The Club Dumas

I. "THE ANJOU WINE"

My name is Boris Balkan and I once translated The Charterhouse of Parma. Apart from that, I've edited a few books on the nineteenth-century popular novel, my reviews and articles appear in supplements and journals throughout Europe, and I organize summer-school courses on contemporary writers. Nothing spectacular, I'm afraid. Particularly these days, when suicide disguises itself as homicide, novels are written by Roger Ackroyd's doctor, and far too many people insist on publishing two hundred pages on the fascinating emotions they experience when they look in the mirror.

But let's stick to the story.

I first met Lucas Corso when he came to see me; he was carrying "The Anjou Wine" under his arm. Corso was a mercenary of the book world, hunting down books for other people. That meant talking fast and getting his hands dirty. He needed good reflexes, patience, and a lot of luck—and a prodigious memory to recall the exact dusty corner of an old man's shop where a book now worth a fortune lay forgotten. His clientele was small and select: a couple of dozen book dealers in Milan, Paris, London, Barcelona, and Lausanne, the kind that sell through catalogues, make only safe investments, and never handle more than fifty or so titles at any one time. High-class dealers in early printed books, for whom thousands of dollars depend on whether something is parchment or vellum or three centimeters wider in the margin. Jackals on the scent of the Gutenberg Bible, antique-fair sharks, auction-room leeches, they would sell their grandmothers for a first edition. But they receive their clients in rooms with leather sofas, views of the Duomo or Lake Constance and they never get their hands—or their consciences—dirty. That's what like Corso for.

He took his canvas bag off his shoulder and put it on the floor by his scuffed oxfords. He stared at the framed portrait of Rafael Sabatini that stands on my desk next to the fountain pen I use for correcting articles and proofs. I was pleased, because most visitors paid Sabatini little attention, taking him for an aged relative. I waited for Corso's reaction. He was half smiling as he sat down—a youthful expression, like that of a cartoon rabbit in a dead-end street. The kind of look that wins over the audience straightaway. In time I found out he could also smile like a cruel hungry wolf and that he chose his smiles to suit the circumstances. But that was much later. Now he seemed trustworthy, so I decided to risk a password.

"He was born with the gift of laughter," I quoted, pointing at the portrait. "... and with a feeling that the world was mad..."

Corso nodded slowly and deliberately. I felt a friendly complicity with him, which, in spite of all that happened later, I still feel. From a hidden packet he brought out an unfiltered cigarette that was as crumpled as his old overcoat and corduroy trousers. He turned it over in his fingers, watching me through steel-rimmed glasses set crookedly on his nose under an untidy fringe of slightly graying hair. As if holding a hidden gun, he kept his other hand in one of his pockets, a pocket huge and deformed by books, catalogues, papers, and, as I also found out later, a hip flask full of Bols gin.

"... and this was his entire inheritance." He completed the quotation effortlessly, then settled himself in the armchair and smiled again. "But to be honest, I prefer Captain Blood."

With a stern expression I lifted my fountain pen. "You're mistaken. Scaramouche is to Sabatini what The Three Musketeers is to Dumas." I bowed briefly to the portrait. "'He was born with the gift of laughter....' In the entire history of the adventure serial no two opening lines can compare."

"That may be true," Corso conceded after a moment's reflection. Then he laid the manuscript on the table, in a protective folder with plastic pockets, one for each page. "It's a coincidence you should mention Dumas."

He pushed the folder toward me, turning it around so I could read its contents. The text was in French, written on one side of the page only. There were two types of paper, both discolored by age: one white, the other pale blue with light squares. The handwriting on each was different—on the white pages it was smaller and more spiky. The handwriting of the blue paper, in black ink, also appeared on the white pages but as annotations only. There were fifteen pages in all, eleven of them blue.

"Interesting." I looked up at Corso. He was watching me, his calm gaze moving from the folder to me, then back again. "Where did you find it?"

He scratched an eyebrow, no doubt calculating whether he needed to provide such details in exchange for the information he wanted. The result was a third facial expression, this time an innocent rabbit. Corso was a professional.

"Around. Through a client of a client."

"I see."

He paused briefly, cautious. Caution is a sign of prudence and reserve, but also of shrewdness. And we both knew it.

"Of course," he added, "I'll give you names if you request them."

I answered that it wouldn't be necessary, which seemed to reassure him. He adjusted his glasses before asking my opinion of the manuscript. Not answering immediately, I turned to the first page. The title was written in capital letters, in thicker strokes: LE VIN D'ANJOU.

I read aloud the first few lines: "Après de nouvelles presque désespérées du roi, le bruit de sa convalescence commençait à se répandre dans le camp...." I couldn't help smiling.

