The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror Page 22

  It is here on the fourth floor, I’m sure, that Aaron Neuhaus has his office. I can imagine that his windows overlook a view of the Atlantic, at a short distance, and that the office is beautifully paneled and furnished.

  I am feeling nostalgic for my old habit of book theft—when I’d been a penniless student decades ago, with a yearning for books. The thrill of thievery—and the particular reward, a book! In fact for years my most prized possessions were books stolen from Manhattan bookstores along Fourth Avenue that had no great monetary value—only just the satisfaction of being stolen. Ah, those days before security cameras!

  Of course, there are security cameras on each floor of Mystery, Inc. If my plan is successfully executed, I will remove the tape and destroy it; if not, it will not matter that my likeness will be preserved on the tape for a few weeks, then destroyed. In fact I am lightly disguised—these whiskers are not mine, and the black-plastic-framed tinted glasses I am wearing are very different from my usual eyeglasses.

  Just before closing time at Mystery, Inc. there are only a few customers, whom I intend to outstay. One or two on the first floor; a solitary individual on the second floor perusing shelves of Agatha Christie; a middle-aged couple on the third floor looking for a birthday present for a relative; an older man on the fourth floor perusing the art on the walls—reproductions of fifteenth-century German woodcuts titled Death and the Maiden, The Dance of Death, and The Triumph of Death—­macabre lithographs of Picasso, Munch, Schiele, Francis Bacon—­reproductions of Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Children, Witches’ Sabbath, and The Dog. (Too bad it would be imprudent of me to strike up a conversation with this gentleman, whose taste in macabre artwork is very similar to my own, judging by his absorption in Goya’s Black Paintings!) I am indeed admiring—it is remarkable that Aaron Neuhaus can sell such expensive works of art in this out-of-the-way place in Seabrook, New Hampshire, in the off-season.

  By the time I descend to the first floor, most of these customers have departed; the final customer is making a purchase at the checkout counter. To bide my time, I take a seat in one of the worn old leather chairs that seems almost to be fitted to my buttocks; so comfortable a chair, I could swear it was my own, and not the property of Aaron Neuhaus. Close by is a glass-fronted cabinet containing first editions of novels by Raymond Chandler—quite a treasure trove! There is a virtual itch to my fingers in proximity to such books.

  I am trying not to feel embittered. I am trying simply to feel competitive—this is the American way!

  But it’s painfully true—not one of my half-dozen mystery bookstores is so well-stocked as Mystery, Inc., or so welcoming to visitors; at least two of the more recently acquired stores are outfitted with ugly utilitarian fluorescent lights which give me a headache, and fill me with despair. Virtually none of my customers are so affluent-appearing as the customers here in Mystery, Inc., and their taste in mystery fiction is limited primarily to predictable, formulaic bestsellers—you would not see shelves devoted to Ellery Queen in a store of mine, or an entire glass-fronted case of Raymond Chandler’s first editions, or a wall of Holmesiana. My better stores carry only a few first editions and antiquarian books—certainly, no artworks! Nor do I seem able to hire attractive, courteous, intelligent employees like this young woman—perhaps because I can’t afford to pay them much more than the minimum wage, and so they have no compunction about quitting abruptly.

  In my comfortable chair it is gratifying to overhear the friendly conversation between this customer and the young woman clerk, whose name is Laura—for, if I acquire Mystery, Inc., I will certainly want to keep attractive young Laura on the staff as my employee; if necessary, I will pay her just slightly more than her current salary, to insure that she doesn’t quit.

  When Laura is free, I ask her if I might examine a first-edition copy of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely. Carefully she unlocks the cabinet, and removes the book for me—its publication date is 1940, its dust jacket in good, if not perfect, condition, and the price is $1,200. My heart gives a little leap—I already have one copy of this Chandler novel, for which, years ago, I paid much less; at the present time, in one of my better stores, or online, I could possibly resell it for $1,500 . . .

  “This is very attractive! Thank you! But I have a few questions, I wonder if I might speak with . . .”

  “I will get Mr. Neuhaus. He will want to meet you.”

  Invariably, at independently owned bookstores, proprietors are apt to want to meet customers like me.

