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

known, really, have you?”
    “Christ, that shit could mean anything. Anyway, I wouldn’t trust Mao as far as I could throw him. He’s a dictator in waiting.”
    “Well, it sells,” says Shorty and laughs. “Especially since they’re talking about the new anti-sedition bill—they’re threatening to round people up, send them to camps. People are coming in to read that shit hand over fist.”
    “You sure found your calling Shorty. Where’s Laurence? I know you still supply him with the Dust.”
    “This is just for old time’s sake, Faulkner. And because, despite everything, I’m your friend—don’t ask me why.” Shorty puts his cigarette in the ashtray and starts writing down an address. Faulkner picks up the ashtray and the filter-less cigarettes that slide around as he examines it.
    “Beautiful piece of work this,” says Faulkner before putting it down, taking the address and saying, “I’ll be seeing you Shorty.”
    As Faulkner leaves, Shorty yells out after him, “Remember Faulkner, unite with your real friends!” A moment later he turns and nods towards the darkened archway at the back of the shop. A thick-set man steps out and Shorty gestures after Faulkner with a quick turn of the head. In the background smoke curls from the incense bowl like eddies in a river, now fast, now slow, here overlapping on itself, there elongating, finally merging with the hovering haze.

    Faulkner slips through Chinatown again. He tries to avoid a group of Asian men loitering around the crossroads, swinging clubs in their hands or standing cross-armed and menacing.
    “Hey you,” one calls.
    “Just leave me out of it,” says Faulkner. “It’s not my war.”
    “It’s gonna be,” says another, but they let him pass.
    Behind him, the short, thick-set man is stopped by the group. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, his movements jittery and quick. He whispers something to the gang and they let him pass also.
    Faulkner continues on, down another alleyway, and the man follows him at a distance. Faulkner stops for a moment, mid-stride, as if listening. He knows you never see the tail first. No. You feel them: a presence, hovering at the edge of your mind. A shadow. It is a world of shadows.
    He slips into an opening in the crumbling wall. The staircase is dank, once-cream paint peeling from the walls, damp rising from the stone stairs. Faulkner stops and lights a cigarette and his hat casts darkness across his face. He takes some time to think. He feels like a rat in a maze, with the cheese lying on a slab back at the morgue. But before he can follow the smell, he has to see Lucy’s father. He doesn’t want to do it but, hey, you do these things for the ones you love, right? Wrong, he thinks. You do it for yourself.
    Faulkner takes another deep drag on his cigarette and starts up the stairs again. He knocks on a door, waits as footsteps approach. The door opens and Laurence looks blankly at him and then runs his hands through his wispy colourless hair.
    “Still chasing the dragon, huh?” says Faulkner.
    “Goddamn Faulkner, I was having such nice dreams.”
    “I remember those.”
    Laurence shuffles ahead of Faulkner, his long red and gold robe gently shifting around him, into a run-down old apartment. A Chinese lantern glows in the corner, red curtains cut the room in half; on a coffee table stand a couple of bottles of red powder, a bowl with red smudges beside them. The room has exactly the same feel as the opium den, but underneath there’s a sense of decay. The curtains don’t quite cover the peeling paint on the walls. The lantern looks battered and worn.
    “Nice place,” says Faulkner, ashing his cigarette into a glass.
    “All I got left after the cops busted me.”
    “I know.”
    “How’s Lucy?”
    Faulkner tries to think of the words, but nothing will come to him.
    “She kick you out finally?” Laurence walks to the cabinet, pours himself a drink.
    “Jesus, Laurence. Just let me speak will