The Dickens with Love (3 page)
even saw the book or the handwritten pages anymore. I was seeing benevolent old Doctor Dimpledolly and his amiable missus as they opened their home to a coachload of strangers stranded on Christmas Eve.
“Satisfied?” Professor Crisparkle asked dryly.
I snapped back to awareness, blinking up at him, dimly taking in the details of elegant nose, long
eyelashes, soft dark hair…I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were behind the horn-rims. That mercurial shade of light brown that looked green in certain light and gold in other. He seemed so awfully stern, so awfully strict, reminding me of an uptight schoolmaster. But that was right, wasn’t it? He taught chemistry like Mr. Redlaw, the professor of chemistry in
The Haunted Man
.
14
The Dickens with Love
As I stared at him, it occurred to me that Professor Crisparkle didn’t like me much.
Didn’t like me at all.
Why? Not that I was universally beloved—hardly—but what had I done to earn such instant dislike
from an out-of-towner?
I said slowly. “It looks…very promising.” My voice nearly gave out.
Promising?
Who was I kidding?
I knew, knew in my bones, this was the real thing. I said more solidly, “I’d have to examine it more closely, of course. To be absolutely sure.”
He gazed at me with an expression of utter contempt.
No, I wasn’t misreading him. I repeated uncertainly, “I’d like to spend a little more time—”
“I’m sure you would.”
Color heated my face at that dry, ironic tone—and I wasn’t quite sure why. I said evenly, “It certainly looks authentic, but you never know.”
“You don’t, do you?”
Again: barely concealed scorn. Too obvious by now to politely ignore.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
“There is no mysterious client, is there?”
“I didn’t say he was mysterious, but of course there’s a client.”
“What is the name of your client?”
“I’ve already told you he wishes to remain anonymous.”
Crisparkle said, looking me straight in the eyes, “After we spoke on the phone, Mr. Winter, I did a bit of checking up on you with your colleagues in the ABAA. You have quite an interesting—and not entirely admirable—past.”
I’m not sure why that struck home the way it did. I’d certainly heard worse, but hearing it from
Crisparkle—knowing the stories he would have heard about me—was, quite simply, humiliating. I
managed to say, “There are two sides to every story, Mr. Crisparkle.”
He didn’t answer.
After a painfully long pause, I said, “I take it you’ve decided not to permit me further access to the book?”
He said, as though it gave him great satisfaction, “You take it correctly, Mr. Winter.”
So why the hell had he permitted me up here to look at it at all? Curiosity? Or had I blown my one
and only chance when I pretended not to know for sure that the book was genuine?
I wanted to shout out,
it’s not fair
. But when was life ever fair? Instead, I expelled a long, shaky breath and managed to keep from saying all the furious, foolish things that wouldn’t help my cause
anyway. I could hardly bear to take a final glance at the book. Leaving it lying there in the shadows of
15
Josh Lanyon
reflected rain and firelight, knowing I would never see or hold it again, was like physical pain. I felt it in my core of my body like a physiological reaction to grief. I felt ill. I felt like crying.
Rising, I began gathering my things. Surprisingly, my hands were quite steady now.
I dragged on my coat, still damp with the earlier walk in the rain. All the while Crisparkle stood there watching me in an icy silence like a head butler waiting to expel a grubby tradesman.
I went to the door of his suite and he followed me, still unspeaking. I had my hand on the knob when
my anger overtook me, and I turned to face him.
“Not that it’s any of your goddamned business, but I had nothing to do with Louis Strauss’s forgeries, let alone murder. I was never accused or even implicated in any wrongdoing. I merely had the misfortune of working for Strauss. So did several other book hunters. The difference is, they didn’t stay in the
business. I stayed because this is my passion and my life.”
“Ah, I
see
,” he said mockingly. “Why, then, do you suppose so many people say the unflattering things they do about you?”
“Because I was
too
good at my job. And I was…arrogant. Nearly as arrogant as you.”
