Necessity (5 page)

By then it is time to drive to Van Nuys airport for her lesson.

16
She's going to want two apartments: one that can be used as a vested lawful address; the other to live in.

For her legal residence she picks out a furnished room off Lankershim Boulevard. She chooses it mainly because it's cheap and because the mailbox, to which she is given a key, is in an oleander-screened passage around the side of the building. She can drive in by way of the alley and no one watching the apartment or the main doors will be able to see her when she checks the mailbox.

The rental agency is a busy office a mile away and that's helpful because she doubts very much that they'll remember what she looked like when she signed up. They won't see her again; she only needs to remember to send in the rent check once a month.

Hurrying through cheap department stores and thrift shops she buys a wardrobe of new and used clothing. The three pairs of shoes are two sizes too large for her and the underwear and clothes are chosen to fit a woman approximately three inches shorter and ten pounds heavier than she.

In Duttons' bookshop she picks up a carton of second-hand paperbacks, most of them Regency romances. She buys an old black and white TV set for forty dollars and a couple of timers that will turn the lamps on and off automatically; an assortment of inexpensive toiletries and cosmetics, none of them her own brands; two bottles of very cheap wine, a few frozen foods and juices, several cans of soup and a few boxes of crackers—a variety of nonperishable foods with which to stock the dummy apartment so that it will look lived in.

She makes the bed and squirms in it and then climbs out, leaving the top sheet and blanket turned back and the pillow dented and a romance novel open face down on the bedside table. It occurs to her to leave two windows narrowly ajar to permit air circulation so that the place won't feel stuffy and uninhabited. Then she hangs a set of towels on the racks, unwraps a bar of soap and a toothbrush, uses them and leaves them in the bathroom.

A couple of tissues crumpled in the wastebasket; a folded paper towel beside the sink with an upended coffee cup on it; let's see—what else?

It seems enough. Not much by way of evidence about the woman who lives here—but such as it is, it doesn't point to the real tenant.

The next thing to do is leave a forwarding address at the motel where she's been staying. From now on, this is the legal and mailing address of Jennifer Corfu Hartman.

And now for her actual residence she investigates seven or eight advertisements and chooses a one-bedroom apartment at the back of a court.

The furniture is nondescript; you could find better in a second-class hotel. The place is dark because its windows are small and set high, insulation and privacy and security being more important than light or a better view of the swimming pool in the unshaded yard below.

Under the afternoon sun it is far from cool in mid-July even though the through-the-wall air-conditioning units are running at capacity.

It has no grace, no flavor—nothing left of the transients who must have occupied it momentarily on their way up or on their way down or simply on their way through.

She takes it because it is clean and it is furnished and the price is reasonable and it is available month to month for cash without a lease.

She doesn't expect to entertain here; with luck nobody will know she lives here; she doesn't intend to stay any longer than it will take to get her bearings and decide on a structure for her new life and find a residence suitable to it: one into which she may blend so precisely that she'll never arouse anyone's curiosity.

It all needs to take place quickly. Because of Ellen it is a matter of acute urgency: she has six weeks, no longer. But she can't execute the crucial part of the plan until the license with her photograph on it arrives in the mail from Sacramento.

That will take a fortnight or more. Time enough to set Jennifer Corfu Hartman up in business.

17
She finds the shop easily enough from the instructions on the phone. It's set back in a little Burbank shopping mall, hardly much bigger than a motel—she counts eleven stores in the U-shaped court.

When she emerges from the car it is like opening the door of an oven that someone neglected to turn off two days ago: the heat has accumulated in pavement and walls and cars from which it radiates in lancing slivers of reflected sunlight, as painful against the eyes as steel darts.

Everything is too bright, too raw. She scrutinizes the place with unease and a growing skepticism.

It shows painful evidence of a promoter-builder's efforts to be quaint. The shops have high wooden false fronts and the walkway is shaded by a veranda roof supported on posts and wooden arches—an imitation wild west movie set. The parking lot is decorated with wagon wheels.

