Chapter 1

 
Chapter 1
 
“Alright, listen carefully,” said Paul as he eased the old green van into a parking space near the entrance to the auction house, “I’m not going to have much time to explain everything once we get in there. And when the auction beings, it’s going to go much too fast.”
“Lay it on us, boss,” said Jack Bonney, from the passenger seat. He peered eagerly towards the entrance, then pulled down the sun visor and adjusted the mirror so he could see himself. He tightened his tie – a thin black one that he’d bought new -- and smoothed his hair, making sure the part was crisp and even.
“Cable, are you with me?” asked Paul, glancing in the rear view mirror.
Cable looked up from his iPad and nodded without removing his headphones.
“Is that a yes?” asked Paul, “or are your live-blogging?”
“Hang on,” said Cable into the receiver on his headphones. He tugged on the wire leading to his right earpiece and it dropped out into his hand. “What’d you say?” he asked.
Paul shifted the van into park and killed the motor, just before it stalled on its own. “According to the web preview, there are 200 shelves of books in there. Figure 50-75 books on each shelf. That means we’ve got ten to fifteen thousand books to look at in the next two hours. Cable, do the math. How long is that per book?”
“Eighty three books a minute, or one book every three quarters of a second,” said Cable.
“Right,” said Paul. “And that’s to do everything: look at the entire collection, appraise what’s good, figure out what we can sell and what we can sell it for, for all three stores and more importantly for the Queen Mary Collection, sort out what the other people know that we don’t, and make a master list. Then they kick us out of the room with the books and seal it up so no one can move anything around. The auction is in the next room and once it starts, we’ve got only our notes to rely on. They’ll be selling two to three lots a minute. The whole thing will be over in less than two hours.”
“And then we’ve got a two whole vans full of books for the greatest library afloat,” said Jack.
“If Quinn ever gets here with the other van,” said Paul. “Have you heard from him, Cable?”
Cable tapped his screen and flicked to a GPS app. “Looks like he’s still on the beltway. Moving at less than ten miles per hour.”
Paul looked at his watch and shook his head.
“Do you think the Iron Sheik will be here again?” asked Jack, again looking towards the entrance. “Or the Admiral?”
“They usually are,” said Paul. He grabbed his satchel from the wheel well beside Jack, “let’s go.”
“Who is the Iron Sheik?” asked Cable. He had to ram his shoulder into the door to get it to open. The hinges popped like a gunshot as it opened.
“One of the big buyers,” said Jack, hopping to the ground. “He sells at a upscale flea market in Georgetown, so he’s got deep pockets. Also, he’s a poacher.”
​“What does that mean?” asked Cable.
​“It means he picks out people who he thinks are smarter than he is and he bids against them, without even knowing what he’s bidding on.”
​“Is that allowed?”
​“There’s no way to police it,” said Jack. “No one has to explain why they’re bidding. If he thinks that you’ve found something he hasn’t, he just poaches. Or if he knows that you always leave yourself room to triple your money when you buy something, and if he’s happy just to double his money, then there’s no way to beat him.”
​“Except to bid on things you don’t want from time to time,” said Paul.
​“Just to throw him off?” asked Cable.
​“Let him outbid you and then get stuck with trash now and then,” said Paul.
 
​The three of them crossed the parking lot and bounded up the six concrete steps leading to the Wembly Auction Gallery. From the outside, the building did little to suggest that it was one of the leading rare book and antique auction houses on the east coast. It was a flat fronted warehouse that shared a parking lot with a Korean church and a light fixture distributor. A wrought iron ‘W’ taller than a person was mounted over the door. It had once been painted black, but rusty flakes showed through. There were no other signs to indicate what went on inside, except a small red flag on a pole slipped into a holder on the whitewashed wall. “Auction today,” said the flag. But the lettering could not be read by anyone except someone already most of the way inside. And there was no street traffic in this neighborhood, anyway. It was an industrial complex from the 1970’s, tucked just inside the Washington D.C. beltway.
