The Bookman's Wake (5 page)

Just then she came out of the hallway. She walked past,
so close I could’ve touched her. I let her go,
following her out through the narrow foyer. By the time I
got to the door she had run to her car. I stood watching
her through the tiny pane of glass. Yes, she had seen the
flat tire: she was sitting in her car doing nothing. I
could imagine her disgust. Time for Loch-invar to appear,
as if by magic: a knight with a bouquet in one hand and a
set of shackles in the other. Bust her now, I thought,
walking out into the rain: bust her, Janeway, don’t
be an idiot. But there was Poe, grim and pasty-faced,
lurking in the dark places under the viaduct.

I stopped at the curb and pointed to her tire. She
cracked the window ever so slightly.

“You got a flat.”

“No kidding.”

“Hey,” I said in my kindest, gentlest voice.
“I can’t get any wetter than this. Gimme your
keys, I’ll get out your jack and change it for
you.”

S
he sat in the car while I changed her tire. I jiggled her
up, took off her lugs, and hummed a few bars of
“Singin‘ in the Rain.” Her spare tire was
like the others: it had been badly used in at least three
wars, the alleged tread frequently disappearing into snarls
of frayed steel. I hauled it out of the trunk and put it
gently on the curb. The street was as deserted as a scene
from some midfifties end-of-the-world flick, but it fooled
me not. Pruitt, I thought, was still out there somewhere, I
just couldn’t see him. If this were
Singiri in the Rain
, he’d come on down and we’d do a little
soft-shoe routine. I’d be Gene Kelly and we’d
get Eleanor Rigby out of the car to play Debbie Reynolds.
Pruitt would be Donald O’Connor, tap-dancing his way
up the side of the viaduct and out onto the highway, where
he’d get flattened by a semi. Suddenly I knew, and I
didn’t know how, that there was a joker in 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 I thought I saw her
doubts begin to vanish in the rain. “Hey, you can
mail it back to me when you’re flush again.”
She gave a dry little laugh and said, “That’ll
probably be never.” I shrugged and said,
“You’re on a bad roll, that’s all Look, I
don’t want you to get any wrong ideas, but I’ve
got a car right across the street. I could drive you
home…as long as you don’t live in Portland or
someplace.”

She seemed to be considering it. I knew I didn’t
look like anything out of the Seattle social register, so
sincerity was probably the best I could hope for. I leaned
in close, crossed my arms against her window, and talked to
her through the crack. “Look, miss, you can’t
stay out here all night. If you’re broke, I’ll
loan you the money for a place…a cheap place,
okay?…no strings attached. Call it my good deed for
the year, chalk it up to my Eagle Scout days. If
you’re worried about me, I can understand that,
I’ll slip you the money through the window and give
you an address where you can send it back to me when your
ship comes in. What do you say?”

“I thought Good Samaritans were
extinct.”

“Actually, I’m your guardian angel,” I
said, trying for a kidding tone to put her at ease.

“Well, you’ve sure been a long time
coming.”

“We never show up until the darkest possible
moment.”

“Then you’re right on time.”

“I could spare thirty dollars. You won’t get
much of a room for that, but it’s better than sitting
in your car all night.”

She leaned close to the crack and studied my face.

“Why would you do something like that?”

“Because you look like you’ve just lost your
last friend. Because I know you’ll pay me back.
Because once or twice in my life, I’ve been so far
down it looked like up to me.”

“Richard Farina.”

I didn’t say anything, but I was surprised she had
made that connection.

“That’s the title of a book by Richard
Farina.
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me
.”

I said, “Oh,” and pretended not to know it.
I’d have to watch that, keep the literary metaphors
out of my talk until I saw where we were heading.

“So what do you say?” I asked.

“I won’t take your money…but, yeah,
maybe a ride…I could use a ride if you’re going
my way.”

“I’m sure I am.”

I told her to stay put and I’d drive up close so
she wouldn’t get wet. Then I had her, snuggled in the
seat beside me. No wonder monsters like Ted Bundy had it so
easy. That thought crossed her mind too and she said,
“I guess I’m a sitting duck if you’re
some wacko from a funny farm.” She shrugged as if
even that wouldn’t matter much. I gave her the big
effort, a smile I hoped was reassuring. “Ma’am,
I don’t blame you at all for thinking that, I’d
be thinking it myself if I were in your shoes. All I can
tell you is, you’re as safe with me as you’d be
in a police station.”

I hoped this wasn’t laying it on too thick, but it
didn’t seem to bother her. “My name’s
Janeway.”

Her hand was warm and dry as it disappeared into mine.
“Eleanor Rigby.”

I was surprised that she’d use her real name: she
probably hadn’t had time yet to get used to being a
fugitive.

“Eleanor Rigby,” I repeated. “You mean
like…” and I hummed the staccato
counterpoint.