Corso indicated his approval, inviting me to comment.

"Without the slightest doubt," I said, "this is by Alexandre Dumas père. 'The Anjou Wine': chapter forty-something, I seem to remember, of The Three Musketeers."

"Forty-two," confirmed Corso. "Chapter forty-two."

"Is it authentic? Dumas's original manuscript?"

"That's why I'm here. I want you to tell me."

I shrugged slightly, reluctant to assume such a responsibility.

"Why me?"

It was a stupid question, the kind that only serves to gain time. It must have seemed like false modesty, because he suppressed a look of impatience.

"You're an expert," he retorted, somewhat dryly. "As well as being Spain's most influential literary critic, you know all there is to know about the nineteenth-century popular novel."

"You're forgetting Stendhal."

"Not at all. I read your translation of The Charterhouse of Parma."

"Indeed. I am honored."

"Don't be. I preferred Consuelo Berges's version."

We both smiled. I continued to find him likable, and I was beginning to form an idea of his style.

"Do you know any of my books?" I asked.

"Some. Lupin, Raffles, Rocambole, Holmes, for instance. And your studies of Valle-Inclan, Baroja, and Galdos. Also Dumas: the Shadow of a Giant. And your essay on The Count of Monte Cristo."

"Have you read all those?"

"No. I work with books, but that doesn't mean I have to read them."

He was lying. Or at least exaggerating. The man was conscientious: before coming to see me, he'd looked at everything about me he could lay his hands on. He was one of those compulsive readers who have devoured anything in print from a most tender age—although it was highly unlikely that Corso's childhood ever merited the term "tender."

"I understand," I answered, just to say something.

He frowned for a moment, wondering whether he'd forgotten anything. He took off his glasses, breathed on the lenses, and set about cleaning them with a very crumpled handkerchief, which he pulled from one of the bottomless pockets of his coat. However fragile the oversized coat made him appear, with his rodentlike incisors and calm expression Corso was as solid as a concrete block. His features were sharp and precise, full of angles. They framed alert eyes always ready to express an innocence dangerous for anyone who was taken in by it. At times, particularly when still, he seemed slower and clumsier than he really was. He looked vulnerable and defenseless: barmen gave him an extra drink on the house, men offered him cigarettes, and women wanted to adopt him on the spot. Later, when you realized what had happened, it was too late to catch him. He was running off in the distance, having scored another victory.

Corso gestured with his glasses at the manuscript. "To return to Dumas. Surely a man who's written five hundred pages about him ought to sense something familiar when faced with one of his original manuscripts."

With the reverence of a priest handling holy vestments I put a hand on the pages protected by plastic.

"I fear I'm going to disappoint you, but I don't sense anything."

We both laughed, Corso in a peculiar way, almost under his breath, like someone who is not sure whether he and his companion are laughing at the same thing. An oblique, distant laugh, with a hint of insolence, the kind of laugh that lingers in the air after it stops. Even after its owner has been gone for a while.

"Let's take this a step at a time," I went on. "Does the manuscript belong to you?"

"I've already told you that it doesn't. A client of mine has just acquired it, and he finds it strange that no one should have heard of this complete, original chapter of The Three Musketeers until now.... He wants it authenticated by an expert, so that's what I'm working on."

"I'm surprised at your dealing with such a minor matter." This was true. I'd heard of Corso before this meeting. "I mean, after all, nowadays Dumas..."

I let the sentence hang and smiled with the appropriate expression of bitter complicity. But Corso didn't take up my invitation and stayed on the defensive. "The client's a friend of mine," he said evenly. "It's a personal favor."

"I see, but I'm not sure that I can be of any help to you. I have seen some of the original manuscripts, and this one could be authentic. However, certifying it is another matter. For that you'd need a good graphologist ... I know an excellent one in Paris, Achille Replinger. He owns a shop that specializes in autographs and historical documents, near Saint Germain des Pres. He's an expert on nineteenth-century French writers, a charming man and a good friend of mine." I pointed to one of the frames on the wall. "He sold me that Balzac letter many years ago. For a very high price."

I took out my datebook and copied the address for Corso on a card. He put the card in an old worn wallet full of notes and papers. Then he brought out a notepad and pencil from one of his coat pockets. The pencil had a chewed eraser at one end, like a schoolboy's pencil.

"Could I ask you a few questions?" he said.

"Yes, of course."

"Did you know of any complete handwritten chapter of The Three Musketeers?"

I shook my head and replaced the cap on my Mont Blanc.

"No. The novel came out in installments in Le Siecle between March and July 1844 ... Once the text was typeset by a compositor, the original manuscript was discarded. A few fragments remained, however. You can see them in an appendix to the 1968 Gamier edition."

