Book Scavenger (16 page)

“I'll be able to crack this in no time,” James said.

A canopy of trees provided momentary relief from the October sun blasting on high. The fog had burned off from the morning, and Emily's sweatshirt looped uselessly around her waist. If she were back in Albuquerque or Denver, there would be a crisp bite of fall accompanying the warm sunshine.

“Did you know,” James said as they stepped around a woman exiting an apartment building with a stroller, “that a long time ago, if a ruler had a secret message he wanted to send, he shaved the head of his servant, wrote the message on the servant's scalp, waited for the servant's hair to grow back, and then the servant traveled to the message recipient and had his head shaved again so the guy could read it?”

“If you have to shave off Steve, you could try that out,” Emily said.

James threw his hands up to either side of his cowlick as if he were covering Steve's ears.

“As if I'll lose! Have some confidence.”

Emily patted Steve on his pointy tips. “My deepest apologies, Steve! Of course you won't lose.”

“Those guys might have spent their whole life going back and forth with messages on their heads, like a living piece of notebook paper,” James said.

They approached Hollister's bookstore. His window display homage to Bayside Press was still in place. Emily stopped and peered inside through a gap between two books.

“Hollister's in there, talking to someone. Do you think he might help us with the Black Cat clue?”

“It can't hurt to ask. He knew a lot about Poe last week.”

They pushed open the door just in time to hear the customer say, “You said the Welty would be in! I came all the way across the city.”

Sparse strands of ginger hair gripped the irate customer's balding head like a claw. James stopped short, Emily right behind. This was the same man who had been in Mr. Griswold's office last week.

“What is he doing here?” James whispered to Emily.

“No, no, now,” Hollister was saying. “I said I'd
found
the Welty we discussed. I wish you had called first, Leon. I don't know what else to tell you.” Hollister looked over and saw Emily and James standing just inside the front door. His shoulders dropped from his ears, and a smile split his face. “Ah, James and Emily-Who-Just-Moved-Here. Just finishing up with my friend, Mr. Remora. In fact, he's the one I mentioned to you earlier. The rare-book specialist who works with Mr. Griswold.” To Mr. Remora Hollister said, “These two are fans of Gary and Book Scavenger.”

Gary?
It sounded funny to hear Mr. Griswold referred to as a Gary.

Mr. Remora barely glanced in their direction. If he recognized Emily and James, he didn't show it. “This is unacceptable!” He hammered his index finger into the counter, like he was pounding a miniature gavel. “I told my client I'd deliver the book to her this week.”

“Well, I'll check on the status as soon as possible. And I tell you what, Leon. I will personally hand deliver it to you so you don't have to trek back to my shop.”

One strand dipped in front of Mr. Remora's eyes, and he blew at it repeatedly, only to have it flop back down. Finally, he pushed the strand of hair back on his head. “Fine.”

Emily and James leaned against the counter, waiting for their turn to talk to Hollister. A tray filled with magnetic poetry sat beside a rack of bookmarks. Emily and James pushed around words while they waited.
Ferocious. Fish. Eyeball.
It reminded Emily of first discovering Mr. Griswold's hidden words in
The Gold-Bug
.

Hollister pulled a pen from the mug by his register. “Now what's your address?”

“1717 Fillmore Street—”

“Ah, you live by the Fillmore?” Hollister said, jotting it down.

“Yes. Lucky me. Traffic and noise, hoo-rah.”

Hollister clamped his mouth shut and focused on writing the address, drawing a long inhale of breath through his nose. When he finished, he tucked the notepad with the address onto a shelf under the counter and turned to Emily and James. “So what brings you kids in today? More book scavenging?”

“Oh, um.” Emily glanced at Mr. Remora. He was sorting through a pile of books on Hollister's counter.

“We wanted to ask you about ‘The Black Cat.'”

“The Black Cat!” Hollister hooted. “Haven't thought about that place in years. That's where I met Ferlinghetti.”

