“That’s why he’s so good at this job.”
“It’s hard,” Max said, “to think of someone replacing him.”
“Not satisfied with my performance?” Liesl said.
“That’s not fair. You’re only interim.”
“It’s all right. My feelings aren’t hurt,” Liesl said. “I’m good with books, not people.”
With Liesl sitting next to him, Max struggled to hide his unease, but didn’t conceal his meaning. Some other man might have paid her a compliment, thought of ways in which she was appropriate for the leadership position. Max was not that man.
“The fundraising is an awfully important part of the job,” he said.
“Yes. I’m learning that it’s difficult to be successful without a membership to the right golf club or wine club or cigar club. I don’t even know the right kind of club.”
The phone rang again. Max was waiting for Liesl to say that he could be the one. That he had the talent for books and the talent for people. She wouldn’t offer him that kindness.
The call was rerouted, and it went quiet again.
“You should call Percy first,” Liesl said.
“Yes. He’ll be waiting.”
“When you do, make sure he knows you’re calling him first.”
“Bit late to be sucking up.”
“Not with Percy. Let’s do what we can to keep him feeling important.”
“I’ll do my best.”
They both stood up. Liesl waited for him to realize that he had to stay at the reference desk, that it was his shift. He didn’t.
“The desk,” Liesl said.
“There’s no one else?”
“You were scheduled.”
“Well, yes,” Max said. “But I thought that with everything going on…”
“If staffing weren’t so tight. The absences. You understand.”
“I’ll call Percy from here.”
She nodded, prepared to leave, and then stopped herself, catching on something that he had said earlier. She tapped a finger on the desk, wondering if her question was out of line and finally deciding they were past the point of niceties.
“What happened with your father,” she said, “in the end?”
“How do you mean?”
“Your father. You said he was a depressive, that he suffered from it throughout his life. Did he ever get better?”
“Are you asking if my father killed himself?”
“Not at all. I’m sorry. None of my business.”
“It’s fine. It’s been a long time.”
“So he did, then?”
“Alas, no. He drank himself to death. His liver killed him before his hand could.”
“I’m terribly sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Yes. I’m going to get to these calls.”
“Thank you.”
Faint and frail, Liesl began to make phone calls, and after a prolonged explanation to the first call recipient, she learned that rich people love gossip more than rich people love old books and that she shouldn’t have been worried at all. She had sat in the cigar stink of Christopher’s office and prepared a script about open communication and about the police investigation and about the expected recovery of the books. None of the old wankers cared a lick. They wanted color for their upcoming cocktail parties. They asked about how the theft had been discovered, they asked if the investigating detective was handsome, they asked if there was a ransom note for the books, and when she said there was not, they said there must be and she just had not discovered it yet. Rich people loved gossip almost as much as they loved money.
The gossip was currency. They took ages, the calls did, because of all that back-and-forth about ransom notes. At three in the afternoon, sitting in Christopher’s office, she poured herself a drink and found that made the calls easier still. They were nice people, these donors, she decided after her third tumbler. They just wanted a good story.
14
The library basement. Waterproof, fireproof, soundproof, down a rumbling elevator or a locked staircase. No one went down there to hide, exactly, but people who went down there couldn’t easily be found.
Liesl had suggested installing a phone line once, years ago. They’d never gotten around to it. Miriam’s front-page picture had been lining hamster cages for days now, and Liesl was back in the basement, not exactly hiding.
The only way to reach her was to walk, stack by stack, through the repository until you caught a glimpse of something human. She heard the door click, heard Francis’s throat clear, and wondered if he would stand in place and summon her like a dog. He didn’t. She heard his dragging feet, step by step until they were in sight of each other’s tired eyes. She would learn later that he had been in possession of the bad news for nearly twenty minutes by the time he spotted her in the appraiser’s area. He could have just yelled her name and gotten it over with, but she was grateful he decided that she and the news deserved more respect.