The Sign of the Book (13 page)

I drove around the block and parked; got out, drew my heavy coat tight, and pulled the hood over my head. I walked back to the corner and stood in the shadows watching the book warehouse. I'd give a thousand dollars to be in there now, I thought: an invisible man or a mouse in the corner. I'd give a hundred if the Preacher had provoked me just a little more. I wished to hell I could've thrown that punch. But that was crazy.

Time passed. Was this going to be another marathon stakeout? I didn't think Zen would help me much this time: I needed to be awake and alert now till something happened. I had slept only a few hours last night, and I knew that soon I'd begin paying a stiff price for that. At the moment I seemed to be okay: I was still in the grip of a heavy blood rush, drawn on by the excitement that always comes with sudden discovery, and I was in no immediate danger of falling asleep on my feet. I might be good through the night, if I had to be.

But within minutes I felt the most crushing fatigue. When that comes on, it comes so damned quickly… one minute you're fine, the next you feel your blood beginning to thicken and you're dead on your feet. I toyed with the idea of getting closer. I needed any kind of movement: if I could wiggle under that ramp, better yet crawl under the floor of that room, I might be able to hear something. At least that would keep me going.

I struggled against it for ten minutes and felt myself losing the battle. That relentless light from the office window was having a mesmerizing effect.

Gotta move. Can't stay here. Gotta move now.

I crossed the street and walked boldly up to the ramp. Nothing was going on anywhere. No sound from inside, not even a muffled voice beyond that rolling tin door. I knew I couldn't stand there long…one or all of them might come out anytime now, but the crawl space under the warehouse looked so cold and dark that I hated the thought of going there.

I heard a bump and that opened my eyes wide.

A footstep: not inside, but somewhere much more immediate. The sound of a boot on gravel and a smoke being lit.

Now a voice. “That goddamn Preacher better stop talkin' to me like that.”

Wally. Apparently they had come out through a door on the other side of the building and were standing just a few feet away. Willie said, “Yeah? What're you gonna do about it?”

“Maybe I'm gonna quit this shit.”

“Do I look like I'm stoppin' you? You wanna quit, quit. Soon as we get the truck out and see what the insurance will fix for us, you can go wherever the hell you want.”

“You can have the fuckin' truck.”

“Big deal. Don't do me no favors, okay?”

“Man, this's bullshit.”

“Then quit. You see anybody out here stoppin' you?”

“Nobody anywhere's about to stop
me
if I want to quit. The money ain't that good, and it's a pain in the ass when you gotta watch what you say around the sumbitch
all
the fuckin' time.”

“Then fuckin' quit and for Christ's sake stop talkin' about it.”

“If I do quit, it'll be my own choice, and I'll do it in my own good time.”

“You ain't gonna do a goddamn thing. Just gonna talk, just like always. Talk-talk-talk-talk-talk.”

“You're gonna push me one time too many, Willie.”

“Talk-talk-taaaaaalk,” Willie said in a croaky parrot voice.

“Listen, you son of a bitch—”

“Let's just shut the hell up about it, that's all.”

They stood smoking for a while.

“Where the hell is that Preacher?” Wally said.

“He's on the phone,” Willie said with exaggerated patience. “Didn't he just tell you he was gettin' on the goddamn telephone?”

“What's he gonna be, on the telephone all damn night? It's colder than a witch's tit out here.”

“You'll be warm enough when you get to California.”

“You gonna stay here and take care of the truck?”

“Somebody's got to. You'd just fuck that up too.”

“Willie, I've really had enough of you and your bullshit.”

Willie yawned loudly as the lights went out and a door slammed. I eased down below the ramp level and the Preacher's gaunt silhouette came around the corner. The three of them crossed the street and got into a car. I waited till they were half a block away, then I ran back for my own car. As I pulled onto the highway, I could see them stopped two blocks away at a red light. Easy to follow in a small town, as long as I stayed back far enough and they didn't see my car. But in the next block I had to run a red when they were on the verge of disappearing around a corner.

I had a flashing vision of Lennie Walsh hiding in the weeds with his ticket pad.

I hoped they weren't going straight on to California now.

I felt new waves of weariness and I knew I'd never make it.

 

They drove out to the edge of town and turned into a long dirt driveway that led back to a house surrounded by trees. I parked and waited till I could see some lights: then I walked back through the underbrush, keeping low as I approached the house and taking it slow as I went. I reached the edge of the trees. I could see them going back and forth between the house and a garage off to one side. I stood still, hiding myself behind a big ponderosa, and at some point they finished whatever they'd been doing in the house and moved out to the garage. A long open space was between my tree and the house, a gap where I'd be a sitting duck if anyone walked out through that half-opened door. I took it anyway: walked across as if I'd been born there and flattened against the dark outer wall. I eased down to the edge, peeped around, and froze.

I was looking down the length of a Ford station wagon, a dozen years old and sporting current Oklahoma plates. Around and beyond it were several dozen bookshelves, all packed with books, most draped with sheets of plastic, I assumed to protect against blowing wind and snow when the door was up. The station wagon had been backed into the garage, the tailgate was up, and the three of them were loading boxes into it: Daedalus boxes, I could see through the windshield and across the front seat. They were being stacked three across, four down and three high, making a solid block, unlikely to shift even on a long ride. Thirty-six boxes, ideal for shipping: I did the math. Four stacks of octavo-sized books could fit in each box: ten books per stack… fourteen hundred books, give or take a dozen or two.

