The Final Twist by Jeffery Deaver (free ebooks romance novels txt) 📕

of years. He walked to a case in which were fountain pens, holders and nibs, even quills. Antique notebooks too, early-era versions of the one he’d used in his meeting with Maria Vasquez in the reward job to find Tessy.

The man hung up and joined him.

“Hi.”

Shaw nodded. The shop was Dickensian, to be sure, but the clerk wasn’t Oliver or Pip. His stylish hair was moussed up, he bore an earring, and if his white shirt, floral tie and black slacks had been purchased with proceeds from the shop, then the antiquarian book business was doing exceedingly well.

“You interested in anything in the case?” He produced a key.

“I might be. But first, I’m interested in framing.”

From his backpack he extracted a manila folder. Inside was a sketch he had drawn of Sierra Nevada mountain peaks as seen from Echo Ridge. He’d inherited his father’s penmanship and skills at cartography, so he was not a bad artist.

Donning white cloth gloves, the man picked it up. “Not bad.”

He turned it over, glancing at the typewritten words on the back.

In the matter of the Voting Tally in the Twelfth Congressional District, regarding Proposition 06, being a referendum put before the People of the State, I, the Right Honorable Selmer P. Clarke, Superior Court, do find as a matter of fact the following:

“Oh, that’s nothing. Some scrap paper my father found at work and did the sketch on.”

The Maybe-Davis turned it over without finishing the earth-shattering words.

He then took a loupe and examined the sheet. Finally he set it down. “You want it framed but also protected.”

“Do I?”

“Of course you do. Now, before the mid–eighteen hundreds, most paper was made from cloth, usually by mechanical means. This meant that the stock was composed of long fibers. It was strong and chemical free. After that, manufacturing shifted to chemical pulping and the use of alum-rosin sizing—that led, of course, to sulfuric acid. Then too you’ve got your nitrogen oxides, formic, acetic, lactic and oxalic acids. Generated by cellulose itself. And, heavens, we haven’t even gotten to pollutants in the air and the water in the factory.”

Shaw took this in, nodding, having no idea what the point of the lecture might be.

“In other words, for framing, I can do some things to protect it but your basic plastic won’t keep it from disintegrating. That would require a complete acid reduction or removal process.”

“How long would I have?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m in a hurry, so if you just mounted it in a normal frame, how long until it disintegrated?”

The young man’s face screwed up, as he prepared to deliver the bad news. A breath. “Your best-case scenario? I’d give it two hundred years.”

Which, Shaw supposed, in the world of antiquarian documents, might be like a doctor looking up from an MRI scan and saying, “You’ll be dead by Tuesday.”

“I’ll go with the plastic.”

“Ah. Well. The customer is always right.”

Though what he was really saying was: It’s your funeral.

51

At 9:15 that evening, Colter Shaw braked the Yamaha to a stop.

He was in the heart of Haight-Ashbury. It was ironic in the extreme that the area, named after two ardent nineteenth-century capitalists, was the birthplace of the Diggers, one of the most successful socialist movements in the history of the country. It was also where hippies first appeared and was ground zero for the Summer of Love in 1967.

A Whole Foods was not far away but the street where Shaw parked didn’t reflect such recent aesthetic and economic enlightenment. Metal shutters as thick with layers of paint as a Leonardo da Vinci canvas were ratcheted down, protecting a tattoo parlor, a nail salon, a bodega and, of all things, what seemed to be an old-fashioned cobbler. A sepia painting of a woman’s buttonhook boot was above the door.

Shaw parked and chained. Then stood and looked up at a huge red-brick building, which was old, and at the painted metal sign on the front, which was new.

The Steelworks

The club was housed in a three-story former factory, constructed of smudged and soiled red brick, in whose walls were set windows that were painted over. As the name explained, it had in the early twentieth century been a steel-fabricating operation.

The only clues as to what was occurring inside were the line of people outside waiting admittance, and the resonating bass beats that assaulted anyone within fifty feet of the building. Colter Shaw looked the place over clinically and decided: pure hell.

In the days when he might have clubbed he was working out for the wrestling team at the University of Michigan, studying for classes, and engaging in orienteering competitions in the Upper Peninsula or camping with one of several equally outdoor-minded girlfriends.

He zipped his leather jacket up, then walked past the crowd to the front door, where a skinny man, lanky and sporting a mop of unruly red hair, sat on a stool.

Some in the queue of about thirty or forty also studied him, with glares. They were mostly in their twenties. The dress code was jeans or cargo pants, sweats, tank tops, faded loafers and boots. Impressive beards, though, unlike Russell’s, they were overly topiaried. Tattoo artists had made thousands of dollars inking and modifying this crowd. Shaw sensed bathing was not a priority.

He said to the bouncer, “I need to find somebody in there.”

“You gotta wait. We’re at capacity.”

Shaw laughed.

The skinny guy looked at him quizzically.

“No. You’re over capacity. How many fire doors you have?”

Exits are vital to survivalists, fire exits in particular. The odds of having to escape from murderers, terrorists, kidnappers or black bears were infinitely small. Fleeing a tall wave of speedy, thousand-degree flames, however, was well within the realm of possibility.

“The hell are you?”

“I won’t be long.” Shaw started inside. The man who was next in line for entrance shouted, “There’s a line here! No budging!” He lunged and went for Shaw’s arm. Shaw stopped and stared. The man froze.

Shaw frowned. “Did you really say ‘budging’?” He