Allison Bartlett - The Man Who Loved Books Too Much - The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession

I avoided looking at Crichton so I wouldn’t have to see his response.

Gilkey peered through the metal grate of one of the bookcases again. “Then there are certain books that an average collector will never be able to get, like Edgar Allan Poe. Books like that no one’s going to be able to buy unless you’re a top-tier collector, or your family happened to have one.”

Crichton stared at us from his desk, where he stood. How much longer would Gilkey go on?

Gilkey and I had met many times over the past several months, and each time, after describing various tribulations, he would jump from one big idea to another. I had the sense he had been waiting a long time to talk to someone. One idea was related to the Modern Library’s list of “100 Best Novels.” He called the project “100 Books, 100 Paintings.” He wanted to publish a book in which a scene from each of the one hundred novels would be illustrated. To keep his costs down, he was planning to hire just one artist. First he said he would read each book and give the artist instructions, but then he admitted that he might not read them all; he would just ask someone about them instead.

I was starting to comprehend just how curious and imaginative Gilkey was, but also how quickly his hunger for information was sated. This characteristic mirrored his collecting habits: he was not dedicated to one author or one period or one subject. As soon as he’d snagged a twentieth-century American mystery, he was on to a nineteenth-century English novel. He thieved across genres the way a distracted reader might peruse shelves in a library, running his finger along the spines, stopping at whatever caught his eye, then moving on.

I had tried turning the talk to work, which Gilkey had conspicuously omitted from our conversations. This absence was as baffling to me as his justifications of his crimes. His vision of the future never included a way to earn money. Again, hoping I might bring this omission to his attention, I asked about his plans for finding a job.

“Work?” asked Gilkey. “Actually, they do have an opening at a bookstore.”

Of course.

Gesturing toward the locked cases near the entrance to Brick Row, Gilkey whispered, “I guess these are some of the really rare books in here.” Then, much more audibly, probably so that Crichton would hear: “I think probably the best bookstore I ever went to was Heritage in L.A. They have like twenty of these cases. Sometimes I’d just go in the bookstore, when I was doing that ,” he said, referring to stealing books, “and I would call in an order, just pick it up. First, I’d take a quick look at the bibliography just to make sure I wasn’t getting cheated. ’Cause I have been cheated several times by legitimate book dealers when I was a legitimate book buyer.”

I was tempted to ask when he was ever a legitimate buyer, but didn’t.

“And a lot of times dealers advertise that they won’t take returns,” continued Gilkey with more outrageous claims. “Those are the ones that belong to a specific organization. They have certain ethics that they have to follow. Couple times I bought books at a book fair. Then I called up the dealer and said, ‘You said this was a first edition, and it wasn’t,’ but he said I couldn’t return it. It was just the frustration of it. I guess I got a little upset trying to be a collector, buy things legitimately, and then I was getting cheated.”

Gilkey sighed. At last, he had run out of steam. “So, I guess we’re done here,” he said.

I thanked Crichton and mumbled something about getting in touch soon, then headed out the door with my tape recorder, shoddy notes, and an immense sense of relief.

On the elevator ride down from Brick Row, I asked Gilkey, who spent more time in Union Square than I, where he recommended we have lunch. He suggested the café at Neiman Marcus, only about a block away. With high ceilings, glass walls, and pale wood and steel furniture, the café was a departure from our usual meeting place, the drab Café Fresco. Gilkey took a seat opposite me at the small table, slipped off his baseball cap, and ran a black plastic comb over the top of his head, following through with the palm of his hand. It wasn’t an Elvis-like move executed with swagger, but something more tentative, self-conscious, an almost apologetic attempt to make himself presentable. It’s a gesture you almost never see done anymore, especially by a fairly young man, and it served as a reminder to me that Gilkey is unlike anyone I know. Looking around, I was relieved that the café was patronized mostly by tourists and people who worked nearby. It was unlikely I would run into any friends and have to explain my companion. What would I say? “This is the thief I’ve been telling you about”?

Gilkey and I had established a routine, and our roles, interviewer, interviewee, were beginning to feel familiar. Still, there was a stilted formality to our conversations. Usually, I tried for an easy, friendly rapport with people I interviewed, but in Gilkey’s case I welcomed the defined borders that formality drew.

“I guess that was kinda tense,” he said with a chuckle. He seemed invigorated by our trip to Brick Row. “I didn’t know if he was going to call the police or something. Did you hear him whisper something in the back? He was probably telling the guy not to show me anything. But I wasn’t doing anything wrong. That’s why I told him I wasn’t there to buy, just to look.”

That Crichton would still be incensed about Gilkey’s stealing from him hadn’t occurred to him. He seemed happy that our trip to Brick Row had gone so well.

“He was kinda rude, but I guess kinda a gentleman, too. I was really surprised he remembered me. I’ve only met him like twice,” said Gilkey, referring to a visit to Crichton’s booth at the 2003 book fair in San Francisco and later, at Brick Row, when he tried to sell the Winnie-the-Pooh books. He hadn’t considered that the crime he’d committed against Crichton might have cemented those two meetings in Crichton’s memory.

“If it wasn’t for you there,” he added, “he probably would have called the police. Or harassed me . . . I did get a book from him, but that’s why I told him just now that I was just looking. I got Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge , but he got it back.”

Well, then, no harm done.

“The second time I went in there, I asked him if I could take a look at some books,” said Gilkey, referring to the time he stopped by Crichton’s shop to try to sell the Winnie-the-Pooh books in an effort to raise money for an attorney. “I knew these books were valuable and I knew I could get a couple thousand dollars out of him . . . so I went to him, and he immediately offers five hundred. There’s no way. . . . They’re worth close to ten thousand. . . . So I knew immediately the police were talking to him, otherwise he would have offered more. That gave it away. He was onto me.”

What Gilkey failed to mention, but what I would later learn, was what happened when Crichton did not want to buy the Pooh books. 1

Gilkey had asked, “Since you’re not interested in these, is there something else you might want?”

“Yes,” said Crichton. “In fact, I’m looking for a first-edition Mayor of Casterbridge in brown morocco.” He was referring to the book Gilkey had stolen from him.

Gilkey, deadpan, didn’t flinch. “No,” he said. “I don’t have one of those.”

“Are you sure?” asked Crichton. “Because that is the one book I’m really looking for.”