The Bookman's Promise (8 page)

The address he gave me was in Globeville, a racially mixed North Denver neighborhood, mostly Chicanos and blacks who had escaped the stigma of being poor, if they actually did, by the skin of their teeth. Globeville had none of the fashionably integrated charm of Park Hill, but at least it had avoided the ethnic rage that simmered in Five Points a few years back. The area had its own distinct character: bordered by Interstates 25 and 70, formed by people struggling to get along, defined by a school of architecture best described as modern crackerbox provincial, it was a few dozen square blocks of plain square houses and cyclone fences, crammed tight for maximum efficiency.

Erin knew Globeville well. “I had a client who lived in that house,” she said, gesturing as we turned off North Washington Street. “Classic case of a woman who desperately needed a man gone from her life. But nobody was gonna tell
him
what to do with
his
woman.”

“Until you came along,” I said with genuine admiration.

“Me and the Denver Sheriff’s Department. She already had a restraining order, they just didn’t want to bother enforcing it. Because she was black, because she was poor, because, because, because. I just became her instrument to get them off the dime.”

“That doesn’t seem like a case for Waterford, Brownwell.”

“It was pro bono. They were less than thrilled when I took it, but I do that once in a while. It keeps my head on straight, reminds me why I got into law in the first place, and lets them know they can’t send me to places like Rock Springs without consequences.”

She had offered to ride along because she found Mrs. Gallant’s story fascinating, and second, she said, “to see where your idea of a real date finally takes us.” Ralston’s house was on North Pennsylvania, half a block from East Forty-seventh Avenue. By the time we arrived, not a trace of light remained in the western sky. I pulled up behind his car and saw his bearlike silhouette in the doorway. He pushed open a screened door as we came up onto the porch.

I introduced Erin as a friend and her hand disappeared into his. We walked through a small living room with the sparest imaginable furnishings—no television, I noticed—and on into the kitchen. There was a rickety-looking table, four plain chairs, a cupboard, and straight ahead the door to the backyard. Off to the right, a short passageway led to the bathroom and beyond that was apparently the only other room in the house, their bedroom.

“Is she in there?”

He nodded. “Denise is in with her. Sit down, she knows you’re here.”

We sat at the table and Ralston offered coffee. He caught me looking around at his raggedy surroundings. “I told you it wasn’t the Brown.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I was just wondering where you two planned to sleep tonight.”

“We’ll get by. Won’t be the first time we bagged it on the floor.”

I nodded toward the door. “What happened?”

“She just all of a sudden gave out. Her old heart decided it had enough.”

“Did you call a doctor?”

He shook his head. “She didn’t want us to.”

A long moment passed.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “It seems indecent to let her die when help is just a phone call away. But you’ve got to ask yourself what the hell you’re saving her for—to be sent back to that place, just so she can die next month instead of now? She hated it there, you know.”

“That’s not exactly what I was thinking. In fact, I agree with everything you’re saying. But I used to be a cop and in situations like this, I still think like one.”

“Are you saying we could be
prosecuted
? Man, that would figure, wouldn’t it?”

“I never had a negligent homicide.” I looked at Erin. “Isn’t that what this would be?”

She nodded. “Criminally negligent homicide would probably be the statute.”

“Jesus.” Ralston looked at Erin and said, “You a lawyer?”

She nodded and I said, “She’s a real lawyer, Mike. Be glad she’s here.”

“It’s a fairly straightforward law,” she said. “If you cause a death by your failure to act, it could conceivably be prosecuted as a class-five felony. That’s very unlikely to happen, but you should be aware of the possibilities.” She shrugged. “An aggressive DA…”

“Jesus,” he said again. “The woman just wants to die a natural death, for God’s sake, without having tubes running out of her nose for three months. What’s the law got to do with that?”

“You’re like me,” I told him: “all fire, no ice. You leap before you look. You do a pretty good job of keeping the fire contained, but it’s always there simmering, isn’t it?”

He walked to the window and looked out into the backyard.

“Sit down and talk to me,” I said. “You make me nervous, pacing around.”

He sat and I made the universal gesture for
Go ahead, speak
. But when he did, it was not about the old woman’s life, it was about her quest. “Have you asked yourself what she really wants? I mean, what can she hope to gain from this search she’s taken on? Even if she found it all tonight and could legally sell it, what good would it do her?”

