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The old bookstore was as musty and forgotten as it vast collection of leather-bound books. In the age of e-readers and digital content, bookstores like Quintessence Books were quickly on their way to joining places like the malt shop and the drive-in movie theater in the shitter of history.
What few books stores remained stayed in business mostly dealing in rare books and collectibles. Shit that had value, not because of what was written inside the damn things, but because of some book collecting fetish. By the looks of the bookshelf back at Montavez’s apart, Quintessence Books was just the sort of place she’d frequent. Row after row of dusty, old volumes, smelling of leather and history. A veritable playground of smells and tactile sensations.
Not my kind of join. Still, it had a sort of retro charm, I guess. Like the girl’s apartment. There was something about books that was inescapable.
Constantine was showing his badge and his tablet to the old dear behind the counter, inquiring about the $1200 transaction, as I busied myself looking at the stacks. I didn’t want to scare the old girl, one cop was enough at a time, but I slowly meandered over into earshot.
“...I can look up the transaction in the database, if it would help,” she was saying to Constantine. She was maybe sixty, with white hair and glasses.
“If you don’t mind, it would be of great assistance,” Constantine handed over the tablet. The woman tapped at her keyboard, slowly keying in a multi-digit number into her computer off the portable screen. Eventually, something on the store’s computer met with her approval and her face lit up, eager to help.
“Here it is, yes, March 23rd. $643, $1264 after taxes.”
“What was the transaction for?” Constantine prodded.
“Oh,” she was flustered, looking through her bifocals at the small screen. “A first edition of Dark’s Last Novel.”
I gasped in shock. Constantine gave me a look.
“Dark’s Last Novel?” Constantine asked, confused. “Isn’t that in some sort of code?”
“Yes, this was a first edition, from Dark’s personal printing.”
“$1264 for a book you can’t even read?” Constantine shook his head.
“It has quite a high collector’s value, sir,” the woman said. “Very few copies have survived since the 1960’s.”
“What?” I interrupted. “Why?”
“Well, the Rosicrucians, of course,” the woman said like it was common knowledge.
“Dark’s own people? They buy them all up or something?”
“Yes,” she nodded, smiling. “Bought them all and destroyed them.”
“The Rosicrucians?” Constantine asked.
“Yes.”
“Why would they destroy their own founder’s book?” I added.
The woman shrugged that particular kind of shrug that universally indicated that all human life was unpredictable. “As I understand, there was putsch with the ranks of the Rosicrucians sometime last century. An iconoclastic wing challenged the orthodox hierarchy. Destroying Dark’s novels was all part of their purge.”
“Seriously?” I asked in disbelief.
The book store clerk shrugged again.
“Why would Vivian Montavez spend twelve-hundred bucks on a book?” Constantine hadn’t gotten past that detail.
“You said she emailed her brother that she was in Seattle looking for Q, correct?” I said.
“Yes, but—”
“But there you go,” I gestured to the woman, indicating she should explain.
“Ah yes,” she said rapidly, picking up my thread. “The title of Dark’s Last Novel is unknown. Encoded, like the rest of the text. But it is referred to by many as Quelle, German for the Source, or the Well. It is often abbreviated as Q.”
It took a moment for that information to drip down through Constantine’s NeoCon filter.
“She wasn’t in Seattle looking for Q, the person,” I said, now realizing our trip had been a waste. “She was here in Seattle to buy a lousy book.”