Randall #03 - Sherwood Ltd. by Anne R. Allen

whether a return to good manners might cure the ills of the 21 st century. Our conversation was so easy, I was disappointed when he stopped me after our fifteen minute interview and signed off.
    On the way home, I managed to get in a word between Charlie’s guidebook monologues to ask why Henry said my book wouldn’t be launched until autumn.
    Charlie laughed. “Don’t pay him any mind. The poor chap is completely non compis when he’s working on a book, so we don’t bother him with updates. Once the new Rodd Whippington book has been launched, we’ll have the old Henry back. But for now, just ignore him. Peter’s the managing partner, so I take my orders from him.”
    “So Peter—he will be back?”
    “Dear me, yes. He’s simply helping Jovan Ratko with some family business. Mr. Ratko saved his life, you know, during the Bosnian war. Peter was an RAF pilot. Ratko’s family nursed him back to health after his Tornado was shot down near Mostar. Peter would do anything for him.”
    Peter was a soldier helping a service buddy—not some con man picking up beach bunnies while his friends starved. Not some alleyway murderer: a war hero.
    As we rode back to Swynsby, I felt the day get sunnier; the flowers brighter; the air sweeter.
    And chocolate digestive biscuits—wholegrain cookies iced with rich, dark chocolate—turned out to be pure heaven.

Chapter 23—The Fangs of Sherwood Forest
     
    When we returned to the factory, even the rat hole looked inviting. So did the stack of manuscripts on my desk. Work would pass the time until Peter came back. And he would come back. Charlie had put my mind at rest.
    I picked up the top envelope—a nice thin one, addressed to “Domination Books,” containing the manuscript of something called the Prisoner of Zelda by Dominic Wilde. But after ten pages, I thought I might be sick. I had never imagined so many unpleasant things could be done to a man’s genitalia. If this sort of horror was erotic to anybody, I didn’t want to know about it. I stuffed the pages back in their envelope, wishing I could banish the images from my mind. What had I been thinking? I couldn’t tell good smut from bad smut. It was all icky to me.
    I picked up the next manuscript in the pile—a thick, padded Tyvek envelope with a neatly typed label and the U.S. postmark Henry had dismissed with such scorn. I pulled out the pages—nearly five hundred—the complete manuscript of a hefty book. The title was printed in a Gothic font: Fangs of Sherwood Forest: the Confessions of Maid Marian. The author was somebody named Rosalee Beebee from Buttonwillow, California. It had no cover letter—just a note from Alan Greene asserting that the book would make more money than Harry Potter.
    Peter’s prediction seemed pretty much spot on. The book was written in laughable faux-archaic prose, narrated by a vampire Maid Marian who doubled as a sort of medieval aromatherapist. Her Robin Hood was a werewolf. Her verbs and nouns didn’t just disagree, they engaged in full-on warfare. But I put the manuscript in the “to be read” pile, mostly to keep peace at the pub.
    At around seven o’clock, I ventured upstairs and found the men in the canteen, parked in front of the television, much as they had been the night I arrived. The little dog Much sat between Davey and Tom on one couch and the Professor’s chair was parked near them. Liam worked at the counter, peeling potatoes. A case of beer sat on the floor, with a chipped beer glass next to it, holding a few coins and a five pound note.
    “Beer’s over there, Duchess,” Liam said. “Such as it is. Throw something in the kitty and help yourself. Professor Pardeep bought us groceries this evening, but he’d like us to pay him back what we can.”
    The Professor waved at me, although his eyes remained glued to a televised game of “snooker”—a billiards-like game that seemed to fascinate them all.
    “I apologize for the generic brew,” he said. I