Blaze - Part Twenty
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
“Floyd,” Aiden says, staring out of the window of the car at the trees sliding by, “Where are we going?”
“To Port Sitka! I figured I’d better do the driving, this time.” Floyd flips on his blinker, leaning forward in his seat to check his blind spot. “You boys don’t need to absorb all the gas money costs, you know!”
“Oh, alright.” Aiden huffs out a baffled laugh. “We thought you were taking us to Mugshot, or something.”
“A bit further than Mugshot today!” Floyd answers, with the faintest trace of nerves in his voice.
“We noticed,” I laugh, and Floyd laughs, too, then starts tapping his thumbs on the wheel.
Floyd drives a tiny, battered hatchback overflowing with stacks of books, newspapers, and notepads, half-filled with his scribbled handwriting. The car is buckling beneath the weight. Every now and then the engine gives a wheezing, ragged cough, a sound that rocks the whole car and makes it bounce lightly on its tires. Bouncing all of us, too.
I loved the car right away, because it makes me think of my own undefeatable bright blue disaster, but more importantly because of how funny it is to see a man as big as Aiden crammed into the passenger’s seat. His long legs are folded so awkwardly even with the seat all the way back, his head bent but still pressed against the roof.
Floyd, on the other hand, is perched on a thick, haphazard pile of papers in order to sit high enough to see through the windshield. The windows are down, the afternoon breeze making his grey flyaways ever wilder.
“We can drive next time, Floyd.” Aiden shifts uncomfortably in his seat, trying to figure out some more real estate for himself. “Is it weird if I just put my legs out of the window?”
“Not weird at all, Aiden!” Floyd answers, casting him an apologetic smile. “However, and I mean this sincerely, that may tip the balance of the car and put us on one side. Jamie and I are barely holding down our side as it is.”
“Wait, we’re going to Port Sitka?” I lean forward from the backseat in alarm, resting my elbows on the console. “We didn’t bring one of the ghosts, or charge up my Vision - we’re not ready!”
“Ah, this isn’t for the venture to the farmhouse,” Floyd explains, pushing his perfectly round glasses further up his nose. “You know I told you I - I made a discovery…”
Floyd’s voice trails away. Without warning, his face drops. He nibbles his lip, anxiously tapping his ringed fingers against the steering wheel.
Aiden glances over at Floyd, surprised like I am by the abrupt change in his bright mood. “Yeah…?”
Floyd winces, then leaves one eye shut. “Alright, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
I catch Aiden’s eye in the rearview. He looks just as confused as I am, staring curiously at Floyd from the unfortunate angle his head is bent at against the roof.
“I’m a good news first kind of person,” I tell Floyd slowly, uncertainly.
Floyd looks relieved to give us the good news first. He nods excitedly, keeping his eyes on the road.
“I’ve been combing through every auction website and blog I can find that deals in antiques or memorabilia from the Cold War era. Using several different keywords and names that we’ve collectively uncovered in the course of the Botswick case. On the off-chance that some collector might have something of use to us.”
Aiden’s eyebrows shoot up, his deep voice startled. “Jesus, how long did that take you, Floyd?”
“No matter! The point is, I found something!” Floyd breaks back into his beaming grin. “I may have, anyways! Someone has what they claim to be some extremely interesting documents belonging to none other than Joseph Kemp! The Chief of Police in Port Sitka at the time of the Botswick murder! And the documents are from 1961!”
Aiden and I both freeze, staring at Floyd with wide eyes.
“What?” I sputter, shaking my head in disbelief. “Seriously, someone just has that?”
“There was recently an estate sale for the property of one of Kemp’s daughters,” Floyd says excitedly. “The collector currently in possession of the papers purchased a great deal of Joseph Kemp’s old books at the estate sale. He found the papers hidden in the books when he got home!”
Aiden, the one archivist in the car, is clearly the most excited about this particular story. His blue eyes light up instantly.
“No fucking way! Does he know how to take care of them? Or, hang on, you said he’s trying to auction them?”
