The Infinite Library (8 page)

Angelo removed a small PDA from his shoulder bag and called up his list. A little USB key was inserted into its side, functioning as an archive.

“Okay,” he said, once satisfied. “All the names are current and kosher. You’re good to go on this pass.”

“What do you have there?”

“Oh, you mean my database? You might call it a combination address book and who’s who archive, updated daily - or when I can secure the net connections. I have the names of virtually every departmental head in every university in the world, as well as the addresses, names of head librarians, and so forth of every library in the land. It always comes in useful.”

“And the letterhead?”

“That’s my sneaky trick. It took me a long while to procure the letterhead for every university and their respective departments. The way was this: I falsely applied as a candidate to each of their programs and
received a mass of rejections all on their letterhead. I scanned each and now keep them in a separate database. When an acting Chair quits the position, I find out who has taken the place, and alter the file. The trickier letterheads are the embossed kind, but I have connections with those who have the right tools in their workshops to make counterfeits. I then order a block of a hundred blanks, which usually covers my needs. Signatures are too easy to forge, so I don’t sweat on that score either. There’s an art to using these blanks. Sometimes it is simple, like a subway ticket, pitched into the trash once the use has been exhausted, and sometimes it gets tricky when they keep it on file. If the book the ‘visiting scholar’ wants to borrow goes missing, phone calls and emails are made to the people named in the letter. You can imagine what happens after that: ‘I never authorized someone by the name of so-and-so to remove the text in question’, to which the librarian replies that a signed letter is present stating just that fact, etc. A scandal ensues, a minor one, and so the department head marches down to the library to salvage reputation, sees the letter, declares it a forgery, and you know what happens next?”

“No.”

“Well, piece it together… It comes to light that forged letters purporting to be on the authority of the Chair of the Department are circulating, which means some industrious individual has access to the official letterhead. To avoid further complications and miscommunications, the letterhead is changed and a closer guard is kept on it, since they are more willing to suspect internal individuals who have access to it than someone on the outside. That means my letterhead becomes useless. Sometimes I only get to use the blank once before I have to find another strategy if I want to remove another text from the same library. It can be potentially embarrassing if I don’t get word of the change and I try to use the same old letterhead. That’s where talk comes in handy, to - as I said earlier - get out of sticky situations. If a mass email goes out to all the librarians to be on the lookout for forged official letters, then one can be sunk. What I don’t want you to think is that this is the only means available for plucking books - it is one strategy among thousands. Today I am employing this one. It isn't always necessary since one can pinch books in regular circulation quite easily; it's the stuff behind the counter that requires special permissions and the right documentation, or stuff in rare manuscript libraries that need the forms.”

“Have you ever used the letterhead of this institution before?”

“Yes, which makes this potentially risky. I’ve actually used it before since this library is one of those where the boss’ books seem to pop up most frequently. A weird kind of rift thing he would be better disposed to explaining. So the general rule is supreme caution, no matter what. I’m the backup in this. That is, ask to see the book first before showing the letters. Have it in your hands, and then top up the performance with the official business. Introduce yourself as a visiting scholar right from the start, ask to see the book, and then provide the evidence of your claim to it. This works five times out of ten, depending on the librarian, and the other times you have to have the letter first for their inspection. Should there be any problem, I am dressed appropriately to function as plan C. If I suspect that things are going to make a turn for the worse, then I will cause a spectacle, maybe some public drunkenness, a violent tipping over of shelves, something startling… at which point you can fade away into the crowd or bolt - it’s your choice. Either way, we will have to dodge security. I only hope that I don’t have to resort to this unpalatable option.”

“So what is plan B, since you have C covered.”

“Ah! This is where you can start practising the gift of gab. What would you do if the librarian knows the letterhead to be stale, and therefore a forgery?”

“I, um… hm. I guess I would stall.”

“Your hesitation, even now, speaks volumes on your immediate guilt, gives away the game before it even starts. Here’s what you do: you have to act, perform, and believe yourself to be the genuine article and not some rogue goliard. Your first reaction must be shock, then consternation, and then confusion – the best one-two-three psycho-punch. This is convincing because it makes you appear as though you are as much a victim of fraud as the librarian and everyone else involved. You’re just some innocent and meek scholar who had applied to get this permission, but only through distance correspondence. You assumed everything was copasetic. You never once imagined that someone would sink so low as to implicate you in some twisted joke, making you an unwitting accessory to attempted theft. Yes, this must be some kind of cruel joke played on you by some nasty colleague who is trying to jeopardize your bid for tenure. Start speaking more to yourself at this point, puzzling out who could have done this to you. Apologize profusely, but meanwhile maintaining that your apology is on behalf of some cretin who is trying to sabotage your illustrious and impeccable reputation. Express your disbelief that someone would resort to such infantile tactics – this is key since it casts the whole framework of the suspicion and accusation as patently absurd, thereby softening up the librarian to the idea of predictable reason. Ask the librarian for contact information since you are now explicitly committed to getting to the bottom of this, of locating the culprit and putting an end to this sorry act of fraud. Don’t ham it up too much, make it believable, which is to say truly believe that you have been unduly placed in the wrong by cruel and vindictive forces. Get it? This old trick is the ultimate suspicion buster, the old shared victimization gag. Sure, I’m actually on your side. Ha!”

“Doubtless, I have plenty of questions before I start--”

“I’ll field one now. Shoot,” he said, winking and making an obnoxious cliché gun with his thumb and index finger.

