The Hemingway Thief (27 page)

“Ever see
The Great Escape
?” I said. I was tired of answering hypotheticals, tired of trying to understand the mind of a dead man I'd never met, tired of using logic as an unsuitable substitute for hope. I was tired of arguing.

“Never seen it,” they all said in one form or another. I wasn't surprised.

“Surrounded by goddamn philistines,” I said. “Great flick. Steve McQueen, James Garner, James Fucking Coburn. Great movie. There's a scene where they're explaining where they hid the tunnels.”

“Does this have a point?” Grady asked.

“Charles Bronson was the Tunnel King. This was back before
Death Wish
, when Bronson was an actor, not a joke. He's talking to Dick Attenborough in one of the dorms and he shows him a stove.” I edged around the potbelly, dragging my boot through the ash. The thin rut got longer as my boot moved over it. It met another rut and made a corner, then another rut and another corner, until it made a square surrounding the stove. I mimed lifting something heavy and did my best Bronson impression. “No one moves a hot stove, yes?”

“I'm leaving,” Grady said. I lifted my foot and kicked at the stove with my boot heel just as Milch had, but I was standing and I aimed for the top. The stove leaned back on its rear feet, and just as it was about to right itself, I kicked it again. It crashed down in the dirt and spilled more ash from its belly. I dropped to my hands and knees and rooted through the ash at the center of the square. My fingers grazed over something cold, round, and hollow in the center. I seized it and pulled. It was a metal ring attached to a chain that ran down into the ash. I wrapped both hands around it and thrust my weight backward until I felt something give, and I landed on my ass.

When the ash cloud settled, we could see that I had pulled up a square piece of board and there was now a hole in the floor where the stove had been. I heard shuffling feet and felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Grady. Milch was at his side, and at the far end of the room Dutch stood with his hand over his mouth. The rain had let up enough to allow some daylight through the hole in the ceiling where the stovepipe had been. A shaft of light the diameter of a fence post illuminated what I had unearthed: a scratched, plain brown, and incredibly old suitcase.

Chapter Thirty

Back then, they would have called it a
valise
. It was cheap and common, the type of suitcase a correspondent for the
Toronto Star
could afford—black fiberboard with thick paper pasted on it to give the illusion of leather. It was smaller than I'd expected. I figured it couldn't have held more than a few large hardcover books. The clasps were tin painted to look like brass, and the paint was chipping off to reveal the rust underneath. It was in remarkable condition for being in a hole for the last few decades—a touch of mold on the side and the beginnings of rot on one corner, but that was it. There was a small stamp near the handle that read “Shwayder Trunk Co.” It looked like something you'd find in your grandmother's basement while cleaning it out after her funeral.

“Go ahead, Ebbie,” I said, and nudged him with my elbow. We were crowded around the hidey-hole, hunkered down on our haunches like trackers studying signs. Milch rubbed his hand on his forehead, mixing ash with sweat. The corner of his mouth pulled up toward his squinting eye as he considered the package less than a foot away.

“Should I touch it?” he said. “I saw in a movie where Nicolas Cage put gloves on before he touched the Declaration of Independence. You know, because of the oil on your fingers or something.”

“Did you bring any gloves?” Grady asked.

“No.”

“At least wipe your hands on your pants first, then,” Grady said. Milch drew in a deep breath like a high diver about to jump. He wiped his hands on his jeans several times and reached out slowly, tenderly. His hands started for the handle, hovered over the rolled fiberboard, his fingers dancing over it as he thought. He shook his head and reached in with both hands, picking the case up with the gentle ardor and uncertainty of a father picking up his child for the first time.

He carried it to the wire-spool table and set it down. The rusted clasps resisted and he pushed against them with his thumb, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, until they gave way with a plaintive squeak. Milch wiped his hands again, this time on his T-shirt, set them on either side of the top, and opened the case.

