John Finn 2: Connie comes by

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On Sunday Connie comes by looking for some help. I’ve known Connie all my life. He’s a pain in the ass, but he has never once come to me first and asked for help before. I’ve had to go to him a couple of times. He runs a security service–guards and all that but also some internet work the last few years. He can’t spell his own name but his son runs the computer side. Connie weighs about 140 pounds when he’s wet and has arthritis in his right elbow now, but he took a job as a security guard right out of high school. It developed. That’s the way it is.

He came by while I was still making my eggs and he says right off, “Put a couple on for me, will yeah. I didn’t eat yet.”

I shouldn’t have answered the door.

I ask him, “Do you want fries with that?”

He says “Nah. I’m watching my weight. Ya got a little toast. Is that bacon? I’ll have some bacon.”

That’s Connie all over. You get used to it after awhile. Besides. After the divorce he was the only one who popped up and asked me if I could use some money to get by.

He’s already pulled the coffee pot off the burner and he’s looking around for a mug. I hand him a mug. Then he notices a sweater thing Des left on on the back of the chair as he sits down and he says.

“One of your daughters come by?”

He has that. He’s very observant. And he remembers everything. I told him, “Not for a few weeks. The middle one is off at college. The oldest is working in New York right now. And the youngest doesn’t have a car so I only get to see her when I drive over once a month. Breaks my heart. Why do you ask?”

He sighs a little. Spreads his legs on the floor and leans back.

“My boy seems to’ve taken an interest in your Sarah.”

I suspected that much. I don’t look at him. I don’t want to see what I don’t want to see in his eyes. I say, “She won’t be back until Thanksgiving break.”

Connie says, “Good. He can’t afford a girlfriend right now.”

I don’t answer. I turn the bacon.

Finally he says, “So whose your girlfriend?”

He pinches an edge of the wool sweater in his fingers. I guess it’s not a secret.

“Des. Desiree,” I tell him. “You don’t know her. We only just met last week.”

He nods. “Good. About time.”

I say, “Right. Put the bread in the toaster yourself.” And I hand him the plastic bag with what was left.

The kitchenette is small. I have the toaster on the table. He fiddles with the controls while he talks to me. He likes it dark.

“I could use some help.”

“With your toast?”

“A job.”

“I have a job.”

“A night job.”

I was curious. If I’m going to be dating again, I should have some extra money in my pocket.

“Okay.”

“Don’t say okay just yet, Johnny.”

“Okay.”

“You have to work with George. You remember George?”

That’s why I shouldn’t say yes.

“I remember George. I don’t want to work with George.”

Connie hung a large sigh in the air and turns his face to the floor.

“He’s not so bad. He’s just a jerk. But he knows the ropes and he shows up on time. In the end it’s all about showing up.”

“Where’s the rest of your crew?”

“I need seven guys on this job. All I have is a bunch of part-timers. The rest are out. We have two rock bands and some kind of political shindig downtown. But I figured this one would be up your alley. It’s books. The New England Antiquarian Booksellers Association. It’ll be an easy crowd. Quiet. Reasonable. Old fogies—“

“Like me.”

“Just like you.”

I dumped his eggs on his plate. He ignores that and points at the Van Gogh print that my oldest daughter gave me, with the feathers I stuck in the bottom edge of the frame.

“What’s with the pigeon feathers?”

I didn’t feel like telling him.

On the following Friday I was at The Castle about an hour early. My office was already half empty for the weekend so they didn’t miss me. The Castle is a former armory building with the dimensions of a granite cathedral. It’s right across from the old Park Plaza hotel–mostly used for convention functions now. A perfect place for a bunch of booksellers.

I was there at four because I was supposed to report at five. The doors to the book fair open at six and I was going to get my instructions from George during the hour in between. I figured, knowing George, if I scoped the situation out first, I might have a clue what he was telling me.

It’s a union operation so the booksellers are mostly fussing about when I arrive, with nothing really to do but watch over their goods as the dollies are loaded with the boxes from trucks and minivans.