“It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking. Maybe she’s got someone to leave it to.”

“But in the end it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s pretty hopeless, what she’s asking you to do.” I sighed. “Yeah, it is.”

I brought him up to speed on my talk with Dean Treadwell, but we both knew that the odds of anything coming from that bookstore were less than the snowball in hell. It was still raw speculation, we were spinning our wheels, but at the moment there was nothing else to do. There was no hint yet that Mrs. Ralston was ready to let me into the bedroom.

“This is great coffee,” Erin said. “What do you do to it?”

Ralston smiled. “That’s my secret, miss. I’m a gourmet cook by trade.”

“I’m learning all kinds of stuff about you tonight, Mike,” I said. “So what’s the story of you two? You and the missus.”

Again he gave me that humorless laugh. “How much time you got?”

The question seemed to beg itself out of easy answers, but then he had one. “The easy answer is, I screwed up everything I ever touched. I drank, gambled, lost everything. Hell, look around you. We are starting from scratch. I’ve got nothing but that woman sittin‘ in there at the old lady’s bedside, but that’s enough. And that’s the story of us. Since you asked.”

I heard a stir and Denise appeared in the doorway. She was at least in her late forties, a good ten years older than Ralston: tall, gangly, black as night, homely as hell yet lovely in an exotic way that had nothing to do with what the world thinks of as beauty. She had a satchel mouth to rival Louis Armstrong’s, and when she smiled, she lit up a room.

“Mr. Janeway. I’m so glad you’re here.”

I got to my feet. “Mrs. Ralston.”

I introduced Erin and they had a warm exchange. She insisted at once on being called Denise. Her hand was warm in mine and I liked her eyes. I liked her face, which reflected a heart that I knew I’d also like. She said, “I think we’d better go right on in,” and her voice managed to ask and tell at the same time,
steady as it goes, boys
, with just a hint of a French accent. “I don’t think we have much time,” she said.

Erin backed away from the door. “I’ll just sit out here at the table.”

The bedroom was cool, bathed in a soothing orange light from a lamp at the side of the bed. Mrs. Gallant lay with her eyes half-closed, but again that second sense, her instinct,
something
told her I was there. Her eyelids fluttered. I felt Denise at my side and for a crazy moment I had a sense that I had merged with these remarkable women, all of us standing in some single spirit outside ourselves. Denise touched my arm, moving me to the bedside. Mrs. Gallant said, “Mr. Janeway,” and I sat in the chair beside her.

“Hey, Mrs. G. You’re not feeling so hot, huh?”

“Not so hot. I’ve really messed things up here, haven’t I?”

“You have made life very interesting for all of us. We’re very glad you came to us.”

“I can’t imagine. But somehow I believe you.” She turned her head. “Is Denise here?”

“She’s right behind me.”

“I can’t see that far. Mr. Ralston?”

Ralston loomed out of the shadows. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I want you to promise me something. It’s none of my business but that’s one of the prerogatives of very great age—you get to meddle in other people’s affairs.”

“You meddle all you want, ma’am.”

“Just…take good care of this wonderful girl. She is very special.”

“I do know that, ma’am.”

“Denise?”

She came up and took the old woman’s hand.

“Did you tell Mr. Janeway about the picture?”

“Not yet.”

“There used to be a photograph tucked into my book. A picture that proves what I’m saying. It shows Charlie and Richard together, in Charleston.”

“What happened to it?”

She looked distressed. “I don’t know. It vanished long ago, like everything else. But I remember it. Koko knows.”

“Koko?”

“Yes. Koko can tell you.”

She turned her face up to Denise. “You’re such a grand girl. I wish you were my daughter.”

Denise grinned. “Maybe I am.”

Mrs. Gallant made a sad little laughing sound. “Wouldn’t that have shocked the stuffing out of my proper old Baltimore family?”

A moment passed. The old woman said, “Besides, you’re not old enough.”

Another moment. “Where’s my book?”

“It’s right here.” Denise got it from a table beside the bed.

“Give it to Mr. Janeway.”

I took the book and put it on my lap.

“It’s yours now.”

