The Knight of Pages

by Alexie Aaron

  “He doesn’t like me that way.”

  “He doesn’t know you.”

  “I thought you were Nash’s best friend. Why would you be thrusting me at Wendell, unless you don’t like me.” Clara frowned.

  “I do like you, and I’m not thrusting you at anyone. I was just complimenting you in my clumsy old-world way.”

  “I’m going to check on the Hendersons,” Clara said and walked away with her eyes glistening.

  Nash walked back in. He smiled as he saw Clara walk out of the children’s section with a stack of books. She set them on the counter, grabbed a handbasket, and walked back.

  “She offered the couple a discount. If it’s a problem, I’ll make up the difference,” Kalaraja said.

  “Nope. I take it the people where waiting at the door?”

  “Yes.”

  “She picks up so quickly. I wonder how much she makes at the restaurant?”

  “You can’t afford to hire her,” Kalaraja said.

  “I really like having her here.”

  “Marry her then.”

  “It’s only been a week.”

  They heard Clara’s voice as she conversed with the couple. “Oh, I agree with what you’re doing. Nash, where are the fairytale books?” she asked as she set down the overfilled basket.

  “Depends if you want the originals that aren’t appropriate for children or the rewritten ones?”

  “Both,” Mr. Henderson said.

  “Show him the picture, dear,” Mrs. Henderson said.

  “We’re putting together a library that will grow with our child. I thought I was going to inherit my father’s books, but he donated them to a shelter. I want the books I read as a kid.”

  Nash looked at the empty shelves. “I applaud the effort. Maybe don’t fill the shelves until your sons or daughters show their interests. You may have a horse-story-loving child or a science-fiction aficionado.”

  Clara listened to Nash while she sorted the books they had already chosen on the counter.

  “We will. I just have this list and dream of reading these books to our children,” Mr. Henderson said.

  “If you can’t find all the books on your list, contact me, and I’ll start searching. Clara, make sure they have one of my cards.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you read to your children?” Mrs. Henderson asked.

  “I haven’t been blessed with children,” Nash said and then looked over at Clara and added, “yet.”

  Kalaraja looked at him and Clara, thinking that maybe, just maybe, Nash was getting his head out of his ass.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Elma put away her groceries and made a pitcher of martinis before she sat down to look at her mail.

  “There you are,” she said to the package. Elma opened the package and stroked the black leather while she fanned the pages looking for a note to explain why she had been given this book. She caught sight of the copperplate and sighed. “Damn, it’s a novelty book. I can’t stand when they do this. Nothing wrong with a good Garamond or Times Roman.”

  She set the book down and slit open her mail.

  The doorbell rang. Elma got up and walked down the hall. She looked in her peephole and saw her guest from this morning along with another officer.

  “Brenda!” Elma greeted the officer. “Come on in.”

  “This is Officer Molina.”

  “Did we not meet last night?” Elma asked.

  “I’m surprised you remember,” Molina said, stepping in.

  “I must apologize, Officers. I was not myself. Come in. I was just about to have a martini. Can I entice you to join me?”

  “It’s a bit early in the day,” Brenda said, looking at the bare hall table.

  “How about some tea? Coffee?”

  “Coffee with milk and two sugars,” Molina said, looking around as she followed her hostess to the kitchen.

  “How about we have the coffee in the front room,” Elma suggested. “I just bought some cookies from Whole Foods.”

  Molina and Brenda backed up and entered the living room. Brenda started looking around for the wrapped package, and when she didn’t see it, she started to look through Elma Kis’s bookshelves.

  Molina met Elma on her way out of the bathroom.

  “My mother always taught me to wash my hands first,” Molina said as an excuse.

  “Use the company soaps. No one uses the soap. Why am I putting out company soap when no one uses it?”

  “Will do.”

  Brenda sat down and thought about how to gently break it to Elma that she may have a very dangerous book in her house. Or should they wait until Elma had a few martinis tucked away?

  Molina walked back into the living room and shrugged. “I always read in the john. No books or magazines.”

  “I believe that’s unhygienic,” Brenda said. “Look around, no dust. This woman wouldn’t read in the bathroom.”

  Molina didn’t get a chance to respond. Elma brought in a tray laden with a carafe of coffee, cream, sugar, and lots of cookies. “I made the coffee a little strong, so please use as much cream and sugar as you need.”

  “Strong coffee is great with cookies,” Brenda said.

  “Be right back,” Elma said, leaving the room. She came right back with a tray for herself. Hers had a mammoth martini glass on it, a bowl of large olives, and a large silver pitcher.

  The women fixed their coffee before Brenda brought up the reason they were visiting.

  “Elma, we’re looking for a book that seems to be dangerous to anyone who touches it.”

  Elma sat at the edge of her seat. “Do tell.”

  “Most everyone who has touched it has ended up in a world of hurt,” Molina said cagily. “We don’t know if it is because of the value at this point. We do know it’s been tied to a murder-suicide.”

  “Oh dear!”

  “The thing is that the last person who had it may have mailed it, and there is evidence he may have mailed it to you.”

  “Me?”

  “This morning, I picked up a package from your floor that was the size of the book we’re looking for.”

