Calvin Tower shook his hand. “Good handle, pard. Sounds like the footloose hero in a Western novel—the guy who blows into Black Fork, Arizona, cleans up the town, and then travels on. Something by Wayne D. Overholser, maybe. Except you don’t look footloose, Jake. You look like you decided the day was a little too nice to spend in school.”
“Oh … no. We finished up last Friday.” Tower grinned. “Uh-huh. I bet. And you’ve gotta have these two items, huh? It’s sort of funny, what people have to have. Now you—I would have pegged you as a Robert Howard land of kid from the jump, looking for a good deal on one of those nice old Donald M. Grant editions—the ones with the Roy Krenkel paintings. Dripping swords, mighty thews, and Conan the Barbarian hacking his way through the Stygian hordes.”
“That sounds pretty good, actually. These are for . . . uh, for my little brother. It’s his birthday next week.”
Calvin Tower used his thumb to flip his glasses down onto his nose and had a closer look at Jake. “Really? You look like an only child to me. An only child if I ever saw one, enjoying a day of French leave as Mistress May trembles in her green gown just outside the bosky dell of June.” “Come again?”
“Never mind. Spring always puts me in a William Cowper-ish mood. People are weird but interesting, Tex—am I right?”
“I guess so,” Jake said cautiously. He couldn’t decide if he liked this odd man or not.
One of the counter-browsers spun on his stool. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a bartered paperback copy of The Plague in the other. “Quit pulling the kid’s chain and sell him the books, Cal,” he said. “We’ve still got time to finish this game of chess before the end of the world, if you hurry up.” “Hurry is antithetical to my nature,” Cal said, hut he opened Charlie the Choo-Choo and peered at the price pencilled on the flyleaf. “A fairly common book, but this copy’s in unusually fine condition. Little kids usually rack the hell out of the ones they like. I should get twelve dollars for it—” “Goddam thief,” the man who was reading The Plague said, and the other browser laughed. Calvin Tower paid no notice.
“—but I can’t bear to dock you that much on a day like this. Seven bucks and it’s yours. Plus tax, of course. The riddle book you can have for free. Consider it my gift to a boy wise enough to saddle up and light out for the territories on the last real day of spring.”
Jake dug out his wallet and opened it anxiously, afraid he had left the house with only three or four dollars. He was in luck, however. He had a five and three ones. He held the money out to Tower, who folded the bills casually into one pocket and made change out of the other. “Don’t hurry off, Jake. Now that you’re here, come on over to the counter and have a cup of coffee. Your eyes will widen with amazement as I cut Aaron Deepneau’s spavined old Kiev Defense to ribbons.” “Don’t you wish,” said the man who was reading The Plague—Aaron Deepneau, presumably.
“I’d like to, but I can’t. I … there’s someplace I have to be.” “Okay. As long as it’s not back to school.” Jake grinned. “No—not school. That way lies madness.” Tower laughed out loud and flipped his glasses up to the top of his head again. “Not bad! Not bad at all! Maybe the younger generation isn’t going to hell after all, Aaron—what do you think?”
“Oh, they’re going to hell, all right,” Aaron said. “This boy’s just an exception to the rule. Maybe.”
“Don’t mind that cynical old fart,” Calvin Tower said. “Motor on, O Hyperborean Wanderer. I wish I were ten or eleven again, with a beautiful day like this ahead of me.”
“Thanks for the books,” Jake said.
“No problem. That’s what we’re here for. Come on back sometime.” “I’d like to.”
“Well, you know where we are.”
Yes, Jake thought. Now if I only knew where I am.
HE STOPPED JUST OUTSIDE the bookstore and flipped open the riddle book again, this time to page one, where there was a short uncredited introduction. “Riddles are perhaps the oldest of all the games people still play today,” it began. “The gods and goddesses of Greek myth teased each other with riddles, and they were employed as teaching tools in ancient Rome. The Bible contains several good riddles. One of the most famous of these was told by Samson on the day he was married to Delilah: