Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [49]
“My apologies. By a stroke of chance, it was only the new Lilian Lenton record,” commented Wynne, lifting his eyes from a book. “Did you know she started a pro-Eskimo riot this morning? I am really surprised that a man of your standing would have such democratic tastes.”
“It’s not as if I had listened to it,” said Gabriel gloomily.
Wynne threw the book aside and plucked off another one.
“We are really impressed by your library,” he said.
“I am sorry it has given you so much work.”
“Not at all. We were eager to explore it. You can’t curb a man’s appetite for knowledge, can you?”
“And your phantascopic collection is rare,” added de Brutus, tugging at a spooled-off reel of celluloid that might have been Gabriel’s collection of Bourne-Cantwell pornoperatic works. “Although as a lawyer, I would have difficulty defending it.”
Gabriel suddenly understood what they were looking for, and tried to hide his concern. They were not exactly hot at the moment, but God forbid—or the Devil—or anyone—that they find it.
“Ahh!” said Wynne, slapping a page of what Gabriel recognized as the copy of Phantastes offered to him by his former lover Christine Cranberry, “ ‘Rocket’ and ‘Pocket’! This is not exactly unknown to me, is it?”
“I read books, you read my mind, so you read my books too,” said Gabriel, wearily, thinking Wynne was lucky not to be reading his mind right now.
“And I suppose this is … Flap?” added Wynne, showing Gabriel a dedicated sepia photograph of Christine in a fairy outfit that served as bookmark.
Gabriel said nothing. On his Old Testament scales, the retaliation level went up from sevenfold to tenfold for this single familiarity. Unaware of or indifferent to this, Wynne plunged back into the book, or feigned to do so.
“Since we’re talking about your acquaintances, how is Mr. Orsini, these days?”
“He’s well enough, I guess.”
“Did your conversation over breakfast interest him?”
“I’d hate to think it did not,” Gabriel said, though he had to admit that he hadn’t been exactly dazzling this morning.
“Should we suppose that you talked about our little private chat at the Hotel de Police?”
“We usually don’t stoop that low.”
Wynne threw the book aside and took one step toward Gabriel, towering above him in a threatening attitude.
“Do I detect a certain lack of respect, Mr. d’Allier?”
“Do I detect a certain lack of self-control?” said Gabriel, quavering at his own insolence.
“Tsk, tsk, gentlemen, please …” said DeBrutus. “This is no way to behave. Remember you are here on a mission, Mr. Wynne, and not to tease my dear client.”
“Excuse us, Mr. DeBrutus. Now that you mention it, there is something I would like very much to show to Mr. d’Allier.”
He rummaged through the scattered books and seized one, brandishing it in front of Gabriel as if it were the Tables of the Law. It was a copy of A Blast on the Barren Land. Gabriel knew instantly that it wasn’t his, which had a different binding. He was not, however, going to explain that to Wynne.
“Oh! You brought me a book. How generous and thoughtful of you.”
“You do not recognize it?” said Wynne venomously.
Gabriel had a flash, one of those reflexes that one’s body and brain work out automatically in times of utter exhaustion. He saw himself browsing that very book in the Hôtel de Police, spotting something on the first page.
“I do indeed. It looks a lot like the same copy you showed me last week.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Just check the ex-libris. It is different from mine, as you must know by now.”
He was sure, or took the chance, that Wynne had not thought of counterfeiting the ex-libris before planting the book. It would have been the final “proof,” in their rather generous definition of what could pass as evidence. But Wynne was angry, in a hurry, under pressure from the Council, or simply not bookish enough to care for such details.