For nearly thirty seconds, A.J. is frozen and then he resumes speaking as if nothing has happened. “Ismay’s at work, and I’m fine. There’s no need to call her.”
“You were gone for a minute there,” Lambiase says.
“What?”
“You blacked out.”
“Oh Christ. It’s just an absence seizure. I used to have them a lot as a kid. I rarely have them as an adult except when I’m unusually stressed.”
“You should see a doctor.”
“No, it’s fine. Honestly. I just want to find my book.”
“I’d feel better,” Lambiase insists. “You’ve had a pretty traumatic morning, and I know you live alone. I’m gonna take you to the hospital and then I’m gonna have your in-laws meet you there. Meanwhile, I’ll have my guys see if they can figure anything out about your book.”
At the hospital, A.J. waits, fills out forms, waits, strips, waits, takes tests, waits, puts his clothes back on, waits, takes more tests, waits, strips again, and at last is seen by a middle-aged general practitioner. She is not particularly concerned about the seizure. The tests, however, have revealed that his blood pressure and cholesterol are on the border between acceptable and high for a thirty-nine-year-old man. She asks A.J. about his lifestyle. He answers the question truthfully. “I’m not what you’d call an alcoholic, but I do like to drink until I pass out at least once a week. I smoke occasionally and I subsist on a diet of frozen entrees. I rarely floss. I used to be a long-distance runner, but now I don’t exercise at all. I live alone and I lack meaningful personal relationships. Since my wife died, I hate my work, too.”
“Oh, is that all?” the doctor asks. “You’re still a young man, Mr. Fikry, but a body can only take so much. If you’re trying to kill yourself, I can certainly think of faster, easier ways to go about it. Do you want to die?”
A response doesn’t immediately occur to him.
“Because if you really want to die, I can put you under psychiatric observation.”
“I don’t want to die,” A.J. says after a bit. “I just find it difficult to be here all the time. Do you think I’m crazy?”
“No. I can see why you would feel that way. You’re going through a bear of a time. Start with exercise,” she says. “You’ll feel better.”
“Okay.”
“Your wife was lovely,” the doctor says. “I used to be in the mother-daughter book club she ran at the store. My daughter still works for you part-time.”
“Molly Klock?”
“Klock is my partner’s name. I’m Dr. Rosen.” She taps her name tag.
In the lobby, A.J. encounters a familiar scene. “Would you mind terribly?” a nurse in pink scrubs asks, holding out a battered mass-market paperback to a man in a corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows.
“I’d be delighted,” Daniel Parish says. “What’s your name?”
“Jill, like Jack and Jill went up the hill. Macy, like the store. I’ve read all your books, but I like this one the best. Like, by far.”
“That is the popular opinion, Jill from the hill.” Daniel isn’t kidding. None of his books have sold nearly as well as the first.
“I can’t even express how much it meant to me. Like, I start to tear up thinking about it.” She bows her head and lowers her eyes, deferent as a geisha. “It’s what made me want to be a nurse! I just started working here. When I found out you lived in town, I kept hoping you’d come in someday.”
“You mean, you hoped I’d get sick?” Daniel says, smiling.
“No, of course not!” She blushes, then swats him on the arm. “You! You’re terrible!”
“I am,” Daniel replies. “I am, indeed, terrible.”
The first time Nic had met Daniel Parish, she had commented that he had the good looks of an anchorman for a local news station. By the car ride home, she had revised her opinion. “His eyes are too small for an anchor. He’d be the weatherman.”
“He does have a sonorous voice,” A.J. had said.
“If that man told you that the storm had passed, you would definitely believe him. Probably even if you were still standing smack in the middle of it,” she had said.
A.J. interrupts the flirtation. “Dan,” he says. “I thought they’d called your wife.” A.J. is not going for subtle.
Daniel clears his throat. “She’s feeling under the weather, so I came instead. How you holding up, old man?” Daniel calls A.J. “old man” despite the fact that Daniel is five years older than A.J.