His expression altered infinitesimally right before I quietly, carefully, shut his hotel room door.
It was raining harder than ever as I started back down the cobbled path, making my way through the
playful statuary and miniature waterfalls, back over the pretty bridge and the lake where the rain sent ripples spreading across the green-gray surface. I strode right across the wet lawns, marched down the steps leading to the long patio with its rustic terra-cotta pavers and urns of massive flower arrangements, pushed open the French doors and went inside the comfortably dark hotel bar to order a drink while I tried to think what to do next.
I’d been to the so-called Champagne Bar many times—back when I was the hot-shot number one
book hunter for the leading antiquarian bookseller in Los Angeles. At times it was hard to remember those days. Mostly I didn’t want to. But however much my fortunes had changed, the Champagne Bar was still a gorgeous, welcoming room with gilt-framed paintings, classic dark wood and rich, luxuriously comfortable chairs and sofas, and a large fireplace that was cheerfully ablaze on this cold, wet afternoon. It looked more like the handsome library of a manor house than a trendy Los Angeles bar. From the tapestry cushions,
wooden ducks on the mantelpiece and live orchids, every elegant detail was perfect.
I settled into a stool at the bar and ordered a brandy. In a spirit of defiance, an Asbach Uralt.
No use pretending I wasn’t badly shaken by Crisparkle’s censure. Not that I ever forgot my inglorious
past, but three years later I no longer brooded on it twenty-four seven. Sometimes I even managed to
convince myself that one day people would forget and I’d be respectable again. Never mind respectable. I’d be happy to be regarded as employable again by people besides the Stephanopouloses of the world.
I wasn’t sure what bothered me more: being reminded I was still persona non grata among my former
colleagues or knowing I wasn’t going to be able to finish reading
The Christmas Cake
. Book collecting had 16
The Dickens with Love
never only been about money for me. First and foremost I was a reader, and beneath what probably seemed like a knowledgeable and somewhat jaded exterior was the kid who stayed up late at night reading
Mystery
of the Witches’ Bridge
by flashlight beneath the blankets.
I wanted to know what Doctor and Mrs. Dimpledolly were going to do with the little schoolmaster
still grieving for his dead wife, two mischievous schoolboys on their way home for the holidays, and the mysterious pregnant lady who appeared to be on the run from her rich papa, I wanted to know where the
Christmas cake came in. Hell, I wanted to know about the mouse.
I sipped my brandy and tried to come up with reasons for postponing calling Mr. S. I could only put it off for so long, of course. My gut feeling was that the book was authentic, but I couldn’t be sure without further examination. After Strauss, I was never going to recommend anything solely based on instinct. Not even my own once-renowned instinct.
But someone else would have to do the appraisal—someone else was going to get that nice fat
commission. Someone else would have the privilege of reading that wonderful, magical book.
Three fucking years. They felt like forever. Apparently they were no time at all.
I fought the burning desire to get blind drunk. Not only was it no solution, I couldn’t afford it. Bad enough losing the commission and the chance to further examine the book without having the disgrace and scandal of the Strauss thing dug up again. For the first time I wondered what would have happened had I just kept my mouth shut three years earlier? Suppose I’d just minded my own business and quietly taken another job with another antiquarian book dealer? God knows I’d had plenty of offers back then.
If I’d known then what I knew now?
I finished my brandy and ordered another.
How the hell was I supposed to pay my rent after this? How was I supposed to
eat
? I could
not
go on working at Barnes and Noble selling textbooks to college students and romance novels to housewives. I
couldn’t
.
I realized that I was traveling swiftly from depressed to self-pitying. Maudlin was the next stop, but it didn’t seem to matter. I felt like I’d hit rock bottom.
An orchestral version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” came on the piped-in music, and I was
fleetingly distracted. Or perhaps the brandy was kicking in, muting my misery. Weird to think we were listening to carols Dickens would have heard. He even mentioned “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” in
A
Christmas Carol
.
