Patriot games - Tom Clancy [174]
"That's what I thought." Shaw stood. "Tell your client that unless he opens up by the day after tomorrow, he's flying home to finish out a life sentence. Make sure you tell him that. If he wants to talk after he gets back, we'll send people to him. They say the beer's pretty good over there, and I wouldn't mind flying over myself to find out." The only thing the Bureau could use over Clark was fear. The mission he'd been part of had hurt the Provos, and young, dumb Ned might not like the reception he got. He'd be safer in a U.S. penitentiary than he would be in a British one, but Shaw doubted that he understood this, or that he'd crack in any case. Maybe after he got back, something might be arranged.
The case was not going well; not that he'd expected otherwise. This sort of thing either cracked open immediately, or took months-or years. The people they were after were too clever to have left an immediate opening to be exploited. What remained to him and his men was the day-by-day grind. But that was the textbook definition of investigative police work. Shaw knew this well enough: he had written one of the standard texts.
* * *
18
Lights
shley entered the bookshop at four in the afternoon. A true bibliophile, he paused on opening the door to appreciate the aroma.
"Is Mr. Cooley in today?" he asked the clerk.
"No, sir," Beatrix replied. "He's abroad on business. May I help you?"
"Yes. I understand that you've made some new acquisitions."
"Ah, yes. Have you heard about the Marlowe first folio?" Beatrix looked remarkably like a mouse. Her hair was exactly the proper drab shade of brown and ill-kept. Her face was puffy, whether from too much food or too much drink, Ashley couldn't say. Her eyes were hidden behind thick glasses. She dressed in a way that fitted the store exactly-everything she had on was old and out of date. Ashley remembered buying his wife the Bronte here, and wondered if those two sad, lonely sisters had looked like this girl. It was too bad, really. With a little effort she might actually have been attractive.
"A Marlowe?" the man from "Five" asked. "First folio, you said?"
"Yes, sir, from the collection of the late Earl of Crundale. As you know, Marlowe's plays were not actually printed until forty years after his death." She went on, displaying something that her appearance didn't begin to hint at. Ashley listened with respect. The mouse knew her business as well as an Oxford don.
"How do you find such things?" Ashley asked when she'd finished her discourse.
She smiled. "Mr. Dennis can smell them. He is always traveling, working with other dealers and lawyers and such. He's in Ireland today, for example. It's amazing how many books he manages to obtain over there. Those horrid people have the most marvelous collections." Beatrix did not approve of the Irish.
"Indeed," David Ashley noted. He didn't react to this bit of news at all. At least not physically, but a switch in the back of his head flipped on. "Well, that is one of the contributions our friends across the water have made. A few rather good writers, and whiskey."
"And bombers," Beatrix noted. "I shouldn't want to travel there so much myself."
"Oh, I take my holiday there quite often. The fishing is marvelous."
"That's what Lord Louis Mountbatten thought," the clerk observed.
"How often does Dennis go over?"
"At least once a month."
"Well, on this Marlowe you have-may I see it?" Ashley asked with an enthusiasm that was only partially feigned.
"By all means." The girl took the volume from a shelf and opened it with great care. "As you see, though the cover is in poor condition, the pages are in a remarkable state of preservation."
Ashley hovered over the book, his eyes running down the opened page. "Indeed they are. How much for this one?"
"Mr. Dennis hasn't set a price yet. I believe another customer is already very interested in it, however."
"Do you know who that is?"
"No, sir, I do not, and I would not be able to reveal his name in any case. We respect our customers' confidentiality,"