Given the age of the parchment and the wear-and-tear on the cover, he couldn’t reconcile how “NSFW” would appear at the top of any page in the binding. But he was not going to argue with all the whatever. He wasn’t arguing with anything.
Reaching out, he lifted the Lucite cover off the display case, and though he anticipated resistance, there was none. The protective cube came up like the thing was levitating, and as he went to set the thing aside, it felt light as a feather—
“Fuck,” he muttered on a recoil.
The smell was god-awful. Like a lesser, but without the sweet overtones.
And then he didn’t worry about his nose’s problems.
“No,” he said as he started to read the words. “That’s not what I want. I need something else.”
The Book fluttered, like it was disagreeing with him.
“I’m not looking for . . .” He shook his head. “I’m not looking for love. You’re nuts. I’m actually looking to get rid of a . . . woman.”
He couldn’t say the d-word—
“Don’t move! I have a gun!”
At the sound of the booming male voice, Balz rolled his eyes and turned around, putting his body between his Book and the triplex’s Mr.—who was standing in the archway of the room of shelves, a shiny little poodle-shooter in his doubled-up palms.
Like he’d seen a lot of Roger Moore-era 007 films.
Goddamn it, Balz was so fucking distracted, he’d missed the scent—
“I’m calling the police!”
The Mr. had had a lot of Botox, so his eyebrows were locked in the down position, even though he was panting from shock and super flushed. Guess only the bottom half of his puss was capable of exhibiting surprise. Oh, and those plaid pajamas? Not exactly a vibe if you were trying to be taken seriously as a protector of your happy home.
Rolling his eyes, Balz froze the human where he stood—and then had to wonder if the Mrs. was in res as well. Not that it really mattered.
“Put that thing away, for fuck’s sake,” Balz muttered.
On command, the Mr. lowered the gun and then blinked like he was waiting for further suggestions as to what he needed to be doing.
Glancing back at the Book, Balz frowned. “Lemme ask you something. Where’d you find this thing?”
“It’s a new acquisition.” The Mr. looked around Balz’s body, and the instant his eyes rested on the Book, love poured out of his stare. “I just knew I had to have it. It was like . . . it was destined to be mine.”
As Balz’s dagger hand snuck to his own gun, he told himself to fucking relax. Was he really prepared to shoot this motherfucker over a book—
The Book, he amended.
The Mr. continued: “There’s a rare book dealer here in town. He knows that I buy the unusual, particularly if it has—shall we say, an edge?” The man smiled in an I’m-a-naughty-boy kind of way, those brows moving not in the slightest. Then he dropped his voice and tilted forward. “My seller told me it’s bound in human flesh.”
So much about this sonofabitch made Balz want to kick him in the nuts. On principle.
“So where the hell did it come from?” he demanded of the guy.
“It’s very old.”
“No shit.”
“And it’s written in Hungarian.”
Balz glanced behind himself at the “NSFW.” And all the English words underneath that heading. “No, it’s not.”
The Mr. puffed up his chest. “Are you saying I do not know the first language I learned.”
Pointing at the Book, Balz said, “No, I’m saying that’s English.”
“You, sir, are wrong.” If not for the Botox, there clearly would have been a serious arch over one of those eyeballs. “But as it is my book, I’m not going to argue about it with a stranger.”
“What do you use it for?”
“Use it . . . ?” That stare went hard upper right. Which was what liars did when you got inside their little games. “You don’t use a book like this. It’s for display only.”
“You’re full of shit, but I don’t care about your answer.” At least not to that. “I need to know when you bought it?”
“About two weeks ago. It’s my newest acquisition.”
“Yeah, you already said that. Did the dealer tell you where he or she got it from?”
The Mr. smiled and nodded. “Such a crazy story. Some lowlife brought it into the bookshop and dropped it off. Said he found it in some back alley downtown. He refused to take any money for it—he said, and I’m not sure whether this is true, but he said it told him to bring it to the shop. Can you imagine?”
“How much did you pay for it?”
The Mr. inflated his chest again, like he was used to telling people how much he paid for his shit. ’Cuz he liked making those kinds of reports. “It was in the six figures.”