“We don’t want that. How much are a set of these regs?”
“Two thousand dollars.”
Serenity nodded. “Expensive, for a library whose account is back down to zero. We can barely afford to buy a Hardy Boys book. Used.” She thought about how much money she already had to repay.
What’s another two grand? “How about a trade? We find a way to get the regs, you study up on them, and become our designated volunteer. When other folks come in who need help with this stuff, we’ll call you in.”
He grinned. “Teamwork. Like that.”
“OK. I’ll find… something.”
Doom and the man were gone, and Serenity wished she could go back to sleep and dream again. Dream up some more dollars.
twenty-four
arguing with the gods
THE BOOK FOR THE DAY turned out to be Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. She yanked it off the shelf, went around the corner and locked herself in the server room. Just her and the evil Maddington computers. The sad children’s desks stacked in the corner bore witness.
She pulled up the chair and logged in. Friday had been a one-time thing. But it had worked. One time. Now she had to put it back.
She looked at the book.
Yeah, I get it. The bell tolls for me. Ha ha. Library gods.
It was time to end her brief foray into crime. She looked at the sheet in her other hand that held her retirement fund account number and balance. She could put the money back before she got caught, talk to Joe, and explain that she’d have to work a few years longer than they’d planned before they retired to the beach. She’d make it up to him somehow.
But she couldn’t make it up to the people who needed her library. Next crisis, and Bentley would close them down.
Sorry. I can’t win this fight.
She looked at the screen. The Residuals fund was back to almost where it was when she had transferred it. It made no sense that the city was stealing that much a penny at a time, but she didn’t care. Now she was looking at the other transfer options. She imagined that she saw one at the bottom: transfer serenity to jail. Seemed right. Maybe inevitable.
Maybe not so bad, though. Real prison couldn’t be worse than the prison of giving in and going along.
She blinked and saw the option to transfer money into the account. Reaching for the paper, she knocked the book to the floor. It landed upside down, with Papa Hemingway’s picture staring up at her.
“No,” she clearly heard him say. “You didn’t hear what I said. What did every English teacher you ever had tell you about my books? You can sum them all up in a single sentence: ‘You can’t win, but you can be brave.’”
Out loud, she added, “And mad.”
The screen had the same list of actions as yesterday. Below the one-time transfer was a button labelled transfer daily. She set up the accounts and hit the button.
“How can you argue with the gods?”
twenty-five
stealing jokes from richard nixon
SERENITY WALKED OUT the door and said to Joy. “I’m going to Rocket Republic Brewery. I’ve got to get drunk before I come to my senses.”
She was sitting on a stool wondering what kind of beer they might serve in jail when Doom slid in next to her.
David the bartender jerked his chin at Serenity and said to Doom, “You going to give her a ride home?”
Doom nodded back.
“Then I’ll give her that fourth Mach 1 she’s been asking for.” He poured a glass and put it in front of Serenity. Doom tapped the bar and he poured her one, too.
Doom picked up her glass and looked at the workers who were busy in the brewery in the back. “It won’t work.”
Deny. Deny. Deny. “What? I didn’t do anything.”
“You transferred the Residuals fund.”
“No, that would be—might be, uh…”
“Magnificent. Revolutionary. Although it wouldn’t have worked,” Doom said.
“What do you mean? It did work—if I did anything.”
“You set it up as a daily transfer. That would have caused a daily trail that people would have monitored.” Doom drained her glass. “I—or the mayor and I, if you want to be picky—fused the accounts permanently. Locked the account for anyone but us. It will look like it’s always been that way. And the same people who didn’t care still won’t care.”
Serenity stood up. “No. Doom, I don’t want your fingerprints on any of this. Get back in there and change your name to mine on all of this. Even if the mayor technically authorized things, I don’t want anyone to see you were logged in at the time. If anyone ever sees anything.”
“I want my name on all of this.”
“Absolutely not. If anyone goes to jail for—I don’t know, embezzlement, maybe fraud—it’s going to be me.”
Joy slid in on the other side of Serenity.
Doom said, “Jail? They should give you a medal. That’s the most wonderful and heroic thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. A city of books! And I know the book I’m moving to the front of the library tomorrow. Robin Hood! The city does not have a right to even one cent of that money. They stole it. Not you, but them. All you did—all we’ve done—is take it back for the people. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Theft, misuse of government funds—”
“No,” said Doom. “Joy, you used to be a cop, right?”
“Yeah, ’til they fired me for accidentally setting a body on fire.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Doom. “I really want to hear that story—again—sometime. Right now, though, we need legal advice. If a little of that money went to a different city account, like to the library Special Projects fund, it wouldn’t be embezzling?”
“Maybe not.”
“It would be like un-embezzling. The city’s embezzling from the people now. We’re just giving it back to the people. We’re un-embezzling.”
Serenity brightened. “Yeah. That’s it.”
Joy thought about it. “No crime against un-embezzling that I know of. And, even if there is, the city will not going to want to admit they were taking this money in the first place.”
Doom shot her fist into the air. “I told you. It’s not a crime, it’s a revolutionary act. Free-Doom. We’re heroes of the people.”
Serenity thought about it and said, “A narrow-minded prosecutor might take a different view.”
“But suppose he didn’t know?” said Doom. “This is outside of the usual accounts. Anything mandated by law—like a tax—has to be audited. I don’t see any sign that anyone audits this.”
“And I can testify that our judgment was impaired when we decided to do it.” Joy turned up her beer, chugged it, and tapped the bar for another.
“Let’s be clear, Serenity said. “All of us. This is me. I did this. You didn’t. Particularly not you, Doom. Or you either, Joy. My name goes on everything.”
Joy picked up her glass. “Jail don’t scare me. Truth be told, it was a blessing in disguise when the police fired me. I always had more friends among the crooks than I ever did with the cops.” She set the glass down. “Besides, I’m almost seventy, living in a little room and shelving books. I can do the same thing in prison, and get them to pay for the knee replacement I can’t afford.” She looked at Serenity. “I can pay the price, if you can.”
David put another beer in front of Joy and she picked it up. “But just you and me. The kid can’t go to jail. Wherever we’re going, we’re going together,” she said, “but we protect the kid. Anything we do, we protect the kid.”
Serenity nodded.
Doom shoved a book down the bar to Serenity. “Have you read this?”
Serenity turned the book over. Fifty Ways to Kill Your Lovers and Other Enemies. “I never should have put you in charge of the Noir Book Club.”