Newp said, “But if I were this Book Man, okay. So I’m being Mike Hammer now, right?” Mike Hammer was a book series and a TV detective show with Darren McGavin. Frannie’s pop liked it. “I already know somewhere in town they got a stash of special books. I mean, Mike Hammer would take one look at Café Monstro and say, that place with the wacko sculpture, I gotta check that out.”
“Not if he can’t see it,” Frannie realized. “Is that it? He literally would look right at it and miss it.”
Saul nodded. “Can’t see it, can’t even hear tell about it.”
“I ran into this guy.” She was certain.
“What?”
“I know it.” She was picturing the man whose face shifted as he stood in the gazebo in the field by the library, watching her go by and not watching. “I saw him coming out of Maxine’s Books on 3rd. He ran right into me. He was… he was weird, like he was there and not there. He acted like that too.”
“What did he look like, did you get a good look?” Saul was intense now. “No one has said.”
“Uh… my mom thought he was handsome. We saw him for just a moment. Yeah. He had a tweed jacket, and a beard. Like a…”
“Like a professor.”
“Right, right. But with a face that kept moving.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I know that’s strange.”
“Go on.”
“His face looked blurry, like it was in several places at once.”
“I think it’s a swartz-yor.” Saul whispered.
“A bad year?”
“Don’t be so literal,” he said. “The Book Man is a devil. A demon.”
“This is crazy,” Newp said. “We were talking about saving inventory from a fire. You guys sound like you’re looking for a fight with Vincent Price.”
“But why would he set a fire?” Frannie asked.
“I have some idea.” Saul cursed and slapped the wheel, and then a burning bookstore came into view.
Chapter 23
Within moments, the flickering fire filled their vision, mixing with a swirling circus of emergency lights. Frannie saw a police car, long and black, and a white station wagon with a wooden AMBULANCE sign on its door.
Maxine’s Book Nook, like Café Monstro, stood back from the road. Though it was three miles from the ocean, its owner had taken great care to remind visitors of the beach vacation they were almost surely taking. A facade of cut palm trees covered the front, and the roof was thatched. Sundry license plates of bright blue and white were nailed to the palms, and a life preserver hung next to the door. An expanse of sand and cyclone fencing, scattered with starfish and shells, spread out before the entrance. And all of this was on fire. Especially the thatched roof.
Saul jumped from the car. “Maxine!” A woman in jeans and a pink and yellow blouse looked back at them from the sidewalk. Maxine was in her 60s, with short hair and glasses, her makeup smearing behind her black frames.
Frannie and Newp got out and followed Saul, and the hissing of the fire hoses drowned out all sound. Two firemen handled one enormous hose, spraying the bookstore in methodical sweeps, left to right and up and down.
Two cars with trailers screeched to a halt and their drivers – a man and a woman, both in khakis and a sweater—emerged as all converged around Maxine.
“Saul,” said the man in khakis, “what’s the plan?” He and the woman looked at Frannie and Newp and Saul quickly gave a they-work-for-me introduction.
“And this is Dick and Darla Cosgrove, they have the Tattered Edges off in Malibu.”
“We came as soon as we heard,” Darla said. “We brought two trailers.”
“I don’t know how it started,” Maxine said, wringing her hands. “I was making a deposit at the bank and came back—” and she waved, her fingers drifting towards the fire.
“What can we get, Maxine?” Saul asked.
“They wouldn’t let me near it,” she said.
Frannie turned and looked at the firemen handling the hose. There was one standing next to them, wearing the same red jacket, but with stripes on the shoulders. He had a moustache the size of a street broom. “Excuse me!” she ran to him. The Chief, or so she thought of him, looked her up and down and waved her off immediately, shouting.
“We’re friends of the owner,” she said. “When can we go in?” She gestured for him to follow to meet the gathered store owners.
“Look, people,” the guy said. “I don’t know what you think—”
“The fire is basically out,” Saul said, and indeed the roof was smoldering, the water working its wonders. “We’re not crazy people, but if you’re gonna keep spraying, we need to save the merchandise.”
“We’re absolutely gonna keep spraying.”
“So?”
The Chief looked back at the men with the hose, then at Saul with the same skepticism as before. “What do you want to do again?”
Maxine rubbed her lips, leaving a great smudge. “The front is all a loss,” she said. “But I have a cage in back. Metal walls and ceiling. For the rare stuff. IF we can get back there we can save some inventory.”
“Lady,” the Chief said, “don’t you have insurance for that? What if this place falls down around you?”
“Insurance? These are collector books, no, we don’t have that kind of insurance, and besides, these things… they’re priceless.”
“Look,” Saul said. “You’d say this is pretty much out, right?”
The Chief nodded grudgingly.
“We just want to go around back,” Saul said. “We take what we can get. We put it in our trailers; we can store it separate until you’re ready for it.” He looked from Maxine to the Chief. “If we can get in the back, we need to, before the water gets it or god forbid the fire starts again in there. There’s gonna be water leaking everywhere, we gotta save her stuff.”
Frannie and Newp came around the back of the building as the drivers brought the cars around. The rear wall was shingled with ugly, gray asbestos, and the closed door was aluminum.
Maxine got out of the car with a key and brought it to the knob. “Careful!” Frannie said. Was the lady completely out of it? She guessed so. “It’s hot, don’t touch the door.”
The lady wrapped a scarf around the key and made quick work of turning the lock and kicking the door open.
They peered into the bookstore. Starlight streamed in through the ceiling and Frannie saw water dripping everywhere over charred and unrecognizable bookshelves, and the smell of burnt paper hit her and made her nearly swoon. The Chief came up behind, brusquely shoving them aside as he looked and then stepped in.
The Chief stood for a second inside. “Okay.” He called back to the door. “I see a metal door over there, a big metal, I guess a vault. That it?”
“Yes,” Maxine said.
“Okay, go, and try not to touch the metal.”
Maxine and Saul made it to the vault—for it was a vault, right out of a bank—and Maxine got it open. “One at a time, grab an armful, and get back to the trailer,” Saul called.