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 roared with laughter. “That wouldn’t worry me.”
“I’m with International Surety.” Lindsey reached for his wallet. Anderson flinched, then relaxed. Lindsey handed him a business card. “You see, there’s been a death. You may have heard about it.”
Anderson offered a look a bland inquiry.
“Albert Crocker Vansittart.”
Anderson waited.
“His helicopter crashed in Lake Tahoe. The pilot survived, Mr. Vansittart was lost. They’re going to try and find the wreckage, the University of Nevada is sending a team with fiber-optic equipment.”
Anderson closed his lips around the unlit match. “Right.” He nodded his massive head. “I heard something about that on the car radio.”
Okay. At least the guy had some awareness of the outside world.
“My company—International Surety—had issued a policy on Mr. Vansittart’s life. He hasn’t been formally declared dead as yet, that’s going to be a little problem. Who has jurisdiction, Placer County, California, or Washoe County, Nevada? And of course there’s no body as yet. If the fiber-optic scanner works, maybe we’ll have proof.”
Anderson frowned. “This is all fascinating stuff, I guess. But what does it have to do with me?” He tilted his head like a dog hearing an unfamiliar sound. “You sure Lovisi didn’t send you to collect? Or to pressure me?”
Lindsey sighed. “I promise you, Mr. Anderson, I haven’t an idea in the world who this Lovisi person is. And he certainly didn’t send me to do anything to you.”
“Okay.” Anderson stood up. He must have weighed close to 300 pounds, and if he wasn’t exactly in muscle beach shape, he was far from flabby. “Okay,” he repeated, “if Lovisi didn’t send you, how do you know about Death in the Ditch?”
“Vansittart. It was in Vansittart’s life policy. He was killed in the ’copter crash, at least it seems he was killed, and his insurance policy names his beneficiary as the girl on the cover of Death in the Ditch.” Lindsey was going to say more, but the dawning light of comprehension had brightened Scotty Anderson’s face like an interior sun.
“Poor Lovisi. I’m going to have to revise the article, I can see that.”
This time Lindsey played the waiting game.
“Gary
