Michael Guillebeau - MAD Librarian - You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Library

Serenity nodded and said, “Last two would have been to go. He always gets a few for the road.”

Dottie said, “What’ll you have?” to the next woman in line, and Serenity slipped back out the side door.

So Joe had already left. She pulled out her phone and tried his cell again. No answer, again. If Joe were heading home, he’d answer his phone. She called Doom.

“Plan B. Joe’s already left. Meet me on the right side of the concession stand and we’ll figure something out.”

She hung up and tried to think. Maybe the drug lord was still here.

She looked around and realized the futility of looking for someone in a crowd of five thousand. It wasn’t like he’d wear a sign saying, buy drugs here.

Maybe not so futile. She saw a dark-skinned, white twenty-something boy slouched by himself against the fence behind the concession stand. He had a hipster hat pulled over his eyes, and baggy black jeans hanging halfway to his knees. She tried to approach him with as cool a walk as she could manage. Cool for a librarian, anyway.

“Hey, bro,” she said.

He didn’t look up. “Get lost, old lady.”

“I got a hankering. And I got money.”

The boy could have been a statue. “I don’t know you, and I don’t waste time on anybody who uses words like ‘hankering.’”

“Don’t you lecture me on words, young man. ‘Hanker’ is a perfectly legitimate word, dating back to seventeenth century Flemish.”

So much for Serenity’s cool drug addict act.

She heard a voice at her back. “Uh, Ms. Hammer.”

She ignored the voice and pushed into the kid’s face. “Okay. I don’t care about drugs. But I want to you to tell me where Don Juan is.”

The boy looked at her in horror.

Someone pulled her back and turned her around.

Doom said, “Ms. Hammer, that’s not a drug dealer. That’s Billy Zant. He’s in our young writers group at the library. He thinks he has to be a disaffected young writer, kind of a cross between Raymond Chandler and James Dean. Not a drug dealer. Ms. Hammer, I’m sorry, but you don’t know what drug dealers look like at Mad High.”

“Then you do it. But I want to know where Don Juan is. Hopefully Joe’s gone to him.”

“Done.”

Doom walked off through the crowd and Serenity followed her to the fifty-yard line on the home side. All the seats were packed except for a little knot of high school boys in preppy clothes who had a small ring of empty seats surrounding them. Doom crooked a finger at the boy in the middle and motioned him down.

“We need to talk to you about drugs,” she said.

He smiled a crocodile smile. “You’re cute, but I don’t know you, and I don’t sell drugs.”

“You’ll never see me again, and I don’t want drugs.”

He kept smiling a smug little smile.

“What I want is to know is where I can find Don Juan.”

He leered and Doom said, “Not a Don Juan, and certainly not you, for Christ’s sake. The real Don Juan.”

He tried to look tough. “Why should I tell you?”

Doom reached into the big bag she carried for a purse and pulled out a card.

“Abercrombie and Fitch discount card. Forty percent off.”

“THIS HAS GOT TO BE A JOKE,” said Serenity as she backed her car out of its spot, the high school band still loud even here in the parking lot. “You got played, and now we’re on a wild goose chase.”

“Maybe.” Doom fiddled with the radio until she found something that sounded like a monkey banging on trash cans and a hound dog howling the same angry curse over and over. Serenity wanted to ask what the words were, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Didn’t matter.

“Hard country rap,” Doom said without being asked. “The band is called Quarter Horse Cock; song is ‘Kill the Goddamned Game Wardens.’ You like it?”

“Uplifting. Didn’t Johnny Mathis do the original?”

“Don’t know who Johnny Mathis was. One of the old guys like the Beatles? But I do know that you’re the one who got us out here on a wild goose chase. We’re out here to protect your husband, who’s like eight feet tall and carries so many guns he clanks when he walks. Seriously? He needs our help?”

“He’s mad enough to do something crazy, and he’s alone, against an organization that has wanted him dead for so long that he never goes up against them alone. Until now, maybe. So, yes, he does. Whether he knows it or not.”

“And this helps the library how?”

“There’s more to my life than a library. Besides, Don Juan may be the key to our money and to the threats against us.”

Doom said, “You’re so lucky. Joe’s a good man.”

“Better than I deserve right now, and most people don’t know how good he is. He’s kind of like a woman who’s so pretty that nobody gives her credit for being smart. Most people look at Joe and see a big stud, party boy, which of course, he encourages with all his jokes. But when we’re alone, he talks about right and wrong more than anybody I’ve ever met. The core of Joe Hammer is doing what he thinks is right.” She paused. Her eyes were wet but then she giggled. “Well, he does talk about other things. Another reason to keep him alive.”

“So are you going to write a hot bestseller about romantic life with a cop, call it Fifty Shades of Blue ?”

“There’s a lot more than fifty shades in that book.”

“Good to see you joke,” Doom said. “The dealer said we could find Don Juan at his restaurant, but really, if he’s holding court at the Maddington Harbor Restaurant, Joe’s in no danger of being killed there. They wouldn’t hurt anyone in a public place like that.”

“Maybe.” Serenity laughed. It felt good. “Not unless he gets overcharged to death. The only time we were there, the snooty server finally came over after ignoring us for twenty minutes. He asked if we wanted a bottle of wine. Joe said sure. Joe took more time studying the wine list than the server liked, so the waiter called over the sommelier, a guy with a little silver tasting cup on a string around his neck. Sommelier studies Joe’s cowboy hat and boots and says, ‘Could I recommend something in the fifty-dollar range, sir?’ Joe figures, why not, let’s splurge. After the guy leaves, Joe looks at the wine list, and sees that the cheapest wine there is a fifty-dollar wine, a basic Tennessee red blend. The guy could tell we didn’t belong.”

“I’m not sure I’d want to belong to that crowd of elitist snobs.”

“The worst thing was that when we got home,” said Serenity, “we saw the same bottle sitting in our wine rack. Ten dollars at Publix.”

She turned into the parking lot behind a Bigfoot truck that was throwing mud off of its huge tires.

“There.” Serenity pointed to the edge of the lot. “Joe’s pickup. We’ve found him.” She sighed. “Hope they’re not trying to kill him by making him drink himself to death. We can’t afford that. Let’s go get him out of there before he or they do something I’ll regret.”

The Bigfoot truck pulled up to the valet parking area and a guy wearing work boots and a camo jumpsuit got out and threw the keys to the attendant. Serenity ignored the valet and parked herself in an empty slot while someone from the parking stand yelled at her.

“Oh, get over it,” she said. Then to Doom, “Hurry.”

Serenity pointed at Camo Guy. “Something’s up with him.” He walked past the maître d’ with a curt nod.

The maître d’ let him pass, but stepped out from behind his stand and blocked Serenity and Doom, all the while wearing a big smile.

Serenity pushed past him.

“We’re joining our party.”