The Widow's Son Read online

  At least that’s how I’d explained it to Riverrun’s Chancellor of the Exchequer when I returned to Kansas City with a suitcase full of treasures.

  “So,” I said, brushing the crumbs off my shirt, “how are the numbers?”

  “Numbers?” Josie inquired innocently.

  “Yes. As in profits.”

  “Oh, them,” she teased. “You know how you’ve always promised that we’d be millionaires—or as you so elegantly put it, ‘farting through silk’?”

  I stared at her suspiciously. Riverrun’s sales were certainly up, thanks to Pillow Wilkes’s generosity, but I’d had no idea there was so much as a gleam at the end of our financial tunnel. Then again, Josie was not only beautiful, but brilliant. Who was I to question her accounting?

  “At this rate,” she continued while tapping her iPhone calculator, “if all goes really well, we should hit that figure by…”

  She punched in a few more numbers while I waited with bated breath for the happy declaration.

  “…December 2080.”

  “Pardon?” I smiled. “Did you mean 2018?”

  “No. The third quarter of 2080,” she confirmed. “Give or take a few weeks.”

  “But we brought in forty thousand dollars last month!”

  “And spent all but two thousand of it. We’re doing little better than breaking even, Michael. The debt load from the bank for the upgrades on the shop, plus your travel costs and book purchases, has tripled our expenses.”

  “Those trips are needed to maintain the quality of our inventory.”

  She bit her lip while studying the grounds in her coffee cup. I knew she was debating how direct she could be without insulting me. When she looked up again, her eyes were glistening.

  “I know how hard you’re working, darling. Riverrun can become as fine as any antiquarian shop in the Midwest, including Chicago. But we need to find a way to stay in business without your continually crisscrossing the country to build our stock. One solution is to entice quality dealers and their buyers to come to us. At least sometimes. That takes gaining their respect.”

  I nodded bitterly. “Our booth was practically ignored at the St. Louis Book Fair last month.”

  “It’s because Riverrun isn’t accredited by the ABAA. To the wealthy customers who matter, we’re still just another Johnny-come-lately in flyover country peddling used books. You know what we need to do?”

  “Yeah, I know.” I waved to the waitress for the bill so we could go to work. “But it won’t be easy.”

  “When has it ever been, my love?”

  —

  The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America is as difficult to join as it is essential for success in the highly competitive world of rare books and maps. Where a dealer’s reputation is everything, the ABAA’s coveted logo is the stamp of that legitimacy for its members, of which there are only 450—give or take the latest insolvency or death.

  The basic requirements are that one be a rare bookseller of good reputation (not to mention having a stellar credit rating) for four continuous years and have three current members of the ABAA willing to write letters in support.

  Not long after my conversation with Josie, I called upon Charles Anthony Walsh, former Special Collections Curator for the world-famous Linda Hall Library of Science. Charlie, a friend and customer of Riverrun Books from our opening day, suggested I contact an emeritus member of the ABAA named Eulalia Darp who lived in nearby Lawrence, Kansas.

  “I’m well aware of her,” I said.

  “Then you know that Eula’s an exacting professional,” the octogenarian said while handing me his reference letter typed under the embossed seal of the library. “Thirty years ago she brokered the deal that brought the library of Sylvia Beach to the University of Kansas. Ever since then she’s been the doyenne of American bibliophiles and has never rested on her laurels. Her endorsement will sweep in the others of the Board who count. On the other hand, your chances are nil if Eula decides not to help.”

  “How will the selection committee even know I approached her?”

  “Eula’s not one to tell. But trust me— the discovery processes at the CIA and MI-6 have nothing on these folks. They’ll consider her refusal a blackball.”

  “Say no more, Charlie. I’ll just have to put the old Bevan charm in overdrive for the lady.”

  He peered at me over his spectacles. “On the contrary,” he cautioned. “Eula distrusts flattery, even when deserved. Once you’ve succinctly stated your case, Michael, humility and a judicious silence are the means to gain her approval.”