  Rapidly I am calculating—how much would Aaron Neuhaus’s widow ask for this property? Indeed, how much is this property worth, in Seabrook? New Hampshire has suffered from the current, long-term recession through New England, but Seabrook is an affluent coastal community whose population more than quadruples in the summer, and so the bookstore may be worth as much as $800,000 . . . Having done some research, I happen to know that Aaron Neuhaus owns the property outright, without a mortgage. He has been married, and childless, for more than three decades; presumably, his widow will inherit his estate. As I’ve learned from past experiences widows are notoriously vulnerable to quick sales of property; exhausted by the legal and financial responsibilities that follow a husband’s death, they are eager to be free of encumbrances, especially if they know little about finances and business. Unless she has children and friends to advise her, a particularly distraught widow is capable of making some very unwise decisions.

  Dreamily, I have been holding the Raymond Chandler first edition in my hands without quite seeing it. The thought has come to me—I must have Mystery, Inc. It will be the jewel of my empire.

  “Hello?”—here is Aaron Neuhaus, standing before me.

  Quickly I rise to my feet and thrust out my hand to be shaken—“Hello! I’m very happy to meet you. My name is—” As I proffer Neuhaus my invented name I feel a wave of heat lifting into my face. Almost, I fear that Neuhaus has been observing me at a little distance, reading my most secret thoughts while I’d been unaware of him.

  He knows me. But—he cannot know me.

  As Aaron Neuhaus greets me warmly it seems clear that the proprietor of Mystery, Inc. is not at all suspicious of this stranger who has introduced himself as “Charles Brockden.” Why would he be? There are no recent photographs of me, and no suspicious reputation has accrued to my invented name; indeed, no suspicious reputation has accrued about my actual name as the owner of a number of small mystery bookstores in New England.

  Of course, I have studied photographs of Aaron Neuhaus. I am surprised that Neuhaus is so youthful, and his face so unlined, at sixty-three.

  Like any enthusiastic bookseller, Neuhaus is happy to answer my questions about the Chandler first edition and his extensive Chandler holdings; from this, our conversation naturally spreads to other, related holdings in his bookstore—first editions of classic mystery-crime novels by Hammett, Woolrich, James M. Cain, John D. MacDonald, and Ross Macdonald, among others. Not boastfully but matter-of-factly Neuhaus tells me that he owns one of the two or three most complete collections of published work by the pseudonymous “Ellery Queen”—­including novels published under other pseudonyms and magazines in which Ellery Queen stories first appeared. With a pretense of naïveté I ask how much such a collection would be worth—and Aaron Neuhaus frowns and answers evasively that the worth of a collection depends upon the market and he is hesitant to state a fixed sum.

  This is a reasonable answer. The fact is, any collectors’ items are worth what a collector will pay for them. The market may be inflated, or the market may be deflated. All prices of all things—at least, useless beautiful things like rare books—are inherently absurd, rooted in the human imagination and in the all-too-human predilection to desperately want what others value highly, and to scorn what others fail to value. Unlike most booksellers in our financially distressed era, Aaron Neuhaus has had so profitable a business he doesn’t need to sell in a
deflated market but can hold on to his valuable collections—indefinitely, it may be!

  These, too, the wife will inherit. So I am thinking.

  The questions I put to Aaron Neuhaus are not duplicitous but sincere—if somewhat naïve-sounding—for I am very interested in the treasures of Aaron Neuhaus’s bookstore, and I am always eager to extend my bibliographical knowledge.

  Soon, Neuhaus is putting into my hands such titles as A Bibliography of Crime & Mystery Fiction 1749–1990; Malice Domestic: Selected Works of William Roughead, 1889–1949; My Life in Crime: A Memoir of a London Antiquarian Bookseller (1957); The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction, and an anthology edited by Aaron Neuhaus, One Hundred and One Best American Noir Stories of the 20th Century. All of these are known to me, though I have not read one of them in its entirety; Neuhaus’s One Hundred and One Best American Noir Stories is one of the backlist bestsellers in most of my stores. To flatter Neuhaus I tell him that I want to buy his anthology, along with the Chandler first edition—“And maybe something else, beside. For I have to confess, I seem to have fallen in love with your store.”

  At these words a faint flush rises into Neuhaus’s face. The irony is, they are quite sincere words even as they are coolly intended to manipulate the bookseller.

