21st Century Bogatyr: A "Classy" Operation in the District of Columbia

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."

Jorge Luis Borges

This is the thirteenth part of a work of fiction in progress. Links to rest can be found at the bottom of this page.

by Zvi Baranoff

Commuter traffic is always good for providing some cover and I took advantage of it as I snaked my way into the city. I got off the highway and down a backstreet and over a bridge or two and downtown and down an alley to my destination.

It's an old friend's place...well, not quite a friend but... I have known the creep for years and more or less trust him. I pushed the button and talked to him through the monitor. A panel in the wall slid up and I brought my car through. The wall slid back in place behind me.

I felt relatively secure. At least I didn't think that I would be attacked or rolled there. No gangsters or cops were visible. I only had the gonif that I came here to see to be concerned with. He won't outright jack me, I reasoned. It had never come to that before, at least. Nonetheless, I had my handgun in one pocket and a stunner in the other.

I looked around once more to reassure myself. The immediate area seemed safe so I popped the trunk. I unfolded a hand truck and stacked the remaining packages on it. I then locked my vehicle. I mostly trusted the sombitch that I was dealing with, but I trusted him a lot more with my stuff locked up. I took the elevator up to his office.

I had known Monty forever. He came up from the streets. He was a hustler and a go-fer and made a little something out of it all. He started wearing alligator shoes and pinky rings. Now, he insists on being called Montague. I still think of him as a snot-nosed kid with a bad attitude and sticky fingers. All that said, though, he had been buying a lot of product from me over the last few years.

After a few short and meaningless niceties,

the packages are placed on a table. A box cutter materialized and we worked our way through the layers of wrapping.

This would be the moment of truth. If there is mostly quality product here, I cash out. If it is schlock I will end up running all over looking for secondary markets with less discriminating clientele that will buy any crap. Monty has a high end operation and only wanted the top shelf stuff.

It doesn't take me long to gauge the situation but I held my tongue, hoping for the best. The customer is always right, or some such shit. Anyway you slice it, the buyer will make the decision about what they will take before they cut loose any do-re-mi and I am here for the money. I would rather leave here with as much of some sort of exchangeable currency as possible and as little in product as possible as well.

"There's a lot of crap here," he tells me, but of course I already knew that. There are paperbacks and books with broken spines and none of that makes the grade.

He wants leather bound classical literature of the best quality and might settle for less than perfect, but not for half the garbage in this first package we opened. I silently cursed out Marcel for dumping this crap on me.

Shaking my head, I wonder how we ever get to this point? I suppose I saw it coming sooner than most and positioned myself as well as possible for this, but…running the gauntlet and risking prison for a pile of old books!?! Really. Sigh.

When I got into the book business, only people that really liked books were in the trade. There were some shady characters and a lot of flaky operators, but the gangsters weren't involved. There just wasn't enough money in it, when books were legal, to attract mobsters. Now they are everywhere and they sure don't give a shit about the product. Only the cash matters.

Yea. I did see it coming. First, all the prisons distributed free tablets to the prisoners and it didn't take a fortune teller to know that banning books from prisons would soon be the norm.

At the same time, all the schools were phasing out textbooks in exchange for electronic tele-studies. The writing was on the walls and the libraries were soon closing.

Downloaded literature was so very convenient. Next, old fashion books were out of style. Then the marketing of books became suspect and then illegal. The mere possession of printed books was soon a misdemeanor and later a felony.

This fellow has been getting books from me for the last few years, with plans of opening some sort of high class reading room, a real fancy and expensive joint. By that point, I was figuring that it would be lucky if he'd buy a quarter or maybe a third of this shit. Half this load is paperbacks and they are tossed aside, without a glance, sniff or the least of considerations.

Now we actually get down to business. He carefully checks the spines and covers, looking for defects, cracks, broken spines and other obvious faults. I watch as he somewhat expertly separates wheat from chaff. With my years of expertise I notice his mistakes but since they are in my favor, well, no skin off my nose and likely a few more Mexican Pesos in my pocket.

I know that some of the 'leather' covers are that new plant based imitation plastic shit but they have gotten pretty good at making the stuff look realistic. The factories in Mexico are churning out some quality imitation product so if you want the real thing you need to keep your eyes peeled.

The plastic covers were just the tip of what could be wrong. Sometimes they got the wrong cover on a book. Sometimes they came up with lousy translations of classics.

Occasionally the printers will mix up the plates, creating word salads instead of anything anyone would want to read. I saw a few of the fake leather covers move into the maybe pile and I bit my tongue and crossed and uncrossed my fingers.

He settles on about a third of my product. We box up the rest of the schlock which I will now have to haul to Philly and hope to unload mostly at dive book stores operating on the down low with perhaps Mob protection and the occasional police raids. But, that's the next stop and we have to finish up here first.

From the safe comes the crisp Mexican Pesos that are the standard contraband currency of the DC area. We negotiate, calculate, add, subtract, multiply and eventually count out the agreed amount. The book business is complicated because everything about it is criminal. No simple electronic payments. All cash in various foreign scripts with fluctuations of value. Lots of math and I hate math.

The money counted and the contraband stashed back in my locked car, we poured out a couple of tall glasses of fine Tennessee Whiskey. A warm glow replaced the overstimulation of outlaw exchange. Montague might certainly be a poser and a piece of shit, But he had some smooth whiskey.

