Chapter Three
8.00 a.m.
The stone lions guarding the staircase before the main entrance of the New York City Public Library might as well have taken the day off. The library was closed and the staircase was deserted.
Jennifer, having gone back to her apartment to have a light breakfast and to change into a conservative suit with a black skirt, black jacket, and white blouse, reached out and patted one on the side as she went by anyway, in seeming encouragement of a job well done. She let herself into the building with her key, and then locked the door again behind her. The soles of her shoes clicked loudly, echoing eerily in the library’s vast antechamber.
“Morning, Miss Maloy,” an old man wearing a rumpled uniform greeted her as she made her way through the cavernous central room back toward her desk near the first-floor stacks.
“Good morning, Hector.”
“Not going to the parade?” The old man was one of the security guards. He liked to tell stories of when he’d seen Jetboy battling the zeppelins over Manhattan back when he was a cop and what it was like in the first few horrible moments of the new age, when the wild card virus had been released and the world had changed, suddenly and forever.
“Maybe later,” she said. She liked the old man, but now was not the time to get caught up in his interminable reminiscences. “I have some work to do. A project I want to finish.”
Old Hector clicked his tongue against his dentures and shook his head.
“You work too hard, Miss Maloy, a pretty young thing like you. You should get out more.”
“I will. I just thought that today would be a good day t finish this project of mine. What with the library being close and all.”
“I get your hint. I get your hint,” the old man said goodnaturedly, moving off along the darkened row of tables. “Never saw a girl liked books so much and going out and having fun so little,” he muttered half to himself.
Jennifer went back into the stacks, keeping an eye on Hector, making sure he was going on his desultory rounds. It wouldn’t do, she told herself, to have him come upon one o the reference librarians poring over a catalog with a couple o books full of rare stamps on her desk. It wouldn’t do at all.