Bookman's promise

“Well, I didn’t. I went up to the mountains early the next day. Like I told you.”

“It’s conceivable that Ralston might’ve told somebody in the neighborhood. Maybe Denise did herself. If Whiteside’s any kind of cop, he’ll be looking at that now.”

“Randy Whiteside?”

I nodded.

“Oh God,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Oh God. God, God, that poor woman.”

She thought a minute, then said, “If Ralston is arrested or contacts you in any way, I need to talk to him. Immediately, before he says something the cops can use against him.”

I knew my friend Moses would be only too happy to step aside on this one. “If you take him on, it’ll have to be pro bono.”

Her look became prickly. “Did you hear me mention anything about money?”

We had another quick drink. There wasn’t much time left: the lounge was closing.

“They’re about to kick us out,” I said. “Last chance for you to tell me your secrets.”

She looked like she actually was giving this some thought. “I’ll be talking with my client again tonight,” she said. “We might be willing to share certain facts in exchange for the same.”

“Okay,” I said nonchalantly. “It might help if I tell you some of what I already know, just so we don’t rake over stale material. For instance, I know you came here to see Archer.”

She didn’t blink at that, so I went on, hoping I was right. “I know you’re representing Judge Huxley in an attempt to buy a book that Archer claims to have.”

This time she did blink. Encouraged, I kept going: “I know Archer’s being his usual enchanting self, I know he and Lee had a falling-out, and I know some other things as well. I tell you this so you’ll know we’ll have to start well beyond these points. No reinventing the wheel.”

“I wonder how you learned all that. Assuming it’s true.”

“I was a pretty good detective, Erin.”

She smiled wanly. “Unauthorized wiretaps are illegal almost everywhere, Janeway.”

“Thank you, Counselor, for clarifying that so that even a poor old dumb-schmuck ex-cop nonlawyer understands it. For your information, I haven’t done an illegal wiretap in at least a week.”

She stared at me and I could almost see the wheels turning in her head.

“So what do we do?” I said. “Have your people call my people, as you lawyers like to say?”

“Let’s just meet for breakfast, wise guy. Be here at eight and we’ll see what happens. And comb your hair before you come over.”

CHAPTER 25

A note from Koko had been shoved under my door. It seemed to be an account of her day in the library. There were also several pages of photocopies, showing, I assumed, what she had found. I still didn’t hold out much hope for her end: it was a very cold trail she was chasing, so I didn’t read the note immediately, just tossed it on the table and sat on my bed for a few minutes, thinking about Erin. Tomorrow, I hoped, would reveal a lot more. I wanted her to be telling the truth and for the moment I believed what I wanted to believe. She had been genuinely surprised about Denise, I thought. Her explanation rang true. Lee Huxley had been closer to her than her father: he would have her cell phone number, and when his chance came up to buy Burton’s journal, she would be a natural as his representative. He couldn’t come to Charleston himself: his docket was always full and he’d be in the middle of a trial. What else had I learned? That Lee’s relationship with Archer had begun to unravel. That this had happened only recently. And whatever piece of the Charlie Warren-Burton library Archer might have, and from whatever sources, he didn’t have it all by any means. But he was ready to sell what he did have. Archer needed money and he wasn’t above asking a highway-robbery price from an old friend. The book was unique—not even rare, the most overused word in the bookman’s lexicon, adequately described it. Archer himself had said so, and I didn’t have to like him to recognize his excellent command of the English language. He would not be one of those idiots who throw very unique at every common happening. Unique would mean to Archer what it meant to me—one of a kind. I thought of Burton’s journal. What else could it be? And how did he get it?

Richard Burton’s notebook. Burton’s version of the Charlie Warren story: the final word in his own hand, the incontrovertible proof that Josephine’s memories of her grandfather were true or false. I felt tingly just thinking about it, and Koko…God, she’d be faint with excitement and hope.

And then there was this: Erin had hinted that Archer might face legal action. What could that mean? To me it meant that Archer had somehow obtained whatever he had in a questionable manner and that Erin and Lee knew it. Somewhere he was vulnerable. What that meant I couldn’t guess. I couldn’t imagine Lee buying hot goods: it just didn’t jibe with the man I knew. And I couldn’t picture him in such rabid pursuit of any book that he would allow himself to be yanked around, even to this extent, by a two-bit chiseler like Archer. I thought about that and it still didn’t seem real when I applied it to Lee. I knew better, of course: the bookman’s madness can get us all, even a distinguished judge. Some of us put on stoic faces, like expert poker players whose masks hide the fever, but I had known Lee Huxley for fifteen years and I just didn’t believe it. He was a book collector but a sane one, and I’d bet my bookstore on that.

So where was I? I reached for straws and came up only with wild unlikelihoods. Lee was buying the book back for