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“They look like a shampoo advertisement,” Izzy observed. “For Nazis.”
All three of the new arrivals were dressed in gray suits, the men were wearing ties, the daughter a crucifix on a chain around her neck.
“What is he pastor of?” Izzy asked.
“Oh, some crazy, rich Pentecostal church from South Carolina,” the Bookseller said. “They think the special books are the work of the devil and that they should be destroyed. Because the only special book that anyone needs is the Bible.” The Bookseller rolled her eyes. “They’re awful people, but pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things. Unlike some of the other people who’ll be here tonight.”
They watched in silence as the pastor and his progeny were patted down and then directed through the lobby and out of sight beneath the mezzanine.
“Where are they going?” Izzy asked.
“The ballroom,” the Bookseller said. “I’ll do the auction in there. It’s big enough that nobody has to stand too close to anybody else. That’s usually for the best at these things.”
The Bookseller seemed distracted, anxious even, like someone having to tolerate small talk before a job interview.
It had been hours since Izzy had first met her in the lobby of the Ace Hotel. After their meeting the Bookseller had taken them across town to the unspectacular redbrick building on West Twenty-Seventh Street. From out front the place had looked derelict, with graffiti-covered hoarding sealing it off from the street, like it was under some sort of renovation. The Bookseller had escorted them inside through the same small door that Merlin Gillette had just arrived through, and into the gloomy lobby. Izzy had marveled at the space, a cathedral of faded gold and rosewood, black and white carpets, and art deco lettering above the reception desk. Huge mirrors hung on the walls, some of them cracked or the glass missing entirely. It was a forgotten place, a hotel from the past, crumbling in the darkness.
“What is this place?” Izzy had asked, turning a slow circle in the cavernous lobby as the Bookseller had flicked a switch to release a breath of weak electric light into the space.
“It was a hotel once,” the Bookseller had said. “The family that built it lost all their money after the war. They were paying down their debt for decades, keeping this place mothballed in some crazy hope they might reopen it one day. I bought it from them twentyyears ago. It’s useful to have my own place in the city, somewhere off the books.”
The Bookseller had led Izzy and Lund up a grand set of stairs to a large room on the second floor, a space that appeared to have been two rooms knocked into one and then modernized compared to the rest of the property. There were leather couches and a large flat-screen TV, a kitchen, and a bathroom with expensive gray stone tiles and a walk-in shower.
“Wait here,” the Bookseller had said. “There’s food and drink in the kitchen. The place is empty but it’s safe. Feel free to wander around. I don’t care. But don’t leave the building. Not until the auction is over.”
Izzy had slept for a few hours, her dreams a cocktail of forgotten memories and terror and the background noise of the TV program Lund was watching. She’d eaten some noodles that she’d found in the cupboard, and then had grown impatient and restless. So she’d gone for a walk through the hotel, wandering long gloomy corridors through stagnant air where the memory of cigarette smoke and perfume still hung. The plaster on the walls was cracked in places, the stained-glass ornamentation dull and lifeless in the gloom. She opened bedroom doors at random and found variations on a theme of decay and dereliction. There were old worn armchairs and heavy drapes layered with dust, glass ashtrays with ancient cigarette butts, now curled up and desiccated. Some rooms had beds, some were empty. In some the carpets had been lifted and the drapes removed, leaving a dusty wooden shell, while others appeared almost frozen in time.
After walking aimlessly for a while, Izzy had crossed the staircase the Bookseller had led them up earlier that day, the column of empty space flooded with light from the glass skylights high above, and had arrived at the mezzanine level and the bar. It was a large space, with armchairs and tables so dated they were almost fashionable again, and the bar was long and wooden, off to the side, with a display of bottles on the wall behind. Glass ashtrays were piled up on one corner of the bar, as if they had been collected in one evening and then left there ever since. To Izzy they looked like some sort of scale model of a futuristic building an expensive architect might produce.
She had been exploring the collection of bottles behind the bar when the Bookseller had appeared without her noticing.
“What are you doing?”
Izzy had started in surprise as the Bookseller stared at her.
“I’m bored,” she said. “I took a walk. Why don’t you fix this place up? It would make a fortune.”
“Too much work,” the Bookseller said. She walked over to the balustrade to watch the lobby below.
“More work than finding and selling magic books?” Izzy asked skeptically.
The Bookseller had smiled to herself but said nothing.
Izzy had stood next to her and watched as a group of men in dark suits and wearing weapons in holsters had gathered in the lobby by the front door. One tall man with pale hair and a briefcase in his hand had taken up position behind a table just inside the door, and then Merlin Gillette and his awful children had arrived.
Once the pastor was out of sight Izzy pointed at the tall man with the pale hair and the briefcase, who was waiting by the door. “Who’s that?”
“Elias,” the Bookseller said. “My bookkeeper. All special books are surrendered on entry. Elias looks after them and returns them when people leave. It’s best for everyone. Look, are you sure you don’t want to wait back in your room or something? I’m not looking for company right now.”
“No, I’m fine,” Izzy said.
“It was more of an order than a suggestion.”
“I know,” Izzy replied. “But I’m not your employee.”
The Bookseller sighed in annoyance, and then thumbed over her shoulder to the bar behind them. “Any of that still drinkable?”
Izzy shrugged.