“Why not just find a sneaky way of bypassing the security system? Most books have that little magnetic strip inserted in the spine. With a small blade, and a delicate incision, it can be removed. After that, repairing it would be easy if one isn’t sloppy in mangling the text.”

“Hey, Gimaldi… That’s pretty shrewd of you,” he eagerly applauded, followed by his deflating evaluation, “but not foolproof.”

“When I was younger and foolish, I used to steal books from my public library.”

“Well, looks like you’re at the foot of the circle. However, listen, we’re not lifting Nancy Drew or your run-of-the-mill academic slop freely available on the shelves for any grubby undergrad to rifle through to make a term paper… The books we are trying to retrieve are behind the desk. In some cases, and at some libraries, you need special letters of permission to even see them. But, you knew that already… Weren’t you at the Vatican Library? They don’t just open it up for any schmuck… You need authorization and a personal invite.”

“Yes, of course. How foolish of me to make the parallel - “

“Well, hold on a second, Gimaldi… Don’t be too down on yourself. The boss’ books can occur anywhere: under librarian lock and key, in someone’s personal collection, on the shelves at the public library, in one of those big mega-chain bookstore-slash-kitschy coffee shops…anywhere books are. Some jobs will be easier to pull off than others.”

“Have you ever failed to retrieve a book, even with all your planning?”

“Once,” he said, his face suddenly darkening with clouds of memory. “The poor guy who had it in his possession went mad. I really blew it, but the circumstances... I suspect something was working to counter my efforts, some kind of nudge or attempt to plant the text, well... I... never mind… I’d rather not get into that morose tale, especially when we ought to be keeping sharp and the morale high. No sense swapping stories on past failures when we need to go about the business of successful reacquisition.”

And I left it at that, for now. Angelo would tell me one day…The story of Leo and the Red Lion book. He gave me a conspiratorial wink before gently tugging me in the direction of the library.

4

The Hidden Smirk

A
s it turned out, the
Dionysus
book was the easier of the two books put in my charge to procure, and I was beginning to warm to my apprenticeship to Angelo… despite my earlier sewn-up judgements of his person. He was indeed a wealth of tricks, tips, and resources - a kind of veteran pirate or a shadowy prelate. Our next stop was Essen, Germany. Once my first procurement was confirmed via Angelo, Castellemare wired me the agreed-upon funds to finance my trip. Meanwhile, Angelo was already comparing return flight details and hotel prices.

“Angelo,” I asked as he was thumbing his PDA, “why did I have to posture as a scholar from SUNY when the text was on a ‘to be shelved’ pile?”

“A precaution and a practice. You can’t take too many chances - circumstance already plays fast and loose with life as it is. Besides, this is part of your tutelage. You’re in a probationary period. Reacquisition is a high stakes game, and failure is never an option.”

I would not be the only one to find the cliché unbearable, or the association between books and Hollywood high-action drama amusing.

Just then, Castellemare had sent an email to Angelo.

“Huh. Looks like the boss has a side job for us. Some banking magnate’s house. A Hemingway novel dated 2018. Luckily, it’s only an hour’s drive away, but I suggest we do this right now.”

“But it’s daylight! Someone will certainly see us.”

“Oh, would you prefer to dress up as burglars and take bullets from the veck’s antique Luger as he protects himself from a perceived home invasion in his bedroom slippers and nightcap? We’ll go over in broad daylight as electricians – that way I can carry the necessary lock picking tools in an inconspicuous toolbox of electrician’s gear.”

“But where will we procure any of these things on such short notice?”

Angelo merely shot me an amused grin and indicated his PDA, his communication key to anything.

In less than an hour, we had our uniforms and the right tools. We arrived at the house, a Patrician style home of wealthy proportions. There were scattered bookshelves on all floors.

“In many ways,” Angelo mused aloud, “This is like a game of Whack-a-Mole: the books pop up, and we have to hammer them back in before unauthorized eyes see them. Anyhow, we’re going to have to work really fast; the house is probably rigged with a silent alarm. Why can’t these damn books appear more often in slums where the only thing on their shelves is Reader’s Digest and Auto Racer magazines? So I am going to count on your ability to scan spines fast, and I mean with maximum celerity and an eagle’s eye for details. All those years of scouring used bookstores for underpriced gems is really going to pay off here. You work downstairs, and I’ll check the upstairs. We split the house evenly so that we aren’t doubling and overlapping our labour.”

Angelo was much faster than I was, and the honour of finding the AWOL text went to him. The job was fairly easy and went off with no incident. The book was in Angelo’s search domain, and he plucked it within fifteen minutes of poring over about 2500 books. It was nested between two bloated books of German history in gothic script, sandwiched there like a svelte whisper between two baritone blasts. We had made good time on the side job and hastened to complete our real reason for being here. Within six hours, we would be on a plane back. Again, the honours of doing all the legwork and reacquiring went to Angelo. I felt somewhat pedestrian.

Angelo continued to regard me with mistrust, and I could tell by the patient and penetrating way he would look at me, as if at any moment I was about to spring a deceit and betray him. Although we had eased into an amicable working partnership, there was a lingering hostility or begrudging attitude manifest in Angelo that was noticeable from time to time, especially when I peppered him with questions. I had attributed
this to my being a novice at this job, and his need to train me was slowing him down. Or perhaps my employment under Castellemare was taking away funds from Angelo’s own feedbag.