The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [53]
6
Crosetti, bearing the rolled and wrapped maybe-invaluable manuscript under his arm, waited out on the deserted street for nearly half an hour, which he thought excessive. What was she doing in there? Although he had occasionally waited as long for women to get ready to go out. Although they weren’t going to the prom. He looked at his watch and paced and felt the craziness pluck at his mind.
She emerged wearing one of her black outfits, as if going to Glaser’s to work, and he wondered why. Maybe Bulstrode insisted on a certain formality, in which case he would be disappointed in Crosetti, who needed a bath and a shave and was wearing a T-shirt from a Springsteen concert, grubby jeans, and Nikes. He did not, however, complain to her about the waiting.
Nor did she apologize. Instead, she nodded at him casually and started off. He did not ask any questions about their destination, resolving to play it cool. He could be an international man of mystery too. They walked to Van Dyke and took the 77 bus to the Smith Street station, where they boarded the F train and rode noisily in silence to Manhattan. At Houston Street she got up and trotted from the car, and when he caught up with her he could not resist asking her about where they were going. Crosetti was not at heart cool.
“Mermelstein’s,” she answered. “They’re the last wholesaler of fine binding leather in the city.”
“They’ll sell you retail?”
“Mr. Mermelstein likes me.”
“Really. Does he…?” Crosetti made a pawing gesture. They were walking on the station steps, and she stopped abruptly and said, “He does not. You know, I’m really sorry I told you that about Sidney. Are you going to trot it out every time I mention a business connection with a man?”
“It’s erased from my mind as of this very minute,” said Crosetti, genuinely abashed, but also feeling a little manipulated. He also wondered why she was going to a wholesaler. Everyone in the old book trade in New York knew that the center of the bookbinding business was in Brooklyn, in Borough Park. He was about to ask her that but then stopped and figured it out for himself. Book dealers and major collectors had contacts among the regular bookbinders. If one of them were offered a Churchill Voyages at a fire-sale price, he’d check around with the bookbinder trade to see if the book had been doctored. It would not occur to any collector to imagine that the seller had done it solo, from raw materials. He was rather pleased with himself for having figured this out, any penetration of Rolly’s deviousness being to the good.
They walked east on Houston to an old commercial building near Second Avenue, where, in a pungent loft containing perhaps an acre of various animal skins, Crosetti leaned against a bale of the stuff and watched Rolly negotiate for a considerable time with an elderly man in a skullcap, a rusty black suit, and carpet slippers. They seemed to be having a good time, and Crosetti noticed with interest that Rolly had subtly changed her delivery. She smiled more with Mermelstein, actually laughed a time or two, and in general seemed a louder, more aggressive person than the one he knew, more…dare he think it?…more Jewish? Her speech had also taken on the pace and accent of the outer boroughs.
He remarked on this as they left with a small roll of fine calf wrapped in brown paper.
“Everybody does it,” she replied lightly. “You talk to someone, you take on a little of their shtick, their affect. Don’t you?”
“I guess,” he said, but thought, Yeah, but I’m something to begin with,