The Library at Mount Char (4 page)

“He is asking about Chieko and Kiko-chan,” Carolyn said. “I think they are his daughters. He wants to know if they are safe.”

“Ah,” David said. “Tell him I gutted them for the practice. Their mother as well.”

“Is it true?”

David shrugged.

“
Sorera wa anzen desu, Yamada-san. Ima yasumu desu nee
,” Carolyn said, telling him that they were safe, telling him that he could rest now. The dead man allowed his eyes to droop. A single tear trembled on the edge of his left eyelid. Margaret studied it with bright, greedy eyes. When it broke free and ran down Yamada's cheek she dipped her head, birdlike, and licked it up with a single deft flick of her tongue.

The dead man puffed his cheeks and blew them out, the softest, saddest sound Carolyn had ever heard. David and Margaret laughed together.

Carolyn's smile was just the right amount of forced. Perhaps she was overcome with pity for the poor man? Or maybe it was the smell. Again, anyone who bothered to peek in on her thoughts would find only concern for Father and a sincere—if slightly nervous—desire to please David. But her fingertips trembled with the memory of faint, fading vibrations carried down the shaft of a brass spear, and in her heart the hate of them blazed like a black sun.

“S
o,” she said, “do you want to break into a house?”

Steve froze for a long moment, his mouth hanging open. Over by the bar he heard a series of clicks in the bowels of the Automated Musical Instruments juke. Somebody had dropped in a penny. He set his Coors back down on the table un-sipped.
What's her name again? Christy? Cathy?

“Beg pardon?” he said finally. Then it came to him:
Carolyn
. “You're kidding, right?”

She took a drag off her cigarette. The coal flared, casting an orange glow over a half dozen greasy shot glasses and a small pile of chicken bones. “Nope. I'm completely serious.”

The AMI juke whirred. A moment later the opening thunder of Benny Goodman's “Sing, Sing, Sing” boomed out across the bar like the war drums of some savage lost tribe. All of a sudden Steve's heart was thudding in his chest.

“OK. Fine. You're not kidding. So, what you're talking about is a pretty serious felony.”

She said nothing. She only looked at him.

He scrambled for something clever to say. But what came out was “I'm a plumber.”

“You weren't always.”

Steve stared at her. That
was
true, but there was no way in the world she could have known it. He'd had nightmares about this sort of
conversation. Trying to camouflage his horror, he grabbed the last wing off the plate and dipped it in bleu cheese, but stopped short of actually eating it. The wings there did not mess around. The smell of vinegar and pepper drifted up to him like a warning. “I can't,” he said. “I've gotta get home and feed Petey.”

“Who?”

“My dog. Petey. He's a cocker sp—”

She shook her head. “That can wait.”

Change the subject
. “How do you like this place?” he said, grinning and desperate.

“Quite a lot, actually,” she said, fingering the magazine Steve had been reading. “What's it called again?”

“Warwick Hall. It used to be an actual speakeasy, back in the twenties. Cath—the lady who runs the place—inherited it from her grandfather, along with some old photos of how it used to look. She's a big jazz fan, so when she retired she restored it and opened it as a private club.”

“Right.” Carolyn sipped her beer, then looked around at the framed posters—Lonnie Johnson, Roy Eldridge holding his trumpet, an ad for a Theatrical Clam Bake on October 3 and 4, 1920-something. “It's different.”

“It is that.” Steve shook out a cigarette and offered her the pack. As she took it, he noticed that although the nails of her right hand were unpainted and gnawed away almost to the quick, the ones on her left were long and manicured, lacquered red.
Weird
. He lit their cigarettes off a single match. “I started coming here because it was the only bar around you can still smoke in, but it grew on me.”

“Why don't I give you a minute to chew on the idea,” Carolyn said. “I know I sprang it on you out of the blue. Where's the ladies' room?”

“No need to think it over. The answer is no. Ladies' is back that way.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I've never been in there, but on the urinals in the men's room you have to pull a brass chain to flush. It took me a minute to figure that out.” He paused. “Who are you, exactly?”

“I told you,” Carolyn said. “I'm a librarian.”

“OK.” At first, the way she looked—Christmas sweater, complete with reindeer, over Spandex bicycle shorts, red rubber galoshes with
1980s leg warmers—made him think she was schizophrenic. Now he doubted that was it.

