The Dirty Book Murder (16 page)

“Not at all. We’ll discuss your health. Whether you prefer living to dying; matters of that nature.”

Half an hour later, the Lincoln Continental I remembered from the auction parked in front of Riverrun. Rolf Kramm got out from behind the wheel and opened the rear passenger door. The man for whom it was opened said something to Kramm, then stepped out as if descending the passenger ramp of the
Queen Mary
.

Martin Quist was of average height and carried himself with the lean, elastic look of an Ivy League middleweight boxer. Perhaps a year or two shy of forty, he had a receding chin and a broad forehead topped by ginger-colored hair. His tanned skin was the color of a medieval parchment. He wore a beautifully cut cream-colored suit, a white shirt, and a crimson and navy rep tie.

I couldn’t imagine who his barber might be.

Kansas City haircutters have names like Hank or Manny and their specialty is the Harrison Ford farm-boy look, cowlicks being especially popular.

Not for this fellow, though. His trim styling with the sides brushed back was that of a Chicago advertising executive or a British cabinet minister. He exuded such a convivial confidence that I began to think I had misjudged him.

That impression faded as he came closer. Rimless glasses fronting watery gray eyes caught the glare of the sun and sent it back at me. The smile that had seemed so pleasant at a distance was now a thin line, behind which tiny teeth showed like the silver fittings on a coffin.

Because he carried a book in his right hand, I shook his left. It was small, but the grip was surprisingly powerful and he held it long enough so that I was the one disconnecting the exchange.

“Hello, Bevan. Shall we sit out here? It’s such a lovely day.”

“Sure. Would you like coffee? A soft drink?”

“No, but thank you. Thank you very much indeed.”

His thin lips parted enough to let the words slip out. Then he pressed them tightly together again so that it was difficult to hear just what he had said. He seemed to know that he made it difficult to understand him and it was obvious he preferred it that way.

He placed a book of photography by Cindy Sherman on the green bistro table as we settled across from each other. Crossing his right leg over his left knee, he gave a tug at his trouser cuff. He sat back and silently studied me for a while, clearly enjoying my
unease.

“You’re a handsome fellow,” he finally said.

Thoroughly caught off guard, I blushed like a first-grade communicant.

“Don’t be embarrassed by compliments,” Quist continued with the slightest condescension. “I only mention it because I see where your daughter gets her firm jaw. Surely the blond hair, high cheekbones, and extraordinary figure were gifts from her mother.”

“Leave the personals alone,” I warned.

Quist lifted his chin and lowered his eyes. The sides of his mouth twitched as if a school of minnows were trapped inside his gums. Only briefly did I see the tiny teeth when he spoke again through that tight smile.

“No offense intended, Bevan. I only meant to praise your child. Anne is charming; utterly captivating as well as beautiful. You must be very proud of her. I know Bob Langston is. He introduced us last winter in Aspen. ‘How do you like my little rabbit?’ he said. They are staying with me during filming, you know. It’s quite cozy.”

I tried to look deadpan. I must not have tried hard enough, because Quist’s tongue caressed his upper lip before speaking again.

“Well, well, you do care. That’s not the impression one gets in talking to your daughter. Does it bother you that an aged movie star has stolen her heart? Or that the poor girl has an addiction to drugs?”

For a moment, I considered introducing my fist to his esophagus. Instead, I asked, “How’s Langston’s picture coming along?”

Quist studied the cuticles of his fingernails. He looked up with a sleepy expression.

“It’s not
his
movie, Mr. Bevan. I happen to be the producer. We’ve had some misunderstandings, to be sure.”

“You mean he owes you money.”

“Yes. Quite a lot, as a matter of fact. I’ve been supporting him for some time now, in the style to which he’d like to be re-accustomed. He’s really quite talented when kept on a short leash.”

“What do you want from me?”

“The book by Mademoiselle Colette; the one stolen by Mr. Hughes. A friend of yours kindly advised my associate, Mr. Kramm, of the theft.”

“Richard Chezik?”

“I believe that was the gentleman’s name.”

“I don’t have it.”

Quist sighed. “Then who does?”

“I was under the impression that you did. After all, your man killed Gareth.”