  “I opened it. It was a book. I’ll go and get it,” Elma said.

  “Try not to touch it,” Brenda said, trying to catch the woman as she rushed by her.

  Elma came back holding the brown paper which was loosely wrapped around a book. She set the package down on the coffee table. “I think it’s a prank. I don’t read romances unless they are part of the canon.”

  “What’s a canon?” Molina asked, drawing on a pair of gloves.

  “It’s a group of books that educated people have determined to be the best representatives of their genre or time period. Not best sellers, but a few have been,” Elma explained.

  “Do you always let others decide what a good book is?” Brenda asked.

  “Oh no. My opinion is the only one that counts, but the canon is a good place to start.”

  Molina unwrapped the book, and inside was Nicholas Sparks’s Every Breath.

  “As you can see, it’s not a book that I would buy.”

  “Why not?” Brenda said, watching as Molina carefully peeled back the paper book jacket to find that it was a cardboard cover, and no other book resided inside.

  “Officer, if you knew me, you would understand that I wouldn’t indulge in frivolous romances.”

  “There’s a bookmark in here, Elma,” Molina pointed out.

  “It came with the book.”

  Brenda’s stomach rumbled. “Sorry, must be the sandwich I ate for lunch.”

  “Have a cookie,” Elma said and got up and poured more coffee in Brenda’s cup. Molina had already downed hers and smiled as Elma played waitress and refilled her cup. Molina liked the idea of this snobby white woman waiting on her.

  “Elma, I’m relieved to see that you don’t have the book,” Brenda said. “I would like to ask you about las
t night. Do you often follow Wendell Baumbach around?”

  “No, this was the first time. Wendell is such a babe in the woods. I could tell that young woman was going to take advantage of him.”

  “I’ve talked with Wendell. He’s no babe in the woods,” Brenda said. “I would say he is quite worldly.”

  “He lives with his mother. She protects him.”

  “Maybe you’ve got it wrong, lady,” Molina said. “Maybe he’s a nice man who is watching over his mother who is living with the after effects of a stroke.” Molina yawned. Her eyes felt heavy. The late night must be taking its toll. She drank down her coffee, counting on the caffeine to get her through the rest of the day.

  “Catherine Baumbach isn’t a sweet little old lady. She’s a viper. That book club Wendell presides over was Catherine’s book club. She was quite the martinet.”

  “A puppet?” Molina asked, trying to focus.

  “No. That’s marionette. A martinet is a stickler for the rules. In this case, her rules. She allowed everyone the opportunity to discuss the books, even the Secondhand Susies. I told her they were just wasting our time. But she persisted. She pointed out in the rules given to us by the community center that, because we were supported by the community, anyone could join.”

  “I would say she was kind,” Brenda said, forcing herself to sit up. Her body felt too relaxed. “Explain Secondhand Susies.”

  “They are the worst. They bring in their garage-sale books or the ones purchased from those abhorrent secondhand bookshops. You can smell the staleness when they open the books,” Elma said, wrinkling her nose. “I blame people like Nash Greene for making the buying of used books look chic. It allows the poor access to literature.”

  “Do you hate libraries?” Brenda asked.

  “No, because the poor are only loaned the books. They can’t have them. I mean, get a second job and buy a decent reprint of The Great Gatsby. If Fitzgerald could see the dog-eared, written-in-the-margins copies that those Secondhand Susies bring in of his book, he would have a heart attack.”

  “Isn’t that how he died?” Brenda asked.

  “Is it?” Elma asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How would you know this?” Elma questioned.

  “I had Catherine Baumbach for American Literature when I was in high school,” Brenda said.

  “Oh. Then you know what a self-righteous bitch she is.”

  Brenda thought it was best not to get into an argument with Ms. Kis. The last thing she wanted was to rile a woman who drank martinis like water. She tried to stand but was unsuccessful. Her limbs wouldn’t obey her. She reached out for Molina who was, embarrassingly, sleeping next to her. She couldn’t close her hand around her arm to shake the sleeping cop.

  “Don’t fight it, Brenda,” Elma said, her voice muted as if she was speaking from another room. “Your metabolism must be slower. It’s probably why you have a little too much weight on those hips.”

  “Wha… what?”

  Elma sighed.

  Brenda fumbled trying to get to her phone but was unsuccessful. The last thing she saw was Elma picking up the Sparks book and smiling.

  ~

  The shop was busy for a Thursday night. Clara was finding it difficult to be on the first floor and still help the patrons find books. As if he was reading her mind, Kalaraja decided to stay and loiter, watching the front door. He stayed in the shadows trying not to draw attention to himself. He really didn’t have to worry. People expected to encounter interesting people in bookstores. As long as he wasn’t lurking in the shadowed stacks of self-help, he fit right in.

  The bells over the door rang again. Clara excused herself and trotted to the stairs and looked down. When she saw Wendell standing there, she relaxed. He looked up and waved.

  Clara smiled and waved back. She put her fingers near her lips and moved her flat hand forward and down, signing thank you.