There are a western wear shop, an ice cream bar, the Native American Crafts Shop, a one-hour photo store, a harness and tack outfit that features silver-tooled saddles; she makes a face at the hitching rail in front of that one. Next door a display window holds agate and turquoise jewelry under a wooden sign that hangs on chains and carries the legend The Desert Rockhound. On the corner by the curb is a restaurant where you may eat al fresco at rustic tables under big umbrellas, the dining area surrounded by a split-rail corral fence. Behind it the small windows are filled with colored neon signs advertising several brands of beer. That is—inevitably?—Buffalo Bill's Saloon.

It looks like bloody Disneyland, she thinks, and makes her dubious way toward the half-hidden corner shop that announces itself with a meekly faded sign as Books of the West.

Inside she finds the soothing relief of air conditioning and another kind of relief that the shop hasn't been decorated with cheap gimcracks: no framed plastic replicas of old guns.

The bookcases along both walls are filled with volumes most of which don't seem to be new—many are without dust jackets—and the bins and tables that crowd the center of the room are stacked high with oversized picture books and paperbacks and bargain selections: All Books On This Table $1.59.

The cash register near the front door is a genuine antique—brass keys and pop-up numbers behind glass. But she sees a computer screen on the shelf behind.

There is no one at the counter. Two men are deep in conversation near the back: the older one glances her way and speaks up: “Be right with you, ma'am.”

“Take your time,” she says. “No hurry.” She smiles at his “ma'am.”

He is white-haired: tall with a flowing white gunfighter's mustache, a bit stooped, dressed in jeans and an outdoorsy red plaid shirt. The customer with him is younger—thirties or early forties, brown mustache, khaki poplin business suit.

She removes her sunglasses and replaces them with the clear-lensed ones and glances along the shelves. Hand-crayoned signs thumbtacked to the bookcases identify their subject matter: American Indians … California History … Colorado River … Gold Rush … Gunmen.…

The man with white hair separates himself from his customer and comes forward through the clutter. She sees that he is younger than he appeared at a distance; his smooth tanned face is interestingly in contrast with the color of his hair, which is abundant and well combed, and with the stoop of his shoulders, which at closer glance seems a symptom of scholarliness rather than age. He's nearer fifty than seventy. His eyes are a troubled brown behind silver-framed glasses.

“May I help you?” He pronounces it
he'p.
Texas, she decides.

“I'm Jennifer Hartman—the one who called this morning about your ad? Are you Mr. Stevens?”

“Doyle Stevens.” His handshake is almost reluctant. He goes behind the counter and glances out the window and touches a corner of the cash register. He seems to go slack. His attention flits around the walls and she senses a furtive desperation. He utters an awkward laugh. “I feel tongue-tied,” he says.

Then he punches a button: there is the jingle of the high-pitched bell and the No Sale tab flips up and the drawer slams open with a satisfying crunch of noise. It is a gesture: some kind of punctuation.

He says: “You don't look like somebody looking to get into this kind of business.”

It startles her because she hasn't had the feeling he's scrutinized her at all. “I'm sorry. What should I look like?”

He flaps a hand back and forth, dismissing it. “You want to know how's business, I expect. I can tell you how it is. Calm as a horse trough on a hot day. Or, to put it another way, and not to put too fine a point on it—business is terrible. You think we'd be putting ads in the papers if we were earning a fortune here?”

He pokes his head forward: suspicious, belligerent. The mustache seems to bristle. “Mostly I get fuzzy-headed inquiries by phone. Investors looking for opportunities—want to know about inventory and volume of business. Traffic in the location, all that jargon and bullroar. I tell them if they need to ask those kinds of questions, this is the wrong place for them. I tell them it's a terrible investment for a real businessman. You could earn more on your money with a passbook savings account.”

Doyle Stevens prods his finger into the drawer and rattles a few coins around and finally pushes it shut. It makes a racket.

