Portland Noir - Kevin Sampsell [65]
“And then we’ll have some goddamn fun.”
“I can see you guys mean business,” Jacob says. “Final offer. You keep the book, I’ll take the money, and I’ll go set up an introduction with my client.”
Mustache and Shoulders bookend Jacob, glaring down at him from impressive heights. “You know what we are, right?” Shoulders says. “Fuck with us, you ain’t safe crossin the street. Ain’t safe in your home. From here on out, there’s no such thing as you bein safe, ever again. Got it?”
Jacob holds out his hand expectantly. Mustache looks at Shoulders, who nods, then Mustache takes out the money and fills Jacob’s palm.
Jacob goes downstairs, the cops trailing him—hanging back far enough to be inconspicuous to anyone who doesn’t know what to look for. Jacob pauses on the Mezzanine entrance to the Gold Room. Then he walks over to the Green Room, the front entrance.
Glancing around, Jacob notices the cops are tense, ready to spring if he even looks at the front doors wrong. Jacob, never very good at improvisation, tries to work out his next step.
He lingers by the best-seller shelves, peering around with a confused expression he hopes is halfway convincing. The cops don’t look convinced. They watch him with massive arms crossed in front of their huge chests, grinding their jaws.
Out of the corner of his eye Jacob steals glances toward the front doors. A constant stream of customers flows from the cashiers out onto the sidewalk, which is crowded with what appears to be a gang of suburban tourists. Mothers and their young children, mostly, perhaps wondering why anyone would make such a big deal about a bookstore.
Jacob considers his chances. He could bolt, catch the right moment, get a few people jammed between him and the cops. He might get away.
Then again, he might spend the rest of his life in a convalescent home.
He approaches the cops. “Not here.”
“No shit. So where is he?”
“We had a backup meeting place,” Jacob says, “in case either of us got nervous.” The cops look skeptical as Jacob leads them back to the Mezzanine, up the stairs to the Purple Room, and then a sharp left into the Red Room.
He pretends to pretend to browse the travel guides while looking around for a client who isn’t there. The cops might see right through this performance, but they’ll let it play out for a few minutes before their patience finally gives out. Jacob weighing his options, hoping a few minutes is enough time … but for what?
Across the room, he catches sight of a memory.
The young female employee with the tattooed arms slouching at the info desk reminds Jacob of the woman he dated. She could be her, frozen in time. He wonders how many twenty-something kids wander into this job with temporary expectations and stagger out years later, trying to recall where they’d misplaced their youth.
Celeste. That was her name—the one she gave Jacob, at any rate.
And now he remembers the way things ended. When she’d told him she was seeing someone else now. Jacob thinking, That’s fine, it’s just casual sex. Surprised to find himself lying awake in a bed that felt too big. Picturing some other guy touching Celeste’s tattoos in ways Jacob never would again. His hand stroking the roses twined around her calf. Lips caressing the blackbirds fluttering above the swell of her breasts. The Celtic knot on her upper arm expanding, contracting, expanding, shiny in her sweat, contracting again as she clings to his shoulders.
A lanky young man with limp black hair, who’s wearing eye makeup and tight jeans that proudly display his androgyny, leans on the info desk and the employee puts her hand gently on his forearm. She beams with an unguarded warmth that no one has directed at Jacob since he was their age. In return, Lanky affects a bored expression, acting like everything else in the room is more interesting than she is.
Jacob catches the cops’ eyes. Nods his head to the info desk.
Shoulders knits his brow with confusion.
Jacob nods emphatically, mimes “jacket” in his best attempt at charades, then indicates