Robert Alter - 101 Mystery Stories

“This book,” I said, and my voice sounded strange to my ears, as if I were listening to someone else speak. “Is there any way you can tell where you bought it, or from whom?”

“At times, but rarely,” he said. “We buy from many sources, from bookstores with overstocks, from the libraries of estates, from garage sales, from church sales, or from people who just come in with a suitcase full of old books they’re sure are worth a fortune. And rarely are. However, sometimes we mark them. Let me see.”

He took the book from me and opened it to look at the inside of the back cover. A small mark there seemed to tell him something; he looked up, smiling.

“I remember this one, not because of the book itself, but because I bought quite a few at the same time at the same place, all of no particular value, although the way the man argued you’d have thought they were first editions of Poe. At a garage sale. One of those posh places down on the sound, next to the yacht club, as a matter of fact.” He shook his head in nonunderstanding. “You wouldn’t expect a garage sale at a place like that, would you?”

“No,” I said, and then wondered what made me say it. I bought the book for $1.25, the price marked on the flyleaf above my inscription.

That was two weeks ago. I have spent the time between then and now trying to think up a proper punishment for Jack Burnham, and it only came to me this morning. A simple recrimination would never do; I wanted a chastening, a retribution that was fitting, something that would do to him what he had done to me by selling my book for a paltry sum, probably a half-dollar or so. It makes me smile when I think of my solution to the problem, but there is little humor in the smile, and a good deal of bitterness.

Jack and Noreen should be home from Europe in about a week. And when he gets back he’ll find a letter from me. It will read:

“Dear Jack:

“Congratulate me! Bring out the beer and pretzels, strike up the band! This is going to make you happy. Happy? Overjoyed!

“Remember that one book I managed to squeeze out of my system? The one that got good reviews and then managed to disappear from the face of the earth? Well, believe it or not, one of the top film producers read it somewhere — he doesn’t remember exactly where, but he thinks it might have been in Asia on a trip there to check locations, can you believe it? — he didn’t bring the book back, and God knows where it is now. Anyway, he called me up and wants to buy it for the movies. And for a sum, my friend — for ig-bay ough-day — that would curl your hair. And on top of that, I’m going to do the script, the screenplay. For more dough. Can you imagine?

“There is one small problem, though; fortunately an easily surmountable one. I don’t have a single copy of the blasted book, and the publisher went out of business not long after he published it — maybe that was the reason (don’t say that!). I’ve checked libraries and written all around, and my magnum-opus is now a nonmagnum-opus, so to speak. But I remembered the copy I inscribed to you and Noreen, the one you keep in your safety-deposit box.

“Lucky you kept that copy, pal. Now it’s worth its weight in gold. Gold, hell! Rubies, emeralds, diamonds, you name it. I know how much you value that copy, but a xerox will do fine. Be sure and include in the xerox the inscription on the flyleaf; I want to impress on the producer that I actually know Jack Burnham.

“And another thing — you and I and Noreen have been friends for a long, long time; you know I never married and I have no responsibilities. So my idea is we split everything the movie earns for me — which is going to be moola, pal — moola! Such as in the dreams of sultans and such-like folk. The producer is talking about a fifteen million dollar budget, and my — I mean our — share of that should be enough to keep the wolf a league or so away from the door for a long, long spell.

“So shoot the bookie to me, cookie, and we’ll all be rich. That’s about all the news, but what more could anyone want? Love to Noreen, and all the best.”

And I signed with my fanciest flourish.

I wonder what he’ll do? Suicide is possible but unfortunately, not very probable. A nervous breakdown is both possible and probable. An ulcer the very least.

Jack should never have said he put the book in a safety-deposit box; a fire would have handled the problem if it had been kept on his bookshelf. Or a theft by a visitor. Or many things. But a fire in his safety-deposit box? Or a theft there? Hardly. Poor Jack, he really has little imagination.

But I have plenty. I’m a writer, remember, Jack?

Far out on the veldt one hundred years of weather have scoured and scattered the bones of the Bantu, the Boer, and the snake. If the bones have changed, the pebble half buried amid them has not. The wind and the sun have worked on the pebble, but it is the sun’s beam that takes a polish and the wind’s glassiness that gets scratched.

When the bones of the Bantu wore flesh, it was the Bantu who found the pebble. The earth in its long travail had worked the pebble to the surface. The pebble winked at the world in vain who knows how long till the Bantu happened by on his hunt for springbok.

The Bantu abandoned the springbok’s spoor to answer the blinking call of the pebble. He stood staring down at it, then hunkered and picked it up. The hand holding his assegai went suddenly slick on the weapon’s wooden shaft, and the hand cupping the pebble weighed it in wonder.

He had heard of these pebbles and even seen a few, but never in the wildest tales had there been talk of one this size. With it he might, if not cheated, buy a hundred head of breeding cattle, and much land for a kraal, and more than one woman to grow sorghum and children. He laughed at the play of light in his hand, picturing his woman carrying one child strapped to her back while carrying another within.

It was then that the Boer cast his shadow across the Bantu’s present and future.

The Bantu closed his hand over the pebble, but it was too late. Turning his head, he knew the Boer had seen the pebble; the pebble’s glitter was now in the Boer’s eyes.

The Boer, also out hunting, had come upon him while he squatted dreaming. The Boer could stand beyond reach of the assegai’s iron tip and speak death from the mouth of his gun.

The Bantu looked at the Boer, knowing the man without ever having seen him before. The elders had a saying: “If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be made straight when you are dry.”

The Boer’s mouth had the twist of old meanness. And now it spoke soft words that did not hide the crookedness behind them. “Good day, kaffir. Show me the mooi klip.”

Unwillingly the Bantu’s hand opened to show the Boer the pretty pebble.

The glitter grew in the Boer’s eyes. The Bantu’s hand closed on the pebble but the light did not go out. The Boer smiled.

“That pebble would make a nice plaything for my child. I will give you my hunting knife for the pebble.” The Boer unsheathed his knife to show how it flashed.

The Bantu wrinkled his face in thought, pretending to weigh the offer, then slowly straightened. In pushing himself to his feet he palmed another pebble, a commonplace pebble, and held it in his fist along with the first.

The Boer extended the knife toward the Bantu. “So we see eye to eye. The pebble for the knife.”

The Bantu shook his head. “It is a good knife, but I do not wish to trade the pebble.”

The Boer slid the knife home in its sheath, “Then it is an even better bargain. I will have the pebble for nothing. Hand it over, kaffir.” The Boer raised the gun so that the mouth looked at the Bantu.