‘I do. If I feel I can sell them at a profit, that is. It’s the nature of the business.’
The boy gathered his courage – Drew could almost see him doing it – and stepped all the way up to the desk, where the circular glow of an old-fashioned Anglepoise lamp spotlighted a semi-organized clutter of paperwork. Drew held out his hand. ‘Andrew Halliday.’
The boy shook it briefly and then withdrew, as if fearful of being grabbed. ‘I’m James Hawkins.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘Uh-huh. I think … I have something you might be interested in. Something a collector might pay a lot for. If it was the right collector.’
‘Not the book you’re carrying, is it?’ Drew could see the title now: Dispatches from Olympus. The subtitle wasn’t on the spine, but Drew had owned a copy for many years and knew it well: Letters from 20 Great American Writers in Their Own Hand.
‘Gosh, no. Not this one.’ James Hawkins gave a small, nervous laugh. ‘This is just for comparison.’
‘Very well, say on.’
For a moment ‘James Hawkins’ seemed unsure how to do that. Then he tucked his manila envelope more firmly under his arm and began to hurry through the glossy pages of Dispatches from Olympus, passing a note from Faulkner scolding an Oxford, Mississippi, feed company about a misplaced order, a gushy letter from Eudora Welty to Ernest Hemingway, a scrawl about who knew what from Sherwood Anderson, and a grocery list Robert Penn Warren had decorated with a doodle of two dancing penguins, one of them smoking a cigarette.
At last he found what he wanted, set the book on the desk, and turned it to face Drew. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Look at this.’
Drew’s heart jumped as he read the heading: John Rothstein to Flannery O’Connor. The carefully photographed note had been written on lined paper tattered down the lefthand side where it had been torn from a dimestore notebook. Rothstein’s small, neat handwriting, very unlike the scrawl of so many writers, was unmistakable.
February 19, 1953
My dear Flannery O’Connor,
I am in receipt of your wonderful novel, Wise Blood which you have so kindly inscribed to me. I can say wonderful because I purchased a copy as soon as it came out, and read it immediately. I am delighted to have a signed copy, as I am sure you are delighted to have the royalty accruing from one more sold volume! I enjoyed the entire motley cast of characters, especially Hazel Motes and Enoch Emery, a zookeeper I’m sure my own Jimmy Gold would have enjoyed and befriended. You have been called a ‘connoisseur of grotesqueries,’ Miss O’Connor, yet what the critics miss – probably because they have none themselves – is your lunatic sense of humor, which takes no prisoners. I know you are physically unwell, but I hope you will persevere in your work in spite of that. It is important work! Thanking you again,
John Rothstein
PS: I still laugh about the Famous Chicken!!!
Drew scanned the letter longer than necessary, to calm himself, then looked up at the boy calling himself James Hawkins. ‘Do you understand the reference to the Famous Chicken? I’ll explain, if you like. It’s a good example of what Rothstein called her lunatic sense of humor.’
‘I looked it up. When Miss O’Connor was six or seven, she had – or claimed she had – a chicken that walked backwards. Some newsreel people came and filmed it, and the chicken was in the movies. She said it was the high point of her life, and everything afterwards was an anticlimax.’
‘Exactly right. Now that we’ve covered the Famous Chicken, what can I do for you?’
The boy took a deep breath and opened the clasp on his manila envelope. From inside he took a photocopy and laid it beside Rothstein’s letter in Dispatches from Olympus. Drew Halliday’s face remained placidly interested as he looked from one to the other, but beneath the desk, his fingers interlaced so tightly that his closely clipped nails dug into the backs of his hands. He knew what he was looking at immediately. The squiggles on the tails of the ys, the bs that always stood by themselves, the hs that stood high and the gs that dipped low. The question now was how much ‘James Hawkins’ knew. Maybe not a lot, but almost certainly more than a little. Otherwise he would not be hiding behind a new moustache and specs looking suspiciously like the clear-glass kind that could be purchased in a drugstore or costume shop.
At the top of the page, circled, was the number 44. Below it was a fragment of poetry.
Suicide is circular, or so I think;
you may have your own opinion.
In the meantime, meditate on this.
A plaza just after sunrise,
You could say in Mexico.
Or Guatemala, if you like.
Anyplace where the rooms still come
with wooden ceiling fans.
In any case it’s blanco up to the blue sky
except for the ragged mops of palms and
rosa where the boy outside the café
is washing cobbles, half asleep.
On the corner, waiting for the first