Part 19 (1/2)
Life is twisted, Liddy thought. I finally find a woman who isn't reduced to Neanderthal tactics by my b.o.o.bs, but everything else about me makes her cry.
Was she in a foreign movie with no subt.i.tles? Or was this just the way the d.y.k.es dated in Iowa City? Yes, no, yes, no, talk, talk, and more talk?
112.
8.
Eric eyed Marian as she joined him at the reference desk. ”Get lucky?”
”Oh, yeah.” Marian slid into one of the two vacant chairs at the reference desk. ”You know me-women, women, women.”
”Right.” Eric's obvious disbelief was a relief, but Marian was oddly peeved by it.
So what else is new, she thought. So far today you've been angry, surrounded by sausage, laughed, kissed, turned on beyond belief, kissed more, cried pathetically and shouted at a stranger.
Liddy was hardly a stranger any longer, Inner s.l.u.t p.r.o.nounced.
Not if you wanted her hand down your pants.
She is a stranger, Inner Prude argued back. Why, we don't even know if she prefers milk chocolate or dark!
I'm losing it, Marian thought. Having gotten her period she could hardly blame the mood swings on hormones.
113.
”Holy cow,” Eric said. ”Look who's here.”
Marian watched the similarly dressed young men-neither of whom could be older than she was-walk without invitation or hesitation into Mary Jane's office. Through the dark gla.s.s she saw Mary Jane put down the phone and rise. ”Oh, joy. That's what this day needed. The F.B.I.”
”I wonder which of our patrons is plotting the overthrow of the government today?”
”Be nice if it was the blonde with the bad att.i.tude, wouldn't it?”
Bill the Boor emerged from the work area behind their desk.
”The F.B.I. is here?”
Marian told herself if she didn't look at him he wasn't real. That plan was foiled by the need to speak to him. ”Can I sign you out of your e-mail?”
”I was about to finish up.”
Marian yielded the chair and gestured at the third terminal. ”Can I close the browser you've got open on this one?”
”Oh, I suppose,” Bill said irritably.
”One per customer.” Eric spoke cheerfully, which Marian knew made Bill even more sullen. Abruptly all business, Eric said, ”Heads up.”
Mary Jane's managerial mask was firmly in place. ”Marian, could you join me in my office?”
Since Mary Jane hadn't mentioned the two agents there Marian wondered if they were invoking the Patriot Act. She certainly hoped not. They hadn't yet had the law enforced in their library system.
Well, as far as she knew, they hadn't. Since it imposed a gag order on everyone, there was no way of knowing if it had or hadn't been applied. Beware of government conducted in secrecy, she reminded herself.
Mary Jane introduced her, explained that she had looked at their subpoena and checked it with legal, then left them alone.
Fortunately, the only place to sit was behind Mary Jane's desk. It was less intimidating than standing while the two men sat.
114.
She knew her smile was stiff, but she didn't need the patronizing ”There's no reason to be alarmed, Ms. Pardoo. This person is wanted for questioning only.”
Marian held back a remark about dungeons or thumbscrews.
She'd met a dozen agents during her tenure at the library, and all of them prided themselves for having no sense of humor.
She spelled her name, gave her home phone number and address, then peered carefully at the photograph they showed her. ”I honestly can't say I recognize which patron this is. When was this taken?”
The agent in charge answered, ”We're not at liberty to say.
Would you remember what books he might have asked about?”
Marian gave the dark-haired man a steady look. ”I must handle a hundred requests a day. Frankly I try not to remember, as I think I'd go mad.” Plus what I can't remember I can't tell you, she failed to add. If a patron struck her as furtive or somehow illicit she might remember for that reason, but otherwise she had plenty of other things to do with her time and memory cells. ”Perhaps one of the other staff members?”
Emotionlessly, the other agent said, ”We're not at liberty to discuss who we'll be speaking with.”
Patriot Act maybe, Marian thought, or maybe not. If the matter were somebody sending threatening e-mails from a library terminal, they'd be more forthcoming. They had been in the past, at least.
”He may never have spoken to me.”
”He used a terminal near your desk, Ms. Pardoo.”
”Yes, near the shared reference desk, but I don't watch the patrons use the computers unless they make some sort of unusual movement. Like masturbating. Though the ones who try that usually sit facing the other way.”
It was a waste of energy, trying to discomfit the two men. She wasn't being deliberately unhelpful. She really didn't remember this guy, not from a blurry, black-and-white photo printed from the security camera.
115.
She took their card and said of course she would call if she saw that particular patron again, and of course she understood she was not able to tell anyone about this or future conversations.
They gestured for Mary Jane to come back and asked her for a list of books checked out ”for the date in question,” in compliance with their subpoena.
Great, Marian didn't want to know when the date in question was anyway.
Relieved the agents were back in Mary Jane's care, Marian hid her smile as Mary Jane explained that the Iowa City Public Library purged patron records once texts were returned, therefore the list would be naturally incomplete at this time.
Eric looked up when she got back to the reference desk. ”Have fun with the G-men?”