Shop Talk

by Carolyn Haines

  Her excitement built as she ran. There was a tall, slender figure on top of the metal monster. He was threading something through the machine, his wiry back bent. Piling up at the end of the machine were small, solid objects. Lucille ran toward them, too eager to notice that her legs cramped, that the machine might be dangerous. She picked up one of the objects. Even as her fingers closed around it, before she could hold it up to a light, she knew what it was and her heart nearly burst.

  Forbidden Words was written in beautifully ornate gold type on a deep purple cover. There, staring down at a melting Clara, was Slade Rivers. Wind curled his chestnut hair and his blue, blue eyes held electric life. Clara, on her knees and clinging to his bare chest, was suitably submissive at last. Lucille finally allowed her gaze to drift to the bottom of the book. In smaller type but the same beautiful script was the name RoxAnne Flambeau.

  All around her the press churned out books. They fell at her feet and were soon knee, then waist high. Her gaze traveled up the huge and wonderful press and met the dark gaze of Driskell LaMont as he threaded another role of paper into the press.

  “They want a half million copies, tonight,” he said above the roar of the press.

  Lucille sat straight up in bed. Sweat poured down her body and she was panting. There wasn’t enough air in the room. The roar of the dream press still in her head, she climbed out of the damp sheets and pressed her bare feet to the hardwood floor.

  She went to the kitchen and got a glass of water. Deep in the drawer where she kept her clean dishcloths was a package of Marlboro Lights and a lighter. She didn’t smoke often, but now was definitely the time for a cigarette. She couldn’t decide if the dream was positive or negative. The book cover had been beautiful. She’d never consciously allowed herself to even imagine it, but deep in her subconscious it had been growing and taking shape. It was the most beautiful book cover she’d ever seen, and the feel of it was still in her hand.

  Other elements of the dream were more disturbing. The press itself was monstrous. And Driskell’s presence was unsettling. He had looked down at her with such … tenderness. Yet the deep black tunnel where the press was stored had been vaguely hellish. In the background had there been the drip of water?

  Lucille took out a cigarette and found her hands were shaking just enough to make it hard to flick the Bic. She’d been asleep less than an hour. Unlit cigarette in her mouth, she went out the front door. The tiny porch was surrounded by tall holly bushes. She could sit on the steps and smoke while she calmed herself with the gentle lap of the water on the other side of the road. The Marina Apartments were on a small bayou in a nice neighborhood of Biloxi. Many of the residents were boat owners and had been there for years. Lucille hated boats, but she liked the view of the tanned young men as they worked on them. She liked the white teeth smiling, open shirts flapping tropical colors in the wind, as they motored down the bayou toward Biloxi Bay and the Mississippi Sound.

  She took a deep breath and held it as long as she could. When she exhaled, she was calmer. She drew in the comforting smoke.

  The coughing came upon her so viciously that she bolted upright, forgetting that she was in her gown. She half-stumbled from the seclusion of the holly bushes and into the yard.

  Right beside the apartment was the clatter of a heavy tool on cement and a muffled curse.

  Lucille froze. Someone was over by her car. The need to cough swept over her with an urgency that she could suppress for only a few seconds. Pressing her lips tight, the cough came out as a bark, sharp and repetitive. Her eyes watered and she leaned over, hand to her mouth.

  The man burst up from beside her car and ran toward her.

  Lucille managed a strangled plea for help before he pushed her flat to the ground. He kept going, disappearing around the corner of the building before she could even get enough breath to scream again. When she finally filled her lungs, she cut forth with a screech loud and long, and then set up a continual wail until the apartments around her flared with light and several men rushed outside to her assistance.

  Bo returned the telephone to its cradle and sat with his bare feet on the thick rug beside the bed. His elbows on his knees, he leaned his face into his hands.

  “Is she okay?” Iris was sitting up in bed. This was one of the times when touching him wouldn’t help. It was four o’clock in the morning and they’d been awakened by a police officer’s call with a hysterical Lucille in the background.

