Page 65 of Booked for Theft

We made it to the library without incident, and once I left Bradley with Mickey and my boss, I lured the politician to my fancy new office, where I ruled as the undisputed queen of donations. We ate, and to my horror and delight, I turned into a crying, sniffling mess after the second bite of my first burger. Representative Forsythe wheezed, but he somehow managed to consume his entire burger and his peppers, although his face flushed and I worried he might perish before the heat settled to something manageable.

We both needed the yogurt, the milk, and the lemons to endure the burgers, which surely had come from the depths of some fiery hell.

“You have nothing left to prove,” I informed him in a soft voice, as like him, I could barely speak after our misadventures into the world of South Carolinian hot peppers. “I need those dry roasted and in my home to humble me.”

“I need to never do that to myself again,” he gasped.

“You did wonderfully,” I praised.

“You ate four of them.”

I laughed at the horror in his tone. “I’m impressed you packed away two, although only one was blessed in hell.”

“We sound like we’ve run a race and bitterly lost.”

“I’m sure we’ll recover sometime today.” I lifted my glass of milk in salute. “And now that I have subdued you with the fires of some spicy hell, I feel we should discuss how I convince your money to leap from your wallet and dive into the coffers of the New York Public Library.”

The representative chuckled, made use of my hand sanitizer, wiped his hands off on a paper towel, and retrieved his backpack, pulling out a laptop and three small packages the rough size and shape of books, which had been wrapped in blue foil paper. The presents were put on my side of the desk while he set up his laptop. “You won’t have to do much in the way of convincing. I have always been a strong supporter of libraries and their services. I saw your library system has different donation branches, but I couldn’t figure out how to direct funds to this specific branch.”

“The link tree is horrific in its complexity,” I replied, and I gave him instructions on how to pull up the donation links for my branch. “We’re going to be opening a history wing featuring AD titles along with prehistory education soon. That’s something in the works. If you want to contribute to that program, we’ll have to do that transaction by wire. The rest can be done online unless you’re contributing more than a million dollars to any specific fund at a time, in which case, we have to do a wire and I’ll write up a tax receipt. The workaround for that is painful.”

“Multiple transactions of just under a million dollars each?”

I nodded.

“As I enjoy making my accountant cry, I will process numerous transactions under the threshold.”

I snickered at the thought of some poor accountant being accosted with charitable donation slips. “You just want to escape work for a few hours.”

“You caught me. You’re also winning me a bet. I told one of my colleagues that winning a meeting with you was as simple as offering a gift of a book. I brought three, because I assumed a librarian would find more than one book to be pleasing.”

“That would be the understatement of the year. And they’re wrapped in such pretty paper. Thank you, Representative Forsythe.”

“My wife loves when someone takes the time to wrap presents for her in pretty paper, so I just decided it was a universal trait. I pulled these out of my personal collection, and I hope you enjoy them. Please feel free to open them in private. My wife does not like when anyone witnesses her become teary eyed, and it happens every time someone gives her a present.”

I laughed. “I will try not to cry from joy from receiving some books, but if something is going to make me cry, receiving new books might just be what does it. And spicy food. But nobody can mock me for crying over good spicy food.”

“As we were both sobbing from those burgers, I agree with you. And I will have no shame in admitting I cried. If it’s spicy enough you’re crying, I am safe from ridicule. And should anyone attempt to ridicule me, I will send them to that restaurant.” The viciousness of Representative Forsythe’s expression promised upcoming amusement in the political world. “I have a few targets I wish to see cry, preferably while on their knees.”

I could see a way of drumming up business for the local fast food joint in a hurry. “I will spread word those burgers were hot enough to make me cry, and that anyone who successfully eats one has nothing left to prove. I will bait the prideful into suffering, and the true pepper lovers will be weeping from spice and joy.”

“The regular burger was excellent, too. And once I had my first fry, I understood why you wanted them so badly. They’re fantastic.”

“My plan is to go every two weeks, that way, my doctor can’t get angry with me for succumbing to culinary darkness. But with my caloric needs? She has Bradley on marching orders to pick me up a few burgers if I’m looking peckish. I need a lot of fuel to keep running.”

“May I ask what your caloric intake a day needs to be?”

“My doctor wants me to eat no fewer than five thousand calories if I’m being active or using a lot of magic. In good news, my magic does not care what format the calories are in; it starts pillaging calories right out of my stomach, so if I need a milkshake because I’m working hard, the sugars are vanquished before they can even hit my bloodstream.”

“I wish I could just engage with random milkshakes. Diabetes runs in my family, so I’m quite careful with my sugar intake.”

“You showed no signs of having diabetes,” I assured him. “Whatever you’re doing is working quite well, outside of that one problem you should contact your doctor about.”

“After what happened to Senator Thaddens, I’ll give my doctor a call tonight and ask for a recommendation. Would it be all right for me to pass on your number?”

I grabbed one of my new business cards, which the library had ordered for me upon deciding I would be hunting politicians. I jotted my personal cell number on the back and handed it over. “Please do so. The doctor will have to figure out the appropriate waivers, but what you need is a procedure I’ve done before, and it really doesn’t take long.”

“I really appreciate it.”