Foot tapping continued. The blonde glared at anyone within range and I stayed at the limit of that range. She let out a periodic sigh of exasperation. At last, the white-haired lady came back accompanied by another white-haired lady, this one tall and commanding. I watched closely. This was going to be interesting.
“I’m Mrs. Gracewell.” She introduced herself politely but the blonde was in no mood for niceties.
“What is the matter with this place?” she demanded loudly. “I want to see a book you’ve put in your catalog. All books in the catalog are supposed to be on the shelves. This one is
not
on the shelves. This person has confirmed that.” She pointed an accusing finger and the unfortunate white-haired lady spread her hands in a gesture of admitted failure.
“So where is the book?” came the final broadside.
Mrs. Gracewell withstood the blast commendably. “I regret to say it’s been sold,” she replied.
The answer certainly hit me between the eyes. I even forgot to use the copy of Boulestin as a cover and lowered it. The blonde girl gave Mrs. Gracewell a withering look.
“Sold! How can it have been sold! The auction hasn’t started yet!”
The auction was, in fact, just about to start. A gray-haired man in a tuxedo had tested the microphone and adjusted it on the dais. Others went to and fro, bringing books and papers.
Mrs. Gracewell had clearly been on more committees than the blonde girl had eaten po’boy sandwiches. She remained unruffled as the blonde girl’s look turned on her. It would have curled the edge of a steel plate but Mrs. Gracewell was as unperturbed as if she had just heard that a coffee spoon was in the wrong place.
She gave the other a slight smile, not apologetic but with a tinge of commiseration. “This is a charity function, as I’m sure you know. It seems that earlier this morning, a person came in and made one of our volunteers an offer for the book. This lady reasoned that the amount offered was considerably more than might be realized at the auction. She sold the book.”
There it was, concise and unarguable. Well, it should have been but the blonde’s need for the book seemed to be immense. She harangued poor Mrs. Gracewell, who gave tiny nods of agreement and mini-smiles of sympathy. Finally, a shortage of breath produced a short break.
“The least you can do is give me the name and address of the person who bought it,” were the first words after the break.
Mrs. Gracewell hesitated. “Well, it may be considered confidential, I’m not sure—”
“Nonsense!” snapped the blonde. “This is an open auction. If the book were to be sold here, everybody in the room would see who had bought it. Give me the person’s name and address!”
Mrs. Gracewell thought for a couple of seconds. “Very well,” she said. “This book is clearly important to you so I see no reason why you shouldn’t know. Please come with me.”
The blonde followed Mrs. Gracewell with an angry but elegant stride, leaving me standing there with the copy of Boulestin in my hand. I had several points to consider. Who was this blonde and why was Arturo Belvedere’s book so important to her? It had a certain historical value, that was sure, especially here in New Orleans—perhaps book historians were after it. But why this sudden interest in it? Presumably it had been lost for some time after Ernesto’s faculties had declined—so why now? The next question was, how could I get that name and address too?
I went out of the room just as the auctioneer was rapping his gavel and welcoming everyone. Several cubicles took up space in the anteroom. All were filled, noisy and busy. I stood for a moment, then the blonde came out of one of the cubicles. Mrs. Gracewell was saying something to her but I couldn’t hear what it was—no doubt a polite excuse or two although they were being wasted, as the blonde stalked out without a word or a backward glance. She was stuffing a piece of paper into her handbag as she left so she had presumably got what she wanted—well, after losing the book.
Mrs. Gracewell returned to the main auction hall to attend to other duties. I waited a suitable length of time, realizing during that time that I still had the copy of Boulestin in my hand. I went to the lady in the first cubicle. On her desk was a check with engraving in light purple. It was the only one I could see so I was sure it was payment for the Belvedere book and the one from which she had just copied an address.
The lady was tiny, birdlike and with a soft smile. She didn’t seem too devastated by the blonde typhoon who had just swept out; nevertheless, I gave her my best sympathy smile.
“Wow, glad to see her leave! What a terror!” I waved the book in my hand, a badge of authentication.