"Four months isn't very long." Corso chewed the end of his pencil thoughtfully. "Dumas wrote quickly."

"They all did in those days. Stendhal wrote The Charterhouse of Parma in seven weeks. And in any case Dumas used collaborators, ghostwriters. The one for The Three Musketeers was called Auguste Maquet. They worked together on the sequel, Twenty Years After, and on The Vicomte de Bragelonne, which completes the cycle. And on The Count of Monte Costo and a few other novels. You have read those, I suppose."

"Of course. Everybody has."

"Everybody in the old days, you mean." I leafed respectfully through the manuscript. "The times are long gone when Dumas's name increased print runs and made publishers rich. Almost all his novels came out in installments that ended with 'to be continued....' The readers would be on tenterhooks until the next episode. But of course you know all that."

"Don't worry. Go on."

"What more can I tell you? In the classic serial, the recipe for success is simple: the hero and heroine have qualities or features that make the reader identify with them. If that happens nowadays in TV soaps, imagine the effect in those days, when there was no television or radio, on a middle class hungry for surprise and entertainment, and undiscriminating when it came to formal quality or taste.... Dumas was a genius, and he understood this. Like an alchemist in his laboratory, he added a dash of this, a dash of that, and with his talent combined it all to create a drug that had many addicts." I tapped my chest, not without pride. "That has them still."

Corso was taking notes. Precise, unscrupulous, and deadly as a black mamba was how one of his acquaintances described him later when Corso's name came up in conversation. He had a singular way of facing people, peering through his crooked glasses and slowly nodding in agreement, with a reasonable, well-meaning, but doubtful expression, like a whore tolerantly listening to a romantic sonnet. As if he was giving you a chance to correct yourself before it was too late.

After a moment he stopped and looked up. "But your work doesn't only deal with the popular novel. You're a well-known literary critic of other, more..." He hesitated, searching for a word. "More serious works. Dumas himself described his novels as easy literature. Sounds rather patronizing toward his readers."

This device was typical of him. It was one of his trademarks, like Rocambole's leaving a playing card instead of a calling card. Corso would say something casually, as if he himself had no opinion on the matter, slyly goading you to react. If you put forward arguments and justifications when you are annoyed, you give out more information to your opponent. I was no fool and knew what Corso was doing, but even so, or maybe because of it, I felt irritated.

"Don't talk in clichés," I said. "The serial genre produced a lot of disposable stuff, but Dumas was way above all that. In literature, time is like a shipwreck in which God looks after His own. I challenge you to name any fictional heroes who have survived in as good health as d'Artagnan and his friends. Sherlock Holmes is a possible exception. Yes, The Three Musketeers was a swashbuckling novel full of melodrama and all the sins of the genre. But it's also a distinguished example of the serial, and of a standard well above the norm. A tale of friendship and adventure that has stayed fresh even though tastes have changed and there is an now an idiotic tendency to despise action in novels. It would seem that since Joyce we have had to make do with Molly Bloom and give up Nausicaa on the beach after the shipwreck.... Have you read my essay 'Friday, or the Ship's Compass'? Give me Homer's Ulysses any day."

I sharpened my tone at that point, waiting for Corso's reaction. He smiled slightly and remained silent, but, remembering his expression when I had quoted from Scaramouche, I felt sure I was on the right track.

"I know what you're referring to," he said at last. "Your views are well known and controversial, Mr. Balkan."

"My views are well known because I've seen to that. And as for patronizing his readers, as you claimed a moment ago, perhaps you didn't know that the author of The Three Musketeers fought in the streets during the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. And he supplied arms, paying for them out of his own pocket, to Garibaldi. Don't forget that Dumas's father was a well-known republican general.... The man was full of love for the people and liberty."

"Although his respect for the truth was only relative."

"That's not important. Do you know how he answered those who accused him of raping History? 'True, I have raped History, but it has produced some beautiful offspring.'"

I put my pen down and went to the glass cabinets full of books. They covered the walls of my study. I opened one and took out a volume bound in dark leather.

"Like all great writers of fables," I went on, "Dumas was a liar. Countess Dash, who knew him well, says in her memoirs that any apocryphal anecdote he told was received as the historical truth. Take Cardinal Richelieu: he was the greatest man of his time, but once the treacherous Dumas had finished with him, the image left to us was that of a sinister villain...." I turned to Corso, holding the book. "Do you know this? It was written by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras, a musketeer who lived in the late seventeenth century. They're the memoirs of the real d'Artagnan, Charles de Batz-Castelmore, Comte d'Artagnan. He was a Gascon, born in 1615, and was indeed a musketeer. Although he lived in Mazarin's time, not Richelieu's. He died in 1673 during the siege of Maastricht, when, like his fictional namesake, he was about to be awarded the marshal's staff.... So you see, Dumas's raping did indeed produce beautiful offspring. An obscure flesh-and-blood Gascon, forgotten by History, transformed into a legendary giant by the novelist's genius."

