“It sounds as if you’ve talked yourself into taking the job. If we offer.”
“As long as I’m on board with what you’re doing, I’ll be here.”
“That’s a little… arrogant. But you haven’t talked me into hiring you yet.”
“Ask me anything.”
“First of all, I can’t let you bring a gun into the library.”
“Don’t need one. Don’t need a uniform either. Some days I’ll have a blue polo with security written over the heart. Some days and nights I’ll be in the big tree outside. Other days you won’t know I’m here.”
“How about your background? Do you have a resume?”
“Nothing I want to talk about with you.”
“As I said about arrogance. Really, everything I’ve heard from you could just be bragging. I—”
“You need more Chris Knopf books.”
“What? The writer? How do you—”
“Before I came in here, the last thing you did was order one of Chris Knopf’s Hamptons mysteries. You need more. Chris is going to be the next big thing. And you need Larissa Reinhart. You’re a southern library, for crying out loud.”
“Okay. So maybe we can use you for computer security. I don’t mean to be rude, but you only have one hand. One hand, and no gun.”
“Sorry. My other hand got stuck in a Jihadist rocket launcher someplace I’d rather not name.”
“That doesn’t seem like a good place to put your hand.”
“The American vice president who the launcher was pointed at thought it was a good idea. The guy firing the rocket, who was killed when the rocket jammed on my hand and exploded, thought it was a very bad idea. Opinions differ.”
“Jesus. I mean, I admire your service, but aren’t there limits to what you can do?”
He nodded, stood, opened the door and waited in the library for her. She stepped out beside him.
“How many people—patrons—do you count out here?”
Serenity looked. “Eleven.”
“Twelve. You missed the kid under the table with the woman in the Rastafarian cap.”
“Okay. Nice trick.”
“Trick. Try to watch this. If anybody sees what I’m doing, I’ll walk out of here and let you hire a rent-a-cop.”
He jumped up and dug his fingers into the molding over her door. Then he pulled himself up with his one arm until his waist was even with the top of the door. Swung himself off that to the top of a book rack. Gathering speed, he flew from the rack to a rafter, and bounced rafter to rafter.
No sound. Serenity looked around. Nobody was paying attention to the man flying over their head. She looked back and couldn’t find OHR.
There was a quiet thud behind her. She turned and saw OHR grinning, wearing the woman’s Rastafarian cap.
“No one saw you.”
“Actually, the kid did.”
Serenity saw the child under the table staring at them. OHR gave him a little finger wave and the kid waved back. OHR handed the hat to Serenity.
“You’ll do,” she said.
fifty-four
it’s all at the library
MID-DAY AND DOOM had all of her high school kids, college kids, hipsters, flipsters and finger-popping daddies working in the old library on programs they were shoe-horning into any space they could find, until they could move into the new MAD the next week.
Joy had her army of homeless men and derelicts working on the transition, moving anything they could find into any spaces already complete in the new MAD. They looked like two surreal ghost armies marching to two different beats, floating through the good people of Maddington who were battling to use the old library.
Mostly, the armies got along.
Right now, one of Doom’s hipsters who went by Josh (not his real name; he was too cool to tell anyone his real name) and a walking skeleton of Joy’s called Slim (because he couldn’t remember his name), weren’t getting along.
Josh was slouched against the open front of the men’s room door, “Man, I saw it first. We’re turning the men’s room into a meeting room.”
Slim shrugged. “Don’t care, sonny. We need a room, too. Joy told me to box up the book store and find a place to store it. She needs the store space for something and the store has to be ready to move. I put that box down first, I got more coming and I’m too damned old to pick it up. Squatter’s rights.” He laughed a little he-he-he laugh. “Get it, squatter’s rights in the men’s room?”
Josh picked up a broom from the corner and waved it. “Mine.”
Serenity heard the commotion and stepped in to find them wrestling with the broom. “Stop! Both of you, stop right now. What’s going on here?”
“Joy needs this space for storage,” said Slim without taking his hand from the broom.
“It’s our space, for a meeting about a new drug from a Maddington startup. Meeting’s scheduled for right now,” said Josh, also with his hand on the broom.
A couple of geeky-looking young men pushed their way through the crowd that had gathered.
“Is this where GenTech’s meeting?”
“Yes,” said Josh.
“No,” said Slim.
“Yes,” said Serenity.
Josh tried to pull the broom away in victory but Slim pulled back. “What about my boxes?”
“Bring them in here anyway. It’ll give the GenTech folks a better place to sit.”
Done. One problem solved, about a million left. It felt good to make some progress towards peace and quiet. However, neither man was letting go of the broom. Serenity grabbed hold of it. “Oh, for crying out loud, you two.”
She yanked the broom away and the handle punched a ceiling tile free. A handful of plastic bags with white powder fell onto Serenity’s feet. Everyone froze.
Josh said, “Cocaine.”
Serenity then pushed the tile aside with the broom, and bags of white powder cascaded to the floor like a white powder waterfall.
One of the GenTech guys looked at the other.
“Is that our new product?”
fifty-five
lucy, you got some ’splaining to do
SERENITY STEPPED BACK from the drugs, waved the crazies out of the bathroom and called the patrolman who was protecting the murder crime scene.
“You need to secure this,” she said, “and call it in.”
The patrolman—who looked like a twin to the library’s high school security, with the exception of a blue suit and a gun—keyed his mic and spoke into it.
Serenity spread her arms and made a gesture of pushing back the crowd. “Everybody find a home on the other side of the library. Our crime scene is about to get bigger.”
The crowd melted away until just one man was left: a tough-looking man who wasn’t budging.
“Sir, you need to—”
He reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol.
“Actually, what I need to do is take all of this off your hands and get it back to my boss.” He pointed the gun at the patrolman. “Take your gun out slowly and drop it in the toilet.”
That done, the gunman said, “Now, dump that box out and fill it up with those bags. You’re going to carry this out to my car for me.”
Serenity took slow backward steps. She got to her office, grabbed the AK-47, and stepped back out in full Rambo pose with the rifle pointed at the gunman.
Or, rather where the gunman had been a moment ago. Now, the gunman was on the floor with OHR sitting on top of him and the gun on the floor.
Joe burst in the door and took in the whole scene.
“Jesus, Serenity. What now?”
fifty-six
a library full of inconvenient truths
JOE STOOD in the doorway of the men’s room, just outside the yellow crime scene tape, holding on to Serenity’s AK-47. Serenity stood beside him, but he hadn’t looked at her since he had taken her weapon away. His gaze was on the white bags scattered on the floor.