The Book by M. Clifford Read Free Book Online Page A

It was light and blowing pleasantly in the wind, but no less bothersome. Trudging through stagnant puddles on the way back to his apartment, Holden noticed the lights of a few shops along the street. One of the signs was blinking with false intention. The irregular rhythm forced him to stop and take notice. The sign was for an antique store that he had never seen before. A glimmer of hope promptly moved his legs toward the unwelcoming neon. Books were antiques. And it was very possible, although extremely illegal, that the shop owner had books for sale. At this point, Holden would have settled for an idea. A rough idea of where he could find an original manuscript.
    Aisles of old furniture and scraps of history snaked through the long shop, dormant in a cracked, translucent skin of dust. The store wore a crisp smell of decay that made Holden recall every time he had been forced to squeeze along the many cramped rafters of a dying city with too many sprinkler heads in hand to cover his nose. It was repellent. But, no matter how unbearable, there were some problems in life he just had to accept.
    Holden strolled cautiously to the immense oak counter where a skeletal man in a tight, red t-shirt was fiddling with the innards of a prehistoric computer. Three long, beaded necklaces draped his scraggly neck and his poorly-aged face, with oddly dark eyebrows and a handlebar mustache, was warped in concentration. Up close, Holden could see that the man was in his late sixties and was mostly bald except for a tangle of grey hair that swooped the crest of his ears to his neck. Holden knew he should wait until the man was available to answer his question, but he couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t gotten through five words before the shop owner interrupted him to laugh.
    “You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, kid,” he blurted, scanning Holden with a cagey gaze. “Books are illegal. Book pages are made out of paper which means they are against the Laws of Environmentalism. You ain’t gonna find any books here. If you do, point them out to me and I’ll have them destroyed.”
    The man returned to his mound of microchips and circuit boards, leaving Holden aggravated. He normally wasn’t spoken to in that way. Most people respected guys with a lot of build and a little patience, especially when they had a confusing tattoo on their arm that could have come from prison. Holden reached into his jacket pocket, took out the page of The Catcher in the Rye he had torn from the wall of Marion’s bar and slapped it onto the counter.
    “Listen, I don’t give a dog’s tail about your environmentalist viewpoint. I just need to know if you have a copy of this book or know where I can find a copy of this book.”
    The man looked down at the page, shocked. And for a moment, Holden almost believed he saw a flicker of interest, a spirit of excitement kindled behind the man’s eyes before it vanished and Holden was wrenched over the counter like a blanket over a woman’s cold shoulders. The man looped his fist in Holden’s shirt and yanked him across the counter, toward a half-open door at the back wall, toppling many boxes of impulse items. There was a short flight of curving steps beyond the door and Holden fought to climb them under the man’s grip, but tripped on each one except the last.
    Holden realized too late that the shop owner with mummified muscles was shockingly strong and was fully against the idea of discussing the topic of illegal, unrecycled books. At the top of the stairs, surrounded by boxes of curious items and a fort of furniture that yearned for its own demise, the man, half Holden’s size, charged forward and slammed him against the cracked, plaster wall. He crowded Holden, revealing a face as red as the shirt on his wrinkled back. He was close enough that Holden felt the tickle of the man’s beard and could smell whatever sauerkraut delight the shop owner had enjoyed during his lunch break. The pointy odor was the