Pirate

One

Sam and Remi Fargo weaved their way around the tourists crowding the sidewalk. Once they were through the green pagoda-style gateway of Chinatown, the throng much thinner, Remi checked the map on her cell phone. “I have a feeling we took a wrong turn somewhere.”

“To that restaurant,” Sam replied, removing his revered panama hat. “A tourist trap, if I ever saw one.”

She glanced at her husband, watching as he ran his fingers through his sun-streaked brown hair. He stood over a head taller than Remi, with broad shoulders and an athletic build. “I didn’t hear you complaining when they brought out the moo shu pork.”

“Where did we go wrong?”

“Ordering the Mongolian beef. Definitely a mistake.”

“On the map, Remi.”

She zoomed in, reading the streets. “Perhaps the shortcut through Chinatown wasn’t so short.”

“Maybe if you’d at least tell me where we’re going, I could help?”

“It’s the only part of this trip,” Remi said, “that’s my surprise for you. You haven’t even shared what you have planned.”

“For a reason.” Sam put on his hat, and Remi linked her arm through his while they walked. He’d arranged this trip because their last adventure to the Solomon Islands had not been the hoped-for quiet vacation they’d planned. “I promise you nothing but rest, relaxation, and a week of no one trying to kill us.”

“A whole week of downtime,” she said, sidling closer to him as a cloud drifted over the sun, taking with it all the warmth of the early-September afternoon. “Have we had anything like that in a while?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“There it is,” she said, spying the bookstore. The flaking gold-leafed lettering in the window read Pickering’s Used & Rare Books. “Just to show how very much I appreciate you traipsing all this way with me, I won’t make you come in.” Remi was being facetious. Sam’s late father, a NASA engineer, had collected rare books, and Sam, also an engineer, had inherited that same passion.

He eyed the bookstore, then his wife. “What sort of husband would I be if something happened to you in there?”

“Dangerous things, books.”

“Look what they did to your brain.”

The pair crossed the street to the bookstore. A Siamese cat, resting on a stack of volumes in the window, looked up in disdain when a bell tinkled as Sam opened the door for Remi. The place smelled of musk and old paper, and Remi scanned the shelves, at first seeing nothing but used hardcovers and current paperbacks. She hid her disappointment from Sam, hoping they hadn’t made the trip for nothing.

A gray-haired man, wearing gold spectacles, wandered in from the back, wiping his hands on a dusty cloth. He saw them and smiled. “May I help you find something?”

Sam’s phone rang. He took it from his pocket, telling Remi, “I’ll take it outside.”

“Perfect, since this was meant to be a surprise.”

He stepped out, and Remi waited until the door closed firmly behind him before turning to the proprietor. “Mr. Pickering?”

He nodded.

“I was told you had a copy of The History of Pyrates and Privateers.”

His smile faltered for the barest of instances. “Of course. Right over here.”

Pickering led her to a shelf where several identical volumes of Pyrates and Privateers sat. And while they were clearly reproductions, their faux gold-tooled leather binding gave them the appearance of something that might be found in a library centuries before.

He slid a copy from the shelf, used his cloth to wipe the dust from the top of it, then handed it to her. “How did you know we carried this particular volume?”

She decided to keep it vague — not wanting there to be any hurt feelings now that she knew the book was merely a reproduction. “A woman I work with knew of my husband’s interest in lost artifacts and rare books.” She opened the cover, admiring the detail that gave it an antiqued appearance. “It’s a beautiful copy… Just not what I was hoping for.”

He pushed his spectacles up onto the bridge of his nose. “It’s popular with interior designers. Less emphasis on lost artifacts and more on decorating a coffee table. I do, on occasion, run across old volumes of historical significance. Perhaps your friend meant the Charles Johnson volumes on A General History of Pyrates? That, I do have.”

“As do we. I was hoping for Pyrates and Privateers to round out our collection. My friend, no doubt, confused the two titles.”

“Who did you say referred you here?”

“Bree Marshall.”

“Oh. Well, that’s—” A whoosh of air and the tinkling of the bell seemed to startle him, and he and Remi turned toward the door at the same time. Remi, expecting Sam, saw a much shorter, broad-shouldered man silhouetted against the light from the shop’s window.

The bookseller eyed the man, then smiled at Remi. “Let me get the dust off of it and wrap it for you.” And before she could object, tell him she really had no interest in buying a reproduction, he swept the book from her hands. “I’ll be right back.”

Her friend Bree had clearly misunderstood which book her uncle had in his shop. No matter. It was a beautiful copy and would look nice in Sam’s office. He’d certainly appreciate the sentiment, she decided as she turned to browse the shelves while waiting, spying a copy of Galeazzi’s eighteenth-century music treatise. It appeared to be a first edition, and she couldn’t imagine why it was sitting in a simple locked glass case at the front counter.

“Do you work here?” the man asked.

She turned, caught a glimpse of dark hair, brown eyes, and a square-set jaw, as he moved from the backlighting of the window. “I’m sorry. No. He’s in the back. Wrapping a gift for me.”

He nodded, then walked past the aisle out of sight. When Mr. Pickering emerged from the back room, he walked around the counter to the register. The man stood off to one side, his hands shoved into the pockets of his black leather coat. His presence bothered Remi, though for no reason she could determine except perhaps the way he seemed to be watching their every move — and that he never took his hands from his pockets. She didn’t like it when she couldn’t see someone’s hands.

Mr. Pickering slid her brown paper parcel onto the counter, his gnarled fingers shaking slightly. Nerves or age? she wondered.

“Thank you,” she said. “How much do I owe you?”

“Oh. Right. Forty-nine ninety-five. Plus tax. No charge for the gift wrapping.”

Not quite the wrapping she would have chosen. Aloud, she said, “On the good-news front, it’s definitely less than I’d anticipated.”

“Printed in China,” he said, offering her a nervous smile.

She paid him, then tucked the parcel beneath her arm. The Siamese, on its windowed perch by the door, peered over at her, its tail twitching. Remi reached down and petted it, the cat purring, as she stole a glance at the stranger, who hadn’t moved.

He pulled a gun from his coat pocket and pointed it at them. “Lady, you should’ve left when you had a chance. Keep your hands where I can see them.”