“Ah, the prodigal returns,” was his wry greeting as Darla stepped into the shop and headed in his direction. With a deliberate glance at his watch, he added, “I was beginning to fear that you and Ms. Martelli had been abducted by aliens—or, even worse, by one of those Russian gangs I have been reading about in the newspapers.”
“One of the perks of being the owner,” Darla cheerfully replied. “I can drag my butt in a few minutes late, and no one can fire me.”
“That may well be, but such disregard for scheduled break times does set a poor example for the other employees.”
Since James was, for the moment, her only employee, Darla shrugged off the criticism. Instead, she asked, “Were you able to work out the price with Mr. Sanderson on that signed Hemingway while I was gone?”
“A thousand here, a thousand there, and we finally came to an agreement,” he replied with a casual wave, going on to name a dollar amount that made her gulp. While she mentally tallied their profit, James added, “As soon as we have confirmation of his bank transfer, I will have the book couriered to him.”
Darla nodded. Book lover though she was, she still could never see paying five figures for a volume to stick on the shelf, no matter that it was rare or that it had been autographed by a long-deceased popular author. And it took every bit of effort she could muster to put up a similar cash outlay on speculative rare book purchases, even knowing that James had never failed to resell any such purchase for a respectable profit. But in a down economy, Darla felt it her duty to take advantage of those wealthier sorts who weren’t feeling the pinch like the rest of the common folk, and wouldn’t let a thing like pesky double-digit unemployment hold them back from making luxury purchases.
“Good work,” she said sincerely, adding with a rueful smile, “At least we won’t have to sell the china to pay the electric bill this month. What else did I miss?”
“Your one-thirty interview arrived a bit early. I took the liberty of sending the young man upstairs to fill out the application and told him to stay put until his appointed time.”
“You left him upstairs? Alone?” Faint tingles of alarm began racing up her spine. “What about Hamlet?”
“I saw no sign of him in the lounge, or down here, for that matter. Besides, you assured me before you left that he was safely secured in your apartment.”
“I did, and he was,” Darla replied, grabbing up the folder that held resumes and her notes on the various candidates. “But you know Hamlet. I’m coming to believe that he has all sorts of secret little cat passages throughout the building that let him sneak around wherever he wants to go.”
Leaving James to hold down the fort downstairs, Darla rushed up the steps to the second floor, keeping in mind another of Hamlet’s tricks: flying up the stairs and zipping between some unwitting climber’s feet—usually, Darla’s. Agile as he was, and lucky as Darla apparently was, he’d never yet tripped her; still, she was waiting for the day when his impeccable feline timing was off a second or two. The result would not be pretty.
But her greater concern at the moment was that Mr. Fur-covered Land Shark might have decided to seek out yet another hapless would-be employee to terrorize. No way could she let this happen. She’d had enough cat mayhem for one day.
Panting slightly, she reached the top step and discovered to her relief that the lounge area was free of marauding felines. At the round table that usually held a pile of advance reader copies for employee perusal, a young man was bent over a clipboard, scribbling away at an awkward angle. An empty candy wrapper lay on the table in front of him; obviously, filling out forms was hunger-inducing work.
From what she could see of the youth, huddled as he was over his paperwork, he couldn’t be much older than eighteen or nineteen. Younger than she’d hoped to find, but at that age he’d be more likely to accept the salary she could offer. Besides, it would be useful to have a strong young man to haul boxes around the store. James was nearing retirement age, and she felt guilty every time he wrestled cartons on delivery days. Heck, her own back had developed a twinge