Corso sat and listened. When I handed him the book, he leafed through it carefully, with great interest. He turned the pages slowly, barely brushing them with his fingertips, only touching the very edge. From time to time he paused over a name or a chapter heading. Behind his spectacles his eyes worked sure and fast. He stopped once to write in his notebook: "Memoires de M. d'Artagnan, G. de Courtilz, 1704, P. Rouge, 4 volumes in 12mo, 4th edition." Then he shut the notebook and looked up at me.

"You said it: he was a trickster."

"Yes," I agreed, sitting down again. "But a genius. While some would simply have plagiarized, he created a fictional world that still endures today... 'Man does not steal, he conquers,' he often said. 'Every province he seizes becomes an annex of his empire: he imposes laws, peoples it with themes and characters, casting his shadow over it.' What else is literary creation? For Dumas, the history of France was a rich source of material. His was an extraordinary trick: he'd leave the frame alone but alter the picture, mercilessly plundering the treasure that was offered to him. He turned central characters into minor ones, humble secondary characters became protagonists, and he wrote pages about events that took up only two lines in the historical chronicles. The pact of friendship between d'Artagnan and his companions never existed, one of the reasons being that half of them didn't even know each other. Nor was there a Comte de la Fere. Or, rather, there were several of them, though none called Athos. But Athos did exist. He was Armand de Sillegue, Lord of Athos, and he was killed in a duel before d'Artagnan ever joined the king's musketeers. Aramis was Henri d'Aramitz, a squire and lay priest in the seneschalship of Oloron, who enrolled in the musketeers under his uncle's command in 1640. He ended his days on his estate, with a wife and four children. As for Porthos..."

"Don't tell me there was a Porthos too."

"Yes. His name was Isaac de Portau and he must have known Aramis, because he joined the musketeers just three years after him, in 1643. According to the chronicles, he died prematurely, from a disease, at war, or in a duel like Athos."

Corso drummed his fingers on d'Artagnan's Memoirs and shook his head, smiling. "Any minute now you'll tell me there was a Milady."

"Correct. But her name wasn't Anne de Breuil, and she wasn't the Duchess de Winter. Nor did she have a fleur-de-lis tattooed on her shoulder. But she was one of Richelieu's secret agents. Her name was the Countess of Carlisle and she stole two diamond tags from the Duke of Buckingham ... Don't look at me like that. It's all in La Rochefoucauld's memoirs. And La Rochefoucauld was a very reliable man."

Corso was staring at me intently. He wasn't the type to be easily surprised, particularly when it came to books, but he seemed impressed. Later, when I came to know him better, I wondered whether his admiration was sincere or just another of his professional wiles. Now that it's all over, I think I know: I was one more source of information, and Corso was trying to get as much out of me as possible.

"This is all very interesting," he said.

"If you go to Paris, Replinger can tell you much more than I can." I looked at the manuscript on the table. "Though I'm not sure it's worth the price of a trip ... What would this chapter fetch on the market?"

He started chewing his pencil again and looked doubtful. "Not much. I'm really after something else."

I gave a sad conspiratorial smile. Among my few possessions I have an Ibarra edition of Don Quixote and a Volkswagen. Of course the car cost more than the book.

"I know what you mean," I said warmly.

Corso made a resigned gesture. He bared his rodent teeth in a bitter smile. "Unless the Japanese get fed up with Van Gogh and Picasso," he suggested, "and start investing in rare books."

I shuddered. "God help us if that ever happens."

"Speak for yourself." He looked at me sardonically through his crooked glasses. "I plan to make a fortune."

He put his notebook away and stood up, the strap of his canvas bag over his shoulder. I couldn't help wondering about his falsely placid appearance, with his steel-rimmed glasses sitting unsteadily on his nose. I found out later that he lived alone, surrounded by books, both his own and other people's, and that as well as being a hired hunter of books he was an expert on Napoleon's battles. He could set out on a board, from memory, the exact positions of troops on the eve of Waterloo. A detail from his family, slightly strange, and I found out about it only much later. I have to admit that from this description Corso doesn't sound very appealing. And yet, if I keep to the strict accuracy with which I am narrating this story, I must add that his awkward appearance, the very clumsiness that seemed—and I don't know how he managed it—vulnerable and caustic, ingenuous and aggressive at the same time, made him both attractive to women and sympathetic to men. But the positive feeling was quickly dispelled, as when you touch your pocket and realize that your wallet has just been stolen.

