Four Past Midnight (73 page)

It was so simple it was amazing.

Still feeling a little nervous and a little embarrassed (but much more in control of this teapot tempest), Sam parked across the street from the Library. The carriage lamps which flanked the main entrance were on, casting soft white radiance down the steps and across the building's granite facade. Evening lent the building a kindness and a welcoming air it had definitely been lacking on his first visit—or maybe it was just that spring was clearly on the rise now, something which had not been the case on the overcast March day when he had first met the resident dragon. The forbidding face of the stone robot was gone. It was just the public library again.

Sam started to get out of the car and then stopped. He had been granted one revelation; now he was suddenly afforded another.

The face of the woman in Dirty Dave's poster came back to him, the woman with the platter of fried chicken. The one Dave had called Sarah. That woman had looked familiar to Sam, and all at once some obscure circuit fired off in his brain and he knew why.

It had been Naomi Higgins.

He passed two kids in JCHS jackets on the steps and caught the door before it could swing all the way closed. He stepped into the foyer. The first thing that struck him was the sound. The reading room beyond the marble steps was by no means rowdy, but neither was it the smooth pit of silence which had greeted Sam on Friday noon just over a week ago.

Well, but it's Saturday evening now,
he thought.
There are kids here, maybe studying for their midterm exams.

But would Ardelia Lortz condone such chatter, muted as it was? The answer seemed to be yes, judging from the sound, but it surely didn't seem in character.

The second thing had to do with that single mute adjuration which had been mounted on the easel.
was gone. In its place was a picture of Thomas Jefferson. Below it was this quotation:

Sam studied this for a moment, thinking that it changed the whole flavor in one's mouth as one prepared to enter the library.
induced feelings of trepidation and disquiet (what if one's belly was rumbling, for instance, or if one felt an attack of not necessarily silent flatulence might be imminent?).
on the other hand, induced feelings of pleasure and anticipation—it made one feel as hungry men and women feel when the food is finally arriving.

Puzzling over how such a small thing could make such an essential difference, Sam entered the Library ... and stopped dead.

It was much brighter in the main room than it had been on his first visit, but that was only one of the changes. The ladders which had stretched up to the dim reaches of the upper shelves were gone. There was no need of them, because the ceiling was now only eight or nine feet above the floor instead of thirty or forty. If you wanted to take a book from one of the higher shelves, all you needed was one of the stools which were scattered about. The magazines were placed in an inviting fan on a wide table by the circulation desk. The oak rack from which they had hung like the skins of dead animals was gone. So was the sign reading

The shelf of new novels was still there, but the 7-DAY RENTALS sign had been replaced with one which said READ A BEST SELLER—JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT!

People—mostly young people—came and went, talking in low tones. Someone chuckled. It was an easy, unselfconscious sound.

Sam looked up at the ceiling, trying desperately to understand what in hell had happened here. The slanted skylights were gone. The upper reaches of the room had been hidden by a modern suspended ceiling. The old-fashioned hanging globes had been replaced by panelled fluorescent lighting set into the new ceiling.

A woman on her way up to the main desk with a handful of mystery novels followed Sam's gaze up to the ceiling, saw nothing unusual there, and looked curiously at Sam instead. One of the boys sitting at a long desk to the right of the magazine table nudged his fellows and pointed Sam out. Another tapped his temple and they all snickered.

Sam noticed neither the stares nor the snickers. He was unaware that he was simply standing in the entrance to the main reading room, gawking up at the ceiling with his mouth open. He was trying to get this major change straight in his mind.

No, but why would she say anything to him? Sam was hardly a library regular, was he?

That was true, but there was something else, something even more troubling. Putting in a suspended ceiling was a major renovation. Sam didn't see how it could have been accomplished in just a week. And what about the high shelves, and all the books which had been on them? Where had the shelves gone? Where had the
books
gone?

Other people were looking at Sam now; even one of the library assistants was staring at him from the other side of the circulation desk. Most of the lively, hushed chatter in the big room had stilled.

Sam rubbed his eyes—actually rubbed his eyes—and looked up at the suspended ceiling with its inset fluorescent squares again. It was still there.

I'm in the wrong libary!
he thought wildly.
That's what it is!

His confused mind first jumped at this idea and then backed away again, like a kitten that has been tricked into pouncing on a shadow. Junction City was fairly large by central Iowa standards, with a population of thirty-five thousand or so, but it was ridiculous to think it could support two libraries. Besides, the location of the building and the configuration of the room were right ... it was just everything else that was wrong.

Sam wondered for just a moment if he might be going insane, and then dismissed the thought. He looked around and noticed for the first time that everyone had stopped what they were doing. They were all looking at him. He felt a momentary, mad urge to say, “Go back to what you were doing—I was just noticing that the whole library is different this week.” Instead, he sauntered over to the magazine table and picked up a copy of U.S.
News & World Report.
He began leafing through it with a show of great interest, and watched out of the comers of his eyes as the people in the room went back to what they had been doing.

When he felt that he could move without attracting undue attention, Sam replaced the magazine on the table and sauntered toward the Children's Library. He felt a little like a spy crossing enemy territory. The sign over the door was exactly the same, gold letters on warm dark oak, but the poster was different. Little Red Riding Hood at the moment of her terrible realization had been replaced by Donald Duck's nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They were wearing bathing trunks and diving into a swimming pool filled with books. The tag-line beneath read:

“What's going
on
here?” Sam muttered. His heart had begun to beat too fast; he could feel a fine sweat breaking out on his arms and back. If it had been just the poster, he could have assumed that La Lortz had been fired ... but it
wasn't
just the poster. It was
everything.

