The Bookman's Promise (30 page)

Long before he had moved to South Carolina, Hal Archer had discovered Treadwell’s. As a teenager in the late forties, he had spent time at his parents’ summer home in Baltimore and had bought books from Dean’s father.

Carl and Dean were kids then, working in the store, stocking the shelves, moving stuff, whatever needed doing. One day Archer said something to Dean and that’s how it started. They were about the same age, and whenever he came in they’d pass the time of day. Sometimes Archer would sit on one of the chairs upstairs and tell young Dean Treadwell what a great writer he was going to be.

“Nobody believed in him then, nobody but me. And I had no doubt at all.”

Dean was Archer’s first cold audience. By then Archer had begun to drift away from his few boyhood friends, even the one who later became a judge: “I think he became afraid of Huxley’s judgment; they had been too close, they went back too far, and Huxley was always too kind. What Archer hated most was being patronized, damned by faint praise. Me, I had no reason to care whether his stuff was any good or not. I was the unwashed reader he craved, and right from the start I knew he was a good one.”

Archer began coming to the store with pages of manuscript. He didn’t want any so-called constructive criticism; what he was dying for was hero worship, adulation: he wanted to be someone’s idol, and Dean was simply in awe of his talent.

“I gave him something he needed and he gave me something I loved. He never doubted my sincerity; he had no reason to because it was real. You couldn’t fool him, I knew he would sense any lie right away, but I never had to lie. He had an ability to create a world, he was like God, I never got tired of hearing him read. I loved seeing him come into the store. I loved every line he wrote. Still do.

“We had to hide from my old man. He was a mean son of a bitch about slackers; if he caught me dreaming or slacking off, he’d whip my ass good. So we went way upstairs, Archer and me, where the old man couldn’t go. He had asthma, he couldn’t climb those stairs, and sometimes on Saturdays when the store got busy the old bastard just forgot I was alive.

“I could kill the whole afternoon, dreaming with Archer.”

As time went on, Archer found it difficult and finally intolerable to be with Lee. It wasn’t that Lee ever did anything to make him feel that way. “It’s just that the judge had done everything right in his life and it seemed like Hal had fucked up his own six ways from Sunday.”

He raised an eyebrow at Erin and she smiled, waving off the language.

“Hal needed me. I think he still does. He never got a break from anybody.”

“And by the time he did get a real break…”

“He was full of anger. He even wanted to tell the Pulitzer committee to keep their fuckin‘ prize, shove it up their pretentious asses.” He coughed. “I talked him out of that.”

“Best thing you ever did for him.”

“The best thing I ever did was just believe in him. He sure hasn’t had a happy life. He thinks everybody who came along after the prize was a fair-weather friend.”

“He had Lee. He always had Lee. Lee always wanted the best for him, even if Archer didn’t know or believe it. Now look what’s happening to them.”

“I think there’s some old bitterness there. The judge never took a wrong step. While Archer was scratching to keep body and soul together, Huxley’s legal career was upwardly mobile all the way, always on the fast track.”

“That wasn’t Lee’s fault.”

“Did I say it was? But it does get old if you’re on the opposite end of the stick.”

Erin paused, then said, “Tell me about the book.”

“Nothin‘ to tell. Hal says it’s his and I believe him.”

“Did he ever tell you where he got it?”

“No, and I wouldn’t ask. Tell you this much: I don’t think he stole it.”

“Deny it if you want to, but don’t take that too far, it might come back and bite you.”

“I don’t know anything about it and I don’t want to hear it. Put that down on your paper: Dean Treadwell’s heard every story ever floated about what a bastard Hal Archer is—I don’t need yours too. Look, can we get out of this goddamn place? If I don’t get me a smoke I’m gonna start punching something.”

Out on the street, Dean lit up and we watched him smoke his weed in three mighty drags. “That’s all I got for you, lady,” he said. “If you don’t like it, go ahead and sue me.”

“Thank you. I think I’m done for now.”

“I’ve got a couple of questions,” I said. “Tell me about your brother.”

“Carl’s a flaming asshole but that’s got nothing to do with me. We each inherited fifty percent of the store, but in real life we don’t have much to do with each other.”

“He’s got some bad friends. One of them burned this lady’s house down. You know anything about that?”