I was surprised. They’re not all old. The younger booksellers are more nervous and they’re the ones standing guard as the stuff goes up the elevators and then they follow the union guys to the assigned booths. The older hands are all sitting upstairs in their empty spaces drinking beer and talking shop.

Upstairs I spot a few of the local guys I know in the book business pretty quick and say hello. After I tell them why I’m there, I asked them what I should look out for. Two or three of them lower their plastic cups in unison and say “Bags.” Bags. What else. “Switching.” Every purchase is put in a paper sack and sealed with an official closure with the receipt attached. The guards at the door can’t check every sack but they should beware of the ones that have been opened. Anything else. “Funny walks,” says the women who owns the store up at the other end of Newbury Street. I’ve bought a lot of books there over the years and have often taken note of her. I’ve flirted, but I guess I’m just not her type.

She says, “They put the books in their pants. Then they go to the restrooms. It’s pretty hard to stop.”

This is another world. I work in an office where the biggest crime is pilfering pens and printer paper. Here one theft can mean that a bookseller’s investment in a booth and paying union wages to move their books in and out, and maybe twenty four hours total extra wages for employees can be spoiled by one scum bag with baggy pants.

It was Connie’s idea that I might have the eye for this. But I see right away that I’m going to have a problem keeping my eyes on the customers instead of the goods. There were a lot of great books already on display and at least a third of the booths were still at least partially empty.

There are twelve aisles that run the length of the open heart of the building–about forty booths per aisle. Each booth is lined with folding shelves that rise about six feet high, with about twenty books to a shelf if they’re not face out. Some booths are doubles and have low glass display cases out front with some of the richer items that won’t take the handling of every curious passerby. Someone has said there would be over a hundred thousand books there and I believe it.

I’m already bonded. Connie gets everyone who works for him bonded. It doesn’t mean much except that you don’t have a criminal record. All I have is parking tickets. But that’s the extent of my training for this. That and my size and the fact that I learned a little in the army.

I worked a ‘Home Show’ at the convention center for Connie about four years ago, after the divorce, because I didn’t want to take his money for a loan. The big excitement was a little boy that got lost in the crowd. Five minutes out of a total of sixteen hours. It was about as boring as anything I have ever done in my life. I hoped this would be a little better.

I should be more careful about what I wish for.

Since that first time, I have also filled in for a week keeping an eye on the marble in a lobby downtown while one of Connie’s regular guys went home for a funeral. That was when my car broke down and I asked Connie to call me if he needed anyone. I read eight books that week.

Another time I stood at the door to a rock club. All I had to do. Someone else did the bouncing. I was there just to look menacing. That was when I needed the first and last month’s deposit on the apartment I have now.

It was fun to see all those books in one place. A lot of leather. A lot of pretty dust jackets. Limited editions. Signed editions. I found a run of C.S. Foresters in a uniform edition I couldn’t afford. I found a copy of Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, I thought I might be able to afford someday, if I cut back on beer for a year or so. I was looking at a display of Talbot Mundy first printings in their original dust jackets when I get a tap on the shoulder. I know right away that this is not going to be like the last time somebody tapped me on the shoulder. That was the day I met Desiree. I know right off that this is George. He has a heavy hand.

He starts by saying, “What’re ya doing?”

I say, “Looking around.”

He shakes his head, “Connie said to meet by the door.”

I say, “Yeah. At five. It’s 4:45. I’ll see you at five.”

He scowls at me and trudges away like he has lead in his shoes. But it’s mostly in his butt.

This is a good thing, after all. He likes to sit. He likes jobs with chairs in lobbies of buildings that have emptied for the day where the door is already locked and he doesn’t have to talk to anyone face to face. George’s a real people person. I know him because for most of the last year he was the guard at the office building where I work. I was the one stupid enough to tell Connie they needed a new guard service. And George isn’t there anymore now because a computer went missing during his watch.