“No, not auction them… I found the post about the papers on a blog, not an auction website.” Floyd’s brilliant smile flickers, then abruptly goes out. “On a terrible blog! Horrible! Garbage!”
Aiden and I both blink rapidly at Floyd, startled. Suddenly he’s almost shouting, and he slapped the steering wheel furiously in time with his last few words.
“Um… like - some racist’s history blog, or…?”
“Dear god, Jamie, no!” Floyd’s eyes, already enormous and rounded out by the thick lenses of his glasses, grow even bigger and rounder at the suggestion. “Those ones aren’t even worth opening!”
“But this blog was worth opening, despite being terrible?”
“It’s - I-” Floyd taps his fingertips on the steering wheel irritably. “I - I’ll confess I do read it sometimes. Purely for the purposes of - the blog isn’t the point! The point is, the collector posted about it on his so-called blog-”
“So it’s his blog? The collector?”
“Yes, Aiden! But he didn’t post any pictures of the papers, or describe too much about their contents.”
“So we’re… going to see him? In Port Sitka?” Aiden clings to the door handle as the engine coughs hard enough to bounce us all again. “Couldn’t you have sent him an email and asked him to send us some photos, or something?”
“Well…” Floyd stares fixedly out through the windshield. “That’s the bad news.”
I tilt my head to the side, staring at Floyd with narrowed eyes. “What’s the bad news?”
“The collector,” Floyd says through gritted teeth, gripping the wheel like it’s wronged him unforgivably, “Is Spencer Shin, of Shinbone Books.”
Floyd’s voice is heavy with meaning and significance. Like Aiden and I should know a lot just from that.
“Okay,” I answer, struggling to keep up, “So - is he, um - not gonna be helpful, or…?”
“Helpful! No, of course not!” Floyd’s many silver rings flash with each angry gesture of the hand he doesn’t have on the wheel. “That man has no goddamn integrity of any kind! None!”
Aiden and I stare at Floyd with matching expressions, somewhere between the territories of total bewilderment and faint alarm. I have a lot of questions I want to ask - and the list is growing swiftly - so I pick one at random.
“If this guy has no integrity, how do we know he’s not lying about having the papers?”
“Oh, he would never do something like that,” Floyd answers instantly, with total confidence.
There’s a pause. Aiden and I stare at Floyd.
“Do you know this guy, Floyd?” Aiden asks, blue eyes narrowed. “Spencer Shin?”
“What? No. Not me. Never met the man.” Floyd thumps his fingers on the wheel in fast and nervous percussion, then adds - “Still, I think I’d better let you boys handle it. I really shouldn’t come into contact with someone whose, ah - theories I disagree with so strongly. That’ll only lead to trouble, believe me!”
I bite my lip, baffled, fully aware that it’s showing on my face. “Alright, so what are we supposed to do?”
“Just go in and ask him about the papers he found. Tell him you read his blog and you’d be curious to see them.”
“That’ll work?” Aiden asks doubtfully. “I thought you said he wouldn’t be helpful.”
“Yes, well, you’ll have to be careful.” Floyd slows down the car, sending up a little wail of protest from the engine. “That man is underhanded, fellas, believe me. You’re up against a sharp mind, sharp! You’ll have to stay on your toes. And you have to tell me everything he said after, right? Remember everything he says!”
Aiden and I glance at each other again. We lock eyes in the rearview, having a silent conversation.
“You sure you don’t want to come in with us, Floyd?” Aiden rumbles. “Talk to Spencer?”
“I - no, no.” Floyd stares out of the windshield with dogged determination, as if his life depends on it. “Better for everyone if I don’t.”
~~~~
Aiden and I stop across the street from Shinbone Books, taking it in.
It’s such a tiny shop that it’s almost hidden amidst all the others, incredibly narrow and easy to overlook. Simple, made from brick, barely wider than the space necessary for there to be a door and a single display window. A very faded sign hangs above the door. In neat, golden script:
Shinbone Books - Mysteries In Every Edition!
Beneath the script, there’s a painted golden version of the shop’s logo. Two crossed bones and a skull, like on a pirate flag, only the skull is a design adorning the cover of a book. The logo is printed on the display window, too. Also in faded gold.
