Free The Most Frightening Story Ever Told by Philip Kerr Page A

“Now I really am going. Before I barf.”
    She went out of the shop even as two customers came toward Billy from opposite ends. One was Miss Danvers and the other was Mr. Stoker. Each of them was carrying a book and it seemed clear to Billy that he was about to make his first two sales.
    Mr. Stoker, a tall man with a beard, arrived first. He wore a suit that seemed almost too large for him and a tie with little golden symbols on the dark silk. He was also very polite and insisted that Billy should serve the lady first, and Billy took this to mean Miss Danvers.
    Miss Danvers was wearing the same dark green leather coat. Underneath it she wore a black dress with a little white collar that made her look a bit like a nun. She handed Billy a copy of
Rigor Mortis: 19
by Esteban Rex and a fifty-dollar bill to cover the $39.99 price.
    Carefully, Billy pressed the fifty-dollar key on the register and narrowly missed being struck by the drawer. He put the fifty-dollar bill in the tray for large notes and took out the customer’s change.
    “Would you like a paper bag?” he asked her politely. “For your book?”
    Miss Danvers let out a weary sigh. “Do I look like someone who would want a paper bag?” she asked Billy.
    “I don’t know,” said Billy.
    “The green coat should tell you something, boy,” she said coldly. “I’m
green.
”
    “Oh,” said Billy, still none the wiser.
    “All bags and packaging in shops have a cost to the environment,” she said. “Didn’t you know that?”
    “Er, yes,” said Billy.
    “Just think of all the trees we can save if we don’t have paper bags,” said Miss Danvers.
    Billy nodded and then looked uncertainly at the book she had just bought. This was eight hundred pages long. A real blockbuster, thought Billy.
    Mr. Stoker seemed to guess what Billy was thinking and said, “Ah yes, but think how many trees might be saved if Esteban Rex never wrote another book.” He chuckled. “That really would save some trees. Not to mention one’s arms. Esteban Rex must write the heaviest books in the world. Don’t you think so, Billy?”
    Without thinking, Billy agreed with Mr. Stoker, which seemed to make Miss Danvers very cross indeed because she snatched up her book and her ten dollars and one cent change and said, “Well, really. I can go somewhere else and be insulted, you know.”
    Billy had no idea what this meant and watched her leaving the shop with horror.
    “What did I say?” he asked Mr. Stoker.
    “Oh, forget about her,” said Mr. Stoker. “She’s always been a bit touchy.”
    He handed Billy his purchases: a copy of Deacon Wordz’s book
Sick Schloss,
and
On Legs of Lightning
by Phyllis P. T. Barnum.
    Billy didn’t think much of either of them, but of course he was too polite to tell Mr. Stoker. Besides, that wouldn’t have been good business. He’d noticed that whenever Mr. Rapscallion sold a book, he always said how good it was even when Billy knew Mr. Rapscallion thought that the book wasn’t very good at all. In the beginning he thought that this was dishonest, until Mr. Rapscallion had told him that the first principle of running a shop was that “the customer is always right.”
    “What, even when he’s wrong?”
    Mr. Rapscallion had shaken his head. “The customer is never wrong,” he said.
    “Yes, but what if he is?” asked Billy.
    But Mr. Rapscallion had just kept on shaking his head. “It’s the trading policy of all good shops that they should always put the customer first in all situations. And that includes a situation when he’s talking out of his hat.”
    “So what if the customer wanted
Sick Schloss
but insisted that it had been written by Esteban Rex?” Billy had asked Mr. Rapscallion. “Then what do you do?”
    “You do what you can,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “You do what you can without making the lunkheaded customer feel small or stupid.”
    “And if they are small or stupid?” Billy had asked him. “What then?”
    Mr.