  “She’s fine.” Bo spoke into his hands. “She thinks someone was trying to steal her book.”

  “Je-sus.” Iris leaned back against her pillows. “Was there really someone there?”

  “The cop said he was trying to break into Lucille’s car. Probably trying to steal it.”

  “I can’t say much for his taste in cars. Who would want that rag heap? She’s got a landfill in the backseat.”

  “I’ll go over there and take a look.”

  “In the morning.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Right. In the morning.”

  “Is Lucille going to be okay?”

  “She’s making a pot of coffee for the policeman. It seems he’s met one of the writers down at the library.” Bo rubbed his face. “He said he’d stay and talk with her until she calms down. He doesn’t think the guy will be back.”

  “If hell let us know when he’s coming, we can lock Lucille in the trunk.”

  Bo couldn’t help the smile that touched the corners of his mouth. “You got a way with words, baby.”

  As soon as Bo was back under the covers, Iris snuggled against him. “My parents had twin beds in their bedroom.”

  Bo waited in the dark without speaking.

  “They saw it on the Dick van Dyke Show. Remember when they’d show Mary and Dick in the bedroom. They both wore pajamas and slept in twin beds. Mama and Daddy thought if Dick and Mary did it, then it was a model for them. Mama even bought some of those black capri pants and took tap dancing lessons. That was bad, but the twin beds were worse.”

  Bo ran his fingers through Iris’ long, thick hair. It smelled of rain and he let it trace across his face.

  “I’m glad we aren’t so influenced by television.” She lifted her head, dragging her hair off him and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Bo.” She snuggled back across his chest.

  “I love you, too, Iris.” Bo’s voice was a deep, calm rumble, but his eyes were open wide.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jazz was deep in the detailed descriptions of devices of torture used by medieval English overlords when she felt the ripple of trouble. Blinking her eyes shut, she thought it was a visceral reaction to the gruesomely graphic image of the hot tongs, but as she lifted her gaze from the pages of the musty old book, she clearly heard the man’s clipped voice, arrogance laced tightly around an order.

  Her mind still on beefy shoulders glistening with sweat as they worked the bellows to fire the hot coals, it took Jazz a moment to place the voice. She recognized it as the voice of the old fart who’d wanted her to keep the library open late so he could finish his research. She put her finger on the place she had been reading and gave the scene her full attention.

  “The books were restacked last night, Mr …” Celia, her assistant, was saying.

  “Where is the person responsible for stacking them?”

  “If anything had been found, it would be at the desk.”

  Celia held firm, and Jazz nodded her approval. One of the most important lessons a librarian had to learn was never to let a patron assume the upper hand. The librarian was the figure of authority. She ordered the books. She lent them out. She replaced them. She maintained quiet and decorum at all times. Not even Celia’s staunch erectness could dissuade the man, though.

  “I left it on that table, right over there.”

  Jazz could imagine him pointing like Moses commanding the Red Sea to part.

  “If it isn’t on the table, and it isn’t here at the desk, then it must have been thrown out. Or mayb
e you didn’t leave it here after all.”

  While Celia worked to keep the impatience out of her voice, Jazz silently applauded her. Turn the tables when a patron becomes demanding and unreasonable.

  “I want to see the person who shelved the books.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Young woman, don’t you dare turn away from me.”

  Jazz stood up. The hair on the back of her neck tried to raise into hackles, but the hairspray kept it firmly in place. The result was a crawling sensation. How dare the old codger come into the library and behave in such a fashion. She’d been about to go to her purse and get the map he was looking for, but she’d be damned if she’d give it to him now. She started down the long, narrow row between shelves of books that reached to the ceiling. This section gave some people a sense of claustrophobia. Jazz loved it. To be surrounded by books, by ideas and thoughts and images all published and bound, was her idea of heaven. And now this creep was violating a sacred place.

  As she rounded the corner, her sharp hip bones leading the way, she stopped. Celia was backed against the far wall of the check-out desk. The old geezer was leaning forward, glaring at her.

  “I think it’s time for you to go,” Jazz said.