The display window is filled with shafts of sunlight and stacked high with books, some of them dusty and old, others shiny and new. All of them are about mysteries, true crime, the occult, the mystical, the paranormal, and the unsolved.
The door is closed, painted black. The sign in the window is flipped to Open, but that’s really everything we can tell about the place from out here.
Aiden and I glance back at Floyd, who’s still sitting in his car, parked a little further down. He gives us a thumbs up, half-hiding behind the steering wheel, only the tops of his enormous eyes visible.
“The way Floyd talks, you’d almost think this guy was his ex,” Aiden snickers quietly, adjusting his snapback.
“Yeah, except Floyd is aromantic, so it’s definitely not that.”
“I know.” Aiden looks down at me, shrugs his broad shoulders. “I’m just saying, he sounded way excited about this on the phone yesterday, when he was too tired to think.”
“Well, he also said he’s never met Spencer Shin, so…” I look up at Aiden nervously, then back at the shop. “Should we be worried, right now? Floyd made this guy sound pretty intense, and he runs a murder bookshop-”
“Just like Floyd does,” Aiden points out.
“Yeah, but Body Bag Books is a - a friendly murder place. I don’t know.”
Aiden breathes out a soft laugh, then sets off across the street, pushing me into movement.
“Let’s just be careful, Keane. Try and keep things from devolving into chaos.”
“That has never worked with us,” I groan, rushing after him over the cobblestones. “I’m gonna let you do the talking, so I don’t have to try to lie.”
“Good, because that’s only going to increase the chaos.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I anxiously twist my ring around my finger, taking deep breaths of the salty Port Sitka air. “Hey, if Floyd is hiding from this guy, then maybe the guy is - scary?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” Aiden murmurs, and pushes open the door.
We step inside together, then stop just beyond the door, taking in our surroundings.
Shinbone Books is… familiar, almost. Kind of like Body Bag Books, actually. Different in a lot of ways, but something about the atmosphere is surprisingly similar.
It looks like it was all assembled lovingly over the course of many years. The shelves and displays are all mismatched, repaired or restored by hand, sometimes badly. The one nearest to us is hand-painted black, but an old golden veneer is breaking through where it’s faded down.
The shop is so small that it should feel cramped, but beams of warm golden sunlight fall in and pierce through the gloom, giving it air and light and space. Everything is patterned with sunlight and shadow.
Every shelf is crammed to overflowing with books. There are closed glass cases with vintage books, bundles of loose papers, and little knick-knacks on display. All lovingly, carefully arranged and organized.
The air smells like old paper and coffee, and faintly like pastries from the bakery next door.
The shop is narrow, but it stretches far back. There’s a counter about halfway through the shop, set against the wall. An old-fashioned register and typewriter are perched on top, beside some thick white sheaves of paper. There’s also a steaming mug of what smells like mocha, with some cinnamon-dusted marshmallows on top.
Behind the counter is a man who I assume must be Spencer Shin.
I draw back anxiously when I catch sight of him, my mind running back through everything Floyd said in the car. Then I stop, my eyebrows dropping low in confusion.
Spencer is not the shark I was picturing.
He’s tall and thin, with slightly stooped shoulders and bony wrists. Wearing simple black pants and an ink-stained, white button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled back to his elbows. He has jet-black hair, gone almost completely silver. Cut short, falling forward a little bit over his temple. Thick-rimmed rectangular glasses perched on his nose.
On the back counter is a tank with a little turtle inside, sleeping peacefully beneath a heat lamp. Spencer is bowed over it, gently and carefully spritzing the turtle’s shell with water from a spray bottle.
He looks up when we step inside, freezes, then hastily sets the bottle down.
“Customers!” he whispers excitedly to the turtle, then raises a hand, beaming at us. “Hello, hello! Come in! Can I help you find something?”
There’s some warm, sincere quality to his rough voice that soothes my nerves as soon as I pick up on it.
