“I’ll be careful. You’ve already killed at least one man.”
“According to Don Juan, so have you. At least we left the family a body to bury.”
“Maybe that’s your mistake, burying too many things in too many places. That’s why it’s going to be different this time,” she said. “In the past, you’ve had to deal with one guy, or maybe one organization, who knew a thing or two, and might dig and find a little more. It was easy for you to hide things from them and easy to control the damage.
“But we’re librarians. Finding out information and sharing knowledge is our business, our profession and, for some of us, even our calling. My librarians, and some librarians at other libraries, have been digging. They know how to dig in ways you can’t even imagine.
“We know it all. Dark money PACs have been around, legally, for ten years, and have been used to blackmail businesses for contributions and, at the same time, blackmail politicians who are dependent on them for reelection. But I was surprised to learn that you’ve united all the Dark PACs, and all the illegal drug money in the state of Alabama. That’s way past legal. We can prove it all, and you can’t kill every one of us.”
He said nothing, and she went on.
“My husband was right about something he said: nobody has this much money. But all of us in Maddington and in the whole state of Alabama together, do. You, and people like you, have quietly blackmailed every company, every business, every mobster—and ultimately all of us for what you call ‘political contributions’ for so long that we just shrug and take it without even asking how big it is.”
Through the darkness, his voice said, “People want us to do this for them, but they would be surprised at how big it is. That’s why we don’t keep the money in a bank, even one under our control, as it could still be monitored. But a neglected municipal fund in Maddington? No one cares. And it’s all legal. At least the parts I oversee are: making sure that businesses of every kind know the importance of political contributions, and making sure that politicians are controlled by those contributions. It’s simple, Ms. Hammer. Everything gets organized, and when it gets organized, it gets bigger and more efficient. Think of the guy who took a little hamburger stand, organized it into McDonald’s, and gave America a billion hamburgers.”
“So you just organize hamburger stands?”
She saw a little bit of a shrug through the panel. “We don’t worry about what our companies produce. Satellites, t-shirts, hamburgers, politicians, laws—everyone pays us a little, and benefits a lot.”
“Drug dealers?”
Another shrug. “McDonald’s isn’t responsible for the cholesterol in their hamburgers. We’re not responsible for what our subsidiaries do.”
“And your enforcer out there?” she asked.
He laughed. “That’s a little harsh. He’s more of a persuader than an enforcer. Usually, a conversation is sufficient but, by any means necessary. We don’t tell him how to run his part of our operation, nor are we responsible for what he does. Although, as I’ve said, I regret his last choice. I’m not a bad guy.”
“Debatable. But none of that matters if people find out about all this. They won’t put up with it.”
He said, “They won’t care. They just want someone to keep the world running.”
“That may be true. But we can do a hell of a lot better job than you can.”
He sighed. “You want us to cut you in? Fair enough. We’ve already got plans to invite you in. We’re going to take over your building and let the chamber of commerce run it. We’ll let you have two floors for your library, which is twice as big as it is now.”
Serenity took a deep breath and hoped he didn’t hear the shaking in her voice.
“No. Here’s what we’re going to do. Contributions stay the same. We’ll let you keep half for your politicians. It’s more than they deserve. We take the other half, expand the MAD, and build other MADs throughout the state. We know the money you control isn’t just from Maddington, but from the whole damned state. Once we’ve turned the state MAD, we’ll go after your brothers in other states. Try to stop us and every librarian in the country will start shining a light on you.”
There was a short laugh like a cough. “I wish I’d given you a scrap when you came begging earlier. That would probably have been enough, then.”
“Probably. But not now. And I honestly thank you for pushing me to fight for more than scraps for our library and for our city.”
There was a long silence. “Your library is still going to join us, one way or the other, eventually. You think this is like one of the games on your library play days. But this is far more dangerous, Serenity, than you can possibly know. We can take your library with or without you—even without your life—if we have to.”
“I am scared, honestly. You have power and you have guns.” She opened the confessional door, stepped out to open his door, and spoke to him directly. “But we have books. I know how weak that sounds to you, but it’s not. We can do this, and we will do this.”
“Perhaps you can, but only for a time,” he said. “Nothing lasts forever. You can hold on for a while, but every day will be a battle. You have already seen what happens to people who threaten us. You will pay prices, and you will pay them in ways you can neither predict nor comprehend, and in the end, you will pay the ultimate price. ”
Serenity was tired. “Yeah. But when you don’t do the things you know need doing, you pay a price there, too. We’re done paying that price. I’m going to fight for this as long and as hard as I can, regardless of the price.”
“That’s madness.”
The smile came unbidden out of somewhere inside her and bubbled up bigger than she meant. “Hell, yeah.”
sixty-eight
shout your madness to the sky
NONE OF IT FELT REAL to Serenity.
After her meeting with Molcut, she’d spent Sunday at the MAD, attending to details, looking over her shoulder, and wondering if her pink hard hat would stop bullets. Her meeting with Molcut just felt like big talk now, and when she called Joe in the afternoon he seemed distant.
“Feel like somebody hit me over the head with a sledgehammer and then stuffed the inside of my head with cotton,” he said.
“Probably just the effect of the drugs from the doctor.” She looked at her watch and calculated how much of the sleeping pills should still be in his system.
“Hope so.”
She tried being upbeat. “Maybe you’re still recovering from that awesome performance of yours last night.”
Silence. Were the drugs fogging his memory? Or was there more?
After a pause, he said, “I’m going back to bed” and then hung up on her.
She sat out at the picnic tables for a long time, staring in the direction of her MAD, but really staring at nothing. How many people had she put at risk? All for a dream that might—probably would—just be gobbled up by Molcut and the great machinery of Things As They Are. After she was dead. Maybe Joe. Maybe Doom. Maybe Joy. Maybe… How long would the list be?
She shook herself out of her funk and saw that darkness had fallen. She couldn’t face Joe like this. She went inside to the cot in her old office and made the transition from frightening waking dreams to terrifying real dreams.
She woke up with Joy shaking her, “They’re here, boss.”
“Who’s here?”
“Forbes. And Good Morning America. Today’s Monday, the day they’re doing a profile on the MAD.”