crates, some plastic, some wood and some cardboard. The shelves themselves were made out of wood or steel and were of varying lengths, creating little alleyways through the stacks at intermittent points like dead ends in a garden maze.
There were also varying numbers of aisles, some abruptly ending, others looking as though they went on forever. There seemed to be no order to any of it—codes on one section of shelves appeared to be alphabetical, while the next set of shelves was divided numerically, or even by date or with some Italian version of the Dewey decimal system.
“This is nuts,” said Holliday. “I used to think the British Library system was a nightmare—this is truly insane.”
“It is confusing,” agreed Sister Meg.
“It looks like there’s elements from every era of the archives’ existence, bits and pieces that were popular at the time. It’s incoherent.”
“Just like Italian politics, from what I understand,” said Sister Meg.
“Don’t go wandering off,” cautioned Holliday. “It would be like getting lost down Alice in Wonderland ’s rabbit hole.”
Sister Meg smiled at the reference.
“ ‘Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’ ” quoted the nun.
“Pardon?” Holliday said.
“It’s from Alice in Wonderland ,” she explained. “The White Rabbit who leads Alice down the rabbit hole.”
“I never read it actually,” confessed Holliday. “I saw it on my friends the Corbett twins’ TV when I was seven or eight. They had the only TV in the neighborhood, color too; a twenty-one-inch RCA Aldrich model. Teddy loved Alice , Artie hated it. They were like that about everything. The only other thing I remember is the Jefferson Airplane song, ‘Feed your head’ and all that.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” chided Sister Meg. “It’s a literary classic.”
Holliday clasped his hands in front of himself, bowed his head and recited the entire Mea Culpa “apologia” in droning Latin.
“Impressive,” said Sister Meg, “and in Latin no less.” She paused. “Although it lacked something in the way of sincerity.”
“I was an altar boy. Have you ever met an altar boy who enjoyed having the priest box his ears when he flubbed his lines?”
“Your experience with the Church wasn’t the best, was it?”
“Nuns who whacked you, priests who whacked you and sometimes worse, various Popes who told you your genitalia would rot if you had premarital sex or masturbated, going to confession and having voyeuristic old men listen to your most private thoughts, and to top it all off, being forced to watch Bishop Sheen instead of Milton Berle on Tuesday nights at eight. Yeah, you might say my experience with the Church was pretty lousy.”
“Nothing more anti-Church than a lapsed Catholic,” sighed the nun.
“Being a lapsed Catholic has nothing to do with it,” snorted Holliday. “I dislike any religion that believes it’s the only true word of God. Catholic, Muslim, Jew and Evangelist alike.” He shook his head. “This isn’t the time for theological discussion. Let’s find the little jerk and get out of here.”
They found him in the N 24 stack under a sign hanging from the ceiling that read simply Navi —Ships. He was sitting on his knees in front of the bottom Z21 shelf looking down at a ledger he’d laid out on the floor, its slipcase neatly put to one side. The young man’s glasses had slipped down onto his nose. If it weren’t for the trickle of blood dripping steadily from his right ear down onto the ledger, everything would have looked quite normal.
Beside Holliday, Sister Meg made a gentle noise in the back of her throat. When she spoke there were tears in her voice.
“The poor boy!” she whispered quietly. “A cerebral hemorrhage?”
“A hatpin,” answered Holliday, who’d seen a wound just like it once before. The ear that time had belonged to a gold smuggler named Valador. “Plastic, so it goes through airport metal
There were also varying numbers of aisles, some abruptly ending, others looking as though they went on forever. There seemed to be no order to any of it—codes on one section of shelves appeared to be alphabetical, while the next set of shelves was divided numerically, or even by date or with some Italian version of the Dewey decimal system.
“This is nuts,” said Holliday. “I used to think the British Library system was a nightmare—this is truly insane.”
“It is confusing,” agreed Sister Meg.
“It looks like there’s elements from every era of the archives’ existence, bits and pieces that were popular at the time. It’s incoherent.”
“Just like Italian politics, from what I understand,” said Sister Meg.
“Don’t go wandering off,” cautioned Holliday. “It would be like getting lost down Alice in Wonderland ’s rabbit hole.”
Sister Meg smiled at the reference.
“ ‘Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’ ” quoted the nun.
“Pardon?” Holliday said.
“It’s from Alice in Wonderland ,” she explained. “The White Rabbit who leads Alice down the rabbit hole.”
“I never read it actually,” confessed Holliday. “I saw it on my friends the Corbett twins’ TV when I was seven or eight. They had the only TV in the neighborhood, color too; a twenty-one-inch RCA Aldrich model. Teddy loved Alice , Artie hated it. They were like that about everything. The only other thing I remember is the Jefferson Airplane song, ‘Feed your head’ and all that.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” chided Sister Meg. “It’s a literary classic.”
Holliday clasped his hands in front of himself, bowed his head and recited the entire Mea Culpa “apologia” in droning Latin.
“Impressive,” said Sister Meg, “and in Latin no less.” She paused. “Although it lacked something in the way of sincerity.”
“I was an altar boy. Have you ever met an altar boy who enjoyed having the priest box his ears when he flubbed his lines?”
“Your experience with the Church wasn’t the best, was it?”
“Nuns who whacked you, priests who whacked you and sometimes worse, various Popes who told you your genitalia would rot if you had premarital sex or masturbated, going to confession and having voyeuristic old men listen to your most private thoughts, and to top it all off, being forced to watch Bishop Sheen instead of Milton Berle on Tuesday nights at eight. Yeah, you might say my experience with the Church was pretty lousy.”
“Nothing more anti-Church than a lapsed Catholic,” sighed the nun.
“Being a lapsed Catholic has nothing to do with it,” snorted Holliday. “I dislike any religion that believes it’s the only true word of God. Catholic, Muslim, Jew and Evangelist alike.” He shook his head. “This isn’t the time for theological discussion. Let’s find the little jerk and get out of here.”
They found him in the N 24 stack under a sign hanging from the ceiling that read simply Navi —Ships. He was sitting on his knees in front of the bottom Z21 shelf looking down at a ledger he’d laid out on the floor, its slipcase neatly put to one side. The young man’s glasses had slipped down onto his nose. If it weren’t for the trickle of blood dripping steadily from his right ear down onto the ledger, everything would have looked quite normal.
Beside Holliday, Sister Meg made a gentle noise in the back of her throat. When she spoke there were tears in her voice.
“The poor boy!” she whispered quietly. “A cerebral hemorrhage?”
“A hatpin,” answered Holliday, who’d seen a wound just like it once before. The ear that time had belonged to a gold smuggler named Valador. “Plastic, so it goes through airport metal
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