  Neuhaus glances at his watch—not because he’s hoping that it’s nearing 7:00 p.m., and time to close his store, but rather because he hopes he has more time to spend with this very promising customer.

  Soon, as booksellers invariably do, Aaron Neuhaus will ask his highly promising customer if he can stay awhile, past closing time; we might adjourn to his office, to speak more comfortably, and possibly have a drink.

  Each time, it has worked this way. Though there have been variants, and my first attempt at each store wasn’t always successful, necessitating a second visit, this has been the pattern.

  Bait, bait taken.

  Prey taken.

  Neuhaus will send his attractive salesclerk home. The last glimpse Laura will have of her (beloved?) employer will be a pleasant one, and her recollection of the last customer of the day—(the last customer of Neuhaus’s life)—will be vivid perhaps, but misleading. A man with ginger-colored whiskers, black plastic-framed glasses, maybe forty years old—or fifty . . . Not tall, but not short . . . Very friendly.

  Not that anyone will suspect me. Even the brass initials on my attaché case—CB—have been selected to mislead.

  Sometime this evening Aaron Neuhaus will be found dead in his bookstore, very likely his office, of natural causes, presumably of a heart attack—if there is an autopsy. (He will be late to arrive home: his distraught wife will call. She will drive to Mystery, Inc. to see what has happened to him and/or she will call 911 to report an emergency long after the “emergency” has expired.) There could be no reason to think that an ordinary-seeming customer who’d arrived and departed hours earlier could have had anything to do with such a death.

  Though I am a wholly rational person, I count myself one of those who believe that some individuals are so personally vile, so disagreeable, and make the world so much less pleasant a place, it is almost our duty to eradicate them. (However, I have not acted upon this impulse, yet—my eradications are solely in the service of business, as I am a practical-minded person.)

  Unfortunately for me, however, Aaron Neuhaus is a very congenial person, exactly the sort of person I would enjoy as a friend—if I could afford the luxury of friends. He is soft-spoken yet ardent; he knows everything about mystery-detective fiction, but isn’t overbearing; he listens closely, and never interrupts; he laughs often. He is of moderate height, about five feet nine or ten, just slightly taller than I am, and not quite so heavy as I am. His clothes are of excellent quality but slightly shabby, and mismatched: a dark brown Harris tweed sport coat, a red cashmere vest over a pale beige shirt, russet-brown corduroy trousers. On his feet, loafers. On his left hand, a plain gold wedding band. He has a sweetly disarming smile that offsets, to a degree, something chilly and Nordic in his gray-green gaze, which most people (I think) would not notice. His hair is a steely gray, thinning at the crown and curly at the sides, and his face is agreeably youthful. He is rather straight-backed, a little stiff, like one who has injured his back and moves cautiously to avoid pain. (Probably no one would notice this except one like myself who is by nature sharp-eyed, and has had bouts of back pain himself.)

  Of course, before embarking up the coast to Seabrook, New Hampshire, in my (ordinary-seeming, unostentatious) vehicle, attaché case on the seat beside me, and plan for the elimination of a major rival memorized in every detail, I did some minimal research into my subject who has the reputation, in bookselling and antiquarian circles, of being a person who is both friendly and social and yet values his privacy highly; it is held to be somewhat perverse that many of Neuhaus’s male friends have never met his wife, who has been a public school teacher in Glastonberry, New Hampshire, for many years. (Dinner invitations to Neuhaus and his wife, from residents in Seabrook, are invariably declined “with regret.”) Neuhaus’s wife is said to be his high school sweetheart whom he first met in 1965 and married in 1977, in Clarksburg, North Carolina. So many years—faithful to one woman! It may be laudable in many men, or it may bespeak a failure of imagination and courage, but in Aaron Neuhaus it strikes me as exasperating, like Neuhaus’s success with his bookstore, as if the man has set out to make the rest of us appear callow.

  What I particularly resent is the fact that Aaron Neuhaus was born to a well-to-do North Carolina family, in 1951; having inherited large property holdings in Clarksburg County, North Carolina, as well as money held for him in trust until the age of twenty-one, he has been able to finance his bookstore(s) without the fear of bankruptcy that haunts the rest of us.

