No coffee or muffin smells inside, just the must of old, wet news pulp. Where the walls weren’t hidden by rough pine bookshelves, they were exposed block. Bookcases on wheels were arranged haphazardly at the center. Pocked vinyl floors were the color of too-old custard. A twenty-foot ceiling was spaghettied by ductwork and ladders- not library rollers on rails, just foldable, aluminum ladders- supplied for those willing to climb their way to erudition.

A heavyset, long-haired Asian kid sat behind the register, nose buried in something bound in plain brown wrappers. A sign behind him said NO SMOKING, but he puffed on an Indian herbal stick. Another sign said READING IN BACK over a pointing hand. The clerk ignored us as we filed past and began squeezing through the choppy maze created by the portable cases.

The book spines I could make out covered a host of isms. Titles shouted back in the hoarse adolescence of dime-store revolution. Milo scanned and frowned a lot. We ended up in a small, dark clearing at the rear of the store, set with thirty or so red plastic folding chairs that faced a lectern. Empty chairs. On the rear wall was a sign that said BATHROOMS (UNISEX).

No one but us.

For all his talk of good seats, Milo remained on his feet, retreating until he was back in the bookcase maze, positioning himself at a slant.

Perfect vantage spot. We could watch and remain out of view.

“It’s good we’re early,” I whispered. “Big crush and all that.”

He glanced over at the seats. “All those folding chairs. You could do group therapy.”

For the next ten minutes no one showed up, and we passed the time browsing. Milo seemed distracted, then his face loosened and took on a meditative cast. I browsed and by the time the first people began trickling in, I’d received a quick education on 1. How to build homemade bombs, 2. How to farm hydroponically, 3. Vandalism in the service of the greater good, and 4. The ethical virtues of Leon Trotsky.

The audience dispersed itself among the chairs. A dozen or so people, divided into what seemed to be two groups: twentyish, pierced-and-branded, dreadlocked rage hobbyists in expensive shredded duds, and sixtyish couples swathed in earth tones, the women helmeted by severe gray bobs, the men frizzy-bearded and shadowed by cloth caps.

The exception was a thickset, wavy-haired guy in his fifties, wearing a navy pea coat buttoned to the neck and crumpled houndstooth pants, who positioned himself front row center. His jaw was a stubbled shelf. He wore black-rimmed glasses, had wide shoulders and serious thighs, and looked as if he’d just finished organizing dockworkers. He sat stiffly, folded his arms across a barrel chest, scowled at the lectern.

Milo studied him, and his eyes slitted.

“What?” I whispered.

“Angry fellow up in front.”

“Probably not unusual for this crowd.”

“Sure,” he said. “Lots to be angry about. It’s comfier and cozier in fucking North Korea.”

Seven-forty, forty-five, fifty. No sign of Albin Larsen or the speaker or a bookstore staffer. Quiet audience. Everyone just sitting and waiting.

Just before eight, Larsen entered the room with a tall, dignified-looking man wearing a glen plaid, suede-elbowed hacking jacket, brown flannel trousers, and shiny peanut-butter-colored demiboots. I’d expected someone Mideastern, but Professor George Issa Qumdis had the ruddy complexion and magesterial bearing of an Oxford don. I put him at fifty-five to sixty, a comfortably lived middle age. His longish salt-and-pepper hair curled over the collar of a crisp white shirt. His rep tie probably meant something. Haughty nose, hollow cheeks, thin lips. He half turned his back on the audience and glanced at an index card.

Albin Larsen stepped up to the lectern and began talking in a low voice. No niceties, no thanking the audience. Right into the topic.

Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people.

Larsen spoke fluently with minimal inflection, smiling wryly as he noted the “profound historical irony” of Jews, the victims of oppression, becoming the world’s greatest extant oppressors.

“How odd, how sad,” intoned Larsen, “that the victims of the Nazis have adopted Nazi tactics.”

Murmurs of assent from the audience. Milo’s face was expressionless. His eyes shifted from Larsen to the audience and back.

Larsen’s manner stayed low-key but his rhetoric poured out hot and vindictive. Each time he uttered the word “Zionism” his eyes fluttered. The audience began warming to the topic, nodding harder.

Except for the burly guy in the pea coat. His hands had dropped to his knees and he was rocking very slightly in his front-center seat. Head canted away from the lectern. I caught a clear view of his profile. Tight jaw, clenched eyes.

Milo studied him some more, and his own mandible tensed.

Larsen went on a while longer, finally indicated George Issa Qumdis with an expansive wave, took out a sheet of paper, and offered morsels from the professor’s academic résumé. When he finished, Issa Qumdis walked to the podium. Just as he began to speak, footsteps behind Milo and me made both of us turn.

A man had entered our aisle. Midthirties, black, well groomed, very tall, wearing a well-cut gray suit over a charcoal shirt buttoned to the neck. He saw us, smiled apologetically, retreated.

Milo watched him edge away and hook a quick right turn. The black man never reappeared and Milo’s hands began to flex.

Why all the tension? This was a lecture at a bookstore. Maybe too much work with too little outcome. Or his instincts were sharper than mine.

Professor George Issa Qumdis unbuttoned his jacket, smoothed back his hair, smiled at the crowd, cracked a joke about being accustomed to lecturing at Harvard, where the audience hadn’t reached puberty. A few chuckles from the audience. The guy in the pea coat began rocking again. One of his hands reached behind his head and scratched vigorously.

Issa Qumdis said, “The truth- the inalienable truth- is that Zionism is the most repugnant doctrine of all, in a world rife with malignant dogma. Think of Zionism as the pernicious anemia of modern civilization.”

One of the pierced-and-brandeds snickered into his girlfriend’s ear.

Issa Qumdis warmed to his topic, branding Jews who moved to Israel “nothing less than war criminals. Each and every one is deserving of death.” Pause. “I would shoot them myself.”

Silence.

Even for this audience that was strong stuff.

Issa Qumdis smiled and smoothed his lapel, and said, “Have I offended someone? I certainly hope so. Complacence is the enemy of truth and as a scholar, truth is my catechism. Yes, I’m talking about jihad. An American jihad, where-”

He stopped, openmouthed.

The guy in the pea coat had shot to his feet, and shouted, “Fuck you, Nazi!” as he fooled with the buttons of his coat.

Milo was already moving toward him as Pea Coat whipped out a gun, a big black gun, and fired straight at Issa Qumdis’s chest.

Issa Qumdis’s snowy white shirt turned to crimson. He stood there, wide-eyed. Reached down and touched himself and came away with a red, sticky thumb.

“You pathetic fascist,” he burbled.

Still on his feet. Breathing fast, but breathing. No loss of balance. No death pallor.

Red rivulets wormed down his shirtfront and filthied the edges of his jacket.

Besmirched, but alive and healthy.

The man in the pea coat fired again, and Issa Qumdis’s face became a crimson mask. Issa Qumdis cried out, wiped frantically at his face. Albin Larsen sat in his chair, amazed, immobile.

“Oh my God,” someone said.

“That’s pig’s blood!” yelled the man in the pea coat. “You Arab pig-fucker!” He charged toward Issa Qumdis, tripped, fell, righted himself.