3.
Footsteps awakened her. At 3:00 p.m., like clockwork, the postman rumbled across her creaky porch and left her mail in the small box next to her front door. She waited a moment until he was gone, then retrieved the daily delivery, always a dismal collection of junk and bills. She flung the junk onto a coffee table and opened a letter from UNC. It was from the chair of the English department and, despite pleasant and verbose wordage, informed her, officially, that her position was gone. She had been a “valuable asset” to the staff, a “gifted teacher” who had been “admired by her colleagues” and “adored by her students,” and so on. The “entire department” wanted her to stay and viewed her as a “great addition,” but, sadly, there was simply no room in the budget. He offered her his best wishes and left the door open with the slight hope of “another position” should next year’s appropriation “return to normal levels of funding.”
Most of the letter was true. The chairman had been an ally, at times even a mentor, and Mercer had managed to survive the minefield of academia by keeping her mouth shut and avoiding, as much as possible, the tenured faculty.
But she was a writer, not a teacher, and it was time to move on. To where, she wasn’t certain, but after three years in the classroom she longed for the freedom of facing each day with nothing to do but write her novels and stories.
The second envelope contained her credit card statement. It showed a balance that reflected her frugal lifestyle and daily efforts to cut all corners. This allowed her to pay off each monthly balance and avoid the usurious rates the bank was eager to heap onto the carryovers. Her salary barely covered these balances, along with rent, auto insurance, auto repairs, and a bare-bones health insurance policy, one that she considered dropping each month when she wrote the check. She would have been financially stable, and with a little spare cash to buy a better wardrobe and perhaps have some fun, but for the contents in the third envelope.
It was from the National Student Loan Corporation, a wretched outfit that had been hounding her for the past eight years. Her father had managed to cover the first year of her private education at Sewanee, but his sudden bankruptcy and emotional crack-up had left her high and dry. Mercer had managed to squeak through her last three years with student loans, grants, jobs, and a modest inheritance from Tessa’s estate. She used the small advances from October Rain and The Music of Waves to pay down the interest on her student loans but hardly touched the principal.
Between jobs, she had refinanced and restructured her loans, and with each new scheme the horrendous balances grew even as she worked two and three jobs to stay current. The truth was, and she had told no one the truth, she found it impossible to express herself creatively while straining under a mountain of debt. Each morning, each blank page held not the promise of another chapter in a great novel, but rather another lame effort to produce something that might satisfy her creditors.
She had even talked to a lawyer friend about bankruptcy, only to learn that the banks and student loan companies had convinced Congress that such debts should be given special protection and not exempted. She remembered him saying, “Hell, even gamblers can go bankrupt and walk away.”
Did her stalkers know about her student debt? It was all private, right? But something told her that professionals could dig deep enough to find almost anything. She had read horror stories of even the most sensitive medical records being leaked to the wrong people. And credit card companies were notorious for selling information about their customers. Was anything really buried and safe?
She picked up the junk mail, tossed it in the wastebasket, filed away the final letter from UNC, and placed the two bills in a rack by the toaster. She made another cup of tea and was about to stick her nose in a novel when her cell phone buzzed.
Elaine was back.
4.
She began with “Look, I’m very sorry about lunch. I didn’t intend to ambush you, but there was no other way to start the conversation. What was I supposed to do? Grab you on the campus and spill my guts?”
Mercer closed her eyes and leaned on a kitchen counter. “It’s all right. I’m fine. It was just so unexpected, you know?”
“I know, I know, and I’m very sorry. Look, Mercer, I’m in town until tomorrow morning, when I fly back to Washington. I’d love to finish our conversation over dinner.”
“No thanks. You’ve got the wrong person for this.”
“Mercer, we have the perfect person, and, frankly, there is no one else. Please give me the time to explain everything. You didn’t hear it all, and as I said, we are in a very tough position right now. We’re trying to save the manuscripts before they’re either damaged or, worse, sold piecemeal to foreign collectors and lost for good. Please, one more chance.”
Mercer could not deny, to herself anyway, that the money was an issue. A really big issue. She wavered for a second and said, “So what’s the rest of the story?”
“It will take some time. I have a car and a driver and I’ll pick you up at seven. I don’t know the town but I’ve heard that the best restaurant is a place called The Lantern. Have you been there?”
Mercer knew the place but couldn’t afford it. “You know where I live?” she asked, and was immediately embarrassed by how innocent she sounded.
“Oh sure. I’ll see you at seven.”
5.
The car was, of course, a black sedan and looked thoroughly suspicious in her part of town. She met it at the drive and quickly hopped into the rear seat with Elaine. As it drove away, Mercer, sitting low, glanced around and saw no one looking. Why did she care? Her lease was up in three weeks and she would be leaving for good. Her shaky exit plan included a temporary stay in the garage apartment of an old girlfriend in Charleston.