“No,” James interjected. “It's not a place. We're talking about…”

His voice trailed off as he and Emily looked at each other. There was a
place
called the Black Cat? Maybe that was what the clue was telling them to do. Go to the Black Cat.

Mr. Remora slapped his hand on the counter three times. “Hollister. We're not done here. I'd like these rung up.” He waved to the small stack of books he'd sorted from the original pile. “And what about that Carver you had last month? Is that still here?”

“I believe so. Let me go check the stacks.” Hollister gave the kids an apologetic smile. “I can answer your questions in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”

Emily nudged James. “We can look it up online,” she said.

James called after Hollister's retreating figure. “Don't worry, Hollister! We'll google it!”

 

CHAPTER

20

EMILY AND JAMES
sat side by side in the accordion section of an extra-long city bus on their way to the Black Cat restaurant. On one side of the bendy part was a woman with a crate on wheels packed tightly with plastic grocery bags, and on the other was a man painted head-to-toe in silver, reading a newspaper. Whenever he turned a page, robotic sounds mysteriously accompanied his movement. Emily tried not to stare, but she swore his mouth wasn't moving to make the noise.

James didn't give the silver man or plastic-bag lady a second glance. Emily wasn't sure how much of that was due to him having lived in San Francisco his whole life and being immune to these kinds of sightings, and how much was due to his absorption in cracking Maddie's cipher. How he could be focused on anything other than Griswold's game right now was a mystery to her. Emily practically bounced in her seat, she was so excited, straining to read every street sign the bus approached in hopes that they would reach their stop already.

Finally, they approached the intersection for the Black Cat restaurant, and James stood up to pull the bell wire. They exited through the back door and jumped to the sidewalk, and the bus whirred away.

“It should be up here at the next corner,” James said.

They crossed the intersection of a busy, four-lane street and soon found themselves standing under a neon sign that jutted over the sidewalk.

Jazz music tumbled out when they pushed the front door open. Emily's eyes adjusted to the dim interior. The hostess stand was unmanned, so Emily peered into the bar area where a heavyset man with a bald, shining head wiped down a table.

“We don't seat until five o'clock,” the man said in a deep baritone voice without looking up.

“We're not here to eat,” Emily said. She sounded like a mouse compared with him.

“Then what exactly are you here for, babies?” he said, not unkindly, his rag hovering over the tabletop.

“We left something,” James said.

“Last night,” Emily added. “We need to get it back.”

“You two were here last night?” the man said.

“With our families,” James jumped in. “It was a large group.”

“Well, not that large,” Emily added. What if there hadn't been any large groups last night? “But large.”

“A large but not large group, huh?” The man considered this with a skeptical pout. “All right, I'll bite. What did you leave?”

“A, um, book,” Emily said.

James poked her in the back. Okay, so maybe a book wasn't the best imaginary thing to leave at a restaurant. But she didn't know how Mr. Griswold's scavenger hunt was supposed to work—did this man know about it and he had a clue waiting for them? Or did they have to find it hidden somewhere? Maybe if she mentioned a book, he'd ask which one, then she'd say
The Gold-Bug
, and he'd offer her the next clue.

But the restaurant manager didn't ask any questions, and if he thought it was ridiculous to have left a book in a restaurant, he didn't show it. He crossed to the hostess podium and picked through items that lay behind it.

“I've got a cell phone, sunglasses, and an umbrella. No book.”

“Could we look around for it? We won't take long,” James said.

“We won't mess anything up,” Emily added.

“Fine, fine.” The man waved them into the back dining room.

“So what are we looking for exactly?” James whispered. Emily lifted a tablecloth and peered under a table.

“I have no idea,” she said. “I'm hoping we'll know it when we see it. Keep an eye out for anything that looks out of place. A note taped under a table or something like that.”

They worked their way through the dining area, lifting tablecloths and peering under chairs, scrutinizing wall hangings and the small clusters of carnations on every table.

