“No.”
“Good. I fucking hate talking.”
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of books and rotting fish. After an hour or so, the homeless man inserted a dirty Wimpy Bar receipt as a bookmark, shoved his book under the chair, and shuffled out of the shop. As he passed Grimalkin in the hall, the black cat hissed and swiped at his ankle with her lethal claws. “Don’t bother the customers, Grimalkin,” Heathcliff muttered without looking up from his book. “He doesn’t have another cat with ‘im.”
Curious as to what had held Earl’s attention, I waited until Heathcliff was occupied with a customer and slid the book out from under the chair. Our homeless friend was devouringThe Cutest Book of Cats. I guess it goes to show. I shelved the book back where it belonged.
At four o’clock, Morrie ducked through the door. “Ooh, who brought wine?” He grabbed the half-finished bottle and poured the dregs into a glass while Heathcliff shooed the last browser out and locked the door behind him.
“I did.” I slid onto my stool beside the desk and tried to swipe the glass out of his hand. Morrie sure had a habit of just taking what he wanted, even if it didn’t belong to him.
Morrie held the glass over his head. “You didn’t bring enough.”
“You going to push me off a waterfall over it,Moriarty?” I lifted an eyebrow.
Heathcliff stomped back into the room, Grimalkin scurrying around his feet. The raven swooped in from upstairs and landed on the armadillo. “Don’t let anyone else in,” he growled at me. “We’re closed, and I don’t want—”
There was a clattering noise from the front hall, like something heavy hitting a wooden floor.
“Get away from that fucking mail slot,” Heathcliff thundered, sprinting for the hallway. Sensing mischief, the raven fluttered after him.
“Did you have a nice day at work?” I asked Morrie.
“The company lost eighty-five million quid,” he said casually, sipping his ill-gotten wine and flipping through a lurid paperback about Jack the Ripper. The raven fluttered back into the room and perched on the back of the chair.
“What?”
Morrie’s eyes flicked down the page. “Yup. The money just vanished from the accounts. Poof, like magic.”
“How are you not more worried about that? Do you still have a job? Will you even get paid?”
“I was let go, along with everyone else. The company was bollocks, anyway. They never acted on my suggestion to institute a bring-your-pet-to-work day. I was going to let this guy loose on the middle-management fat-cats.” Morrie reached up and tickled the raven under the chin. The raven made ahyuh-hyuh-hyuhsound deep in its throat, almost as if it was purring.
“But you don’t have a job! And eighty-five million quid doesn’t justdisappear—”
“Fuck,” Heathcliff returned with a stack of Dan Browns. “You turn your back for a bloody moment and they’re shoving these through the mail slot. I’m going to board the bloody thing up. People are monsters.”
“Agreed,” I piped up. “Anyone who reads Dan Brownisa monster. They’re not even good enough to recycle.”
“We could burn them in the fire to keep ourselves warm,” Morrie suggested, rubbing his shoulders.
“And toast marshmallows!” I added.
Morrie turned to Heathcliff. “Mina’s perfect. Wehaveto keep her.”
“Croak!” The raven agreed.
“Meow,” Grimalkin chimed in.
I picked up one of the books. “Hey, actually, could I take some of these? I think I could make something out of them to sell. My mother’s always going on aboutdiversifying your income streams.”
“We sell books,” Heathcliff growled. “But not these books.”
“You might, after I’m done with them. Trust me. You got a spare box?”
Heathcliff handed me one and I sorted through the stack for books in decent condition. Morrie flung himself down into Heathcliff’s chair, his emerald eyes dancing as he watched me work. “So how was your first day, gorgeous? Don’t spare the juicy details.”
“Don’t you want to talk about your job—”