The person who had last packed the suitcase had done so with loving attention. The paper inside was stacked neatly in three columns, one on the left, one on the right, and a third placed on top of the other two so that it sagged in the middle. The middle column was made of onionskins, the translucent paper used to make carbon copies during the typewriter age. The ink was blurry and faded, like a notebook left in the rain. I could only make out one word in the title:
Auteuil
. Milch closed the lid and left his hands there, claiming it.

“You think it's real?” he asked. It was hoarse and whispered, like a parishioner in the middle of communion.

“I don't know,” I said, but that was a lie. I knew. I knew the moment the case opened and the words were splayed out in front of me, naked and seductive. It felt like we had peeked into a window and found something private, something not meant for our eyes. Elmo had been right. We were looking at the intimate workings of a man long since dead, a troubled man who led a troubled life. I felt a creeping sensation up the back of my neck, and I knew I would never be able to explain to Milch and Grady what this suitcase really meant.

“But you know people who would know, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “But with things like this it's never a hundred percent. There'll always be someone who calls it a hoax.”

“And there will be people who will pay for it.” Grady said.

“It doesn't matter,” I whispered. “No one will see it, but us.”

“What?” Milch said.

“Coop, you're being a defeatist again,” Grady said.

“We kept asking why Hemingway would have given up the suitcase, you know, the reason for the theft,” I said. The room, which had already carried the flavor of death, took on the quality of a funeral parlor; the suitcase, that of a corpse; and my heart, that of a mourning child. “But what never made sense to me was why he brought Hadley into it.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Milch said.

“Why blame her?” I continued. “At first I thought he was just being cruel, but that wasn't it.”

“Coop,” Grady said. “We should get moving.”

“I chalked it up to Hemingway being a woman-hating asshole, which he was, but misogyny doesn't explain why the suitcase was real. Why put real stories in there? For that matter, why even have an actual theft? Couldn't he have just
told
the publisher it was stolen? Wouldn't it make sense to keep the stories in a drawer somewhere so he could pull them out later?”

“Who gives a shit?” Milch said. “Let's go. It doesn't matter.”

“It does matter,” I said. I traced my finger over the edge of the suitcase, feeling each little tear on the paper lining. “It's the whole fucking point. There's a reason why your grandfather never went looking for it. There's a reason your uncle never showed it to anybody, and it has nothing to do with the value of the stories. It was loyalty—your grandfather's loyalty to your uncle and your uncle's loyalty to Hemingway. Call it love if you want. There was love there between them, and that's something like trust. Then the trust was broken, you see? It was broken, but Ebenezer kept the suitcase safe. He kept it safe and made the theft real. He wanted it to be real.”

“I think you're losing it, Coop,” Milch said. He wrapped his fingers around the suitcase handle and drew it closer to him. “Why would he care if people read these stories?”

“I started and stopped three novels before I finished my first one,” I said. “And the one I finished was pure shit. Everyone writes shit when they start. That's how it works. You write shit and then one day you get a little better, and then a little better than that, until you get good. If you're
lucky
, you get good. That's how it works.”

“OK, I vote we get going,” Grady said.

“Don't you get it? The theft wasn't just a stunt to get published. It was a purge,” I said. “That's why he had Hadley pack everything up and bring it to the train station. He knew he wasn't strong enough to do it himself. He couldn't murder his darlings.”

“Coop,” Grady said. He walked over and put a hand on my shoulder. “Fuck Hemingway.”

“It should be burned,” I said, looking up at him.

“You should see someone, man,” Milch said. “You've got issues.”

“No shit,” I said, and shook my head trying to clear it. “It's still raining. We shouldn't carry the suitcase out there without protection.”

“Didn't you say you wanted to burn it?” Milch asked.

“It was just a thought,” I said. It was more than that, though. It was the truth. I finally understood what Elmo wanted with the case. I had already agreed to bring it to him, but now I knew why.

“I got a plastic tarp under the front seat,” Dutch said.

