Chapter 1
“Hey do y’all buy books?” A woman’s nasal voice came from the front door in a half holler, with the unmistakable aftersmack of chewing gum.
Cable looked up from the copy of The Watchmen that he was re-reading on the front counter of the store. The woman who had spoken had pulled open the glass front door of the bookstore, but had only leaned her head through the doorway, as if she were nervous about setting foot inside the unfamiliar realm of a second hand bookshop. She was in her heavy-makeup years, somewhere between her heavy handed late thirties and nearsighted sixty, with frosted blonde hair teased out stiffly. Over her shoulder, Cable could see that she’d left her white SUV double parked in front of the store with the motor running, just on the other side of the big sign that says, “We Buy Books.”
“Sure we do,” said Cable cheerfully.
“Any kind? Just any books? I got a ton I’m trying to get rid of,” said the woman.
Cable bobbled his head and tucked his long black hair behind his ears. “Anything we think we can sell,” he answered, “so not anything, but—“
He was cut off by a car honking its horn at the double parked SUV. The woman turned and looked. “Keep your pants on, sugar,” she shouted, “I’m right here.” The car honked again before pulling around the SUV and speeding off down the quiet street. Cable got up off his stool and walked over to the door, thinking that the woman might be more comfortable talking on the sidewalk, where she could keep her eye on her car and not run the risk of catching some sort of literacy infection from the stacks and shelves of books she would be exposed to if she stepped all the way into the store.
“What kind of books do you have?” he asked, as he stepped out on the sidewalk with her.
“I don’t know,” she said, “tons of them. Do you mean, like, hardcovers or softcovers?”
Cable tucked his hair behind his ears again. It was a habit he’d picked up just as soon as his hair got long enough to reach. He did it unconsciously most of the time, but he also did it to buy himself a second or two to think before he had to answer a question.
“Sure,” he said, “that’d be a start. Is there a theme of some sort to the collection? History books, maybe, or mystery novels? Are they your books?”
He leaned up against the front façade of the store. Two big plate glass windows flanked the double doors of the store, which was one of just a handful of two hundred year old brick building still standing on the historic main street of town. Another car tooted its horn at the SUV.
“They’re not mine,” she said, “I’m trying to clean out a house. Can’t you just come look? Haul them all away?”
“Well,” began Cable, peering down the street. At the far end of the block, Jack turned into view, carrying two cups from the coffee shop. “Not usually,” continued Cable, “we’ve got to be here at the store. If you can bring them by, I’d be happy to take a look.”
“It’s way too many books to carry,” said the woman, shaking her head. “I don’t even need any money for them, I just need them out of there. “
“Is it nearby?” asked Cable, deciding that it might be easier to just go take a look than to try to explain why it wasn’t worthwhile.
“Do you know where Harper Heights is?” asked the woman, “Glenshire Ridge?”
Cable shook his head. Housing developments with names plucked from Civil War history books had sprung up along every road from Fredericksburg up to Washington DC. Even Googlemaps couldn’t keep up with the new cul-de-sacs in the region.
“You can follow me,” said the woman, “I’m headed there now.”
Cable shook his head again. “I’d have to close the store to go now,” he said, “and, I mean, if you could maybe tell me how many books, or what kind, it’d be—“
“Hey,” said Jack, arriving with the coffee, “what’s up?” He handed Cable a tall cup. Jack was wearing a clean white shirt, freshly ironed, with a red and orange striped tie, dark blue Levi’s and black Chuck Taylors. It was a preppy phase which, whether by accident or design, was driving the deeply grungy Cable batty.
“A house full of books,” said Cable, “I was just inviting her to bring them in for us to look at.”
“Well is it nearby?” asked Jack cheerfully, “we can also run out and take a look at them on site and save her some lugging.”
Cable tried to shake his head ‘no’ with enough urgency to get Jack to change his mind, without at the same time drawing any attention to the fact that he was doing it. All he succeeded in doing was shaking his hair down in front of his face again.
“Glenshire Ridge,” said the woman.
“Sure,” nodded Jack, “that’s out by Pickett’s Run and Stonyvale, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure,” said the woman, “anyway, I was just telling your employee here that I don’t even need money for them. I just need to get them out of the house so I can re-rent it.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Jack.
“But what I was starting to—“ said Cable.
“Can we come right now?” asked Jack.
“Really? That would be wonderful,” said the woman.
Jack nodded as he took a swallow from his cup. He wiped the whipped cream from his upper lip. “Yeah, let me just call my brother and get him to cover the store. We can probably get going in a couple minutes.”
“The thing is,” said Cable, “what she was telling me before you—“
The woman’s cell phone rang loudly. She unclipped it from her belt and answered it and began a loud conversation.
Cable shot Jack a wide-eyed, exasperated look through his shaggy bangs. Jack shrugged and grinned and mouthed an innocent ‘what?’ to his brother.
“Look sugar,” said the woman to Jack, holding a hand with long pink and white fingernails over the phone, “I’ve got a toilet overflowing on Bunker Hill, can I call you in half an hour?”
Jack nodded. “Here’s our card. I’ll get my brother to cover the store. We should be ready go take a look at the books with you by eleven or so.”
The woman took the card and immediately turned her attention back to her phone call, “no sweetie, no don’t do that. I’m on my way. Don’t reach down in there. No, I don’t care what you think you see. You let the plumber put his hands down there. That’s what he gets paid for.”
She walked out into the street without a glance at the oncoming UPS truck, which had to slam on its brakes to avoid hitting her. The driver tapped his horn and shook his head, glancing at Jack and Cable as he did so.
“This is what I’m saying,” said Cable, holding an upturned palm to the scene in front of them.
“Come on,” said Jack, holding the door for his brother. Let’s see if Quinn can come cover the store for a while.
“I’m not going with you,” said Cable, “I want nothing to do with this. It’s going to be some double-wide trailer full of romance novels.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Jack, “besides, I want to have a good story or two to tell Paul and Emily when they get back.”
“Suit yourself,” said Cable, “but I’ve been on enough of these house buys with Paul to know that it’s usually just a waste of time.”
Jack took another sip of his drink. He nodded, then smoothed down the front of his shirt. “Yup,” he said, “every time except for when it isn’t. And you’re definitely coming with me, so don’t sneak off.”
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