  Nor was Neuhaus obliged to attend a large, sprawling, land-grant university as I did, in dreary, flat Ohio, but went instead to the prestigious, white-column’d University of Virginia, where he majored in such dilettantish subjects as classics and philosophy. After graduation Neuhaus remained at Virginia, earning a master’s degree in English with a thesis titled The Aesthetics of Deception: Ratiocination, Madness, and the Genius of Edgar Allan Poe, which was eventually published by the University of Virginia Press. The young Neuhaus might have gone on to become a university professor, or a writer, but chose instead to apprentice himself to an uncle who was a (renowned, much-respected) antiquarian bookseller in Washington, D.C. Eventually, in 1980, having learned a good deal from his uncle, Neuhaus purchased a bookstore on Bleecker Street, New York City, which he managed to revitalize; in 1982, with the sale of this bookstore he purchased a shop in Seabrook, New Hampshire, which he renovated and refashioned as a chic, upscale, yet “historic” bookstore in the affluent seaside community. All that I have learned about Neuhaus as a businessman is that he is both “pragmatic” and “visionary”—an annoying contradiction. What I resent is that Neuhaus seems to have weathered financial crises that have sent other booksellers into despair and bankruptcy, whether as a result of shrewd business dealings or—more likely—the unfair advantage an independently well-to-do bookseller has over booksellers like myself with a thin profit margin and a fear of the future. Though I do not hate Aaron Neuhaus, I do not approve of such an unfair advantage—it is contrary to Nature. By now, Neuhaus might have been out of business, forced to scramble to earn a living in the aftermath of, for instance, those hurricanes of recent years that have devastated the Atlantic coastline and ruined many small businesses.

  But if Mystery, Inc. suffers storm damage, or its proprietor loses money, it does not matter—there is the unfair advantage of the well-to-do over the rest of us.

  I want to accuse Aaron Neuhaus: “How do you think you would do if our ‘playing field’ were level—if you couldn’t bankroll your bookstore in hard times, as most of us can’t? Do you think you would be selling Picasso lithographs upstairs, or first editions of Raymond Chandler; do
you think you would have such beautiful floor-to-ceiling shelves, leather chairs and sofas? Do you think you would be such a naïve, gracious host, opening your store to a ginger-whiskered predator?”

  It is difficult to feel indignation over Aaron Neuhaus, however, for the man is so damned congenial. Other rival booksellers haven’t been nearly so pleasant, or, if pleasant, not nearly so well-informed and intelligent about their trade, which has made my task less of a challenge in the past.

  The thought comes to me—Maybe we could be friends? Partners? If . . .

  It is just 7:00 p.m. In the near distance a church bell tolls—­unless it is the dull crashing surf of the Atlantic a quarter-mile away.

  Aaron Neuhaus excuses himself, and goes to speak with his young woman clerk. Without seeming to be listening I hear him tell her that she can go home now, he will close up the store himself tonight.

  Exactly as I have planned. But then, such bait has been dangled before.

  Like any predator I am feeling excited—there is a pleasurable surge of adrenaline at the prospect of what will come next, very likely within the hour.

  Timing is of the essence! All predators/hunters know this.

  But I feel, too, a stab of regret. Seeing how the young blond woman smiles at Aaron Neuhaus, it is clear that she reveres her employer—perhaps loves him? Laura is in her ­midtwenties, possibly a college student working part-time. Though it seems clear that there is no (sexual, romantic) intimacy between them, she might admire Neuhaus as an older man, a fatherly presence in her life; it will be terribly upsetting to her if something happens to him . . . When I acquire Mystery, Inc., I will certainly want to spend time in this store. It is not far-fetched to imagine that I might take Aaron Neuhaus’s place in the young woman’s life.

  As the new owner of Mystery, Inc., I will not be wearing these gingery-bristling whiskers. Nor these cumbersome black plastic-framed glasses. I will look younger, and more attractive. I have been told that I resemble the great film actor James Mason . . . Perhaps I will wear Harris tweeds, and red cashmere sweater vests. Perhaps I will go on a strenuous diet, jogging along the ocean each morning, and will lose fifteen pounds. I will commiserate with Laura—I did not know your late employer but ‘Aaron Neuhaus’ was the most highly regarded of booksellers—and gentlemen. I am so very sorry for your loss, Laura!