OK
, he thought,
not schizophrenic. What, then?
Carolyn wasn't unduly burdened with good grooming, but neither was she unattractive. He got the impression that she was also very smart. About an hour and a half earlier she'd sauntered up with a couple of beers, introduced herself, and asked if she could sit down. Steve, a bachelor with no attachments other than his dog, had said sure. They talked for a while. She peppered him with questions and answered his own questions vaguely. All the while she studied him with dark-brown eyes.

Steve had kinda-sorta gathered the impression that she worked at the university, maybe as some sort of linguist? She spoke French to Cath, and surprised another regular, Eddie Hu, by being fluent in Chinese.
Librarian kind of fits too, though
. He imagined her, frizzy-haired, surrounded by teetering stacks of books, muttering into a stained mug of staff lounge coffee as she schemed her burglary. He grinned and shook his head.
No way
. He ordered another pitcher.

The beer beat Carolyn back to the table by a good couple of minutes. Steve poured himself another glass. As he drank, he decided to change his diagnosis from schizophrenic to “doesn't give a fuck about clothes.” A lot of people
claimed
not to give a fuck about clothes, but those who actually didn't were rare.
Not entirely unheard-of, though
.

A guy Steve had gone to high school with, Bob-something, spent two years on a South Pacific island as part of some weirdly successful drug-running scheme. When he got back he was rich as hell—
two
Ferraris, for chrissakes—but he would wear any old thing. Bob, he remembered, had once—

“I'm back,” she said. “Sorry.” She had a pretty smile.

“Hope you're up for another round,” he said, nodding at the pitcher.

“Sure.”

He poured for her. “If you don't mind me saying so, this is weird.”

“How do you mean?”

“The librarians I know are into, like, I dunno, tea and cozy mysteries, not breaking and entering.”

“Yeah, well. This is a different kind of library.”

“I'm afraid I'm going to need a bit more in the way of explanation.” As soon as the question was out of his mouth he regretted it.
You're not actually considering this, are you?
He took a quick spiritual inventory.
No. I'm not
. He
was
curious though.

“I've got a problem,” Carolyn said. “My sister said you might have the sort of experience required to solve it.”

“Like, what sort of experience are we talking about?”

“Residential locks—nothing special—and a Lorex alarm.”

“That's it?” His mind went out to the toolbox in the back of his truck. He had his plumbing tools, sure—torch, solder, pipe cutter, wrench—but there were other things as well. Wire cutters, crowbar, a multimeter, a small metal ruler that he could use to—
No
. He clamped down on the thought, but it was too late. Something inside him had come awake and was beginning to stir.

“That's it,” she said. “Easy-peasy.”

“Who's your sister?”

“Her name's Rachel. You wouldn't know her.”

He thought about it. “You're right. I don't recall meeting anyone by that name.” She certainly wasn't part of the small
—very
small—circle of people who knew about his former career. “So, how does this Rachel person know so much about me?”

“I'm honestly not clear on it myself. But she's very good at finding things out.”

“And what, exactly, did she find out about me?”

Carolyn lit another cigarette and blew twin columns of smoke out of her nostrils. “She said you've got a knack for mechanical things and an outlaw streak. And that you've committed over a hundred burglaries. A hundred and twelve, I think she said.”

That was true, if almost ten years out of date. Suddenly his stomach was in knots. The things he had done and, worse, the things he
hadn't
done back then were always circling, never far from his thoughts. At her words they landed, tore into him. “I'd like you to go now,” he said quietly. “Please.”

He wanted to read
Sports Illustrated
. He wanted to think about the Colts' offensive line, not about how he could bump through a residential Kwikset in thirty seconds even
without
proper tools. He wanted to—

“Relax. This could be very good for you.” She slid something across the floor to him. He peeked under the table and saw a blue duffel bag. “Look inside.”

He picked the bag up by the handle. Already half suspecting what he might find, he unzipped it and peeked inside. Cash. Lots of it. Mostly fifties and hundreds.

Steve set the bag down and pushed it back across the floor. “How much is in there?”

“Three hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “-ish.”

“That's an odd amount.”

“I'm an odd person.”

Steve sighed. “You have my attention.”

“Then you'll do it?”

“No. Absolutely not.”
The Buddhist undertakes to refrain from taking that which is not given
. He paused, grimaced. The previous year he had declared $58,000 on his taxes. His credit card debt was just slightly less than that. “Maybe.” He lit another cigarette. “That's a lot of money.”

