76th & lexington
Okay, so I wrote Suits fic. It's a Notting Hill AU. I'm sorry. I'm an idiot who apparently can only get into fandoms by writing AUs for them (case(s) in point: Inception, TSN, XMen: FC). I want to pretend like this is a legitimate writing technique ("This way I can explore the characters without worrying whether about whether I'm missing any details from canon!") but, uh, actually I just like AUs. A lot.
.76th & lexington
harvey's bookshop isn't doing well, and he really doesn't need this right now. written for this prompt.
r . 12956 words . AO3
Sometimes Harvey has to remind himself that not every bookseller in Manhattan has passed the New York state bar and that may--may--account for why so many of them are sort of sorry and nebbish and terrible at making money. It may also account for the way Specter Books (established 2004) has kicked their sorry asses to Brooklyn and back. The past tense, though, is important here: the Kindle was released in 2007, and somewhere in there Amazon became a disgusting corporate entity that Harvey would prefer not to discuss, because Specter Books was supposed to become a disgusting corporate entity that other booksellers would prefer not to discuss, an upscale, finely curated used bookseller unlike anything the industry had ever seen.
Not that--it’s not just that. Harvey does care about the books, which was why he didn’t think ereaders would make it off the ground. It was his only miscalculation, but it had proven to be a significant one. Significant enough that he had to be in the shop most days, because no one else was as good at closing a sale as he was. Harvey could read people like the books he sold, and if things were a little tight, well--Harvey was still goddamn good.
Which did not do much good when the store was empty. It was an empty time of day, but Harvey still found himself beating a pen against the counter when he should have been reviewing the accounts. Lately the accounts had gotten a little tighter than was comfortable, which would get Jessica on his back about her investment, like she didn’t trust him or something. And if he brought up that, she’d squint her eyes, tilt her head, and tell him she didn’t trust him further than she could throw him.
“And yet,” he would reply.
It was a conversation they had a little too frequently for comfort. Jessica wouldn’t pull out--she couldn’t, he had too much dirt on her for that--but it usually ended with him trying to sell the copy of the unabridged O.E.D. he kept in the back to one of his old Harvard Law professors. It wasn’t even worth that much in a shop where first editions passed through regularly, but somewhere in Harvey’s head selling that copy of the O.E.D. would solve all his financial woes. The thirteen volume set was like a bad luck talisman.
Not that Harvey Specter is superstitious in the least.
But still, he’d like to sell that damn dictionary. Preferably to a pretentious old fart, and for more than it’s worth.
For now he settles for staring at the door like it’s a pot that will never, ever boil and tapping his pen (Waterman, thank you, even though he is a poor bookseller he is still a poor bookseller in New York City, and he enjoys the finer things in life, &c.) against the counter.
And then someone’s at the door, and someone’s pushing it in, and there he is: a customer, at nine twenty in the morning on a Saturday. Astonishing. Most of the city would still be asleep now. Or at brunch.
Harvey ignores the guy--kid, really--because he seems like the type who wants to be ignored. He’s wearing aviators, a blue baseball cap pulled low on his forehead. Blond, scrawny, with the body language of someone who wants to browse undisturbed. A teenager comes in, after, skulking to the back where the comics are. Potential customer, or thief; either way, it’s enough to send Harvey back to his accounts. Donna will be in in a few hours or whenever she feels like it, and if things aren’t in order she’ll give him hell. Even if, technically, the accounts were what he hired her for.
Well, that and the fact that by the time she finished graduate school, she knew more about the stock than he did. It would’ve been a crime not to hire her.
A hand slides across the counter, interrupting Harvey’s work. It’s the blond--he’s hooked the sunglasses over the collar of his shirt, revealing startling blue eyes.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Incidental piece of information here, but there’s a kid in the back trying to stuff an issue of Aquaman down his pants.”
“Seriously?” Harvey asks, getting to his feet. “Did you see which one?--no, of course you didn’t.”
“Twenty,” the kid interjects.
“Not even worth it,” Harvey sighs. “Crap condition, only bought it because it was part of a good lot. Also, Aquaman?”
“So you’re just going to--?”
“Not worth it to get the book out of his pants, I mean,” Harvey says and heads to the back of the shop as the blond trails after him. He coughs slightly when he comes up behind the teenager, who already looks so guilty that Harvey has a hard time believing he would have been physically capable of leaving the store, even if he hadn’t been spotted.
“So,” he says, and lets the word hang there for a few beats. “I imagine you know how small business owners feel about shoplifters. But I’m a little surprised--and disappointed--that your fellow denizens of the wrong side of the law didn’t tell you why they don’t usually steal from my fine establishment.”
This kid--that’s really what he is, younger than he looked when he first came in--Harvey refuses to feel bad for him, but he kind of looks like he’s going to piss himself.
“Because I can make sure you get fucked six ways to Sunday,” he continues. “Which is something you might want to consider before you try to pull this shit again.”
The kid bolts, and Harvey shrugs his shoulders to crack his back. Intimidating shoplifters makes him more tense than it used to.
“I think that kid pissed himself,” comes a voice from behind him, unimpressed but amused.
“And now that issue of Aquaman is worth even less,” Harvey says, and the blond laughs outright. Some idle, stupid part of Harvey’s mind characterizes it as a nice laugh, like that means something. Like that’s something he’d think. Because he wouldn’t.
“So,” Harvey says. “Should I be checking your pants, too?”
It sounded less dirty in his head, but the other man barely quirks a brow.
“Looking for something specific, actually, and I’m not sure it would fit,” he says. “You wouldn’t happen to have a 1933 Oxford English Dictionary, would you?”
Harvey exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding, probably because he’s been holding it for the past eight years.
“All thirteen volumes,” he says.
The guy--kid, because he seems younger than he actually is--talks him down, probably further down than Harvey should let him, but the dictionary is off his hands either way. The kid himself seems to enjoy the haggling so much that Harvey can’t quite bring himself to stop. There’s something to be said for arguing with somone who actually enjoys it. When Donna arrives Harvey’s wrapping it up, folding crisp corners in brown paper and tying the whole thing with twine. It’s a Specter Books signature. Might as well send off the damned thing in style. Donna slips in when he’s on volume eleven, pushing the door open with her back so she can balance two coffee cups and an outsize purse.
“Donna,” Harvey says, gesturing to the pile of books. “We made a sale.”
“And quite a sale, at that,” she sighs, meeting his eyes and grinning slightly. “I have coffee.”
“I see that,” Harvey says, and Donna slides behind the counter to join him, setting the cups down. She glances up at the kid--the one who bought the dictionary--and something flickers across her face momentarily, recognition or surprise. Harvey quirks an eyebrow at her, but she doesn’t acknowledge him, just slips one of the coffees in his direction.
“Is there a coffee shop around here you’d recommend?” the kid asks, watching them. “I’m new in town, and--”
“These are just from the cart on the corner, kid,” Harvey says. “There’s a Starfucks, down the street.”
“Harvey doesn’t like franchises,” Donna interjects, almost apologetically, which is very apologetic, for Donna.
“So it would seem,” the kid replies, as Harvey begins to wrap the last volume. “Look, is it okay if I come back here. I--”
He sounds uncomfortable. Harvey looks up at him, slightly exasperated.
“It’s a shop,” he says. “You’re a customer. Come back whenever you want, as long as ‘whenever’ falls within the opening hours listed on the door. Which are--”
“Right,” the kid says, and his voice has suddenly gone uncannily calm, any residual discomfort gone.
