by John Grisham
Rick said, “Would you please stand and turn around slowly?”
“Sure.” As she did so, Elaine and the boys stared at the laptop. “Pretty amazing,” Elaine said, almost to herself. “Take a look, Mercer.”
Standing beside the table and facing the front door, Mercer glanced down at the screen and was surprised at the clarity of the image. The sofa, television, armchair, even the cheap rug in front of her were vividly clear. “All from this tiny camera,” she said.
“It’s a piece of cake, Mercer,” Elaine said.
“The scarf really doesn’t match anything I have.”
“Then what are you wearing?” Elaine asked, reaching for a bag. She pulled out half a dozen scarves.
Mercer said, “Just a little red sundress, I think. Nothing fancy.”
13.
Jake opened the front door and locked it behind her. He introduced himself and said he’d known Noelle for many years. He was a craftsman with rough, callused hands and a white beard, and had the look of a hard worker who’d spent a lifetime with hammers and tools. He was gruff and explained that the writer’s desk was already in the basement. She followed him down the steps, slowly and at a distance, trying to remind herself that everything in front of her was being filmed and analyzed. Down ten steps with her hand on the rail and into a long, cluttered room that seemed to run the length of the store, which, as she well knew, was 42 feet wide and 165 feet in depth, same as the bookshop next door. The ceiling was low, no more than eight feet tall, and the flooring was unfinished concrete. All manner of disassembled, broken, unfinished, and mismatched furniture and furnishings were stored haphazardly along the walls. Mercer nonchalantly browsed around, turning slowly in all directions. “So this is where she keeps the good stuff,” she said, but Jake had no sense of humor. The basement was well lit and there was a room of some sort near the back. Most important, there was a door in the brick wall between the room and the basement next door, the basement where Elaine Shelby and her mysterious company were betting that Mr. Cable was hiding his treasure. The brick wall was old and had been painted many times, now a dark gray, but the door was much newer. It was metal and solid and there were two security sensors at its top corners.
Elaine’s team knew that the two stores were virtually identical in width, length, height, and layout. They were part of the same building, one that had been built a hundred years earlier, and had basically been split in two when the bookstore opened in 1940.
Sitting in a van across the street and staring at their laptops, Rick and Graham were delighted to see that a door connected the two basements. Sitting on a sofa in the condo, Elaine had the same reaction. Go, Mercer!
The writer’s table was in the middle of the room, with newspapers spread below it, though the floor had collected paint droppings for years, and Mercer examined it carefully, as if it were some prized possession and not simply a pawn in their game. Jake pulled out a sheet of paint colors and they talked about several, with Mercer being quite hard to please. She eventually settled on a soft pastel blue that Jake would apply with a thin coat to produce the look of something old and distressed. He didn’t have that color in his truck and it would take a few days to find it.
Great. She could always come back for the next visit, to monitor his progress. And who knows? With the toys Rick and Graham had in their arsenal she might have cameras in her earrings next time.
She asked if there was a restroom downstairs, and Jake nodded toward the back. She took her time finding it, using it, and strolling back to the front, where he was sanding the top of the writer’s table. As he hunched over, she stood directly in front of the metal door for the best footage yet. But there might be a hidden camera watching her, right? She backed away, impressed with her situational awareness and growing experience. She might make a decent spy after all.
She left Jake at the front door and walked around the block to a small Cuban deli where she ordered an iced tea and sat at a table. Within a minute, Rick entered and paid for a soft drink. He sat across from her, smiling, and said almost in a whisper, “Perfect job.”
“I guess I’m just a natural at this,” she said, the knot in her stomach momentarily gone. “Is the camera on?”
“No, I turned it off. I’ll reactivate it when you enter the bookstore. Don’t do anything different. The camera is working perfectly and you got us plenty of footage. We are thrilled that there’s a door connecting the two basements. Now get as close to it as you can from the other side.”
“Nothing to it. I’m assuming we’ll leave the store and walk to lunch. Will you keep the camera on?”
“No.”
“And I’ll be sitting across the table from Cable for at least an hour. You’re not worried about him noticing anything?”
“After you’ve been to the basement, go to the restroom, the one upstairs on the main floor. Take off the scarf and the buckle ring and stick them in your purse. If he says anything, tell him the scarf was too warm.”
“I like that. It would be hard to enjoy lunch knowing I was pointing a camera at his face.”
“Right. You leave now and I’m right behind you.”
Mercer entered the bookstore at 11:50 and saw Bruce rearranging the magazines on a rack near the front. Today’s seersucker suit was striped in a soft aqua shade. So far Mercer had noticed at least six different tints to his suits and she suspected there were more. Bow tie of bright yellow paisley. As always, dirty buckskins, no socks. Never. He smiled, pecked her on the cheek, said she looked great. She followed him into the First Editions Room and he picked up an envelope on his desk. “Ten grand for the two books Tessa borrowed thirty years ago. What would she think?”
“She would say, ‘Where’s my share of the profits?’ ”
Bruce laughed and said, “We get the profits. I have two clients who want The Convict, so I’ll play one off the other and clear twenty-five hundred with a few phone calls.”
“Just like that?”