​Paul held the door for Jack and Cable. Cable, who had never been to the auction house before, let out a low whistle. The room they entered had high ceilings sparkling with a mish mosh of chandeliers – a crystal one near the door, a trio of spidery brass ones a little further along, and something near the back that seemed to be made from moose bones or antlers or something. There were glass cases along one long wall on their right, but some of them were blocked by high backed medieval looking chairs and a harpsicord balanced with the keyboard end down was leaning against another. A row of grotesque African masks leered at them from atop the glass cases, and a few particularly grusome ones grinned from within brightly lit showcases set up as centerpieces on two dining tables fully laid with porcelain place settings for twelve and tarnished but elaborate looking silverware at every place. Artwork in heavy wooden frames was displayed up to the very ceiling on every available piece of wall and on easels strategically angled in corners and blocking private areas. The rugs on the floor were layered two or three deep in places, angled to show each one to its best advantage. Paul strode through it all without looking around. He called out a greeting to someone behind a counter halfway back, “Hello Bud,” before disappearing through a velvet curtain in the back or the room. Jack was right on his heels.
​Cable walked over to the nearest of the showcases and leaned forward as far as he could to see the gargoyle inside. It had shards of shiny white shell or quartz for teeth, projecting menacingly around an unnaturally wide grin. The eyes were blanks, but Cable thought he could see sinew or thread of some sort, as if the eyes were sewn shut, or sewn to something inside. Was it real skin? It was smaller than a human head, darker. There were wisps of hair at the temples and holes where the ears should have been. Cable couldn’t tell if it was attached to a rounded wooden head-shaped block of wood or if was only resting on it.
​“It’s something, isn’t it?” offered a clean cut man in dark blue shirt and striped tie. He smiled eagerly and nodded towards the mask. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and, despite smelling slightly of cigarette smoke, he seemed genuine enough. His hands were in his pockets.
​“What is it?” asked Cable, “or what was it?”
​“Our expert at the African Art Museum says that it’s from the Congo,” he said. He pushed up his sleeves, even though they were already up, and put his hands back in his pocket. “She would not confirm that it was human skin, which is to say, we didn’t press her to confirm that, so we’re going to say that it’s monkey. Or gorilla.”
​“It’s disgusting,” said Cable.
​The man nodded eagerly. “Isn’t it?” He extended a hand, “I’m Benson. Benson White.”
​Cable shook his hand.
​“I saw you come in with the Riverby contingent,” said Benson.
​“Do you work here?” asked Cable.
​“Oh, yes. Yes,” said Benson. He rocked up on his toes before seeming to push himself back down to his normal height, which was several inches shorter than Cable, by plunging his hands once again into the pockets of his triple pleated black pants. “I’m the head of the books and prints departments, so Paul and I go way back.”
​Cable only nodded.
​“I, uh, took the liberty,” said Benson, handing Cable a slip of paper. It was twice the size of a dollar bill, stiff ivory paper. The number 512 was written on it in large letters. “Registered you guys when I saw you drive up. More time to spend back there and less waiting in line, when people start to arrive.”
​“Thanks,” said Cable. He didn’t know what the paper meant, but he tucked it carefully inside his iPad case.
​“Let me know if you have any questions,” said Benson. He smiled and Cable glimpsed for a split second a surprising earnestness in the man. Cable had been braced for a slick and maybe sleazy salesman-type, and was steeling himself to throw up the sort of wall that would encourage such a person to leave him alone. But in that short smile, Cable sensed that Benson only wanted to be liked. And before Cable could thank him, he’d backed away and was out of sight, behind an ornate screen of salvaged wrought iron railings.
​From the back of the room, Paul called out, “Cable, where are you?”
​“Coming,” said Cable. He hurried down the open path between tables and chairs and pedestals towards the back of the large room. There was an old African American man sitting at a counter near the back. He had on a maroon polo shirt with the auction house logo on the chest.