“I'll get it,” Grady said, and he was out the door before we could answer. I picked at a splinter on the wire-spool table. Milch drummed his fingertips against the suitcase. Dutch became interested in a stain on his denim jacket.

“You made a deal with Elmo, didn't you?” Milch said, after the silence had become too acute to abide.

“What?” I said, snapping my head up to look him in the eye. He had a sad, weary smile on his face. I looked to Dutch for help, but he was still consumed by the contents of his jacket.

“Don't bullshit a bullshitter,” Milch said. “Last night Elmo didn't want to do shit for us. Then this morning he loads us up with transportation, guns, and a guide. Come on. Tell me. What'd you two work out?”

“He wants the suitcase,” I said with a dry mouth. I kept at the splinter, worrying it with my fingernail.

“Why?”

“I believe he means to burn it,” I said.

“Why?”

“I don't think you'd get it.”

“No,” Milch said, scratching his chin. “I don't think I would. What do we get?”

“He'll get us out of Mexico.”

“You think a border is going to stop someone like La Dónde?”

“I think we have a better shot up there, yes,” I said.

“What else?”

“Twenty-five grand each.”

“That's not much.”

“Sounded like a lot to me.”

“I meant comparatively,” Milch said.

“Compared to what?”

“If it makes you feel any better, I do feel guilty,” he said. I felt the air in the room cool a few degrees, and I shuddered from the chill. He stood and held the suitcase at his side like a man waiting for a train.

“Guilty? About what? Ebbie, what are you talking about?” I got a good hold on the splinter, pulled, and it came up in a long strip.

“Take your jacket off,” Milch said.

“Huh?” I said. Milch reached behind his back, under his jacket, and pulled out a gun. It was my derringer, the one Digby had given me.

“Where did you get that?” I asked. I was calm, more than I should have been. Perhaps I was getting used to being on the wrong end of a gun.

“I'm a thief, remember?” he said. “Picking pockets kind of goes with the territory. Now take off your jacket. I need something to wrap the case in.”

“You might want to think about this, brother,” Dutch said.

“Fuck off, hippie,” Milch said. I took off my corduroy jacket and tossed it to him. He wrapped the suitcase in it and clutched it to his chest.

“What about Grady?” I asked. Milch gestured with the gun.

“Let me worry about Grady,” he said. “Don't look at me that way. Seriously, Coop, you didn't see this coming?”

“I have to admit, I didn't,” I said, feeling foolish. “I mean, what's your play here? You still got La Dónde after you.”

“You're not the only one who can make deals,” he said. His tongue flicked over his lips like a reptile, and he laughed a hoarse, choppy snicker that was without joy.

“Chavez's place,” I said, closing my eyes and cursing myself.

“Yup,” Milch said. “Thandy was there, up in the private box Samantha took me to. He was up there sitting like a king, you know. See, he'd gotten there first, already heard Chavez's story, and he knew Elmo was the only one who knew where to find Ebenezer. So he waited to see what we would do. Then you go and tell Chavez you know a guy who can get you in.”

“You were watching us,” I said. Milch smiled and gave me a salute, touching the barrel of his gun to his temple.

“Cameras. Hell of a setup that Chavez has.”

“What did he offer you?” I asked.

“One hundred grand.”

“He'll never pay you.”

Milch shrugged.

“Gave me his word as a southerner,” he said. “Also, he wants you and Grady dead a lot more than me.”

“You stole the manuscript.”

“You tied him up with his own pants and kicked him down a mountain.”

“Goddamn it, that was Grady,” I said.

“I don't think Thandy is the kind of man who splits hairs on shit like that, you know?” Milch said.

“So the plan was for you to wait until we have the suitcase, and then you double-cross us?”

“You're one smart cookie, Mr. Velour,” Milch said. “Yeah, that's about the size of it. Then that bitch Samantha decides she doesn't want to play the waiting game. That was a close one. And the whole time I thought you were going to figure it out anyway.”

“Well, yeah, now it seems fairly obvious,” I said. “I have to admit I feel pretty stupid.”