Huckleberry Fiend (9 page)

“You want to tell me how you know Beverly Alexander?” I did. The hell of it was, I was dying to. As little faith as I had in Blick as an investigator, I had the sense to know I was concealing evidence. But I couldn’t incriminate Booker and, anyway, I had no manuscript to support the story. True, I had the Post-It… my eyes strayed to the coffee table. It had mysteriously disappeared.

“How I know her is, she left a message on my machine. Do you want to tell me why you’re so eager to get Pamela Temby’s unlisted number?”

He turned red, though not, I’m sure, with embarrassment. He was mad. “What are you talking about?”

“You want my list of phone numbers, you get a search warrant.” I held out my hand, but Blick stood up and flung the thing on the floor.

“Fuck off, asshole!” He left in what you might call a huff. Things had gone so swimmingly I didn’t even give him a “dildo” back for his “asshole.”

I was in such a good mood I called Booker, who castigated me for being careless and also for waking him up. News of the list, however, picked him up a bit. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

“You told me to shut up.”

“I guess I was upset.”

“I guess I don’t blame you.”

“One thing, Mcdonald— you make any Papa Bear jokes, I’ll burgle every friend and relative you ever had.”

Next I called Debbie Hofer to ask for the clips on Wolf, Kittrell, and, just for good measure, Temby. While she was looking them up, I made one other call. Isami Wommy hadn’t yet left for what our man Mark would have called the Sandwich Islands. She sounded very upset: “Jack, is it you?”

“Miss Williams?”

“What?”

“May I speak to Sarah Williams, please?”

With a noise like a sob, she rang off, but what that meant I didn’t know— maybe just that she was upset about the burglary.

It was an hour before Deb got back to me, but when she did she had good stuff. “Did you know Temby’s your neighbor?”

“Pamela Temby in Oakland? I’d sooner believe Liz Taylor lives in Lodi.”

“Not exactly Oakland. Piedmont.”

“That’s different.” Piedmont was a bubble of affluence that had the misfortune to be surrounded by déclassé Oakland. I didn’t know how its well-heeled citizens could stand to drive through the one to get to the other. They held their noses, I suppose.

“What else do you have on her?”

“Just the usual author interviews and sightings at parties.”

“How about Kittrell?”

“He’s a case. Another local— lives in San Francisco. Telegraph Hill to be exact, in quite a grand apartment, I’m told.”

“What does he do?”

“Goes to parties, you’d think from the clips. I asked the society editor, and she confirmed it. Quite the aging social butterfly. He comes from old money, but he’s gone through most of it by now. Never worked a day in his life that anyone knows of. Married four times, not currently hitched. But, curiously, he’s said to be quite erudite. One of these elegant, sophisticated, bitchy wits that everyone loves.”

“The Truman Capote of Telegraph Hill.”

“The same type,” she said, “but don’t imagine he’s ever written a word in his life— except scholarly pieces for literary journals.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Not a bit of it. Guess what his hobby is?”

“Collecting rare books and manuscripts, by any chance?”

“Bingo. You’re obviously on the right track.”

“What about Wolf?”

“That one’s a little dicier. I’ve got stuff on a Herb Wolf, but I don’t know if he’s your boy. He’s a second-rate movie producer, from the looks of things.”

“What things?”

“Oh, stuff like ‘The Robot Who Ate Rhode Island.’ That was a comedy, I think. However, the drive-in critic gave ‘City of Vampires’ a ten on the vomit meter.”

“He doesn’t sound like an intellectual.”

“He’s the best I can do.”

“You did great, Deb. Thanks a mil.”

Looking at the Post-It again, I saw that our Herb Wolf had a Los Angeles area code. It could be the same guy.

Full of my news, I went up to tell Sardis, hoping to chew it all over over a cup of coffee. She answered the door in shorts and paint-spattered T-shirt. “Oh. Paul. I’m painting.”

“You certainly ducked out at the right moment.”

“You know what the tough do.”

“You left too soon. Blick was putty in my hands.”

“Listen, could you tell me about it tonight? I’ll make dinner.”

“Oh. Okay. Sure.” She must have seen I was a little nonplussed, because she softened up and gave me a little smile.

“What are you doing today?”