​“Good afternoon young man,” boomed the man.
​Cable nodded.
​“Cable,” repeated Paul, coming out from behind the curtain with his phone in his hand. “I can’t get through to Quinn. Can you try him?”
​Cable tapped his screen and slipped the earpiece into place. He got no answer, but the GPS beacon showed that Quinn was still on the beltway. The man with the maroon polo shirt watched with some interest, though he remained seated on his stool, leaning back with his fingers interlocked across his belly.
​Shaking his head, Cable said, “Nothing. Not moving at all now.”
​Paul clenched his lips and clicked his tongue. “Come on back here. We need all hands on deck. It’s a bigger sale than I thought.”
​He led Cable back past the curtain, which hung down in front of the back wall of the room, obscuring a plain glass doorway. Through the door was the book room. It was smaller than the front room, but fully as large as the first floor of the bookstore back in Fredericksburg. There were high shelves all the way around the edges of the room and lower shelves across the center. On one wall were fancy glass fronted wooden shelves, but all the rest were industrial metal shelving units. All were packed full of books, some double stacked, some larger volumes layered in sideways. The room bustled with shuffly intensity. A dozen or more people were in varying states of study. Some were running their hands slowly along the spines of the books, their heads tipped to scan titles. Others were crouched to look at lower shelves. There were eight or nine laptop computers balanced on the tops of bookshelves or on the two long tables in front of the glass fronted shelves, though only a couple currently had people in front of them. Their power cords were draped here and there across the aisles, vying for the too-few outlets. A man and woman – Cable noted that she was the only woman in the room – were murmuring together over notes jotted in a spiral notebook in the corner nearest Cable.
​“But Sabin calls for two maps, not three,” said the man.
​“I know,” said the woman excitedly, “that’s what I’m wondering about. Should we call Jeremy?”
​“Definitely not,” exhorted the man, “not until after the sale, anyway.”
​They noticed that Cable was listening and both looked at him ominously and held up their notebooks in front of their faces a little higher. They did not drop their voices, though. “Do you think the third map is the McPherson survey?” asked the man.
​“I didn’t unfold it all the way,” said the woman, “Too many people around.”
​“Cable,” said Paul, in a tone that indicated that he’d said it before, perhaps more than once.
​Paul’s laptop was set up in the far side of the room, on top of a wooden map case. Jack was already poking at it, with a stack of books piled beside him. When Cable joined them, Paul leaned between them and spoke in a low voice, “there are way more people here than normal. I’m not sure if that means there’s something good here somewhere, but it does mean we’re going to have our work cut out for us. The online catalogue doesn’t look like it was particularly well done, judging from what I’ve seen so far. Usually that happens when a ton of books get consigned right near the consignment deadline and Benson just accepts everything and fills up all the shelves. Even he doesn’t know what’s here.”
​“So it’s good for the Queen Mary library?” asked Cable.
​Paul looked around and then gestured to a section of books in the middle of the room. “It’s pretty much just what we need. Bestsellers, even some new looking paperbacks. What is it, twenty, twenty five lots, Jack?”
​Jack glanced at the printout of the sale lots. “Twenty seven,” he said.
​Paul nodded. “This will be a real life saver, if we can get them.”​
​“Solid gold for the finest library at sea,” said Jack. He snapped shut the cover a glossy dustjacketed copy of a spy thriller. “Not signed, not a first edition. No one here will want to come within ten feet of it.”
​“But it’s just junk,” protested Cable, “it’s exactly the sort of books you’ve been telling us not to buy ever since high school.”
​“That’s why it’s so brilliant,” grinned Jack, “it’s the perfect anti-strategy. We’re the only ones here who want books that aren’t worth anything.”
​“I’m pretty sure that’s not the strategy,” said Cable.