I started to protest, but Denise squeezed my arm and shook her head. Mrs. Gallant said, “I want you to have it, but it’s not an outright gift. I want you to make an effort to find the others.”

“Okay,” I said cautiously.

“I always had an idea they should be together, in some library in my grandfather’s name. If you do that—exhaust all the possibilities you can think of—you may keep this book. But I want you to share what you get for it with Denise.”

“Okay,” I said again.

“That’s all,” she said.

But it wasn’t all. A huge weight had settled over me, and it wasn’t enough to sit here stupidly and say okay, okay, okay. I had a chance to make a dying woman’s death so much more peaceful, if I had the guts to do it. I mustered my courage and said, “I’ll find those books, Mrs. Gallant, I promise. I will find them.”

She smiled. “I knew you would.”

Suddenly she said, “I’m very tired, Denise.”

She reached for my hand. “It was good knowing you, sonny.”

These were her last words. She slipped into sleep and died three hours later.

There is always red tape when someone dies. First a doctor must be summoned: someone who can certify that the person is in fact dead and has died of natural causes. The coroner must be called, and if all goes well, the body is released to a funeral home. I was impressed with the Ralstons’ personal physician, first that he was reachable and then that he was willing to make a house call at that time of night. He arrived at midnight, a youngish black man radiating competence. He and Ralston were old pals: like Lee Huxley and Hal Archer, they had been kids together, and maybe that explained his willingness to go that extra mile.

Denise showed him into the room while Ralston and Erin and I sat at the table and worked on a second pot of coffee. I asked Erin if she wanted me to call her a cab but she seemed not at all tired and she wanted to stay. When they rejoined us, the doctor and Denise had obviously been talking and the doctor had a good grasp of why the old woman was there and what had happened. There were a few questions for me and I told him about the Burton, which lay on the table in open view through all the talk.

“This is a valuable book?”

“It’s quite valuable,” I said. “My best guess would be somewhere around twenty, twenty-five thousand.”

“And she gave it to you—the two of you to split equally? But there was no paper signed.”

“George,” Denise said in a long-suffering tone, “could you really see me doing that—asking that dying woman for a paper?”

“No,” the doctor said, smiling. “I’m just trying to head off trouble. If there are any questions about why you did what you did…”

“I’m a witness,” Erin said. “I heard everything she said.”

The doctor made some notes and seemed satisfied. Then came the call to the coroner’s twenty-four-hour hot line, and on the doctor’s say-so the body was released. Nobody was going to question the death of a woman in her nineties unless there was something very suspicious about it. The doctor made another call and soon a man arrived in a hearse. I asked if he needed any help and he said, “Oh, I got her, gov.” He took up the old woman in his arms, as fondly as if she’d been a favored great-aunt, and carried her to the hearse.

Next came the paperwork. Who would be responsible for the bills? “I will,” I said. “You’ll probably have to check with the home where she was living; they may have made some kind of arrangement or legally binding contract. But I will guarantee payment.”

We talked about what kind of funeral she would have if Denver turned out to be her final stop. She might have gone to an unmarked plot in a potter’s field with a plywood coffin, but I wanted her to have a plaque and a place of her own. This was strange since I had never cared much about funerals. I don’t care where they put me; in terms of eternity, it doesn’t matter much, but suddenly the tariff had leaped into four figures and I was okay with it. The man took my credit card number, the doctor went home, and for now that was that. Erin and I stood on the street with the Ralstons in the early morning and watched the hearse drive away.

None of us wanted to separate: not quite then, not quite that way. Ralston suggested a simple wake. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful of the departed,” he said, “but I am hungry as hell.”

We all were. The pizza I had shared with Erin seemed like a distant meal indeed, and I suggested we all go down to Colfax, where the all-night eating places were. Denise wouldn’t hear of it. “We will cook something. Michael is a gourmet cook, did you know that?”

“I told them,” Ralston said. “It’s gonna be hard to make anything decent with what we’ve got. We got some eggs and milk; I could make a simple omelet but that’s about all. If y’all don’t mind waiting, I could go out and get some better stuff.“

“I’ll get the stuff,” I said. “You fire up the stove, give me a list of what you need, and I’ll be back in a while.”

