The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.
—Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
SEYMOUR HEARD THE chilling declaration, same as I. But his reaction was not at all what I expected.
Grinning, he hurried toward the lanky stranger.
“I’d know that voice anywhere,” Seymour cried. “You’re the spokes guy for Conway Communications. I hear you on the radio all the time!”
Seymour lowered his voice to an intimate announcer’s murmur.
“You’ve written a book, but how will you get it published? Clifford Conway Communications has been a friend to authors for twenty years. Let Clifford Conway be your friend, too!”
Eyes sparkling, the newcomer flashed a toothy smile on his closely shaved face. “Bravo, sir. You have me pegged.” He clicked the heels of his oxblood oxfords, bowed curtly, and extended his hand. “Cliff Conway, at your service. And you are?”
“Seymour Tarnish.” He puffed his chest like a strutting rooster. “I am the proud owner of this masterpiece.”
“And a magnificent work it is,” Conway replied. “The woman is beautiful, haunting, and just a little bit disturbing. It’s the sort of image just begging to be used for a book cover.”
Conway shifted his gaze to me. “And this auburn-haired siren must be Mrs. Penelope McClure.”
Mother Machree! Jack cried in my head. This guy’s as oily as a leaky Hudson sedan!
“Silly me!” Sadie pulled me closer. “I should have made introductions. I told you about Mr. Conway, Pen. He saw our shop on the CBS Sunday Morning profile of the Palantines and called to arrange the renting of our event space . . .”
As Sadie reminded me of these facts, I couldn’t miss the excited gleam in her gaze: Look! A romantic prospect for you!
Jack didn’t miss it, either.
While the ghost brought an irritated deep freeze to the room, Conway nodded cordially, shook my hand, and scanned the area.
“Yes, I believe this is the perfect venue to launch my new project. A little drafty, but we can deal with that.”
“Excuse me?” I said. “What is your project exactly?”
“I’ll be taping an infomercial, Mrs. McClure. I wanted an authentic and, to be frank, a respectable location to shoot it. Buy the Book is both. There is enough room for a good-sized audience, yet the space feels intimate. It has an old-fashioned charm, but with all the modern amenities.”
“You’ll have a live audience, then?” Sadie asked, clearly excited.
“Paid actors, actually. I’ve already booked two dozen through an agency. I’ll coach the performers to be suitably enthusiastic. I’ll shoot close-ups of attractive faces and staged reaction shots before my talk even begins. Then I’ll layer them in during postproduction where they are most effective.”
Conway faced the McClure portrait again. His eyes narrowed like a hunter getting a bead on his prey.
“Who is the artist, Mr. Tarnish?” Conway asked.
Seymour explained that the painting was a century-old self-portrait and that the woman who painted it was long dead. He then offered a truncated version of Harriet’s life.
Conway’s toothy grin grew even wider.
“Why, this is perfect. More than seventy years have passed since the creator’s death, and this work was never copyrighted. So, as the owner of this painting, you also own the image. Did you realize that, Mr. Tarnish?”
Seymour shrugged. “I do now.”
“How would you like to license this striking image to me? Exclusive publication rights for five years? All for a generous fee, of course.”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s a beautiful painting of a lovely woman,” Conway coaxed. “Shouldn’t the world see it? Shouldn’t this beautiful and striking image grace the cover of someone’s life work, a novel they worked on for years, published for the very first time?”
“I’m not sure if I should license Harriet’s image,” Seymour confided. “It makes me feel sort of like . . . Well, like a pimp.”
Conway laughed. “Don’t be silly, Mr. Tarnish. Just think of the proud possibilities for Harriet McClure’s legacy. What if her stunning image were to grace the cover of a future bestseller by a talented new literary voice? Imagine the attention—perhaps even the worldwide fame this picture would garner on the cover of a twenty-first century novelist who just may be the next F. Scott Fitzgerald or Sylvia Plath.”
Will you listen to this pushy patter? Jack declared. Sounds like the too-good-to-be-true pitch of a door-to-door tonic salesman. Which makes me suspect he’s selling snake oil.
I hope you’re wrong, Jack.
