Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard Read Free Book Online Page A

the other side is going to think Sam Spade or some low-life bail-tracer.
    “I’m an investigator,” said Carter. Leaving “private” out covered a multitude of sins, real and imaginary.
    Rothwell gave him a curious glance. “Hard job, from what I’ve heard. Not great money.”
    “It’s okay,” said Carter, recognizing it as the standard euphemism for “barely okay” as soon as it was out of his mouth.
    Rothwell finished gathering whatever bits of information he wanted from the papers. Proving Carter’s bona fides seemed almost an afterthought. He didn’t ask for anything that might actually prove that the “Daniel Carter” mentioned in them was the same person who was standing in front of him.
    “You want to sell it?”
    “Maybe. I’ll work something out with Emily.”
    Rothwell laughed. “No. I mean to me . I’ll take it off your hands.”
    Carter said nothing.
    “I can give it to Emily.”
    Carter still said nothing.
    “As a present.”
    Carter knew enough about the landed gentry of New York and New England not to show even a flicker of surprise. Kenneth Rothwell was, for example, a lawyer in the family white shoe firm or, at least, he had a law degree and a salary. How much actual legal work he did was moot. Sinecure or real job, he was where he was because it was the right place for him, for he was a Rothwell, and a kindly and entirely partisan God blessed his every step. Yeah, buying a little indie bookstore was not such a big deal for Ken Rothwell.
    “That’s sweet,” said Carter. He meant, That’s sickening . Just a few minutes earlier he’d thought of Rothwell doing exactly this, and discarded the thought as too cynical. Now here was Ken, living down to expectations. “Let me think about it. I’m still kind of surprised about how this is all shaking out.”
    “Sure, sure,” said Rothwell. He was all smiles and nods, but his eyes were cold. He held out the keys and dropped them into Carter’s hand. “I’ll leave these with you, Dan.”
    “Thanks,” said Carter. He was going to say, “Thanks, Ken,” but remembered in time that he was no longer in grade school. He didn’t bother to mention that he already had a set of the keys. Now he had both, and that suited him fine.
    “I don’t know the alarm code,” said Rothwell. He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the handle. “If you’re staying the night, I guess that’s unimportant.”
    Carter nodded, and Rothwell left.
    The bell over the door struck its plangent little note as the door opened and closed. The tone seemed to hang in the air for a long time. It seemed very quiet in the bookstore. His bookstore.

 
    Chapter 5
    THE OUTSIDER
    That morning he hadn’t owned a bookstore, and now he did. He picked up the abandoned documents from the counter, felt the paper between his fingers, reassuring himself that they were real. He refolded them and put them back in his jacket. It was time to survey his domain.
    He flipped the sign on the door to Closed and released the bolts on the Yales. Satisfied that the door was secure, he walked back into the body of the shop and looked at the shelves. He would have to take Emily’s word for it that some of the books were worth something; he could tell Dante from Dan Brown, but that was about his limit. There were shelves of old, old encyclopedias, books on theology, philosophy, mathematics, botany. Biographies of people he’d never heard of, autobiographies of people who were interesting in their own minds, books on gardening, boating, and all kinds of other stuff he didn’t care about. He found the fiction shelves and a whole section of vintage detective stories.
    He ran his eye over the Hammetts and Chandlers, the Latimers and Thompsons, tales of hardboiled dicks in naked cities. There was still a mild kick to it, being in the same trade, but it was fading. Maybe one day he wouldn’t feel anything at all, or just irritation at how it wasn’t like that, it was never like