Читать книгу Klick's Shorts - Milam Smith - Страница 6

My bladder prodded me awake around five in the AM, warning me of old age approaching. Maybe it was just from drinking too many Pepsis. I slipped out of the bed like a prowler. Vicki was sound asleep and I’d learned she was a grump if awakened early. Noon was her best friend…

But at noon I was back in the bookstore. The downtown Bruins and Knobles was about an eight-block hike from my Iron Works office. It is probably the best bookstore built for ambience and reading. Two storied, with the upper deck facing the twin Bass buildings -black and steel carvings of a madman’s imagination - and the refurbished downtown to the West on one end, while the other side peers at the new Bass Concert Hall. After a big high-brow concert the rich snobs stand on a balcony and hold their noses in the air at the bookstore.

The manager had finally figured out my game, reading his books without paying, after observing me for several weeks. He and a haggle of tuxedoed bodyguards he’d borrowed from the Bass Hall had flocked like a cabal around me while I sat in my favorite seat, where I could glance up occasionally and watch the sun set behind the Tandy Towers.

I was in the middle of Be Cool, Elmore Leonard’s sequel to Get Shorty. While one of his best written novels yet, it read like an inside joke about sequels. He’d probably been paid a wheelbarrow of money to write it. I wondered if the publishers got the joke. It was clearly on them.

“Excuse me, sir.” He wore a suit that would have made a month’s payment on a Lexus. Kind of haute for a book seller. But considering the neighborhood…

“Yeah, really. Do you mind? You’re blocking the view.”

The three hulks in tuxes inhaled. Their stylish waist-cut jackets ballooned in unison.

“Actually, I do mind, quite. It has been observed that you are perusing our tomes and making nil purchases,” said Manager.

“Pithery will get you nowhere quickly,” I retorted. I made a mental note to write that down. A good one.

Manager inhaled deeply, himself. However, his jacket barely budged. “These gentlemen will escort you from the premises,” he said. Then a mean streak pulsed in his gray eyes. “One way or the other.” He had kind of a boyish look. It was something he played on, suckering you into taking pity or underestimating him. But underneath he was mean and dirty. Like a lawyer, or a politician. Same difference, huh?

My chair faced west. A parabola of glass touching my right provided the grand view. To the left, a narrow aisle between my chair and the circular, railed overlook to the floor below. Across the overlook were the buttressed shelves of books, a bronze cowboy and bronc busting through the floor, and the windows facing the Bass Hall. Customers milled about.

The ‘gentlemen’ looked like they’d been kicked out of the NFL for being too big. None sported a hair over an inch long on his head. They were neat, well-shaven, and firm as granite.

I set Be Cool on the coffee table, stood slowly, and said, “I don’t think so.”

No one moved. Even the customers in the store became still. I sensed eyes on us from downstairs, buyers in the velvet-roped checkout line. One of those moments that seem timeless. Like an accident occurring, everything dancing in slow motion.

I could not be the aggressor, here. The cops knew me, and if I struck first it would be an assault with a deadly weapon. So, I waited.

Then a behemoth moved. And as they say, Hell broke it loose.

The first man to move got a knife-hand in the throat. Then a foot in the groin. The second one went down with a cracked nose from my elbow. The third clipped me on the ear. I bobbed under his second swing, my ear and neck wet with blood. Angry, I head-butted the guy. His nose crunched like a new cone-like Doritos. His blood smeared across my forehead

The three men stayed down. Probably used to controlling a situation by size, and not exercise. I reached down and tugged an ascot from one of the men and wiped my forehead, my ear, then held it there to staunch my bleeding.

I had to compliment Manager, though. He stood his ground, although he was leaned back as if expecting to be next. Sweat beaded under his hair-plugged hairline.

“Who are you?” Manager asked.

“Clyde Klick, I find it quick, Private Investigator.”

Manager smiled, straightened, breathed deeply.

“Really? How would you like all the books you can read free for a year?”

I smelled a job in the offing. Or was that Manager’s cologne?