I think that’s the way it is in the security business. Pay is low and they don’t get the best people. Customers don’t want to pay for the security they need until it’s too late. Connie pays ten bucks an hour plus some benefits if people hang around long enough. He’s paying me twenty bucks to show up here because I’m temporary. Temps get more. No benefits. Even though he is the lead on this job and therefore getting five dollars extra per hour, I know right off that George knows that I’m getting paid more for this gig than he is. He tells me to put my badge up high on my jacket. He tells me to button my jacket. I notice his is still undone. He tells me to report back every half an hour. He tells me to keep my eyes open. I’m thinking, ‘Are these the ropes that Connie was talking about?’ There are five more of Connie’s guys there as well but they’ve gone out the front door for a final smoke.

George is clearly not happy to be there and picks a stool by the entry for his post.

Everything happened that first night. I suppose that’s to be expected. It’s when people are just getting settled and there’s no routine to reveal the odd thing. Just like any job, once patterns are established, it’s easier to see the anomaly.

The first night is only three hours. Six to nine. Saturday and Sunday the book fair opens at noon. Nothing happened that I know of on Saturday or Sunday. But Friday, about eight pm, there is an announcement over the loud speaker requesting security at the door. The voice is urgent. The request is repeated. The whole room falls to a sudden silence, and then bounces back to an even louder buzz of conversation in the aisles.

I report and find George is laid out on his ass on the floor, shaking his head. A special duty cop is already down on one knee talking to him. The other five guys are all asking him what happened and George is mumbling. The other guys don’t know me so I tell three of them to get back on the floor. It’s obvious there is no good in all of us being right there. I tell two of the other’s to take-over the bag check. Then I looked around from where I was standing. At least twenty or thirty book dealers have gathered around to find out what has happened. I’m a big guy so I’m looking over their heads. Even from there I can see to the back of aisle six. There is no one at the fire exit and its open.

Anyone going down that way has to come forward on the lower level to exit through the side onto Columbus Avenue. I run to the front exit that’s closest.

On the street, half a block away from me there is someone running across to the far curb. There’s a car there waiting. They jump in. It’s too dark to see the plates with car lights coming at me on this side.

I went back upstairs.

What was missing is an early edition of Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler. The 1668 edition. A showpiece for an English dealer who has about three hundred leather bound antiques in his booth. He looked devastated. He sat there repeating himself to anyone who would listen. But what he says is interesting. He says, “It happened after the announcement. After! I stepped away to look up the aisle. Like everybody else. But there was a fellow there by the glass case. He was right there. Right there in front. In a suit. Tweed. He looked normal. It wasn’t a cheap tweed. I had the case open to show him my Pepys. When the announcement came I wasn’t even four feet away. But I was looking toward the front for maybe a minute. Then I didn’t even notice the Walton was missing for maybe another minute. I just wasn’t looking. Damit!”

A good-looking brunette is patting him on the shoulder. I hope he gets enough sympathy. The book was priced at $10,000. I went back to the front entrance. George was on the stool now, looking groggy. There is an EMT nurse there but George is trying to tell the guy to leave him alone. I asked the cop what he thinks happened. He doesn’t know. “Somebody shoved him. He fell down and knocked his head on the floor. That’s all there was. Nobody even saw the guy.”

I called Connie on my cell phone and told him to come over. He was someplace with a TV and other voices. He hardly let me finish before he hung up.

About fifteen minutes later Connie is there. It’s not even 8:30. I waited for him to talk to George first before I spoke up. I watch George’s face.

After that I take Connie to the side I tell him what I saw and what I heard. Then I say, “I think you ought to have George arrested. At least questioned.”

Connie gives me two wide eyes without a word. I’ve seen that before. We’ve been together at some odd times over the years. Then he goes over and talks to the cop. Four other cops have shown up by then and two of them ask George to go to the station to tell his story again.

I sat down on the stool and watched as he left. George looked panic-stricken.

I’m wrong. There was one incident Sunday afternoon. Someone was caught leaving the women’s room with a book that didn’t have a receipt. One of the other guys picked that up.

We find out later that George didn’t even know the guy who paid him to fall down. He just took the money and the instructions. Four hundred dollars. Sounds like short money for a man’s soul. But then, with some people, money seems to be worth more. It’s like fishing with dynamite. It’s not angling. And the Walton is long gone.