Harvey slides the dictionary across the counter, and looks up to meet the kid’s gaze. To inspect him, if Harvey’s honest with himself, because this entire exchange has been a little off kilter and Harvey can’t quite get a handle on what’s happening, and usually he has a handle on everything.
“Thank you for your purchase,” he says evenly. “Come back soon.”
“Do you know who that was?” Donna asks as soon as the door swings shut behind the blond.
“The person who would finally take that godforsaken O.E.D. off my hands?” Harvey asks. “I thought he’d be older.”
“Mike Ross,” Donna says.
“You know his name,” Harvey says. “He paid cash.”
“Mike Ross, Harvey,” Donna says. “You’ve heard of Mike Ross. I know you have. You went to see ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ with me.”
“And it was awful. Salinger was doing cartwheels in his grave.”
“Mike Ross was Holden Caulfield,” Donna hisses.
“Huh,” Harvey says. “Well, he was awful. Skulking around all over the place. Whining about phonies.”
“That’s what Holden Caulfield does,” Donna says. “Honestly, you own a bookshop.”
“This has been enlightening,” Harvey says. “Next time he comes in, I’ll ask him how Phoebe’s been.”
“Please don’t,” Donna says. “He’s a rising star. Please don’t go out of your way to offend him just because you have a bizarre grudge against everyone who is not--”
“Not what, Donna?” Harvey asks. “This is interesting. Please continue.”
“I would if you didn’t interrupt me,” she gripes. “Everyone who is not suitably intellectual.”
“Don’t say that like it’s a dirty word,” Harvey mutters. “It does make me wonder why he bought the dictionary, though.”
“You’re a snob,” Donna says. “Admit it. You’re worrying that a movie star is going to sully your image.”
“Is he a movie star?” Harvey asks. “Fuck.”
Because he wants more business, but not that kind of business, people who trail after movie stars and stuff issues of Aquaman down their pants, paparazzi and reporters from gossip magazines pawing through his wares with so many unwashed hands.
He forgets about the whole thing once the shop fills up with the usual clientele, and he puts on his sale face and sells things, damnit, and it’s a good day, as far as days go, and he sleeps well and doesn’t worry about the accounts, which puts a bit of a spring in his step when he’s approaching the shop the next morning.
The kid, Mike Ross, is there. He slouches around the corner in worn jeans and a t-shirt. He doesn’t look like a movie star--the jeans look like they were cheap, once, and were worn by time and not be some sort of elaborate chemical wash. The t-shirt is so ugly that it’s not even worth discussing. But his eyes are a sharp, bright blue, technicolor in a black and white world, and objectively Harvey could see why someone might want that color committed to film, if film could even capture it.
“Hey,” Mike Ross says, while Harvey unlocks the door.
“Good morning,” Harvey says. He has a coffee in him, but only the one, which is probably not enough because he’s tempted to call this kid out for being a movie star and refusing to pay sticker price on a dictionary. He was in a good mood. He doesn’t need this.
“Look, I didn’t get a chance, yesterday,” Mike is saying. “I’m in movies, right? And I’m doing this one about a book store--”
“Yes,” Harvey says, when he really means is no.
“So I was wondering if I could shadow you or something--”
“No,” Harvey says, when what he really means is no. “No, I do not need someone to shadow me so they can make the next ‘You’ve Got Mail.’”
“It’s more like ‘Notting Hill,’ actually,” Mike says, and Harvey can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a joke or not, because Mike’s mannerisms are strange, all sharp corners and rough edges, like someone who doesn’t know the shape of his own social limbs.
Not like a movie star at all, really.
Harvey has turned on all the lights and settled behind the register before either of them say anything else, and then Mike suddenly spits out a stream of words.
“It’s sort of ‘Fahrenheit 451’ except not at all, but it takes place in a dystopian future and books are gradually being replaced by computers, and the last bookstore on earth becomes the center of a rebel operation--”
“Dystopias are in vogue right now, aren’t they?” Harvey says. “We don’t carry ‘The Hunger Games,’ if you were looking. Also, that movie sounds terrible.”
“So can I shadow you?” Mike asks, and Harvey looks at him again: young, a little soft around the edges, blue-eyed and blond.
“I do not,” Harvey says. “Think shadowing me would contribute in the slightest to preparing you for that role. Is this some sort of Method thing?”
“I’m not Method,” Mike says. “That’s not even what Method is. Look, I just want to get a feel--”
“And I’m telling you,” Harvey replies. “I don’t think this is what you want.”
Mike looks at him, and sighs a little.
“Do you not see what I see?” Mike says. There’s something undergirding his tone now, something a little harder, but he’s speaking so casually, like they’re good friends, that it’s hard to tell. “Because I have a feeling digital booksellers are doing a bit of a number on you right now, and you’re a little resentful of that, and you imagine your shop as a sort of agent of cultural change, enlightening the masses, if they would only come in the door.”
“Is that so?” Harvey asks. “And where do you get that from?”
“You’re wearing a suit,” Mike says, almost flippant. “Yesterday you sold me a 1933 O.E.D. and were clearly far too excited about that. You had all the volumes of the 1933 O.E.D.”
“What did you buy it for, then? Research?”
Mike rocks on his heels a little.
“You really want to know?” he asks. “Because I think we could make a deal.”
Harvey rubs his temples.
“You just pulled some shit story out of your ass, like you were trying to threaten me--”
“I was just making sure we understood each other,” Mike says, and then adds, a little forlornly: “Most people like me.”
Harvey levels him with a stare, that Mike returns with a perversely honest smile, one that breaks across his face like--something.
An egg, maybe. Harvey would pay to see someone break an egg on Mike’s face, actually.
“And now you want to make the most obvious bargain in the history of bargains,” Harvey continues.
“Something along those lines,” Mike says.
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
Mike looks at him.
“So we’ve reached an impasse,” he says, and then the door slams, and Donna is there, handing Harvey is second coffee.
“You are--,” he mutters into the cup. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Donna says, then gives Mike a pointed glance. “Hello again.”
“He was just leaving,” Harvey says.
“Was he?” Donna says, glancing between them.
“What?” Mike says. “No. I’m a customer, right?”
“You’re a customer,” Harvey says. “Of course you are.”
“I think I could use a copy of ‘Fahrenheit 451’,” Mike says as he disappears into the warren of shelves. “Would that be anywhere around here?”
“If you break it, you bought it,” Harvey calls after him.
“Harvey,” Donna says. “Is the movie star bothering you?”
“Yes,” Harvey says, and gives Donna a look that is probably not beseeching, but is intended to mean ‘Make him leave.’
“Want me to call the Post?” Donna asks. “That should do it.”
The coffee jolts Harvey awake, a little, slowly.
“Not the Post,” he groans. “Just call his mother or something. Maybe he has a handler. Don’t actors have handlers?”
He calls into the bowels of the store: “Do you have a handler?”
“No,” echoes back momentarily.
“So,” Donna says. “Why don’t we like him? Because I thought he was quite good in that movie where he was a cross-dressing alien--”
“That’s fascinating,” Harvey tells her. “If he doesn’t buy anything, can we kick him out?”
“Probably,” Donna says idly. “You’re the lawyer. And the owner.”
“He wants to shadow me,” Harvey says. “I don’t have time for this.”
Donna nods like she knew he’d answer her question, eventually.
“He offer you money to do this?” she asks, and Harvey looks at her sharply.
