Paul Robertson: According to Their Deeds

“I’ll finish this set of invoices and then I’m going to call Wilhelmina Stratton about the banquet Saturday evening. We have to start on the fall catalog this week… Charles, are you listening?”

His eyes were closed. “Of course, dear.”

“Then what did I say?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just like to hear you talk. Your voice is a symphony to me, your words are pure notes-”

“Would you empty the trash, please?” Dorothy said.

He sat up. “First I need to read it.” He opened the newspaper and scanned the front page.

“Anything?” Dorothy said.

“What a sordid world.” He folded the paper and dropped it in the wastebasket. “What a human world. It’s all scandals and failings.”

“There’s more to it than the front page of the Washington Post.”

“Yes, there are other sections, but they are all still human.”

“What in the world else would there be? Don’t you have enough to do, Charles?”

“I have plenty to do.”

“Because if you don’t, you could file these invoices.”

“I would love to, but I really have quite a bit to do.”

“I was just asking.”

Charles found his telephone book and looked up a number.

“Thank you for calling the office of Congresswoman Karen Liu,” the telephone said.

“You’re welcome. My name is Charles Beale, and I would like to meet with the congresswoman.”

“Mr. Beale, is there anything I can help you with?”

“No, I’m sorry. It would need to be with her.”

“She’s very busy, of course.” The voice was very polite. “Are you from her district in California?”

“No,” Charles said. “I’m not a constituent, and I’m not a lobbyist or reporter.”

“What would you want to discuss with the congresswoman?”

“I was a friend of a man named Derek Bastien, who died several months ago. He worked in the Justice Department.”

The voice did not realize for a moment that Charles had finished his turn.

“Are you with the Justice Department?” it finally asked.

“No. I’m not with the government. I’m a bookseller, actually.”

That was enough for the voice to be finished with the conversation. “Mr. Beale, let me take your number and I’ll pass it on to her chief of staff. She is very busy, though, and she is usually not available.”

“I’m not sure if you’re serious,” Dorothy said after he’d hung up.

“I am.”

“You didn’t give any good reason she should take time to meet you.”

“I hope I didn’t. And now I am going to visit Norman Highberg.”

“You’re going to Georgetown?”

“I need the exercise.”

“I thought you had too much to do.”

“This is one of the things.”

“Then have a nice morning. I know better than to ask you questions when you don’t want to answer.”

“I don’t have any answers. And I think it’s important to find some.”

The well-worn walk to the Metro station past the urban townhouses of Prince Street, and the bland Metro ride under the Potomac, brought Charles finally to the even more urban townhouses of Georgetown. The streets weren’t very different from Alexandria, just wider and with more cars and more city and more important-looking people. The Capitol and the White House weren’t far away; Georgetown was a closer planet to the sun and less likely to have its own native life.

Charles chose a doorway.

“Good morning. Is Mr. Highberg in?”

The young thing behind the counter gaped. “I don’t know.”

“Go find out.”

The young thing went and Charles was alone to stroll. Somehow, it was a very nice showroom. Every manner of upscale antique was there, except of course furniture and books. Crystal sparkled, silver shone, wood glowed, and not an item was less than two hundred dollars or more than three thousand.

“Charles! What are you doing here?”

“You need to work on your customer service, Norman,” Charles said.

“You’re not a customer. What do you want?”

“I’m quite well, thank you. How are you?”

“Great except for taxes.” The frames of his bulky glasses were as shiny and black as his hair. The lenses were smudged with gray fingerprints, and the hair was smudged with just gray. “My accountant just sent me last month’s report. Taxes are killing me. You need an accountant? This guy’s my brother-in-law and he’s looking for clients.”

“I don’t need anyone.”

“What are taxes in Virginia? It must be better than here. This place, you walk around with the mayor’s hand in your pocket. You put a dollar in and he takes it out. You aren’t a customer, right? Or maybe you are. Are you looking for anything?”

“I don’t need anything.”

“Sure you don’t, but that doesn’t keep people from buying this stuff anyway. Who needs any of it?”

“I don’t, I’m afraid. But it is all very nice.”

“You bet.” He paused to breathe and look around, and he smiled. “Real nice. Because it’s real. Every piece.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“I don’t mean it’s not fake. I mean there’s something about it. You have to have the eye.” He put his finger beside his eye and tapped. “If you have the eye, you can look at anything and tell. I’ll go places and walk through somebody’s showroom and nothing’s real. It’s not fake, but it’s not real. And I can see it. I can see it a mile away. You know what I mean.”

“I do know, Norman. I know exactly what you mean.”

“Sure you do. Why else be in the business? You’ve got the eye, Charles. You can see what’s real. I don’t do books, but I can tell, even with them.”

“Anyway,” Charles said, “I have a question.”

“Maybe I even have an answer! What do you want?”

“Yesterday that man called me, Edmund Cane.”

“Yeah, right, he was asking who I knew at the auction and I told him all the names I knew. He was trying to find out who the blonde was.”

“Do you know if he found out?”

“Nope. I sure didn’t know who she was. He might have found out, but I don’t know.”

“Who was he?”

“Cane? Oh, just a guy from a place in New York. He looks just like Einstein. Did you want to talk to him again?”

“Maybe. I’d at least like to know how to.”

“Sure, you could look him up. The place in New York, it’s called Horton’s on Fortieth.”

“Horton’s.”

“On Fortieth, that’s part of the name. Big place. Say, that was some auction yesterday. All I was trying to do was just buy back the stuff I sold the guy.”

“That reminds me, Norman. I have another question.”

“I think I can do two, but don’t push your luck!”

“I won’t. You said the police gave you a list.”

“Right. Stuff that got stolen from the house the night the guy got whacked. They want me to be looking for it.”

“Yes. Do you have a copy?”

“Yeah, sure, somewhere back here. Give me a minute and I’ll find it. You think you’ve seen something?”

“Probably not. I was just curious.”

“I’ll find it. It’ll just take a minute.”

Charles browsed. They were real things. The shelves and floor and tables were blanketed by a dizzying variety of shapes and materials and uses, but they were all very real.

Charles could tell.

Then the real Norman was again with him. “I got it. It’s the list of the stuff that got stolen. You’re supposed to keep an eye out for them, and if you see anything, call that number at the top. It’s the police, and that’s the detective to ask for, his name is Watts. And there’s an FBI guy on it, Frank Kelly, since it’s antiquities, and you can call him, too.”

“I see. There are over fifty things here!”