“I knew it! I knew he’d look for a computer and that goddamned Internet! Is there anyone else in the library?” I looked around. A fat woman in a yellow dress sat at a table reading an Utne Reader magazine. “Anyone besides her?”

Maeve got my message. Her voice turned grave and quickened. “Yes, there are a couple of children in the computer room too.”

“Shit.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right, we’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Who is this man, Frannie?”

For a moment I was tempted to tell her but something held me back. “It doesn’t matter. I just have to talk to him and it might be dicey. Who else is in the library besides her and those kids?”

“No one.”

“Then why don’t you go outside for a while and take that woman with you.”

“Should I call the police station?”

“No, let’s see if I can take care of it without a fuss. You two go ahead outside.”

She stood immediately but then hesitated. It was clear she wanted to say something. Instead she walked around the desk and over to the woman. Both of them stared at me while Maeve spoke. Fatso clearly did not want to leave. But she heard something that changed her mind. She jumped out of that seat like she’d been ejected from it. She motored by me toward the door at a speed that said it all.

When Maeve was passing me she stopped. “Frannie.”

“Yes?” I looked from her toward the door to the computer room, wishing she would leave so I could get on with this.

“My daughter Nell is in there. Nell and her friend Layla.”

“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

“If anything were to happen—”

I spoke lightly—as if this were no big deal. “Nothing’s going to happen, Mrs. Powell. I’m going in there and come right out again with this guy. Zip zip and we’re gone. Please, trust me.”

“I do trust you, Frannie. But it’s Nell in there. Don’t let anything happen to my child.”

“Never.” I touched her cheek with my hand. Her eyes were brimming with tears and her eyelids trembled.

When she had left the building I walked slowly around the desk. Pressed flat against the wall, I took out my Beretta and checked to see if the safety was off. Holding it at my side, I slid slowly toward the computer room. On reaching that door, I got ready to sneak a look through the glass. Without warning a nova of unimaginable pain burst in my head. Because my back was to the wall I sort of crumpled against it and slid to the floor. If I hadn’t been leaning I would have fallen on my face. I had no control over my body.

I thought I’d been shot. Then my mind blanked because there was no room for anything else in that space but pain. The breath froze in my throat. I could not see. No agony was worse than this, nothing. The most terrible part was I remained conscious throughout—no blackout, no physical escape. I must have looked like a drunken man, sitting on the floor dazed and gone. It was like an underground nuclear test. You know—when the bomb goes off the only visible sign is the earth collapsing inward toward the fifty megaton fire in its belly half a mile below.

I don’t know how long it lasted—five seconds, a minute. I don’t know how I survived. When it stopped I was stupefied. Is that the word? Stupefied, paralyzed, nothing in my brain would ever work right again. Nothing ever could after that.

Sitting on the floor outside the computer room I stared unseeing at a large black-and-white photograph of Ernest Hemingway on the opposite wall. Next to him was one of Fitzgerald, then Faulkner, Emerson, and Thoreau. I knew the faces but it took an eternity to dig their names out of the rubble of my mind. To make sure it was Hemingway, I said his name. It sounded correct although it came out of my mouth slowly, as if the word were made of chewy caramel.

I felt the cold of the floor under my palms, the hardness of the wall against my back. Nothing in me was safe or to be trusted anymore. One of the first realizations I made when my mind started focusing again was the brain tumor had just taken over my being. Despite what Barry said about me having a few days’ grace period before it killed me, what just happened proved he was wrong—I might not have any days left.

I tried breathing normally but it was impossible. My lungs took only short fast panting breaths like those of a small animal that’s been cornered. I tried willing myself to breathe slow and deep but it didn’t work. My eyes moved down the opposite wall, across the floor and onto my hand. It still held the gun, but for the longest time I literally couldn’t recognize what that object was.

From inside the computer room came children’s laughter.

That more than anything sharpened my thoughts. Why I was there came back to me: Floon—get him, Maeve’s daughter– save her. Get up.

“Get up, mullerfucker.” I smiled at my mistake. One of my favorite words in the English language I couldn’t even pronounce now. So I tried again, carefully. “Mother-fucker.” Good, and now it was time to stand up. I tried. I tried pushing myself up off the floor but I was heavy, so incredibly heavy. Gravity had doubled, tripled. How was I ever going to rise?

For one grisly instant my head went on fire again—the pain blasting across it like a miles-long dance of heat lightning on an August night sky. But that was all—that flash, my breath freezing again, but then it was gone. It was gone.

And then I spoke again but it was not in my own voice. “Get the fuck up, motherfucker.” I said, someone said, the word perfectly enunciated this time.

“I can’t. I have no strength.” I said without self-pity, with perfect calm.

“No you can’t, but I can. So do it.” Gee-Gee’s voice came out of me.

I said, “Where are you?” and waited. He said, “Everywhere you need me. Just get up.” I decided it was a good idea to leave the gun on the floor while trying to stand. I put it down gently, not wanting to make noise. It was black against the yellow linoleum. I don’t like yellow things.

“Forget the yellow! Pay attention. You have to pay attention to what you’re doing.”

“Okay.” I licked my lips and pulled some energy together to stand. It was slow going at first. As I was propping myself up, I suddenly felt a massive jolt of both strength and energy in my arms. But only my arms, no place else. They felt like they belonged to someone strong and agile. To someone maybe seventeen years old...

“It isn’t me doing this, is it, Gee-Gee?”

“Yeah, it’s you. Don’t start getting philosophical on me. Just get a fucking grip and do it.” He sounded exasperated, like my helplessness was a pain in his neck.

Standing again, I looked down and saw my pistol on the floor. It looked like it was five miles away at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I needed it for what I was about to do but didn’t know if I’d be able to get down there again without doing a nosedive.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“Get the goddamned gun.”

Like an old man, like the old man I’d been in Vienna, I carefully bent my knees and went down in a slo-mo squat for the gun. It worked and I felt like I’d really accomplished something. Because despite the strong arms, the rest of my body felt useless.

“Now what do I do?” I asked the emptiness around me. No answer came. Just when I needed Gee-Gee most he disappeared.

I stood there with ashes and smoke coming out my ears from the Mount Vesuvius that had just erupted in my brain. There was no guarantee I wouldn’t keel over again any instant. Yet I was supposed to step into a room and disarm a lunatic billionaire murderer with two children nearby?

Three children. When I was able to rummage up the strength to get me to that door again. I looked in and saw three little backs standing around one big one. Two little girls, a boy, and Floon were all staring at a computer monitor. He was seated while they stood but none of them was higher than his shoulders. The kids were close enough to be touching—they didn’t want to miss any of the fun flying across the screen. It showed so much information so fast that it was impossible for my eyes to absorb any of what was there. Since all of their backs were to me I continued watching.