Free Victoria's Demon Lover by Alia Bess Page B

before Sharon and the boys
were scheduled to move in, Victoria drove to the older part of downtown and
parked.  She put all her change in the meter and walked down the old sidewalk
and looked in the windows of the dilapidated storefronts.  This section of the
city was the vibrant shopping center when her parents were kids.  Now the trash-strewn
gutters and cracked pavement reminded her of apocalyptic movies from the
seventies.  Tucked away between all night theatres and abandoned shoe stores
was a second-hand bookshop.  She knew this from her college days when she had
to track down an out-of-print volume to make her thesis more interesting than
the twelve hundred other ones being submitted that semester.
         She stopped in front of a
dirty window.  Empty.  Too much time had passed already.  The bookshop was no
more.  The door was open, though, like many of the abandoned shops.  There was
nothing left to steal, and a locked door only encouraged vagrants to break
windows.  She pushed on the glass and stepped inside.  No lights meant it was
dim inside, but she could see a shaft of light at the other end that suggested
the back door was open as well.
         She heard a dull thump. 
“Hello?” she called out instinctively before cursing under her breath.  She
should turn around and try a library instead of calling to some crackhead or
drunk sheltering inside.
         “Yes?”  The answering voice
did not sound drugged or drunk.
         “Sorry.  I was looking for the
bookstore that was here…” years ago , she finished to herself.
         “No one reads books anymore.” 
An old man stepped into the half light.  Victoria thought he looked like a
drunk or a druggie, but his eyes were too bright.  He wore a long white beard
and the very top of his head was bald.  Over his ears his white hair was long
and touched his shoulders.  He looked like da Vinci.
         “I do.” She replied a little
defensively.
         “You are one of those, ”he smiled.  His teeth were still good, straight and white.  Though they
could be dentures.
         Victoria smiled back, but she
was aware it probably looked more like a grimace.  “I am one of those.  I came
to look for a book, but it is too late.”
         “Yes.  I just packed up the
last volume.”  He smiled sadly again.  “If you had come last week I could have
helped you find that book.”
         “Oh?”  Victoria breathed a
sigh of relief.  Not a vagrant.  A bookseller.  Hard to tell the difference
anymore.
         “What were you looking for?  I
ask only out of curiosity.  Everything can be found online, now.  Why come
downtown?”
         Victoria agreed.  “You can buy
anything online, but you have to know what you are looking for.  I was hoping
to talk to the bookseller and get some answers.  I am still not sure what I am
trying to buy.”
         The old man laughed.  “Then
step into my office,” he made an expansive gesture with his hands and pointed
to the back door.  She followed him through the dusty interior of the old
bookshop.  The marks where the shelves used to be were evident on the floor and
the walls.  The occasional scrap of paper and dust jacket littered the cracked
linoleum. At the back door Victoria looked out at the service entrance and a
small panel truck.
         “You have heard of Parnassus
On Wheels ?” The old man asked.
         She laughed.  “Christopher
Morley.  Oh my God.  And this is the modern version?”  She took a step closer
to the white truck as the old bookseller opened the rolling panel at the back. 
Inside were boxes, stacked nearly to the top of the truck, all neatly labeled.
“Where are you taking them?” she asked.
         “This is my truck.  I suppose
they will stay in there.  The truck is useful as a storage facility and I don’t
have to pack and unload over and over.  I will travel to swap meets and book
fairs.”  He