He pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his own bag. It was the second page of a letter from Nora Lynch that Duggan had obviously returned to her with a handwritten note at the bottom. There was no sign of the first page.
Henry clenched his teeth and tried to concentrate.
It was clear Nora Lynch was explaining what she remembered about a manuscript. And it was obviously the James Frankowski book she was speaking of. Henry started reading out loud.
“… in Italy. Hannibal was approaching Rome. I can’t say if I read further. It wasn’t bad. It was just a little boring. I couldn’t have read every word. There are so many manuscripts, I’m going crazy. As I said before to Mr. Boyle, I don’t remember the writer’s name. Just something about Hannibal.”
The note from Duggan across the bottom was more cryptic, and the handwriting made it difficult. Henry had to read it through twice.
“ ‘You did say something. Remember the day at the lake? You spoke of Hannibal under house arrest at Bithynia just before he was executed and wondered what he was thinking after all he had lived through. I’m sure of that much. Did reading the other manuscript get you to thinking about that, or was it from talking to me? It would be good to resolve this. In any case, the new book is almost done. I need a rest.’ ”
The additional note was signed, “Love, D.”
Henry looked up. Mrs. Murray’s eyebrows were raised.
“That tells you everything, wouldn’t you say?”
Henry searched the sapphire blue in her eyes for an answer. There was some clear authority in those eyes.
“Not exactly. But even if they borrowed the idea unwittingly, do they still owe Frankowski anything?”
One of Mrs. Murray’s eyebrows raised. He realized she could raise either one at will, and it made him smile.
There was a knock at the door. He remembered the sound of that immediately.
Sasha stood there, barefoot, a thin kimono wrapped around her body, her black hair, longer than Henry had realized, caught in a single comb by her shoulder.
“I can’t sleep. It’s too hot. And I heard your voices from the window. … Do you have anything cold in your refrigerator that I can drink?”
Chapter Twelve
Henry’s affair with Morgan Johnson seemed distant at that moment. He had awakened with thoughts of her many times since her death, but not recently. Recently, he had not thought of her at all. Was that a sign of callousness? Was he that shallow a fellow? It wasn’t as if he took advantage of every willing woman he met. The fact was, he did not feel like he was taking any advantages at all. He had trouble enough.
And Della had warned him. In fact, she had warned him repeatedly since he had met her, about almost every girl he came in contact with. She had even warned him about Mrs. Murray.
“You are at that age.”
“What age?”
“The age when women can expect that you’ve fooled around enough and you know what you want in life.”
A pigeon landed on the walk in front of them. Della threw a piece of crust from her sandwich at it.
He said, “I knew what I wanted when I was twenty.” He thought his delivery was unconvincing.
She threw another piece of sandwich down for the three birds which had just arrived. Henry looked up into the trees around them to see if there were more.
She was not buying his statement. “I don’t think so. You’re so slow you probably didn’t even get started until you were twenty … and, as I said, women can expect it. I didn’t say it was true.”
He said. “I think women expect way too much of men,” and stretched one foot out from the bench toward the pigeons to ward them off.
Della tossed her next piece with dramatic disgust. “It’s the only reason men bother to do anything. If women didn’t expect anything, men would sit around and drink beer and watch television.”
“I don’t have a television.”
She ignored his defense. “So what did you want to do when you were twenty?”
“Sell books.”
“That’s not very ambitious.”
“I’m told that. I’m told that I’m not a very ambitious person.”
Della rolled her eyes. “A woman probably told you that, and she was right.”
“Barbara,” he countered.
“She was half right. … You ought to be doing something that makes you sweat a little more.”
Henry thought about his rummaging through a dumpster at night. He was used to her sarcasm. He offered his own.
“I don’t think you appreciate me.”
“You’re probably right. But I would appreciate you more if you would keep naked women out of your apartment.”
“Does that include—”
“Except me.”
“And why should I be so particular when you can’t stay away from Bob?”
“Bob has not touched me in months.”
“I thought you said—”
“He tried to. I didn’t let him. That’s why he’s going crazy.”
“Have you always had this idea that you drive men crazy?”
“Some men, but not you. You are always surprised. You never see it coming. You’re like a teenage kid who wants it all the time but hasn’t a clue how to go about it.”
Henry smiled. “Thanks.”
“It’s true, but it’s part of your charm. Most guys your age assume they know so much. They’re too eager to show their skills.”
Henry lost his smile. “And you talk like you know way too much about such things.”
Her back straightened with the reproach. She flipped another bit of crust into the wad of moving feathers in front of them.
“My mother warned me. I listened to my mother.”
“Why does she know so much?”
“She’s been married five times, for Christ’s sake. If Oscar dies she’ll make it six. She’s still a good-looking women at sixty. You should take that into account. I’ve got good genes.”