“A very dynamic lady. She must want that book very badly.” Her voice was soft too.
“Yes,” I agreed, then, as if I had just become aware of why I had gone into her cubicle: “Oh, Mrs. Gracewell is sure you got full ID on that check. I told her I was sure you had but said I’d confirm it with you.”
“Oh, that isn’t necessary,” the lady said in her delicate voice.
“It isn’t?”
“No. See—” She turned the check around so that I could see it. “ ‘Michael Gambrinus, Bookseller’—well, I mean, he’s one of the biggest booksellers in the city, isn’t he?”
T
HE TAXI WOVE A
dizzying route through the city. At least, it was dizzying to me because most streets seemed to be one-way and laid out like a crazy chessboard. So I just sat back and enjoyed the ride—well, I sort of enjoyed it. Many of New Orleans’ street signs are missing and the ones remaining are either hard to read or faded beyond sight.
Some old blue-and-white tiled signs had names that could be read only by pedestrians. In some neighborhoods, thin vertical metal strips nailed to telephone poles carried the names. These are
really
unreadable. A few street signs even point
away
from the traffic stream. All this seems to be carrying urban secrecy too far.
Riding a vehicle through New Orleans is a novel experience. We passed a mule-drawn buggy and almost terminated a zigzagging drunk. Drivers appeared to have their own rules and seemed to be determined to keep their intentions to themselves. The few times they used signals, they were completely misleading.
I was glad it was a short ride. I had a suspicion that I had been driven in two concentric circles and arrived in a location very close to where I had started but I said nothing as I was happy to alight safely.
The bookshop was on Carondelet Street. During the boom days of the mid—nineteenth century, this was the center for cotton. Shipping companies had their offices here, near the Cotton Exchange. New Orleans’ first skyscraper was built on Carondelet Street and, when bank after bank went up, the thoroughfare became known as the Wall Street of the South. I had learned all this from the pamphlets in the hotel and knew, too, that the street was named after the first governor of the French Province of Louisiana in 1791.
It was an upmarket location for a bookshop. The shop itself looked almost as venerable as its prestigious neighbors, with its dark-green-painted wooden-framed windows and imposing door. The name, Michael Gambrinus, was in faded but legible gilt lettering and an old trigger-type bell pealed out with a tinny clang as I entered.
The atmosphere was musty but not ancient. It was a museum but not a mausoleum. Avalanches of books were everywhere. The basic layout was orderly and sections were marked by subject, but uncontrolled influxes of volumes had flooded the shop and exceeded sales. Many books looked quite valuable, and morocco-bound editions were prominent.
I could see no one, but a doorway led to another room that turned out to be almost as crowded and chaotic. Beyond it was a third room—the building seemed to go on and on. I saw yet another room and it seemed less crowded with books but more folders and files. Perhaps it was an office. Someone must be there.
“Anybody here?” I called, but no answer came. A massive carved desk had a large brass lamp, a brass-and-wood antique-style phone, and was piled with papers. A brass-and-mahogany plaque read,
MICHAEL GAMBRINUS
. Behind the desk, a computer screen was blank but beside it stood attendant equipment like a printer, a copier and a fax. But it was the desk that instantly reclaimed my attention …
A man sat in a large armchair, sprawled back. I went farther into the room—a patch of red gleamed in the soft light of the desk lamp. It was in the center of his chest.
I felt his wrist. It was warm but when I felt for a pulse, there was none. A round black hole in the patch of red on his chest was patently the cause of death. He had been shot, and very recently.
How recently? I wondered. Recently enough that whoever had shot him was still here? It was at that inappropriate moment that I heard a slithering sound …
The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I froze, waiting for the sound again. If I could figure out where it had come from, I could move hastily in the opposite direction. All was still, though into the silence crept the faintest buzz of street traffic.
A door slammed. Trouble was, I couldn’t tell where. It took me a moment to realize that if it had been the front door, I would have heard that tinkling bell. So there must be another door—well, obviously, there had to be a back entrance for unloading all these books.
