The rain was still pelting down and I was stuck in traffic on one of the little streets below the Theatre District in the old part of Beastburg. I went through a familiar transition from being sorry to leave Jilly and Jazlin behind me to feeling happy to have time to myself. And I faced a day with nothing more onerous than a drive out to Woody Spit. I was really on my own now. If there wasn't a cloud of health concern floating over me I would have said I was positively elated. Plus the pelting rain was a little disturbing.
The traffic wasn't moving and odd city animals were swarming around me on the tiny slips of pavement. Cars honked and my windshield wipers were whipping anxiously back and forth in front of me. Without warning a car parked tight against the curb pulled out just in front of me and I was tempted to honk at him. But then I noticed the sign above the window just behind where he'd been parked. "Mole Brothers Books," the sign said and I remembered the Mufeena Grizzly book I had been reading last night at Ella's. If I wanted to I could zip in and buy myself a copy. I whipped my Jackster into the space and paid for the parking on my teleportal.
Just crossing the pavement to the door got me soaked. The long shop was full of steaming animals hiding out from the rain, many of them standing and watching it pour down out the window. Hiram Mole was at the counter, serving next to an attractive Duck, and he recognized me from years back.
"Mr. Rabbit," he said.
And I said, "Jack."
"Mr. Rabbit," he said again. From time immemorial we always go through this.
"Do you have The Philanthropist Murders by Mufeena Grizzly?"
"I believe we might have it down in the bottom basement," he said, "in the Trash department. I'll lead the way," and he was off like a shot. I followed him down the wide circular staircase, round and round, feeling waves of heat coming up the stairwell from way down in the bottom basement.
Lots of animals hate the lower regions of Bear Brothers but I always feel strangely comforted there. Hiram hurried ahead, weaving past climbing customers, and at the bottom I could see him pulling a ladder across and starting to climb up to the top shelves. His older brother, Vosper, was sitting in a rocking chair by the big coal furnace which dominates the middle of the room, reading. I stopped on the landing to check out the over-sized books arrayed there and noticed a title, "Diseases of the Large Rabbit," and started to pull it from the shelf before thinking better of it. I didn't need to go down that road. The pictures alone would depress me.
"I found it!" called Hiram, and I went down and joined him by his ladder.
"This really is trash," he said, "You won't enjoy it."
"I started it last night," I told him, "and I was getting a lot of pleasure from the mystery of it."
"I really shouldn't tell you," Hiram said, "But the Variegated Fairywren did it," and he gave me his inscrutable Moley smile.
"I'll buy it anyway," I said.
As I got back in my car it struck me that the whole thing was a typical Mole Brothers experience.
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