“Hell no, but it doesn’t surprise me. That’s why I stay away from him. Ten years ago he started gambling and going around with those hoods. He won big one year but he squandered that trying to impress a pack of thugs. Now he’s got no money left and that gun-sel is calling the shots. Frankly, I don’t give a damn what they do to him, the little bastard deserves everything he gets. I’d get out of the store and let him have it, if I just knew what else to do.”

He lit a new smoke from the old and threw the butt into the gutter. “I’ve been in the book business since I was twelve years old. I’m fifty-five now and I’m tired of bullshit. This used to be a great way to make a living. Now it’s like everything else, polluted with bullshit and fast-buck artists. You’re a bookman, Janeway, but you’re fairly young yet. What’ll you do when the life goes sour?”

He took another massive drag and two contrails of smoke poured out of his nose, obliterating his face. “Your silence says it all, pal. For a bookman there isn’t anything else.”

At the car, Erin said, “That wasn’t exactly what we expected, was it?”

“I don’t know. What did you expect?”

“Almost anything but for Archer to turn into some deity.”

“What about Archer? You didn’t have time for much of an audience with him.”

“They broke his jaw. His face was all wired up and he couldn’t talk. Looks like they broke some of his fingers and his collarbone. He’s in a lot of pain. He got pretty agitated when he saw me, and the nurse asked me to leave.”

“I wonder what the motive was.”

“With Archer, who needs a motive?”

“Yeah, but he’s been a jerk for a long time, why beat him up now? I’m wondering if they just found out about his book. And if they did, whether they took it from him.”

“I don’t know. That was on my list of things to ask.”

We sat at the curb for a while and I watched the traffic fore and aft. A cooling breeze blew through the open car and there was no real incentive to move, no rush to get anywhere. It was just noon and I was trying to figure out what we’d do and how. For some reason Dean’s words kept playing in my head, interrupting my thought pattern. I began playing the What-If Game, something I had done many times as a cop. The game had only one rule: you throw stuff at a mental wall and nothing is sacred; no crazy notion is too crazy to consider.

“Looks like another great day of solitaire coming up,” Koko said. “Whoop-de-do.”

I heard her words but I was only listening with half a brain. She and Erin began talking about tomorrow and Fort Sumter. “We’ve still got sleeping bags to buy,” Koko said. “We’ll need three now.” Absently I nodded yes, we would need three, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Dean Treadwell and his strange lifelong friendship with the man everybody loved to hate.

Only later did I begin pondering our escape from Charleston. That afternoon we drove in an apparently aimless circle around greater Charleston till I spotted what I wanted—a sporting goods store in the north area, with parking lots on both sides of the building. I didn’t stop but I noted the landmarks as I drove past. I made a slow loop and headed back downtown.

How do you give people the slip when you don’t know where they are, when you’re not even sure they’re really there and you have no idea how many they might be or what they look like? Sitting in Erin’s room that night, we considered and rejected everything three times over. Go to the police? “With what?” I asked. “Some cock-and-bull story about a Baltimore gangster who we think might have followed us here?” Tell the cops about Archer? “Tell them what?” I said. “That these thugs who beat Archer half to death, we think, are coming after us next?” This might not be half-bad if Archer would corroborate our story; maybe then we could get some police protection long enough to blend into the Southern landscape and give them the slip. Maybe we could get on that boat for Fort Sumter without being seen, return the next day and get out of town. Once we were on the road, we could disappear upstate.

We settled on this: Tomorrow afternoon we would drive to that sporting goods store, leave the rental in the east parking lot, go in and buy three sleeping bags, then exit the opposite door, where a cab would be waiting to take us to the marina. There we would buy our tickets and after that it was a crapshoot. We’d have to wait in the open line, where anybody could see us, until we were inside the boat and under way. As a plan this did not rank with the wooden horse that defeated the Trojans, but it was what we had, what we would do.

We had Pizza Hut send in supper for two. I paid at the door and scanned the lot and what I could see of the street. Nothing. Erin and I ate the pizza while Koko feasted on nuts and seeds and scoops of yummy-looking gray stuff from a plastic bag. We watched the depressing TV fare and later the ladies played more cards. They both left at nine, and for a long time I stood at the window of my room watching the courtyard and saw nothing suspicious.

