The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry(54)

“The next day, everyone is looking for Tamerlane, but I’m out of town. I’ve gone into Cambridge for the day. I go to Marian Wallace’s dorm room, and I throw the book on her bed. I tell her, ‘Look, you can sell this. It’s worth a lot of money.’ And she looks at the book dubiously, and she says, ‘Is it hot?’ And I say, ‘No, it belongs to Daniel, and he wants you to have it, but you can never say where it came from. Bring it to an auction house or a rare-books dealer. Claim you found it in a used-books bin somewhere.’ I don’t hear from Marian Wallace again for a while, and I think maybe that’s the end of it.” Ismay’s voice trails off.

“But it isn’t?” Lambiase asks.

“No. She shows up at the house with Maya and the book just before Christmas. She says she’s gone to every auction house and dealer in the Boston area, and none of them want to deal with the book because it doesn’t have a provenance, and the cops have been calling about a stolen copy of Tamerlane. She takes the book from her bag and hands it to me. I throw it back at her. ‘What am I going to do with this?’ Marian Wallace just shakes her head. The book lands on the floor, and the little girl picks it up and starts flipping through it, but no one’s paying any attention to her. Marian Wallace’s huge amber eyes fill with tears, and she says, ‘Have you read “Tamerlane,” Mrs. Parish? It’s so sad.’ I shake my head. ‘It’s a poem about this Turkish conqueror who trades the love of his life, this poor peasant girl, for power.’ I roll my eyes at her, and I say, ‘Is that what you think is happening here? Do you fancy yourself some poor peasant girl, and I’m the mean wife who is keeping you from the love of your life?’

“ ‘No,’ she says. At this point, the baby is crying. Marian says that the worst of it is that she knew what she was doing. Daniel had come to her college for a reading. She had loved that book, and when she slept with him she had read his author biography a million times and she knew perfectly well that he was married. ‘I’ve made so many mistakes,’ she says. ‘I can’t help you,’ I say. She shakes her head and picks up the baby. ‘We’ll be out of your way now,’ she says. ‘Merry Christmas.’

“And they leave. I’m pretty shaken up, so I go into the kitchen to make myself some tea. When I get back out to the living room, I notice that the little girl has left her backpack and Tamerlane is on the floor next to it. I pick up the book. I’m thinking I’ll just slip into A.J.’s apartment tomorrow or the next night and return it. That’s when I notice it is covered in crayon drawings. The little girl has ruined it! I zip it into the bag and put it in my closet. I don’t take pains to hide it very much. I think maybe Daniel will find it and ask me about it, but he never does. He never cares. That night, A.J. calls me about the proper things to feed a baby. He’s got Maya at his apartment, and I agree to go over.”

“The day after that, Marian Wallace washes up by the lighthouse,” Lambiase says.

“Yes, I wait to see if Daniel will say anything, to see if he will recognize the girl and claim the baby, but he doesn’t. And I, coward that I am, never bring it up.”

Lambiase takes her in his arms. “None of this matters,” he says after a while. “If there was a crime—”

“There was a crime,” she insists.

“If there was a crime,” he repeats, “everyone who knows about any of it is dead.”

“Except Maya.”

“Maya’s life has turned out beautifully,” Lambiase says.

Ismay shakes her head. “It has, hasn’t it?”

“The way I see it,” Lambiase says, “you saved A. J. Fikry’s life when you stole that manuscript. That’s the way I see it.”

“What kind of cop are you?” Ismay asks.

“The old kind,” he says.

THE NEXT NIGHT, like every third Wednesday of every month for the last ten years, is Chief’s Choice at Island Books. At first, the police officers felt obligated to join, but the group has grown in genuine popularity over the years. Now it’s the largest book meetup that Island has. Police officers still make up the bulk of the membership, but their wives and even some of their children, when they get old enough, attend. Years ago, Lambiase had had to institute a “leave your weapons” policy after a young cop had pulled a gun on another cop during a particularly heated discussion of The House of Sand and Fog. (Lambiase would later reflect to A.J. that the selection had been a mistake. “Had an interesting cop character but too much moral ambiguity in that one. I’m going to stick to easier genre stuff from now on.”) Other than this incident, the group has been free of violence. Aside from the content of the books, of course.

As is his tradition, Lambiase arrives at the store early to set up for Chief’s Choice and talk to A.J. “I saw this resting on the door,” Lambiase says when he comes inside. He hands a padded manila envelope with A.J.’s name on it to his friend.

“Probably another galley,” A.J. says.

“Don’t say that,” Lambiase jokes. “Could be the next big thing in there.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s probably the Great American Novel. I’ll add it to my stack: Things to Read before My Brain Stops Working.”

A.J. sets the package on the countertop, and Lambiase watches it. “You never know,” Lambiase says.