“Isn’t it hypocritical?”
“Explain, boy, or I will have you taken out of the courtroom by your ears.” He seemed to notice for the first time that he was not just speaking to himself, and that I was not white.
I knew I had spoken too frankly, since I was hoping he could help me. “Very sorry, sir. I mean no offense.”
“Ignorant! Then what do you mean?”
“Well, you say you were a book pirate yourself, so why condemn the bookaneers for the same thing?”
“I was no pirate, boy,” he huffed. “I was a publisher. We have an obligation to the reader above all else to let them read.”
He said these three words as though reciting a motto. I nodded my agreement, eager to move on. “Do you know a Mr. Fergins?”
“Come again?”
“He is a bookseller who has been helping to review the evidence in this case.” I explained how the last time I was at the court he went into a room upstairs to study documents. “I remember the door was painted dark red, but I don’t remember exactly where it was. You see, I thought I might find him here again today.”
“A bookseller, did you say? No. I haven’t heard of him. Do you know what the chief problem is these days with bookselling?”
I plagiarized the words of Pen Davenport. “I suppose that the greater portion of the population that learns to read, the more they revolt against having to pay to do so.”
I don’t think he intended for me to answer; he hadn’t listened. “Booksellers think they are closer to the authors, and closer to God, than publishers, but no mistake about it, if the author is dragged down by any devil, it is by the bookseller who genuinely believes he is serving a just cause.”
The publisher’s attention was drawn away from me. Turning my head to the left, I was facing Belial himself, who was having his chains untangled as he was being led through the aisle.
“Afternoon, old friend,” the pirating publisher said, saluting the prisoner. “Over here! It has been a long time. Fifty-six, wasn’t it, that we met for the first time?” he asked. “A rare man,” he repeated to me, holding his breath as we watched Belial (who had ignored him) disappear into the crowd. Despite his pronouncements about wanting to see the prisoner squirm, my neighbor seemed as enthralled and worshipful as the pretty young poetesses who had heard stories of the bookaneers of old.
Though I did not find Mr. Fergins in the courthouse that day, I still had some hope I would see him there and be able to entreat him for more of his tale; I went again the very next chance I had, this time arriving earlier, trying to match the time of day when I had met the bookseller there the month previous. On this occasion, however, the courtroom was empty, and from the smoking ashtrays it seemed to have been abandoned recently and in a hurry. I exited, wondering about this mysterious circumstance. There were noises of a commotion, and following the sounds brought me upstairs to the same crimson door where Mr. Fergins had once parted from me.
A dense cloud of smoke clogged the air. Scores of firemen in dark leather helmets were running to the spot and pouring water into the room, and steam was hissing from inside the room. The stench of burning—or of something already burnt—filled the air. A woman screamed.
I shielded my eyes from the stinging particles in the air. “What happened?” I asked one of the less panicked spectators, a tall man with enthusiastic expressions.
“There was a fire broke out in one of the evidence rooms,” he said, shouting above the din. “Some unlucky bookseller saw the smoke coming out and rushed in to put it out—he’s a hero. A fool, but he was a hero to the end, I say!”
“Do you mean to say he’s died?”
“That’s what I heard not a minute ago. Fergin was his name, I believe they said. Where are you going?”
I pushed past the man and right into the surging crowd of firemen and onlookers.
“Mr. Fergins! Mr. Fergins!” I cried.
I found a pair of spectacles on the floor, their white metal frame blackened and bent, with one lens cracked into shards.
There was a half circle of men closing over a prone form that I recognized at a glance. “Give him some air!” someone was shouting at me and others who were trying to get closer. “Some air!”
My heart dropped out of my throat when Mr. Fergins began gasping and coughing.
“Anyone know this man?”
“I know him!” I called out when arms and elbows tried to shove me away. He is my one friend in this whole monstrous city, I wanted to shout.
A lady who eyed me for a moment then commented that the fallen gentleman’s watch chain and valuables should be secured. A man with a kindly voice called to me from behind to give Mr. Fergins air if I wanted him to survive.
The bookseller was rolled onto a stretcher and was trotted out of sight by three bearers. In the gallery of the courthouse more spectators loitered, having tumbled out of the courtrooms to see the commotion. There between a circle of blue police uniforms was Belial himself, his stiff mouth twitching, just for a moment, into a projection of malicious complacency.
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