Corso picked up his manuscript, and I saw him to the door. He shook my hand in the hallway, where portraits of Stendhal, Conrad, and Valle-Inclan looked out severely at an atrocious print that the building's residents' association had decided to hang on the landing a few months earlier, much against my wishes.

Only then did I dare ask him: "I confess I'm intrigued as to where you found it."

He hesitated before answering, weighing the pros and cons. I had received him in a friendly manner, so he was in my debt. Also he might need my help again.

"Maybe you know him," he answered at last. "My client bought the manuscript from a certain Taillefer."

I allowed myself a look of moderate surprise. "Enrique Taillefer? The publisher?"

He was gazing absently around the hallway. At last he nodded. "The same."

We both fell silent. Corso shrugged, and I knew why. The reason could be found in the pages of any newspaper: Enrique Taillefer had been dead a week. He had been found hanged in his house, the cord of his silk robe around his neck, his feet dangling in empty space over an open book and a porcelain vase smashed to pieces.

Some time later, when it was all over, Corso agreed to tell me the rest of the story. So I can now give a fairly accurate picture of a chain of events that I didn't witness, events that led to the fatal denouement and the solution to the mystery surrounding the Club Dumas. Thanks to what Corso told me I can now tell you, like Doctor Watson, that the following scene took place in Makarova's bar an hour after our meeting:

Flavio La Ponte came in shaking off the rain, leaned on the bar next to Corso, and ordered a beer while he caught his breath. Then he looked back at the street, aggressive but triumphant, as if he had just come through sniper fire. It was raining with biblical force.

"The firm of Armengol & Sons, Antiquarian Books and Bibliographical Curiosities, intends to sue you," he said. He had a ring of froth on his curly blond beard, around his mouth. "Their solicitor just telephoned."

"What are they accusing me of?" asked Corso.

"Cheating a little old lady and plundering her library. They swear the deal was theirs."

"Well, they should have got up early, as I did."

"That's what I said, but they're still furious. When they went to pick up the books, the Persiles and the Royal Charter of Castille had disappeared. And you gave a valuation for the rest that was more than expected. So now the owner won't sell. She wants double what they're prepared to pay." He drank some beer and winked conspiratorially. "That neat maneuver is known as nailing a library."

"I know what it's called." Corso smiled malevolently. "And Armengol & Sons know it too."

"You're being unnecessarily cruel," said La Ponte impartially. "But what they're most sore about is the Royal Charter. They say that your taking it was a low blow."

"How could I leave it there? Latin glossary by Diaz de Montalvo, no typographical details but printed in Seville by Alonso Del Puerto, possibly 1482..." He adjusted his glasses and looked at his friend. "What do you think?"

"Sounds good to me. But they're a bit jumpy."

"They should take a Valium."

It was early evening. There was very little room at the bar, and they were pressed shoulder to shoulder, surrounded by cigarette smoke and the murmur of conversation, trying not to get their elbows in the puddles of beer on the counter.

"Apparently," continued La Ponte, "the Persiles is a first edition. The binding's signed by Trautz-Bauzonnet."

Corso shook his head. "By Hardy. Morocco leather."

"Even better. Anyway I swore I had nothing to do with it. You know I have an aversion to lawsuits."

"But not to your thirty percent."

La Ponte raised his hand with dignity. "Stop right there. Don't confuse business with pleasure, Corso. Our beautiful friendship is one thing, food for my children is quite another."

"You don't have any children."

La Ponte looked at him mischievously. "Give me time. I'm still young."

He was short, good-looking, neat, and something of a dandy. His hair was thinning on top. He smoothed it down with his hand, checking to see how it looked in the bar's mirror. Then he cast a practiced eye around the room, checking out the ladies. He was always on the lookout, and always liked to use short sentences in conversation. His father, a very cultured bookseller, had taught him to write by dictating to him texts by Azorin. Hardly anyone reads Azorin anymore, but La Ponte still constructed his sentences like Azorin. With lots of full stops. It gave him a certain aplomb when it came to seducing female customers in the back room of his bookshop in the Calle Mayor, where he kept his erotic classics.

"Anyway," he added, "I have some unfinished business with Armengol & Sons. Rather delicate, but I could make a quick profit."

"You have business with me too," said Corso over his beer. "You're the only poor bookseller I work with. And you're going to be the one who sells those books."

"All right, all right," said La Ponte equably. "You know I'm a practical man. A despicable pragmatist."