  “I want my map.”

  He turned pale blue eyes on her, and Jazz felt as if a blade had been inserted through her navel. She clamped down with all of her womanly muscles and ignored the sensation of being gored. “You have no right to come in here and bully my employees. Leave now or I’ll call the police.”

  The blue eyes hardened even more and he pointed a fìnger at her. “You’re the one who was in here last night.”

  “So I was.” She lifted her own finger. “And you’re the one who’s going out of here today. Celia, call the police.”

  “I left a map in one of the books.” He lifted his cane at her as if it were issuing a challenge. “Give me my map and I’ll go peacefully.”

  “I re-shelved your books. There was no map.” Staring into the fury of his gaze, Jazz felt a moment of apprehension at her bald-faced lie. Never in her entire library career had she lied to a patron. Never. It wasn’t that she wanted the map. It was his attitude. He was exactly like that scum-bag Mac. She’d learned the hard way that if she relented a millimeter, Mac would be all over her. Because she had allowed Mac to see her softer side, he was now leaving gnawed-up boots and, most recently, ten pages of her Scottish manuscript that he’d stolen at her trailer. Looking into the blue-eyed stare of the bully pointing his cane, she knew he was just like Mac.

  “I remember leaving it.” He lowered the cane and leaned heavily on it.

  “You must be mistaken. I’ll look around and if I find it, I’ll notify you.” Jazz nodded to Celia to put down the telephone receiver she clutched in white and trembling hands.

  The old man took her measure. “There’s a reward.”

  Jazz resisted the urge to smile. He was beaten now. “It was a map of what, Mr …?”

  “Of an island. It was drawn by a friend of mine.” Marvin bored into her, trying to read something in her dead calm expression. “Sentimental value, you know.”

  “If the map is here, a reward is unnecessary. We’re not in the habit of holding our patrons’ possessions hostage.”

  “An interesting choice of words.” Marvin had regained control of his temper and his wits. The woman was formidable. With her helmet of hair and her salmon colored shift and matching seahorse ear bobs, she thought she was invincible.

  “There are a billion interesting words in this library, Mr …” Jazz waited.

  “Lovelace,” he said, his voice suddenly smooth. He smiled at Jazz and one side of his mouth twitched.

  Jazz had the distinct impression one of his canines was itching and he was scratching it with his lip. What she saw in his ice-blue eyes was not humor but a cold desire. For what she couldn’t say, but whatever it was, it wouldn’t be fun for her.

  Marvin reached into his pocket and extracted a business card. He had several different ones handy, cards with aliases. “Lovelace,” he said. “Marvin Lovelace.” There was no reason not to use his real name. There was no record of his existence, and he wouldn’t be in Biloxi long enough to leave a trail. “I’m working on a history of this area.”

  “How interesting.” Normally, historians were Jazz’s favorite writers, but Marvin Lovelace was an unsettling presence. “How far back are you going?”

  “World War II.” Marvin grinned.

  “Keesler was very active then, but nothing to draw a great deal of interest. Lots of northern boys trained down here and came back to retire.”

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Marvin’s grin widened, revealing incisors that were rather long and yellow. Card extended, he stepped toward her.

  Jazz felt her mouth go dry. He was looking at her as if she were something that needed to be swallowed with a minimal amount of chewing. She took the card and resisted the impulse to turn tail and run. Celia was watching her with mouth slightly agape, button brown eyes shining with fear.

  “Well, Mr. Lovelace, your business here is concluded. If we find a map of Horn Island, we’ll certainly send it to you.”

  Marvin nodded. “Thank you, my dear.” He stared at her, eyes narrowing. He lifted his hand in a mock salute before he turned and walked out of the library.

  “Wonder what he did to his knuckles?” Celia asked. “Probably punched a little old lady in the grocery store who came between him and his prune juice.”

  “His knuckles?” Jazz felt as if the pit of her stomach contained live snakes. The last time he’d looked at her, it was as if he knew she were lying to him. As if he knew it–and liked it that she’d taken the map.

