Chapter 4.
“The van is upside down?” exclaimed Paul, after Jack and Cable dragged him out into the parking lot.
“On its side, technically,” said Cable.
“And he’s fine?” asked Paul.
“He says he is.”
Paul leaned up against his van and crossed his arms.
“If he’s fine, do we all have to go?” asked Jack.
“We don’t have to, I have to,” said Paul. “The van’s in my name. I mean, assuming he really is fine and that all we’re dealing with is the van, that is. There will be tow trucks and maybe police. This just happened a few minutes ago?”
“Right after you told me to watch Lee,” said Cable.
Paul looked at the clock on his phone. “There’s no way I’ll be back before the sale starts.”
“We can handle the sale,” said Jack.
Paul just looked from one to the other.
“Yeah, we’ve got it,” said Jack. “For the Queen Mary shelves anyway.”
“Have you even looked at the rest of the catalogue?” asked Paul.
Jack shook his head.
“I have,” said Cable. “I haven’t seen the books, but I did some research based on the descriptions online.”
“Well, I can’t stand here and talk about it,” said Paul. He handed his notebook and catalogue to Cable, “I’ve got notes on some of it. The numbers in blue ink are my numbers, OK? The pencil notes are just notes. Ignore them. And also, make sure to take a look at the actual books for the things I’ve highlighted with the yellow marker. Those are lots that might be interesting, but I really needed to see them. Don’t go crazy on those, but—you know what; that’s too much – just forget it, it doesn’t matter. How could he flip the van?”
“He said it was fresh pavement and there were no lane lines. Cars were racing all over the place and he just lost control,” said Cable.
Paul climbed up into the bookstore van. “I guess I’ll be back to get you at some point. I don’t know if I’ll have to go back to Fredericksburg with the tow truck or what.”
“Just go,” said Jack, “we’ll take care of things here. Call us.”
“Right,” said Paul.
The van sputtered off, towards the highway. The boys turned back to the auction house.
Just inside the front door, they were met by the Iron Sheik. His reading glasses rested low on his nose. He looked over their rims at Jack and Cable as they entered.
“Is he leaving?” he asked.
“Our brother’s having car trouble,” said Cable.
The Iron Sheik looked as his watch. “I hope he’ll be able to make it back for the sale.”
Cable didn’t quite understand what the older man was driving at. His face was inscrutable.
“We’ll be handing it tonight,” Jack interjected.
“Are you with Riverby?” he asked.
“Yup,” said Jack, “Paul brings us in for a certain specialty we have.”
Cable turned to look at his brother, startled.
“When Riverby himself needs a specialist?” repeated the Iron Sheik. “Is that so? Do you mind my asking what your specialty is?”
“Actually, we don’t really –“ began Cable, before Jack cut him off.
“It’s private collection work, mostly,” interrupted Jack, “I’m not supposed to talk about it—“
“No, you’re not!” snipped Cable, “Come on, Jack.”
Jack continued, in a stage whisper to the Iron Sheik, “it’s sort of a royal commission.”
“Pardon us,” said Cable, pulling Jack by the arm.
“Lot’s still to do,” Jack whispered over his shoulder to the Iron Sheik as Cable led him back to the book room.
“What are you doing?” said Cable angrily as they ducked through the curtain. “Are you crazy?”
“What?” protested Jack, “I’m just messing around with him.”
“And the reason for that would be what?” asked Cable.
Jack shrugged. “Since when do I need a reason?”
Cable shook his head. He opened Paul’s auction catalogue.
“I’m going back to work. I suggest you do the same,” he said. He squeezed between a couple other people over to the computer station they’d set up on the map case. There, he took his first good look at Paul’s catalogue. These descriptions, for the more than the three hundred lots in the sale, had been mailed out weeks earlier. Paul had researched the books and made notes in the margins. Some were in blue ink, some in black, some in pencil. There were lots that were circled in highlighter and others where just a word or the starting bid was highlighted. A few had stars beside them. Cable flipped from page to page. The notes continued all the way through. There were 64 pages. He had less than an hour. But Cable did not mind research, especially when it was computer work.
With his headphones on, this to block out distractions, he dove into the project, starting with the lots that Paul had marked with stars. Getting to the books themselves meant jockeying for position with some of the other people who were examining titles in the glass cases. Once or twice he ended up pulling down a book that Lee also seemed interested in. Cable made a note of that as he went.
