Paul Robertson - According to Their Deeds

“What would you like?” he asked.

“Something a little sweet.”

She sat, and Charles soon joined her, and they inhaled the dense bouquet of coffee and its cafe fellow travelers.

“Are you peaceful?” Charles asked presently.

“I think I am.”

“Good. That will help.”

“And I’m ready for you to begin.”

He took one more deep breath. “I am intrigued by the papers that Derek had hidden in the book.”

“Well, of course. Just ‘intrigued’?”

“Tottering on the edge of deeply disturbed.”

“What do you think they mean?”

“That is the point. I’ve decided not to jump to conclusions. I am going to follow the wind.”

“Then where has it led you?”

“Karen Liu and John Borchard are both important, busy people. Both of them dropped everything at Derek’s name and immediately welcomed me into their castles. Does that seem reasonable?”

“I have made my opinions on that known,” Dorothy said.

“Strongly. Why should they? Is it because I’m so interesting?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m not interesting?”

“You are very interesting, dear,” Dorothy said, with deep interest in him, “but they wouldn’t know it.”

“What a nice answer. So it must be because of Derek.”

“Derek couldn’t have been that fascinating.”

“I will tell you about the two meetings. My conversation with Ms. Liu was pleasant and energetic but didn’t tell me much except that she is quite a politician. My conversation with Mr. Borchard was more centered on Derek, and had a few sharp points, but was also not very informative. But both of them were undeniably interested in me.”

“Just because of Derek.”

“Kind of somewhat. The congresswoman particularly asked what I knew about John Borchard and what Derek had told me about him. John Borchard very particularly asked about my selling books to Derek.”

“Selling them?”

“And if I would recommend any to him. That was the part where Oz was the most great and terrible. Those points in both conversations were actually rather tense, and I felt like I was supposed to do or say something.”

Dorothy stirred her coffee. “What would they want you to do?”

“Whatever I must have come for in the first place.”

“But you didn’t go for any particular reason.”

“Not really. Just to meet them.”

“Well,” Dorothy said. “And because of those checks to Karen Liu.”

“And this is where it starts getting repetitive, doesn’t it? And by the way, between the two of them, Ms. Liu and Mr. Borchard, she doesn’t like him, he says he likes her, and they both thought Derek was wonderful.”

“They are politicians. Were they being political?”

“Surely they were. So, that’s where the wind has blown so far, and those are the windmills I’ve tilted at. And, to further tilt the conversation, there is, of course, Mr. Cane and the desk.”

With a sudden growl, a huge locomotive-shaped roaster in the front of the shop roared to life. A man dug a scoop into a burlap bag and began feeding the roaster coffee beans.

“Is Mr. Cane just following the wind, also?” Dorothy said, raising her voice to speak over the thunder.

“Perhaps he is marching to the breeze of a different summer. But I’m holding my finger to that wind, too. Why would two people want Derek’s desk so much, enough that the loser is pursuing the winner?”

“Where is that wind blowing?”

“Back through Norman Highberg, I’m afraid,” Charles said. “So I’ll call him tomorrow.”

Puffs of smoke escaping the roaster blew past them. “And any other winds?”

“There are four winds, aren’t there? And that’s just two. So the wind blows where it wants but we don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.”

“You’re sounding biblical.”

Absently, he sipped his drink and looked deep into its swirls. “There’s a feel about this, Dorothy, and I don’t know what. Something deep and far-reaching. I want to not do anything wrong.”

“What could you do wrong?”

“I don’t know.” His eyes were on her now, looking deep. “But reading about that judge in the newspaper, I think about how easy it is to do something harmful.”

“I don’t see the connection.”

He smiled. “Never mind. I will just follow the wind and keep my eyes very open.”

“Don’t follow it too far.”

“It may lead to the Emerald City.”

“That’s the wrong metaphor, dear,” Dorothy said. “We are talking about the wind.”

“All right, then, it might lift your whole house up and carry it to another country.”

“If it gets that serious, you should talk to the police.”

“If you drop a farmhouse, you don’t know who it might land on. And you”-he pointed right at her-“should know that better than anyone.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. And Toto, too.” He looked at his watch. “I think if we linger a bit longer we can get back to the shop just in time to leave for the day.”

“ The Federalist Papers. Charles, what was it about that generation? Every one of them could write.”

“They had something to write about, perhaps.”

“Revolution. I said it made for good literature.”

“You don’t like revolutions, Derek.”

“All right. I admit they have their uses. But they’re uncontrollable once they’re started and they create terrible vacuums. It took Europe nearly twenty years to rid itself of Napoleon. It’s all about power, Charles. However it starts-even whatever ‘it’ is-it always ends in the hands of the ruthless and powerful.”

“Not always.”

“You’re referring to George Washington? He’s underrated. He understood power, and it did end up in his hands.”

“For the good of the country.”

“Remarkably. But, Charles, he is an example. He had great power, founded on his prestige and success, and used it to good.”

“And then gave it up.”

“When he had accomplished his purpose. I appreciate his example. Rule by power is necessary and it could be used to good purpose even today.”

“Are you a monarchist, Derek?”

“I guess we can’t go that far. But within my own small sphere, it is an example I find very useful.”

“Mr. Beale?”

“Good morning, Morgan.”

“Good morning, sir.” His red hair was really too bright to be growing in a place so hidden from the sun. “I have an answer back from the person on eBay selling the Odyssey.”

“Yes, the hypothetical autographed first edition. What does he say?”

“He is moving and getting rid of stuff, and it was in a box.”

“So he found Attica in his attic. Does he know where the box came from?”

“It was his grandfather’s, who got it from an aunt in England as a present in the nineteen twenties, and she bought it for him at a bookstore.”

“That’s more than we usually get.”

“There’s a handwritten inscription to his grandfather inside the cover.”

“Oh. Oh, dear. That’s too bad. What about the title page?”

“Here’s a picture he took of it.”

Charles put his nose right up to the screen. “Hmm.”

“Does that tell you anything?”

“It’s not a proper title page.”

“What is it?” Morgan asked.

Charles shrugged. “Some kind of half title page. It does have the title: Homer’s Odyssey; Translated by Alexander Pope. But there’s no publisher or city or date. Why does he say it’s a first edition?”

“ ‘I believe it is a first edition because it is so old, and because the author signed it.’ End quote.”

“Of course.”

“This picture is the inside front cover, with the inscription to his grandfather and the author signature.”