Джо Горес: Dead Man

Sherman Rare Books was a narrow elegant storefront across Post Street from the side entrance to the St. Francis Hotel. The steel gates padlocked shut in the recessed entryway at night were now, in midmorning, folded open for trade. The books were in locked breakfront hardwood cabinets; in recessed alcoves between them were original oil paintings. An unhurried place, sybaritic in its appointments, rugs, and furnishings, where the book was at least as important as its selling.

Eddie Dain sat on an antique Chippendale chair in a perfect lotus without even being aware of it. He was twenty-eight years old, with a strong, almost Sioux face and pale blue deep-set eyes, six-one, lean and springy, 140 pounds. A supple beanpole with a mind that had led Richard Feynman to write all over his papers while he was at Cal-Tech, arguing points with him. He wore a white cotton shirt, wash pants, running shoes, a windbreaker.

The phone spoke Marie’s voice into his ear. “R — Rlch.”

“K — Ktl,” Eddie said to the receiver.

Marie’s voice answered, “R — R2.”

To Eddie, she had always been this wondrous being who had entered his life at Cal-Tech, became his best friend, stupendous lover, then wife. Even now, after five years, he still went weak in the knees whenever he looked at her, still was always peeking up her skirt or down her blouse like a horny teenager.

“Well?” she demanded.

“I’m thinking,” he said, the old Jack Benny radio line.

As he thought, he happily drummed his fingers on Doug Sherman’s antique oak desk, ignoring the endgame Sherman had laid out with yellowed-ivory chess pieces. He was still young enough and naive enough to treat everything in life as a game.

“R X P,” he told her finally.

Doug Sherman was at the little table behind the desk, his back to Eddie, removing the steaming paper cone from his Melitta coffee dripper. Sherman was tall, lean, fortyish, barbered to perfection, as elegant as the embossed endpapers of his antique books. Below a balding crown his narrow face was sad in repose, with beautiful eyes and sensitive lips. His suit was superb.

“How’s this one?” said Marie on the phone. “KP X R.”

“You’re kidding.” But then Eddie started to think about it. “You’re not kidding. Okay, R — Q1.”

Sherman turned to Eddie, said, “Coffee?”

Eddie shook his head without turning as Marie giggled in his ear, “R — Q1? Bad move, baby. P — K6.”

Sherman sat down in his swivel chair, leaned forward over the steaming cup, eyes half-shut as he savored the aroma. He sipped. He leaned back and sighed in perfect aesthetic comfort.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” he told Eddie. “French Roast and Guatemalan blend. Superb in every respect.”

“So is Marie,” said Eddie, then into the phone, “R — B1.”

“What was that you said?” demanded Marie.

“R — B1.”

“No — something with me and superb in the same sentence.”

“Oh, that — I told Doug you were a superb cook but a lousy chess player.”

“Just for that, P X R — Qch.” There was laughter in her voice.

“Damn!” He made his final move a question. “Um... K X Q?”

“Gotcha, kiddo! R — RS. And you know what that means.”

Eddie laughed delightedly. “I fall upon my sword.”

“Since I’m a superb cook, I know I’ll see you for dinner.”

Eddie hung up, kissed a forefinger, touched it to the phone. Feeling Sherman’s eyes upon him, he grinned sheepishly.

“Now how about some coffee?” said Sherman.

“You know what I want. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Very beautiful, very old, very leather-bound. The Oxford Press First Edition that Alexandra Neel had bound in calf’s hide. I know it’s out there somewhere and I know you can find it. In a couple of weeks I’m renting a house on the beach out at Point Reyes for Marie’s birthday. Candles, flowers, soft lights—”

“And The Tibetan Book of the Dead. For her birthday.” Sherman shook his head, then chuckled. “His wife can read the juicy bits aloud to private eye Eddie Dain between stakeouts—”

“A lot of good my stakeout on Grimes did,” Eddie said ruefully. “He goes on board his boat at the St. Francis Yacht Club with me watching, and...” He threw his arms up and wide, exclaimed, “Fwoom! No more Grimes.”

“Or too much Grimes,” said Sherman ghoulishly. “All over everything. Everyone else believes gases accumulated in the engine compartment ignited when Grimes pushed the starter, but does Eddie the gumshoe? No. No accident for him. Eddie the gumshoe will pursue the evildoers to their lair—”

“Their corporate office, more likely.” Eddie grinned; it made him look eighteen instead of twenty-eight. He leaned across the desk. “I really want that book for Marie’s birthday.”

“Eddie, your Marie is very sweet, very bright, very gentle — but she’s also a certifiable New Age California nut. She’s into Tibetan Buddhism, she’s into T’ai Chi, she’s into Iyengar Yoga, she’s into—”

“—computer science and engineering, running the office now that I’m out in the field so much, raising our three-year-old son, beating me at chess, especially phone chess, and—”

“All right all right.” Sherman had his hands up, palms out, to stem the spate of words. “Rub it in. She beats you at chess, you beat me at chess, and I would give almost anything to master that boardless phone chess you two children play with such casual idiocy. She’s the most remarkable woman ever born, okay? But I’m not sure I can get that specific copy of The Tibetan Book of the Dead you want in the time you’re giving me.” He paused, indicated the chessboard on the desk. “Now this ...”

But Eddie had caught sight of the seven-foot grandfather clock in a shadowed corner of the shop, masticating time with its slow pendulum jaw. He unfolded like a stork as he stood up.

“I’m due at Homicide in fifteen minutes.”

Sherman said seductively, “Gaprindishvili versus Kushner, Riga, nineteen seventy-two? She did fine ‘til she abandoned the Grunfeld Defense for the Nimzo-Indian, then Kushner...”

Eddie, on his way to the door, suddenly swerved, moved one of the black pieces as he went by the board.

“Kushner did that, obviously,” he said. “R — R6. Just as obviously, Gaprindishvili then had to resign.”

Sherman was studying the board with furious concentration. “Why resign? Why obviously? Why can’t she—”

“Work it out yourself.” He went across the thick Oriental carpet toward the door with DOUGLAS SHERMAN — RARE BOOKS backward on the glass in elegant script. He added, “Think Tibet.”