“I thought I’d go over to the Bancroft Library and see Linda McCormick again.”

“The specific editor?”

“Yeah. I could just call, but—”

“You kind of like her, don’t you?”

“Well, sure. She’s—”

“You know what? It kind of pisses me off.” She gave me a quick kiss and closed the door.
Well, hell
, I thought; it was nice of her to say she was jealous— even if she didn’t mean it.

Okay, if Sardis wouldn’t have coffee with me, maybe Linda would. I did call her. And made a date for twenty minutes hence, at the espresso joint known to Cal students as Café Depresso.

She was wearing pants today, and a slightly wrinkled silk blouse. Her eye makeup was blue, to match the blouse, and had been applied every-which-way. I certainly hoped she was never tempted to undergo one of those “beauty makeovers” you hear about.

“Linda, I have a confession to make.”

She nodded, dabbing discreetly at a cappuccino moustache. “The story I’m working on isn’t just a feature. I think it’s developing into something bigger than that.”

She nodded again.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you what it is, but I need to ask you a few more questions. Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

“I’ve been given the names of three collectors, and I’m wondering if you know them.”

Silence. Just a nice, big, encouraging smile. This Linda didn’t waste words, but she was eloquent in her own way. “Pamela Temby, Russell Kittrell, and Herb Wolf.”

“I know Temby. She bought a letter once, and was nice enough to let us see it. The others I never heard of, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t collectors— even big collectors. Some of them collect just so they’ll have something no one else has. And some carry it even farther— they don’t even want you to know what they have.”

“But why?”

She shrugged. “I guess it makes them feel important.”

“God. Can you imagine what Mark Twain would have thought of that?”

“He was a doer.” She smiled shyly. “Like you. Some people don’t do anything.”

I was a little embarrassed at being compared with Mark Twain. “I don’t do much.”

“You wrote a good book.”

“You know about that?”

“Sure. I looked you up in the card catalogue. You don’t work for the
Chronicle
either. I tried to call you there.”

“Oh. I don’t know what to say.” Things had gone so well with Blick and now this specific editor had me speechless.

She smiled invitingly. “Just tell me what you want.”

“That wouldn’t be polite.” God! I was flirting again. Well, Sardis had driven me to it. “But here’s what I need. Scuttlebutt. Gossip. I need to know who’s in the scholarly Mark Twain community, if there is such a thing— and who’d be interested in buying an important manuscript.”

She answered quickly. “We would. You have something to sell? You know, you can get a big tax break just by donating.”

“I’m not the seller. I think—” I hesitated, not sure how much I dared tell her.

Her eyes looked wide and interested, even encouraging.

I plunged ahead: “I’m pretty sure a stolen manuscript is about to go on the market. I’m trying to recover it for the rightful owner.”

“How did you get involved?”

“I can’t tell you that.” I’d probably already told her far too much— especially in view of my earlier questions about the Huck Finn holograph.

“Okay.” She shrugged, apparently deciding I had an honest face. “First, see Rick Debay in San Francisco. He’s the biggest dealer around, and he specializes in Mark Twain. Second—” She blushed, “—are you free this evening?”

“Sure.” (After dinner with Sardis, anyway.)

“I could take you to a meeting of the Huckleberry Fiends.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re familiar with Sherlockians, aren’t you?”

“Sure.”

“And fan conventions in various genres?”

“Yes.”

“Well, why shouldn’t Mark Twain have a fan club too?”

“Holy mother of mackinoli— that’s what it is?”

“Listen, I’ve got to run. Meet me at seven, okay? At the library.”

So much for dinner with Sardis.

Richard Debay, Rare Books and Manuscripts (Specializing in Mark Twain) was listed in the phone book, on Sutter Street. If I hurried, I might be able to get there before Rick went to lunch.

It was a bibliophile’s Disneyland. It smelled of books— old, musty, delicious books, many in leather bindings, some beautifully preserved, some in stages of decay that only made them seem even more enticing, as if they’d been through a lot. It was a tiny store, lined with hundreds of volumes, and there was a circular stairway up to a second level. There were also plenty of library ladders and a warm crimson carpet on the floor. On the very few feet of wall space that weren’t covered by bookshelves were framed letters signed by authors or other important people, like Abraham Lincoln.

