Booked to die

The next day was a copy of the first: we worked, we ate, we said little. Bookscouts came to sell their wares, and Miss Pride stood and watched over my shoulder. In the evening Ruby joined us and we worked till ten. I paid them both and Miss Pride did not argue. Ruby never argued when money was coming his way.

The three of us got along fine. The place was shaping up. “Lookin‘ booky, Dr. J,” Ruby said. It felt solid, good; it felt great. We talked and laughed, especially at dinnertime, and I paid the tariff and was glad I had these people around me.

Miss Pride was from Fdinburgh, “Auld Reekie,” she called it. In natural conversation she spoke a Scotch dialect that was all but undecipherable: I was so glad she had learned English as well. Her story— what she chose to share of it—might have been one of those Horatio Alger tearjerkers of the 1890s. She was an orphan, desperately poor in her own land. America had always been her big dream. She was here on a one-year work visa, which, she hoped, could be extended. She had been here six months, mostly in New York, but the last three weeks on the road. New York had disappointed her: her sponsor had died suddenly, leaving her to cope in the tough Big Apple. But Denver felt right. She felt good about Denver. Denver was where her version of the American dream was to begin.

Ruby draped himself in a drop cloth and stood with his paintbrush pointing up. “Send us your tired, your wretched, your bookscouts,” he said, and we got a good laugh out of that.

We finished up one night ten days later. The place looked like new; it looked truly marvelous. Miss Pride went over it with a vacuum while Ruby packed his tools for the last time. I just walked from room to room, unable to remember when I’d last felt such peace and satisfaction.

Now came the books. I emptied out my apartment and brought in everything from storage. Ruby was astounded at what I had. “I’m tellin‘ you right now, Dr. J, this fiction section is gonna be the most important one in the West. Good God, look at the Milagros! I can’t believe it. John Nichols hasn’t got this many.” I told him I thought I’d make a pyramid of Milagros in the glass case, but he shook his head. You put these out one at a time, he said: in a rare book section, you never put more than one copy out, it would undercut the illusion of scarcity. You wanted that feeling of urgency to always be a customer’s companion, the notion that he must act now, today, else it be gone forever. The three of us sat up all night pricing. Miss Pride priced the common stock using the standard ratio: she’d look it up in Books in Print, and if ours was a perfect copy she priced it half of the in-print tariff. Ruby and I priced the collectibles, arguing incessantly about high retail and low, scarcity, demand, and, always, condition. “Remember, Ruby, I don’t want to be high,” I would say, and Ruby would look at me with great disgust. “You still haven’t learned anything,” he would say. “You still don’t know that it’s easier to sell a good book high than low. Dammit, people like to think that what they’re buying is worthwhile. Price it too low and it looks like you don’t value your own stuff.” He would hold a book against his head and close his eyes as if the book could speak. When it spoke to him, he would make his pronouncement, “Seventy-five bucks,” he’d say, and I would argue, and he’d throw up his hands. “Seventy-five dollars, Dr. J, you can’t sell the son of a bitch for less than that. Do you want to look like a fool?”

And so it went, till well after dawn. The night had passed in a wink and suddenly it was over. “It’s always that way when you’re lookin‘ at books,” Ruby said. “An hour goes by in a minute: you don’t know where the hell the time went. It’s like making love to a woman… the most hypnotic business a man can do.”

Then they were gone. Ruby went home for a few hours’ sleep and Miss Pride went to her room. I walked through the store and only then did it hit me—what I had taken on, what I’d left behind, how drastically my life had changed in only one month. I took a deep breath. The place smelled of paint fumes and sawdust. It smelled like a new car, though the actual odor was nothing like that. It was real, it was alive, and it was mine. It was sweet and exciting. I had a sense of proprietorship, of direction. I had a lifetime of work ahead of me, and it was very good.

21

That was all some time ago.

We had a sensational opening week. I sold two signed Mil-agros the first day, and did almost $1,000 before the day was out. The three Stephen Kings flew out the door on the second day. By the end of the week I had taken in $3,000. I started a beard, shaved it, started it again and shaved it. I never, ever, wore a necktie. People said I was in danger of becoming a bohemian.

Jackie Newton sued me for $10 million. It looked like something that would drag on for years. I had a lawyer who was also a friend, and he said not to worry, we’d work it out.

I didn’t worry. I had one or two regrets: occasionally I dreamed about Bobby Westfall and his unknown killer, but I told myself I was out of the worrying business forever.

Today it seems as if my years as a cop were all part of another lifetime. I never hear sirens in my sleep, and even a report of a gunfight in progress between police and drug deal-ers leaves me strangely detached. I’ve gone to a few funerals since I quit the department, but as time goes by I’m treated more and more like an outsider. I still run. I keep in good shape because it makes good sense. I keep my gun because that makes good sense too, but I’ve got a permit now, just like any other law-abiding citizen.

I see a few old friends a few times a year. I never see Carol. I hear she’s living with a sergeant over on the west side. Hennessey’s the same old buffalo. We sit and drink beer and talk about old cases, old times.

I get the feeling he doesn’t try as hard these days. He never did talk to Peter. He never found Rita McKinley. The U-Haul lead fizzled and went out.

The cops weren’t about to solve the Westfall case. As it turned out, I had to do that.

BOOK TWO

22

My days settled into a glorious routine. I was up at seven; I ate breakfast in a cafe a few blocks from my