Elaine, now dressed casually in jeans, a navy blazer, and expensive pumps, smothered her with a smile and said, “One of my colleagues went to school here and talks of nothing else, especially during basketball season.”
“They are indeed rabid, but it’s not my thing, not my school.”
“Did you enjoy your time here?”
They were on Franklin Street, moving slowly through the historic district, passing lovely homes with manicured lawns, then into Greek territory, where the homes had been converted to sprawling sorority and fraternity houses. The rain was gone and porches and yards were brimming with students drinking beer and listening to music.
“It was okay,” Mercer said without a hint of nostalgia. “But I’m not cut out for life in academia. The more I taught the more I wanted to write.”
“You said in an interview with the campus paper that you hoped to finish the novel while in Chapel Hill. Any progress?”
“How did you find that? It was three years ago, when I first arrived.”
Elaine smiled and looked out a window. “We haven’t missed much.” She was calm and relaxed, and she spoke in a deep voice that exuded confidence. She and her mysterious company were holding all the cards. Mercer wondered how many of these clandestine missions Elaine had put together and directed during her career. Surely she had faced foes far more complicated and dangerous than a small-town book dealer.
The Lantern was on Franklin, a few blocks past the hub of student activity. The driver dropped them off at the front door and they went inside, where the cozy dining room was almost empty. Their table was near the window, with the sidewalk and street just a few feet away. In the past three years, Mercer had read many rave reviews of the place in local magazines. The awards were piling up. Mercer had scanned the menu online and was starving again. A waitress greeted them warmly and poured tap water from a pitcher.
“Anything to drink?” she asked.
Elaine yielded to Mercer, who quickly said, “I need a martini. Up with gin, and dirty.”
“I’ll have a Manhattan,” Elaine said.
When the waitress was gone, Mercer said, “I suppose you travel a lot.”
“Yes, too much, I guess. I have two kids in college. My husba
nd works for the Department of Energy and is on a plane five days a week. I got tired of sitting in an empty house.”
“And this is what you do? You track down stolen goods?”
“We do a lot of things, but, yes, this is my primary area. I’ve studied art my entire life and sort of stumbled into this line of work. Most of our cases deal with stolen and forged paintings. Occasionally some sculpture, though it’s more difficult to steal. There is a lot of theft these days in books, manuscripts, ancient maps. Nothing, though, like the Fitzgerald case. We’re throwing all we have at it, and for obvious reasons.”
“I have a lot of questions.”
Elaine shrugged and said, “I have a lot of time.”
“And they’re in no particular order. Why doesn’t the FBI take the lead in something like this?”
“It does have the lead. Its Rare Asset Recovery Unit is superb and hard at work. The FBI almost broke the case within the first twenty-four hours. One of the thieves, a Mr. Steengarden, left a drop of blood at the crime scene, just outside the vault. The FBI caught him and his partner, one Mark Driscoll, and locked them away. We suspect that the other thieves got spooked and disappeared, along with the manuscripts. Frankly, we think the FBI moved too fast. Had they kept the first two under intense surveillance for a few weeks, they might have led the FBI to the rest of the gang. That seems even more likely now, with the benefit of perfect hindsight.”
“Does the FBI know about your efforts to recruit me?”
“No.”
“Does the FBI suspect Bruce Cable?”
“No, or at least I don’t think so.”
“So there are parallel investigations. Yours and theirs.”
“To the extent that we don’t share all information, then, yes, we are often on two different tracks.”
“But why?”
The drinks arrived and the waitress asked if there were any questions. Since neither had touched a menu, they politely shooed her away. The place was filling up quickly, and Mercer glanced around to see if she recognized anyone. She did not.
Elaine took a sip, smiled, set her glass on the table, and thought about her answer. “If we suspect a thief has possession of a stolen painting or book or map, then we have ways of verifying this. We use the latest technology, the fanciest gadgets, the smartest people. Some of our technicians are former intelligence agents. If we verify the presence of the stolen object, either we notify the FBI, or we go in. Depends on the case and no two are remotely similar.”
“You go in?”
“Yes. Keep in mind, Mercer, we are dealing with a thief who’s hiding something valuable, something our client has insured for a lot of money. It doesn’t belong to him, and he’s always looking for a way to sell it for big money. That makes each situation rather tense. The clock is always ticking, yet we have to show great patience.” Another small sip. She was choosing her words carefully. “The police and FBI have to worry about such things as probable cause and search warrants. We’re not always constrained by these constitutional formalities.”
“So you break and enter?”
“We never break, but sometimes we enter, and only for purposes of verification and retrieval. There are very few buildings that we cannot ease into quietly, and when it comes to hiding their loot a lot of thieves are not nearly as clever as they think they are.”
“Do you tap phones, hack into computers?”
“Well, let’s say we occasionally listen.”
