‘She’s cool,’ Pete said. ‘I’m learning a lot.’ Actually he wasn’t, and he didn’t think anyone else in her class was, either. She was nice enough, and quite often had interesting things to say, but Pete was coming to the conclusion that creative writing couldn’t really be taught, only learned.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘Remember when you were talking about how valuable a handwritten Shakespeare manuscript would be?’
Mr Ricker grinned. ‘I always talk about that during a midweek class, when things get dozy. There’s nothing like a little avarice to perk kids up. Why? Have you found a folio, Malvolio?’
Pete smiled politely. ‘No, but when we were visiting my uncle Phil in Cleveland during February vacation, I went out to his garage and found a whole bunch of old books. Most of them were about Tom Swift. He was this kid inventor.’
‘I remember Tom and his friend Ned Newton well,’ Mr Ricker said. ‘Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle, Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera … when I was a kid myself, we used to joke about Tom Swift and His Electric Grandmother.’
Pete renewed his polite smile. ‘There were also a dozen or so about a girl detective named Trixie Belden, and another one named Nancy Drew.’
‘I believe I see where you’re going with this, and I hate to disappoint you, but I must. Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden … all interesting relics of a bygone age, and a wonderful yardstick to judge how much what is called “YA fiction” has changed in the last eighty years or so, but those books have little or no monetary value, even when found in excellent condition.’
‘I know,’ Pete said. ‘I checked it out later on Fine Books. That’s a blog. But while I was looking those books over, Uncle Phil came out to the garage and said he had something else that might interest me even more. Because I’d told him I was into John Rothstein. It was a signed hardback of The Runner. Not dedicated, just a flat signature. Uncle Phil said some guy named A1 gave it to him because he owed my uncle ten dollars from a poker game. Uncle Phil said he’d had it for almost fifty years. I looked at the copyright page, and it’s a first edition.’
Mr Ricker had been rocked back in his chair, but now he sat down with a bang. ‘Whoa! You probably know that Rothstein didn’t sign many autographs, right?’
‘Yeah,’ Pete said. ‘He called it “defacing a perfectly good book.”’
‘Uh-huh, he was like Raymond Chandler that way. And you know signed volumes are worth more when it’s just the signature? Sans dedication?’
‘Yes. It says so on Fine Books.’
‘A signed first of Rothstein’s most famous book probably would be worth money.’ Mr Ricker considered. ‘On second thought, strike the probably. What kind of condition is it in?’
‘Good,’ Pete said promptly. ‘Some foxing on the inside cover and title page, is all.’
‘You have been reading up on this stuff.’
‘More since my uncle showed me the Rothstein.’
‘I don’t suppose you’re in possession of this fabulous book, are you?’
I’ve got something a lot better, Pete thought. If you only knew.
Sometimes he felt the weight of that knowledge, and never more than today, telling these lies.
Necessary lies, he reminded himself.
‘I don’t, but my uncle said he’d give it to me, if I wanted it. I said I needed to think about it, because he doesn’t … you know …’
‘He doesn’t have any idea of how much it might really be worth?’
‘Yeah. But then I started wondering …’
‘What?’
Pete dug into his back pocket, took out a folded sheet of paper, and handed it to Mr Ricker. ‘I went looking on the Internet for book dealers here in town that buy and sell first editions, and I found these three. I know you’re sort of a book collector yourself—’
‘Not much, I can’t afford serious collecting on my salary, but I’ve got a signed Theodore Roethke that I intend to hand down to my children. The Waking. Very fine poems. Also a Vonnegut, but that’s not worth so much; unlike Rothstein, Father Kurt signed everything.’
‘Anyway, I wondered if you knew any of these, and if you do, which one might be the best. If I decided to let him give me the book … and then, you know, sell it.’
Mr Ricker unfolded the sheet, glanced at it, then looked at Pete again. That gaze, both keen and sympathetic, made Pete feel uneasy. This might have been a bad idea, he really wasn’t much good at fiction, but he was in it now and would have to plow through somehow.
‘As it happens, I know all of them. But jeez, kiddo, I also know how much Rothstein means to you, and not just from your paper last year. Annie Davis says you bring him up often in Creative Writing. Claims the Gold trilogy is your Bible.’
Pete supposed this was true, but he hadn’t realized how blabby he’d been until now. He resolved to stop talking about Rothstein so much. It might be dangerous. People might think back and remember, if—
If.