“No,” he says, in a tone that’s intended to both answer her and put a stop to that line of questioning.
Donna inspects her nails.
“Well, I’m sure you’re being reasonable, then,” she says. “I’m sure you have a very good reason for not getting a movie star to pay you to work for you.”
“Yes,” Harvey says. “I don’t have time to train some dilettante. And neither do you. And neither does Rachel.”
“And yet,” Donna sighs. “We have time to discuss this in depth.”
“This is not depth,” Harvey says. “This is the kiddie pool of discussions. We’re dabbling.”
“And yet,” Donna repeats, like she knows something Harvey doesn’t. The kid is still somewhere in the shelves. Harvey should probably tail him and make sure he’s not shoplifting.
“I should probably make sure he’s not shoplifting,” Harvey says.
“He’s a movie star,” Donna says. “He shits money.”
“All the more reason--”
“To check out his ass,” Donna interjects, and Harvey tries to look affronted. He tries hard. He’s pretty sure he pulls it off.
“You’ll check out the ass of anything with legs,” Donna says pointedly. “Don’t make that face. You look constipated.”
“I don’t,” Harvey says, because he doesn’t. Harvey Specter doesn’t even look constipated when he is constipated, and he’s never been constipated in his life.
“Okay,” Donna says, in a tone of voice that suggests she’s only agreeing because she’s no longer interested in this particular discussion.
“You think I should go along with it,” Harvey says, downing the last of his coffee and looking directly at her.
Donna nods succinctly.
“I think you should make him pay you to go along with it,” she says. “I do your accounts, you know.”
“We could use the money,” Harvey echoes. “That’s what Jessica would say.”
“It is,” Donna agrees. She’s fiddling with the pen in front of her, and Harvey can tell she’s trying to make him feel like this is his idea. She’s not doing a good job of it, but even Harvey can tell when an idea that’s not his is good. He nods, and Harvey can see Donna’s lips quirk a little like she knows what that means.
But Harvey is going to wait for the kid to come to him. He browses eBay, looking for gold where there almost certainly won’t be any, until Mike Ross returns to the counter. He’s running one hand through his hair, ruffling it ridiculously. Harvey had thought that was some Hollywood thing--styled so as to look like it hadn’t been--but apparently that’s just his hair. It irks Harvey for reasons he would prefer not to examine.
“Buying anything?” Harvey asks, and Mike sidles up to the counter.
“I don’t think that’s how you make a sale.”
“It’s not,” Donna says, looking at Harvey like she would reprimand this behaviour. Harvey recognizes his own petulance, but can’t quite bring himself to care.
“Well,” Harvey says, shifting his elbows up to the countertop. “If you were thinking your purchase might depend on what we were selling, I might have an offer.”
Mike’s lips quirk infinitesimally, and one eyebrow goes up.
“You can shadow me,” Harvey says. “You can also pay for the privilege, and keep quite about. I don’t want any paparazzi, or publicity stunts, or shit like that.”
“And I should not go somewhere else because--”
“When I’m on, I’m the best,” Harvey says.
For some reason (probably because it’s true), Mike believes him.
Page Six: Mike Ross was spotted purchasing coffee from a cart at the corner of Park Avenue & 76th St. The ‘From Mars’ star, reportedly in the city to work on a new project, was slumming it in aviators and jeans. - The New York Post
The only thing Mike has going for him is that he shows up on time.
Harvey told Mike to wear a suit to work, if working is what he planned to do. Instead, he shows up in--something.
“That tie,” Harvey says, staring at it pointedly. “My dick is wider than that tie.”
“That’s nice,” Mike says, unruffled. Harvey unlocks the door, and the two of them go in--Mike hangs his messenger back on the coat rack behind the counter and then stands there so silently that Harvey has to rattle onwards.
“Also, is that suit even yours? Did you steal it off a vagrant? Because it doesn’t fit like it belongs to you.”
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Mike says. He seems almost blissfully unaware of what Harvey is actually saying which doesn’t bode well for their working relationship, let alone anything resembling friendship.
“Are you high?” Harvey asks. “What did I just say?”
Mike pauses, and suddenly his eyes are on Harvey, canny and sharp.
“Also, is that suit even yours?” Mike mimics back. “Did you steal it off a vagrant? Because it doesn’t fit like it belongs to you.”
“Right,” Harvey says. “The question still stands. Don’t you Hollywood types have stylists?”
“For red carpet appearances,” Mike says. “But I usually just wear whatever someone sends me first.”
“Do you even get them tailored?” Harvey asks, trying not to sound aghast.
“No,” Mike says. “They know my size.”
“You show up for red carpet appearances in off the rack suits?” Harvey asks. “What happened to Clark Gable? Cary Grant?”
“Gable died fifty-two years ago,” Mike says. “Grant was twenty-six years ago.”
“Rhetorical question,” Harvey says. “Which you answered with useless trivia.”
“Okay,” Mike says, then goes back to the counter and runs his hands across the wood, like he did that first day when he told Harvey about the kid, with the Aquaman comic.
“It’s redwood,” Harvey offers, nodding to the counter. They had had the counter brought in specially when they renovated the space, straight from California and then varnished to high gloss, leaving all the whorls of the wood visible. It runs the length of the store, and they keep the real gems, first editions that haven’t been foxed, color plates that haven’t been scribbled on, behind it, on a series of clear glass shelves. It’s a good match of classic and modern, Harvey thinks, and makes the point that even a used bookseller can be new and--dare he say it?--cutting edge.
“It’s beautiful,” Mike says. He lets his fingers trip down the surface again, like he can’t bear to stop touching it, and Harvey just--watches--his hands, for the few blinking moments before Donna comes in the door, carrying a caddy with four cups. It’s Monday, which is not a particularly busy day, but Harvey had scheduled Rachel so she could train Mike, because Harvey Specter does not stoop himself to training.
“Good morning!” she says. “You’re on time.”
Harvey knows she’s talking to Mike, but replies anyway: “As always. And you’re late, as always.”
“The party don’t start until I walk in,” she says, deadpan, as she distributes coffee cups.
“Did you brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack this morning?” Mike asks, and Donna laughs.
“He’s quick,” she says, sliding behind the counter. “I like him. There’s sugar and creamer in the fridge here.”
Harvey doesn’t say ‘well that makes one of us’ because he’s still not entirely certain why he doesn’t like Mike, and he doesn’t want to have that conversation with Donna. Not yet; probably not ever. Mike shakes his head, because apparently he takes his coffee black, which is the way a person should take his coffee.
Harvey should like him.
“Rachel will be in soon,” Harvey says. “She’ll be training you.”
“Why?” MIke asks.
“Because she’s good at training people,” Harvey says.
“Because Harvey was a colicky child,” Donna says, and Mike looks like he’s going to say something, and Harvey is just about to spit out a clever comeback, but then Rachel’s coming through the door, taking her coffee from Donna and dumping a significant volume of milk and sugar into it, introducing herself to Mike in a whirlwind.
“Just so you know,” she says, narrowing her eyes when he holds her hand for a second too long. “I don’t care who you know, I don’t want to get to Hollywood, and I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“Funny, that’s what I said when I met Clooney,” Mike says.
“And no name dropping,” Rachel says. “Do I have to tell you everything?”
Harvey likes Rachel. He should give her a raise.
“Can we give her a raise?” Harvey asks Donna as the pair disappears into the stacks.
“Probably not,” Donna says.
“Take it out of what the kid is paying us,” Harvey says, and Donna arches an eyebrow at him.