"Yes."

"Imagine this was a Western. As your friend, I'd take a bullet for you, but only in the shoulder."

"At the very most," said Corso.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter." La Ponte was looking around distractedly. "I already have a buyer for the Persiles."

"Then get me another beer. An advance on your commission."

They were old friends. They both loved frothy beer and, in its glazed earthenware bottle, Bols gin. But above all they loved antiquarian books and the auctions held in old Madrid auction rooms. They had met many years earlier, when Corso was rooting around in bookshops that specialized in Spanish authors. A client of his was looking for a bogus copy of Celestina that was supposed to predate the known 1499 edition. La Ponte didn't have the book and hadn't even heard of it, but he did have an edition of Julio Ollero's Dictionary of Rare and Improbable Books in which it was mentioned. They chatted about books and realized that they had a lot in common. La Ponte closed his shop, and they sealed their friendship by drinking all there was to drink in Makarova's bar while swapping anecdotes about Melville. La Ponte had been brought up on tales of the Pequod and the escapades of Azorin. "Call me Ishmael," he said as he drained his third Bols in one swallow. And Corso called him Ishmael, quoting from memory and in his honor the episode of the forging of Ahab's harpoon: "Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale's barbs then tempered."

They duly drank a toast. By then La Ponte was no longer watching the girls coming in and out of the bar. He swore eternal friendship to Corso. Despite his militant cynicism and his occupation as a rapacious seller of old books, underneath he was a naive man. So he was unaware that his new friend with the crooked glasses was discreetly outflanking him: Corso had glanced over his shelves and spotted a few books he planned to make an offer for. But La Ponte, with his pale, curly beard, the gentle look of seaman Billy Budd with daydreams of a frustrated whale hunter, had awakened Corso's sympathy. La Ponte could even recite the names of all the crew of the Pequod: Ahab, Stubb, Starbuck, Flask, Perth, Parsee, Queequeg, Tasthego, Daggoo ... Or the names of all the ships mentioned in Moby-Dick: the Goney, the Town-Ho, the Jeroboam, the Jungfrau, the Rose-bud, the Batchelor, the Delight, the Rachel... And, proof of proof, he even knew what ambergris was. They talked of books and whales. And so that night the Brotherhood of Nantucket Harpooneers was founded, with Flavio La Ponte as chairman, Lucas Corso as treasurer. They were the only two members and had Makarova's tolerant patronage. She gave them their last round on the house and ended up sharing another bottle of gin with them.

"I'm going to Paris," said Corso, watching the reflection of a fat woman putting coin after coin in a slot machine. It seemed as if the silly little tune and the colors, fruits, and bells would keep her there for all eternity, hypnotized and motionless but for her hand pushing the buttons. "To see about your 'Anjou Wine.'"

His friend wrinkled his nose and gave him a sideways glance. Paris meant more expense, complications. La Ponte was a stingy, small-time bookseller.

"You know I can't afford it."

Corso slowly emptied his glass. "Yes, you can." He took out a few coins and paid his round. "I'm going about something else."

"Oh yes?" said La Ponte, intrigued.

Makarova put two more beers on the counter. She was large, blond, in her forties, and had short hair and a ring in one ear, a souvenir of her time on a Russian trawler. She wore narrow trousers and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her shoulders. Her overdeveloped biceps weren't the only masculine thing about her. She always had a lighted cigarette smoldering in the corner of her mouth. With her Baltic look and her way of moving, she looked like a fitter from a ball-bearing factory in Leningrad.

"I read that book," she told Corso, rolling her r's. As she spoke, ash from her cigarette dropped onto her damp shirt. "That tart Bovary. Poor little fool."

"I'm so glad you grasped the heart of the matter."

Makarova wiped down the counter with a cloth. At the other end of the bar Zizi was watching as she worked the till. She was the complete opposite of Makarova: much younger, slight, and terribly jealous. Sometimes, just before closing time, they would quarrel drunkenly and come to blows, the last few regulars watching. Once, with a black eye after one of these rows, Zizi upped and left, furious and vindictive. Makarova wept copiously into the beer until Zizi returned three days later. That night they closed early and left with their arms around each other's waist, kissing in doorways like two teenagers in love.

"He's off to Paris," La Ponte said, nodding in Corso's direction. "To see what he can pull out of the hat."

Makarova collected the empty glasses and looked at Corso through the smoke of her cigarette. "He's always up to something," she said in her flat, guttural tone.

