“Little historic artifacts and souvenirs he’s collected over the years. He finds them at swap meets or on the Internet or even with a metal detector,” said the psychiatrist. “He told me he wants to make sure they’re preserved by the appropriate authorities.”
Serge raised his head and nodded urgently in agreement.
Over the prosecution’s vociferous objections, the judge suspended sentence and ordered the defendant to perform fifty hours of community service polishing the brass on Henry Flagler’s private railroad car. Then he headed for his chambers, chuckling to himself,
8
The sun hung just below the Atlantic horizon on another clear Florida morning. Cigarette wrappers and cellophane bags blew across a grimy alley on the sour north end of Miami Beach. Another ocean gust, and a Burger King cup started rolling toward the gutter and was flattened by an all-weather tire. The tire belonged to a white Mercedes Z310 that drove down the alley and backed up to a service door behind a strip mall. Five men in tropical shirts got out and unloaded brown cartons from the trunk and carried them in the back door of The Palm Reader.
The owner checked his wristwatch. A minute till ten. He parted the strings of beads under the Employees Only sign and walked to the front of the store, flicking on fluorescent lights that revealed a skimpy, outdated selection of dusty books. He checked his watch again. Ten on the nose. A long line had already formed outside. The man flipped the CLOSED sign over, unlocked three large bolts and pushed the front door open.
Back in the storeroom, the staff was busy with box cutters, slicing open a dozen cases of paperbacks, 576 books in all, every one the same title.
The customers were not browsers. They went straight to the counter.
The owner stood behind the cash register and smiled. “Can I help you?”
“Uh, yes,” said the first customer. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’d like
“I think we might have one left,” said the owner, reaching under the counter and producing a paperback. “Yes, here it is. But it’s a rare collector’s item. First edition. A hundred dollars.”
The customer handed over five twenties, took the book and left quickly.
The next customer stepped up.
“May I help you?”
The customer opened his wallet.
“We might have one left,” said the owner, reaching down. “Yes, here it is…”
The line still had a dozen customers left when the owner felt under the counter and found an empty shelf. He yelled toward the bead curtain in the back of the store: “Need some more books up here!”
One of the workers burst through the beads and trotted up to the register with a fresh box. The others in the storeroom were hard at work with box cutters, slicing secret compartments into the middle of the paperbacks and inserting grams of cocaine.
A half hour later: “We need more books again!”
“We’re almost out.”
“So reorder,” yelled the owner. “Call the distributor.”
The phone rang in the back room. It never stopped ringing. Always the same question. “Yes, we have that title.”
But this call was different.
The employee who answered it got a nervous look. He cupped his hand over the receiver. “Boss! Come quick!”
The owner stuck his head through the beads. “What is it?”
“Some nosy person asking a lot of questions about books. Really suspicious.”
“Who is it?”
“Says he’s a publisher.”
“You idiot! Of course it’s a publisher! This is a fucking bookstore. Just get rid of him.”
“Right.” The employee uncovered the receiver and had a short conversation, jotting something on a scrap of paper before hanging up.
“What did they say?”
“They wanted an author to do a book signing here.”
The boss started laughing. “Here?” He broke up again. “That’s a riot!”
The employee started laughing, too.
The laughing gradually tapered off, and the boss caught his breath. “How’d you get rid of him?”
“Said Tuesday would be fine.”
“What! We can’t have a book signing here!”
“You just told me to get rid of him. You didn’t say no signing.”
The boss pulled a gold bullet of coke from his shirt pocket, stuck it under his nose. “Who’s this author, anyway?”
The employee checked his piece of paper. “Ralph Krunkleton.”
The boss sniffled and bunched his eyebrows in concentration. “Ralph Krunkleton, Ralph Krunkleton. Where have I heard that name before? Hmmm…”
The others continued slicing books.
“…Ralph Krunkleton, Ralph Krunkleton…” The boss looked down at the table full of paperbacks. “Oh, my God! Not Ralph Krunkleton!”
“Who’s Ralph Krunkleton?”
“The guy who wrote this book!” The owner snorted up again, and the coke began marching him in a circle. “We don’t need this kind of attention! We’ve worked hard to develop this book as our code title — one of the worst-selling novels in history, one that no law-abiding customer would ever, ever ask for. A signing is the last thing we need — it’ll screw up the entire procedure. And there’ll be press, TV…”
