“I should apologize for implying you aren’t very intelligent. Hiding your files in your library was a sound idea. After all, who would ever think to search for them here?” Simon gestured to indicate the large collection of books. “Any serious thief would look for a hidden safe before he thought about these shelves. After all, it would take days to go through every volume in this room.”
“And yet you found my records after a single walk-through of my collection?”
Simon smiled. “While you accompanied me. It’s the prints you left behind, you see.”
“That makes no sense. Every book in here has my prints on it. I handled all of them at one time or another.”
“I’m talking about a different kind of prints—like those on the Bugatti,” Simon said. “The kind you leave when you get very excited. Nervous. Enraged. Prints like that are very, very hot.”
“Stop lying. Someone talked. Who was it?”
“I doubt if you would believe me if I tried to explain. People rarely do. Now, I would appreciate it if you would get out of the way. It’s late, and as I said, I’ve got a long drive ahead of me in the morning. I’d like to get some sleep.”
“Don’t move.”
Simon raised the large briefcase and cradled it in front of his chest. At the same time he leaned one shoulder against a big bookcase, putting his body weight into it.
The heavy bookcase rocked a little. Simon leaned harder.
“Stop,” Lennox shouted. “What are you doing?”
He took a hasty step back, trying to get out of the aisle. He raised his pistol and fired.
Simon was braced for the impact; nevertheless, the bullet struck the steel-lined briefcase with enough force to spin him backward and sideways. He came up hard against the rocking bookshelf. His glasses flew off.
The long bookshelf shuddered and slowly toppled into the neighboring aisle. Rows of heavy volumes were jarred loose and tumbled to the floor.
Startled, confused, and distracted, Lennox hastily retreated a couple of steps.
“You should be dead,” he shouted.
“Not yet.”
Simon charged forward down the aisle, using the briefcase as a shield.
Lennox got off another shot but was scrambling backward so quickly he lost his balance. This time the bullet thudded into a bookcase.
In the next instant Simon slammed into him with the briefcase. Both men went down, but Lennox was on the bottom. He lay still, mouth opening and closing, the breath knocked out of him.
Meanwhile the rows of bookcases fell in a cascading wave. There was a dull rumble. Volumes flew off the shelves.
Simon leaped to his feet, thought briefly about trying to retrieve his glasses, and immediately concluded it was a lost cause.
He kicked Lennox’s pistol under the desk and headed for the door of the library. Behind him the roar of the toppling bookcases ceased.
The special agents from the Bureau pounded down the hall.
“Sounded like gunshots and an explosion,” one of the agents said. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Simon said. Automatically he started to adjust his glasses and then realized he was no longer wearing them. “The bookcases weren’t anchored to the floor. You’d think Lennox would have known better. This is earthquake country, after all.”
“He’s from back East.” The agent shrugged. “Probably never considered earthquakes when he furnished this place. Is he alive in there?”
“Yes. I left him on the floor. Pistol is under the desk.”
“We’ll take it from here.” The agent waved the other agents toward the library. “What about the fraud evidence?”
Simon set the briefcase on the floor and reached down to unlatch it. He took out the book and handed it to the agent. “It’s all in there. The details of every fraudulent transaction. Lennox was very, very thorough when it came to keeping two sets of books. This one has all the evidence you’ll need to get a conviction.”
The agent examined the cover of the book, mystified. And then he chuckled. “Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Well, what do you know? My wife gave me a copy of this book a couple of months ago. She said it would help me advance in the Bureau. Never got around to reading it.”
“Trust me, the details inside that particular copy will guarantee you a promotion,” Simon said.
He went on down the hall and out into the night. The custom-built Cord was parked in the drive. He got behind the wheel and opened the glove box to take out his spare pair of eyeglasses. His vision was excellent, but he had learned early on that people expected antiquarian book dealers to wear spectacles.
He tucked the glasses into the pocket of his jacket. The scars on the back of his right hand burned a little. The doctor had warned him he might experience some itching or irritation from time to time. Acid burns often took a long time to heal. He was told it had something to do with nerve damage. But he suspected that his other senses had been affected, too. He was more acutely aware of the energy laid down in objects than he had been before the McGruder case.
He massaged the roughened skin for a moment and then fired up the powerful engine. A glass of whiskey would calm things down.
He drove away from the mansion and headed toward Santa Monica. The familiar rush of energy that came with the successful closing of a case hit his veins like a powerful drug. It would inevitably be followed by the crash, but for now he could savor the satisfaction.
It would have been nice to share the victory with someone, preferably an interesting woman, but there was no one waiting for him at the house. He was well aware that was his own fault.
He enjoyed the company of women but he had learned the hard way to keep things superficial. His relationships always ended badly. Either the lady realized there was no future with him and left to pursue other options or she discovered his secrets and fled.
It occurred to him that he was reflecting on the past. That was not good. The thrill of success was wearing off already, and he hadn’t even had a chance to enjoy some whiskey. Maybe he needed a vacation.
In the morning he had to drive to Burning Cove to deliver the contents of the briefcase to Luther Pell. Why not stay there for a while? He would book a room at a nice hotel. Spend his mornings relaxing in a lounge chair while reading the latest Cooper Boone mystery. In the afternoons he would take long walks on the beach. In the evenings he would drink ice-cold martinis in Pell’s nightclub.
And maybe, with a little luck, he would meet the perfect woman—a sophisticated, reckless, experienced divorcée who was fresh off the train from Reno and eager to celebrate her newfound freedom, no strings attached. The kind of woman high-minded people labeled fast. He got a pleasant little frisson of anticipation at the thought.