Booked to Die by John Dunning Read Free Book Online

two weeks ago. Ain’t that right, Em? About two weeks ago.”
    “About that,” Neff said. “What’s it about?”
    “I told you, I’m trying to pin him down,” I said. “Did he have something to sell when he came in?”
    “Just a few turds,” Ruby said. “Nuthin‘ I wanted.”
    “Bob was on a losing streak,” Neff said. “He hadn’t found much all month long.”
    “He was bitchin‘ up a storm about it,” Ruby said. “Bobby never bitches much, but I guess he needed the money and for once in his life he couldn’t find any books.”
    “You have any idea what he needed the money for?”
    “Hell, Dr. J, I just buy books from these bastards, I don’t go home and sleep with ‘em.”
    “They always need money,” Neff said.
    “Who doesn’t?” Ruby said. “But bookscouts… yeah, Em’s right. Those guys’re always scraping like hell just to get two nickels to rub against each other. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.“
    “When was the last time Bobby had a big strike?”
    “Oh, Jeez,” Ruby said, shaking his head.
    “What do you call big?” Neff said.
    “I don’t know, Neff,” I said. “What do
you
call big?”
    “Big to him might be this Faulkner you’re looking at. We’d give him thirty, forty bucks for that. Nothing to sneeze at if you got it for a quarter.”
    “Bigger than that,” I said.
    Ruby’s eyes went into mock astonishment. “You mean like maybe he found
Tamerlane
in the Goodwill? Something like that, Dr. J?”
    “Something like that.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    They had stopped grinning now and were hanging on my next words. I let them wait, and finally Neff stepped into the breach.
    “That’s been done. Remember the guy who found
Tamerlane
in a bookstore for fifteen dollars a few years ago? Do you know what the odds are of that happening, anywhere in the world, twice in a lifetime?”
    “I’m not talking about
Tamerlane
,” I said. “Just maybe something like it.”
    They both looked at me.
    “What’s going on, Dr. J?”
    “Somebody beat Bobby’s brains out last night.”
    “Holy Christ,” Ruby said.
    “Killed him, you mean,” Neff said numbly.
    I nodded.
    “Now who the hell would do that?” Ruby said.
    “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Let’s go back to what I asked you. When was the last time Bobby had a big strike?”
    “Oh, hell, I can’t remember,” Ruby said. “Jesus, Dr. J, this’s terrible.”
    “You’re asking us when Bob might’ve had something somebody would kill him for,” Neff said.
    “Let’s make like I’m asking you that.”
    “Hell, never,” Ruby said.
    Neff nodded immediately. “Even that big score he made a few years back, when he found all four of those big books in one weekend…I mean, that’s the biggest score any of them ever make, and all four of those books don’t add up to more than two grand. Who’d kill a guy for that?”
    “Some people, maybe,” I said.
    “Nobody I know,” Ruby said. “Goddamn, this’s terrible. I can’t get over it.”
    “Let’s say he had something worth two or three thousand,” I said. “That’s a lot of money to guys on the street.”
    “It’s a lot of money to
me
,” Ruby said.
    “But to a guy who lives like they live, it’s more money than you’ll ever see again in one place.”
    “You think that’s what happened… Bobby found something and some other bookscout took it away from him?”
    “I don’t think anything,” I said. “I’m trying to find out something and put it together with what I know. It’s unlikely Bobby found anything worth a real fortune. You said so yourself. Pieces like
Tamerlane
don’t just drop off trees into somebody’s lap. The reason they’re worth a quarter of a million dollars is because there are no copies out there to be found. A guy would have a better chance of winning the Irish Sweepstakes, right?”
    “I’d give him a better chance,” Ruby said.
    “And yet it happens.”
    “In movies it