“No, not always, just the luck of the day. That’s why I love this business.”
“A question. That pristine copy of The Catcher in the Rye you mentioned. If you decided to sell it, what would you ask?”
“So, you’re liking this business too, huh?”
“No, not at all. I have no brain for business. Just curious, that’s all.”
“Last year I turned down eighty grand. It’s not for sale, but if I were somehow forced to put it on the market I would start at one hundred.”
“Not a bad deal.”
“You said you wanted to see it.”
Mercer shrugged as if she were indifferent and offered a casual “Sure, if you’re not too busy.” It was apparent Bruce wanted to show off his books.
“Never too busy for you. Follow me.” They walked past the stairs, through the children’s section, and to the very back of the store. The stairs going down were behind a locked door that was out of the way and gave every appearance of being rarely used. A camera watched it from a high corner. A security sensor was attached to its top. With a key, Bruce unlocked a dead bolt and turned an old knob, which was not locked. He pulled the door open and turned on a light. “Careful,” he said as he started down. Mercer hung back, careful as he said. He flipped another switch at the bottom of the stairs.
The basement was divided into at least two sections. The front and larger section included the stairs and the metal door that connected to Noelle’s, along rows of old wooden shelves sagging with thousands of unwanted books and galleys and advance reading copies. “It’s known as the graveyard,” Bruce said, waving an arm at the mess. “Every store has a junk room.” They took a few steps toward the rear of the basement and stopped at a cinder-block wall that had obviously been added long after the construction of the building. It ran the height and width of the room and seemed to have been wedged snugly into place. It had another metal door with a keypad beside it. As Bruce punched in the code, Mercer noticed a camera hanging from an old rafter and pointed at the
door. Something buzzed and clicked, and they stepped through the door as Bruce turned on the lights. The temperature was noticeably cooler.
The room appeared to be completely self-enclosed, with rows of shelves against cinder-block walls, a concrete floor with a slick finish, and a lowered ceiling made of some fibrous material Mercer had no chance of describing. But she filmed it for her experts. Within the hour they would speculate that the room was forty feet in width and about the same in depth; a spacious room with a handsome table in the center; eight-foot ceilings; tight joints; every indication of a room that was airtight, secure, and fireproof.
Bruce said, “Books are damaged by light, heat, and moisture, so all three must be controlled. In here there’s almost no humidity and the temperature is always fifty-five degrees. No sunlight, obviously.”
The shelves were made of thick metal with glass doors so the spines of the books were visible. There were six shelves in each unit with the bottom about two feet off the floor and the top a few inches above Mercer’s head, so about six feet, she guessed. Rick and Graham would agree.
“Where are Tessa’s first editions?” she asked.
He stepped to the back wall and put a key into a narrow side panel next to the shelves. When he turned it, something clicked and all six glass doors were released. He opened the second shelf from the top. “Right here,” he said, removing the copies of The Convict and Blood Meridian. “They are safe and sound in their new home.”
“Very safe,” she said. “This is impressive, Bruce. How many books are down here?”
“Several hundred, but they’re not all mine.” He pointed to a wall by the door and said, “Those I store for clients and friends. A few are here sort of on consignment. I have one client who’s going through a divorce and he’s hiding his books right there. I’ll probably get a subpoena and get hauled into court, and not for the first time. But I always lie to protect my client.”
“And what’s that?” she asked, pointing to a tall, bulky, oversized cabinet standing in a corner.
“It’s a safe and it’s where I keep the really good stuff.” He punched in a code on its keypad—Mercer was careful to properly look away—and a thick door unlatched itself. Bruce swung it open. At the top and center there were three shelves, all lined with what appeared to be the spines of fake books, some with titles in gold print. Bruce gently pulled one off the middle shelf and asked, “Are you familiar with a clamshell?”
“No.”
“It’s this protective box, custom made for each book. Obviously, these books were printed in different sizes, so the clamshells vary. Step over here.”
They turned around and moved to the small table in the center of the room. He placed the clamshell on it, opened it, and gently removed the book. Its dust jacket was encased in a clear laminate cover. “This is my first copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Got it from my father’s estate twenty years ago.”
“So you have two copies of it?”
“No, I have four.” He opened to the front endpaper and pointed to a slight discoloration. “A little fading here, and a chip or two on the jacket, but a near-fine copy.” He left the book and the clamshell on the table and stepped back to the safe. As he did, Mercer turned to it so Rick and Graham would have their full frontal view. At its bottom, below the three shelves of the rarest of books, were what appeared to be four retractable drawers, all closed tightly at the moment.
If Bruce indeed had the manuscripts, then that’s where they are. Or so she thought.
He placed another clamshell on the table and said, “This is my most recent edition of the four, the one actually signed by Salinger.” He opened the clamshell, withdrew the book, and turned to the title page. “No dedication, no date, just his autograph, which, as I said, is quite rare. He simply refused to sign his books. He went crazy, don’t you think?”
“That’s what they say,” Mercer replied. “These are beautiful.”