When they met in the middle, James asked, “Have you read ‘The Black Cat' yet? Maybe there's something in the story that's a hint for what we should be looking for.”

“Well, it's about a guy who drinks too much, kills his cat in a drunken rage, and then thinks the cat comes back from the dead. Then the guy goes even crazier and kills his wife and buries her in their basement, but he accidentally buries the zombie cat with her and gets himself caught. So I hope the story has nothing to do with what we should be looking for because I'd rather not dig up dead bodies or zombie cats.”

“Geez. Hollister wasn't kidding. Poe really did have a twisted imagination, didn't he?”

Emily placed her hands on her hips and surveyed the restaurant. They had looked over every inch with no luck. “Maybe we should say something to the manager about the game? Maybe he's supposed to give us our next clue.”

It was the best idea they had to work with, so they went back to the bar where the manager shuffled papers behind the counter.

“You find your book?” he asked without looking up.

“Um, no,” Emily said. She wasn't sure what to say next, but she didn't have to worry, because James took the lead.

“Did you know there's a story called ‘The Black Cat'?” James asked, climbing onto a bar stool. Emily hesitantly climbed onto the one next to him. “Is that what this place is named after?”

The man set down the stack of papers and lowered his gaze to James. “Nope,” he said.

“Nope, you didn't know there's a story with that name, or nope, that's not what this place is named after?”

The manager didn't respond.

“Well, have you read it?” James asked. “It's by Edgar Allan Poe, and it's about this guy who—”

“So you didn't find your book?” the man asked again.

“It's actually an Edgar Allan Poe book we're looking for. Have you heard of”—James leaned forward eagerly—“
The Gold-Bug
?”

The manager walked around the bar, gripped their backpacks, and pulled James and Emily down from the bar stools.

“You kids didn't leave a book here, did you?” He steered them toward the door. “So what have you been doing? You get into the liquor? You leave a stink bomb somewhere?”

“No, no, no,” James said hurriedly.

“We found a secret message in a book,” Emily blurted out. “Do you have our next clue?”

The manager dropped his handle on their backpacks.

“What?” he said with a shake of his head. “No, I don't have a clue for you kids. Go play your game somewhere else, okay? I've got work to do.”

Emily and James sat in disappointed silence as they rode the bus back to their building. She'd been so certain that was where they needed to go.

Finally, Emily said, “Well, at least we can cross the Black Cat restaurant off our list.”

The movement of the bus rocked them side to side. James had his binder open again to Maddie's cipher. Emily looked out the window and watched the city pass by. Gray buildings, liquor stores. They approached a corner park that was raised and built over a parking garage. Its sign read
PORTSMOUTH SQUARE
. Bright red pagoda-style awnings covered picnic tables. Lantern lampposts turned on for the evening as dusk settled in. A man climbed the stairs from the sidewalk up to the park. He moved in a sideways sway, long dreadlocks swinging across his back, and he carried a duffel bag.

“Hey, James.” Emily elbowed him. “Isn't that Hollister?”

James looked up. “It is. I wonder what he's doing all the way over here.”

They passed the park and continued to stare out the window. James absentmindedly plucked at Steve. “Hey, Emily,” he said. “What if Mr. Griswold never finished his game? What if getting to ‘The Black Cat' story is all there is right now? Raven said the game wasn't supposed to start for a few weeks.”

“No way.” Emily shook her head firmly. “He finished the game.” She couldn't prove this, of course, but she just knew it was true. It had to be.

“Well, maybe we should focus on Mr. Quisling's cipher challenge for a little bit instead. Admit it—wouldn't it make your day to see Her Royal Fungus with an official mushroom-top hairdo? Besides…” James punched a fist in the air and shouted, “We must defend Steve's honor!”

There were only two other people on the bus, but they both turned to look at them. James gave an apologetic wave. “Sorry!”

“Steve has nothing to worry about,” Emily reassured him. “We'll make sure of that.”

James gave a tight-lipped smile and returned to scribbling notes about Maddie's cipher.