The Hemingway Thief (10 page)

“He kills people,” I said, wounded by the slight criticism. I was done with MacMerkin, but he was still my darling, my baby. “He kills people who deserve it.”

“The bad guys, huh,” Digby said, and scooped up the holster.

“That's right.”

“I remember when vampires
were
the bad guys.” He grinned, tucked his hat onto his head, and touched his thumb and forefinger to the brim. He sauntered back to the hotel and I waited a few minutes, soaking up the ghost-town atmosphere before wandering inside to call Ox.

“N. Thandy is Newton Thandy, and he is what we call in polite society a real motherfucker,” Ox said when I reached him.

“Yeah, no shit,” I said. I'd been using a handkerchief to clean up the wound on my forehead. Disgusted by the blood and grime, I threw it on the bench, where it landed with a sickening squelch. The cut had been minor, but it bled like a bitch.
The head bleeds
, Grady had said philosophically. I cradled the phone against my shoulder and searched my pockets for a notebook and pencil. For the first time in a decade I had neither.

“I had to do some digging.” Ox said, almost giggling with excitement. He was still in his office. He told me he was working late trying to land a new client, but I knew better. He had a complete set of first edition Hardy Boys novels on the bookshelf behind his desk. An original copy of
Beeton's Christmas Annual
in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
A Study in Scarlet
first appeared. He kept an extensive file on the Black Dahlia case in a locked drawer. Ox was a mystery junky, and the assignment I gave him was just too irresistible. “On the surface Thandy comes off as just kind of an asshole, but they're common enough in the rare book business.”

“Which you know all about, right?”

“I have friends who collect,” Ox said. For as long as I'd known him Ox had never once told me he didn't know someone in whatever business we were talking about. “So, alright, Thandy comes from old money. Old South money too, but the kind that's more status than actual bank accounts. The Thandy name is on a lot of buildings in their town. His father owned the local branch of the bank, but they're not the Rockefellers. Most of the family money ran out during the Depression. Newton went to UGA, no military, too young to fight the Nazis, and he was in college for Korea. After UGA he fumbled around in a few businesses and then he went to work for the Jive Cola Company in '64. He worked there for thirty years. Worked his way up to vice president. Retired about twenty years ago and started collecting books and antiques. I guess he did pretty well with Jive because he's listed as one of the richest private citizens in the South. He owns a shop on Peach Tree Street.”

“Doesn't sound too shady,” I said, and leaned my head back against the booth's cracked plaster wall. Sweat dripped down my neck and the hollow of my back. Thandy had said his previous life and career had been “uncivilized,” even bloody. I doubted running Jive's bottling company in East Bumblefuck, Arkansas, would qualify as either.

“Personal life was kind of a mess,” Ox said. “Failed marriage. Rumors of an affair, wife supposedly fucked a cousin. I'm not sure if it's a cousin of his or hers.”

“Jesus, Ox, where'd you get that?”

“I told you, I know people, and Thandy is well-known and not liked. You remember Wanda Coulter over at Hampton House? She remembers everybody. Said he was a real cocksucker.”

“Wanda said that?” I had met Wanda a few times at various writing conventions. She wore a shawl and spoke in hushed tones that would make a dormouse sound like an air horn.

“Her words,” Ox said. “A few other people remembered him too. He's got a bad rep. He uses his money to bully people out of his way. His specialty is buying up high-profile estate sales and scrounging their collections. There have been rumors of intimidation, but I couldn't get anybody to give me any specific instances.”

“Has he ever done anything . . .” I searched for a word describing the malevolent and certainly insane man I had met earlier. I arrived at the weak and insufficient, “criminal?”

“Criminal?” Ox said. I heard papers rustling on the other end of the line. “Well, I'll tell you this. Jive Cola execs do pretty well, but the money he shells out is ridiculous. Mary Spinnaker—you know Mary, she runs a small imprint over in Brooklyn—she says the guy has a yacht that would make an Arab prince jealous. Nobody knows how he made all of his money. ”

“But I'm sure there are theories, right?” I heard pages flapping on the other end of the line. My head ached something fierce, and all I wanted to do was go to bed. I doubted that was in the cards for a good long while.

“Alright,” Ox said. “You've heard about Jive Cola in South America, right?”

“Let's assume I did,” I said. Ox gave a dramatic sigh. He was always chastising me for my lack of interest in the world around me.

“Suffice it to say there have been some labor disputes in South America,” he said. “And there have been stories about the Jive Cola Company getting involved with some paramilitary types to put down the unions.”

“No shit,” I said. “Good thing I only put lime in my rum. What's it got to do with Thandy?”

“The rumor is he was the go-between for Jive and the paramilitary guys.” I smiled to myself and almost laughed out loud. This was more in line with the man I had met at the roadblock. Still it didn't completely add up.

“I can see him making some side cabbage on something like that. But yachts?”

“Yeah, I said the same thing,” Ox said with a chortle. “The prevailing theory, and mind you I got this from Phil Yancy, is that he went into business for himself. He brokered a bunch of arms deals with groups like FARC, ELN, things like that. Now that would get you yacht money.”

I'd heard of FARC, but my knowledge of violent groups in South America was limited to plot points from Call of Duty. A shiver ran up my spine.

“Fuck me. He's a gunrunner,” I said. “Who's Phil Yancy?”

“Guy owns a bookstore over on Halstead. Conspiracy nut. Thinks 9/11 was engineered by the National Parks Department to get more funding for Yellowstone.”

“I don't know about that, but he might be on to something as far as Thandy goes.”

“How do you know Thandy?”