He directed me to the nearest all-night Safeway. “You won’t get any gourmet makings there, but do the best you can,”

Forty minutes later we said our farewells to old Mrs. Gallant. We had known her only for a few hours but she had touched something in each of us. Even Erin, who had not known her at all, had been moved by her story.

“I should apologize for eavesdropping at the bedroom door,” she said. “But I had a hunch those questions might come up. It never hurts to have an impartial witness to what was said.”

This got grateful looks from the Ralstons. Then, in the best tradition of a real wake, we ate an incredible omelet.

“Damn, you really are a gourmet cook,” I said. “You oughta do this for a living.”

“I do, when I can find work. I should say, when I can keep it.”

“Michael has a problem with arrogant authority,” Denise said.

“Isn’t that amazing, so do I,” I said. “We seem to be more alike all the time.”

“Except you don’t have to worry about getting fired. That’s what happened to me this week. Been thinking of changing jobs anyway, but I’d rather have done it on my own hook, after some bills have been paid.“

“Well,” I said casually, “now you’ll have the money to pay your bills.”

I motioned to the Burton, still on the table where I had put it hours ago.

“When you sell it, you mean,” Ralston said.

“I may never sell it. But I’m willing to pay you half of what I think its retail value might be. We can do that tonight if you want to. Like I told your friend the doctor, I think it’s a twenty, twenty-five-thousand-dollar piece. Say twelve-five to you.”

“Holy mackerel, Batman,” Ralston said, but Denise gave a tiny head shake.

“I just bought the
Pilgrimage
at auction for twenty-nine and change. That’s widely considered to be Burton’s greatest book. It’s a very important piece, but so is this. The condition of both is outstanding, and that’s actually a huge understatement. Old bookmen like to call everything the world’s best copy, but I truly can’t imagine better copies of either book anywhere in the world today. The inscription is intriguing, and I think it gains by having the two of them together.”

They looked at each other.

“Listen,” I said, “there’s no pressure on this. You do what’s right for you. Bring in another bookseller, get his opinion, I’ll pay half of whatever he says. If and when I do sell it, if it goes over thirty, we’ll split that difference as well. Whenever that might be.”

“Couldn’t be fairer than that,” Ralston said, looking hopefully at his wife.

Denise was looking at me. “I trust you. That’s not what’s bothering me.”

I knew what was bothering her. The deathbed promise I had made lingered in the air. “Nobody expects you to find those books,” Ralston said.

Denise shook her head. “Oh, honey, that’s where you’re wrong.”

A long quiet moment later, I said, “I didn’t give that promise lightly. If those books are there to be found, I will find them. I’m just thinking how much easier it might be if this book is in my hands alone. We can let it ride, if that’s what you want. But I get the final word on where the hunt goes and how I want to conduct it.”

“He used to be a cop,” Ralston told his wife.

“Really? That surprises me. You seem like such a gentle soul, Mr. Janeway…it’s hard to believe you were ever part of any violent world.”

“I’ve been called lots of things, but a gentle soul isn’t even close to the list. Maybe I’m making some headway.”

“Why did you leave the police?”

“Long story. Goes to my attitude, which isn’t always so gentle. Let’s just say I like the book world better.”

“You should’ve seen him wheeling and dealing those two cats from Texas,” Ralston said. “Two fat cats came into his store and he pulled eight bills out of their pockets slicker than hell.”

“They knew what they wanted,” I said. “They got what they paid for.”

I asked if either of them knew who or what Koko was.

“I can’t imagine,” Denise said. “Probably some childhood friend.”

“Who’s been dead forever,” Ralston said.

Denise touched the book, opened it carefully. “This is all so far from my own life, from any kind of experience I’ve ever had. Until now I couldn’t have imagined such a book.” A moment later, she said, “Would it bother you if I kept it overnight? Maybe for a couple of days? I’d just like to…I don’t know…get a feel of it…if that wouldn’t bother you.”

It bothered me a lot, but what could I say? What I said was, “You’d have to be very careful.”

“I know that.”

“I mean
really
careful, Denise. A spot on the cover could be five grand.”

“I hear you.”

Now an extended silence fell over us. Denise walked to the window and looked out into the yard. Ralston cocked his head and smiled at me, a quizzical expression that said,
You’ll have to wait for her, man, it’s the only way
.