He was busy trying to ingratiate himself to me and I was doing my best to pretend that I sorta liked him.

"So," he says, "I finally got my place open. I have been operating for the last few weeks. With this load, I should be just about set. But, hey, today, you get to see Monica's Presidential Library," he says with a grin that would put the Cheshire Cat to shame.

I got a sense that even my jaded self might be surprised by what I will see in whatever sort of high class Presidential Library that this lowlife is now operating.

One thing I was pretty sure of was that now that he had his joint up and running, he probably won't be buying very many more books. I was going to need to rearrange my operation going forward.

We finished our drinks and he suggested that we take my car across town to see his joint and as much as I didn't want to go, I couldn't come up with a valid sounding excuse to tell him to fuck off so we continued to pretend that we were friends and we went for a drive through our Nation's Capital.

We drove past where the old White House once stood, past the now repurposed Blue House and by the newly renovated Presidential Mansion. We drove through the Museum District and past the Washington-Lee the Lincoln-Davis monuments. We pulled into one of those Deep Parking Bunkers. I secured my vehicle and set the electronic cloaking and we took the elevator back up to the surface level.

We strolled a couple of blocks through the pseudo historic area. The outer appearances of the buildings are meant to be charming so there are brass plates and knockers and marble ramps and elaborate handrails.

We approached one of these quasi historic facades. In the grating of the handrail, if you looked closely, you could see figures holding books. Very subtle. The door had a brass knocker. The brass plate, in decorative cursive lettering read 'Monica's Place'.

Monty knocked and when the bouncer recognized him the door opened for us and we walked into the parlor. The door locked behind us.

The parlor had large, old fashioned sofas, a mahogany bar and dark wood paneling. Well, probably not real wood, mahogany or otherwise, but a pretty high quality imitation. The sign read Welcome to Monica Lewinsky's Presidential Library.

On the sofas were several young women. They all were slightly zoftig brunettes in blue dresses. Monty winked and nodded and grinned moronicly and leaned in my direction. "All fleshies. No robots." He is very proud of his old-fashion whore house. "Nice, huh?" Yea. Whatever.

Monty told one of his Monicas to take special care of me. He assured me that all the costs were covered and everything was on the house. I suppose that I should have felt honored, or some such shit. This particular Monica guided me into the Presidential Library.

We walked down the hall past several identical "library" rooms. They each had shelves filled with leather bound volumes and each had a plush reading chair and an imitation bearskin rug.

It was still early in the day so there were only a few Monicas working their trade in the various libraries. Each room had a door to the hallway and a door that exited the building, so the clientele could discreetly avoid each other after a library visit.

When we got to a room near the end of the hall, I was overcome with a sense of exhaustion. I was tired of this trip, bored with this place, beginning to seriously tire of the book business and my dislike of Monty was shifting closer to the zone of thorough disgust. I dropped into the big cosy chair that was at the center of the room.

Monica sat on the floor and reached toward my belt. I pushed her hand away. "Don't you want to feel Presidential?" she asked.

I put my hand behind her head and slipped my fingers under her hair, checking for the safety switch, but she really was flesh and not a robot. I had to actually talk to her rather than simply disconnect the power source.

I put my hand under her chin and lifted her head slightly so I could see her eyes. She was probably younger than my youngest granddaughter, although it has become hard for me to gauge ages anymore. Almost everyone seems very young to me. I sure did not want her to make me feel "Presidential" or anything like that. Her overtures were making me feel uncomfortable and old and I was already, as I said, feeling very tired.

"Maybe we can do something else," I suggested. "Do you ever look at the books?"

Her eyes widened. "No," she said somewhat hesitantly. "Why would I do that?"

"Well, there might be something here that you would like to read," I suggested. Monica did not respond with words. She gave me a horrifying and accusatory look that cut me to the quick. The look implied that I had suggested some sort of horrendous perversion and that I was a disgusting old man. I sighed and then sighed again.

"Well," I told her, I am just going to sit here and rest for a while. Be a good girl and make yourself comfortable and quietly entertain yourself for a bit, if that is alright." We were surrounded by hundreds of wonderful books and they were being used for props in this very hokey and seriously illegal brothel.

Monica reclined on that fake bearskin rug. She gave me a modicum of space and I closed my eyes briefly.

I heard a soft murmuring or perhaps a low moan and I opened my eyes again. Monica had her legs slightly spread and her hand was moving about under her blue dress. I got out of the chair and stepped over her. I wanted to get a closer look at the books on the shelves.

I moved my hand along those shelves and then I stopped and removed a volume. I opened it and looked through that book briefly and then slipped it into the inner pocket of my jacket. I saw another couple of volumes that I couldn't resist and added them to that pocket as well. Monty will never miss them, and even if he does, well... Fuck him. I'm done with him.

I dropped a three hundred Euro note and a thousand Mexican pesos on the bearskin rug, beside Monica. She smiled slightly. She moaned just a little louder.

I exited the "library". As the door closed, I could no longer hear Monica. Her murmuring was displaced by the humming of delivery drones, autobus shuttles and moving sidewalks. Another day in our Nation's Capital. I headed towards the Parking Bunker.