon was there through all of this. Unlike Henry, Sharon had stuck by her. Sharon already knew, by the time she had lost Jim Frankowski, that the store was losing money. Why did Sharon turn around and invest $50,000 dollars of Frankowski’s life insurance in a lost cause? She must know as well as Barbara that the days of big old bookshops were numbered. Obviously there was more to Sharon than good looks.
Now Barbara was in debt to Sharon, and Sharon needed a favor, and that was the end of the story.
When he dropped Eddy’s manuscript off at the copy service, the place was empty. Students were gone for the summer. Business was slow. Two of the employees stood on the sidewalk, smoking. They told him to return in an hour.
At the garage, Benny was all smiles and few words. This had Henry on his guard immediately.
The truck was parked at the very front of the lot, where it could be seen by anyone passing. The paint job was perfect. The green was alive. The pits in the chrome were miraculously gone and the metal polished enough to make his eyes ache. benny’s gulf was emblazoned on the door in gold letters.
Henry felt like this was the best thing he had done in memory. He had known that letting Benny put his name on the door would insure the quality of work done. Henry did not need his name there. He could not overhaul an engine if his life depended on it. Yet he had always wanted an old truck, whether he knew it before or not.
He had been without wheels since the winter, when his old Ford van had encountered a Mercedes Benz in the worst way. But Barbara still had hers. He had helped her buy it, years ago. Those boxes on wheels were good for carrying off a house full of books. Henry had no such constraints now. He seldom bought more than a hundred at a time, let alone a thousand.
The rounded bumpers of this old Chevrolet looked like a woman to him. The chrome around the headlights seemed to wink. The flat lines of the grille wanted to smile. And now he could park it for free, the insurance paid for, just for the cost of the advertising. He pulled open the door and put a foot up on the running board. Benny had even polished the brown Bakelite knob at the top of the gear stick. The musty smell of cotton batting in the seats wafted from the sun-heated interior.
“Where’s the key?” He put out his hand.
Benny frowned. Benny had always been overweight, but in recent years he had gained a lot around the neck. When he frowned, the sag appeared to reach the top of his work shirt. It was a frown of true sadness.
“It’s not ready. The new distributor just arrived yesterday. Anthony has to install it. He’s the only one. He won’t be back for at least an hour. He promised to do it tonight. You’ll have the truck by tomorrow morning. I promise.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Benny smiled again.
Henry imagined putting a natural wood gate around the open bed and having a green tarp to keep the rain off books he had purchased. He stepped back, admiring the truck again.
“Nine o’clock?”
“Nine o’clock.” Benny’s hands went up as if to say, “Of course.”
Henry had planned to drive the truck around town for the afternoon—perhaps drive by Albert’s house three or four times, or drive around Brookline Village to see if anyone he knew was out. He would have to do it another day now.
The copy service had three copies of the manuscript ready and bound when he returned. He flipped the pages of the first, more than slightly awed. He was holding someone else’s life in his hands. His thumb stopped the turn of pages at the dedication. Eddy had written it as a kind of poem.
“To Janet Fowler, for love, this gift, too small, is given. Our precious time, for certain, still dear, too late, forever given.”
Was the picture of the woman at the beach in the plastic frame Eddy’s Janet? Where was she now?
By the time he was home again, Henry had another idea.
In the phone book, he found the address for Tremont Press on Arlington Street in Boston. He put Eddy’s manuscript in a shipping envelope, made the letter he enclosed short and sweet, and then decided not to mail it.
The urge was spontaneous, and it appealed to him. There were so few independent presses left, and Tremont had a reputation for publishing new authors. They even published poetry, a thanklessly small market. From others, Henry had often heard the rule: query first. But he did not have the time to be sending letters around, or a good idea of how a query was written. What happened to the days when Thomas Wolfe could show up at Scribner’s with an armful of manuscript? Besides, it could be interesting to approach the business of books from the other side for once.
The real matter to him now was Edward Perry. It was a damn sh
ame someone with that amount of talent had never found a safe haven for himself in the world. Penny Candy was not a happy work, but it was poetic and at times elegiac. Though rough in sentiment because the subject was harsh, it was beautifully and carefully written. Perry had grown up in New York City during the 1950s. His father had been an abusive alcoholic. His mother appeared to have been schizophrenic, alternating between being obsessively caring and totally cold—forgetting to buy food or, at other times, to cook the food she had bought. In the midst of this, Eddy had lived the life of a carefree child. The streets of New York had been his playground, day and night, and his memoir of that time was something new to Henry. Perry had roamed with fearless abandon. Shopkeepers had given him odd jobs for pocket money. He had befriended an old used book dealer on Second Avenue and spent afternoons carrying loads of books from place to place in return for the knowledge that would one day be his trade. A brokendown whore, with the odd name of Pissy, had even given him a bunk out of the cold on Houston Street one winter when his father had failed to make the rent and they lost their apartment. Eddy had pushed a broom in the wet slop at the Fulton Fish Market and eaten like a king. His small stature had given him the security of being a child until his hormones had finally made life difficult. His first love, a Puerto Rican girl already addicted to heroin, had brought his childhood idyll to an abrupt end in the emergency room at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Henry could not help but compare this to his own childhood, which had been safe and secure and never lacking in either love or care. His own father may have been hard-nosed, but he was fair, and home every night at six. His mother, as long as she lived, had been given to frequent kisses, had read her Yeats out loud to them, and even in her sick bed had sewn his clothes back together. She had put a good meal on the table every night until the day she could no longer stand.
Henry had run away from home the first time at the age of twelve, shortly after his mother had been buried—all the way to Boston from Brookline on the Green Line trolley. Then he had walked home in the dark, lacking the return fare. His sister Shelagh, just sixteen then, had left a brown paper sack of dinner in his room, so that his father would not see.
A Slepyng Hound to Wake Page 7