  Wendell, not versed in sign language, assumed Clara was still flirting with him. It made him feel good. The sound of a cash drawer closing brought Wendell out of his head. He walked over and handed Nash the photo of the book club. He pointed out Elma Kis.

  “And people complain I’m too thin,” Nash said, looking at the stretched face and tucked body of Elma.

  “Skeletal, even though she does eat a lot of cookies,” Wendell said. He looked around at the busy shop, making sure she wasn’t lurking in one of the several groupings of customers. “I suspect she drinks most of her meals, gets her vitamins from olives.”

  The internal line rang, and Nash picked it up.

  “Nash, I have a customer asking about the best translation for The Metamorphosis. I’m way out of my depth,” Clara said.

  “Hold on,” Nash said. “Wendell, how’s your Kafka?”

  “Fine since the penicillin.”

  Nash couldn’t help chucking. “Could you help Clara with a customer looking at The Metamorphosis?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” Wendell said.

  “Wendell’s on his way. Try not to fall in love. The romance books are all on my side. It could get dangerous up there.”

  “Duly warned,” Clara said and hung up.

  ~

  Brenda struggled to open her eyes. She felt like she did when she had popped one too many Xanax. She was able to open her eyes, but her focus was off. She tried to rub her eyes, but she couldn’t move her hands. “Wha…”

  She was laying down on a chenille bedspread in a room that smelled heavily of furniture polish and stale Chanel No. 5. Her hands were behind her. Her shoulders ached from the awkward angle, but it wasn’t the pain Brenda was worried about, it was that her wrists were taped together. She tried to move her feet and found them bound too. She felt a slight give and surmised she was bound with duct tape. “Hello?” she called out. “Molina!”

  Brenda listened and heard nothing but the ticking of a wall clock. She rolled on her stomach, and as her hands regained the sense of touch, she didn’t feel her uniform under the fingers. It was fluffy. She was dressed in a bathrobe of some kind. Brenda rolled back and managed to sit up. After trying unsuccessfully to pull her bound hands from behind her - the bathrobe hindering her more than she thought possible - she drew her knees up and wiggled herself to what she hoped was the edge of a bed. She slid off, her bare feet landing first on a Berber carpet. Brenda, although dizzy, managed to stand up. She hopped around the room, painfully bumping into the heavy furniture that was hidden by the darkness.

  She found the door and turned around to open it with her hands, but it was locked. Brenda turned back and moved her face along the wall until she found a light switch. She moved her nose upwards and flipped on the switch.

  The room was now illuminated by a set of lights hanging down from a ceiling fan. The room looked like a guestroom. It was far too clean to be the master bedroom. Brenda hopped to the nightstand, turned, and pulled the drawer open with her hands. The drawer hung there, caught up on something in the back. She scanned the contents and shrieked with delight when she saw the large-handled sewing scissors lying inside.

  ~

  Officer Ria Molina’s awakening was also in darkness, but she was jostled awake by her body hitting the top of the interior of the police sedan’s trunk and falling hard onto the shovel that had become dislodged from the emergency kit. Her jaw hurt from a gag made from a rubber ball that smelled like it was previously in a dog’s mouth. She tried to spit it out, but it was held in place with duct tape.

  Molina tried to keep her nausea under control. To throw up in this state may choke her. Another jolt from the sedan hitting a pothole had Molina landing and dislocating her shoulder. White light accompanied the pain, and Molina fought the darkness that wanted to reclaim her.

  Images of seeing Brenda stripped and not being able to help her came in snatches. Panic had seized her until she saw the rise and fall of Brenda’s chest, indicating her partner was still alive. The heavily drugged Molina was
dragged off the couch, hitting her head hard and passing out. How had this happened? The old lady must have drugged their coffee, but how? Elma was coming out of the bathroom. She must have been retrieving drugs to disable her and Brenda. How could I be so stupid?

  ~

  Wendell enjoyed extolling the virtues of the Scribner paperback over the Penguin Modern Classics, Oxford World Classics, and the Alma Classics. “Alma has no introduction, which may have come in handy because of the overly elaborate decisions made by the translator, Christopher Moncrieff. Did your instructor give you any guidelines?”

  “I’m reading this on my own,” the young scholar told Wendell.

  “Then go with Joachim Neugroschel and the Scribner.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Clara waited until the student left before gushing, “You’re really amazing.”

  “Nash probably knows more.”

  “Still doesn’t stop you from being amazing,” Clara said and walked away.

  Wendell turned to leave, and a book dropped from a shelf. Thinking nothing about it other than a careless customer on the next aisle over, Wendell picked the book up. “Emma,” he read. He initially opened the book to see how many times it had been reissued by this publisher. The pages fanned and settled. Wendell read, “There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by maneuvering and finessing, but by vigour and resolution.” He was looking at the book when Clara came back.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Reading Emma.”

  “I thought you would have had your fill with all the book club Austens.”

  “I never thought about Mr. Knightley this way before.”

  “Ah, the teacher, the protector, or the lover?” Clara asked.

  “The man.”

  “Did you pull the book from the shelf?”

  “No, it fell on the floor.”

  “Look around you. Don’t you think it’s funny to find an Austen amongst the Russians and Hungarians?”