And behind the counter was one of San Francisco’s leading literary lights. “Hello,” I said. “You’re Jenny Swensen, aren’t you?”

She was a small, dark, nervous-looking woman about forty-five, with a sour expression that dissipated instantly on being recognized. “Yes, I am.”

“I’ve read all your books.”

“All three,” she said, looking miffed, as if mad at herself for not producing more.

“Short stories too.”

“One of them
is
short stories.”

“
Dark Nights
. It’s my favorite.” I was lying a little— it was actually the one I disliked least— but I didn’t feel even a little bit guilty about it. If ever a woman needed a boost, it was clearly Jenny. She was published routinely in the
New Yorker
and despite her meager output contrived to be the very darling of the
New York Times Book Review
. Yet she seemed so unsure of herself she couldn’t even take a compliment until it was offered several times in a variety of forms. I seemed to have gotten through to her at last.

“Thanks,” she said finally. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Richard Debay.”

She picked up a phone, pushed a button and asked while it rang: “What name shall I give him?”

“Paul Mcdonald. From the
Chronicle
.”

The nervous look came back. “Oh. The
Chronicle
. Rick doesn’t really—” but Rick must have come on the line then. She spoke too low for me to hear, then hung up and said he’d be right down.

“He doesn’t like reporters?” I asked.

She smiled. “Maybe he’ll like you.”

Rick came down the ladder and extended his hand, the perfect preppie from central casting— blond, tanned (just a little, as if he sailed on weekends), khaki pants, open-necked white shirt, even Top-Siders. He was in his early thirties or damned well preserved.

“I thought,” I said, “you’d be a bespectacled old man.”

“That was my dad.”

I waved an arm. “I should have known this wasn’t built in a day.”

Debay moved behind the counter, maybe to put a little distance between us. Jenny Swensen, one of America’s most touted authors, busied herself with the mundane business of dusting. “What can I do for you, Mr. Mcdonald?”

“I’m working on a story about manuscript collecting.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Odd sort of news story.”

“Yes, well, that’s what attracted me to it. No one cares about books anymore. Have you noticed?”

“Not at all.”

“You’re fortunate. Out in the concrete jungles—” I turned around to point to the outside, but I found myself flustered. I’d been about to speak of the Philistines abounding in the lanes and hedgerows when I realized Debay was making it clear he thought me one of them. “In the age of TV, I wanted to write about some people who really care about books— care passionately, I mean.”

“And how may I help you?”

“I thought that, since the university has just published that wonderful new edition of
Huckleberry Finn
, I’d write about Mark Twain collectors. The people at the Bancroft Library say there are lots of them, and they’re quite colorful. I’ve even heard Pamela Temby is a collector.”

“Have you?” His expression said he smelled rotten eggs, but I couldn’t tell whether it was aimed at me or Temby.

I shrugged, hoping I seemed casual and worldly-wise. “I haven’t confirmed it yet. At any rate, the folks at the Bancroft sent me to you.”

He looked as if I were speaking Bulgarian. “Whatever for?”

“I’d like to interview some collectors. They thought you might be able to give me the names of some of the big ones.” Now I’d done it. I’d obviously made a request on a par with drinking the blood of his firstborn. I knew it before he spoke.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly violate the privacy of my clients.”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize privacy was involved.” But I should have, after Linda’s remark about collectors not wanting people to know what they had. Debay’s extraordinary standoffishness added another dimension to this urgent need for privacy— combined with the fact that dealers didn’t like to have documents authenticated, it had started to smell a little on the piscine side. “Without giving names of specific collectors,” I said, “can you tell me how I might go about meeting some?”

More eggs seemed to be rotting. “There’s some kind of organization called the Huckleberry Fiends. But I’m afraid I really can’t tell you much about it.”

“I’ll check it out. Thanks for your time, Mr. Debay.”

I more or less staggered out, still reeling from one of the most thorough bum’s rushes I’d ever been treated to— and for an ex-reporter, that’s saying something. For a while I just stood on the sidewalk, staring into space and trying to get my bearings; and then I turned around and stared in the window. Jenny Swensen was putting on her coat, probably getting ready for lunch, and it occurred to me she might have a thing or two to say about working conditions in a rare bookstore.