She tensed visibly at the melody. For a moment I was
sure she was going to get out and walk away in the rain.
“You’ve probably heard that a million
times,” I said, trying to make light of it. “I
imagine you’re sick of it by now.” Still she
said nothing: she seemed to be trying to decide about me
all over again. “Look, I didn’t mean anything
by that. I grew up on Beatles music, it was just a natural
connection I made. I sure wasn’t relating you to the
woman in the song.”

Her eyes never left my face. Again I was certain I was
going to lose her, she seemed that ready to break and run.
“We can start all over if you want. My name’s
Janeway, and I’ll still loan you the thirty if
you’d rather do it that way.”

She let out a long breath and said, “No, I’m
fine.”

“And your name is Eleanor Rigby, I understand.
It’s a great name, by the way. Really. How’d
you come to get it?”

“The same way you got yours, I imagine. I come
from a family of Rigbys and my father liked the name
Eleanor.”

“That’s as good a way as any.”

Now she looked away, into the rainy night. “This
is going to be a lot of trouble for you.”

“Trouble’s my middle name. Which way do you
want to go?”

“Get on the freeway and go south. Stay in the left
lane. When you see 1-90, branch off to the east, take
that.”

I turned the corner and saw Interstate 5, the cars
swirling past in the mist. I banked into the freeway,
glancing in my mirror. No one was there…only Poe,
interred in the backseat.

“You’d better turn that heater on,”
she said. “God, you’re so wet.”

“I will, soon’s the car warms up.”

She gave me a look across the vast expanse of my front
seat. “I guess you’re wondering what I was
doing in a bar if I was so broke.”

“I try not to wonder about stuff like
that.”

“This is the end of a long day, in a very long
week, in a year from hell. I was down to my last five
dollars. The only thing I could think of that I could buy
with that was a margarita. I had two and killed the five.
Sometimes I do crazy things like that.”

“So now what do you do? Do you have a
job?”

She shook her head.

“At least you’re not stranded here. I
couldn’t help noticing the Washington plates on your
car.”

“No, I’m not stranded. Just lost on planet
Earth.”

“Aren’t we all. I’m not so old that I
don’t remember what that feels like.”

“You’re not so old,” she said, looking
me over.

“You must be all of thirty.”

I laughed. “I’m not doing you that big a
favor. I’ll be forty years old before you know
it.”

“Almost ready for the nursing home.”

“You got it. Where’re we going, by the
way?”

“Little town called North Bend.”

Ah, I thought: Grayson country.

She sensed something and said, “Do you know North
Bend?”

“Never been there.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s just a wide
place in the road, but it happens to be where my family
lives. You know what they say about families. When you come
home broken and defeated, they’ve got to take you
in.”

She was still tense and I didn’t know how to
breach that. Food might do it: I’d seen that happen
more than once.

“Have you had dinner?”

She looked at me. “Now you’re going to buy
me dinner? Jeez, you must really be my guardian
angel.”

“So what do you say?”

“I feel like the last survivor of the Donner
party. That means yes, I’m starving.”

I saw an intersection coming up, filled with neon
promise.

“That’s Issaquah,” she said.
“There’s a Denny’s there. It was one of
my hangouts when I was in high school. Can you stand
it?”

I banked into the ramp.

“You look terrible,” she said. “I
don’t suppose you have a change of clothes. Maybe
they’ll let you in if you comb your hair.”

“If I get thrown out of a Denny’s,
it’ll be a bad day at Black Rock.”

Inside, we settled into a window booth. I ordered steaks
for both of us, getting her blessing with a rapturous look.
I got my first look at her in good light. She was not
beautiful, merely a sensational young woman with
world-class hair. Her hair sloped up in a solid wall,
rising like Vesuvius from the front of her head. It was the
color of burnt auburn, thick and lush: if she took it down,
I thought, it would reach far down her back. Her nose was
slightly crooked, which had the strange effect of adding to
her appeal. She could stand out in a crowd without ever
being a pinup. Her looks and ready wit probably made
job-hunting easy, if she ever got around to such
things.

“So what do you do for a living?” I
asked.

“Little of this, little of that. Mostly I’ve
been a professional student. I’ll probably still be
going to college when I’m thirty. I graduated from
high school at sixteen and I’ve been in and out of
one college or another ever since. I go for a while, drop
out, drift around, go somewhere else, drop out again. I
transfer across state lines and lose half my credits, then
I have to start up again, learning the whole boring
curriculum that I learned last year and already knew
anyway, just to get even again. Schools shouldn’t be
allowed to do that—you know, arbitrarily dismiss half
your credits just so they can pick your pocket for more
tuition. But that’s life, isn’t it, and
I’m sure it’s nobody’s fault but my own.
It drives my family nuts, the way I live, but we are what
we are. My trouble is, I’ve never quite figured out
what I am. This is a mighty lonely planet, way off in
space.”

It was the second time she had said something like that.
I was beginning to wonder if she had been star-crossed by
her name, doomed to play out the destiny of a lonely woman
whose entire life could be told in two short stanzas.