A Novel Death (3 page)

When I first started buying books, I was a crazy woman. I would pore over Newsday on Thursday nights, cut out the classified ads for tag and estate sales, and then lay them across the scarred wooden table like miniature Tarot cards. I studied them as if they held my future. Should I start on the North Shore-or in the Hamptons? Massapequa or Manhasset? Where could I go that would have wonderful books and no other dealers buying them? When I finally had a workable pattern, I would tape each advertisement onto a pink index card and number it. Then I would consult my street atlas, and write out detailed directions to each house on the back.

It took several years to calm down, to be able to wake up naturally just before five o'clock on a weekend morning instead of at three or four. But that Friday night, I kept jerking awake, haunted not by missed opportunities, but by Lily Carlyle. Her narrow face and tangled black curls floated over me with a tense smile. You don't know the half of it, she seemed to be taunting. You'll be so surprised. But when I woke just before daylight, it was because her expression had changed from a kind of gloating to frightened anguish.

I knew I couldn't sleep after that. Pushing up from the bed, I told myself I was mixing her up with Amil, that he had been trying to tell me something. When I got back to the house yesterday and remembered the business card he had given me, I pulled it out of my purse. It was a card for an automobile repair shop in East Setauket, Stan's Body Shop with a small red-embossed image of a tow truck. On the back, Amil had scrawled in pencil Call me tomorrow and a number. Because of all that had happened, I had been tempted to try him right away. But I decided he had specified Saturday for a reason.

Lily's ghost watched me while I dressed in black shorts, sandals, and a black T-shirt that said in yellow letters, "I am a professional. Do not try this at home!" You killed yourself, I told her reproachfully. Why are you haunting me? Newsday would probably have more details today, so I would not have to bother Margaret. Ghoulish. But I had always been ghoulish. I could hear my mother's gentle reproof from years ago: "But why would you be curious about something like that?" I didn't know why; I just was.

Of course I had never been curious about the square root of seven or what a Bible verse really meant.

I opened a can of tuna fish for my cats, Raj and Miss T, a consolation prize for being left alone all day, and then left immediately for Planet Java and the largest coffee they sold. But I did not reach full alertness until I was on the Northern State Parkway, almost to Nassau County. I live in Suffolk, the wilder of the two counties that comprise Long Island. If Nassau is a jaded matron sucking on an ivory cigarette holder, Suffolk is her teenage daughter, still experimenting with purple hair and navel rings. There is one nail salon for every two people in Suffolk and an attraction to lawlessness and danger, which spawns bars like Goodfellas and the Bada-Bing Cafe.

Lawlessness and danger I thought about Amil and his violent outburst, and then forgot him as an SUV entering from Greenlawn cut me off. He could have waited five seconds and entered an emptiness as big as Montana. I guessed it was his way of saying "Howdy." One of his bumper stickers read I EAT TOYOTAS FOR BREAKFAST.

By the time I turned my decrepit white van north to Oyster Bay he was safely miles ahead of me. I was approaching an historic area of Nassau County, closing in on Teddy Roosevelt's Sagamore Hill estate and expensive waterfront properties. Most of the side roads were labeled PRIVATE, but at the corner of one was a discreet yellow TAG SALE TODAY sign.

My stomach jumped the way it always did, and my fantasies soared: Despite the extensive advertising for this sale, I imagined myself as the only book dealer there. Maybe the proprietors would decide to open at six A.M. instead of waiting until the scheduled time of nine, catching everyone else off guard. Despite Margaret's skepticism that such things existed, I would stumble on the find of a lifetime. After all, Teddy Roosevelt and his family were buried here on the quiet green slope of Young's Cemetery. Was an inscribed first edition of The Rough Riders too much to ask?

I tried to decide which dedicatee would make the book the most valuable-Teddy's controversial daughter Alice Longworth, or his friend, Mark Twain-and reached the estate sale shaky with dreams and fatigue. As were all the other dealers who had gotten there ahead of me. Headlights shone along the road like predatory eyes. I identified a Town Car and a Lexus as well as a Ford Escort, an ancient brown Cadillac, and several other vans in various states of rust. Mine was easy to identify. Both front doors had GOT BOOKS? and my phone number painted on them in bright blue.

