Hunting for Hemingway Read online

  They waited in silence for my answer. Matt didn't appear the least bit uncomfortable, but Phil's eyes were begging me to stop the torture.

  "What exactly does American Insurance want me to do?" I gave in reluctantly.

  "Well, let's sit down and review our situation," Matt suggested, corralling us back into the office like the three of us were best buddies planning a frat party weekend.

  "To put it succinctly," Matt said, "we've evolved a three-prong strategy to insulate ourselves from all liability over these supposed Hemingway manuscripts."

  Matt had used the royal "we" in referring to American Insurance. Apparently the company was letting him call all the shots. I was going to have to watch my backside.

  "My staff has checked out several key facts. Item: David Barnes died intestate. Even more in our favor, he had no close living relatives. He was an only child, and his parents died last year in a car crash. I've got someone checking for distant relatives, but it looks like we'll be off the hook insofar as a claim against the estate is concerned.

  "Item Two. Nobody seems to be able to locate the original manuscripts. His lawyer, his friends, his colleagues, his bank, the cops-no one knows where he put them. Or if somebody does know, they're not talking. So, our guess is that nobody will file a claim unless it can be proved that the stuff is really lost. I've put a top national firm on the search job. These guys have been known to find the proverbial needle in the haystack, so it'll turn up. It's just a question of when."

  "Matt, you've already hired the big corporate guns. What do you need me for?"

  "We need you, DD, to help us in the event both strategies fail. We need to insulate American Insurance from any liability by proving the manuscripts are fakes."

  "But you already got opinions that said they were the `True Gen,"' I countered, using Hemingway's own reporter's slang.

  "And how is she supposed to go about proving they're not Hemingway if she can't analyze the originals?" Phil asked.

  "First of all, don't worry about the information we already have. We can hold that close, and no one will ever know anything about it. As for your second question, use the same fragments David gave us. You've got the credentials to talk to these academics, DD. You can put a good spin on their computer analysis of the prose. Tell me it's not Papa's work. That's all I'm asking. What are the chances that this guy David Barnes really did get hold of the lost manuscripts? My guess is this was a big fat scam from day one. We went along with it because it meant money for the company, good money and easy money. Now, we need to prove the prose is fake, and I know you can do it for us."

  Matt opened his briefcase, pulled out a small sheaf of papers and handed them to me. "I had my office copy two of the story fragments. This should be more than enough for you and your literary friends to prove it's all a big hoax"

  Phil rose from his chair, sighing loudly. "Will you take the job, DD?"

  "You're the best operative we've got because of your background," Matt said. "Believe me, we checked and you're the only one with the level of university connections to legitimize you with the academics, especially with that one expert the paper mentioned-the one who claims they weren't written by Hemingway. Start with him."

  Before I could answer, Matt glanced at his watch. "My schedule's really tight," he said, snapping his briefcase closed. "DD, let's meet for dinner tomorrow night to review your progress. I need to be able to report to American Insurance every step of the way. Say seven o'clock and I'll leave a message for you where." He swung his briefcase off the desk and opened the door. "I've got to rush. Phil, keep me informed," he ordered as the door slammed shut behind him.

  I didn't want this assignment, and I grabbed my briefcase and raced out of Phil's office after Matt to tell him so. "Matt, wait. I..."

  "He's gone, DD," Phil announced the obvious and shook his head. "What the hell's going on between you and him?"

  Phil had been good to me. I knew he deserved an explanation. But not now.

  "I gotta go," I said. "I'm sorry. Talk to you later." I headed down the corridor as fast as I could. In the background I could hear Gilda calling him.

  In my haste to escape Phil's questions, I squeezed into an already overcrowded elevator, hoping the door would close before he caught up with me. No such luck.

  "Wait," Phil called, panting from exertion. He reached in, attempting to pull me out. "We need to talk. You can't just leave."

  The massive elevator door slammed against his arm. He retreated, allowing the door to close on his disbelieving face.