Morgan had been about that old. He had figured Mrs. Murray to be about fifty-five. He could easily imagine Della at sixty.
“I’ll write that down.”
“You ought to. You ought to write a book. You do the most interesting things I’ve ever heard of.”
This was a different tack on her part.
“Like play in other people’s garbage.”
“Like go into the homes of wealthy people to look at their collections.”
The memory of that morning’s disaster came back to him.
“Well, this time it was a bust. I can’t go back there. That woman is crazy.”
Della rolled her eyes at his hopelessness.
“She’s just heading for forty and making a last-ditch effort to find a mate.”
He had told her about his appointment at ten o’clock on Louisburg Square. Henry had gone to look at the books of a divorcée who had cornered him in an alcove against leather-bound sets of Honoré de Balzac and Anthony Trollope.
Henry had actually met the woman before, at an auction. She had taken his card when he explained his business to her. Then, she had talked to him nonstop while he had tried to sort through a box of ephemera. This morning she had been on her roof deck when he arrived, and answered the doorbell breathing heavily from the stairs, wearing a very pink terrycloth bikini. Again she had offered him a running commentary as she led him from room to room, each decorated by a perfectly positioned bookcase of leather-bound volumes. The problem, besides learning more than he wanted to know about her personal life, was that the terrycloth, which had began to roll down at the upper edges, almost came off by itself as she reached from a small oak stepladder toward volumes of “her favorite” red-leather edition of Voltaire.
Henry had described this to Della with some thought of the humor in it, at first. With her sandwich greatly reduced in size, Della tore smaller pieces of bread, and the puddle of flying beggars continued to spread at their feet.
“That kind of thing happens,” she sa
id. “I know. I was greeted at the door once by a male friend who was stark naked, dripping wet, and talking on the phone. Totally oblivious.”
Henry straightened himself on the bench as a gesture of defense, against her implication as much as the pigeons. “That was an accident. My mind was on something else.”
Della raised her arms. Pigeons fluttered backward.
“That’s why I think you ought to write a book. You will forget all of that stuff. You’re already as absent-minded as a writer. It’s in your personality.”
Henry was confused. “I thought you said I should think about doing something else—like getting a real job.”
“Maybe I’m wrong about that. I’m not sure you’re employable. You’ve been working for yourself too long.”
Henry nodded. “I’m glad you came to that realization.”
She shook off his small victory.
“But you could change.”
With that he stood again. He had wasted enough time.
The puddle of pigeons parted.
He left her on Commonwealth Avenue with four thousand birds swarming around her feet, all looking for bits of the sandwich she had completely discarded in her campaign to lose weight. She had insisted that men really did not like women who were fat. He had tried to tell her that it depended on the woman.
He arrived at the Colonnade Hotel at two o’clock. He was taking a chance. It might be too early. Duggan might not have arrived yet. But if Henry waited too long, he had a greater chance of running into Nora Lynch.
When he told the clerk he had an appointment with George Duggan, he was told Mr. Duggan was still in the dining room eating lunch. Henry had not waited for an escort.
The great man was sitting alone in the far corner by a window wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans, and squinted slightly as he watched Henry approach across the dining room floor. He was thinner than Henry remembered, and taller. His hair was cut short to a graying stubble.
“Mr. Duggan?” Henry had not intended the question, but it came out that way.
“Yes.”
“I’m a bookseller. My name is Henry Sullivan. Could I interrupt you for just a moment?”
Duggan’s eyes looked toward the entrance, “I suppose …” probably wondering why the management had let Henry in. He looked up at Henry again. “Do you want me to sign something?”
Henry shook his head and stood at the far side of the table. “No, sir.”
Duggan squinted up at him. There was some other thought on the author’s mind now. “Sullivan. Like the architect?”
Henry nodded. “Without the ‘Louis.’ ”
“Where is your shop?”
Henry hesitated a brief moment over this. It might sound odd for him not to have a shop.
“I’m a scout. I just have a website.”
“Kind of a book-hound then.”
“Yes, in fact. That’s what I call myself.”
“Then you could find me a book if I asked you to.”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. Do you write?”
Henry hesitated again, even though he knew that there was no way Della could have spoken to Duggan in the short time since he had left her.
“No. I just sell the books. I’ll leave the writing to you.”
Duggan gestured toward him.
“I just noticed the envelope you were carrying. If it’s not something to sign, it’s something to read.”
Duggan smiled, pulled a cigarette out of a small leather case, and lit it from an old Zippo with the nickel worn through to the gold of the brass at the corners.
“Well, you’re right, but—”
“Every bookseller I’ve ever met wants to write. Funniest thing. You’d think with all the crap they see piled around them—all the books they have to move around and sticker and alphabetize and ship back and all the rest, that they would know enough not to add to the sheer mass of it. But booksellers are the most intrinsically optimistic people in the world. Aren’t they? With all that failure stacked around them, they are always looking for Melville—” He paused and blew smoke toward the window. “I like that. Looking for Melville. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Maybe I’ll remember it again at the right moment—unless you use it first.”