I headed for the Town Car, which had the driver's side window rolled down. The man inside, a dealer who specialized in antique silver, silently tore the next number off a calendar and handed it to me. I squinted at it in the dawning light.

"Thirteen," I complained. "It's not even six yet!" Then I remembered Margaret. "I'll need a number for my partner."

He shook his head. "He's gotta be here. That's the rule."

"She. She'll be here any minute." Who made up these rules anyway?

He actually took the trouble to smile, though not in a way I appreciated. "Then I'll give her a number in a minute, won't I?"

"I guess"

Instead of whining, why hadn't I tried charm? Despite my lack of sleep, my hair was brushed and I was dressed in clean clothes. On my good days, I fit the book cataloguer's description, "slightly foxed, but still desirable"-a few age creases, but nothing serious. On my bad days, when my light hair hangs lank instead of curling, and my eyes are circled like edited mistakes, I am "a reading copy only."

Now that I had a number for the sale, I drifted back to my van to go find more coffee. It was still too early to call Amil.

No one tells people when it is time to line up at a sale. One minute they are dozing in their cars or showing each other yesterday's bargains, and then suddenly everyone is rushing the front door. As soon as I sensed motion, I was out of the van, transferring a slab of bills to my pocket to keep my hands free. I shoved my cell phone in my other pocket, but almost forgot to pick up my vinyl boat bag. Some buyers bring cardboard cartons, but I find a flexible giant-sized bag works better. With boxes you have to bring scarves to drape over them so no one thinks they are part of the sale. Anyone removing books from a green-and-white bag knows it's stealing.

In the shadow cast by the white stucco hacienda, I edged my way around ceramic planters of geraniums and found my place in line. The positive side of having rules is that most people obey them.

I stood with my back to the red-tiled mansion, facing the road so that I could see Margaret when she arrived. I rehearsed my apology for not getting her a low number.

"Delhi?"

I spun around quickly, though it was a man's voice. Jack Hemingway, brawny and white-bearded in denim overalls, was two places behind me in line. Although Jack might remind you of Papa if you hadn't seen a photograph of Ernest Hemingway in a while, he always said immediately that they were not related-as if that somehow gave him equal claim to the last name. I imagined he had spent years when he was teaching literature at Hofstra University making that distinction for people. During that time he had actually been writing too, turning out hard-boiled adventure stories that no one seemed to want to publish. He had much more success with critical analyses of contemporary fiction.

"I read your article on California pulps," I told him politely. It had been in one of the university quarterlies, and Margaret had shown it to me. "Very impressive!"

Jack smiled and swayed a little. "In this business you've got to share what you know. Life's too short for one person to know everything. Unless you're Marty, of course. You hear about his latest adventure?"

"No. What?" With any luck he had been hit by a bus.

Jack set down his empty cardboard carton. "Seems there was this dealer who closed up shop around 1975, but held onto his books. Probably sold some occasionally through AB Bookman, answering people's want ads. You know about AB Bookman?"

What kind of amateur did he think I was? Though it had folded its covers for good, the Antiquarian Booksellers Magazine had been the leading publication of the rare book trade for decades. "Sure."

"Anyway, after this dealer died, the Neanderthals-his familycame in and started throwing the books in a dumpster. Fortunately someone called Marty."

Why Marty? Why not me?

"Lots of thirties and forties novels with dust jackets, Long Island history. Marty knows his books, of course; he researches constantly. But even before he knew anything, he could find books." Pressing his wide arm against his forehead to capture sweat dots, he chuckled fondly at the memory. We were all Jack's proteges, but Marty was the standout. "First time he ever went out looking for books, he picked up something called The Town and the City by a John Kerouac. Who's John Kerouac? But inside it's inscribed, Keep 'em hanging. Jack."

Jack Kerouac's first book. Signed. I always loved this story. "And he bought it."

"What's not to buy at twenty-five cents? Even you-"

"Marty's also all over the place," I reminded him quickly. "God couldn't be at every tag sale, so he created Marty."

"Isn't that the truth."