None of us slept well. When I saw them in the morning they looked haggard and weary.

Another long morning waiting. Gradually we took our suitcases out to the car, watching everything around us. At noon I called a cab company and left an order for a taxi in the south parking lot of the sporting goods place for exactly one-fifteen. I gave them a credit card number and told the dispatcher that the cabbie must be on time and I would pay him double, including time spent waiting, with an extra fifty bucks when we were delivered to the marina at two o’clock.

We didn’t bother to check out: the motel had my credit card number and I’d call them later and have them bill me. We were out of the room and in the car in ten seconds flat. I eased into Meeting Street and turned right toward North Charleston.

It all went like clockwork. I kept an eye peeled, watching my mirrors constantly, and nowhere behind me did I see anything that even hinted of a watcher, a tailgater, or a spook. If Dante or any of his elves were back there, they were mighty good at this.

At the store I watched the crowd while Erin bought the three bags; at the last minute I bought a flashlight and some batteries, and we hustled out the opposite door. The cab was there with its meter running. Koko and Erin got in the back and I rode up front. We drove into town the way we had come up, and the cabbie deposited us at the fort sumter tours sign with time to spare. “Just wait with us,” I told him, and we all sat there for fifteen minutes. I paid him, gave him the half-C, and told him he was a gentleman and a scholar. We scrambled up the dock with only a few minutes to spare.

The boat eased away and the pilot began telling us about the sights we were seeing. Erin came close and took my hand. “Looks like we beat him,” she said. But as I watched the receding buildings, one man in the crowd caught my eye. I saw him for just a second before he disappeared beyond the ticket shack. From that distance I couldn’t quite make him out. But he did remind me of someone, and I wasn’t so sure we beat him after all.

This time Libby was waiting on the dock to greet us. A brilliant smile lit up her face, as if she’d been waiting there for three days doubting our return. Now we had come as budding friends. The ice had been broken and it didn’t seem to matter that we had known each other less than half an hour; we had a common cause. Libby made light of Erin’s unexpected arrival. They were roughly the same age and they chatted easily as we walked up the long pier and turned into the fort. “Luke’s giving the tour again,” she said. “We usually alternate. I do it every other day when time permits, but he’s catching double-duty now that my studies are piling up. Let’s stash your bags and I’ll show you around.”

She gave us a private mini-tour in a low voice as we walked into the shadows under the wall. “This is the sally port. For you laymen, that means the passage in and out. The name comes from the military term
sally
, to attack and repel invaders. The old sally port was over there.” She pointed to a low place in the wall to our right. “That’s the gorge wall. This is the left flank we just came through. Straight across the fort, on the other side of the battery, is the right flank. The other two walls are the right face and the left face. I will quiz you later, so take notes. You don’t get any supper unless you get a passing grade.”

“In case the enemy attacks us tonight,” Erin said.

“Exactly,” she said, deadpan. “It wouldn’t do if I yelled, ‘Reinforcements to the left flank!’ and all of you fell into the harbor looking for it.”

Erin laughed. “I can see we’re going to get along fine.”

“Speaking of supper,” Libby said. “I hope you’re not finicky eaters. The menu here is not our strong point.”

We stared at each other, somewhat shamefaced. None of us had given food a thought.

“Don’t worry about it. All I’m hoping is that you’re not too put off by TV dinners.”

“We can eat anything,” I said. “Right, Koko?”

“Absolutely,” said Koko. “I’m ready to tear into a raw shark.”

“Can’t help you there,” Libby said. “Maybe I can scare up some canned squid.”

She made a
shhh
motion as we went past Luke, who stood above a crowd giving the same speech we had heard on Saturday. She moved us down under the left flank wall and continued her lecture in a low monotone.

“Imagine this whole structure two and three levels high. Above us was another tier of casemates—gun rooms—and the enlisted men’s barracks were three stories high on both flanks, with guns on top of each wall.”

