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

Doom gave the maître d’ a little shove as she went by and said, “Get over it.”

It was easy to follow Camo Guy. He was leaving muddy boot prints across the expensive carpet. Serenity thought the staff would be horrified, but they were all carefully looking away, as if the guy wasn’t there.

He went to a back alcove, to a door in the back marked private, and pulled the door open. Serenity quick-stepped the last couple of steps, caught the door as it was closing, and stepped into a darkened room.

Then three guns came out, pointed at Serenity and Doom.

THREE GUNS. One was in in the hands of Camo Guy, three feet ahead of them with his feet still pointing into the room but his body and gun twisted around to face Serenity. The half of the room closest to the door had two black couches facing a TV that covered most of the wall—and another guy holding a gun. The back half of the room looked like a cute yuppie café. Three small bistro tables with expensive teak tabletops and intricate cast iron chairs. Two men sat at the table in the back corner, near another door. One man looked like a 1950s B-movie star with jet-black hair brushed straight back, gray temples, and a black Armani suit. His fork was poised over a dinner plate and his face carried a bored expression. The little guy next to him had his gun out and didn’t look bored at all.

Armani Suit said, “Ms. Hammer. You just missed your husband.”

“So he was here?”

“Here. Left. Any of you boys know where he went?”

Camo Guy snickered “Uncle Ernie,” while the other two revealed no expression.

Armani Suit/Don Juan played with a forkful of food and looked across it at Serenity.

“Maybe he’s home watching a movie. Say, Scarface .”

“So, you sent that? And planted the drugs in my library to incriminate us?”

He put the food in his mouth and chewed for a few seconds while he looked at Serenity. Then he swallowed and said, “No. The public—emphasis on public—library has been our distribution center for years. And, no, I didn’t send you the movie. Believe it, or don’t. I’ve got no need to lie to Hammers anymore.”

She waited.

“The people you pissed off sent it, and told me,” he said, “which is good for me. Your husband has always been a pain in my… neck. Couldn’t do anything about it. But you messed with somebody with a lot more juice than me. If—,” He smiled. “If Joe were to disappear now, the police would be told by those people to not bother looking too hard. And the DVD supplier would be very grateful to anyone who helped Serenity Hammer’s husband disappear.

“So.” He stabbed something with a fork. “No one could touch your husband.” He raised the fork. “’Til you came along. Thank you, Mrs. Hammer.”

He tipped the fork in a toast and snapped at the bite like an alligator. Camo Guy giggled.

Serenity took a step toward him.

“Tell me where Joe is or that fork goes in you.”

She felt hands clamp her biceps and pin them to her side while Camo Guy chuckled behind her.

“I demand to know where my husband is. Now,” Serenity said, “or I’m going to the police.”

“Go for it. And tell them about the DVD. See their reaction. You’re too late to do anything but get yourself in trou-ble. We’re done here,” Don Juan said. “Throw them out.”

There’s an old saying about it not being the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of fight in the dog. The man who stood up from the couch was big, but Doom had the fight. She jumped into a karate stance in front of him and yelled an earsplitting “Hiiaa.”

He punched her in the stomach and put her under one arm. Then Camo Guy rotated Serenity and tucked her under his arm. They carried the women out through a side door and threw them into the parking lot.

Sometimes the size of the dog matters.

SERENITY LAY on the asphalt looking up at the stars, counting aches and pains until she got tired of counting. She sat up gently. Nothing seemed broken, but everything seemed bruised. She looked at Doom, who was getting to her feet.

“You okay?” said Serenity.

“I’m sure some part of me’s okay,” Doom said. “Most parts feel like one of those animated anatomy texts that shows every muscle flashing red.”

“That was really—”

Serenity said, “brave” at the same time that Doom said “dumb.”

The valet, who had been watching, looked down at them and said, “You should have taken the valet parking.”

“Thanks.” Serenity got to her feet and pulled her phone out.

“What are you doing?” said Doom.

“Calling the police.”

“No.”

Doom put her hand on the phone.

“Doom, Joe’s in trouble. It’s time for the cavalry, even if that leads to you and me and the library paying the price when everything comes out. I can’t play games with this.”

“You’re not playing games. Look, if you call the police, what will they do?”

“They will jump on this with both feet. And a lot of guns. Which is good.”

“Unless Don Juan was telling the truth about things being fixed. Even if he wasn’t, they’ll send a swarm of cops down here. You think those guys in there will tell them anything?”

“No.”

“Damned right. And, if Joe is still alive, they will send orders to kill him and hide the body as soon as the police get here.”

“Joe’s got friends on the MPD. People we can trust. And there’s an FBI guy I can trust.”

“What if you’re wrong? Say one of them says or does something to make his boss suspicious. Don Juan says we’re messing with something bigger than him. You don’t have any idea where their tentacles reach. You’d be signing his death warrant—if he’s still alive.”

“Don’t say ‘if.’ He’s got to be alive.”

“Then let’s keep him that way. We can’t wait on other people, certainly not for bureaucracies. You and me. They don’t expect us,” Doom said.

“With good reason. Don’t you remember how we wound up on the pavement?”

“Yes, they sucker punched me and I fell on the muddy boots of the guy who was holding you. I could have taken him.”

“You missed the point. Why did he have muddy boots? Think about it. Imagine you’re the muddy boots guy. You work in the middle of your boss’s hoity-toity restaurant. When you come to work every day, do you come in looking like you’ve been wrestling with hogs and track mud on your boss’s carpet? Of course not.”

“So?”

“The only way you do that is if your boss knows why you’re muddy. Approves it. Ordered it. Muddy Boots was there when Joe got there, then he took Joe somewhere.”

“Great. Now all we have to do is go back and ask them where he took Joe.”

“No.” Serenity marched over to the Bigfoot truck. “Look at that. Mud. Wet mud. Hasn’t rained here in days.” She reached up and pulled off something that looked like a corndog. “Cattail. This truck’s been down by the river.”

“The river, with all that yucky swamp grass? And rumors of alligators?”

“More than rumors. Before your time, the river authority decided that the way to get rid of all of that swamp grass was to bring two hundred alligators up from Florida to eat it all. When it turned out, after a few years, that the alligators didn’t like to eat the grass, the river authority gave up. They trapped two hundred alligators and took them back to Florida. See anything wrong with that logic?”

“Not as long as the alligators didn’t get jiggy and have any alligator babies.”

“Exactly. So every now and then there are stories about alligator sightings. The biggest one keeps getting reported around Beaver Dam Creek. Know what they call him?”