Bookman's wake

for me till the end of the day. The guy was a hardass: he said he’d hold it if I put down a deposit, nonreturnable if I didn’t show up by closing time. I gave him the twenty and hit the streets. My problem was time. It was already late afternoon, I had only about an hour left. What I usually do in a case like that is sell some blood, but they’ll only take a pint at a time and I was still seventy dollars short. So I worked up a poor-little-girl-far-from-home hustle. It was the first time I’d ever done that, but you know what?…it’s easy. You guys are the easiest touches; I guess if you’re a young woman and not particularly hideous, you really can make men do anything. I just walked in cold off the street and asked twenty shopkeepers in a row if they could let me have two dollars for something to eat. One or two of them snarled and said, ‘Get out of my life, you effing little deadbeat,’ but you get a thick skin after the first two or three and then it all rolls off. One guy gave me a ten. In a cafe on the corner I got money not only from the owner but from half the guys at the counter. I could probably make a living doing that, but it has a kind of self- demeaning effect, except in emergencies. You don’t learn anything, and one day you wake up and you’ve lost your looks and can’t do it anymore. So I made a pact with myself, I would never do it again unless I had to. I got back to the store right on the button and bought my book. And my luck was running like a charm, I didn’t even have to call Seattle, I found a guy in east L.A. who gave me more than I’d counted on—one seventy-five. He specialized in photo books and I thought he might be good for this one.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the end of the story. Even while he was paying me, I noticed a box of books on his counter, new stuff he’d just gotten in. On top of the stack was a first edition that damn near stopped my heart. I finally worked up my courage and asked him, ‘Hey, mister, whatcha gonna want for this?’ He got a stern, fatherly look on his face and said, ‘I think that’s a pretty nice book, sweetie, I’m gonna want twenty to thirty bucks for it.’ And I almost died trying to pay him with a straight face. The next day I called my friend in Seattle and he sent me a good wholesale price, four hundred dollars. And there I was, back in the chips.”

“Incredible,” I said, and I meant it. I didn’t know many bookscouts who could pull off something like that.

“Oh, yeah!…yeah! And so much more fun than working in some accountant’s office or typing dictation for a lawyer. I mean, how can you compare typing all day with bookscouting. The only trouble with it is, it’s not reliable. You can go weeks without making a real score, and the rest of the time you’re picking up small change. So it all depends on how I’m feeling. If I think I’m gonna be lucky, I’ll hit the stores: if not, I’ll go to work for Ms. Kelly again.”

I knew I shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t be that interested in the specifics. But I had to.

“What was that book, that was worth so much?”

She grinned, still delighted at the memory and savoring each of the title’s four words. “ To…Kill… a … Mock-ing-bird !”

I tried for a look that said, It means nothing to me , but what I wanted to do was close my eyes and suffer. Jesus, I thought… oh, man ! That book is simply not to be found. Stories like that are what make up the business. A dealer in photography hands a pretty ragamuffin a thousand- dollar book, so desirable it’s almost like cash, and all because he hasn’t taken the time to learn the high spots of modern fiction.

The waitress brought our food. Eleanor reached for the salt and I saw the scar on her wrist. It was a straight slash, too even to have been done by accident.

At some time in her past, Eleanor Rigby had tried to kill herself, with a razor blade.

“So,” she said, in that tone people use when they’re changing the subject, “where were you heading when I shanghaied you in the rain?”

“Wherever the wind blows.”

“Hey, that’s where I’m going! Are you married?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Ever been?”

“Not that I can remember. Who’d put up with me?”

“Probably one or two girls I know. D’you have any bad habits?”

“Well, I don’t smoke.”

“Beat your women?”

“Not if they do what I tell them.”

She laughed. “God, a nonsmoker with a boss complex. I may marry you myself. Don’t laugh, Mr. Janeway, I’ve lived my whole life on one whim after another. Have you ever been at loose ends?”

“Once, I think, about twenty years ago.”

“Well, I live that way. My whole life’s a big loose end. I go where the wind blows. If the natives are friendly, I stay awhile and warm myself in the sun. So where’s the wind blowing you?”

“Phoenix,” I said—the first place that popped into my mind.

“Oh, lovely. Lots of sun there—not many books, though, from what I’ve heard. I’d probably have to work for a living, which doesn’t thrill me, but nothing’s perfect. How would you like some company?”

“You’ve decided to go to Phoenix?”

“Why not, I’ve never been there. Why couldn’t I go if I wanted to?”

She was looking right down my throat. She really is like Rita, I thought: she had that same hard nut in her heart that made it so difficult to lie to her.