But he was the one who squirmed as the minutes dragged on. “That’s a whole bunch of money, doll,” he said to some crack in the floor. “We could get a great new start with that.”

He looked up at me and found another reason to take the money and run. “The answers you want won’t be here in Denver, will they? There’ll be expenses, and they’ll come out of the book’s value, right off the top. That’s only fair.”

Denise took a deep breath, as if the same thought had just occurred to her. I could quickly eat up the entire value of the book traveling, and for what?

Erin was watching me intently. I smiled at her, then at Denise, who had just turned from the window. “It’s your choice,” I said. “You could take your money and be done with it. Speaking just for myself, I’ve got to try.”

“Wherever that leads,” Ralston said. “Whatever it costs.”

Denise looked at me and her face was troubled. She said, “This isn’t easy, is it?” A moment later she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Janeway…could Michael and I have a few minutes alone?”

Erin and I went out on the porch and stood quietly at the edge of things. “Well, old man,” she said. “You do make for an interesting first date.”

“Next time I’ll take you on a tour of Denver’s best pawnshops.”

“That would be good. I’ve been wondering where I can hock my virtue.”

Half a dozen crazy answers wafted up from my funny bone, but the moment trickled away: the mood was different now. I looked back at the door and said, “I wonder what they’ll do,” and Erin said, “Trust me, they are going with you. If I know anything about people, they’re going all the way. That woman in there’s got more heart and soul than I’ve ever seen in a stranger.”

I tried to look hurt in the moonlight. “Hey, I’ve got heart, I’ve got soul.”

“Yes,” she said, “but you were no stranger. I had heard so much about you from Miranda that I knew you long before we met.” And I thought,
wow
. Round three to me for heart. Extra points for soul.

“Denise is special,” Erin said. “I don’t know how to describe it, it’s just something I know. Goes way beyond class. She has already decided what needs to be done and now she’s got to break the bad news to him. But he will do whatever she says. He would lie down and die for her.”

“He’s smart.”

“Yes. And they’re both very lucky.”

A moment later I said, “So what’s next now that you’re back from the wilderness?”

“Tomorrow I’m going to disappear for a week into the real wilderness. I have a cabin in the mountains, where I shall write, eat very little, drink lots of liquids, meditate, and commune with nature. It’s a serious hike just to get up there. No roads, no electricity, best of all, no telephones. If I take a bath at all it will be in very cold water.”

“Can I come?”

“That would defeat my purpose, wouldn’t it? And you’ve got plenty enough to do here.”

“I’ll think about nothing all week but you getting eaten by a bear.”

“Oh, I can take care of myself. I do this every year.”

I pretended to sulk and she said, “I’ll call you when I get back.”

“That’s what they all say.”

I walked out into the yard and looked up at the sky. The old lady was still on my mind. She haunted me and I cursed myself for not listening to her better. I believed she had been trying to tell me something important, but I had heard only half of it and now none of it made any sense. How could Burton have had anything to do with our civil war? He had come to the States in 1860, a year before the war began. What could he have said or done that had gone off like a time bomb a year later?

It was crazy, almost impossible to believe.

But what a story if it were true.

I imagined Burton walking up into the yard. I saw him as a young man, just arrived from that other time, straight from the jungles of unknown Africa. How would we like each other? The first minutes would tell that tale, as they must have done with Charlie Warren. Burton formed his opinions quickly, and so did I.

Erin came down and stood beside me. For a long time we watched the sky. It was a night like I hadn’t seen in Denver since my childhood in the late fifties, long before the big buildings came with the big lights, before crowds of people flooded into the state from California and Mexico and the East Coast, leaving crud on the landscape and poison in the air. In those days I could stand in City Park and look deep into the universe. From Lookout Mountain I could see everything the big god saw before she broke it all apart and hurled it into that endless expanse of empty space. I must have had faith then. I certainly had something. How had I lost it? When had I stopped believing the god thing? I didn’t need to worry it to death, I knew when it was: the night I looked down into the bloodless face of the little girl who had been raped and strangled by her father.

I had grown cynical and easy with my disbelief. But in that moment I thought of Mrs. Gallant and, I swear, a meteor streaked across the western sky. I watched it disappear beyond the mountains and I shivered in the warm morning air.