Quist smirked. He was a natural smirker.

“That’s not the way I do things. Dumping him in the creek as if I had a message to send someone? Who would I wish to impress? Given time, I would have searched Mr. Hughes’s apartment and, failing to locate the book, would have extracted the necessary information from him. Rolf, after all, is quite effective with an electric drill. He prefers a Bosch but must make do with a Black and Decker here. When in Rome …”

He checked his watch then waved a pinkie finger at Kramm, who leaned against the Lincoln taking in every inch of me.

“I wasn’t even aware that the Colette was missing from the sale,” Quist said, looking back at me, “until after Hughes’s unfortunate demise.”

“I suggest you ask the cops where it is.”

“I have. They found many books, many lovely, expensive books, in your colleague’s hovel, but not the Colette.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I said mechanically.

“Of course you didn’t,” Quist agreed. “You had less of a reason than I. But someone set you up and you have the best motive to determine who it was. I suspect the police think the same thing or you wouldn’t be sitting here.”

He opened the Cindy Sherman book and casually turned the pages before continuing.

“I don’t care who performed the deed, Bevan. I simply want what is lawfully mine. Get it for me. Please.” He stopped flipping pages and gave me his full attention. “Then we can be friends.”

“Like Bob Langston and you are friends?”

Martin Quist nodded, looking faintly amused. “Deliver the Colette to me and I shan’t trouble you or yours.” He hesitated before adding wearily: “I hope we understand each other.”

I understood all right. I knew that if Martin Quist wanted you, he would get you. I also knew that happiness is nothing more than a case of settled nerves and that it was going to be a while before I found it again.

“I’ll be going now,” he announced, rising languidly. “You may keep the Cindy Sherman work. It’s listing for a hundred or so on the Internet.”

We didn’t bother shaking hands again. Quist walked to the Lincoln while I remained at the table tapping a drum solo on the metal top.

After the car pulled away, I opened the book to a place marked by a yellow Post-it.
The photograph showed a model, probably Cindy Sherman herself, lying faceup on the ground, legs splayed apart, her head swathed in a black cloth so that only one glassy eye remained visible. A milk white breast spilled from the black gown. A dart lay imbedded in the flesh an inch or two above the nipple.

I went into the store and placed a call to the production assistant on the Jesse James movie. Laura Dowell answered on the fourth ring. She thought Anne was on the set, but wasn’t sure and said they were only taking calls from Los Angeles today on orders from Langston. She gave me the number anyway, but no one answered. I dialed Miss Dowell again, gave her three listings, and told her that if I wasn’t at my house or the bookstore she could reach me by leaving a message with Pegeen Flynn at The Peanut.

“What about your mobile phone?”

“Just try those numbers.”

If I went underground I didn’t want to be traced by a cell tower.

I hung up just as Violet approached me with a sheet of Internet sales statistics.

“You’re shaking,” she said.

It was true. My hands trembled as if I had Parkinson’s. I took the papers from her and pretended to look at them.

Violet tapped my shoulder. “Why don’t you go home? Weston and I can take care of things here.”

I nodded, said something about the Alibris sales being lower than AbeBooks’s numbers, and pushed away from the desk.

“Vi, I heard that you helped George Land build his book collection.”

She turned her head a little to look at me. A streak of red spread across her cheeks.

When she didn’t respond, I added: “You also tried to buy them back from his widow shortly after he died.”

Her eyes hardened. “That was a long time ago, when I had my own store. She wouldn’t sell.”

The telephone rang before she could finish. She quickly picked it up, grateful for the interruption.

“For you,” she told me, covering the mouthpiece. “It isn’t Anne.”

“Take a message.”

Violet repeated what I said to the caller, listened to the response, then looked back at me. “Best take it,” she said, handing me the phone.

“Bevan here.”

“Thank God I caught you,” Josie Majansik said breathlessly. “Richard Chezik’s
body was found by his mother in his carriage house. His throat was cut. District Attorney Crowell has ordered the police to arrest you.”

I remembered the sickly sweet smell. Richard had never taken that bus. And he wasn’t the author of that note.

“I’m not waiting for them to arrest me, Josie. Quist was just here. He insisted he didn’t have Hughes killed, but implied he would harm Anne if I don’t find the stolen book for him.”