On the following Saturday Connie comes by again. It’s about nine o’clock and I have my work spread out on the table and my oldest daughter’s old laptop open and humming.

“What’s doing?” he says, like he just found me on the street. He goes right for the coffee maker. He already knows where the mugs are now.

He sits down across from me. His eyes are scanning the room. They stop on a silk scarf that Des left on the hook by the closet door.

“Writing.” I tell him.

“I thought you gave that up.”

“I did.”

But I’m figuring I should get back to things. A woman like Des is not going to respect me for long if I keep doing what I’ve been doing. In fact I’m not sure what Des sees in me now, but it’s a gift and I’m not going to waste it. I don’t say all that to Connie.

But he nods at me. “D’you eat breakfast already?”

I nod back at him, “Two hours ago. Cereal. You want a bowl of cereal?”

He doesn’t exactly answer that. He begins to rock back in his chair. It’s a straight back chair, just like the one in van Gogh’s room at Arles in the picture. Then he says “You know what it means when they start leaving little bits and pieces around your place?”

I hit the save button on the computer and close the screen down.

“How would you know?”

He’s been divorced a couple of times but he hasn’t had a steady girl since Martha that I know of.

He says, “I pick these things up.” Then he nurses the heat in his coffee mug for a minute and he’s looking at me with a squint.

I say, “What did I do?”

He says, “You did okay. You did fine. But I’m tired. I had to work George’s regular shift this week myself. I couldn’t get anyone else to do it…Do’ya ever notice that if you look at marble long enough you start to see faces?”

I say “Yes. That’s why I don’t want to do that ever again. Those faces scare me.” That made him smile. He knows I know he’s up to something. I can guess. I add, “Even for twenty dollars an hour.”

He shakes his head. “How about a salary?”

Now I don’t know what he’s up to at all. “How does that work?”

He rocks a minute on the chair. I can tell he’s thought this through. He’s been sitting in some lobby down town every night thinking about the details. I haven’t thought about it for thirty seconds so I might as well let him tell me what’s up.

“Say fifty thousand to start…Not much. I know. But I’m going to have to change things a bit to make it work. You put some of that college education of yours to work for me and we can jack that up a bit. I need a little more input. It’s not the same business anymore. I can’t keep up with it all myself. My boy is already in over his head. He won’t do more hours. I probably lost those booksellers for good. I’ve had that account for twenty years, for Christ sake. That was a fiasco. That’ll hurt my reputation.”

I say, “I should hope so.” I felt bad about it myself. But I don’t want to work for Connie. He’s a pain in the ass. I tell him this. And I tell him the rest of what comes to mind. “I work in an office cause I don’t have any responsibility. It’s just a job. You want me to take responsibility, then I’d want a piece of what I’m responsible for.”

He smiles. He’s already thought beyond that. Then he takes a gun out of his jacket pocket. It’s in a leather holster. Not too big. It’s not new. The leather holster has a nice sheen to it. And he puts it on the table. Right on top of chapter two.

“I need you to learn how to use one of those.”

It’s a black and ugly thing where it peeks out from behind the leather. I leave it where it is. It even looks dangerous.

“No. That’s not me. You want someone else.”

He leaves the gun there.

“I figure it this way. Either I take you on and make it through the next year or I get out of the business. There’s too much pressure. Everything changed after nine-eleven. Suddenly I had thirty guys working for me. Now it’s starting to shake out. I’m down to twenty. I have to change my ways. Specialize. Like everyone else. And I need someone I can trust.”

That was a leap. I was surprised he actually said it. Trust is not something you should have to talk about a lot. I suppose George has left a wound.

Now I’m looking down at a couple of pages I wrote this morning. It’s not so bad. I’d like to keep doing that too. But it won’t pay. I know that. It’s just for me. A little self-respect.

I say, “Seventy five and a partnership.”

He says, “Sixty…and a partnership.”

I say, “Good…For now.”

(more John Finn stories to come)

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