I glance at Aiden, see my own bewildered expression mirrored on his face. Then I steal a glance at Floyd, who’s still watching from his car, his over-magnified eyes filled with suspicion, his grey flyaways sticking straight up from behind the steering wheel.
“Um…” I turn back to the smiling, kind-faced man in front of us. “Mr. Shin? Spencer Shin?”
He’s clearly surprised that we know who he is. “I - yes, that’s me…”
He narrows his dark brown eyes, adjusts his glasses, and peers at us more closely. Trying to sort out who we are.
Aiden gives himself a shake and sets off towards the counter, weaving around the stacks and tables of books. I follow after him, at a loss. I honestly can’t figure out why Floyd made this guy sound so insidious. Spencer actually reminds me of Floyd, in some way I can’t quite pin down.
Spencer’s black eyebrows are furrowed in surprise and growing confusion as we stop before the counter. “You’re looking for me?”
I glance over my shoulder as Aiden introduces us, then blink in surprise and alarm when I realize that Floyd has gotten out of his car. He’s standing behind it, peeking out over the roof, watching us intently.
Oh, no. What is he doing?
“-in from out of town, and we wanted to visit your shop,” Aiden is telling Spencer, who’s listening with rapt attention. “We read about something on your blog-”
Spencer’s eyebrows shoot up in disbelief, his eyes widening. “You’ve read my blog?”
He’s having a remarkably similar reaction to the one Floyd had when we first told him that we’d read his blog. Spencer is grinning happily all of a sudden, his dark eyes lit up, glowing. He whips around like he wants to say something to the turtle, then seems to catch himself and hurries to face us again, slightly abashed.
And now I can see exactly what it is about Spencer that reminds me of Floyd. The sparkling, wild excitement in his eyes. Firecracker eyes. Blazing with semi-unhinged eagerness, but perceptive and intelligent, too.
“Well - that’s amazing!” he blurts out, beaming with his whole face. “You know what? A discount on whatever books you pick out, boys! The - the blog reader’s discount! Its inaugural use! That’s the least I can do for seekers of true mystery and truth - young ones reading my blog - amazing!”
I turn my face away, instantly feeling guilty for never having actually read Spencer’s blog, silently promising myself that I will when I get home - then freeze when I catch sight of Floyd. He’s pacing back and forth by his car, darting in little bursts towards the shop, then retreating back, glaring at Shinbone Books like it’s his worst enemy. Then coming towards it again, like he can’t help himself.
“-to buy a book,” Aiden is saying when I turn back to face him, trying to hide the growing alarm on my face. “We had actually hoped to talk to you about-”
Aiden breaks off as the door of the bookshop abruptly opens. Floyd steps inside, then turns right around and puts his back to us, pretending to look through the pile of books by the display window.
Aiden quickly regains control over his wide-eyed expression, then shifts his weight onto his other leg to block Floyd from view. Thankfully Floyd is tiny and Aiden is huge, but Spencer heard the little bell over the door ring. He knows that someone else is in here.
“I’ll be right with you!” he calls, then looks at me and Aiden again. “Sorry, Aiden, what were you saying?”
“Um-” Aiden hesitates, thrown off. Fighting down the impulse to look at Floyd over his shoulder, trying to keep his expression under control, and struggling to remember what we were supposed to say, all at the same time. “We - so-”
I’m trying my hardest not to look at Floyd, who is sort of awkwardly scuttling around the displays to keep his back to us. Edging his way around the bookshop, peering at the titles on the shelves.
His painful attempts to blend in are having the opposite of the intended effect. I covertly spread a hand behind Aiden’s back and flap it frantically at Floyd, trying to get his attention and signal him to leave, or at least to stop what he’s doing.
Unsuccessfully.
“We were hoping-” Aiden begins again, then breaks off in alarm as Spencer glances past him, right at Floyd.
I take in a steadying breath, trying not to panic, reminding myself that Floyd said he’s never met this guy. So it’s fine if Spencer sees him.
Spencer does a double-take. For a split second, he stares at Floyd with something like shock in his eyes. And then -
“FLOYD!” he roars, at a volume that nearly startles me off of my feet.
