Silver Nitrate(47)

“Where?”

“From the back,” she said, carefully sliding her hand along the spine. “Page seventy-one jumps to seventy-three. There’s no table of contents, so it could be a misprint, but I don’t think so. I think someone gave this book a new binding. Printed 1961, Talleres de Ediciones BE, Doncellas eighty-seven, Mexico City.”

“It’s creepy. Everything about this is creepy.”

“That was the point, wasn’t it? That it might make a good story for Enigma?”

“Only now I wish you’d worked on a piece on UFOs. By the way, you’re not going to turn this whole thing into a video segment, are you? I can’t sit on camera and say what I saw. I’d look crazy.”

“No, I won’t make you do that.”

She shook her head, closed the book, and he was certain she’d depart any minute now.

“Let me get you a soda,” he said. “Or a coffee.”

He made a much better coffee than the abomination Montserrat had served him at her place. He had real beans, for one, and his mother had made sure, like any good Lebanese boy, he could make a decent cup. Anytime someone came to visit you had to serve proper coffee. Tristán still kept the rakweh his mother had gifted him before his father changed jobs and his family moved back up north. They’d wanted him to go with them, too, worried that his acting career was turning from a side gig into a full-blown profession—his father didn’t quite approve of showbiz as a vocation—but by then it was too late. Tristán was determined to be a performer, and all talk of going to university and studying for a career fell on deaf ears. Even nowadays, when Tristán phoned his mother, she sometimes mentioned that one of his uncles might employ him at his furniture shop.

“I don’t want coffee.”

He was already halfway to the kitchen but paused to turn and look at her. He didn’t know what Montserrat saw in his eyes, but her expression softened. She nodded.

“One cup.”

Tristán, who had been kneading his hands together, now smiled brightly. He tried not to glance at the clock on the wall, for it would show the hour and the inevitable fact that sooner or later she’d go home, and it would be night outside, and he’d be utterly alone and helpless, with only a candle to keep him safe.





11


“What I’m interested in is occult doctrines and occult sciences in 1930s and 1940s Germany,” Montserrat said, quickly glancing at the notes she’d jotted down and adjusting the telephone against her ear. “It’s for a possible gig with a TV show.”

“I’m surprised to hear that. I thought you were married to audio,” Regina said.

“It’s not paying that well these days. Besides, it’s merely a possible gig. Nothing final. Anyway, would you know any books that would be useful? I don’t mean half-researched junk but some stuff with teeth.”

“It’s not exactly a common subject. Can I call you back in a bit?”

“A bit like an hour or a bit like a few weeks? Because I’d rather have it be an hour.”

“Are you in a rush?”

“Tick tock,” Montserrat said.

“Okay, fine. An hour. Call me back.”

Montserrat called at an hour and ten minutes, and Regina answered at the third ring.

“I got two books to recommend to you. Do you have pen and paper?”

“Sure.”

“The first one…oh, honey, no, I’m on the phone.”

Montserrat heard an exchange of muffled words, as if Regina had pressed a hand against the receiver. In the background was the sound of a record player. Regina was living with someone new. It neither surprised Montserrat—it had been two years, after all—nor filled her with jealousy. She felt only that vague curiosity she sometimes had about other people. She had never lived with anyone. She couldn’t stand the thought of having to surrender her movie posters to the tastes of a lover, or having to engage in the domestic compromises such relationships entailed.

Idly she ran a hand down the spiral of her notebook until Regina finally spoke again and indicated the titles of two books. Before she hung up, they made a brief exchange of goodbyes and promises to meet for coffee that Montserrat did not intend to keep. She’d have to make a trek to the used bookstores at Donceles and see if anyone carried them. Otherwise, she could try Gandhi, but that might be more expensive. She grabbed the Yellow Pages, made a few phone calls, and found a store that said they had the two history books she was looking for. She asked the woman on the phone to put them aside for her.

The trip downtown was quick, and she sprinted up the stairs to the second floor of the bookshop. It was a stuffy, small business that was packed with books from top to bottom. Books in piles, books on shelves, books occupying chairs. The cash register looked ancient, but the girl behind the counter was in her twenties, with a Walkman clipped to her jeans and her hair painted a glossy black. Her eyes were lined with kohl.

“I called about a few books, Golden Dawn and all that stuff,” Montserrat said.

“Yes, right. Let’s see: Aleister Crowley. Wow, that dude was nuts.”

“You know much about these magician types?”

“A little, I guess. I read this one,” the girl said, looking at the back of one of the books and looking for a sticker. “It was creepy. Do you like scary stories?”