“They are,” he said, still caressing the book. “Sometimes when I’m having a lousy day I sneak down here and lock myself in this room and pull out the books. I try to imagine what it was like being J. D. Salinger in 1951, when this was published, his first novel. He had published a few short stories, a couple in The New Yorker, but he wasn’t well known. Little, Brown printed ten thousand of these at first, and now the book sells a million copies a year, in sixty-five languages. He had no idea what was coming. It made him rich and famous and he couldn’t handle the attention. Most scholars believe he sort of cracked up.”
“I taught it in my class two years ago.”
“So you know it well?”
“It’s not my favorite. Again, I prefer female writers, preferably those still alive.”
“And you would like to see the rarest book I have by a woman, dead or alive, right?”
“Sure.”
He returned to the safe, with Mercer filming every step and even moving away slightly for another clear frontal assault with her little camera. He found his book and returned to the table. “How about Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own?” He opened the clamshell and removed the book. “Published in 1929. First edition, near-fine copy. I found it twelve years ago.”
“I love this book. I read it in high school and it inspired me to become a writer, or at least give it a shot.”
“It’s quite rare.”
“I’ll give you ten thousand for it.”
They shared a laugh and he politely said, “Sorry. It’s not for sale.” He handed it to her. She gently opened it and said, “She was so brave. Her famous line is ‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.’ ”
“She was a tortured soul.”
“I’ll say. She killed herself. Why do writers suffer so much, Bruce?” She closed the book and handed it back to him. “So much destructive behavior, even suicide.”
“I can’t understand the suicide, but I sort of get the drinking and bad habits. Our friend Andy tried to explain it years ago. He said it’s because the writing life is so undisciplined. There’s no boss, no supervisor, no time clock to punch or hours to keep. Write in the morning, write at night. Drink when you want to. Andy thinks he writes better with a hangover, but I’m not sure about that.” Bruce was fitting the books back into their clamshells. He returned them to the safe.
Impulsively, she asked, “What’s in the drawers?”
Without the slightest hesitation, he replied, “Old manuscripts, but they’re not worth a lot, not when compared to these books. John D. MacDonald is a favorite of mine, especially his Travis McGee series, and a few years ago I was able to buy two of his original manuscripts from another collector.” He was closing the door as he said this. Obviously, the drawers were off-limits.
“Seen enough?” he asked.
“Yes. This is fascinating stuff, Bruce. It’s another world I know nothing about.”
“I seldom show off these books. The rare book trade is a quiet business. I’m sure no one knows that I have four copies of Catcher, and I’d like to keep it that way. There is no registry, no one is looking, and many transactions take place in the dark.”
“Your secrets are safe. I can’t think of a soul I would want to tell.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Mercer. This is all legitimate. I report the profits and pay the taxes, and if I dropped dead my estate would include these assets.”
“All of them?” she asked with a smile.
He returned the smile and said, “Well, most of them.”
“Of course.”
“Now, how about a business lunch?”
“I’m starving.”
14.
The team dined on carryout pizza and washed it down with soft drinks. At the moment, food was not important. Rick, Graham, and Elaine sat at the condo’s dining table and reviewed dozens of still photos taken from Mercer’s video. She had produced eighteen minutes of footage from Noelle’s store and twenty-two from Bruce’s; forty minutes of precious evidence they were thrilled to now po
ssess. They had studied it, but more important it was being analyzed by their lab in Bethesda. Facts were being established: the size of his vault, the dimensions of his safe, the presence of surveillance cameras and security sensors; dead bolts on doors; push-button entry panels. The safe weighed eight hundred pounds, was made of eleven-gauge steel, and had been manufactured fifteen years earlier by a factory in Ohio, sold online, and installed by a contractor out of Jacksonville. When locked, it was secured by five dead bolts made of lead and sealed by hydraulics. It could withstand heat of 1,550 degrees for two hours. Opening it would not be a problem, but the obvious challenge was getting to it without ringing bells.
They had spent the afternoon around the table, often in long, intense conversations, often on the speakerphone with their colleagues in Bethesda. Elaine was in charge but welcomed collaboration. There were a lot of opinions offered by smart people, and she listened. The FBI consumed most of their time. Was it time to call in the Feds? To introduce them to their favorite suspect? To tell them everything they had learned so far about Bruce Cable? Elaine didn’t think so, not yet anyway. And her reason was sound: there was not enough evidence to convince a federal magistrate that Cable had the manuscripts buried in his basement. At the moment, they had a tip from a source in Boston, a forty-minute video of the premises, and some still shots lifted from the video. In the opinions of their two attorneys in Washington, it was simply not enough to get a search warrant.
And, as always, when the Feds entered the picture, they took charge and changed the rules. As of now, they knew nothing of Bruce Cable and had no idea Elaine’s little mole had wormed her way inside. Elaine wanted to keep it this way for as long as possible.
One scenario, suggested by Rick but with little enthusiasm, called for the diversion of arson. Start a small fire after midnight on the ground floor of the bookstore, and as alarms wailed and security monitors erupted, enter the basement through Noelle’s side and do a smash and grab. The risks were abundant, not the least of which was the commission of several crimes. And what if Gatsby wasn’t there? What if Gatsby and friends were being hidden elsewhere, on the island or somewhere else in the country? Cable