“What?” he asks. “Just some of it. It’s only fair, if she has to put up with him. A ‘tolerating movie stars’ bonus.”
“I think you’re getting soft in your old age,” Donna says.
“I think--” Harvey starts, and then he remembers not to finish that sentence, because Donna’s age is off limits if he wants to keep his balls. “You’re a wonderful person,” he concludes, instead.
“I can hurt you,” Donna replies, preening slightly.
They’re good friends, really. It happens.
Harvey has an estate sale to get to and he leaves Donna in charge (not that there’s anyone else he would leave anyone else in charge--maybe Rachel, in a pinch, but not when Donna’s there). Ray is waiting for him, his taxi gleaming as usual, and as soon as Harvey’s in the cab they’re heading to the Bronx.
“So Donna says you’ve got a movie star working for you,” Ray says.
“Donna needs to stop gossiping,” Harvey replies. “But yes, we do.”
Ray hums a little, as if to himself, and Harvey glances at him. They’ve known each other for a long time--since Harvey puked in his cab after getting into a fist fight with a classmate from Harvard Law outside of Hardman & Associates. It’s not a story that bears repeating, but somewhere in there Harvey got Ray’s personal number and started calling him whenever he needed a cab. It’s better than working with a stranger.
“You think you’re going to find anything at this one?” Ray asks, nodding in the general direction of the borough they’re bound for.
“I just hope Louis isn’t there,” Harvey says, but Harvey’s bad luck holds, and Louis is there.
Louis Litt is not Harvey’s rival, because that would imply they were equals. He’s more like a pain in the ass, a fly in the ointment. He buys stock for websites, and Harvey doubts he’d be buying any stock at all if he didn’t outbid Harvey by the barest margin whenever he got the chance. Harvey could, frequently, red herring him into bidding on shit lots, but that didn’t change the fact that if Louis was there, Harvey was probably going to lose something when he’d rather not.
“Louis,” he says, not offering a hand. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Louis nods stiffly at him, because Louis is bad at talking.
“How’s the internet business?” Harvey continues. “Still mostly comprised of looking at porn while you wait for your wife to get home?”
“I don’t have a wife,” Louis says.
“And that,” Harvey replies. “Is why it’s funny.”
Louis, Harvey is fairly certain, is constipated. Harvey is also fairly certain that Louis actually gets constipated, in life--he seems the type.
“Pleasure as always,” Harvey says, and goes to browse the lots.
There’s only one that looks really interesting--a cardboard box of books with some minor water damage that hopefully hasn’t passed the cardboard, but the deceased was a professor of Women’s Studies at Barnard, and Harvey thinks he spies some Virginia Woolf. He doesn’t look long. He can see Louis following him, and just for that he spends an inordinately long time inspecting some Nancy Drew reprints and a dog eared copy of ‘Leaves of Grass.’
He gets the box, albeit for a little more than he would’ve liked, and tries not to look smug when Louis pays far more for the Nancy Drews than they’re worth. When the sale is done he takes the subway home, because Ray had refused to wait around in the Bronx when he could be collecting fares for any amount of money.
If Harvey could afford to, he’d just hire a driver. As it is, he doesn’t care if it takes longer: he’ll take the taxi whenever he can, because public transit is unsanitary. On the way back to shop a band of youths comes into his car and does some sort of break dancing--thing. Harvey tries to level them with a withering stare and protect his books from jostling, but mostly he ends up feeling stiff and uncomfortable and wondering if the toddler sitting next to him is going to get chocolate on his jacket.
“Did you pan any gold?” Donna asks when he gets back to the shop. Mike’s still there, sitting behind the counter with Donna like he belongs there.
Which he doesn’t.
“Louis was there,” Harvey says, setting the box on the counter. “But I got the best lot they had, which is not to say it’s any good.”
“You carry that all the way here?” Mike asks, eyeing Harvey--not his face, his shoulders, as near as Harvey can tell. There’s something strange just beneath the expression he’s actually wearing, something Harvey can’t quite place. It occurs to Harvey for the first time that Mike, for all his everything, is actually an actor which means he pretends to be things he’s not for a living.
Harvey files that piece of information away for future consideration.
“From the six train, just a few blocks,” Harvey says. “What, do movie stars not carry things?”
“Harvey’s a real salt of the earth type,” Rachel supplies. “Jus’ folks.”
“How have things been here?” Harvey asks, rather than dignify that with a response.
“Mike sold the first edition ‘The Love of the Last Tycoon,’” Donna says. “For well above market value.”
Harvey quirks an eyebrow.
“How’d you do it?” he asks, turning to Mike, who has the grace to look embarrassed.
“Oh, you know--” he says, which Harvey actually doesn’t, but now he’s curious. Mike had haggled him down when he was first in the shop, but Harvey hadn’t really been paying attention. He was so eager to get the O. E. D. off his hands he probably would’ve taken anything.
Donna gives Harvey a look that suggests they have things to talk about, and Harvey decides that maybe taking Mike on wasn’t the end of the world, especially since there don’t seem to be any paparazzi or teenaged idol stalkers hanging around the store. Instead he just takes the box of books to the back room to sort.
Mike, uninvited, follows him.
“Rachel said she couldn’t train me in appraising,” Mike says.
“That’s because I’m the only one who appraises here,” Harvey says, blocking the door pointedly. “And you really don’t need to be trained in it.”
Mike looks at him. Not beseeching, just patient and even. Harvey does realize he’s being paid for this.
“Come in, then,” he says, after they’ve been standing there for a moment, words passing unsaid between them. “But don’t expect me to let you in here alone.”
Mike turns out to be a freak genius appraiser.
It doesn’t even make sense, but when Harvey’s going through the box and filing titles, publication dates, and publishers, Mike’s peering over his shoulder. They have stools in the back room and a tall, square table made from unfinished wood, but Mike for some unfathomable reason stands behind Harvey, leaning forward so their bodies are just a breath apart, and when Harvey pulls a volume from the box, midway through, Mike says, softly and unexpectedly: “There’s your gold.”
It’s uncanny because he’s right.
It’s not Virginia Woolf but Sylvia Plath, or, more accurately, Victoria Lucas, which is the pseudonym emblazoned on first editions of ‘The Bell Jar.’ And then Mike, without batting an eye, rattles off a price, and when Harvey checks, that is precisely what it’s worth.
They do a few more volumes, bronze more than gold, and a few pyrite. Mike knows their values as well. He hardly even thinks about it: he just says a number, and it’s right.
“You knew,” Harvey says, when the books are sorted and priced. He was relieved to find that he does have to explain pricing to Mike--you can’t just slap market value on a volume, you have to account for damage, or potential external values. You have to measure the book as a whole, look for something beyond the economic worth.
“Knew what?” Mike asks.
“You knew that you had some sort of uncanny number memory,” Harvey says. “And looked up a bunch of books to show off.”
“Eidetic,” Mike says, like it’s no big thing.
“Well,” Harvey replies. “I bet that makes learning lines easy.”
“But not the rest of it,” Mike replies, and Harvey gets it, he almost gets it. It’s not quite liking Mike, but it’s a little closer to seeing him.
He lets Mike ask him questions, after that, and sometimes Harvey even answers them. Maybe because he’s used to being alone in the stockroom, Harvey lets his guard down.
Just a little.
