Roux the Day Read Online Free Page A

authentication.
    “A very dynamic lady. She must want that book very badly.” Her voice was soft too.
    “Yes,” I agreed, then, as if I had just become aware of why I had gone into her cubicle: “Oh, Mrs. Gracewell is sure you got full ID on that check. I told her I was sure you had but said I’d confirm it with you.”
    “Oh, that isn’t necessary,” the lady said in her delicate voice.
    “It isn’t?”
    “No. See—” She turned the check around so that I could see it. “ ‘Michael Gambrinus, Bookseller’—well, I mean, he’s one of the biggest booksellers in the city, isn’t he?”

CHAPTER THREE
    T HE TAXI WOVE A dizzying route through the city. At least, it was dizzying to me because most streets seemed to be one-way and laid out like a crazy chessboard. So I just sat back and enjoyed the ride—well, I sort of enjoyed it. Many of New Orleans’ street signs are missing and the ones remaining are either hard to read or faded beyond sight.
    Some old blue-and-white tiled signs had names that could be read only by pedestrians. In some neighborhoods, thin vertical metal strips nailed to telephone poles carried the names. These are really unreadable. A few street signs even point away from the traffic stream. All this seems to be carrying urban secrecy too far.
     Riding a vehicle through New Orleans is a novel experience. We passed a mule-drawn buggy and almost terminated a zigzagging drunk. Drivers appeared to have their own rules and seemed to be determined to keep their intentions to themselves. The few times they used signals, they were completely misleading.
    I was glad it was a short ride. I had a suspicion that I had been driven in two concentric circles and arrived in a location very close to where I had started but I said nothing as I was happy to alight safely.
    The bookshop was on Carondelet Street. During the boom days of the mid—nineteenth century, this was the center for cotton. Shipping companies had their offices here, near the Cotton Exchange. New Orleans’ first skyscraper was built on Carondelet Street and, when bank after bank went up, the thoroughfare became known as the Wall Street of the South. I had learned all this from the pamphlets in the hotel and knew, too, that the street was named after the first governor of the French Province of Louisiana in 1791.
    It was an upmarket location for a bookshop. The shop itself looked almost as venerable as its prestigious neighbors, with its dark-green-painted wooden-framed windows and imposing door. The name, Michael Gambrinus, was in faded but legible gilt lettering and an old trigger-type bell pealed out with a tinny clang as I entered.
    The atmosphere was musty but not ancient. It was a museum but not a mausoleum. Avalanches of books were everywhere. The basic layout was orderly and sections were marked by subject, but uncontrolled influxes of volumes had flooded the shop and exceeded sales. Many books looked quite valuable, and morocco-bound editions were prominent.
    I could see no one, but a doorway led to another room that turned out to be almost as crowded and chaotic. Beyond it was a third room—the building seemed to go on and on. I saw yet another room and it seemed less crowded with books but more folders and files. Perhaps it was an office. Someone must be there.
    “Anybody here?” I called, but no answer came. A massive carved desk had a large brass lamp, a brass-and-wood antique-style phone, and was piled with papers. A brass-and-mahogany plaque read, MICHAEL GAMBRINUS . Behind the desk, a computer screen was blank but beside it stood attendant equipment like a printer, a copier and a fax. But it was the desk that instantly reclaimed my attention …
    A man sat in a large armchair, sprawled back. I went farther into the room—a patch of red gleamed in the soft light of the desk lamp. It was in the center of his chest.
    I felt his wrist. It was warm but when I felt for a pulse, there was none. A round black hole in the