  "I'll call you later. I promise." Ignoring mutters from fellow passengers, I sank against the wall, wrapped in a dead silence with the curious crowd.

  I tried to forget about the scene with Matt and concentrate on the manuscript pages he'd given me to study. Here I was, standing in an elevator with what could turn out to be the literary find of the century tucked into my briefcase. I could hardly wait to get a look. But I was in the midst of a maelstrom. First Matt wanted me to prove the manuscripts weren't fake. Now he wanted me to prove they were. Matt was smart, and I knew he would maneuver heaven and earth so that American Insurance would emerge unscathed from all this. But David had been very smart, too. Had David been clever enough to fake these stories?

  FIFTEEN

  THE HAM ON WHEAT I picked up at Louie's Sandwich Shoppe in the lobby of Phil's building was wrapped in plastic thicker than the ham slice and cost way too much, but I was starving. A glass of wine would have been nice too, but I'd promised myself not to drink until I figured out if the headache was from yesterday's blow on the head or from the Wild Turkey. It's always good to see the path clearly.

  Eating the almost-food, I wondered how I was ever going to prove the manuscripts were fake. I remembered I hadn't yet returned Tom Joyce's call. I was still fuming over that ticket he'd pawned off on me-it's what got me into this mess in the first place. But I was sure he'd seen all the TV brouhaha about David and the Hemingway manuscripts. Since his business was rare books and manuscripts, I was sure he could give me some good advice. We'd first met a few years ago when he'd helped me out on a case involving a forged document, and last year he'd given me invaluable advice about the Robert Burns artifacts. Recently he'd mentioned an appraisal he'd handled of the Hemingway books and manuscripts owned by the Oak Park Library, so I knew this would interest him. I punched in his number.

  "Hi'ya, DD," Tom answered.

  "Don't do that. You know I hate that caller ID."

  "I can't believe you don't have it yourself, you being the insurance investigator et al."

  "I'm returning your call, but you should be glad I'm still talking to you, considering it's all your fault I'm a suspect in a murder case.

  "What?"

  "It was that damn ticket you forced on me. As Aristotle would say, that was the root cause."

  "Aristotle never said that, DD. What he said was..."

  "You know what I mean-going to that play started everything. I met David Barnes there that night."

  "Wow. He's the guy who got killed. I guess I should say I'm sorry.

  "I have a feeling the cosmos was probably cooking up this mess for me even without that damn ticket. What are the statistical probabilities of jumping into bed with a former boyfriend, who gets shot, and then finding his body."

  "With you DD, sometimes I might say the odds are pretty good."

  "See, I told you that I shouldn't be talking to you." I paused and asked, "Are you at the bookstore?"

  "I've been cataloging a new shipment that just arrived. Is this about finding that body? That's why I called you."

  "Tangentially."

  "A mystery wrapped in an enigma. Sounds interesting. Are you okay?"

  "I wouldn't go that far, but I'm keeping on keeping on. See you there in a bit."

  I drove out to the West Town area, about a mile due west of the Merchandise Mart where Tom had moved a few years ago. Just past Oprah's Harpo Studios, I spotted his building, a California- esque tw
o story with a sign reading "Joyce And Company."

  I parked in a nearby lot, put up the top, and locked the Miata.

  A tiny bell tinkled as I opened the door. Tom, wearing black jeans and Rockport walking shoes, emerged from a back room balancing a stack of books. He nodded a greeting.

  "That was quick," he said, dumping the books onto a kidneyshaped desk already loaded with piles of paper and computer equipment. "I just picked up this lot in an estate sale." He brushed bits of dust from the front of his brown shirt.

  I surveyed all his shelves. "I guess I never told you I was nervous when you moved a few years ago, but this new location suits you well."

  "Why were you nervous?" Tom asked as he straightened the pile to keep it from toppling off the desk.

  "Don't laugh, but I was afraid that great smell of your old place wouldn't be the same in a new location. But thankfully it is."