Finally he stares at her face. “I get letters from folks in Nebraska. Retired couples looking to set themselves up in retail. Looking for something genteel to, I guess, keep them busy while they enjoy the winter sunshine. I tell them too—forget it, my friends, it's hard work and it's full time and then some. My wife and I work a six-day week. And most of our evenings on the cataloging and the mail order.”

He squints at her. “You don't do this to make money. And you can't treat it like some kind of part-time hobby.”

She says: “No. You do it because you adore it.”

But her smile seems to exacerbate his anger.

She says, “You have to love the smell of old books.”

“Don't romanticize it. I hate sentimentality.”

Sure you do, she thinks. What she says is, “Do you and Mrs. Stevens work here together?”

“Normally. She's at the accountant's office this morning. Trying to untangle some of the shambles. Paperwork. Federal government, state, county of Los Angeles, you'd think we were right up there alongside General Motors. A small binness like this, the paperwork alone can—Aagh, doesn't matter.”

He pulls an old-fashioned pocketwatch out of his shirt pocket and snaps its lid open and consults it. Oddly, she does not have the impulse to laugh at the affectation.

He says, “She's got a good head for that kind of paperwork. And she's saintly patient with the bureaucracies and their fools. I expect her back shortly, in time for lunch.”

Then he peers at her. “Ever been in the retail book trade?”

“No.”

“Then maybe you're a Western buff. Afficionado of frontier feminism or Indian folk medicine—one of these fashionable concerns?”

“I wouldn't know a frontier feminist from Martha Washington. But I adore books and I'd like to learn.”

Doyle Stevens doesn't try to conceal his suspicion. “Care to tell me why you called?”

“Will you answer one question first?”

He has the talent to cock one eyebrow inquisitively. For some nonsensical reason she has always admired men who can do that. Ever since her third birthday when Uncle Dave—

She shuts off the thought, slamming a door roughly upon it; she says: “‘Investment opportunity for Western Americana bibliophile'—don't you think that's ambiguous? Your ad doesn't make it clear whether you want someone to invest in your business so you can keep it going—or whether you just want to sell it and get out.”

He turns away momentarily. She guesses he's looking at the customer in the back of the store. The man is well beyond earshot, putting a book back on its shelf and taking another down to examine it.

Doyle Stevens says, “How many sane people you think I'd find, invest money in this loony operation to keep it going?”

“So you want to sell it and get out.”

He waves a hand around, bringing within its compass everything in the shop.

“My wife and I owe the publishers close to ten thousand dollars in unpaid invoices. Another two, three thousand to the jobbers. Owe the bank sixty-five thousand in business loans, eighty thousand mortgage on our house. So you see the plain fact is, Miss Hartman—”

“Mrs.”

“Beg your pardon.” He takes it without a break in expression. “Mrs. Hartman. Plain fact is I could've filed bankruptcy but I'd rather not see a receiver take over this inventory. I kind of doubt we'd be fortunate enough to have it fall into the hands of a banker with a true hankering for Western books.”

He folds his hands, interlacing the fingers, looking down at them as if making a religious obeisance. “I was hoping to sell to somebody who'd have—at least a certain respect for this collection. Here, look here.”

He takes down off the shelf behind him a heavy hardcover with a pale blue dust jacket. It looks quite new. Stevens opens it with reverent care.
“Triggernometry.
Cunningham. The first edition, Caxton Press. Pret' near mint condition. You have any idea how rare and precious this book is to a true collector?”

Then he replaces it on its shelf and heaves his thin arm high, pointing toward the very top of the bookcase. “Up there—all those? Firsts. Lippincott. Complete works of General Charles King, starting with
The Colonel's Daughter,
eighteen and eighty-one. The first Western novel. The very first Western of all time.”

He possesses a bashful wicked smile like a little boy's: peeking at you out of the corner of his eye, trying to get away with something when he thinks you're not looking. “That is if you don't count the penny dreadfuls and the Prentiss Ingraham dime novels and those God-awful stage melodramas of Buntline's.”