Floyd whips around and takes a stumbling step back. “What? No! It’s not me!”
“Oh, yes it is!” Spencer shouts, his bony hands suddenly gesturing at a Floyd-like speed and intensity. “What in the goddamn hell are you doing in my shop?”
“I can go wherever I want, Spencer!” Floyd yells, instantly furious, his hands balling into fists. He bounds over to the counter to stand across from Spencer, glaring up into his face. “And believe me, your ridiculous shop is the last place I want to be!”
Spencer’s stooped shoulders hunch further as he bends to glare down at Floyd. “Then what are you doing sneaking around my shop like a - a crab? An old crab!”
“We’re the same goddamn age!” Floyd stamps his foot on the floor, but he’s too light of a person for it to make any real noise. “And I was just looking at what stupid and horrible titles you’ve decided to stock so I don’t stock them in my own shop! I see we’ve already got a lot of the same ones, I’m going to have to figure out the return system! And a - a way to unread them!”
“Figure out this!” Spencer bellows, stabbing a finger in Floyd’s face. “I have the right to refuse service to anyone! Do you know what that means, or do you not even know that much about running a bookshop? What are you actually doing here?”
“What are you doing?” Floyd stabs a finger right back into Spencer’s face, then flings his arm out to point at the typewriter. “Keeping your old Remington out on the counter, trying to make me think of old times, trying to make me miss you? Well, it won’t work!”
“I had no idea you’d ever dare to show your face in here!” Spencer yells, his dark eyes full of mounting outrage. “I should have known, you never did give a fuck about turning up places where you were the least popular guy in the room!”
“That made me a good journalist!” Floyd shouts.
“I know!” Spencer roars back, glaring at Floyd like he’s trying to set him on fire.
Aiden and I have been standing in silent disbelief over the course of this conversation, the volume of which is nearing rafter-shaking levels. Floyd’s gesturing hands are getting ever closer to Spencer’s face, and vice versa.
The turtle, I notice, is still sleeping peacefully. The same way Ida keeps sleeping when Floyd is bubbling and shooting around with high-volume excitement or outrage.
“Can you believe this, Naomi?” Spencer shouts at the turtle, who goes on snoozing happily beneath her heat lamp. “Floyd goddamn Little has the nerve to walk into my shop! Seriously, Floyd? What’s wrong with you?”
“Okay, um-” Aiden steps forward and presses a hand over Floyd’s mouth as he angrily opens it to answer. “I’m sorry. What’s happening, right now?”
“You guys are with Floyd! You’re all here together, aren’t you?” Spencer’s face suddenly falls as he stares at me and Aiden. “Wait… so you guys - you don’t actually read my blog…?”
“We’re planning to!” I rush to answer, pressing my fingers to my burning cheeks. “If that makes you feel better, we definitely will when we get home!”
Spencer considers, then looks at me with hopeful eyes.
“Yeah, that - would you?” he says desperately.
“Yes, of course!”
“Trying to get past my one-person subscriber count,” Spencer murmurs, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “At least they read everything I post.”
“Ugh, that blog.” Floyd casts a disgusted look at Spencer, then turns to me and Aiden. “Sure, go on and read it, boys, if you want to get your information from a man who feels comfortable posting articles like, The Lost Continent of Atlantis: Truth To The Legend?”
Spencer slams a fist on the counter, instantly enraged again. “I could never understand why you draw the line at Atlantis, Floyd, with some of the shit you believe in! And I didn’t say it’s true, only that we shouldn’t write it off as a possibility!”
“Do I really need to remind you that Plato quite literally made up Atlantis? Imagined it! Made it up!” Floyd breaks free from Aiden and braces his hands on the glass countertop, leaning into them so he can yell directly up into Spencer’s face. “There’s no mention of Atlantis in the historical or archaeological or artistic or written record or anywhere until Plato wrote about it-”
“First of all-”
“And do I need to further remind you that Plato claimed Athens defeated Atlantis in battle eleven thousand years ago? Eleven thousand years ago? In the Stone Age?” Floyd emphasizes every single word with a violent, swinging air punch. “When - there - was - no - Athens!”