Why the fuck couldn’t people ever forgive and forget? Why didn’t they have the imagination or
honesty to see that…there but for the grace of God goes…any of us.
I squinted thoughtfully into the distance.
Anjaley Coutts
. Why was that name so familiar? Why had Dickens dedicated that Christmas book to her?
17
Josh Lanyon
Dedicated it? Apparently he’d written it for her. The only copy in existence, or at least that anyone
knew of, was the one he’d penned for her. Literally penned. Eighty pages of penning. A novella. A
Christmas novella for Anjaley Coutts.
A few more people wandered into the bar and then wandered out again. I checked my watch. Five
thirty. It should have been more crowded given that it was happy hour. Maybe the rain was keeping people away. Or holiday shopping.
I considered ordering a third brandy but not only did I not need a DUI for Christmas, I was going to
regret drinking the week’s food budget in one afternoon.
Undecided, restless, I turned my glass on the counter. I got that feeling between my shoulder blades—
the feeling you get when you’re being watched.
I glanced around. Nobody was watching me, but Sedgwick Crisparkle was seated in one of the
comfortable leather chairs, reading the newspaper.
I stared down at my empty glass, my heart pounding as hard as if I’d had a narrow escape.
Why? Whatever Professor Fizzwizzle believed, I had every right to sit in that bar and drink myself
stupid if I chose. I considered going over to his table to straighten him out on a few points—and was
unnerved at myself. I didn’t want another confrontation with him. I had no doubt Crisparkle would
unhesitatingly rip me a new one in public if I annoyed him for even an instant. That kind of press I could do without.
But the inexplicable desire to explain myself to him persisted. Annoyingly. What did I care if he had
the wrong idea about me? Especially since it really wasn’t that wrong an idea. I might have been innocent of any wrongdoing in the Strauss affair, but the difficulty of finding work afterwards had led me into more than one, let us say…delicately nuanced transaction. Nothing illegal, but rather close for comfort—and getting closer all the time.
There’s nothing like being treated like a crook to make you start thinking and behaving like one.
I wasn’t a crook. But I wasn’t a choirboy either.
I nursed my drink and thought firmly about getting home. Home to my cold, lonely studio apartment
and the never-ending concert by America. Right after I called Mr. S. so he could give my job away to
another book hunter.
Right on cue the piped-in music chimed in. “I’ll have a blue Christmas without you…”
There was a ripple of alarm through the bar tables. I put it down to the idea of the restrained strings and harps giving way to Elvis Presley, but I caught puzzling movement out of the corner of my eye.
I turned on my stool.
An ocelot stood about a foot away, staring at me as though he’d just scented prey.
18
Chapter Three
An ocelot.
A living, breathing ocelot. Not a stuffed toy. A fanged, clawed jungle predator.
Wearing a rhinestone collar.
How much had I had to drink? I closed my eyes, opened them, but the ocelot was still there, whiskers
twitching.
“Oh. My. God,” a girl said at a nearby table as she slowly, slowly rose and backed away toward the
door.
The ocelot never looked away from me. Statue-still, it stared me down as though waiting for me to
break and run. Where had it come from? More to the point, what the hell had I done to attract its attention?
Nice kitty
, I thought, sending positive, friendly vibes skipping across the universe.
Or not. The cat made a sound like it was growling through clenched teeth.
“Uh…okay,” I said. “What’ll you have?”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” The bartender leaned over the bar to get a better look. “Is that a leopard?”
“It’s too small to be a leopard,” objected the female bartender, joining him. They obviously felt safe behind that barrier. I could have clarified that point for them, but I was otherwise occupied. Meanwhile they continued to debate, as though watching an episode of
Animal Planet.
“It’s a baby leopard.”
“No way. Maybe a miniature leopard.”
I said, trying to keep my voice calm and soothing—not that I had any idea whether ocelots liked calm,
soothing voices, “It’s an ocelot. It’s wearing a collar. It must belong to one of the guests.”