He opened the door of the Children's Library and peeked inside. He saw the same agreeable small world with its low tables and chairs, the same bright-blue curtains, the same water fountain mounted on the wall. Only now the suspended ceiling in here matched the suspended ceiling in the main reading room, and all the posters had been changed. The screaming child in the black sedan
(Simple Simon they call him Simple Simon they feel contempt for him I think that's very healthy, don't you)

was gone, and so was the Library Policeman with his trenchcoat and his strange star of many points. Sam drew back, turned around, and walked slowly to the main circulation desk. He felt as if his whole body had turned to glass.

Two library assistants—a college-age boy and girl—watched him approach. Sam was not too upset himself to see that they looked a trifle nervous.

He suddenly thought of Lukey and a horrible, destructive impulse tried to seize him. He could see himself opening his mouth and yelling at these two nervous young people, demanding at the top of his voice that they give him a few Slim Fucking Slim Jims, because that was chow, that was chow, that was
chow-de-dow.

He spoke in a calm, low voice instead.

“Perhaps you could help me. I need to speak to the librarian.”

“Gee, I'm sorry,” the girl said. “Mr. Price doesn't come in on Saturday nights.”

Sam glanced down at the desk. As on his previous trip to the library, there was a small name-plaque standing next to the microfilm recorder, but it no longer said

Now it said

In his mind he heard Naomi say,
Tall man?
About fifty? “No,” he said. “Not Mr. Price. Not Mr. Peckham, either. The other one. Ardelia Lortz.”

The boy and girl exchanged a puzzled glance. “No one named Ardelia Lord works here,” the boy said. “You must be thinking of some other library.”

“Not Lord,” Sam told them. His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance.
“Lortz.”

“No,” the girl said. “You really must be mistaken, sir.”

They were starting to look cautious again, and although Sam felt like insisting, telling them of
course
Ardelia Lortz worked here, he had met her only
eight days ago,
he made himself pull back. And in a way, it all made perfect sense, didn't it? It was perfect sense within a framework of utter lunacy, granted, but that didn't change the fact that the interior logic was intact. Like the posters, the skylights, and the magazine rack, Ardelia Lortz had simply ceased to exist.

Naomi spoke up again inside his head.
Oh?
Miss
Lortz,
was it? That must have been fun.

“Naomi recognized the name,” he muttered.

Now the library assistants were looking at him with identical expressions of consternation.

“Pardon me,” Sam said, and tried to smile. It felt crooked on his face. “I'm having one of those days.”

“Yes,” the boy said.

“You bet,” the girl said.

They think I'm crazy,
Sam thought,
and do you know what? I don't blame them a bit.

“Was there anything else?” the boy asked.

Sam opened his mouth to say no—after which he would beat a hasty retreat—and then changed his mind. He was in for a penny; he might as well go in for a pound.

“How long has Mr. Price been the head librarian?”

The two assistants exchanged another glance. The girl shrugged. “Since we've been here,” she said, “but that's not very long, Mr.—?”

“Peebles,” Sam said, offering his hand. “Sam Peebles. I'm sorry. My manners seem to have flown away with the rest of my mind.”

They both relaxed a little—it was an indefinable thing, but it was there, and it helped Sam do the same. Upset or not, he had managed to hold onto at least some of his not inconsiderable ability to put people at ease. A real-estate-and-insurance salesman who couldn't do that was a fellow who ought to be looking for a new line of work.

“I'm Cynthia Berrigan,” she said, giving his hand a tentative shake. “This is Tom Stanford.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Tom Stanford said. He didn't look entirely sure of this, but he also gave Sam's hand a quick shake.

“Pardon me?” the woman with the mystery novels asked. “Could someone help me, please? I'll be late for my bridge game.”

“I'll do it,” Tom told Cynthia, and walked down the desk to check out the woman's books.

She said, “Tom and I go to Chapelton Junior College, Mr. Peebles. This is a work-study job. I've been here three semesters now—Mr. Price hired me last spring. Tom came during the summer.”

“Mr. Price is the only full-time employee?”

“Uh-huh.” She had lovely brown eyes and now he could see a touch of concern in them. “Is something wrong?”

“I don't know.” Sam looked up again. He couldn't help it. “Has this suspended ceiling been here since you came to work?”

She followed his glance. “Well,” she said, “I didn't know that was what it's called, but yes, it's been this way since I've been here.”

“I had an idea there were skylights, you see.”

Cynthia smiled. “Well, sure. I mean, you can see them from the outside, if you go around to the side of the building. And, of course, you can see them from the stacks, but they're boarded over. The skylights, I mean—not the stacks. I think they've been that way for years.”

For years.

“And you've never heard of Ardelia Lortz.”

She shook her head. “Uh-uh. Sorry.”

“What about the Library Police?” Sam asked impulsively.

She laughed. “Only from my old aunt. She used to tell me the Library Police would get me if I didn't bring my books back on time. But that was back in Providence, Rhode Island, when I was a little girl. A long time ago.”