“Christopher and I always worked as a team.”
“Of course you did.”
“President Garber,” she said, walking with him toward the door. “I’ve done much more than just work with books in the years that I’ve been here. I hope you know that.”
“I wouldn’t have asked you to fill in for Chris if I didn’t.”
To fill in. Garber knew Liesl as the one who could be trusted to sign invoices or arrange caterers, but invoice signers and caterer wranglers had no business in the business of leadership. She heard it all in the words fill in.
“I’m sorry to get emotional. I really am trying my best.”
“You already said that,” said Garber. “You were Chris’s right hand. Everyone knows that.”
“I’m sorry to have kept you. I’ll keep you posted on news about the Plantin.”
“And I with news about Chris’s health,” Garber said. “We’ll be in touch.”
He opened the office door and closed it behind him. Liesl sat again. It was hard to believe that she could be made to feel so small by a grown man in a bicycle helmet.
“That went well then?” Francis strode in without knocking, as Liesl’s hands were busy dabbing the corners of her eyes dry.
“Francis. Were you waiting outside my door?”
“News on Chris?”
Liesl spun back and forth in Christopher’s chair.
“The news is that there’s no news,” she said. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”
Francis nodded, distracted. Sat down in the chair across from her without being asked. Even in his distraction his dark hair stayed slicked, perfect, while Liesl was sure her grays were standing on end.
“He’ll not leave us without finishing his work. Not the Chris I know.”
“Was he working on something?” asked Liesl. “I don’t think I knew that.”
“We were working on a book together.” Francis was looking down at his feet, frowning at the left knee that wouldn’t stop bouncing.
“Not like Christopher to share credit,” Liesl said. “How’d you talk him into that?”
The statement made Francis tense, made him look up from his feet.
“Don’t be unkind. Not about a man who can’t speak in his own defense.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Liesl’s mouth got smaller, her head looser. She shrunk with the apology. And the shrinking seemed to satisfy Francis that Liesl hadn’t meant any real disrespect.
“El presidente didn’t seem happy as he was leaving,” Francis clucked as he pulled the Christie’s catalog off the desk and flipped to the first marked page. If he saw anything special in Lot 37, he didn’t show it. Flipped right past it. “Did you bring up the idea of the police with him again?”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“Of course you did,” said Francis, sounding scolding in his artificial disinterest. “And he told you that it was a brilliant idea and to go ahead.”
“And he forbade me from involving them,” Liesl said.
“As I told you he would.”
“As you told me he would.”
“Chin up,” said Francis. He paused to dog-ear a page in the catalog, then he looked up at her. “I was proven right, so we can all feel good about that.”
“What am I supposed to do here?” she asked, overwhelmed with fatigue.
“What you’ve been doing. And I’ll help you.”
“It’s not your responsibility.”
“I’ll meet you back here at five, and we’ll get back to searching.” He tossed the catalog back onto the desk and heaved himself out of the chair, his face fixed with a hero’s resolve. “It’ll mean giving up my evening with the grandchild again, but I reckon my heart will recover.”
***
Liesl stood in the cigar-scented office, hands full of unanswered telephone messages, considering a request from Percy Pickens to come and cast an eye on the Plantin he had purchased but had yet to see, when the clock struck five. She shoved the stack of papers, Percy’s message among them, into her appointment book to be dealt with at some better time.
“Shall we head down?” she said when Francis arrived at her door. They were the only people left in the library. The others had sensed something in the air and gone home promptly at five.
“Not so fast,” Francis said. “Our souls are in need of spirit and strength.”