​Jack raised an eyebrow and looked at Cable over the tops of his black rimmed glasses.  “Cable, were your even listening when we agreed to this project? This time it’s not about rare sixteenth century editions of Aristotle and signed copies of the Constitution. It’s about finding five thousand popular titles, that people on vacation will want to read and slapping some library stickers on them, in exchange for an all expense paid vacation.”
​Cable shook his head disgustedly. “Five thousand little bar code stickers, five thousand little rubberstamps, five thousand more library pockets... If we just concentrated on that stuff over there – “ he pointed to the glass fronted shelves, “we could just buy tickets for the Queen Mary and then it would be an actual vacation.”
​“Vacation?” said an old man’s voice, “since when to book dealers take vacations?”
​The voice belonged to a little white haired man with a spry step. His shoulders were slightly hunched, but carried high, as though he were wading through high water. He wore wide waled corduroys cinched tight halfway up his chest.  In his hand he carried a battered, green cloth briefcase, which he set down on the map case next to where Jack was working. He squinted his eyes mischievously at Cable, then smiled at Paul.
​“Hello Lee,” said Paul, “you’re not just getting here, are you?”
​“Oh no,” said Lee, “I was here all day yesterday. I’ve looked through every page of every book. I’m just here to distract everybody else.”
​“Lee, these are my nephews, Jack and Cable Bonney,” said Paul.
​“Nice to meet you fellows,” said Lee. He squinted up at them, and it seemed to Cable that he made a dozen or more quick assessments in the time it took him to smile at each. He nodded his head affably, as if to clear it of whatever conclusions he may have drawn. “Taking a stab at the family business, are you?” he asked.
​“We’ve worked at the bookstore for a long time,” said Cable.
​He immediately wished he hadn’t said it. What seemed like a long time to Cable, four or five years on and off, probably didn’t rate for much with this little old man. He looked like a house elf from the old Harry Potter movies, except with clean skin and sparkling blue eyes.
​“I will defer to you, then,” said Lee without a trace of condescension. He unzipped his bag and removed a legal pad covered with pencil notes. From the chest pocket of his shirt, practically even with his belt, he fished out a stubby pencil. He held the pencil up to check the point, and said, “now then, if you’ll excuse me.”
​Jack grinned at Cable as Lee high-stepped away from them towards the glass fronted cases.
​“Lee used to own the auction house,” said Paul, before Jack could make a remark. “He sold it about ten years ago and has been coming back as a customer ever since.”
​“What does he buy?” asked Jack.
​“You never know,” said Paul. “He claims that he’s only buying for his research library, or for his wife when it’s garden books. But then you turn around during the sale and find him sitting there with three or four different bidder numbers, sometimes even bidding with two of them against each other, eight, ten thousand dollars.”
​“On what?”
​Paul shrugged, “On whatever. He says it’s not for him, that he’s just executing bids for other people.”
​“But you don’t believe him?” pressed Jack.
​“I’m just glad that I don’t end up bidding against him too often,” said Paul.
​“Why not?”
​“He doesn’t lose very often.”
​“I don’t understand,” said Cable, “it’s an auction. Can’t you just outbid him?”
​Paul nodded, “In theory, yes. But keep an eye on him tonight. See how many times he backs off something.”
​“Does he just have more money than anyone else?” asked Cable.
​“I don’t know,” said Paul.
​“So what, you just stop bidding when it’s you against him?” asked Cable.
​“Usually.”
​“But doesn’t he have to resell for a profit too? That doesn’t make sense,” insisted Cable.
​“Alright,” said Paul, “you’ve got almost three hours. Watch him. See what he’s looking at. Do some research on the books he seems interested in. That way you’ll know what there is to know about those books and then let’s see what happens in the sale.”
​“Seriously?” asked Cable, “in the glass cases?”
​“If that’s where he’s spending his time,” agreed Paul.
​“Tremendous,” said Cable. “Thank you.”
​“But first call your brother,” said Paul, “I’m beginning worry.”
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