The Library of Forgotten Books by Rjurik Davidson Read Free Book Online

busy!”
    “The Maoists are set to take power and the Chinese here are...considered, well, unreliable. And their associates too.”
    “I ain’t no commie—tell your boys to lay off.” Faulkner thought for a moment and added, slowly, “How is it that you betray the police so easily? Not really what Mr Hobbes would want.”
    “Well, maybe they’re not where my first loyalty lies.”
    Faulkner picked up the book and studied the cover for a moment. “What is this creature on the front of it?”
    Jackson took a drag from the pipe in his hands, noticed with annoyance that nothing came out of it, looked at the mouthpiece to see if it was blocked and sighed. “The Leviathan: a sea monster.”
    “Lives in the water, huh? That thing could eat you up if you’re not careful.”

    On the search for Lucy’s killer, Faulkner crosses Swanston Street, where three-storey trams rattle behind each other. Emu-driven rickshaws try to cut past them, stop suddenly as others duck in front of them. Yet more sit banked up by the sidewalk. Despite the night enclosing all around, one quarter of the city is blocked by fifty thousand people, carrying red and black banners: “Say No To War”; “Stop Australian Imperialism”; “Hands Off China”. Beneath them read, in smaller letters, “Communist Party of Australia,” and the hammer and sickle is drawn next to that. Chants rise from the crowd, “Stop the war! Stop the war!” It has been six weeks since the Allies landed in South China and died like worms in waterlogged dirt. The papers are filled with photographs of Allied troops rotting on the beaches and now the anti-war movement is growing and the Communist Party along with it.
    Faulkner needs to find Laurence, who has gone underground since the police busted his opium den. Laurence will have a little hole, hidden on the other side of Chinatown, where the alleyways are even narrower, where there aren’t even posters on the wall. But Faulkner doesn’t know where it is. To find him, he’ll have to go to Shorty Cheng’s shop. Shorty will know.
    Faulkner moves through a labyrinth of streets until he comes to the opulent façade of a shop filled with paraphernalia. Along the walls of the shop are shelves packed with mortar and pestles, kites and tea-sets with intricately carved patterns. Smoke roils out of a golden incense bowl, ever so slowly before hovering in a soft haze.
    At the back of the shop stands a small and squat Asian man, Shorty Cheng. Faulkner pulls open the door and steps inside.
    “What do you want, Faulkner?” asks the man, his moustache ridiculously curled, a red hat on his head. He smokes a cigarette and gently taps it against an ashtray.
    “I need to know where Laurence is, Shorty.” Faulkner peruses the shop, picking up a fierce looking dragon hand-puppet and pointing it at the man.
    “What, Lucy never told you?”
    “You know she kicked me out.”
    Shorty takes a drag on his cigarette. Faulkner has known him since before the war. Even then Shorty was filled with crazed business schemes: a rickshaw company, lizard-skin coat venture.
    Faulkner mouths the puppet at Shorty, and says in a gruff accent, “She would have taken him back you know, she always took him back.”
    “I never knew what she saw in you,” said Shorty.
    Faulkner puts down the puppet and picks up a copy of Mao’s little red book, turning it over in his hands. He opens it and begins to read. “‘A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous...’ Since when have you been selling these?”
    “There’s plenty of wisdom in Mao, you know. Listen to this.” Shorty reaches over and takes the book in his hand. “‘Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution.’ Who are your real friends Faulkner? Huh? You’ve never