I went back into the third room and there it was—it opened to a turn of the knob. An alley went all the way to the next street. Trash cans lined up and there were piles of cardboard crates and boxes. But no person or persons.
Going back into the room with the dead man wasn’t particularly pleasant but the body acted like a magnet. I thought about wiping the doorknobs and getting out of there, like any non—law-abiding citizen would. Had I picked up any books? I wondered. But leaving fingerprints would not be incriminating unless I did, indeed, duck out of there.
Being non—law-abiding is something I cannot readily contemplate. Besides, a check of cab drivers would turn up the one who had driven me here and, though he had not paid much attention to me (or the traffic, for that matter), he would probably be able to identify me. I reached for the phone, stopped.
A box of tissues stood on the edge of the desk. I took one and used it to lift the phone. At least, I wouldn’t obliterate any fingerprints that might be on it.
The food business is a multibillion-dollar industry and even the sedentary aspects of it that involve me often have contact with the seamier side. Crooks and criminals can be found in there just as in any business—a small percentage of those involved can always see a way to make more money by doing something illegal.
Unwittingly, I have been mixed up in a few of these and some have even involved a corpse or two. It was very rare that I had been in the position of calling the police upon finding one of them, though. The operator was polite and helpful and when I was promptly connected with the police department, they were the same.
I confess I was disappointed. It was the first time I had ever had the opportunity to say, “I want to report a murder,” and the sergeant who introduced herself was about as excited as if I had told her that my pet Pekingese was missing. She asked me to stay where I was until the police arrived, adding that they would be there in a few minutes. She was as cool as a dentist’s assistant making an appointment.
It was under five minutes, in fact. Two patrolmen in uniform came, looked at the corpse, checked my identity and made a phone, call. They moved around, looking at doors and windows, though one of them was in the room with me at all times. About ten minutes later, two plainclothes detectives came in.
“LieutenantDelanceyHomicide,” said the foremost of the two. The way he said it, it came out like one long word. He was short, light build, with a face that looked worn and tired. He had light-blue eyes that improved his appearance a bit and untidy dark hair that didn’t. He wore a gray suit that was far from new and a dark-blue tie that he probably got as a Christmas present. His ears were prominent and he moved his hands in an expressive way that was almost Italian. “Stickaround, I wannatalktoyer,” he said, and I knew he was not from Louisiana.
He motioned to the two uniformed men and they all huddled together. It did not take long for observations to be passed along and the uniformed men left. “Sergeant Zukowski,” the lieutenant said, jerking a thumb in that direction. I gave the sergeant a brief but friendly nod. He might have returned the nod but the energy it must have used was immeasurably small. He was a big, beefy man with an unexpressive face, though that might have been part of the job.
The lieutenant moved around the room, looking at the corpse, at the desk, looking at everything as if he were photographing it in his mind. Maybe he was. He went into the other rooms but the sergeant stayed with me. He was not too obvious about it but I was seldom more than five seconds out of his vision.
Lieutenant Delancey had no sooner rejoined us than the doorbell tinkled. Delancey ignored it but the sergeant went and came back with two men and one woman. They carried equipment of various kinds in leather sacks and pouches, and soon flashes filled the room while the other two were poking around all over, performing mysterious functions.
“Overhere,” Delancey said to me, moving his hands toward the other, book-filled room. We went into the comparative quiet, leaving the technicians with the body.
“Whaddayerknowaboutthis?” It was going to take me a little while to get accustomed to this condensed speech, I could see that. The general drift of his question was obvious, though, so I was saved from having to ask him to repeat it.
I told him about Van Linn first, hoping that the name of a prominent New Orleans lawyer would weigh in on my side. Too late, I realized that Van Linn might well be a defense lawyer and persona non grata with a police force that had been thwarted by him countless times. I went on anyway, telling him about the book, the auction and the reason for my being here in Gambrinus’ shop.
It did not sound too convincing to me—and I knew it was true. I could see why the expression on Lieutenant Delancey’s face was turning into a frown that, if not outright doubt, was certainly heavy on skepticism.