We skirted the left face. “This was a formidable fort then,” she said. “That’s all gone, pounded to smithereens in the Union siege. After they shelled that little band of Yankees out, the Confederates held this rock for almost four years, living in rubble much of that time. For two years they were battered by gunboats and by big guns from Morris Island, which we’ll see in a minute. Historians say seven million pounds of iron were fired in here. The Yanks thought they could take anything if they shelled the bejesus out of it long enough. But this old baby was tough, and the more they reduced it, the tougher it became. In the end there was nothing here but piles of bricks and whatever was buried under them—these walls you see and those ruins over there, the remains of a proud old fort. By then the Confederates had replaced their artillery forces with infantry, and the Union still couldn’t take it.”

She gestured at the guns as we walked past. “Some of these cannons were used against the fort by Union forces on Morris Island— moved over here years later.”

We went up to her little apartment in the battery. “Just throw your stuff down anywhere,” she said, and we went out again. She led us along the right flank and we stood facing the sea. “So anyway,” she said, “this is what I call home.”

Koko asked how long they had been here.

“A year. They’ll rotate us; they say it keeps us from going stir crazy, but I’m going to miss this terribly when I leave. I think about it even now, how quickly we move past things, sometimes without ever seeing them. There’s so much here that’s of the past, and soon it will all be part of my own past. Maybe Luke and I will come back years from now as tourists and I’ll think of these days. But I’ll never again be part of it, so I make the most of every day I do have.”

She pointed to a long, sandy beach across the channel, facing the sea to our right. “That’s Morris Island. Fort Wagner sat near the end, just where it hooks in toward the city. Union forces tried their best to take it in the summer of 1863. Get Wagner, get Sumter—that’s how they figured it; get Sumter, get Charleston. Get Charleston and they could close down the whole Southern seaboard. But they never did any of that, not till the Confederates pulled out and left it to them in 1865.”

We stood on the point, the right gorge angle she called it, and looked where she looked. “That narrow beach on Morris Island is where the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Colored Infantry was butchered trying to dislodge the Confederates. Not to take anything away from those black warriors, you’ve got to admire the Southern fighting man. You don’t have to like his cause to know he and his pals were a tough, valiant bunch.”

We stood there for a while. The day was almost perfect, the sun warm, the harbor full of sailboats. Closer in, smaller, power-driven craft skimmed across the water. Libby walked to the right gorge and shaded her eyes, peering out toward the long, flat island. “Lots of ghosts out there,” she said. “Over here too. I just felt a breath tickling my cheek.”

“My gosh, I felt it too,” Koko said. “That wasn’t the breeze I felt.”

Libby put a hand on her arm. “Don’t worry, they won’t bother you. They are ghosts of a time when women were put on pedestals and cherished. You must be sensitive to spirits.”

“I’ve always thought so.”

“That doesn’t happen to everybody but I feel it all the time. I’ll be out here on the wall and suddenly I’ll get a feeling someone’s here with me…as if he’s just touched me or tried to whisper some mysterious thing in my ear. What about you two? You feel anything just then?”

Erin shook her head and Libby gave me a penetrating look. “I never feel anything,” I said. “I never think, I barely believe in people, and I let ghosts alone.”

“Shame on you. If there are spirits anywhere, how could they not be here? I feel a constant connection with the men who died here…Here comes Luke, you’re saved by the bell. I was about to break into lecturitis profundis of a kind that’s not covered on the tour.”

He came toward us from the left face, walking briskly along the edge of the wall. All his reticence from Saturday seemed gone and he greeted us warmly. “Good to see you,” he said, shaking hands. “Libby’s been awaiting your arrival nervously, to say the least.”

“Oh, stop. That’s not nerves, I’m just overworked. Too much to do, too little time.”

I introduced Erin and Luke shook her hand. “Glad you’re here. The more the merrier.”

“I’ve got to go down for a while,” Libby said. “Got a little housekeeping to do and a few last
fs
to cross before I turn in my paper tomorrow. Luke will show you around, give you the lay of the land. Pay attention, people, it gets dark here when the sun goes down.”

“It gets very dark, even on a clear night,” Luke said. “I’ve got a hunch tonight’ll be cloudy again. In any case, watch where you step. We don’t want any broken legs.”

He walked us around the ruin as the afternoon waned. We went through dark catacombs under the walls, and he told us what each of them had been. When we climbed back to the top, the tour boat was well out in the harbor.

“There she goes,” he said. “You’re officially stuck here till tomorrow.”