They don’t say much, once they’re done in the back room, and Donna allows that--there’s not much day left to use up, anyway, because it’s almost time to close. Harvey has a small, rent-controlled apartment not far off, and he takes off his jacket to walk home, carries it over his arm. It’s late summer, when the air is clear and heavy with moisture, and things are changing but they aren’t quite there yet.
part 2
.76th & lexington
harvey's bookshop isn't doing well, and he really doesn't need this right now. written for this prompt.
r . 12956 words . AO3
Sometimes Harvey has to remind himself that not every bookseller in Manhattan has passed the New York state bar and that may--may--account for why so many of them are sort of sorry and nebbish and terrible at making money. It may also account for the way Specter Books (established 2004) has kicked their sorry asses to Brooklyn and back. The past tense, though, is important here: the Kindle was released in 2007, and somewhere in there Amazon became a disgusting corporate entity that Harvey would prefer not to discuss, because Specter Books was supposed to become a disgusting corporate entity that other booksellers would prefer not to discuss, an upscale, finely curated used bookseller unlike anything the industry had ever seen.
Not that--it’s not just that. Harvey does care about the books, which was why he didn’t think ereaders would make it off the ground. It was his only miscalculation, but it had proven to be a significant one. Significant enough that he had to be in the shop most days, because no one else was as good at closing a sale as he was. Harvey could read people like the books he sold, and if things were a little tight, well--Harvey was still goddamn good.
Which did not do much good when the store was empty. It was an empty time of day, but Harvey still found himself beating a pen against the counter when he should have been reviewing the accounts. Lately the accounts had gotten a little tighter than was comfortable, which would get Jessica on his back about her investment, like she didn’t trust him or something. And if he brought up that, she’d squint her eyes, tilt her head, and tell him she didn’t trust him further than she could throw him.
“And yet,” he would reply.
It was a conversation they had a little too frequently for comfort. Jessica wouldn’t pull out--she couldn’t, he had too much dirt on her for that--but it usually ended with him trying to sell the copy of the unabridged O.E.D. he kept in the back to one of his old Harvard Law professors. It wasn’t even worth that much in a shop where first editions passed through regularly, but somewhere in Harvey’s head selling that copy of the O.E.D. would solve all his financial woes. The thirteen volume set was like a bad luck talisman.
Not that Harvey Specter is superstitious in the least.
But still, he’d like to sell that damn dictionary. Preferably to a pretentious old fart, and for more than it’s worth.
For now he settles for staring at the door like it’s a pot that will never, ever boil and tapping his pen (Waterman, thank you, even though he is a poor bookseller he is still a poor bookseller in New York City, and he enjoys the finer things in life, &c.) against the counter.
And then someone’s at the door, and someone’s pushing it in, and there he is: a customer, at nine twenty in the morning on a Saturday. Astonishing. Most of the city would still be asleep now. Or at brunch.
Harvey ignores the guy--kid, really--because he seems like the type who wants to be ignored. He’s wearing aviators, a blue baseball cap pulled low on his forehead. Blond, scrawny, with the body language of someone who wants to browse undisturbed. A teenager comes in, after, skulking to the back where the comics are. Potential customer, or thief; either way, it’s enough to send Harvey back to his accounts. Donna will be in in a few hours or whenever she feels like it, and if things aren’t in order she’ll give him hell. Even if, technically, the accounts were what he hired her for.
Well, that and the fact that by the time she finished graduate school, she knew more about the stock than he did. It would’ve been a crime not to hire her.
A hand slides across the counter, interrupting Harvey’s work. It’s the blond--he’s hooked the sunglasses over the collar of his shirt, revealing startling blue eyes.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Incidental piece of information here, but there’s a kid in the back trying to stuff an issue of Aquaman down his pants.”
“Seriously?” Harvey asks, getting to his feet. “Did you see which one?--no, of course you didn’t.”
“Twenty,” the kid interjects.
“Not even worth it,” Harvey sighs. “Crap condition, only bought it because it was part of a good lot. Also, Aquaman?”
“So you’re just going to--?”
“Not worth it to get the book out of his pants, I mean,” Harvey says and heads to the back of the shop as the blond trails after him. He coughs slightly when he comes up behind the teenager, who already looks so guilty that Harvey has a hard time believing he would have been physically capable of leaving the store, even if he hadn’t been spotted.
“So,” he says, and lets the word hang there for a few beats. “I imagine you know how small business owners feel about shoplifters. But I’m a little surprised--and disappointed--that your fellow denizens of the wrong side of the law didn’t tell you why they don’t usually steal from my fine establishment.”
This kid--that’s really what he is, younger than he looked when he first came in--Harvey refuses to feel bad for him, but he kind of looks like he’s going to piss himself.
“Because I can make sure you get fucked six ways to Sunday,” he continues. “Which is something you might want to consider before you try to pull this shit again.”
The kid bolts, and Harvey shrugs his shoulders to crack his back. Intimidating shoplifters makes him more tense than it used to.
“I think that kid pissed himself,” comes a voice from behind him, unimpressed but amused.
“And now that issue of Aquaman is worth even less,” Harvey says, and the blond laughs outright. Some idle, stupid part of Harvey’s mind characterizes it as a nice laugh, like that means something. Like that’s something he’d think. Because he wouldn’t.
“So,” Harvey says. “Should I be checking your pants, too?”
It sounded less dirty in his head, but the other man barely quirks a brow.
“Looking for something specific, actually, and I’m not sure it would fit,” he says. “You wouldn’t happen to have a 1933 Oxford English Dictionary, would you?”
Harvey exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding, probably because he’s been holding it for the past eight years.
“All thirteen volumes,” he says.
The guy--kid, because he seems younger than he actually is--talks him down, probably further down than Harvey should let him, but the dictionary is off his hands either way. The kid himself seems to enjoy the haggling so much that Harvey can’t quite bring himself to stop. There’s something to be said for arguing with somone who actually enjoys it. When Donna arrives Harvey’s wrapping it up, folding crisp corners in brown paper and tying the whole thing with twine. It’s a Specter Books signature. Might as well send off the damned thing in style. Donna slips in when he’s on volume eleven, pushing the door open with her back so she can balance two coffee cups and an outsize purse.
“Donna,” Harvey says, gesturing to the pile of books. “We made a sale.”
“And quite a sale, at that,” she sighs, meeting his eyes and grinning slightly. “I have coffee.”
“I see that,” Harvey says, and Donna slides behind the counter to join him, setting the cups down. She glances up at the kid--the one who bought the dictionary--and something flickers across her face momentarily, recognition or surprise. Harvey quirks an eyebrow at her, but she doesn’t acknowledge him, just slips one of the coffees in his direction.
“Is there a coffee shop around here you’d recommend?” the kid asks, watching them. “I’m new in town, and--”
“These are just from the cart on the corner, kid,” Harvey says. “There’s a Starfucks, down the street.”
“Harvey doesn’t like franchises,” Donna interjects, almost apologetically, which is very apologetic, for Donna.
“So it would seem,” the kid replies, as Harvey begins to wrap the last volume. “Look, is it okay if I come back here. I--”
He sounds uncomfortable. Harvey looks up at him, slightly exasperated.
“It’s a shop,” he says. “You’re a customer. Come back whenever you want, as long as ‘whenever’ falls within the opening hours listed on the door. Which are--”
“Right,” the kid says, and his voice has suddenly gone uncannily calm, any residual discomfort gone.
Harvey slides the dictionary across the counter, and looks up to meet the kid’s gaze. To inspect him, if Harvey’s honest with himself, because this entire exchange has been a little off kilter and Harvey can’t quite get a handle on what’s happening, and usually he has a handle on everything.