As for Seymour, he appeared to remain skeptical. But the more Conway talked, the less resistant Seymour seemed, until it was clear his defenses were cracking.
“If I agree to do it—and I didn’t say that I would. But if I did, just what would it entail?”
Cliff Conway scanned the event space with a critical eye.
“The light here is nearly perfect. With a little enhancement, I can photograph the portrait with the high-definition camera I have in my van. I can do it right now, here in this space—after I clear the public out. The painting will never leave your presence. In fact, you can stay and help.”
“Well . . .”
“If you orally agree to accept my licensing fee, I can give you a down payment right now by check. I have our standard contract in my van. Sign it today, and I’ll have my assistant send the second half of the payment tomorrow.”
Seymour’s mouth gaped. “The second half?”
“Another fifteen hundred dollars, for a total of three thousand. How does that sound?”
Seymour grabbed the man’s hand and pumped it. “Like you’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Conway.”
With a theatrical flourish, Clifford Conway whipped out a leather-bound checkbook and began to scribble. After handing the check over to Seymour, Conway grinned.
“Now, let me collect my camera, and we’ll get started.”
“Follow me, Mr. Conway.” Sadie escorted the founder of Clifford Conway Communications to the front of the store. When they were out of earshot, Seymour whooped.
“Three grand and I won’t even have to part with my Harriet!”
He kissed the check in his hands. “That’s more than twice what I paid for her. With this windfall, I can easily get my Volkswagen out of hock without eating ramen noodles for a month. Plus, I can buy another bathroom mirror and install that new security system.”
“And you’re not worried about the curse?”
He waved the check. “Pen, if this is what a curse looks like, I’ll take it. Wait until I tell the Brainiac!”
After listening to Seymour gloat for five solid minutes, I left him in the event space to gaze with adoration at his newfound money machine.
Jack’s laughter echoed in my head.
It looks like the mailman fell for Harriet’s dough after all. And you said there were no gigolos in Cornpone-cott.
I reached the front counter a few minutes later and noticed Sadie staring out the window so intently that she didn’t notice my approach.
“What’s up?”
My aunt whirled, her face pale, her expression troubled.
“Sadie, what’s wrong?”
“Take a look,” she whispered.
On the sidewalk in front of our bookshop, Conway stood at the rear doors of his open van, a tripod on the pavement beside him. But he’d stopped unloading equipment and was now locked in a heated argument with our blue-haired babysitter, Tracy Mahoney.
I couldn’t hear their words through the window, so I moved to the front entrance—too late, it turned out. Just as I got to the door, Tracy whirled on her motorcycle boots and ran down the sidewalk, her blue plaid skirt fluttering in the wind.
Conway shook off the encounter and began to unload his van.
I pushed through our front door.
“Pen, where are you going?” my aunt called.
There was no time to reply. I had to catch up with Tracy.
I hit the sidewalk and breezed past Conway while his head—along with his attention—was inside the van.
The sidewalk was moderately busy, and I soon lost sight of Tracy. I headed off in the direction she took and hoped for the best. A few blocks later, I spied her in front of Gilder’s Antiques.
“Tracy!” I called.
My voice was drowned out by the roar of a powerful engine. A large motorcycle—likely a Harley-Davidson—rolled up to the curb right in front of Tracy, and the biker cut the engine.
The tall, powerfully built young driver was swathed in black leather from boots to jacket—which stood out in stark contrast to the flowing blond hair streaming out from under his helmet. The man braced the bike with his knees but did not dismount. He simply reached out his hand.
“Come on, let’s go home, Tracy.”
“I just wanted to tell him, Dennis!” she cried. “Tell him that I hate what he’s doing! It’s not right.”
“No, it’s not,” the biker’s deep voice replied. “And Mr. Conway will get what’s coming to him. You can be certain of that. But not here. Not now.”
He stretched his hand a little farther.
With a resigned sob, the girl took it. He deftly swung Tracy onto the bike behind him. She donned the extra helmet that hung from the seat. The biker revved his engine in a blast of smoky exhaust. With Tracy clutching him tightly, they sped down Cranberry Street, around the bend, and out of sight.