An Illustrated Death Read Online Free

turned out to be a signed copy of Jack Kerouac’s first novel. I noticed him because he seemed to know exactly where in the house to head the moment the doors opened. Marty would be stacking valuable books in cartons while I still stood in the hallway, wondering where to start. I’d been attracted to his confidence, but put off by his bulldozer approach.
    “What are you going to do with the shop?” I asked.
    “Do with it? This place is a class act. It’s a perfect venue to sell the books I don’t have collectors lined up for. I’ve been getting into art lately, buying up old paintings. They can go in here too. And that”—he made his finger into a gun and cocked it at me—“is where you come in.”
    The gesture was so unlike Marty, who scorned anything affected, that I realized he was nervous about what he was going to say.
    “You’re good with people, Blondie. People like you. And you know your books.”
    And? It took me a moment to understand. “You want me to run the Old Frigate?”
    “I’d change the name, of course. It would be a higher-end shop.”
    “But what about my business?” How could I run his bookshop full-time and still keep up with Secondhand Prose?
    He waved that away. “Internet selling is so over . You’ll make a lot more money working for me.”
    I stared at him. In a New York minute he had erased my reason for getting up in the morning. He had made Secondhand Prose into a hobby, something like crocheting scarves for boutiques. No, not even that, since I didn’t make the books—only scavenged them.
    The most insulting part was that he hadn’t meant to be insulting. He hadn’t suggested I sell my books here either. No doubt they would compromise his high-end shop. Worst of all, what he said about the Internet was true. The golden days of online bookselling were over, the prices on the book sites eroding for years. Several years ago an army of amateurs had marched in, pricing perfectly good books for under a dollar. Nobody in my dealers’ group, BookEm.com, could figure out how such sellers made any money. Maybe they didn’t. Now there was a hobby for you.
    Marty also held a card he didn’t know he possessed. My living situation was precarious. My husband, Colin, in his position as archeology professor at Stony Brook University, was the reason I could live cheaply in the university-owned farmhouse and barn. If he decided to make our separation permanent, I would have to move. I had been shocked when he left, and he was still calling the shots. Where would I find a place I could afford that could hold eight thousand books? If I didn’t accept Marty’s offer, I might be forced to work nights at McDonald’s.
    I looked past Marty to the beautiful, now forlorn, bookshop I had once loved. It could be brought back to life—of course it could. I saw myself decorating the shop windows with books and antiques for special occasions, discussing literature with the collectors who stopped by. I loved to talk about books, and Marty’s were the kind of treasures that other shops kept locked in glass cases. At the annual open house, I would be the one offering cups of champagne punch and smoked salmon hors d’oeuvres. I would be—finally—respectable in Colin’s eyes. Maybe he would decide I was worthy of him.
    I gave my head a shake to clear it. What was I thinking? I had fallen under Marty’s spell just like the Little Match Girl had been enticed by the flames in the matches she struck. When the glorious visions faded, I would be left in the dark and cold too.
    “Well, it’s something to think about.”
    Wrong answer. Marty looked surprised—and displeased.
    You need to work on your people skills, buddy.
    “Better not take too long,” he warned.
    Or what? The worst that could happen would be that he would find someone else to run his shop, and I would be left to my own bliss.

 
    C HAPTER F IVE
    M ONDAY MORNING’S SKY was as dingy and rumpled as the bed I’d left behind. The