“I’m surprised to see you,” Brian McDonald said cautiously, allowing the visitor to enter his home. “You know I sell books, but it’s by appointment only.”
“I remember, but I must have that book, not just a copy or a reprint, I want the original, and I want it right away.”
“Really? Well, I’m just surprised, that’s all. You know it’s pricey. So you like Jim Thompson?”
“I like him—his work, I mean. But mainly I want it because it is a book that my father had in his collection years ago. It was one of his favorites. So, I want it back now.”
“Well, that’s nice, I’m sure. Do you have the money?’
“Of course.”
“Then come in. Let’s go upstairs to my office.”
“You have the book here?”
“Of course. Now and on Earth by Jim Thompson, Modern Age, 1942, the first edition in hardcover and jacket of the author’s first book. ‘Near Fine’ in a ‘Near Fine’ dust jacket. A prize piece, and a cornerstone for any serious Thompson collector, or collector of noir and hard-boiled crime. So, you collect Thompson?”
“In my own way.”
McDonald shrugged, “Well, I want $25,000 for it. Do you have the cash with you?”
“Yes, but that’s much too much, I’m sure you’ll take a flat $20,000 cash.”
“No, I don’t think so. As I told you, $25,000 is my firm price.”
“No, I think you will see it my way, for old time‘s sake. I can give you $20,000 cash right now. I have 200 one-hundred dollar bills. See?”
McDonald was silent looking at the cash being held up in front of his face. It was a big, fat pile of hundreds. Was his mouth actually watering?
“I told you, $25,000 is my firm price.”
“Well, then I will walk, and you get nothing.”
“Wait! Okay, okay, $20,000. You’re getting a very good deal.”
“Sure.”
“Come into my office. You can place the money on my desk. Here is the book. Look it over. You like it?”
“Yes, and I’ll take it.”
“Good,” McDonald replied and he pocketed the cash quickly. Then he took out a thick binder and opened it to the section beginning with ‘T’ and began thumbing through it. He looked up at his visitor for just a second and explained, “I just have to write the sale here in my book and take it off my list, then we will be done.”
“Sure, I’ll wait while you finish up.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” Brian McDonald said, now sitting at his desk with the opened book in front of him, his head buried in the record book busy filling in the date and terms of sale.
His customer stood behind him watching patiently.
The bookseller’s full attention was now on the wad of cash in his pocket and in looking up the sale in the book in front of him.
“There’s just one more thing.”
“Eh?” McDonald asked absently.
“This!”
The silver letter opener that had moments before lain innocently upon the desk was plunged full-force into the top of Brian McDonald’s back. It went in deep and hard with a force and rage unexpected, down into the man’s spine, scraping bone. There was remarkably little blood.
McDonald shook, froze, looked up into the face of his killer and then died instantly. His head fell down onto the desk, but the sales book was not there any longer. The murderer was holding the volume now, while the gleaming silver letter opener stuck out of the bookseller’s back like a shiny beacon of death.
Next, the killer took back the cash and cleaned off McDonald’s desk of all papers, throwing them to the floor carelessly, picking up a thick black marker to write an angry message in bold, fiery block letters upon the desktop.