“Here's your big list,” Preacher said, handing a sheet of paper to one of the Keeler boys. “Study it tonight.”

“What time do you want to leave?”

“If we can get out of here by seven, we can be in Salt Lake City tomorrow night. That'll give us plenty of time to work the bookstores the next day.”

“Salt Lake's always pretty good,” Wally said.

“That's because nobody else thinks it is,” Preacher said. “People don't know what to look for.”

“Maybe
we're
gettin' better too,” Wally said. “Don't you think we're getting better, Preach? Bet you never thought us yokels would ever learn this stuff.”

“Don't brag on yourself too much. Vanity is a sin in the eyes of the Lord.”

“I'm goin' to bed,” Willie said.

Wally laughed. “You gettin' up in the morning to see us off?”

“Not if I can help it. I'm sayin' adios right now. Don't shake me unless the world's ending.”

“Don't speak too lightly of that,” Preacher said.

He reached up and slammed the tailgate shut. Wally began turning out the lights and I moved away, back into the darkness.

I could still hear them when they came out. Preacher was telling Willie to call him once they had some idea about the damages to the truck. “We'll be in the Motel 6 in Salt Lake. After that I can't say. We'll probably go south across Nevada. You know I don't like to stay in Las Vegas.”

“No books there anyway.”

“You can catch us in Burbank at the Motel 6, but probably not before next Thursday or Friday, just before the fair sets up.”

They walked in the shadows across the yard. “I think this is gonna be a good year,” Preacher said. “Good all around. We got some nice things that ought to move fast at the prices I put on 'em. Next year maybe we'll go back East.”

They went inside. I waited till the lights went out, then I backtracked out to the highway, picked up my car, and checked into a motel.

 

I took a shower and called Erin. She answered on the first ring.

“By God, it's good to hear your voice,” I said.

“Well, listen to this. Should I be relieved, angry, or something in between?”

“I was hoping for overjoyed. Maybe even sexually aroused?”

“I've never been interested in phone sex. Mildly overjoyed might be the best I can do on such short notice.”

“How the hell can anybody be
mildly
overjoyed?”

“I have superb control of my emotions. Where are you?”

“Motel in Monte Vista. I may be going to California.”

I told her what had happened. I talked for ten minutes.

“Wow. I should pay more attention when you talk to me, shouldn't I?”

“Yes, you should. That's why you sent me out here, or so I thought.”

“And now you want to go to California.”

“I'm on the fence about it. It may be a colossal waste of time and money. But on the other hand…”

“You don't want to lose them.”

A long silence spread out between us.

“I think you should go to California,” she said. “Aside from having fun at the book fair, you can do a little work to shore up our alternate suspect theory.”

“Have we really got a chance with that?”

“Colorado isn't very clear on it. But if you can find enough evidence to raise a reasonable doubt, that someone else may have killed Bobby, we'd have a real chance to raise it. Those books could be the key. We're moving them out of the house tomorrow.”

“Good. Who's moving them?”

“A fellow from town will do the lifting and toting. Parley will be there to watch, along with somebody from the DA's office.”

There was a pause, then she said, “We thought about it, talked it over, and there seemed to be more reasons to notice the DA in now than there were not to tell them. If these books do become evidence, which looks increasingly likely with your discoveries, we can't spring their significance on them at the last minute, as much as I'd like to. I'd like to have Parley examine that fireplace ash while the DA's there, but there's a possible downside to that. I don't want them finding something we didn't expect. Laura still seems determined to protect Jerry no matter what, and it would be nice if she didn't incriminate herself any more than she has in her effort to do that.”

“So we need to know first if there's a chance of anything else in there.”

“Yep. This is actually a good test of her story. But let's talk to her again and make sure before we do something we can't undo. If she waffles, we do nothing with the grate, we keep it to ourselves and leave whatever's there alone.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“Sure. My first duty is to defend my client.”

“Good. I'll stick with the books for now. Where are they being stored?”

“There's a room they use for an evidence locker just off the sheriff's office. Parley's going to examine each book for signatures and anything else he thinks you might find interesting.”

“He seems pretty diligent.”

“I think he's great. A good old country lawyer. I can trust him to do things right the first time.”

“Unlike some people you know.”

I asked about strategy and she said, “As of this moment, paint Bobby as a shadow man who knew strange people and was into things his wife didn't know about. But we've got a lot of work to do there. We'll need to know a lot more about him.”

I listened to the telephone noise. At some point she said, “He must've changed a lot since I knew him. I remember him as a happy-go-lucky kid, always laughing, always so open about everything. He wore his feelings on his sleeve.”

More time passed. “I'm lining up some good expert witnesses,” she said. “I'm getting a psychologist to come talk to our client. We've got to bring him in from Chicago, but he's really superb in the fields of coercion and mental stress. I'm hoping he'll help us construct a good case for why our client lied.”

I noticed she still couldn't say her client's name.

She had seen all of the DA's evidence. “I've got copies of the deputy's report, the autopsy, the fingerprints and ballistics from the CBI. If necessary we'll get our own experts to go over it and put our spin on it. We'll see how it goes. They're putting a lot of stock into her confession. And there's no question she handled the gun.”