“You did good, Ox,” I said. I didn't think he'd find what happened to me out on the road to be amusing, at least not until it was written and sellable. “I'm going to be stuck here for at least a couple more days.” I expected a tirade, but instead there was a soft plaintive sigh.

“What are you into down there?” Ox asked. He sounded more curious than concerned. I had the tiniest barbed hook in him.

“A new book,” I said. It was only half a lie. I did think there was a story, and I knew I wanted to write it, but that wasn't the only reason I wanted to stay.

“
MacMerkin in Mexico
?” Ox asked with an excited lilt.

“No.”

“You're not still thinking about ending the franchise, right?” Ox said. If I didn't give him something, I was going to get dragged into another Ox vortex.

“I got something going down here,” I said. “Look, this is the type of thing that makes a career.”

“You have a career.”

“I have Toulouse's career, Ox. I'm talking about my own thing. I'm thinking of it as a nonfiction novel, like
In Cold Blood
.”

“You're no Truman Capote, Coop,” Ox said.

“Why are you always telling me how not great I am?”

“What about the posthumous works of Toulouse Velour,” he said. “I was starting to come around to that.”

“It'll have to go on the back burner.”

“I want you to come home,” Ox said. “Come home and we'll sort this out.”

“Not yet,” I said. “The book's not finished.”

“Can't you just make it all up?”

“Seems a little dishonest.”

“You're a novelist,” Ox said. “Your whole job is dishonesty.”

“Still,” I said. There was a sucking sound on the other end of the line. Ox was a nail biter.

“You really think it's a bestseller?” he said through a mouthful of cuticle. I told him I did. “And you won't tell me about it?”

“If I told you now, you'd have to up your Xanax prescription,” I said, and hung up. I looked down at the small puddle of blood that had formed on the bench. Jesus, how the head bleeds.

Chapter Ten

Grady was sitting at the bottom of the stairs with a bottle of Patrón. A shot glass, filled to the brim, sat next to him on the uneven wooden step.

“I thought we were out of Patrón?” I said.

“Private stash,” Grady said, and took a swig out of the bottle.

“Is that shot for me?”

“No. That's the reserve. So I don't drink the whole bottle.”

“Maybe you should keep yourself straight, seeing as though there's a lot of shit going on right now,” I said.

“So Thandy was a gunrunner?” he said. He had been listening to the whole conversation. It was my own fault for not securing the booth's door, letting it hang open an inch or two. Maybe it was an invasion of privacy, but on the bright side I wouldn't have to repeat the whole conversation for Grady. He stood up and leaned against the wall, tipping his head against the plaster. The tequila was working its agave magic on him. “Come on. Let's get some answers.”

“You think Milch'll tell us the truth?” I said. Grady blinked slowly; so slowly he may have taken a nap.

“I do,” he said. He turned on the step, using the back of his head as a pivot against the wall.

“What are you going to do?”

“Couple of things the ACLU probably wouldn't approve of,” he said. He marched up the stairs with inebriated determination.

Digby waited for us at the top of the stairs. His gun belt was on and the large revolver hung at his hip.

“Doc's gone into town to visit his girlfriend. I don't think he'll be back tonight,” he said. Doc had never mentioned a girlfriend before, and the “town” he spoke of was really just a collection of trailers huddled around a church. I didn't blame him. If I had stopped and thought about it, which is something I had seldom done on this adventure, I would have been looking for an exit as well.

“OK,” Grady said, and started for the door. Digby stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“And Milch tried to leave,” Digby said.

“When was this?” Grady asked. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at the cut that ran under his jawline.

“Just after you left,” Digby said. “Thought it was odd, seeing as though he was supposed to be too banged up to travel. I mean that was the whole reason you went instead, right?”

“Yeah,” Grady said. He used the bloody handkerchief to wipe the sweat off of his face. “What stopped him?”

“Apparently his distributor cap went missing,” Digby said.

“What the hell is a distributor cap?” I asked. Digby brought his hand from behind his back. In a red-and-white striped handkerchief, he was holding a black metal cylinder with five small metal tubes jutting out on one side.

“This is a distributor cap,” he said with a wink, and stepped inside Milch's room.

“Doesn't that concern you?” I whispered to Grady, pointing out the leviathan-like pistol that clanked behind Digby like tin cans off the back of a newlywed's car.

“What? The gun?” Grady asked.

“Yeah, the gun.”

“The Digby mystery deepens, doesn't it,” Grady said. He saw the look on my face and feigned sympathy. “Hey, at least he's on our side.” He drifted into the room and I followed.

Digby was already stretched out on the bed like a lounging cat. His legs hung over the footboard, his toes clicking together merrily. He was reading my book again and didn't bother to look up when Grady and I came inside. Milch sat in the desk chair. Doc must have changed his bandage. It looked crisp and clean against his grimy skin.

“Surprised to see us?” I said.

“Not really,” Milch said. “What's this shit about no showers 'til tomorrow?”

“We met a friend of yours,” Grady said. He took another swig of tequila and rested the square bottle in the crook of his arm. “Newton Thandy.”

“Him?” Milch said, scratching at the bruise on his neck. “Does that mean you didn't get the money?” Grady crossed the room in three long strides, grabbed the section of the seat between Milch's legs, and heaved the chair backward. Milch's head struck the wall, but Grady put his boot heel on the seat, keeping the chair tilted on the back legs. Milch waved his arms, trying to keep his balance.

“You set us up,” Grady said.

“Easy,” I said, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I am easy, Coop,” he said, but didn't look at me. I gave up, pushed Digby's legs out of the way, and sat down on the bed. I hoped Grady was only trying to scare the kid. If not, there wasn't much I could do to stop him.