“Would you like another coffee?” she asked.
They were both at the end of their cups of tepid brown water.
“Why not?”
“I’ll get it,” she said. “Maybe a biscuit too. To help it go down easier.” She went to stand in the line.
The first time she’d ever seen Max, he had still been wearing the collar of his chosen profession. He removed it for the last time shortly thereafter. But he still had posture like a priest. The sweater vest and shirt buttoned to its very top button, this was a man you could tell your sins to. Perched at the edge of his chair, he didn’t notice that Liesl was watching him, because he was watching the room. That Liesl could see, there were three tiers of people in Max’s eyes. Those at the convention who, upon sight, warranted a light nod. Those who warranted a wave and a hello, and in very special cases, those who got Max out of his chair for a handshake and a conversation with heads tilted toward each other. She wondered about these hushed conversations. She reached the front of the line and ordered more coffee and two biscuits. She crossed back to the table with the purchases, interrupting one of Max’s tilted-head conversations.
He didn’t offer the identity of his guest, and she didn’t ask. He might have thought that she wasn’t interested. He might have thought that he was entitled to his secrets. He oohed over the cookies, saying he rarely gave in to temptation. That brought about an awkward pause. They had been off the floor for forty-five minutes, which was too long. There were still hundreds of people in need of a nod, a wave, or a handshake.
When they returned to the show floor, Liesl looked at Max for signs of nervousness. If he was lying about the Plantin, the fair would be a place for him to meet a potential seller or to cross paths with an accomplice. Max’s perpetually perfect posture made him undecipherable.
There was a display of Lutheran ephemera. A collector, to whom Max said hello, was writing a check for $25,000. The exhibitor noted the amount on a scratch pad and pocketed the check. The rules of modern commerce did not apply here.
“What if the check doesn’t clear?” Liesl said. They were walking away from the Lutheran.
“No one here is a stranger,” Max said.
Liesl nodded to an exhibitor who had once sold her a Gatsby with a perfect dust jacket.
“Don’t want to go say hello?”
“No.”
“You sometimes act as though you’re new to this, or outside this somehow,” Max said. “The book world is a small world.”
“We take care of our own, is that right?” Liesl said. “And that’s why I shouldn’t go to the police about the Plantin? I’ve heard it already.”
“That isn’t at all what I was talking about,” Max said. “And if it were, I’d tell you that I think you should go to the police about the Plantin.”
“What are you talking about?” she said. “All I’ve been hearing is that I shouldn’t do that.”
“You haven’t been hearing that from me,” Max said.
Liesl pulled him away from the table, away from where others could hear. “What do you mean?”
“That I agree you should go to the police.”
For a long moment Liesl considered throwing her arms around Max, who still looked as warm as a light pole as he expressed solidarity with her. Liesl thought she finally had a partner, but then gradually she calmed and led him to the corner of the exhibition floor where there were two chairs set up at an empty table, a vacant booth that had been set aside for an Italian seller who had canceled due to a bout of the flu. Liesl waited until they were seated and private, her tongue clenched between her teeth all the while.
“The book world is an insular place,” she finally said, using his own words against him. She was arguing against her own position.
“The Plantin was stolen. I’m sure of it now,” he said. “Whoever did this has broken the rules of our community.”
Why she had assumed he was the enemy she didn’t know. Or she did, but the reason made her ashamed. It was a kind of prejudice that came with not understanding the choices that someone had made. But they were not competitors. She knew he assumed himself to be next in line after Christopher, and that in no way interfered with her plan to retire.
“Well,” she said. “You ought to have told me that earlier. I’ve been the only one arguing this position.”
A dealer of regional literature interrupted their private session. Shook hands, reminded them of the location of his booth and that there was good money to be spent there.