  “They were scraped and bleeding.” Celia came out of her corner. “Jazz, are you okay?”

  “Sure.” She tried to blink away the panic. “He reminded me of Mac.”

  “Oh.” Celia flipped up a section of the desk and walked through. She put her arm around Jazz’s shoulder. “Mac was always pushing you around. That guy had the same attitude. As if we’d take his stupid old map.”

  “As if,” Jazz whispered. She allowed Celia to move her over to one of the study tables where she could sit down for a moment. “I wonder what it was about that map that was so important?”

  “He said a friend drew it, but I doubt a man like him would have any friends.”

  “Celia, would you mind running over to the Electric Maid and getting us some coffee and petit fours?”

  “Petit fours? Jazz, it’s only fifteen minutes after nine. They won’t have anything except do-nuts and cookies.”

  “Get some of yesterday’s petit fours. Something with pink rose buds and green leaves on them. Nothing yellow.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t leave you.” Celia eyed her employer. Jazz was normally all starch and tendon. Celia had never seen her so … unfocused. Except when she had been deep in the throes of her Scottish historical. “Are you writing another book?” The question was charged with hopefulness.

  “Yes.” Jazz looked up at her. Gone was the desire to revisit merry old Scotland, or even to continue her foray into the world of drugs, dresses and domestic sex. She had another idea, and it had come fully blown into her mind, with the assistance of one Marvin Lovelace. “Yes.” Jazz stood up, a flush turning the delicate skin of her neck and chest a bright red. “Yes!” She turned to stare at Celia and leaned slightly forward as she spoke in a harsh whisper. “A thriller! A big commercial thriller. A million dollar book!”

  “A thriller?” Celia was taken aback. Jazz had never shown a whit of interest in the thick Tom Clancy or John Grisham books that came in. She even begrudged them shelf space in the library.

  “A spy thriller.” Jazz began to pace in the small area between the newest fiction books and the latest paperback originals. “Run along, Celia. I need sugar if I’m going to plot.”

  “Okay.” Celia looked doubtful. Jazz was in the clutches of some internal passio
n. What if someone came into the library? Would she be able to wait on them?

  “Go, go, go.” Jazz shooed her with her hands. “Bring me at least half a dozen of the little delicacies.” She went to her purse and pulled out a twenty. “I need two large coffees, and get whatever you want for yourself.”

  Celia took the money and headed down the steps into the new green of budding pecan trees. She stopped at the sound of Jazz’s voice, raised in question.

  “Celia, did you detect anything odd about Mr. Lovelace?”

  “He’s a bully, like your ex.” Celia shrugged.

  Jazz nodded slowly. “More than a bully, he’s evil.” She lifted her eyebrows until they disappeared in the hard swoop of blond hair that looped over her forehead. “Evil incarnate. An excellent villain.”

  Celia nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Go, go, go.” Jazz waved her along, forcing a smile until the door closed and Celia’s jaunty walk carried her around the corner.

  When Jazz was certain she’d gone, she went to the front door and locked it tight. After flipping the sign to CLOSED, she hurried back to the counter and rummaged through her purse. The map was in the pocket, just where she’d put it. What was it about the map that had flipped Marvin Lovelace’s wig? The drawing was interesting, but even she could see it wasn’t a work of art. Sentimental value? She was halted in mid-step by an electric image of Mac taking the tiny silver spoons she’d collected for years and tossing them into the fireplace in their home. He’d told her the spoons were gee-gaws that only a moron would want, something else to dust, which she wasn’t very good at anyway. Sentimental value indeed. Monsters didn’t practice sentiment.

  Jazz went back to the table where Marvin had sat for at least two hours the night before. Making a carry-all out of her arms, she held them in front of her, empty, and began to retrace her steps from the night before. What books had he been studying? She went down the rows, filling her arms with books, using some deep inner sense of placement, until she had a full stack of them. Weighted down, she struggled to a table and dropped them. There were histories of the Gulf Coast area, just as he’d said. Dry histories without an element of character. No one would read those books for pleasure.