Jack had already looked through the books he needed and just as he had hoped, there was nothing valuable or unusual amongst the shelves and shelves of bestsellers. Since that was all that he was hoping to buy, he turned his attention to other people in the room. His competition. The Fat Man, still clutching his canvas tote bag under his arm, was in earnest conversation with Benson White.
“No that’s not what I’m saying,” the Fat Man laughed nervously, “it’s your auction house and you can do what you want. But I’m sure that it was there before. I saw it with my own eyes.”
Benson, with his hands in his pockets, was backed up against one of the glass fronted cases. There was a smile on his face, but it looked like it was left over from a previous conversation. His eyes flitted around the room and when he met Jack’s gaze, he nodded slightly.
“I’m almost sure that no one has taken it out of the room,” said Benson. “Bud or Mr. Wembley or myself have been in the room all week long.”
“Probably not,” cajoled the Fat Man, “but if none of us can find it, that doesn’t do you or me much good. If it was on shelf 50 yesterday and someone slipped it onto shelf 150 today, with a bunch of magazines that aren’t worth anything.”
“I understand,” said Benson, “I do. Really I do. I’ll tell you what, if it doesn’t turn up before the sale, I will ask Mr. Wembley to make an announcement. How would that be?”
The Fat Man twitched his bangs out of his eyes. “Fine, fine. Like I said, it doesn’t really matter to me. I’d just think that you’d want to know where your books were. People could be taking advantage.
“I’m going to have Bud take a look. You said it was Max Ernst?”
“Klimt,” said the Fat Man, “Klimt.”
Benson stepped sideways to get around the Fat Man, and repeated, “Klimt” to himself as he ducked through the door to the front room. The Fat Man continued talking, as if the whole exchange had been a monologue.
“It’s just that, one of these days when something good does turn up, there’s nothing to stop someone from turning the dustjacket inside out or hiding it or something like that.”
When the Fat Man noticed Jack watching him, his lowered his voice, but didn’t stop muttering to himself. Jack made another circuit of the room and was interested to notice that someone else had shown up while he’d been outside – a female someone. Apart from the loud-whisperer, she was the only woman in the room. She was crouched down looking at a low shelf. The blue swirls of a tattoo were visible on her back where her maroon shirt and black pants didn’t quite meet. Jack couldn’t see her face because she was facing the other way. Long strands of hair blocked her face and her ponytail hung low to the floor. When she stood up abruptly and brushed her hair back, she knocked her glasses askew. Her face was flushed. She had the auction catalogue in one hand, a bouquet of brightly colored post-it notes blooming from nearly every page.
“Oh gosh sorry,” she said, straightening her glass, “am I in your way?”
She was slim and pretty, in a bookish way. Her eyes were sharp and blue, her features fine and birdlike without being fragile. A pen protruded from the knot of hair funneling into her ponytail.
“What?” stammered Jack, “hunh?”
“Are you trying to get past me? “ she asked, “I’m not really paying much attention, am I? You’ve probably been standing there forever.”
“D-um. No – guh,” was all Jack could manage.
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m just so excited.” She emphasized the middle syllable.
“Um, me too. For what?” said Jack.
“This set of Henty,” she said, pointing to a half shelf of books down low. “Oh gosh, that’s not what you’re here for too, is it?”
“No,” said Jack, than repeated himself with a bit more conviction and, he hoped, nonchalance. He forced a knowing twinkle into his eye and may even have raised an eyebrow, “No, I’ve got my eye on something else.”
She blushed at him, almost a red as her shirt. Jack suddenly realized that she might have thought he meant her, and he blushed too.
“Yes well,” she said awkwardly, “there’s lots of good things here.”
“Yes,” Jack blurted out, “the books. Lots of great books.”
“I’m Rachel,” she said, extending a hand n a very matter of fact manner.
“Jack Bonney,” said Jack. He took her hand. It was small and strong. She gave him a surprising squeeze then let go abruptly.
“Are you a dealer?” she asked him. She gestured at the middle aged men in the room, seeming to scan and remind herself of each of them in a split second.
Jack’s mind raced. Was it good or bad to be a dealer, in this context?
