Outside, the night people came out and walked along the street. Time to call it a day. Then the phone rang, and something about the day made me answer it.
“Hi.”
I knew her voice at once and I told her how sorry I was.
“I know you are,” she said gently. “I’m sorry too.”
“So what are you doing these days?”
“Trying to finish my book. It’s not very good but I guess I’ll finish it anyway.”
“You’re probably not the best judge of that.”
“I’m the only judge.”
There was a long pause at the word judge.
“Even if that’s true,” I finally said, “you’re not exactly finishing it under ideal circumstances.”
“I’m tired of fooling myself. I’m not even going to send it out.”
“Give it time, Erin. Just give it time.”
“Sure.”
Then she said, “A wise man once told me, some of us are not meant to be writers.”
“Even a wise man can’t know everything.”
“Same old Janeway. You’ve got an answer for everything.”
“Here’s another one. Maybe you were meant to be a bookseller.”
“I’ve thought of that.”
“You can always write when the muse comes back.”
“If it does.”
This felt depressingly like the end of the conversation. But after some dead phone time, she said, “Do you happen to know what day this is?”
Of course I knew, that’s why I’d answered the phone. I’d been thinking about it all day long. It was the fortieth day.
I listened to the phone noise for a moment. Then she said, “Stay there, I’m coming over.”
Readers wishing to learn more about Richard Burton are referred to three excellent biographies. Fawn Brodie’s The Devil Drives (Norton, 1967) was the first major “life” to separate Burton from his blackguard reputation, and remains a highly readable account. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, by Edward Rice (Scribner, 1990), admirably captures the details and mysteries of Burton’s life. A Rage to Live (London: Little, Brown, 1998) by Mary S. Lovell is a massive, well-researched dual biography of Richard and Isabel.
A biographical novel by William Harrison, Burton and Speke, was filmed as Mountains of the Moon, 1990, and is recommended viewing.
Norman Penzer’s Annotated Bibliography of Sir Richard Francis Burton (London: 1923) is still the best source of information on Burton’s vast literary output.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Dunning is the Nero Wolfe Award-winning author of two previous Cliff Janeway novels, Booked to Die and The Bookman’s Wake, a New York Times Notable Book of 1995. An expert on rare and collectible books, he owned the Old Algonquin bookstore in Denver for many years. His most recent novel was Two O ‘Clock, Eastern Wartime, which focused on old-time radio. John Dunning lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife, Helen. His website is www.oldalgonquin.com.
