Bookstore Ownership Is Not for the Faint-Hearted

Martin opened the little book and immediately flung it shut again. With a venomous glare at the finely embossed cover, he issued a silent demand for the volume to sort itself. After a moment, he cautiously pinched the lid of the book and slowly lifted it.

The money was still there.

Sucking in air noisily through his nose, Martin elected to give the book one last chance and abruptly closed it, counting to ten this time before he opened it once more. A tidy stack of crisp green bills remained neatly tucked inside a crudely cut chamber in the middle of the book. At least several thousand dollars’ worth by his brief assessment. The owner and sole proprietor of The Electric Funeral Bookstore and Exchange stared hatefully down at the money hidden in his book and Benjamin Franklin’s smug image stared serenely back.

“This is a second edition you utter animals!” Martin hissed, glaring around the shop contemptuously. The few customers browsing nearby intelligently kept their heads down. A quick glance at the assembled bibliophiles didn’t immediately give him any likely suspects for the cash drop. Someone clearly though they could use his shop as a go-between for illicit dealing and casual book defacement. It was still two hours until closing and he already wanted to lock the doors and abandon the shop in favor of the dazzling new tea blend he’d gotten in the mail.

Martin allowed himself a few blissful moments to imagine the delicate intermingling of lemon and rosehip on his palate and then sighed gustily. This didn’t seem like the sort of business that would sort itself out without direct intervention. He detested intervention. His schedule was already more than full with cataloguing and kicking out unhygienic customers. But, he acknowledged, he hated being an unintentional money launderer even more.

Tucking the book full of cash under his arm, Martin stalked out of the shelves and snagged the keyring from the hook beside the register. Heading for the door, he tossed the keys onto the bench beside his most tolerable customer. The blond woman in the long overcoat and purple knit scarf came so often she was practically an occupying force in the bookshop.

“Heidi, lock up when you’re done and don’t sell to anyone with dirty hands.” The young woman didn’t bother looking up from her novel.

“Sure won’t.”

Martin swept out of the shop and onto the dimly lit street. His store sat on a narrow twist of a lane that really was more of an alley and he preferred it that way. Too many idiots wandered in as it was and he wanted to keep any greater concentration of moron fumes out of his building. Considering that he owned the century old building that housed both The Electric Funeral and the apartment above, he felt justified in keeping to strict IQ requirements for the clientele.

Adjusting his bright ochre jacket, Martin pulled the collar closer to his face as he ambled out into the early autumn evening. He didn’t have much of an idea where to start his search for the culprit. He also wasn’t certain he had the patience for a drawn-out inquiry. Having a certain amount of vague knowledge as to where the rougher element in town tended to congregate, he started his crusade at the least intimidating locale and slowly worked his way up.

It was on his fourth stop of the night, that he finally landed a solid lead. The tiny gambling den on fourth street was so poorly attended, that he hadn’t even been hassled at the door. Though, given that it was a Wednesday night, the glazed looks from the bouncers weren’t all that shocking.

Martin didn’t waste any time puttering around the bar area, but headed straight over toward the bathrooms where a quick search turned up the sort of back room of iniquity he’d expected to find.

Craning his neck over toward the open doorway, Martin spied several uncommonly large men sitting around a table with enough firearms and cash for a small criminal empire. Which, he suspected, was exactly what they were doing. Two of their number were also busily hollowing out antique books with a knife. Nodding to himself in satisfaction, Martin marched into the room and drummed his fingers on the book under his arm until he got their attention.

The seeming leader of the group, a skinny, shirtless young buck with an unfortunate kitten tattoo on his bicep stood up from the table with a scowl.

“What do you want, man bun?” Martin narrowed his eyes and smoothly reached back to shut the door. He was only too pleased to enlighten the young man and all five of his coworkers as to exactly what he wanted from them and after a few moments in his company, they were only too pleased to oblige.

Three hours and several dozen underlings later, Martin was no closer to finding the unnamed employer of the group and he’d honestly had about enough of the entire affair for the night. Several of the men had readily admitted to using his shop as a cash drop for their business but wouldn’t give him the name of the person who’d ordered it. They also seemed to have no idea as to why his business had been selected but were very accommodating when he told them to shift their endeavors elsewhere.

At ten past midnight, Martin trudged back to the door of the shop, fishing out his spare set of keys as he bypassed the lower entrance and went straight up the stairs to his loft. He noticed immediately that the light was on over the sink. Someone had also thoughtfully laid out his newly bought blend of tea in a cup that still had ribbons of steam rising off it. Just beside the tea was his tiny black accounting notebook that was usually locked away in the safe. Lips thinning in displeasure, Martin ventured closer while keeping an eye to the shadows in case anyone had decided to linger.

Picking up the notebook off the counter with a frown, he saw that several recent pages had been torn out. On the adjoining blank page, someone had written, “Sorry for the inconvenience. Keep the money,” scrawled in a small, jagged hand. He didn’t recognize the penmanship in the book but he certainly knew the oversized knitted scarf piled just beside it and abruptly put it together.

“Oh, that little tart Kaiser Soze’d me!” Martin briefly considered kicking the counter but ultimately decided that neither the wood nor his boots had done anything to deserve it. With a resigned sigh, he plopped the book full of cash, still in his possession, onto the counter and hunched over to take a sniff of the tea. Lemon and rosehip wafted tantalizingly into his nose. He wasn’t certain exactly what had been in his ledger that was so important but he fully intended to find out. That was tomorrow’s problem, though. Tonight’s consisted of finding the appropriate biscuit pairing for his tea and how exactly to slot roughly $20,000 into his finances without anyone noticing.

Propping his narrow hip onto the counter, Martin scooped up his teacup and blew across the surface. The warmth of the china settled into his fingers and provided a soothing contrast to the day’s upheaval. Running a bookshop wasn’t for the weak, he decided. Neither was hunting down bibliophilic queenpins but it seemed like something that needed direct intervention. He hated intervention but he hated being bribed to ignore theft in his own home even more. And book defacement, he thought, patting the cover of the injured volume soothingly. That, he hated most of all.