where the library was, didn’t I?”
Shadow nodded, and said so long. He wished he’d thought of the library himself. He got into the purple 4Runner and drove south on Main Street, following the lake around to the southernmost point, until he reached the castle-like building which housed the city library. He walked inside. A sign pointed to the basement: LIBRARY SALE, it said. The library proper was on the ground floor, and he stamped the snow off his boots and went in.
A forbidding woman with pursed, crimson-colored lips asked him pointedly if she could help him.
“I suppose I need a library card,” he said. “And I want to know all about thunderbirds.”
The woman had him fill out a form, then she told him it would take a week until he could be issued with his card. Shadow wondered if they spent the week sending out inquiries to ensure that he was not wanted in any other libraries across America for failure to return library books.
He had known a man in prison who had been imprisoned for stealing library books.
“Sounds kind of rough,” said Shadow, when the man told him why he was inside.
“Half a million dollars’ worth of books,” said the man, proudly. His name was Gary McGuire. “Mostly rare and antique books from libraries and universities. They found a whole storage locker filled with books from floor to ceiling. Open and shut case.”
“Why did you take them?” asked Shadow.
“I wanted them,” said Gary.
“Jesus. Half a million dollars’ worth of books.”
Gary flashed him a grin, lowered his voice and said, “That was just in the storage locker they found. They never found the garage in San Clemente with the really good stuff in it.”
Gary had died in prison, when what the infirmary had told him was just a malingering, feeling-lousy kind of day turned out to be a ruptured appendix. Now, here in the Lakeside library, Shadow found himself thinking about a garage in San Clemente with box after box of rare, strange and beautiful books in it rotting away, all of them browning and wilting and being eaten by mold and insects in the darkness, waiting for someone who would never come to set them free.
Native American Beliefs and Traditions was on a single shelf in one castle-like turret. Shadow pulled down some books and sat in the window seat. In several minutes he had learned that thunderbirds were mythical gigantic birds who lived on mountaintops, who brought the lightning and who flapped their wings to make the thunder. There were some tribes, he read, who believed that the thunderbirds had made the world. Another half-hour’s reading did not turn up anything more, and he could find no mention of eagle stones anywhere in the books’ indexes.
Shadow was putting the last of the books back on the shelf when he became aware of somebody staring at him. Someone small and grave was peeking at him from around the heavy shelves. As he turned to look, the face vanished. He turned his back on the boy, then glanced around to see that he was being watched once more.
In his pocket was the Liberty dollar. He took it out of his pocket, held it up in his right hand, making sure the boy could see it. He finger-palmed it into his left hand, displayed both hands empty, raised his left hand to his mouth and coughed once, letting the coin tumble from his left hand into his right.
The boy looked at him wide-eyed and scampered away, returning a few moments later, dragging an unsmiling Marguerite Olsen, who looked at Shadow suspiciously and said, “Hello, Mister Ainsel. Leon says you were doing magic for him.”
“Just a little prestidigitation, ma’am.”
“Please don’t,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I was just trying to entertain him.”
She shook her head, tautly. Drop it. Shadow dropped it. He said, “I never did say thank you for your advice about heating the apartment. It’s warm as toast in there right now.”
“That’s good.” Her icy expression had not begun to thaw.
“It’s a lovely library,” said Shadow.
“It’s a beautiful building. But the city needs something more efficient and less beautiful. You going to the library sale downstairs?”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Well, you should. It’s for a good cause. Makes money for new books, cleans out shelf space, and it’s raising money to put in computers for the children’s section. But the sooner we get a whole new library built, the better.”
“I’ll make a point of getting down there.”
“Head out into the hall and