“But, I don’t write.”
“Well, then, what can I do for you?”
“I’m trying to help someone.”
“By which you mean to say you’re doing something without recompense, for someone else.”
The critical note in his voice was hard to miss.
“Yes.”
“All right. And …?”
The words Henry had rehearsed quickly fell apart in his mind. For some unknown reason he suddenly felt the edge of exhaustion against his spine. He had been awake for over twenty-four hours.
Henry had wanted to sell Eddy’s story to this man. He wanted to sell this book to him the way Barbara could hand-sell a title in her shop if she loved it. But suddenly he did not think it was going to work. Della was right. Again. He was not a salesman. That was just another reason he had left Alcott & Poe. And that was why he conducted his business the way he did now.
Henry started, “It concerns Eddy Perry.”
Duggan shook his head. “I don’t know him.”
“He was a bookseller. He’s dead. And he wrote a book.”
Duggan nodded. “Just what I was saying …”
“And I was wondering if you could read it. It’s pretty good, I think. I’m not a critic, just a reader.”
Duggan blew his smoke in a longer plume. “And a seller. That’s important. You have a sense of what might sell.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I’m not sure this will sell. It’s awfully dark. I just think it’s very good. It should be published …”
“I see … Maybe better than very good?” Duggan’s words were illustrated by the smoke of his cigarette on his breath.
“Yes. Maybe. And I was over at Tremont Press. I was speaking with Nora—”
Duggan’s eyebrows went up.
“She sent you here?”
“No. Actually, she was upset with me for barging in without an appointment. She tried to get me to leave it there. But she looked swamped. And I know you’re the person behind that outfit.”
Duggan sat back.”How do you know that?”
“Somehow. Something I found out.”
Henry backed off a bit. It was important not to be too pushy here.
“If Nora heard you say that, she’d be very displeased. She’s the boss at Tremont. And she has quite a temper.”
Henry took a long breath. He needed more oxygen to fight his exhaustion.
“I know that much. I encountered that. That’s why I thought .… She’s buried in work. It’s piled all around her. This is such a different kind of story, she might be put off by it.”
Duggan’s hand went out toward the package.
“She gets volunteers from the colleges. They help. But the schools don’t teach them how to be critical anymore. ‘Judgmental’ they call it. In fact, most of them have no sense of judgment at all. Poor Nora can’t handle it. …”
Henry handed the manuscript to him and thought immediately of turning to escape. If he just left it with the man, wouldn’t he read a couple of pages just to see? That’s all it would take. Henry was sure of that.
Henry said, “Thanks.”
“You can’t go yet. I need a little more information than that.”
Henry pulled another breath. “It’s all in the envelope … I didn’t want to waste your time.”
Duggan waved his hand as if telling him to sit.
“You drink?”
“Beer.”
“Have a beer with me. I’m done for the day. I wrote all morning. I get up early. And I like talking to booksellers. Please, stay a little bit. If you don’t, some well-rounded vixen will spot me and I might get myself into trouble again.”
Henry sat then—happy at least to be sitting down.
“Is that you, Henry?”
Mrs. Murray’s voice sounded cheerful.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, taking the newel post in his hand to escape up the stairs.
He could hear her move across her floor. The door opened wide. The smile on her face seemed patient—if smiles could be patient.
She said, “Sarah. I would so much prefer it if you would call me Sarah. … Your friend is here.”
Over Mrs. Murray’s shoulder he could see Della sitting in an armchair by the small fireplace. She smiled at him, like a cat, he thought.
Della said, “Hi.”
Henry closed his eyes at them. “Hi. I’ve got to get upstairs. I’m beat.”
Della sprang to her feet. “Oh no, no, you’ve got to tell us. We’ve been going over the whole situation while we were waiting. You’ve got to tell us what happened.”
It was a trap. Henry felt like the mouse.
“You’ll have to wait a minute. I have to pee.”
He ran up the stairs for his door.
Behind him, he could hear Della’s voice.
“He can be a little crude.”
“Like a little boy,” Mrs. Murray answered.
When he returned a few minutes later, they were both seated again.
He had not actually been inside Mrs. Murray’s apartment before. It was bright with greens and yellows. She had decorated with English prints of Italian scenes. A picture of her late husband Sam stared off the fireplace mantel at him—unhappily, he thought—nestled amongst an odd collection of objects that might have been picked up on various trips. She had once told him she had traveled all over the world during her summers while she was a teacher.
“Bric-a-brac,” she said, rising from the couch as she followed his eyes. “My weakness. I love bric-a-brac. That one there is a volcanic stone from Vesuvius.”
A Slepyng Hound to Wake Page 11