  —

  So it was that two days later I drove forty miles up K-7 highway to seek the professional blessing of Eulalia Darp.

  With Walsh’s introduction in my pocket, I’d been reasonably optimistic that she would approve my request. But when the towers of the university drew into view on the massive hill above the Wakarusa Valley, I began to feel like an undergraduate who had failed to prepare for a final exam.

  Merely labeling her “professional” didn’t do justice to her renown. Eula Darp’s book descriptions were legendary—never overstated or understated, always detailed, and often uncovering flaws or “points” that most dealers never knew about. It was said that she had a photographic memory, an uncanny ability to recall even the most obscure historical references about books. But that can be said of more than a few in the trade, me included.

  Her major strength, one that put her at the pinnacle of bibliophiles, was her work ethic. A bloodhound in her research, she used her keen analytical mind to trace complicated provenance and unearth new treasures.

  She was truly in the top echelon of the antiquarian book trade, and I suddenly felt utterly inadequate to be asking her for a favor; indeed, asking to be considered her peer.

  —

  Lawrence, Kansas, is a tranquil university town set at the base of the oak-forested Mount Oread where occasional student hijinks and the renowned college basketball team provide most of the excitement. But the gentle academic atmosphere belies a history so turbulent that the logo of the city is a Phoenix rising from the ashes.

  It was named in honor of a wealthy Boston merchant who financed the emigration of New England abolitionists to the Kansas Territory to ensure that it entered the Union as a free state. A practical, albeit God-fearing, man, Amos A. Lawrence also wasn’t above shipping Sharp rifles packed as “books” and “primers” to vigilante Jayhawkers.

  Pro-slavers across the border in Missouri didn’t cotton much to such things and Bleeding Kansas became the sobriquet for pre-Civil War atrocities committed by both sides. The town was first razed to the ground in 1856, adding fuel to the already raging fury of “Osawatomie” John Brown that culminated in his raid at Harper’s Ferry. Following the start of the Civil War, Missouri bushwhackers led by William Quantrill not only burned Lawrence, but killed more than 160 defenseless men and boys. Over a century later, the last major conflagration occurred during the tumultuous anti-Vietnam War riots of 1970, when radicals placed bombs in buildings on campus and the city.

  These days the old Eldridge Hotel, with its fire-blackened bricks, still stands downtown on Massachusetts Street. Students, far more interested in careers than politics, proudly refer to their university (originally financed by Mr. Lawrence) as “Harvard on the Kaw River.”

  Eulalia Darp lived in a three-story Victorian “painted lady” halfway up the western side of the hill, where a border of Japanese maples separated it from a row of fraternities.

  Dusky greens and muted chartreuse created a daring but tasteful charm to the outside appearance of the house. Carved wooden images of red and yellow fruits highlighted details on shutters and pillars. Every third window featured stained glass. The paint was fresh and applied with meticulous attention to detail. Beneath the steep-pitched roof were multiple dormers, detailed bracket work, and delicately carved gingerbread bordering. Stenciled squirrels, rabbits, and other critters scampered after acorns among the co
rbels and ribboned roofline.

  A golden retriever ran alongside my Jeep when I pulled onto the long gravel driveway. Getting out, I rubbed the dog’s ears and shook its proffered paw. It followed me onto the wraparound front porch, settling on its hindquarters when I rang the doorbell.

  A few seconds later I heard heavy footsteps, and a deep voice announced, “I’m comin’. Hold your horses.”

  The heavy oak door opened to reveal a sturdily built Native American whose head was the size, color, and shape of a bronze bowling ball, with about the same amount of hair. He wore a plain apron over a pair of jeans and faded paisley shirt with the sleeves rolled up, displaying Popeye-sized forearms.

  Upon seeing him, the dog wagged its tail happily and received a biscuit in return.

  “Now git back, Daisy,” he ordered. “Go on back home.”

