Poe's Emporium -- A Tale of Justice

By Tony Norse

A novella by Tony Norse.

 

Old Fred Parker feels helpless while watching his business fall prey to the sickest elements of a society in decay. Thugs ruled the neigbourhood. One bleak and dreary afternoon, however, Fred's beloved Emporium is visited by an odd little man with strange old clothes and wicked ideas of revenge. Fred Parker is compelled to contemplate the difference between right and wrong as his life is transformed forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Opal Cone Publishing
• Release date: Apr 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224195572

Tony Norse

Tony Norse is as comfortable spending time with interesting people in a city as he is being alone with a backpack and tent beside a river. In his youth, Tony lived in the beautiful backwoods of Quebec, Canada, writing short fiction and tending a large garden. A passion for writing satire gradually morphed into genres commonly known as "thriller." His first novel, Souls of Terror, is available from many booksellers globally. Find out more at http://www.tonynorse.com Dear Reader, Please consider leaving a review of this story online and know that your support is appreciated.  

Book preview

One

FRED PARKER STARED at the old black telephone. He was not a religious man, but he secretly prayed for the phone to remain silent. The damn thing never brought good news. In years past, however, he would gladly have answered that phone, knowing a potential customer would be on the line with questions about antique golf clubs or champagne glasses from the south of France or, What would it cost to ship that old, framed portrait of Henry VIII to Chicago? At one time, the Emporium had been a hub of lucrative activity.

Alas, those times were long gone, and the telephone was now Fred’s enemy. A ringing phone meant someone was looking for money. The IRS. The bank. The landlord. The phone company had threatened to disconnect him a few times now, but Fred had managed to stall the inevitable by simply telling the truth. He desperately needed that phone in order to check on his wife at home—every couple of hours. Every day.

Fred sat behind the ancient hardwood counter, pushed aside a stack of unpaid bills and ran some fingers across the worn keys of his old Underwood. He then looked up from the typewriter and gazed around his store. He had owned the Emporium for decades. Piles of cluttered inventory packed the long aisles to the ceiling. Shelves of books lined one wall, most of them novels that people had no time to read—hardcover classics from the good old days by authors like Blake and Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson. Fred had read all the books in his shop a few times each, as well as hundreds of other classics from the local library.

Old oak barrels filled with broken antique tools and memories sat at the end of each aisle. The Emporium was not simply a place to purchase antiques; it was a living reminder of past times, better times. There was a certain feel to the Emporium, and customers would often comment on the earthy scent, a musty, rich mixture of something hard to describe.

It’s the smell of tradition, Fred would tell them. Of course, customers were rare these days. Business was awful. Real bad. Truth be told, his last sale had been a single antique snowshoe from the discount bin at the back of the shop. Twenty-nine dollars—down from fifty. That sale was last week, or was it the week before . . .?

Fred stood, walked to the front window and stared into the gray rainy day. He could not help but notice his reflection in the glass: a diminutive old man with thin white hair and more wrinkles around the eyes than he cared to think about. He watched a torrent of fat raindrops bounce off the old cobblestone sidewalk until his eyes focused on two young men in dark clothes standing at the entrance to a boarded-up storefront across the street. How many years ago had drug dealers taken over his neighborhood? Two? Five?

Fred remembered better days in that area of town, when business was brisk and the streets were full of locals and tourists, even during the wet winter months. The Emporium had always been busy in those days, with customers looking for unusual gifts or the ultimate in eclectic handcrafted curios—a totem pole from Washington State or a stuffed moose head