I heard her fingernails tapping nervously at the other end of the line.

“Get over to my place pronto,” Josie ordered. “Don’t risk driving your jeep. I’m on the west side of the Plaza, behind the Capital Grille. The Chesterton Apartments at 460 West Forty-eighth, number fourteen, first floor.”

“Got it,” I said, jotting the address on a dollar bill.

“I’ll be waiting on the steps.”

I hung up, but kept my hand on the telephone until the shaking stopped. A cold anger replaced the anxiety as an adrenaline rush took over.

“I’m going back to the police station,” I said to Violet. Lying was getting easier. “More questioning, I’m afraid.”

“Good luck,” she said.

As I turned to leave, she took my hand and quietly added, “Forgive me for bristling at your questions about the Lands’ library. George was a friend and my best customer. Beatrice resented me, actually thinking I’d had an affair with her husband.”

“Did you know it was the Land collection that sold at the auction on Saturday?”

She returned my stare with a steady gleam. “I figured as much. Are you going to be all right?”

“Not really.”

“No shit,” Weston Preston said from behind his coffee bar. “You’re lookin’ real wonky, boss. Maybe you done rollicked around with too many fillies lately. It might help to get an oil change in your vee-hickle. It’s at twenty thousand miles and you know what they say?”

I didn’t know what “they” say and didn’t bother listening to the rest of his blather. I thought of telling him to “kill his own snakes,” an Ozark term for minding your own business, but I was too busy counting a wad of twenties pulled from the overnight cash box. I folded ten of them into my front pocket and added five tens to my wallet before leaving through the back door.

A twenty-minute jog through three miles of leafy backstreet neighborhoods brought me to Josie’s apartment building. If I’d known what I would learn there, I might
have kept on running until I reached St. Louis.

I turned the corner onto Forty-eighth Street and saw Josie standing on the front steps of her apartment building. She wore a white cotton blouse, a tan skirt, and a face as cheerful as a funeral. I hesitated before crossing the street in order to signal my arrival when an old man in a walker crept up behind me.

“Who are you waving at?” he demanded.

“No one in particular,” I said, bending over as if searching for something on the sidewalk. “I dropped my keys and … ah, here they are.”

He didn’t believe a word.

“I wouldn’t mess with that one.” He inclined his head toward Josie. “She’s trouble. I can tell.”

I had the feeling that any attractive woman born after the Korean War meant trouble to him. He shuffled toward the entrance of the Chesterton Apartments while I fiddled with the keys in my pocket and whistled “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Once he had crawled up the steps, the geezer nodded in my direction and whispered in Josie’s ear. Finally, the door closed behind him and Josie motioned for me to come in.

“What did he say?” I asked when we were inside.

“He said you were trouble.”

Josie’s apartment smelled of herbal candles and popcorn oil. The living room was dimly lit by a table lamp that rested on a plastic milk crate. A television set with a sixteen-inch screen and a VCR player on top sat like an afterthought in a dark corner. The west wall was a series of paned glass windows that looked out upon the courtyard, but the blinds were partially drawn, letting in slivers of daylight and not much of a view. Piles of paperback books lay scattered on a radiator. A worn sofa, partially covered by a moth-eaten horse blanket, sat against the east wall opposite the windows. Next to it, a three-legged end table supported a telephone and an empty beer bottle.

This disheveled nest didn’t match the woman I thought I knew. It was as if we had entered a rent-by-the-hour motel room and she was too embarrassed to admit it.

“Nice digs,” I said.

“Yeah, sure. I had no choice but to keep the previous owner’s furnishings. My salary doesn’t allow for luxuries. Help yourself to a beer and then we’ll go over some things. I need to get back to work soon.”

I stepped into the kitchen, flicked a cockroach off a hot plate, and opened the refrigerator. It was a Kelvinator manufactured before the invention of automatic defrosting. I pulled out a bottle and took a long pull of semi-warm Pabst Blue Ribbon.

“Your fridge needs Freon,” I said.

“And my car needs transmission fluid and I could use new heels on my damn shoes. Got any other advice, Mr. Fix-It, or shall we get down to business?”