  Hearing our voices, a youth who had been throwing a Frisbee on the fraternity lawn next door ran up to the porch.

  After securing a leash on the dog, he said, “Hey, Norm, Mom Morsley wants to see you about cleaning the chapter room at the house. We had a party last night and…”

  “And a few of you young bucks got drunk and smashed up things. Don’t you worry, son; tell your housemother I’ll be over shortly.”

  As the kid and the dog sauntered back to the fraternity, the man turned to me.

  “You the book fella?”

  “Guilty.”

  “You don’ look like one.”

  “I suppose I don’t.”

  “Football or hoops? I know you didn’t play for the Jayhawks. I remember who all them fellas was when I coached at Haskell Indian Nations.”

  “I was a linebacker for Iowa. Name’s Mike Bevan.”

  “I’m Norman Tate,” he said as he extended a heavily calloused hand. “Stormin’ Norman to the boys over there.” He nodded in the direction of the Sigma Chi house before adding—I couldn’t tell whether with nostalgia or regret—“I was their janitor for thirty years. Coaching didn’t work out.” He looked back at me. “A Hawkeye, you say? You know Podolak?”

  “Met him once at a reunion, but he played long before me. Is Mrs. Darp in?”

  “It’s Miss Darp,” he corrected, adding a wink. “She’s a bachelor lady.”

  Tapping a foot impatiently, I mentioned having an appointment to see her.

  “I know you do. I’m jus’ wastin’ time while she gets settled.” He looked over his shoulder for half a minute, then back to me. “All right, you can come on in now. And let’s not take too long with her, if you follow what I’m sayin’.”

  He led me through a high-ceilinged library stuffed with leather-bound books arrayed on ten-foot shelves and heavy library tables. Half a dozen original Hudson River School landscapes in unpretentious frames completed my impression of the owner’s quiet, reflective taste. A marble mantel over the fireplace boasted the works of Mark Twain, Washington Irving, Willa Cather, and Stephen Crane. The row stretched for several feet and was bound in place by Art Deco bookends featuring a pair of dancing harlequins.

  Tate opened a sliding door and ushered me into a second, smaller room where three vintage kerosene oil lamps hanging from the high ceiling cast the space in an otherworldly glow. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the semidarkness, but when they did I had to check myself from doing a double take.

  That’s because a doppelganger of Gertrude Stein sat with perfect posture on a chintz-covered couch before the fireplace. The couch looked as though only one person ever sat on it, and always in the same spot, exactly where she was now. On a nearby side table was a teacup and saucer with thin biscuits, the day’s New York Times, a notebook and pencil, and a neat stack of files.

  It was immediately apparent that the fine sense of taste that had gone into Eulalia Darp’s house and collectibles did not extend to her person or attire; or maybe she preferred to focus on her possessions rather than any personal adornment.

  Her hair was silver gray, trimmed in a severely short modern style that contradicted the rest of her appearance. She wore a shapeless green jumper, undoubtedly intended to disguise her large torso, which only made her resemble a slightly overripe pear. Large, round glasses that were in vogue in the 1950s dominated the small nose on her broad pink face. They couldn’t hide, however, the intelligent brown eyes that returned my gaze with a somewhat amused expression.

  Like the room, she showed wear, but her calm and self-possessed carriage reflected durability. Had she been a book, I would have described her as “tightly bound in a thick, single volume; a little worn, but in fine condition.”

  I wondered how she would portray me. “Stitching a little loose, slightly sprung, and outwardly cracking”?

  After exchanging greetings, I’d barely settled on a wicker chair when she declared in a carefully articulated voice: “Mr. Bevan, I’m not inclined to support your application for ABAA membership. Can you provide reasons why I should?”

  “Well,” I began nervously, “my shop has an extensive stock of the highest quality in categories of travel, adventure, and exploration, much of it British…”

  She raised a ring-bedecked hand to shush me.

  “Yes, yes, I’m aware of that. But I’m mostly interested in how you acquired them.”

