The top of the box was attached by three small hinges, and he gently raised it. Inside was what appeared to be a cardboard box, gray in color. Carefully, he lifted it out and placed it on the table. “This is called an archival storage box, made of acid- and lignin-free board and used by most libraries and serious collectors. This came from Princeton.” He opened the box, and announced proudly, “The original manuscript of The Last Tycoon.”

Mercer’s jaw dropped as she stared in disbelief and eased closer. She tried to speak but couldn’t find the words.

Inside the box was a stack of faded letter-sized sheets of paper, perhaps four inches thick, obviously well aged and a relic from another time. There was no title page; indeed, it appeared as though Fitzgerald had simply plunged into chapter 1 with the thought of tidying things up later. His cursive was not pretty and hard to read, and he had begun making notes in the margins from the very beginning. Bruce touched the edges of the manuscript and went on, “When he died suddenly in 1940, the novel was far from finished, but he worked from an outline and left behind a considerable amount of notes and summaries. He had a close friend named Edmund Wilson, who was an editor and a critic, and Wilson cobbled the story together and the book was published a year later. Many critics consider it to be Fitzgerald’s finest work, which, as you said, is remarkable given his health.”

“You are kidding, right?” she managed to say.

“Kidding about what?”

“This manuscript. Is this the one that was stolen?”

“Oh yes, but not by me.”

“Okay. What’s it doing here?”

“It’s a very long story and I won’t bore you with the details, many of which I know nothing about. All five were stolen last fall from the Firestone Library at Princeton. There was a gang of thieves and they got spooked when the FBI grabbed two of them almost immediately. The others unloaded their loot and disappeared. The manuscripts quietly entered the black market. From there they were sold off separately. I don’t know where the other four are but I suspect they’ve left the country.”

“Why are you involved, Bruce?”

“It’s complicated, but I’m really not that involved. You want to touch the pages?”

“No. I don’t like being here. This makes me nervous.”

“Relax. I’m just hiding this for a friend.”

“Must be a helluva friend.”

“He is. We’ve been trading for a long time and I trust him implicitly. He’s in the process of brokering a deal with a collector in London.”

“What’s in it for you?”

“Not much. I’ll get a few bucks down the road.”

Mercer stepped away and moved to the other side of the table. “For a few bucks it seems like you’re assuming a rather significant risk. You’re in possession of major stolen property. That’s a felony that could get you sent away for a long time.”