The boy shifted from foot to foot, saying nothing but clearly conflicted.
Drew reverted to the wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly smile. ‘Leave the photocopies with me. Come back in a week and I’ll tell you how we stand. And here’s some advice – stay away from Jarrett’s place. The man will pick your pockets.’
‘I’d want cash.’
Drew thought, Don’t we all.
‘You’re getting way ahead of yourself, son.’
The boy came to a decision and put the manila envelope down on the cluttered desk. ‘Okay. I’ll come back.’
Drew thought, I’m sure you will. And I believe my bargaining position will be much stronger when you do.
He held out his hand. The boy shook it again, as briefly as he could while still being polite. As if he were afraid of leaving fingerprints. Which in a way he had already done.
Drew sat where he was until ‘Hawkins’ went out, then dropped into his office chair (it gave out a resigned groan) and woke up his sleeping Macintosh. There were two security cameras mounted above the front door, one pointing each way along Lacemaker Lane. He watched the kid turn the corner onto Crossway Avenue and disappear from sight.
The purple sticker on the spine of Dispatches from Olympus, that was the key. It marked the volume as a library book, and Drew knew every branch in the city. Purple meant a reference volume from the Garner Street Library, and reference volumes weren’t supposed to circulate. If the kid had tried to smuggle it out under his City College jacket, the security gate would have buzzed when he went through, because that purple sticker was also an antitheft device. Which led to another Holmesian deduction, once you added in the kid’s obvious book-smarts.
Drew went to the Garner Street Library’s website, where all sorts of choices were displayed: SUMMER HOURS, KIDS & TEENS, UPCOMING EVENTS, CLASSIC FILM SERIES, and, last but far from least: MEET OUR STAFF.
Drew Halliday clicked on this and needed to click no farther, at least to begin with. Above the thumbnail bios was a photo of the staff, roughly two dozen in all, gathered on the library lawn. The statue of Horace Garner, open book in hand, loomed behind them. They were all smiles, including his boy, sans moustache and bogus spectacles. Second row, third from the left. According to the bio, young Mr Peter Saubers was a student at Northfield High, currently working part-time. He hoped to major in English, with a minor in Library Science.
Drew continued his researches, aided by the fairly unusual surname. He was sweating lightly, and why not? Six notebooks already seemed like a pittance, a tease. All of them – some containing a fourth Jimmy Gold novel, if his psycho friend had been right all those years ago – might be worth as much as fifty million dollars, if they were broken up and sold to different collectors. The fourth Jimmy Gold alone might fetch twenty. And with Morrie Bellamy safely tucked away in prison, all that stood in his way was one teenage boy who couldn’t even grow a proper moustache.
10
William the Waiter returns with Drew’s check, and Drew tucks his American Express card into the leather folder. It will not be refused, he’s confident of that. He’s less sure about the other two cards, but he keeps the Amex relatively clean, because it’s the one he uses in business transactions.
Business hasn’t been so good over the last few years, although God knew it should have been. It should have been terrific, especially between 2008 and 2012, when the American economy fell into a sinkhole and couldn’t seem to climb back out. In such times the value of precious commodities – real things, as opposed to computer boops and bytes on the New York Stock Exchange – always went up. Gold and diamonds, yes, but also art, antiques, and rare books. Fucking Michael Jarrett in KC is now driving a Porsche. Drew has seen it on his Facebook page.
His thoughts turn to his second meeting with Peter Saubers. He wishes the kid hadn’t found out about the third mortgage; that had been a turning point. Maybe the turning point.
Drew’s financial woes go back to that damned James Agee book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Gorgeous copy, mint condition, signed by Agee and Walker Evans, the man who’d taken the photographs. How was Drew supposed to know it had been stolen?