Ed Mcbain - Money, Money, Money

The world of terrorism—Mahmoud now told Nikmaddu—had expanded too greatly. The leaders were thinking too big. Their plans were too grandiose. Why bomb a World Trade Center in New York or a Federal Building in Oklahoma City or a U.S. Embassy in Nairobi or Dar es Salaam? Why bring down an airplane over Lockerbie or LaGuardia? Events such as these only created intense scrutiny and enormous animosity. Why not settle instead for leaving a small bomb in a cinema? Or a railroad station? Why not compromise instead for leaving a satchel with explosives under a sixth row orchestra seat at Clarendon Hall on the night Svi Cohen would be playing Beethoven’s “Spring” sonata in F Major, or his “Kreutzer” in A Minor, or whichever other tune the Big Jew chose to perform on his accursed Zionist fiddle?

“Why not committiny acts of terrorism that will allow them to realize we can strike anywhere, anytime we choose?” Mahmoud asked.

“Clarendon Hall is not so tiny,” Akbar said, grinning.

“You understand my point,” Mahmoud said reasonably to Nikmaddu.

“I understand your point,” Nikmaddu answered reasonably.

He was enjoying the coffee. He was not so sure he was enjoying the terrorist beliefs of a half-lira philosopher like the man with the comic mustache here. Nikmaddu himself had worked with Osama bin Laden on the Dhahran bombing attack in which nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed. It was his own belief that onlymajor attacks of terrorism would leave any impression at all on the forces of evil polluting the Arab world. Only desperation measures would provoke wholesale departures. The withdrawal of all U.S. and western forces from Moslem countries in general and from the Arabian Peninsula in particular was the stated goal ofal Quaida. Killing all Americans, including civilians, everywhere in the world was merely a means toward this end. But Nikmaddu was nothing if not a faithful servant of God. Someone higher up had ordered the Clarendon Hall bombing. He was here merely to serve.

They sat sipping coffee.

“Tell me the plan,” Nikmaddu said.

THE OWNER OF Diamondback Books was named Jotham Davis. He was in his early forties, Ollie guessed, a black man with an entirely bald and very shiny head. He was wearing black jeans, black loafers, and a black turtleneck sweater. A gold chain hung around his neck, dangling to somewhere in the middle of his narrow chest. He told them that in the Bible, Jotham was the youngest of Gideon’s seventy sons. He told them things were quiet after Christmas. He told them fifty percent of a bookstore’s sales were in the three months before Christmas. He told them if a bookstore didn’t make it at Christ-mastime, it might as well fold. Ollie thought he was full of shit. That was because Ollie figured a Negro couldn’t possibly know anything about selling books.

It was now almost twelve noon on the twenty-eighth day of December, three days before New Year’s Eve, six minutes or so before lunch time. Ollie was always aware of the clock, but only because it announced mealtimes. He and Carella had been in the shop for almost ten minutes now, listening to this bald jackass telling them about the book business when all they wanted was information about Jerome Hoskins who’d been shot at the back of the head and stuffed in a garbage can four days ago.

“You sell many books from Wadsworth and Dodds?” Ollie asked. “In the three months before Christmas?” He was thinking these people would probably be his publishers once he finished his book, so he wanted to know how well their books sold.

“Not too many,” Jotham said. “They publish mostly technical stuff, you know.”

“What do you mean, technical?” Carella asked.

“Engineering stuff, architectural. Like that.”

“How about thrillers?” Ollie asked.

“Haven’t seen any thrillers from them,” Jotham said.

“They told me they do some thrillers.”

“Maybe so. I just haven’t seen any.”

“Did their salesman mention any thrillers to you?”

“No, I don’t recall him mentioning any thrillers.”

“Man named Jerome Hoskins? He never mentioned any thrillers to you?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“When’s the last time he came by?” Carella asked.

“Must’ve been in September? Maybe October. Sometime around then. That’s when most of the reps come around. Right after they have their sales conferences.”

“Was he in here last week?” Ollie asked.

“Nossir.”

“Two days before Christmas, to be exact.”

“Nossir, he definitely was not in here two days before Christmas.”

“You read newspapers?” Ollie asked.

“I do.”

“You watch television?”

“I do.”

“Read or see anything about Hoskins in the past few days?”

“No, I didn’t. What happened to him?”

“How do you know anything happened to him?” Carella asked.

Jotham gave him a look that said Man, when you were born and raised in this neighborhood and two cops come calling on you one fine morning, and start asking questions about the last time a sales rep was in here, you know damn well they ain’t here to buy no book about electrical engineering.

“Thanks for your time,” Carella said.

Not three blocks away from the bookstore, Wiggy the Lid was talking to the bartender at the Starlight Bar, where he’d met one of the blondes who’d cold-cocked him on Christmas night.

“I NEVER SEED HER before that night,” the bartender said.

“Just walked in out of the blue, is that it, John?”

“That’s what it was, Mr. Wiggins.”

“She ever been in here before?”

“Don’t recollect seeing her.”

“Or another blonde looked just like her?”

“I’d’ve remembered somebody looked like that,” John said.

“Neither one of them come in here, ast did a man named Wiggy Wiggins frequent this place?”

“No, neither one of ’em, Mr. Wiggins.”

“Man named Wiggy the Lid? Did either one of ’em come in here, ax for me by that name?”

“Nobody come in here axin for you by no name at all.”

“Cause I think she come in lookin for me, John.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“I think she knew I’d be here, come in here lookin for me specific.”

John the bartender clucked his tongue in sympathy.

“Found out somehow that I drop in here every now and then, come in here toget me, John.”

John the bartender clucked his tongue again.

“You didn’t happen to see me get in that limo with her, did you?”

“Well, yes, I was watchin thu the winder.”

Wiggy opened his eyes wide.

“You didn’t happen to see the license plate, did you?”

John the bartender grinned from ear to ear.

IN THE NEXT three bookshops on the list Ollie had obtained from Wadsworth and Dodds, the two detectives learned a few things about the publishing business in general and his prospective publisher in particular.

“A sales rep’ll make fifty to seventy K a year,” the first of the booksellers told them. His name was Oscar Haynes. He asked them to call him Oz. Ollie figured him for a fag because he was wearing a purple shirt.

“To cover the U.S., you’ve got to hire, what, twenty to thirty reps?” Oz said. “That comes to big bucks. Frankly, I don’t see how a small firm like W&D can afford that kind of coverage.”

“They’ve only got five reps,” Ollie said.

“Even so, that comes to two hundred and fifty K minimum,” Oz said. “That’s a lot of bread.”

In the second bookstore, they learned from a bookseller whose last name was African and unpronounceable—he asked them to call him Ali—that most publishers have a two-season list, and it was therefore not unusual for Jerome Hoskins to make calls here only twice a year. “Unless a house has a big bestseller, where there’ll be reorders, a rep has no reason to come by again. W&D has never had a bestseller in its history, take it from me.”