Then she put the glasses in the sink and went to serve some other customers, swinging her broad shoulders. Corso was the only member of the opposite sex who escaped her contempt, and she would proclaim this when she didn't charge him for a drink. Even Zizi looked upon him with a certain neutrality. Once, when Makarova was arrested for punching a policeman in the face during a gay rights march, Zizi had waited all night on a bench in the police station. Corso called all his contacts in the police, stayed with her, and supplied sandwiches and a bottle of gin. It all made La Ponte absurdly jealous.

"Why Paris?" he asked, though his mind was on other things. His left elbow had just prodded something deliciously soft. He was delighted to find that his neighbor at the bar was a young blonde with enormous breasts.

Corso took another gulp of beer. "I'm also going to Sintra, in Portugal." He was still watching the fat woman at the slot machine. She'd run out of coins and was now getting change from Zizi. "On some business for Varo Borja."

His friend made a whistling sound. Varo Borja, Spain's leading book dealer. His catalogue was small and select. He was also well known as a book lover to whom money was no object. Impressed, La Ponte asked for more beer and more information, with that greedy look that automatically clicked on when he heard the word book. Although he admitted to being a miser and a coward, he wasn't an envious man, except when it came to pretty, harpoonable women. In professional matters, he was always glad to get hold of good pieces with little risk, but he also had real respect for his friend's work and clientele.

"Have you ever heard of The Nine Doors?"

The bookseller was searching slowly through his pockets, hoping that Corso would pay for this round too. He was also just about to turn and take a closer look at his voluptuous neighbor, but Corso's words caused him to forget her instantly. He was openmouthed.

"Don't tell me Varo Borja's after that book...."

Corso put his last few coins on the counter. Makarova brought another two beers. "He's had it for some time. He paid a fortune for it."

"I'll bet he did. There are only three or four known copies."

"Three," specified Corso. "One in Sintra, in the Fargas collection. Another at the Ungern Foundation in Paris. The third, from the sale of the Terral-Coy Library in Madrid, was bought by Varo Borja."

Fascinated, La Ponte stroked his curly beard. Of course he had heard of Fargas, the Portuguese book collector. As for Baroness Ungern, she was a potty old woman who'd become a millionairess from writing books about demonology and the occult. Her recent book, Naked Isis, was a runaway bestseller in all the stores.

"What I don't understand," said La Ponte, "is what you have to do with any of it."

"Do you know the book's history?"

"Vaguely," said La Ponte.

Corso dipped a finger in his beer and began to draw pictures on the marble counter. "Period: mid-seventeenth century. Scene: Venice. Central character: a printer by the name of Aristide Torchia, who had the idea of publishing the so-called Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows, a kind of manual for summoning the devil. It wasn't a good time for that sort of thing: the Holy Office managed, without much trouble, to have Torchia handed over to them. He was charged with practicing satanic arts and all that goes with them, aggravated by the fact, they said, that he'd reproduced nine prints from the famous Delomelanicon, the occult classic that, tradition has it, was written by Lucifer himself."

Makarova had moved closer on the other side of the bar and was listening with interest, wiping her hands on her shirt. La Ponte, about to take another swallow of beer, stopped and asked, instinctively taking on the look of a greedy bookseller, "What happened to the book?"

"You can imagine: all the copies went onto a big bonfire." Corso frowned evilly. He seemed sorry to have missed it. "They also say that as they burned, you could hear the devil screaming."

Her elbows on Corso's beer diagrams between the beer handles, Makarova grunted skeptically. With her blond, manly looks and her cool, Nordic temperament, she didn't go in for these murky southern superstitions. La Ponte was more impressionable. Suddenly thirsty, he gulped down his beer.

"It must have been the printer they heard screaming."

"It must have been."

Corso went on. "Tortured with the thoroughness the Inquisition reserved for dealing with the evil arts, the printer finally confessed, between screams, that there remained one book, hidden somewhere. Then he shut his mouth and didn't open it again until they burned him alive. And then it was only to say Aagh."

Makarova smiled contemptuously at the fate of Torchia the printer, or maybe at the executioners who hadn't been able to make him confess. La Ponte was frowning.

"You say that only one of the books was saved," he objected. "But before, you said there were three known copies."

Corso had taken off his glasses and was looking at them against the light to check how clean they were.

"And that's the problem," he said. "The books have appeared and disappeared through wars, thefts, and fires. It's not known which is the authentic one."

"Maybe they're all forgeries," Makarova suggested sensibly.

"Maybe. So I have to find out whether or not Varo Borja was taken for a ride. That's why I'm going to Sintra and Paris." He adjusted his glasses and looked at La Ponte. "While I'm there, I'll see about your manuscript as well."

The bookseller agreed thoughtfully, in the mirror eyeing the woman with the big breasts. "Compared to that, it seems ridiculous to make you waste your time on The Three Musketeers...."