  "It's the books that do it, not the place. Anyway, I've got more room here."

  "True, but in the old place on the 14th floor of the Manhattan Building you were directly across from the federal detention center. Remember how we used to watch the prisoners play basketball on the roof? "

  He laughed. "I'm glad to be away from there. Sometimes those prisoners escaped."

  "Did any of them ever stop in to browse?"

  "Very funny. Sometimes the cops stopped in, but being on the ground floor here does attract more foot traffic."

  "Where's Wolfie today?" Tom often babysat for a wolf owned by a friend of his in the Upper Peninsula. Despite my initial misgivings, Wolfie and I had become good pals during the problem over the Robbie Burns artifacts.

  "He's with his owner in Michigan, and I really miss him. He'll be here again next month when they go on vacation. So what's up? Are you in serious trouble over finding that body?"

  "I don't know yet. Tell me what you know about David Barnes"

  "I researched him after we talked. I've read some of his academic papers on Hemingway. They were quite good, as a matter of fact. But from what the paper and the TV reported, he supposedly found the Hemingway holy grail-the lost poems and short stories that were stolen from Hadley, his first wife. If true, wow. It would be worth a fortune because of its literary and its historical value." "

  I know you're familiar with the Hemingway collection at the Oak Park Library, right?"

  "Yeah. I appraised it. A really nice little library. Did I tell you they have a copy of the scarce first edition of Hemingway's second book, In Our Time? Only 140 copies were printed in Paris in 1924 at the Three Mountains Press. They've also got an unrecorded variant dust jacket on their copy of Men Without Women, 1927."

  Tom is a living encyclopedia and his wide range of knowledge is always astounding. I never know just what he's going to say, but I'm always sure it's going to be interesting.

  "A little-known Hemingway factoid is that in the two variants of his first edition of Men Without Women, the publisher used two different weights of paper, and as a result, you have to literally weigh the books to tell them apart. But I digress. What enigma have you brought today?"

  "Would you examine something?" I pulled the copies of the manuscript pages from my briefcase.

  Tom grabbed a magnifying glass and carried a page to an empty table against one wall.

  I spread out the rest of the pages while he put on a pair of tortoise-shell glasses and rolled up his sleeves. Quiet descended as we both read intently.

  FIRST LEAVES

  The first leaves to fall were off the trees already, and the boy remembered that soon they would slow his passage in the woods and make it dangerous. What things in the woods seemed to be were not always what they were, and he remembered being with his father there, watching a big raccoon scrabbling for crayfish in the shallows.

  "Are animals smart?" he asked.

  "I guess so. In their ways."

  "As smart as people are?"

  "Not the way people are. But the smartest man in the world could never be as good as that old raccoon is at being a raccoon."

  The boy walked faster, though walking faster could not increase his time in the woods. Soon she would be calling from the house, and then he would go in.

  "Have to go, " he said, and even in the little time he had been there more leaves had fallen to the ground.

  Tom glanced up from the pages. "So I take it this is part of the lost Hemingway works that your David Barnes found. Well, it sure reads like Hemingway."

  "This is all I have" I shoved the other pages towards him, and we bent over them.

  COMING HOME

  When there was nothing to say he would be quiet, and they did not like that. They thought he should be talking now. His mother had mentioned Irene.

  "When are you going to see her?" his mother asked.

  "Tomorrow, I guess," he said.

  "Your Aunt and Uncle Simms are coming tomorrow."

  "Then maybe the day after tomorrow," he said.

  He had come back and was with them in the living room, and they thought he should be talking now, since he was back and so many would not be. It must be four o'clock, he thought. The lieutenant had asked him and the corporal about the girls and the supplies, but neither of them had said anything. The three girls had worked in a bakery, and he and the corporal had caught up with them as they were leaving work. The girls would not go to the hotel in the town, so he and the corporal took them to the supply tent. Two of them had lice all over, so he and the corporal used only the other one. He and the corporal gave presents to all of them anyway, and the lieutenant must have seen the five of them leaving the tent. He asked about the girls and the supplies for a time, but then he stopped asking.

