The Fifth Floor by Michael Harvey Read Free Book Online

asked.
    “Sheehan’s was published in 1886. They offered a very limited first printing.”
    The curator flipped open the cover. On the inside was the number 12 embossed in red.
    “Each one is numbered. One through twenty.”
    “Just twenty of ’em, huh?”
    “That’s right. There is at least one other first edition in the Chicago area. Not entirely sure about ownership, but I believe it’s in private hands.”
    I didn’t tell Randolph that his private hands were now dead. Might make him nervous, and I didn’t need that.
    “The scarcity of copies,” Randolph said, “obviously makes each first edition worth a considerable amount.”
    Randolph talked about money like it was a dirty secret. I figured I’d do the same.
    “What’s considerable?” I whispered.
    “Two, three hundred dollars.”
    My motive suddenly didn’t smell so good.
    “You think someone got killed over a first edition of Sheehan’s History of the Chicago Fire?” Randolph said.
    “You don’t buy it either.”
    “I don’t see why,” he said.
    I considered the book, then moved my eyes back to Randolph.
    “If you were me, what would you do?”
    The curator looked at the book. Then he looked at me. “I’d read it.”
    So that’s what I did. I was on page fifty when Randolph was there again. At my shoulder. The smell of fine and dusty typeface was heavy upon him. Or maybe it was just booze.
    “You been drinking?” I said.
    Randolph blinked.
    “I just got to the part about the watchman,” I said.
    Two blinks. I took that as a good sign and continued.
    “Mathias Shafer, age forty. He’s sitting up in the city’s watchtower on the night of the fire. Sees a bit of smoke. Rings down to the boy. Let’s see…”
    I consulted my Sheehan’s.
    “Boy by the name of Billy Brown. Stop me if you already know all this. Billy is down in the business part of the tower. The part where all the alarms are. He’s got his girl down there. Playing the guitar for her and-well, you can figure out the rest.”
    Randolph took off his bifocals and wiped them down.
    “That’s right, you got it,” I said. “Billy pulls the wrong alarm and continues with the wooing. That’s what they called it back then. Wooing. Same deal, just a better name. Anyway, a half hour or so goes by and Shaffer notices the bit of smoke is now a lot of smoke and a bit of fire. He calls down to Billy again. Tells him he pulled the wrong alarm. Billy zips himself up and says, No worries, boss, I’ll get right to it. Except he doesn’t get right to it. Another half hour goes by before the city gets its fire engines where they need to be. By then-hell, it was too late, wasn’t it?”
    Lawrence Randolph blinked three times, picked up the files I had been looking at, and left. Tired from my lecture, I sat back in the green leather reading chair and rested my eyes. My Sheehan’s hit the floor with a definite thud. I started, swore, and went to pick up the book. Beside it was a folder the curator had left behind. It was labeled theories on the fire’s cause and origin. I picked it up and started to read. Three articles deep, I found the first feather in what I was certain would be a wild-goose chase. Still, I couldn’t resist and began to take notes.

CHAPTER 12
    W hat do we know about this?”
    I had made my way back to Randolph’s office. Inside I found a shapeless collection of wood and leather covered in books and papers. Behind a large desk was the shapeless man himself, eating lunch from a brown paper sack and not especially happy to see me darkening his door.
    “About what?” he said.
    “This Sun-Times article.”
    Randolph put down a pretty nice-looking banana, picked up the clippings file I had dropped on his desk, and gave it a look. Then he put the file down, picked up the yellow fruit again, and slowly began to peel.
    “Rubbish,” he said.
    “Really?”
    “Really.”
    The article was written by a reporter named Rawlings Smith. It was a weekend magazine piece