“So you break the law?”
“We call it operating in the gray areas. We listen, we enter, we verify, then, in most cases, we notify the FBI. They do their thing with proper search warrants, and the art is returned to its owner. The thief goes to prison, and the FBI gets all the credit. Everybody is happy, perhaps with the exception of the thief, and we’re not too worried about his feelings.”
With her third sip, the gin was settling in and Mercer began to relax. “So, if you’re so good, why not just sneak into Cable’s vault and check it out?”
“Cable is not a thief, and he appears to be smarter than the average suspect. He seems very cautious, and this makes us even more suspicious. A false move here or there, and the manuscripts could vanish again.”
“But if you’re listening and hacking and watching his movements, why can’t you catch him?”
“I didn’t say we were doing all that. We may, and soon, but right now we just need more intelligence.”
“Has anyone in your company ever been charged with doing something illegal?”
“No, not even close. Again, we play in the gray, and when the crime is solved who cares?”
“Maybe the thief. I’m no lawyer, but couldn’t the thief scream about an illegal search?”
“Maybe you should be a lawyer.”
“I can’t think of anything worse.”
“The answer is no. The thief and his lawyer have no clue that we’re even involved. They’ve never heard of us and we leave no fingerprints.”
There was a long pause as they concentrated on their cocktails and glanced at the menus. The waitress hustled by and Elaine politely informed her that they were in no hurry. Mercer eventually said, “It looks as though you’re asking me to do a job that could possibly involve getting into one of your gray areas, which is a euphemism for breaking the law.”
At least she was thinking about it, Elaine thought to herself. After the abrupt termination of lunch she was convinced Mercer was history. The challenge now was to close the deal.
“Not at all,” Elaine reassured her. “And what law might you be breaking?”
“You tell me. You have other people down there. I’m sure they’re not going away. I’m sure they’ll be watching me as closely as they’re watching Cable. So it’s a team, of sorts, a group effort, and I’ll have no idea what my invisible colleagues might be doing.”
“Don’t worry about them. They are highly skilled professionals who have never been caught. Listen, Mercer, you have my word. Nothing we ask you to do is even remotely illegal. I promise.”
“You and I are not close enough to make promises. I don’t know you.”
Mercer drained her martini and said, “I need another.” Alcohol was always important in these meetings, so Elaine drained hers too and waved at the waitress. When the second round arrived, they asked for an order of Vietnamese-style pork and crab spring rolls.
“Tell me about Noelle Bonnet,” Mercer said, easing the tension. “I’m sure you’ve done your research.”
Elaine smiled and said, “Yes, and I’m sure you went online this afternoon and checked her out.”
“I did.”
“She’s published four books now, all on antiques and decorating the Provençal way, so she’s revealed something of herself. She tours a lot, speaks a lot, writes a lot, and spends half the year in France. She and Cable have been together about ten years and seem to be quite the pair. No children. She has one prior divorce; none for him. He doesn’t go to France much, because he rarely leaves the store. Her shop is now next door to his. He owns the building and three years ago kicked out the haberdashery and gave her the space. Evidently, he has nothing to do with her business and she stays away from his, except for entertaining. Her fourth book is about their home, a Victorian just a few blocks from downtown, and it’s worth a look. You want some dirt?”
“Do tell. Who doesn’t like dirt?”
“For the past ten years they’ve told everyone that they’re married, got hitched on a hillside above Nice. It’s a romantic story but it’s not true. They’re not married, and they appear to have a rather open marriage. He strays, she strays, but they always find their way back.”
“How in the world would you know this?”
“Again, writers are blabbermouths. Evidently, some are rather promiscuous.”
“Don’t include me.”
“I wasn’t. I’m speaking in general terms.”
“Go on.”
“We’ve checked everywhere and there’s no re
cord of a marriage, here or in France. A lot of writers pass through. Bruce plays his games with the women. Noelle does the same with the men. Their home has a tower with a bedroom on the third floor and that’s where the visitors sleep over. And not always alone.”
“So I’ll be expected to give up everything for the team?”
“You’ll be expected to get as close as possible. How you choose to do that is up to you.”
The spring rolls arrived. Mercer ordered lobster dumplings in broth. Elaine wanted the pepper shrimp, and she chose a bottle of Sancerre. Mercer took two bites and realized the first martini had deadened everything.
Elaine ignored her second drink and eventually said, “May I ask something personal?”
Mercer laughed, perhaps a bit too loud, and said, “Oh why not? Is there something you don’t know?”
“Lots. Why haven’t you been back to the cottage since Tessa died?”
Mercer looked away, sadly, and thought about her response. “It’s too painful. I spent every summer there from the age of six through the age of nineteen, just Tessa and me, roaming the beach, swimming in the ocean, talking and talking and talking. She was much more than a grandmother. She was my rock, my mom, my best