Free The Most Dangerous Animal of All by Gary L. Stewart, Susan Mustafa

divorced when Annette was a young child, and Annette had spent her life being shuttled back and forth from her mother’s home, in San Francisco, to her father’s home, in Stockton. Her parents fought constantly, and Annette was often caught in the middle of their disagreements. She wanted to live with her father, but Ruth was a domineering woman who refused to turn over control of her daughter to her ex-husband. As a result, seventeen-year-old Annette suffered from bouts of melancholy brought on by the disharmony in her life. By the time Ruth and Gertrude decided to introduce her to Van, Annette was ripe for the picking.
    Gertrude and Ruth arranged the first meeting carefully. Gertrude knew that if she told Van she was bringing home a girl for him to meet, Van would refuse to be there. Instead she waited for the right moment, finally deciding that she would invite Ruth and Annette over on a night Van had to play at the Lost Weekend. She wanted him to look his best, and Van always dressed sharply when he had a gig.
    The two women picked the date, and Ruth showed up promptly with her daughter, who had no clue that she was being set up. Gertrude and Ruth chatted with Annette in the living room, waiting for Van to emerge from his room. Finally they heard his door open.
    Van stopped abruptly when he walked into the room. Sitting on the sofa was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. He stared for a moment at her thick, dark eyebrows, arching high over deep brown eyes that were slanted to perfection. He noticed the hint of red tinting the wavy brown hair that framed her sculpted face. She looked like Audrey Hepburn.
    Annette fidgeted under Van’s bold inspection but smiled shyly while Gertrude made the introductions.
    On August 19, 1957, Earl Van Best Jr. and Mary Annette Player were married. The plan had worked.
    Ruth had insisted that Annette’s father not be told about the wedding, and he was livid when he discovered that his underage daughter had married without his consent, but he held his tongue, because his daughter seemed so happy.
    Van spent the first few months courting his young bride. They rented a small one-bedroom apartment at 415 Jones Street, on Nob Hill, and set about furnishing it using money Annette had saved. Van made a little money playing the organ but did not make enough to pay all of the bills. He convinced Annette to invest the rest of her savings—$1,090—in a trip to Mexico.
    “When I was in England, there were all of these old books at Hinchingbrooke that had to be worth a fortune,” he told her. “I know I can go down to Mexico, find old books and documents, buy them cheap, and bring them back here to sell for a profit. I’ve done it before. All I need is capital to get me started.”
    At first Annette resisted, but eventually my father wore her down.
    He went to Mexico City and found an old book dealer who would sell him precolonial documents by the pound. Van sorted through them, choosing this one and that, and bought as many as his funds allowed. When he returned to San Francisco, he walked into Holmes Book Company, on the corner of Third and Market Streets, and sold some of his books for a substantial profit. Pleased with himself, he hurried home to tell Annette.
    Before long, Van began making frequent trips to Mexico, his love of old literature suddenly becoming a successful business venture. He bought everything he thought could turn a profit—British first editions, rare comic books, old scrolls. He enjoyed not only hunting for rarities, but also haggling for the best prices he could get. He was finding his marriage, however, not so rewarding.
    Upset by the tension the marriage had caused with her father, Annette had become more melancholy than ever, but Van had little sympathy for her emotional state. She was ignoring him just as his mother had ignored him all of his life, and to him that was a betrayal. Instead of comforting his wife, he belittled her, screamed at her, and eventually