  “I fail to see how that matters, ma’am.”

  A faint smile. “Oh, but it does, young man. Very much so.”

  “They were given in exchange for services I rendered to the previous owners.”

  “So I’ve heard; the proprietors of the fabled Book & Bell of Cecil Court, London, I believe. And therein lies the rub, you see. The notoriety of Penelope Wilkes and the late Adrian Hart colors the pedigree of your cache in a most unflattering manner.”

  “The provenance of those books is unquestioned,” I replied. “Wilkes and Hart had their faults, but they were devoted book people. They kept meticulous records.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Faults? One is thought to have murdered a Russian client. And the other killed himself.”

  “Pillow, I mean, Penelope was never charged—and if she had been, it would have been ruled justifiable homicide. As for Hart’s suicide, it was one of the few honorable things the man ever did.”

  I glanced at Norman Tate, who tapped his watch in response.

  “This has been a mistake,” I said, rising from the chair. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Miss Darp.”

  She looked up at me, surprised by my refusal to kowtow to her. “Please sit down. I merely wanted to give you a taste of what to expect from the Board of Governors. Some are convinced you acquired your inventory dishonestly.”

  She handed me a thin biscuit that had been next to the teacup.

  “And please feel free to call me Eula. May I call you Michael?”

  “Yes,” I said, accepting the cookie and returning to the chair. “Thank you, Eula.”

  I paused. “Is there really so much interest in how I came to own these books? I mean, the members of the Board are wrong—I did nothing dishonest.”

  “There are unsettling rumors about a discovery of secret journals dating from Captain Cook’s voyages,” she said. “Supposedly, these journals would cast a very negative light on Cook’s reputation. If true, this would send shock waves through Britain, rewriting its hallowed maritime traditions.”

  I remained silent, but a flickering glare through her glasses showed she expected to hear more.

  “Well, what of it, Michael?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Young man, every bookseller who has made something of herself has sacrificed something. It takes intellect, finances one rarely has enough of, and tremendous will. Luck is recognized, of course, but highly suspect when inexplicably abundant. The Board members are jealous of you, Michael. It isn’t the question of your reputation or the provenance of your books—we booksellers are all knaves at some level. While they envy your exceptionally good fortune, I’m afraid it does not equate to respect. You must be more forthcoming on thi
s matter to show you came by those books through good and honest effort.”

  My only response was to smile inwardly at the irony. I had confronted death no less than four times in New Zealand during my quest for the three journals penned by a marine on Captain Cook’s historic voyages to the Pacific. It was in exchange for one of them—and the promise to never disclose the contents of the other two—that Pillow Wilkes voluntarily deeded the entire stock of her bookstore to me. I’d damned well earned them, but was honor-bound to never explain why.

  “I won’t comment,” I reiterated forcefully, making it clear I didn’t appreciate being backed into a corner.

  “Then you have said enough. It must be true.”

  “Eula, the books were a reward for something I did for Ms. Wilkes. It nearly cost me my life; it may have taken a bit of my sanity as well.”

  I hoped that would be enough for her, but she continued and was every bit as exacting in her questioning as she was in her catalog and book descriptions. She pressed for details, not about the explosive content of the journals, but demanding specifics about the trade-off for them. Were there loan payments? Was there a note? Is there a disclosure pending? Were you privy to their darkest secrets perhaps? (“Blackmail is something the Board would understand,” she remarked wickedly.) Had I given Ms. Wilkes something of equal value? And on and on.

  I shook my head to all of it, finally gazing at a framed caricature of Marcel Proust to avoid her eyes.

  When I looked back at her there was a concerned look on her face.

  “Michael, I take my role in the ABAA very seriously. Indeed, I feel somehow that my efforts over the decades have helped elevate humanity in some small way. I cannot make exceptions to my standards. Without critical evidence of your honesty and commitment to the highest degree of professionalism, I find it difficult to offer an endorsement.”