Bookman's promise

I followed him in. The hotel offered a buffet in addition to the regular menu and Archer had opted for that. I got into the line a few people behind him.

I was close enough now to hear him giving the cashier his room number. He took a table in the far corner of the room, a solitary figure with all his glory unrecognized. The Pulitzer prize may have its charms, but it’s a lousy bedmate.

I paid with a twenty and headed across the room toward him. “Well, Hal Archer, imagine seeing you here.” He looked up. “Do I know you?”

He knew me, all right: I could see it in his face. But I said, “Cliff Janeway. We met at Lee Huxley’s.” I said this warmly, as if we had become buddies at once that night. Boldly I put my tray down on his table and sat down. “Do you mind?”

“Actually, I’m waiting for someone.”

“Oh, listen, I’ll get out of your hair as soon as she gets here. I’ve just got to tell you something that’s been on my mind since Miranda’s party. I never should’ve fawned over you like that; I know it must be a drag being set upon by strangers. I’ll bet it gets tiresome as hell, being told how great you are every minute of your life.”

“That’s all right,” he said coldly.

“How generous of you to say that. But I was a boob and I need to say so.”

“Well, you’ve said it.” His face remained passive, indifferent, distant, and finally tinged with annoyance. “Now if you’ll excuse me.” But I had already started to eat. “I really did mean it when I said I liked your stuff. I was your biggest fan, long before you won anything.”

“Look,” he said. “If I’ve written something you liked, I’m happy for both of us. But at the moment—”

“In fact, I owe you a big favor.”

He looked at me with doleful eyes, like a man afraid to ask.

“You’re the guy who turned me on to Richard Burton.”

He said nothing but his eyes wondered where the hell this was going.

“I’m a book dealer, you know.” “I remember.”

“Because of you, Burton has become one of those burning passions that comes along just a few times in a bookman’s life.”

He looked at me coldly.

“I’ve done a lot of homework on the man and his life and times since that night, and I’ll bet I can even tell you a thing or two. I know you’ve been researching him for years and you’ve got a book in the works, but I’ve come across stuff nobody else knows.”

The plan was suddenly on track: I had rattled him. For a moment he kept staring at me, then he said, “Who told you that?”

“What, that you’re writing a book? Oh, come on, it was so obvious that night even a blind man could see it. But your secret’s safe with me. I know how writers are. Just let it be known that Hal Archer is doing Sir Richard Burton, and half a dozen wannabe writers will rush into print with warmed-over retreads. And of course that’ll cut into your market even if their books are lousy. Which they will be, right?”

“Listen…Janeway…”

“It’s o-kay,” I said warmly. “I won’t tell a soul.”

“All I ever said about Burton was what a grand figure he was. I never said I was writing about him.”

“I understand completely. My lips are sealed.”

“You don’t understand anything. There’s nothing to seal. Get that? Nothing.”

“Sure.” I put on my best look of phony camaraderie, guaranteed to let him know that I knew bullshit when I heard it. I did everything but wink at him. Then I said, in a masterpiece of my own bullshit, “Look, I’ve taken up way too much of your time.”

I started to get up. But he said, as I knew he would, “Just as a point of curiosity…what the hell are you talking about?”

“You mean about Burton?”

He looked at me like a scientist studies a lower-life form. No, about the queen’s sex life, you bumbling goddamn ignoramus!

I leaned close, as if spies were everywhere. “I’ve found a great source of untapped Burton material. Somebody with a direct link to his time in America.”

“And who might that be?”

“Mrs. Josephine Gallant. Does that ring a bell?”

“Not at all,” he said.