LITMIR.BIZ

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women. Was that thought politically correct?

      Lindsey asked the blonde woman if she knew a book called Death in the Ditch, published around 1951.

      The woman frowned, shook her head, then said, “I never heard of it. You know anything about it?”

      “Only that there was a girl on the cover.”

      The blonde said, “You sure of that? Cover, not jacket?”

      “As far as I know. I’ve never seen it.”

      “Then it’s probably a paperback. There weren’t as many published back in the early ’fifties, that was just before the big explosion. You know, when Bantam got going, then Ballantine and Ace. But ’51—there were some pretty obscure outfits got started around then, and didn’t last too long.”

      She took a sip from the Styrofoam cup. The cream in it, or whatever she used, had formed a thin scum on top of the coffee. The blonde grimaced and set the cup back down. “Maybe it’ll get better as it ages.” She looked up at Lindsey. “What you really ought to do is, you ought to talk to Scotty Anderson. You know Scotty Anderson?”

      Lindsey shook his head.

      “Great collector. Real scholar. If you need an old paperback, if anybody in the world has it, Scotty does.”

      Lindsey grinned. “Does he live here? I mean, nearby?”

      “East Bay.” The blonde shuddered. “You want his address, phone number?”

      Lindsey did.

      “Let’s see.” She moved a stack of publishers’ catalogs onto the floor, uncovering a plastic Rolodex. She flipped the lid open and read an address and phone number aloud. Lindsey wondered if her tone was what they used to call a whiskey voice.

      Lindsey flipped his pocket organizer open and jotted down the information. “He won’t mind my calling?”

      “Just tell Scotty I sent you.” The blonde told Lindsey her name and he added that to the organizer. He slipped his gold International Surety pencil and the organizer into his pocket, thanked the blonde and headed for a pay phone.

      Anderson was at home. Lindsey made an appointment for Sunday afternoon and hung up. Maybe he was getting somewhere.

      He called Marvia’s house and got her answering machine, then tried her mother’s house. Gloria Plum answered. Marvia had taken her son, Jamie Wilkerson, and his friend, Hakeem White, to the mall to make up for their canceled snow weekend.

      Somehow Gloria managed to blame Lindsey for the canceled weekend. Somehow Gloria managed to blame Lindsey for most things she was unhappy about.

      This is really swell, Lindsey thought. I’m not even married and I’ve got mother-in-law problems already. He went home.

      Mother had planned to go out for the evening with Gordon Sloane. They’d been dating—How can your mother be dating? Lindsey wondered—for almost a year now. They’d met when Mother got a job, her first real, out-of-the-home job, at Sloane’s company, Consolidated Alpha. Whatever that meant.

      Sloane worked in product development. Mother was a secretary, not a bad job for a woman entering the job market for the first time in her late fifties. She took to a computer as if she’d been born to use one, and she loved her work. But Sloane.…

      Lindsey had never been able to learn what products Sloane developed. Consolidated Alpha was one of those shadowy Bay Area corporations that seemed to have something to do with the University of California, or maybe with the Lawrence Labs, or with the Department of Energy, or maybe Defense.

      Maybe they were building neutron bombs.

      Maybe they had a crashed UFO with seventeen frozen aliens in a secret lab.

      Lindsey fixed himself some dinner and tried to vedge out in front of the TV. He couldn’t get interested in anything. He went for a walk around the block. Mother had spoken of selling the house and buying a condo. Then she and Sloane had started talking about marriage. And Lindsey had asked Marvia to marry him enough times, and she seemed to be edging slowly, ever so slowly, toward doing it.

      One way or another, Lindsey’s comfortable life in the nest was coming to an end, that was for sure.

      When he got home there was still no sign of Mother, no silver-gray Oldsmobile in the driveway. He showered and climbed into bed, but sleep would not come. He went downstairs and stared at the television set. It stared back at him with its single eye. He didn’t even pick up the remote. He knew that he and the TV had nothing to say to each other.

      He walked to the single, sparsely-populated bookshelf in the living room and plucked a book that had stood there unopened for years. It was The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton. It was wonderful.

      The next day, Sunday, he kept his appointment with Scotty Anderson. Finding Anderson’s home in Castro Valley wasn’t difficult. Anderson lived in an apartment in a standard, low-rise, 1970’s development. The neighborhood was marked with strip-malls and broad, treeless streets. The parking lot outside the apartment was full of ten-year-old Toyotas and deteriorating pickup trucks. A couple of motorcycles stood at the end of the lot. Even those showed signs of neglect.

      Lindsey rang the bell beside Anderson’s door. Anderson was a massive individual. He looked as if he’d combed his mouse-brown hair once, and had shopped with taste and care at Goodwill. He clenched an unlit match in his teeth. Well, at least the sulfur end was outside his mouth. When he greeted Lindsey, Lindsey felt as if his hand was being absorbed by a great, soft animal.

      But the inside of Anderson’s apartment was very different from its exterior. It was a combination library, museum and shrine. The air outside might be cold and damp in winter and hot and dry in summer; inside Scotty Anderson’s apartment it was kept at a steady temperature and humidity. The Library of Congress had nothing on Scotty Anderson.

      “So you’re doing some research on paperbacks.” Anderson put one bear-like hand on Lindsey’s shoulder while he closed the outside door with the other. “Come on in. Let me show you around.”

      Lindsey had never seen a residence—at least he assumed it was Anderson’s residence—so jammed with books. The walls were covered with shelving packed with books. The room was divided into narrow passageways, little more than tunnels, between rows of standing metal shelves. Books were everywhere. The ends of the rows were covered with posters advertising books, blowups of ads for books, reproductions of covers of books. Ninety-nine percent of them were paperbacks.

      Anderson led Lindsey up one aisle and down the next, declaiming on cover artists, publishers, authors, points of distinction between first editions and later printings. Lindsey’s head was soon swimming.

      Finally they reached a cramped room furnished as an office. Anderson gestured Lindsey to a battered wooden chair. He dropped his own bulk into another and leaned a massive arm on a desktop. There was a computer on the desk, a stack of reference books beside the computer and a row of file cabinets beside the desk. Anderson’s mouse-brown hair hung over his forehead. He wore a denim work shirt and ragged, faded khaki work pants.

      Anderson looked at Lindsey expectantly.

      “Death in the Ditch.”

      Anderson grinned. He had large teeth. “Lovisi sent you, right?”

      Lindsey shook his head. “Who’s Lovisi?”

      “Come on, I know I’m a little late but does he want it fast or does he want it right? This ain’t easy. What did you say your name was? I know most of the collectors.” He peered into Lindsey’s face. His eyes were a pale blue. “I’m sorry, you don’t look familiar.”

      “We’ve never met.”

      “The draft is done. I’m really sorry, he’s been patient and I appreciate it. Another week. Two at the most.”

      “I’m afraid you misunderstand. I’m not a bill collector.”

      Anderson

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