  He and the corporal had some good times together, but the end of them had been strange. They were lying on their stomachs side by side, watching for movement in the olive trees on the opposite hill, and just one bullet came from the trees. It hit the corporal above his right collar bone, and it must have traveled the length of his body.

  "I'm flying," the corporal had said as loudly as he could. "0 Jesus, I'm flying," and then he died.

  "Do you remember Mrs. Tansy?" his brother asked. "Junior year, Mrs. Tansy?"

  "Who? Mrs. Tansy? Yes, that one," he said.

  "What an old bitch she was. Sorry, Mother," his brother said. His mother pretended she had not heard.

  "Remember when she caught the five of us smoking? Behind the second boiler? All the fuss about that?"

  "I didn't know you two smoked in school," his mother said.

  "All the fuss about that, and all five of us had to come in early for three days?"

  "I remember," he said. The Austrians with two vans in the mud had jumped out of cover as a unit to push at the vans, and then were driven back down by fire, over and over. Up they would pop, like comics in a film, and push and slip and fall in the mud, and sometimes one would be hit and fall and be pulled back down to cover before the rest would pop up again and push and slip and fall in the mud. They were even more comic because a mile and a half up the road the road was cut off, and if they had gotten the vans moving they would have had nowhere to go, but they did not know that.

  "It must have been terrible," his mother said.

  Goosebumps raced along my spine as I read the crisp prose.

  "Well?" I asked.

  "Sure reads like Hemingway all right," Tom said. "Lean and mean. Short, clean sentences with clear, action-oriented verbs."

  "And loaded with sex, war, and death," I added. "It reminds me in subject a little of Soldier's Home."

  He eyed me intently. "I suppose you're going to tell me these pages are part of the lost Hemingway stories I heard about on the news?"

  "That's what I'd like to know. Are they real or are they fakes?"

  "As Papa himself would say, they sound like the `true gen' And they appear to have been typed on an early Corona. If I'm not mistaken, Hemingway used a lot of typewriters in his career, but in the early '20s, he would have used the one that H
adley gave him for his twenty-second birthday. That was in July of 1921, before they left for Paris. I think it was a Corona #3, but I'd consult an expert on that."

  "David Barnes told me they did, and it was authenticated."

  "Well, next you could run some word tests. There's some fancy academic software on the market that stylistically compares a writing sample to a known author-in this case, Papa."

  "That's already been done too," I told him.

  "And ...?"

  "And the analysis concluded they're good enough to be the real thing."

  "So what's the problem?" Tom asked.

  "When the owner was murdered, the originals went missing."

  "Ahh. Short, clean, and loaded with death. I didn't know about them being missing."

  "Now the insurance company wants me to prove they're fakes," I explained.

  "QED getting them neatly off the hook over any liability." Tom removed his glasses. "That figures. Real or fake, these stories might have been the motive for murder."

  "You're the expert. What else could definitively prove they're fakes?"

  "I'm coming into this in the middle, and you tell me some tests have already been done. But the first thing to look at is the paper itself."

  "The auction house did that, and they concluded it was consistent with what Hemingway would have used. Same thing with the typeface. Hemingway used the same typewriter on all the work that was lost."

  "Then the next step would be to examine any watermarks on the paper or the unique imprint residue that would have been left on the page by the fabric of the typewriter ribbon. But to analyze any of these, you've got to have the originals."

  "Which we don't."

  "Which you don't. Almost every other test requires the originals, so I don't think I can help you, DD. If these weren't done by Hemingway, they're inspired fakes."

  "There was a professor on the news who claimed they were fakes," I told him.

  "I saw him too. If I were you, I'd contact him and investigate how he arrived at that conclusion. Without the originals to work with, he's your best resource."