“I’m just helping out my uncle,” he settled on. Non committal.
“One of these guys?” she asked. Apart from the fact that her glasses were still not straight and that Jack yearned to prolong this conversation, he would have found a way to bail out at this point. He did not like to be questioned so directly.
“No,” said Jack, “he’s not here. We’re, uh, we’re handling the auction for him tonight.”
“So a dealer, then?” she persisted.
He felt his ears start to heat up again and knew they were reddening as well. He looked down at his hands and then noticed once again that her catalogue had more notes protruding from it than Paul’s had. She must be a dealer as well; who else would mark up the catalogue that way?
“Yes,” said Jack, nodding, “a dealer. Like you.”
She looked down at her own catalogue, and then waved it between them and bobbed her head. “Guilty,” she said, smiling.
Jack smiled too. He nodded. But he could think of nothing to say. She opened her eyes wider, seeming to wait for him to speak. Jack was glad to have her attention on him, but what had happened to his vocabulary?
“So the Henty set?” he blurted out.
“Oh gosh yes,” she said. She put a hand on his arm and lowered her voice. “please tell me that you’re not bidding on it.”
Jack was about to answer, but she continued.
“No of course, I couldn’t ask you not to bid on it. Don’t answer that. But promise me that if you buy it, you’ll let me come to you shop and visit it.” She released his arm with a gentle shove that nearly knocked Jack off balance. “But seriously, if there’s anything you are interested in that you want me to stay away from…”
She cocked her head and gave him a knowing glace. Or what he assumed would have been a knowing glance if Jack had any idea what he was supposed to know. He nodded eagerly and, he feared, a bid stupidly, and said, “Definitely.”
“Miss Rachel,” said Bud loudly, from behind Jack.
“Hello Bud,” she smiled broadly and stepped past Jack to give him a hug.
“How’s Winston?” said Bud, “how come we don’t see him any more.”
“You know why,” she said.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Bud. After every sentence, his mouth moved once or twice more like he was chewing gum (which he wasn’t) or was being dubbed in English. Jack smiled at him.
“You go easy on her,” Bud said to him.
“I will,” he said.
“I’m supposed to be looking for a –“ Bud looked at his little spiral pad, “—Klimt. You seen it?”
“The Krakow monograph?” said Rachel.
“Little thing,” said Bud, “In with the art books,”
“I thought I did,” said Rachel, “Over here.” She took Bud by the arm and started to lead him away. “It was nice to meet you,” she said to Jack, “we should talk before the sale.”
“Definitely,” said Jack again.
He watched her go to the shelf of art books where the Fat Man’s drama was unfolding. Then, gradually, as her attention was gone and its after-effect fading, his mind filled with all sorts of interesting and funny things to say. He was glad that Cable, still plugged into his headphones, had not witnessed that exchange.
Benson had slipped back into the room and was talking with the man at the library table, who was still poring over the old engravings in a book Jack hadn’t seen yet. “So I told the widow,” he was saying, “I can’t do anything with your records, but if you want me to sell those golf clubs, I think you’re looking at close to ten thousand dollars.”
Jack phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Quinn.
Jack headed back out towards the parking lot to talk.
“What’s going on?” Jack asked.
“This sucks,” said Quinn. “Is Paul still there?”
Jack said he wasn’t.
“I didn’t buy the insurance from the rental agency and the police say that our gold cards don’t automatically cover it.”
“Are you OK, though?” asked Jack.
“Of course,” said Quinn, “why wouldn’t I be?”
“I’m not going to answer that,” said Jack. “So the cops are there? Is the van totaled?”
“Most likely,” said Quinn.
Jack stood out on the front steps with his phone. The only other person out there was a plump, gray bearded man, smoking a cigarette. He wore an olive green shirt and a silk lavender tie. He gazed towards the sunset and breathed deeply of the poisonous smoke. Jack coughed.
“Paul should be there soon,” said Jack, “He’ll take care of it.”
“It’s not going to be pretty,” said Quinn, “he told me to get the insurance.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Jack.
The plump man dropped his cigarette and stamped it out. Then he picked it up and put it carefully in the ashcan by the door. He caught Jack’s eye and said, “Beautiful sunset. Exquisite. Don’t dawdle now, we’re going to be starting in just a few minutes.”
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