“Thank you for your purchase,” he says evenly. “Come back soon.”
“Do you know who that was?” Donna asks as soon as the door swings shut behind the blond.
“The person who would finally take that godforsaken O.E.D. off my hands?” Harvey asks. “I thought he’d be older.”
“Mike Ross,” Donna says.
“You know his name,” Harvey says. “He paid cash.”
“Mike Ross, Harvey,” Donna says. “You’ve heard of Mike Ross. I know you have. You went to see ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ with me.”
“And it was awful. Salinger was doing cartwheels in his grave.”
“Mike Ross was Holden Caulfield,” Donna hisses.
“Huh,” Harvey says. “Well, he was awful. Skulking around all over the place. Whining about phonies.”
“That’s what Holden Caulfield does,” Donna says. “Honestly, you own a bookshop.”
“This has been enlightening,” Harvey says. “Next time he comes in, I’ll ask him how Phoebe’s been.”
“Please don’t,” Donna says. “He’s a rising star. Please don’t go out of your way to offend him just because you have a bizarre grudge against everyone who is not--”
“Not what, Donna?” Harvey asks. “This is interesting. Please continue.”
“I would if you didn’t interrupt me,” she gripes. “Everyone who is not suitably intellectual.”
“Don’t say that like it’s a dirty word,” Harvey mutters. “It does make me wonder why he bought the dictionary, though.”
“You’re a snob,” Donna says. “Admit it. You’re worrying that a movie star is going to sully your image.”
“Is he a movie star?” Harvey asks. “Fuck.”
Because he wants more business, but not that kind of business, people who trail after movie stars and stuff issues of Aquaman down their pants, paparazzi and reporters from gossip magazines pawing through his wares with so many unwashed hands.
He forgets about the whole thing once the shop fills up with the usual clientele, and he puts on his sale face and sells things, damnit, and it’s a good day, as far as days go, and he sleeps well and doesn’t worry about the accounts, which puts a bit of a spring in his step when he’s approaching the shop the next morning.
The kid, Mike Ross, is there. He slouches around the corner in worn jeans and a t-shirt. He doesn’t look like a movie star--the jeans look like they were cheap, once, and were worn by time and not be some sort of elaborate chemical wash. The t-shirt is so ugly that it’s not even worth discussing. But his eyes are a sharp, bright blue, technicolor in a black and white world, and objectively Harvey could see why someone might want that color committed to film, if film could even capture it.
“Hey,” Mike Ross says, while Harvey unlocks the door.
“Good morning,” Harvey says. He has a coffee in him, but only the one, which is probably not enough because he’s tempted to call this kid out for being a movie star and refusing to pay sticker price on a dictionary. He was in a good mood. He doesn’t need this.
“Look, I didn’t get a chance, yesterday,” Mike is saying. “I’m in movies, right? And I’m doing this one about a book store--”
“Yes,” Harvey says, when he really means is no.
“So I was wondering if I could shadow you or something--”
“No,” Harvey says, when what he really means is no. “No, I do not need someone to shadow me so they can make the next ‘You’ve Got Mail.’”
“It’s more like ‘Notting Hill,’ actually,” Mike says, and Harvey can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a joke or not, because Mike’s mannerisms are strange, all sharp corners and rough edges, like someone who doesn’t know the shape of his own social limbs.
Not like a movie star at all, really.
Harvey has turned on all the lights and settled behind the register before either of them say anything else, and then Mike suddenly spits out a stream of words.
“It’s sort of ‘Fahrenheit 451’ except not at all, but it takes place in a dystopian future and books are gradually being replaced by computers, and the last bookstore on earth becomes the center of a rebel operation--”
“Dystopias are in vogue right now, aren’t they?” Harvey says. “We don’t carry ‘The Hunger Games,’ if you were looking. Also, that movie sounds terrible.”
“So can I shadow you?” Mike asks, and Harvey looks at him again: young, a little soft around the edges, blue-eyed and blond.
“I do not,” Harvey says. “Think shadowing me would contribute in the slightest to preparing you for that role. Is this some sort of Method thing?”
“I’m not Method,” Mike says. “That’s not even what Method is. Look, I just want to get a feel--”
“And I’m telling you,” Harvey replies. “I don’t think this is what you want.”
Mike looks at him, and sighs a little.
“Do you not see what I see?” Mike says. There’s something undergirding his tone now, something a little harder, but he’s speaking so casually, like they’re good friends, that it’s hard to tell. “Because I have a feeling digital booksellers are doing a bit of a number on you right now, and you’re a little resentful of that, and you imagine your shop as a sort of agent of cultural change, enlightening the masses, if they would only come in the door.”
“Is that so?” Harvey asks. “And where do you get that from?”
“You’re wearing a suit,” Mike says, almost flippant. “Yesterday you sold me a 1933 O.E.D. and were clearly far too excited about that. You had all the volumes of the 1933 O.E.D.”
“What did you buy it for, then? Research?”
Mike rocks on his heels a little.
“You really want to know?” he asks. “Because I think we could make a deal.”
Harvey rubs his temples.
“You just pulled some shit story out of your ass, like you were trying to threaten me--”
“I was just making sure we understood each other,” Mike says, and then adds, a little forlornly: “Most people like me.”
Harvey levels him with a stare, that Mike returns with a perversely honest smile, one that breaks across his face like--something.
An egg, maybe. Harvey would pay to see someone break an egg on Mike’s face, actually.
“And now you want to make the most obvious bargain in the history of bargains,” Harvey continues.
“Something along those lines,” Mike says.
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
Mike looks at him.
“So we’ve reached an impasse,” he says, and then the door slams, and Donna is there, handing Harvey is second coffee.
“You are--,” he mutters into the cup. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Donna says, then gives Mike a pointed glance. “Hello again.”
“He was just leaving,” Harvey says.
“Was he?” Donna says, glancing between them.
“What?” Mike says. “No. I’m a customer, right?”
“You’re a customer,” Harvey says. “Of course you are.”
“I think I could use a copy of ‘Fahrenheit 451’,” Mike says as he disappears into the warren of shelves. “Would that be anywhere around here?”
“If you break it, you bought it,” Harvey calls after him.
“Harvey,” Donna says. “Is the movie star bothering you?”
“Yes,” Harvey says, and gives Donna a look that is probably not beseeching, but is intended to mean ‘Make him leave.’
“Want me to call the Post?” Donna asks. “That should do it.”
The coffee jolts Harvey awake, a little, slowly.
“Not the Post,” he groans. “Just call his mother or something. Maybe he has a handler. Don’t actors have handlers?”
He calls into the bowels of the store: “Do you have a handler?”
“No,” echoes back momentarily.
“So,” Donna says. “Why don’t we like him? Because I thought he was quite good in that movie where he was a cross-dressing alien--”
“That’s fascinating,” Harvey tells her. “If he doesn’t buy anything, can we kick him out?”
“Probably,” Donna says idly. “You’re the lawyer. And the owner.”
“He wants to shadow me,” Harvey says. “I don’t have time for this.”
Donna nods like she knew he’d answer her question, eventually.
“He offer you money to do this?” she asks, and Harvey looks at her sharply.
“No,” he says, in a tone that’s intended to both answer her and put a stop to that line of questioning.
Donna inspects her nails.
“Well, I’m sure you’re being reasonable, then,” she says. “I’m sure you have a very good reason for not getting a movie star to pay you to work for you.”