"What are you talking about?" said Makarova, no longer neutral. She was really offended. "It's the best book I ever read!"

She slammed her hands down on the counter for emphasis, making the muscles on her bare forearms bulge. Boris Balkan would be happy to hear that, thought Corso. Besides the Dumas novel, Makarova's top-ten list of books, for which he was literary advisor, included War and Peace, Watership Down, and Patricia Highsmith's Carol.

"Don't worry," he told La Ponte, "I'll charge the expenses to Varo Borja. But I'd say your 'Anjou Wine' is authentic. Who would forge something like that?"

"People do all sorts of things," Makarova pointed out sagely.

La Ponte agreed with Corso—forging such a document would be absurd. The late Taillefer had guaranteed its authenticity to him. It was in Dumas's own hand. And Taillefer could be trusted.

"I used to take him old newspaper serials. He'd buy them all." He took a sip and then laughed to himself. "Good excuse to go and get a look at his wife's legs. She's a pretty spectacular blonde. Anyway, one day he opened a drawer and put 'The Anjou Wine' on the table. 'It's yours,' he said straight out, 'provided you get an expert opinion on it and put it on sale immediately.'"

A customer called, ordering a tonic water. Makarova told him to go to hell. She stayed where she was, her cigarette burning down in her mouth and her eyes half-closed because of the smoke. Waiting for the rest of the story.

"Is that all?" asked Corso.

La Ponte gestured vaguely. "Almost. I tried to dissuade him, because I knew he was crazy about that sort of thing. He would sell his soul for a rare book. But he'd made up his mind. 'If you don't do it, I'll give it to someone else,' he said. That touched a nerve, of course. My professional nerve, I mean."

"You don't need to explain," said Corso. "What other kind do you have?"

La Ponte turned to Makarova for support. But one glance at her slate-gray eyes and he gave up. They were about as warm as a Scandinavian fjord at three in the morning.

"It's nice to feel loved," he said bitterly.

The man wanting a tonic water must really have been thirsty, Corso thought, because he was getting insistent. Makarova, looking at the customer out of the corner of her eye and not moving a muscle, suggested that he find another bar before she gave him a black eye. The man thought it over. He seemed to get the message. He left.

"Enrique Taillefer was a strange man." La Ponte ran his hand again through his thinning hair, still watching the blonde in the mirror. "He wanted me to sell the manuscript and get publicity for the whole business." He lowered his voice so the blonde wouldn't hear. "'Somebody's in for a surprise,' Taillefer told me mysteriously. He winked at me, as if he was going to play a joke on someone. Four days later, he was dead."

"Dead," repeated Makarova in her guttural way, savoring the word. She was more and more interested.

"Suicide," explained Corso.

She shrugged, as if to say there wasn't that much difference between suicide and murder. There was one doubtful manuscript and a definite corpse: quite enough for a conspiracy theory.

On hearing the word suicide, La Ponte nodded lugubriously. "So they say."

"You don't seem too sure."

"No, I'm not. It's all a bit odd." He frowned again, suddenly looking somber and forgetting the blonde in the mirror. "Smells fishy to me."

"Did Taillefer ever tell you how he got hold of the manuscript?"

"At the beginning I didn't ask. Then it was too late."

"Did you speak to his widow?"

La Ponte brightened. He grinned from ear to ear. "I'll save that story for another time." He sounded like someone who has just remembered he has a brilliant trick up his sleeve. "That'll be your payment. I can't afford even a tenth of what you'll get out of Varo Borja for his Book of the Nine Lies."

"I'll do the same for you when you find an Audubon and become a millionaire. I'll just collect my money later."

La Ponte looked hurt. For such a cynic, Corso thought, he seemed rather sensitive.

"I thought you were helping me as a friend," protested La Ponte. "You know. The Club of Nantucket Harpooneers. Thar she blows, and all that."

"Friendship," said Corso, looking around as if waiting for someone to explain the word to him. "Bars and cemeteries are full of good friends."

"Who's side are you on, damn it?"

"On his own side," sighed Makarova. "Corso's always on his own side."

La Ponte was disappointed to see the woman with the breasts leave with a smart young man who looked like a model. Corso was still watching the fat woman at the slot machine, who'd run out of coins again. She was standing with a disconcerted, blank look, her hands at her sides. Her place at the machine was taken by a tall, dark man. He had a thick black mustache and a scar on his face. For a fleeting moment Corso thought he looked familiar, but the impression vanished before he could grasp it. To the fat woman's despair, the machine was now spewing out a noisy stream of coins.

Makarova offered Corso one last beer on the house. La Ponte had to pay for his own this time.