Portland Noir - Kevin Sampsell [64]
The ancient, balding custodian of this quiet, carpeted, precisely climate-controlled cell hunches over a book at his desk, folding Mylar over a dust jacket. He doesn’t seem to register Jacob’s arrival—nor, from appearances, much care about anything that doesn’t have brittle old pages and hand-woven binding.
Jacob browses a hundred-year-old atlas displayed on top of a waist-high bookshelf, allowing him to watch the door as Mustache comes in. Roughly as tall as his partner and just as wide, but with a case of beer where Shoulders has a six-pack. Mustache stands directly on the opposite side of the bookcase, hardly feigning interest in the musty tome he opens.
“Boy, I’ll tell you somethin,” he says. “Life, huh? Whole lotta foreplay, not a lot of fuck.”
Jacob glances at the book in Mustache’s hands. “Mark Twain said that?”
The cop lifts his dark eyes to fix an amused gaze on Jacob—not unlike a sadistic child pepper-spraying flies. “You know you got an empty jacket, right?”
“I don’t mind. It’s chilly out.”
“And I bet my buddy’s got an empty jacket too. So. How we both gonna get what we want?”
“We could swap pants. But mine’ll probably be loose in the crotch.”
“Can I help either of you gentlemen?” the guardian of rare books calls out, loud enough to communicate his disdain for human voices.
“Just browsing, thanks,” Mustache says. Then turns back to Jacob and says, in a softer whisper, “I know you’re not him. Just some idiot took a few bucks to make a handoff. I got no beef with you.”
“If you knew me, you might.”
“One-time offer. Now or never.” He reaches for the inside pocket of his leather jacket. Jacob tenses, and before he can recoil a brown paper bag lands on top of the bookcase. Thick, square-shaped, like a brick.
“I don’t mind spendin the money. I just don’t wanna give it to some shit-stain thinks he can screw me and my partner. Laugh about it with his retarded cronies on their stupid tiny bikes. That chaps my ass, man.”
“Mine too. I hate those little bikes.”
Jacob stares at the bag, so much thicker than the measly bundle in his pocket. His lack of civic duty coming back to him.
“The full amount,” Mustache says. “Twenty grand, all yours. Just give me the punk.”
Jacob’s gaze returns to the dark eyes. The amusement is gone, replaced by a barely contained fury that reminds Jacob why he changed his mind.
Mustache taps the bag gently, steadily. “You don’t gotta do nothin ’cept point him out. He’s here in the store, right? Wouldn’t be smart enough to meet somewhere else.”
Jacob shrivels inside. Now who’s the dumb one?
“Point me to him, take your money, go free and clear. No harm, no hassle. You don’t ever gotta know what happened to him.”
“Twenty grand, huh?”
Mustache nods confidently, his smirk returning.
“A man who’ll pay twenty might go fifty.”
The smirk dies. “You tryin to extort me?”
“You’ve already been extorted,” Jacob says. “I’m just haggling.”
Mustache slaps his hand over the bag, big enough to cover the entire brick. The smack it makes jars the custodian’s last nerve. “If you wish to converse,” he snaps, “there’s a coffee shop on the ground floor.”
“We’re talkin books!” Mustache says. Back to Jacob: “Don’t fuck with us. They’ll never find all your pieces.”
“Send Mr. Shoulders to an ATM. We can read to each other while we wait.”
The bag goes back into the jacket. “Money’s off the table. You had your chance, fuckface. Now you show us to him or we start breakin bones.”
Evidently not intimidated by the cop’s size and ferocity, the custodian of the Rare Book Room has shambled to their side and is about to utter another protest when Jacob turns to him, holding up the atlas he’s been thumbing. “I’ll take this one. Do you gift wrap?”
Jacob finds Shoulders standing guard outside the room, even less amused-looking than his partner. Mustache grabs Jacob’s arm, steers him toward the windows by the Photography section. “I got you a present,” Jacob says, handing him the atlas.
Mustache flings the book aside. “Your mistake is thinkin you’re safe long as you’re in public.”
Shoulders