“Yes,” Harvey says. “I don’t have time to train some dilettante. And neither do you. And neither does Rachel.”
“And yet,” Donna sighs. “We have time to discuss this in depth.”
“This is not depth,” Harvey says. “This is the kiddie pool of discussions. We’re dabbling.”
“And yet,” Donna repeats, like she knows something Harvey doesn’t. The kid is still somewhere in the shelves. Harvey should probably tail him and make sure he’s not shoplifting.
“I should probably make sure he’s not shoplifting,” Harvey says.
“He’s a movie star,” Donna says. “He shits money.”
“All the more reason--”
“To check out his ass,” Donna interjects, and Harvey tries to look affronted. He tries hard. He’s pretty sure he pulls it off.
“You’ll check out the ass of anything with legs,” Donna says pointedly. “Don’t make that face. You look constipated.”
“I don’t,” Harvey says, because he doesn’t. Harvey Specter doesn’t even look constipated when he is constipated, and he’s never been constipated in his life.
“Okay,” Donna says, in a tone of voice that suggests she’s only agreeing because she’s no longer interested in this particular discussion.
“You think I should go along with it,” Harvey says, downing the last of his coffee and looking directly at her.
Donna nods succinctly.
“I think you should make him pay you to go along with it,” she says. “I do your accounts, you know.”
“We could use the money,” Harvey echoes. “That’s what Jessica would say.”
“It is,” Donna agrees. She’s fiddling with the pen in front of her, and Harvey can tell she’s trying to make him feel like this is his idea. She’s not doing a good job of it, but even Harvey can tell when an idea that’s not his is good. He nods, and Harvey can see Donna’s lips quirk a little like she knows what that means.
But Harvey is going to wait for the kid to come to him. He browses eBay, looking for gold where there almost certainly won’t be any, until Mike Ross returns to the counter. He’s running one hand through his hair, ruffling it ridiculously. Harvey had thought that was some Hollywood thing--styled so as to look like it hadn’t been--but apparently that’s just his hair. It irks Harvey for reasons he would prefer not to examine.
“Buying anything?” Harvey asks, and Mike sidles up to the counter.
“I don’t think that’s how you make a sale.”
“It’s not,” Donna says, looking at Harvey like she would reprimand this behaviour. Harvey recognizes his own petulance, but can’t quite bring himself to care.
“Well,” Harvey says, shifting his elbows up to the countertop. “If you were thinking your purchase might depend on what we were selling, I might have an offer.”
Mike’s lips quirk infinitesimally, and one eyebrow goes up.
“You can shadow me,” Harvey says. “You can also pay for the privilege, and keep quite about. I don’t want any paparazzi, or publicity stunts, or shit like that.”
“And I should not go somewhere else because--”
“When I’m on, I’m the best,” Harvey says.
For some reason (probably because it’s true), Mike believes him.
Page Six: Mike Ross was spotted purchasing coffee from a cart at the corner of Park Avenue & 76th St. The ‘From Mars’ star, reportedly in the city to work on a new project, was slumming it in aviators and jeans. - The New York Post
The only thing Mike has going for him is that he shows up on time.
Harvey told Mike to wear a suit to work, if working is what he planned to do. Instead, he shows up in--something.
“That tie,” Harvey says, staring at it pointedly. “My dick is wider than that tie.”
“That’s nice,” Mike says, unruffled. Harvey unlocks the door, and the two of them go in--Mike hangs his messenger back on the coat rack behind the counter and then stands there so silently that Harvey has to rattle onwards.
“Also, is that suit even yours? Did you steal it off a vagrant? Because it doesn’t fit like it belongs to you.”
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Mike says. He seems almost blissfully unaware of what Harvey is actually saying which doesn’t bode well for their working relationship, let alone anything resembling friendship.
“Are you high?” Harvey asks. “What did I just say?”
Mike pauses, and suddenly his eyes are on Harvey, canny and sharp.
“Also, is that suit even yours?” Mike mimics back. “Did you steal it off a vagrant? Because it doesn’t fit like it belongs to you.”
“Right,” Harvey says. “The question still stands. Don’t you Hollywood types have stylists?”
“For red carpet appearances,” Mike says. “But I usually just wear whatever someone sends me first.”
“Do you even get them tailored?” Harvey asks, trying not to sound aghast.
“No,” Mike says. “They know my size.”
“You show up for red carpet appearances in off the rack suits?” Harvey asks. “What happened to Clark Gable? Cary Grant?”
“Gable died fifty-two years ago,” Mike says. “Grant was twenty-six years ago.”
“Rhetorical question,” Harvey says. “Which you answered with useless trivia.”
“Okay,” Mike says, then goes back to the counter and runs his hands across the wood, like he did that first day when he told Harvey about the kid, with the Aquaman comic.
“It’s redwood,” Harvey offers, nodding to the counter. They had had the counter brought in specially when they renovated the space, straight from California and then varnished to high gloss, leaving all the whorls of the wood visible. It runs the length of the store, and they keep the real gems, first editions that haven’t been foxed, color plates that haven’t been scribbled on, behind it, on a series of clear glass shelves. It’s a good match of classic and modern, Harvey thinks, and makes the point that even a used bookseller can be new and--dare he say it?--cutting edge.
“It’s beautiful,” Mike says. He lets his fingers trip down the surface again, like he can’t bear to stop touching it, and Harvey just--watches--his hands, for the few blinking moments before Donna comes in the door, carrying a caddy with four cups. It’s Monday, which is not a particularly busy day, but Harvey had scheduled Rachel so she could train Mike, because Harvey Specter does not stoop himself to training.
“Good morning!” she says. “You’re on time.”
Harvey knows she’s talking to Mike, but replies anyway: “As always. And you’re late, as always.”
“The party don’t start until I walk in,” she says, deadpan, as she distributes coffee cups.
“Did you brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack this morning?” Mike asks, and Donna laughs.
“He’s quick,” she says, sliding behind the counter. “I like him. There’s sugar and creamer in the fridge here.”
Harvey doesn’t say ‘well that makes one of us’ because he’s still not entirely certain why he doesn’t like Mike, and he doesn’t want to have that conversation with Donna. Not yet; probably not ever. Mike shakes his head, because apparently he takes his coffee black, which is the way a person should take his coffee.
Harvey should like him.
“Rachel will be in soon,” Harvey says. “She’ll be training you.”
“Why?” MIke asks.
“Because she’s good at training people,” Harvey says.
“Because Harvey was a colicky child,” Donna says, and Mike looks like he’s going to say something, and Harvey is just about to spit out a clever comeback, but then Rachel’s coming through the door, taking her coffee from Donna and dumping a significant volume of milk and sugar into it, introducing herself to Mike in a whirlwind.
“Just so you know,” she says, narrowing her eyes when he holds her hand for a second too long. “I don’t care who you know, I don’t want to get to Hollywood, and I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“Funny, that’s what I said when I met Clooney,” Mike says.
“And no name dropping,” Rachel says. “Do I have to tell you everything?”
Harvey likes Rachel. He should give her a raise.
“Can we give her a raise?” Harvey asks Donna as the pair disappears into the stacks.
“Probably not,” Donna says.
“Take it out of what the kid is paying us,” Harvey says, and Donna arches an eyebrow at him.
“What?” he asks. “Just some of it. It’s only fair, if she has to put up with him. A ‘tolerating movie stars’ bonus.”
“I think you’re getting soft in your old age,” Donna says.
