"How much is this one?" he asked the brunette girl with the nice chest.
She quoted him a price that he thought was way out of line and he let it show in his eyes.
"Wow!" he said, keeping his tone friendly. "That's pretty high—I'll have to think on that one."
"Sure," she said. He went back to the bookshelf he'd been examining, and she watched him carefully put the volume back where he'd found it, "I'm sorry about that. I don't own the shop or I'd make you a better price."
"Oh? This isn't your place then?" he asked conversationally.
"No. I manage it for the owner."
"I was in here once before—I don't think I saw you. I would have remembered," he ad-libbed. "What's your name?" He didn't care but he could never stop himself. He could smell it on them when they wanted him and it was always worth trying again.
"Melissa."
"That's a nice name,"
"Thanks."
"Mine's Bobby."
"Hi, Bobby," she said, thinking how inane she must be sounding. "I don't remember seeing you in here before either."
He bad tuned out on her. In between McBride's A Rifleman Went to War (1935) and McMullen's W.W.I Sniper (1918) was a book he never expected to see.
McLeod, W. D. Edward, Queen's Log. Jesus! Every collector wanted this one. Queen's Log: A Personal Narrative of Marksmanship Under Siege by the Zulu Nation, the full title. Five hand-drawn, tipped-in maps of the Roarke's Drift battlefield. His skin felt ice cold in the summer air conditioning.
"How much for this one?" he asked her.
"Um. That's uh—" She double-checked her typed inventory list to be sure. "Twelve-fifty." He didn't react, so to make certain he understood she said in a soft voice, "One thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars." Only the two of them were in the shop. She was sure he'd be irritated or amazed, but he nodded instead.
"Okay. I'll take this. I'll probably be getting some other books so—is it all right if I leave this here for the time being?" He had placed the book toward the back of the long counter.
"Sure. That's fine."
"That's one I've been hunting," the good-looking guy said, heading back toward the books. Obviously, he was a real collector. She wondered if he'd try to write a check and how she'd handle it when she had to tell him no.
He went back to the stacks with his heart beating. What a find, Twelve-fifty was way, way low. He was so pumped up he bought a dupe of Idriess's Sniping: With an Episode from the Author's Experiences During the War of 1914-18, a common little publication, because it was in perfect condition in the dust jacket. He was stoked.
"This is a great store. And I love the name of the place: Dog Soldiers!" He laughed and the girl made an appreciative chuckle.
"Thanks." She felt tongue-tied. One of the sides of her blouse was riding a bit low on the shoulder. She didn't care.
He looked for another ten minutes and came back to the counter with an autographed first edition of Daoust's Cent-Vingt Jours de Service Actif: Récit Historique Trés Complet de la Campagne du 65 Eme au Nord-Ouest (1886), Shooting to Survive: Indian-Fighting at Adobe Walls and Buffalo Wallow, an original FMFMI—3B manual, Memoirs of a Marksman at Peachtree Creek, and an ultrarare edition of Tagebuch: Eines Ordonnanzoffiziers Von 1812-1813 that made Bobby's ticker start thumping hard again when he saw the hand-drawn map in color! He loved this store and everybody in it.
"You must be a real collector," she said, not keeping the awe out of her voice. He had peeled off twenty-seven pictures of the late, great Benjamin Franklin, then went back and got the bound book of Sniper's Journal magazines, which brought his purchase to nearly three thousand dollars. Hardly the biggest sale she'd rung up but Bobby Beautiful paid for these as if he were buying an armful of paperbacks at B. Dalton or Waldenbooks, instead of plunking down three grand for a few books and booklets. He was gorgeous, single, and rich. She wasn't going to let him out of the store alive.
"Didn't you see anything else that you liked?" she asked him boldly, the heat evident in her voice. Not caring about what a bimbo she might appear, or how far the blouse was slipping down as she leaned forward on the counter.
"I saw a lot that I liked." He had ferocious eyes, and he ate her up with his gaze—just the way the man in the romance novel had devoured the heroine. "I didn't think I could afford it. It looked too special," he said. She thought she was going to have a heart attack.
"You're never going to know unless you ask." She colored at her own chutzpah. She boxed the books very carefully.
"I need somebody who really knows these things to act as a guide. You know what I mean? Like—well, you know this stuff. I wonder if I could get you to help me? Say, later, when you get off work? Would you have time to advise me in these collecting matters?" Why did he go through this over and over? He knew it wouldn't amount to anything but he insisted on putting himself through it. Maybe he'd get one who'd do what he wanted without having to pay for it.
"But we hardly know one another," she said, coquettishly, telling him yes in every other way but words.
"Sure we do. I'm Bobby. You're Melissa. What more do we need to know?"
"Are you married—for one thing."
"Uh-uh." What an airhead. He was already regretting it, but the blouse and bra had fallen away from her breasts and he couldn't help but notice a distinct nip in the air. "Are you?"
"Free. White. Twenty-one. Female."
"What time do you get off…work?"
"Four-thirty. I live down the street."
"Hey—that's great. Would you mind if I drop by? Take you out for dinnah?" he asked. She thought his accent was cute.
"That'd be nice."
"Seven?"
"Sure." She was used to eating at five, but for him she'd eat at midnight. "Sounds great."
"Okay, Melissa. Sounds real good. Where do you live?"
"Oh, yeah!" She snapped out of it and wrote her address and phone number down, then her name, in big, circular, loopy script, and dotting the i of Melissa with a small heart. "See you tonight, Bobby." She started to ask him his last name and decided she didn't care. Bobby Beautiful was his name.
She smiled and he blew her a kiss goodbye. She watched him through the front window, grateful the boss hadn't been here to overhear her coming on to a customer. He drove a sharp convertible—it figured he'd have great wheels—she wasn't sure what kind.
Why did he go through the motions? he asked himself again. He wasn't stupid—why do it? They wanted the same thing. He couldn't give it to them. They never liked what he liked. Why didn't he pay for it? Because it wasn't any fun to pay for it. One of these days he'd find a girl, just like the girl that …he whistled the last five syllables to himself. Loading the books in the trunk, packing them in a cammo-cover and wedging the box in with SAVANT and the tracker, the items nearly filling the small trunk of the car.
Fuck her, he thought, as he drove off. Knowing that he couldn't. His mind now on the rare books.