The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

Israel.
    “Hardly,” said Pearce. “You can never have enough trees.”
    “No,” agreed Israel. “They don’t grow on…trees.”
    “Sorry?”
    “They don’t—” began Israel.
    “Just ignore him,” said Ted. “And he shuts up in the end.”
    “Handbook of the soul,” said Pearce. “A tree.”
    “Is it?” said Israel.
    “Of course.”
    “Right. Yes. Probably it is.”
    “Irish oak. Native species. Sorbus aucuparia . Sorbushibernica …I had a friend who grew hurley ash for profit, you know. Nice little business.”
    “Aye, all right,” said Ted. “Let’s get in here for our coffee, Israel, shall we?”
    “Yeah, sure. Pearce, do you want a cup of tea or anything to keep you warm? We’re just going in to Zelda’s here—”
    “No, thanks,” said Pearce. “No time for tea. Work to be done. Planet and what have you…Raging against the…” He hawked up some phlegm and spat it into a polka-dot handkerchief. “Dying of the light.”
    “OK. Good to see you,” said Israel. “Look after yourself, OK?”
    “Aye, you enjoy yourself there,” said Ted.
    “I’ve been measuring my pond at home,” said Pearce.
    “Right ye are, auld fella,” said Ted to Pearce. And “Let’s get in here, my back’s killing me,” he said to Israel.
    “One hundred and two feet,” said Pearce.
    “Very good,” said Israel. “Excellent.”
    Pearce raised the viola and the neckerchiefed dogs stirred at his feet, preparing themselves. “I’ll see you on Sunday, of course?” said Pearce.
    “Yes,” said Israel. “Of course.”
    “Sunday?” said Ted.
    “I visit him sometimes on Sundays.”
    “Very cozy,” said Ted.
    “Sshh,” said Israel.
    “Good,” said Pearce, waving them away with his bow. “Now, no time to chat. Must get on. Bach.”
    “Ing,” said Ted.
    “Sshh!” said Israel.
    “Bloody header,” said Ted, as they walked into Zelda’s.
    “I like him,” said Israel. “He’s my favorite person in the whole of Tumdrum.”
    “Aye,” said Ted. “’Cause he’s not all there, an a big lump trailin’.”
    “What? What does that mean?”
    “He’s as bloody crazy as you are.”

4
    T hey waved good-bye to Pearce playing his viola outside and pushed into the crowds. Even by the usual packed standards of Zelda’s on a Friday morning, Zelda’s was packed: you couldn’t move for the thick fug of car coats, steamed milk, and potpourri.
    “Oh god. What the hell’s happening in here?” said Israel.
    “Busy,” agreed Ted.
    Zelda’s Café was a kind of holding area for the nearly departed, a place where the retired of Tumdrum assembled for coffee and scones before ascending toward the Judgment Seat and the Gate of Heaven; it was a place neither in nor entirely of this world, or certainly not of the world that Israel wished to inhabit; not a world he could ever feel a part of. Itwasn’t that they were bad people, the ever-fragrant coffee-and-scone crowd in Zelda’s. In fact, they were very decent people—sweet, sweet milky coffee ran in their veins, and they were as good-hearted as the glacé cherry in a cherry scone. They just weren’t Israel’s kind of people. And here they all were, gathered together, just about every last one of them: it was as though Zelda’s was staging the worldwide scone and coffee fest. Scoffest.
    “We’ll never get a seat,” said Israel, staring at the heaving throng. “Shall we go somewhere else?”
    “There is nowhere else,” said Ted.
    “Ah,” said Israel. “Yes. You see. There’s the rub.”
    “Give over,” said Ted.
    “Come on, ye, on on in,” said Minnie, bustling over, frilly pinny on, brown cardigan sleeves rolled up. “Plenty of room, gents, plenty of room!”
    “God. Really?” said Israel. “Isn’t it a little—”
    “And none of yer auld language here today, please. We’ve a visitor. Come on on.” She waved them forward and started to lead them through the crowded café, like a guide taking tourists through a souk in