The question of Gilkey’s partner, or partners, continued to goad the Kens. There was the driver of the car with the SHERBET license plates, and the older man who had been seen during several pickups. Gilkey usually said his father or brother or uncle or nephew would pick up the books, but how many of them were there? Were they really family members, or were they simply partners in crime? Sanders wrote to the ABAA members:
That day, Munson checked the registration for the SHERBET car that Gilkey had been seen in. It belonged to Janet Colman, a woman in the movie poster business who owned Hollywood Poster Exchange. Not long after, through further investigating, Munson determined that the Ice Cream Lady, as Sanders called her, was innocent. Gilkey had sold a poster to her, and she had offered to drive him around. There was no connection between her and the thefts.
There was plenty of evidence to support the case against Gilkey, however. Munson found that every credit card holder whose number was used by Gilkey had been a customer at Saks, and that the phone numbers he gave various dealers matched the hotels where he had stayed or had the books delivered. At the Radisson Hotel in Brisbane, his telephone charges included calls to Lion Heart Autographs, Butterfield & Butterfield Auctioneers, R&R Enterprises (an auction house), and University Stamp Company (another auction house).
On April 30, Sanders wrote to Lopez that Gilkey was set to go to court the next week to be assigned a public defender— that is, if he couldn’t make bail or afford his own attorney. Munson hoped he would have a public defender, because there was a greater chance Gilkey would accept a plea bargain of three years. If not, he would be headed to a jury trial.
The next day, Munson and another officer went to Brick Row in San Francisco and showed owner Crichton six photos, one at a time. Gilkey’s father, Walter, was Photo 2 (his driver’s license photo). Crichton looked at each and said he believed that Walter was one of the first three photos, and when Munson showed him the photos again, he wasn’t sure but narrowed it down to Photo 2 or Photo 3. On the last viewing, Crichton correctly identified the man who had picked up
From early July through September, Munson kept Sanders abreast of Gilkey’s case. Gilkey did not opt for a public defender, and for the first several weeks, he repeatedly hired new attorneys, then fired them, delaying the process.5 Finally, the deputy attorney general said he would listen to anything Gilkey had to say, but that he still had to plead guilty and accept a sentence of three years. If he did not accept this arrangement, the court would file the additional ten to twelve felonies, including those involving his father. Remembering that two years earlier his attorney had suggested he might benefit from a psychiatric evaluation, Gilkey tried that tack again, but the judge wasn’t going for it, so he pleaded guilty. He also told the judge he wanted to appeal the decision, a tactic he thought would enable him to stay even longer in county jail, which was much more comfortable than state prison. The judge would hear nothing of it. She sent him to San Quentin.
Almost exactly a year after the sting, on February 24, 2004, Munson e-mailed Sanders to notify him that Gilkey had been shipped to state prison.
So it was in San Quentin State Prison that Gilkey lived twenty-three hours a day in a cell,6 imagining ways to win an appeal. Even if he were to lose it, he knew he would probably serve only half of his three-year sentence. Still, eighteen months seemed, as he put it, “an awfully long time to be behind bars for liking books.” He spent those months sleeping most of the day so that he wouldn’t have to deal with his fellow inmates, and lying awake at night, thinking about how unjust the world was and how deserving he was of a better life and more rare books. It was the point in a repeating cycle he’d lived through many times, yet it was no less powerful for its frequency. If anything, its repetition fomented a deep desire, once again, for getting even.
9
Brick Row
A couple of months after Gilkey’s 2005 release from prison, I met him in front of 49 Geary Street, a building that houses several art galleries and rare book stores in San Francisco. It was a September morning and he wore a bright white sweatshirt, pleated khakis, his beige leather sneakers, and the PGA baseball cap. He held a folder, on top of which lay a handwritten, numbered list, his to-do list for the day.
“So, how do you want to do this?” he asked.
The week before, he had agreed to let me tag along with him on one of his scouting trips, to learn how he selects books. I had suggested going to Goodwill, a frequent haunt of his now that he was persona non grata in most San Francisco rare book shops. Gilkey, though, wanted to take me to Brick Row, from which he stole
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Wouldn’t Goodwill work? Or, if not that, aren’t there any other stores you can think of?”
Probably sensing my unease, he hesitated. “Maybe they’ll recognize me,” he said, but then he reconsidered. “On second thought, it won’t be a problem.”
At home, I e-mailed Sanders for his opinion: Would the owner, John Crichton, whom I had not yet met, be upset or angry that I’d knowingly accompanied a rare book thief into his store? I didn’t relish dealing with the wrath of one of Gilkey’s victims, however peripherally.
“Crichton’s a good guy,” Sanders assured me and gave me the impression that, as Gilkey had said, it wouldn’t be a problem.
I was still wary, but too curious to walk away from an opportunity to see Gilkey in his element. What sort of person returns to the scene of his crime? So far, I had come to know Gilkey only through our private conversations. I still had no idea how he behaved out in the world, especially his idealized rare book world. He shared many characteristics of other collectors, but his thieving set him apart in ways that still confounded me: Was he amoral or mentally ill? How are such lines drawn, anyway? Accompanying Gilkey to Brick Row was an irresistible chance to be an eyewitness. Also, I had heard that the shop was well regarded among rare book collectors, and I wanted to see it firsthand. I had arranged to write a story about Gilkey and Sanders for
Standing on the sidewalk in front of Brick Row, Gilkey said he would show me what he typically looks for and how he goes about it.
He did not appear to be apprehensive. I, on the other hand, was all nerves. I had no idea what Crichton might do when we walked in. This, at the very least, was going to be awkward.
We took the elevator to the second floor. The sign outside the elevator indicated that Brick Row Books was to the left, down the hall, but Gilkey headed to the right. I pointed to the sign, and he said that they must have moved. Later he noted with some satisfaction that Brick Row must not be doing very well these days because their old location, at the other end of the hall, was bigger.
We passed the rare book shop of John Windle, who had been helpful months earlier when I consulted him about the seventeenth-century German botanical text, the book that had captured my curiosity and led me to Gilkey and Sanders. I was sure Windle would recognize me and, I feared, also Gilkey as we passed his shop, so I turned and looked the other way so that I wouldn’t have to explain myself.
These are small, quiet shops, places where one customer is the norm, two is busy, and three feels bustling. Gilkey and I arrived at the door to Brick Row almost immediately. We walked in and faced two men, John Crichton, the owner, standing near the rear, and an employee sitting at a desk near the entrance. Did they recognize Gilkey? Would they call the police?
I wondered how Gilkey would react if they did. During a prior meeting, when I had asked him what he was up
