the deck:
Slater hadn’t hired me for my good looks after all. A
far greater purpose was hidden under the surface: what had
been presented as an interesting side dish was in fact the
main course, and the big question was
why the camouflage
? I was told to play lead in
Singin’ in the Rain
, and now, well into the opening number, I learned it was
really
West Side Story
we were doing. In a minute Pruitt would come down and
we’d do one of those crazy numbers where the good
guys sing and dance with the hoods, just before they all
yank out their zip guns and start zipping each other into
hoodlum heaven. I scanned the street again, searching for
some sign of life, but even Poe had disappeared into the
murky shadows from whence he’d come.
I tossed Rigby’s flat tire into her trunk and
contemplated the spare. I resisted the inclination to
laugh, but it was a close call: she must’ve searched
the world to’ve found five tires that bad.
I’ll take your four worst tires and save the best
of my old ones for a spare
. You gotta be kidding, lady, there ain’t no best
one.
Oh. Then throw away the three worst and give me
whatever’s left
. You know the routine, Jack Nicholson did it in a
restaurant in
Five Easy Pieces
: four over well, cooked to a frazzle, and hold the tread.
Pruitt didn’t need a knife, a hairpin would’ve
done it for him. I hummed “I Feel Pretty” in a
grotesque falsetto as I fitted the tire onto the wheel, but
it didn’t seem to brighten the moment. Crunch time
was coming, and I still didn’t know what I was going
to do. It was that goddamned Poe, the wily little bastard:
he had cast his lot with Slater and was waxing me good.
That one line about Baudelaire in the Huggins bibliography
had been the hook, and I was too much the bookman to shake
it free.
Was it possible that Darryl Grayson had been working on
a two-book set, Poe and Baudelaire, English and French, at
the time of his death, and that one copy of the Poe had
been completed and had survived? If you read “Dear
Abby” faithfully, as I do, you know that anything is
possible. What would such a book be worth, quote-unquote,
in today’s marketplace?…A unique piece with a
direct link to the deaths of two famous bookmen, snatched
from the blaze just as the burning roof caved in. Was it
truly the best and the brightest that Darryl Grayson could
make? If so, it was worth a fair piece of change. Ten
thousand, I thought, Slater even had that right: it was
worth just about ten grand on the high end. But with
one-of-a-kind pieces, you never know. I could envision an
auction with all the half-mad Grayson freaks in attendance.
If two or three of them had deep pockets, there was no
telling how high such a book might go.
I tightened the last of the lugs with my fingers. Not
much time left now, and it wasn’t going to end with
the whole company out in the street singing
“Maria.” I needed some quick inspiration and
got it—the thin point of my filing-cabinet key shoved
into her air valve brought the spare hissing down flat. She
didn’t hear a thing: the rain was drumming on her
roof and her window was up. I got up and walked around the
car, looking at her through the glass. She cracked the
window and gave me a hopeful smile.
“The news is not good. Your spare’s flat
too.
”She didn’t say anything: just took a deep
breath and stared at her knuckles as she gripped the wheel.
I fished for a legitimate opening, any bit of business that
might make her trust a half-drowned stranger on a dark and
rainy night. “I could call you a cab,” I said,
and my luck was holding—she shook her head and said,
“I don’t have enough money left for a
cab.” That was a cue, but I didn’t leap at it
like a sex-starved schoolboy, I let it play out in a long
moment of silence. “I could loan you the
money,” I said cheerfully, and
Slater hadn’t hired me for my good looks after all. A
far greater purpose was hidden under the surface: what had
been presented as an interesting side dish was in fact the
main course, and the big question was
why the camouflage
? I was told to play lead in
Singin’ in the Rain
, and now, well into the opening number, I learned it was
really
West Side Story
we were doing. In a minute Pruitt would come down and
we’d do one of those crazy numbers where the good
guys sing and dance with the hoods, just before they all
yank out their zip guns and start zipping each other into
hoodlum heaven. I scanned the street again, searching for
some sign of life, but even Poe had disappeared into the
murky shadows from whence he’d come.
I tossed Rigby’s flat tire into her trunk and
contemplated the spare. I resisted the inclination to
laugh, but it was a close call: she must’ve searched
the world to’ve found five tires that bad.
I’ll take your four worst tires and save the best
of my old ones for a spare
. You gotta be kidding, lady, there ain’t no best
one.
Oh. Then throw away the three worst and give me
whatever’s left
. You know the routine, Jack Nicholson did it in a
restaurant in
Five Easy Pieces
: four over well, cooked to a frazzle, and hold the tread.
Pruitt didn’t need a knife, a hairpin would’ve
done it for him. I hummed “I Feel Pretty” in a
grotesque falsetto as I fitted the tire onto the wheel, but
it didn’t seem to brighten the moment. Crunch time
was coming, and I still didn’t know what I was going
to do. It was that goddamned Poe, the wily little bastard:
he had cast his lot with Slater and was waxing me good.
That one line about Baudelaire in the Huggins bibliography
had been the hook, and I was too much the bookman to shake
it free.
Was it possible that Darryl Grayson had been working on
a two-book set, Poe and Baudelaire, English and French, at
the time of his death, and that one copy of the Poe had
been completed and had survived? If you read “Dear
Abby” faithfully, as I do, you know that anything is
possible. What would such a book be worth, quote-unquote,
in today’s marketplace?…A unique piece with a
direct link to the deaths of two famous bookmen, snatched
from the blaze just as the burning roof caved in. Was it
truly the best and the brightest that Darryl Grayson could
make? If so, it was worth a fair piece of change. Ten
thousand, I thought, Slater even had that right: it was
worth just about ten grand on the high end. But with
one-of-a-kind pieces, you never know. I could envision an
auction with all the half-mad Grayson freaks in attendance.
If two or three of them had deep pockets, there was no
telling how high such a book might go.
I tightened the last of the lugs with my fingers. Not
much time left now, and it wasn’t going to end with
the whole company out in the street singing
“Maria.” I needed some quick inspiration and
got it—the thin point of my filing-cabinet key shoved
into her air valve brought the spare hissing down flat. She
didn’t hear a thing: the rain was drumming on her
roof and her window was up. I got up and walked around the
car, looking at her through the glass. She cracked the
window and gave me a hopeful smile.
“The news is not good. Your spare’s flat
too.
”She didn’t say anything: just took a deep
breath and stared at her knuckles as she gripped the wheel.
I fished for a legitimate opening, any bit of business that
might make her trust a half-drowned stranger on a dark and
rainy night. “I could call you a cab,” I said,
and my luck was holding—she shook her head and said,
“I don’t have enough money left for a
cab.” That was a cue, but I didn’t leap at it
like a sex-starved schoolboy, I let it play out in a long
moment of silence. “I could loan you the
money,” I said cheerfully, and
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