Marty definitely possessed Finger-Spitzengefuhl, that electric current that makes your fingertips tingle every time you are near something rare.

As if we had conjured him up, Marty Campagna appeared, crossing the driveway as he talked into a cell phone. He had cronies at sales all around the Island and called them constantly to talk strategy. The first time I met Marty with his shock of black hair, heavyrimmed glasses and longshoreman's physique, I was not impressed. But gradually he and his tingling fingers made their way into my nighttime fantasies. I wasn't surprised; I'm rarely attracted to men who can do me any good.

"Hey," I said, as he passed us on his way to the front of the line.

"Hey, Blondie."

"I hear you struck it rich in the dumpsters."

"What?"

I started to repeat Jack's story, but Marty waved it away. "The books were in the house and we had to buy all nine thousand. Paid way too much, and threw half of them out."

"You should have called me for the throwaways."

He laughed at that. "Nothing there you'd want"

"Try me." I felt absurdly pleased that he was treating me as an equal.

Someone in the front called a warning to him to line up, and Marty moved swiftly into place. He was always first or second in line. The rumor was that he paid someone to wait in line for him overnight. It was a rumor I believed.

But where was Margaret? If she didn't get here soon, she'd never get in! But maybe something had come up about Lily. Or maybe, when faced with driving here, she just hadn't felt up to it. Taking out my cell phone, I speed-dialed her house and got her answering machine. I hoped it meant she was on her way.

"Delhi!"

Now what? I turned back around. Jack wasn't finished with me. "What did Margaret find?"

The words didn't compute. "Nothing. She's not even here."

He blinked with impatience, reminding me that, of his "students," I was sailing steerage. "I don't mean today. According to Marty, she found something very important. Something rare. I thought if anyone would know, it would be you."

"Well, I don't." I was about to say that Margaret didn't believe in great finds, when something dark red and hot, something that in my past had been linked with betrayal, crept up the back of my neck. Marty wouldn't be mistaken about something like that; he had been sure enough to pass it on to Jack. But Margaret had refused to tell me. She must think you're a complete amateur, my inner cynic jeered.

"When did she find this?"

"Dunno. I heard about it Thursday."

And then the hacienda door swung open, killing all conversation. A woman stepped through the carved door and waved an arm at us. She was thin, blond, and fretful, with red-framed reading glasses on the edge of her bony nose. "Listen to the rules," she announced in a reedy New York voice. "The first fifteen get in. Work it out among yourselves. I'm not getting involved. Work it out like adults or no one gets in!"

It had the effect of turning us into children. Eyes down, we formed a single straight line and shuffled along meekly as she counted us off. But we were the winners! The rest of the line would have to wait until we came out again. One out, one more in.

Inside the marble-tiled hall, I resisted the temptation to follow Marty and his Finger-Spitzengefuhl-he had leaped over to a built-in bookcase in the living room and was yanking large art books off the shelves. Probably wonderful books too. But I ran up the wide staircase and, in the first room, a wonderful assortment was laid out on a bed. I snatched up From Edinburgh to India and Burmah, Arctic, and a beautifully illustrated original of Egyptian Mummies.

In a smaller bedroom that had the mustiness of summers past, I came upon a collection of children's books, one of my specialties. After picking out Thornton Burgess, Clare Turley Newberry, and Noel Streatfeild, I saw that the shelf below held vintage mysteries. I was reaching for a Charlie Chan novel with a colorful dust jacket, my index finger pulling it toward me, when a larger hand snaked in below mine and gripped the spine. I held on and twisted around, outraged.

It was Jack Hemingway, his white-bearded face smiling at me. He took advantage of my shock to yank the novel free. "Sorry, but this one's mine," he said firmly. "I saw it first" What was he talking about? I opened my mouth to protest when I saw he was rapidly emptying the other mysteries into his carton. Furiously, I started grabbing books at random too.

When the shelf was bare, Jack disappeared. I dragged my vinyl bag back to the master bedroom to see what I had amassed. Charlie Chan had been the prize. Most of the other books had unfamiliar authors or were lacking dust jackets, their wartime-printed pages badly yellowed. I shoved the pile under the bed in case I came back to the sale later when they would be cheaper.