“Is it? I suppose.”

“It is to me, anyway. You rich?”

She shrugged. “My Father.”

“Ah.”
Rich daddy
. That explained some of it, anyway. “How'd you come up with—how much did you say it was?”

“Three hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars. I went to the bank. Money really isn't a problem for me. Will that be enough? I can get more.”

“It should cover it,” he said. “I used to know people—qualified people—who would do a job like this for three
hundred
dollars.” He waited, not unhopefully, for her to rescind the offer, or maybe ask for an introduction to the qualified people. Instead they stared at each other for a while.

“You're the one I want,” she said. “If it's not the money, then what's holding you back?”

He thought of explaining to her how he was trying to do better. He could say,
Sometimes I feel like a new plant, like I just sprouted from the dirt, like I'm trying to stretch up to the sun
. Instead what he said was “I'm trying to figure out what you get out of this. Is it some kind of rich-kid extreme sport? You bored?”

She snorted laughter. “No. I'm the exact opposite of bored.”

“What, then?”

“Something was taken from me a number of years ago. Something precious.” She gave him a flinty smile. “I mean to have it back.”

“I'll need a little more detail. What are we talking about? Diamonds? Jewels?” He hesitated. “Drugs?”

“Nothing like that. More like sentimental value. That's all I can tell you.”

“And why me?”

“You come highly recommended.”

Steve considered. Over Carolyn's shoulder, on the dance floor, Eddie Hu and Cath were practicing the Charleston.
They're getting pretty good, too
. Steve remembered what it felt like to be good at something. For a time, in some circles, he had been a little bit well-known.
Maybe somebody remembered
. “All right,” he said finally. “I can accept that, I guess. Couple more questions, though.”

“Shoot.”

“You're sure that whatever it is, we'll just be dealing with basic, residential alarms? No safes, no exotic locks, nothing like that?”

“I'm sure.”

“How do you know?”

“My sister again.”

Steve opened his mouth to wonder about the quality of her information. Then it occurred to him that he couldn't have told you exactly how many jobs he'd done if you put a gun to his head.
One hundred and twelve sounds about right, though
. So, instead, he said, “Last question. What if whatever it is you're after isn't there?”

“You get the cash anyway.” She smiled slightly and leaned in a little closer. “Maybe even a bonus.” She cocked an eyebrow, smiled just a little flirtatiously.

Steve considered this. Before she dropped the burglary bombshell he'd been hoping that the conversation might head toward flirty land. But now…“Let's keep it simple,” he said. “The money should do me just fine. When do you want to go?”

“You'll do it then?” Her legs were strong and tan. When she moved you could see the muscles working under her skin.

“Yeah,” he said, already knowing in his heart what a terrible idea it was. “I guess.”

“No time like the present.”

O
ne of the things Steve liked about Warwick Hall was how clean it was. Everything was polished wood, glowing brass, well-sprung leather seats shaped like a friendly invitation for your ass, black-and-white tile laid out on the floor in a way that would have tickled Euclid.

That atmosphere broke as soon as you went out the front door, though. To get back to the modern world you had to climb a couple of flights of greasy concrete steps up to the street. The stairwell was black with ancient dirt, the sort of place stray cats go to die. Drifts of McCrap accumulated in the corners—cigarette butts, fast food bags, a Dasani bottle half full of tobacco spit. Tonight it was chilly, which kept the smell down, but in the summer he held his breath while he climbed.

Carolyn didn't like it either. She had removed her rubber boots in the bar, but put them back on at the threshold, then took them off again at the top of the stairs. Her leg warmers were candy-striped in the many colors of the unfashionable rainbow.
Oh hell, I've got to ask
. “Where did you even get those things, anyway?”

“Hmm?”

He pointed at the galoshes.

“I'm staying with a lady. She had them in her closet.” Without the rain boots her feet were bare. The parking lot was crushed gravel. Walking on it didn't seem to bother her.

“That's my truck over there.” It was a white work truck, a couple of years old,
HODGSON PLUMBING
stenciled in red letters on the door. The locks on his equipment cases were Medeco, the best. “Chicks dig it, I know. Try to contain yourself.” It had turned cold after the sun went down. His breath puffed white as he spoke.