“Some scholars think the date in Plato’s account was a mistake, and that it’s off by a factor of-”
“You know who else believes in Atlantis, Spencer? The Theosophists. And members of that cult believe that human beings evolved from astral jellyfish!”
“You’re an astral jellyfish!” Spencer roars, his ears and cheeks burning red. “And I might draw your attention to how much of the written historical record has been lost, Floyd, especially-”
“Hey - guys?” Aiden says, attempting to cut in gently. “Could we, um…?”
He trails off, looks at me with bewildered eyes.
Floyd and Spencer are both still shouting at the top of their lungs, but ever since this turned into kind of a debate, they both seem like they’re - enjoying it? Both of them look angry, but they have that matching glint of bright, blazing excitement in their eyes.
“I have no idea what’s going on anymore,” I whisper to Aiden, who shakes his head helplessly.
“-like your blog is so great!” Spencer is half-shouting. “That article last week, it took everything I had not to comment - hang on, I have my notes on it somewhere around here…”
Floyd goes motionless as Spencer begins flipping through the notepad next to the typewriter. His eyes are suddenly huge, even by Floyd standards. He looks thunderstruck, shaken to his core.
“You read it?” he sputters, staring at Spencer. “My blog?”
“Well, clearly you read mine, too, given that you read the post on Atl-” Spencer breaks off abruptly, his eyes snapping to Floyd. Wide with disbelief, like it only just sank in. “Wait, what, you - you read mine?”
They stare at each other, and then Spencer’s already stunned face gets hit by some new realization.
“So my - my one subscriber…?” He shakes his head slowly, staring down at Floyd, looking like he’s been completely tipped off his axis. “Oh, goddamnit, Floyd - you?”
Floyd hesitates, nervously scratching an eyebrow. “I - I spite-read it! Not because I - and that’s hardly - listen, Spencer, do you still have the Kemp papers?”
Spencer gives himself a shake, then leans into his hands on the counter, clearly struggling to pull himself together. “Yes.”
“Are they here?”
“Yes.”
“Can we have a look at them?”
“Ye- no. No, no no no no no.”
“Come on, Spencer!” Floyd grabs two handfuls of his wild grey hair, frustration burning in his eyes. “I’m doing an investigation-”
“Oh, of course.” Spencer lets out a can-you-believe-this-guy kind of snort. “Of course you are. Don’t tell me you went back to the paper after all this time. Neither of us would be welcome there, not anymore.”
“It’s a personal project, not for the newspapers!” Floyd’s glare doubles in force. “You know I would never go back there!”
“I’m not helping you with an investigation, Floyd,” Spencer says firmly, folding his bony arms over his chest. “After everything? No fucking way.”
Floyd lets out a heavy exhale, gritting his teeth. “Spencer, you need-”
“I don’t need you! I’ve got other friends, plenty of friends!” Spencer gestures violently to the little turtle basking beneath her heat lamp. “A new best friend, even!”
“I was going to say you need to show the papers to us!” Floyd’s voice begins to rise again, but he stops himself. He takes a breath, then forces himself to look earnestly up into Spencer’s face. “Listen, we’re - we’re right on the threshold of something big. C’mon, Spencer. Please just do this for me. For old times’ sake. Then I’ll go away and never set foot in your bookshop again.”
Spencer stares down at Floyd with a face hard and cold as rock, his arms folded over his chest again.
“It was supposed to be our bookshop,” he says quietly, angrily.
Floyd winces, but stares up at him imploringly, wordlessly asking again.
There’s a silence, aside from a gentle splash as Naomi belly flops into the pool of water on one side of her tank. An adorable little sound, completely undercutting the dark glare on Spencer’s face.
Spencer’s lip twitches. He drops his head and gives it a frustrated shake, then lets out a slow, agonized breath.
“Goddamnit, Floyd,” he mutters, turning to pick up a slender sheaf of papers from behind the counter. “This is the last thing I’m ever doing for you.”
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