“I think--” Harvey starts, and then he remembers not to finish that sentence, because Donna’s age is off limits if he wants to keep his balls. “You’re a wonderful person,” he concludes, instead.
“I can hurt you,” Donna replies, preening slightly.
They’re good friends, really. It happens.
Harvey has an estate sale to get to and he leaves Donna in charge (not that there’s anyone else he would leave anyone else in charge--maybe Rachel, in a pinch, but not when Donna’s there). Ray is waiting for him, his taxi gleaming as usual, and as soon as Harvey’s in the cab they’re heading to the Bronx.
“So Donna says you’ve got a movie star working for you,” Ray says.
“Donna needs to stop gossiping,” Harvey replies. “But yes, we do.”
Ray hums a little, as if to himself, and Harvey glances at him. They’ve known each other for a long time--since Harvey puked in his cab after getting into a fist fight with a classmate from Harvard Law outside of Hardman & Associates. It’s not a story that bears repeating, but somewhere in there Harvey got Ray’s personal number and started calling him whenever he needed a cab. It’s better than working with a stranger.
“You think you’re going to find anything at this one?” Ray asks, nodding in the general direction of the borough they’re bound for.
“I just hope Louis isn’t there,” Harvey says, but Harvey’s bad luck holds, and Louis is there.
Louis Litt is not Harvey’s rival, because that would imply they were equals. He’s more like a pain in the ass, a fly in the ointment. He buys stock for websites, and Harvey doubts he’d be buying any stock at all if he didn’t outbid Harvey by the barest margin whenever he got the chance. Harvey could, frequently, red herring him into bidding on shit lots, but that didn’t change the fact that if Louis was there, Harvey was probably going to lose something when he’d rather not.
“Louis,” he says, not offering a hand. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Louis nods stiffly at him, because Louis is bad at talking.
“How’s the internet business?” Harvey continues. “Still mostly comprised of looking at porn while you wait for your wife to get home?”
“I don’t have a wife,” Louis says.
“And that,” Harvey replies. “Is why it’s funny.”
Louis, Harvey is fairly certain, is constipated. Harvey is also fairly certain that Louis actually gets constipated, in life--he seems the type.
“Pleasure as always,” Harvey says, and goes to browse the lots.
There’s only one that looks really interesting--a cardboard box of books with some minor water damage that hopefully hasn’t passed the cardboard, but the deceased was a professor of Women’s Studies at Barnard, and Harvey thinks he spies some Virginia Woolf. He doesn’t look long. He can see Louis following him, and just for that he spends an inordinately long time inspecting some Nancy Drew reprints and a dog eared copy of ‘Leaves of Grass.’
He gets the box, albeit for a little more than he would’ve liked, and tries not to look smug when Louis pays far more for the Nancy Drews than they’re worth. When the sale is done he takes the subway home, because Ray had refused to wait around in the Bronx when he could be collecting fares for any amount of money.
If Harvey could afford to, he’d just hire a driver. As it is, he doesn’t care if it takes longer: he’ll take the taxi whenever he can, because public transit is unsanitary. On the way back to shop a band of youths comes into his car and does some sort of break dancing--thing. Harvey tries to level them with a withering stare and protect his books from jostling, but mostly he ends up feeling stiff and uncomfortable and wondering if the toddler sitting next to him is going to get chocolate on his jacket.
“Did you pan any gold?” Donna asks when he gets back to the shop. Mike’s still there, sitting behind the counter with Donna like he belongs there.
Which he doesn’t.
“Louis was there,” Harvey says, setting the box on the counter. “But I got the best lot they had, which is not to say it’s any good.”
“You carry that all the way here?” Mike asks, eyeing Harvey--not his face, his shoulders, as near as Harvey can tell. There’s something strange just beneath the expression he’s actually wearing, something Harvey can’t quite place. It occurs to Harvey for the first time that Mike, for all his everything, is actually an actor which means he pretends to be things he’s not for a living.
Harvey files that piece of information away for future consideration.
“From the six train, just a few blocks,” Harvey says. “What, do movie stars not carry things?”
“Harvey’s a real salt of the earth type,” Rachel supplies. “Jus’ folks.”
“How have things been here?” Harvey asks, rather than dignify that with a response.
“Mike sold the first edition ‘The Love of the Last Tycoon,’” Donna says. “For well above market value.”
Harvey quirks an eyebrow.
“How’d you do it?” he asks, turning to Mike, who has the grace to look embarrassed.
“Oh, you know--” he says, which Harvey actually doesn’t, but now he’s curious. Mike had haggled him down when he was first in the shop, but Harvey hadn’t really been paying attention. He was so eager to get the O. E. D. off his hands he probably would’ve taken anything.
Donna gives Harvey a look that suggests they have things to talk about, and Harvey decides that maybe taking Mike on wasn’t the end of the world, especially since there don’t seem to be any paparazzi or teenaged idol stalkers hanging around the store. Instead he just takes the box of books to the back room to sort.
Mike, uninvited, follows him.
“Rachel said she couldn’t train me in appraising,” Mike says.
“That’s because I’m the only one who appraises here,” Harvey says, blocking the door pointedly. “And you really don’t need to be trained in it.”
Mike looks at him. Not beseeching, just patient and even. Harvey does realize he’s being paid for this.
“Come in, then,” he says, after they’ve been standing there for a moment, words passing unsaid between them. “But don’t expect me to let you in here alone.”
Mike turns out to be a freak genius appraiser.
It doesn’t even make sense, but when Harvey’s going through the box and filing titles, publication dates, and publishers, Mike’s peering over his shoulder. They have stools in the back room and a tall, square table made from unfinished wood, but Mike for some unfathomable reason stands behind Harvey, leaning forward so their bodies are just a breath apart, and when Harvey pulls a volume from the box, midway through, Mike says, softly and unexpectedly: “There’s your gold.”
It’s uncanny because he’s right.
It’s not Virginia Woolf but Sylvia Plath, or, more accurately, Victoria Lucas, which is the pseudonym emblazoned on first editions of ‘The Bell Jar.’ And then Mike, without batting an eye, rattles off a price, and when Harvey checks, that is precisely what it’s worth.
They do a few more volumes, bronze more than gold, and a few pyrite. Mike knows their values as well. He hardly even thinks about it: he just says a number, and it’s right.
“You knew,” Harvey says, when the books are sorted and priced. He was relieved to find that he does have to explain pricing to Mike--you can’t just slap market value on a volume, you have to account for damage, or potential external values. You have to measure the book as a whole, look for something beyond the economic worth.
“Knew what?” Mike asks.
“You knew that you had some sort of uncanny number memory,” Harvey says. “And looked up a bunch of books to show off.”
“Eidetic,” Mike says, like it’s no big thing.
“Well,” Harvey replies. “I bet that makes learning lines easy.”
“But not the rest of it,” Mike replies, and Harvey gets it, he almost gets it. It’s not quite liking Mike, but it’s a little closer to seeing him.
He lets Mike ask him questions, after that, and sometimes Harvey even answers them. Maybe because he’s used to being alone in the stockroom, Harvey lets his guard down.
Just a little.
They don’t say much, once they’re done in the back room, and Donna allows that--there’s not much day left to use up, anyway, because it’s almost time to close. Harvey has a small, rent-controlled apartment not far off, and he takes off his jacket to walk home, carries it over his arm. It’s late summer, when the air is clear and heavy with moisture, and things are changing but they aren’t quite there yet.
part 2