“I’ve lost my fortune, and the doctor says I’m going to die, but other than that, I’m fantastic.” The sedative has given him perspective.
“Great. Let’s get drinks.” Daniel turns to Nurse Jill and whispers something in her ear. When Daniel returns the book to her, A.J. can see that he has written his phone number. “Come, thou monarch of the vine!” Daniel says as he heads for the exit.
Despite the fact that he loves books and owns a bookstore, A.J. does not particularly care for writers. He finds them to be unkempt, narcissistic, silly, and generally unpleasant people. He tries to avoid meeting the ones who’ve written books he loves for fear that they will ruin their books for him. Luckily, he does not love Daniel’s books, not even the popular first novel. As for the man? Well, he amuses A.J. to an extent. This is to say, Daniel Parish is one of A.J.’s closest friends.
“IT’S MY OWN fault,” A.J. says after his second beer. “Should have gotten insurance. Should have stored it in a safe. Shouldn’t have taken it out when I was drunk. No matter who stole it, I can’t say my conduct was exactly faultless.” The alcohol in combination with the sedative is mellowing A.J., making him philosophical. Daniel pours him another glass from the pitcher.
“Don’t do that, A.J. Don’t blame yourself,” Daniel says.
“It’s a wake-up call is what it is,” A.J. says. “I’m definitely gonna cut down on my drinking.”
“Right after this beer,” Daniel quips. They clink mugs. A high school girl in denim cutoffs so short her buttocks peeks out the bottom walks into the bar. Daniel holds up his mug to her. “Nice outfit!” The girl gives him the finger. “You gotta stop drinking. I gotta stop cheating on Ismay,” Daniel says. “But then I see a pair of shorts like that, and my resolve is seriously tested. This night’s been ridiculous. The nurse! Those shorts!”
A.J. sips the beer. “How’s the book coming?”
Daniel shrugs. “It is a book. It will have pages and a cover. It will have a plot, characters, complications. It will reflect years of studying, refining, and practicing my craft. For all that, it will surely be less popular than the first one I wrote at the age of twenty-five.”
“Poor bastard,” A.J. says.
“I’m pretty sure you win the Poor Bastard of the Year Award, old man.”
“Lucky me.”
“Poe’s a lousy writer, you know? And ‘Tamerlane’ is the worst. Boring Lord Byron rip-off. It’d be one thing if it were a first edition of something fucking decent. You should be glad to be rid of it. I loathe collectible books anyway. People getting all moony over particular paper carcasses. It’s the ideas that matter, man. The words,” Daniel Parish says.
A.J. finishes his beer. “You, sir, are an idiot.”
THE INVESTIGATION LASTS a month, which in Alice Island PD time is like a year. Lambiase and his team find no relevant physical evidence at the scene. In addition to throwing out the wine bottle and cleaning up the vindaloo, the criminal had apparently wiped down the apartment of fingerprints. The investigators question A.J.’s employees and also his few friends and relations in Alice. These interviews result in nothing particularly incriminating. No book dealers or auction houses report any copies of Tamerlane turning up either. (Of course, auction houses are notoriously quiet about these matters.) The investigation is considered unsolved. The book is gone, and A.J. knows he will never see it again.
The glass case, now, has no use, and A.J. is unsure of what to do with it. He has no other rare books. Still, the case had been pricey, nearly five hundred dollars. Some vestigial, hopeful part of him wants to believe that something better could come along to put in the case. When he bought it, he was told he could also use it to store cigars.
As retirement is no longer on the horizon, A.J. reads galleys, returns e-mails, answers the phone, and even writes a shelf talker or two. At night, after the store is closed, he starts running again. There are many challenges to long-distance running, but one of the greatest is the question of where to put one’s house keys. In the end, A.J. decides to leave his front door unlocked. In his estimation, nothing here is worth stealing.