Vonnegut hardback, five dollars.
A freaking steal.
He set it on top ofRabbit, Runand retraced hissteps to the M-N-O section.
He checked and it was a negatory.
They almost never had a copy ofConfederacy of Dunces,which sucked.
So he retraced to E-F-G and hit gold.
Ellison.Invisible Man.
He snatched that up and headed to the Young Adult section,even though he knew it was a fool’s errand.He’d checked every time he’d cometo Fortnum’s for the last year.
He was right.
It wasn’t there.
He hit up the T-U-V section again, just in case it wasn’t inYoung Adult.
Nope.
Not there either.
Dutch then walked back up to the front and saw Duke, asusual, was behind the book counter.
The man’s eyes came direct to him the instant he’d clearedthe stacks.
Duke was a mainstay at Fortnum’s.An ex-English professorwho, decades ago, left the university politics, track to tenure and rat racebehind, dropped out and made his life about his wife, his bike and his job at aused bookstore.
Dutch liked Duke, respected the man, but he didn’t like thelook in Duke’s eyes these days when Dutch would come to the store.He furtherwasn’t big on the looks Duke and Tex would exchange when Dutch was around.
Tex was a Vietnam vet, an ex-recluse, and an inveterate catlover.So much of the last, there were dozens of pictures of cats, all Tex’s,tacked haphazard on the wall behind the coffee counter under the shelves ofcups and mugs.
The man was also a lunatic.And it was against all odds thathuge, loud, bad-mannered, cat-loving dude was the best barista in the state andat least everyone in Denver knew it, so even now, when it was one in theafternoon, there was a line ten strong in front of the coffee counter.
But even with all that, Tex was a good guy.Solid.
Like Duke.
Family, the folk at Fortnum’s.Duke, Tex, Indy (the owner ofthe store), Jet, one of Indy’s best friends who also worked there, their largeposse.
Dutch had a family like that.A big one of MC brothers andtheir women and their children.
Good, solid folk, down to their bones.
And yet…
“Invisible Man, this for you, or someone else?”Duke asked, taking Dutch’s attention, and Dutch realized he was so lost to histhoughts, he was working on autopilot and hadn’t noticed he’d approached theregister and laid down his books.
“Someone else,” Dutch answered.
“You read it?”Duke asked.
“Yeah,” Dutch told him.
“Whole world should read it,” Duke muttered, jabbing a thickfinger against the screen of the tablet that stood in for a till.
