Bookman's promise

“As far as you know.”

The moment stretched.

At last I said, “That would be a pretty good book, wouldn’t it? It might even put a new slant on history. I don’t think we’re talking about a revision on the order of, say, the South suddenly wins the war, but you can bet historians as well as book collectors will be interested.”

“Yes,” she said.

“The book would get a lot of attention.”

“Yes, it would. If the owner wanted it to.”

“I can see a story like that on the front pages of quite a few newspapers. And that might make it worth a lot more as a rare book.”

“That’s been Archer’s point all through the negotiations, and we agree with him. Where our negotiations break down is over how much that should be.”

“What are you offering?”

She stared at me.

“I tend to ask impertinent questions,” I said. “I guess that was one of them.”

“Yes, it was. But Lee wants me to tell you everything, so our offer was $250,000.”

“Wow.”

“So? You’re a bookman. Is that fair?”

“You want me to be your arbiter now? Somehow I don’t think Archer will go for that.”

“Not for attribution, just for my own information. I’m curious.”

“A quarter of a million is a helluva price for any book. You could get Tamerlane for less, if you could find one to buy.”

“Then you agree it’s a fair price.”

“I haven’t seen the book. And remember, I’m no expert.”

She looked annoyed.

I said, “Hey, I’m sorry, but content is everything. I’d have to read it to offer even an incompetent opinion.”

“All right, forget I asked. We haven’t seen it yet either.”

The waitress came with my breakfast, set it nicely on the table, and left.

“Archer wants half a million,” Erin said.

I laughed. “That’s our boy.”

“Certainly is. We should be glad he’s not asking a full million, or two, or ten. It wouldn’t matter. What he does want is still out of the question. Lee is not a poor man, as I’m sure you know, but he hasn’t got that kind of money to throw around on something this shaky.”

Abruptly I said, “I hear you were pretty hard on Archer last night.”

She scoffed, “You hear, indeed.”

“I hear you even threatened him, in an oblique way, with legal action.”

“You’d better get your hearing checked. Whatever I might’ve said was nothing more than part of a negotiation.”

“Tactics.”

“Exactly.”

“Still, you’ve got to have a valid reason for a threat like that.”

“I never threatened him. If he thinks I did…” She shuddered.

“The deeper I get into this deal, the less I like it. I wish Lee would just tell Archer to get lost and be done with it. But he thinks the book is so historically important that it’s got to be bought.”

“I understand that, all right. There are books like that, that must be bought. So does Lee think Archer might actually have stolen this book? How would he have done that?”

“That’s the rub, isn’t it? We just don’t know.”

“But they had a falling-out over something.”

“Over Archer’s greed. Lee thought they had a deal, then Archer got greedy. In Lee’s mind, you don’t do that to a friend. You know, as kids they were almost like brothers. But Archer was different then. He was a grand guy. I know that’s hard to imagine, but if Lee says it was so, I believe him. Hal Archer was a kind, generous, wonderful