“It’s a tough world, hon,” Neff said.
“Don’t give me that. I see some of the characters who sell you books. They don’t look like any Einsteins to me. If they can do it, I know I can. I’ve got as much brains as they have.”
“I’m sure that’s true. The difference between you and them is that they’ve already made their mistakes.”
“Seven dollars and fifty cents, shot to hell,” she said. “Bet you won’t even give me two for it.”
“I can pick those things up in thrift stores all day long for fifty cents.”
“Aw, give her the money,” Ruby said, coming out from the back room. “We’ll subsidize this mistake. Just don’t make any more, and bring us all your good books first. Give her the seven-fifty, Em.”
“No wonder we’re going broke,” Neff said.
“This’ll pay big dividends down the road, I can feel it in my bones,” Ruby said. “What’s your name, lady?”
“Millie Farmer.”
“Here—here’s your money back. I’m taking a two-buck loss, that is if I ever sell the son of a bitch. Bring me a good book next time.”
“I will,” she said determinedly. “By God, you watch me.”
“It’s easy,” Ruby said. “Like taking candy from a baby. When you see a box of books, don’t take any bad ones and don’t leave any good ones. That’s all there is to it.”
I had been taking all this in as a spectator. Now, at the end of it, I couldn’t help shaking my head and asking her one question.
“Why would you want to be a bookscout?”
“I’m a teacher,” she said. “Would you like to try to make it on what they pay you to teach third grade in this town? I need the extra money.”
“All right,” Neff said. “Stick around, I’ll show you some ropes. It doesn’t look like much else is gonna happen today.”
“Ruby,” I said, “I’m ready to go to Bobby’s place if you are.”
We picked up my car and headed down Seventeenth Avenue toward Capitol Hill. Ruby talked as we drove, a seemingly endless chain of stories about Bobby Westfall and his adventures in the book trade. Ruby knew all the scuttlebutt. “I can’t believe the little bastard’s dead,” he said at one point. I told him he could believe it. “I sure hope you get the son of a bitch that did it, Dr. J,” he said. I told him I would, but you never know about that. You just never know.
Bobby lived in one of those old tenements on Ogden Street. It was a garret, up three long flights of stairs. We stopped at the manager’s on the ground floor. I showed him my badge and told him the news. He was shocked. The manager was about fifty: he wore a sweatshirt and had a dark, unhealthy look. His name was Marty Zimmers. I told him we’d need to see the apartment and he got his spare key. At the top of the stairs, I said, “I don’t want you boys to touch anything. In fact, I think I’m gonna ask you to wait out here.”
I opened the door and the cats came running. I went in alone.
It was a small place, one room with a kitchenette and a tiny bathroom. It was a maze of books, a veritable cave of books. There were books piled from the floor to the ceiling, books stacked around the hideaway bed he’d slept in, books on the toilet, on the kitchen counter. I could see at a glance it was mostly crap, the kind of things a bookscout buys on a wing and a prayer, because it’s cheap, because he has a hunch that never pays off, because he makes mistakes. Millie Farmer ought to be here now, and see what it’s really like, I thought. There were later printings and books without jackets and books with vast, unfixable problems. Later I’d have to go through every piece in this room on the off chance that, if Bobby had found something, it might still be here. For now the main job was to get the area secured.
“This the only key?” I called out into the hall.
Marty Zimmers stuck his head in. “Well, he had one.”
“This is the only spare, though.”
“That’s it.”
I gave the place one quick looksee before going down to call the lab. The only things that stood out were the cats and a cheap little notepad that he had used for a telephone book. I picked up the notebook carefully and thumbed through it. Everybody was in it, all the book dealers in Denver by name and address. For some he had home numbers. Ruby and Neff were there, both home numbers and the store. On the back page of the book he had scrawled “Rita McKinley,” and a telephone exchange that I recognized as Evergreen, in the mountains. I checked it against the number on the paper that Bobby had dropped in Jerry Harkness’s bookstore. The numbers were different. I copied the new number in my notebook and left Bobby’s book on the rickety little table beside the bed.
In the manager’s office I made my calls. The first was the new Rita McKinley number. It rang once and was answered by a machine. The cool female voice said, “You’ve reached 670-2665. No one’s here now. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you soon.” The phone beeped. I didn’t leave a message.
I tried the other number. A cutoff recording came on and said that the call could not be completed as dialed.
I called downtown. Hennessey had come in. I told him I was at Bobby’s place and I gave him the address. “We’ll
