by Sharon Lee
“Yes. I will come.” He hesitated. “Thanking you.”
“Nope, thanking you,” I told him. “You’re going to be a big help.”
I said good-night to Vassily at Fun Country’s gate, and watched him walk away, hood up, shoulders high, hands shoved down into the pockets of his jeans. He went straight down the walk, past Arcade Ka-Pow! My bet with myself was that he’d turn left on Grand, toward the motels that were the main reason for the Chamber’s employment contract, where surely there was a bed for him in a dorm room . . .
As it happened, I didn’t win my bet—or lose it. The gathering sea mist hid him before he hit the corner.
The mist was a little colder than was absolutely necessary for June, but that’s the Maine coast for you—if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it’ll change.
I sighed, buttoned my denim jacket and pulled the collar up. High up on Archer Avenue, the street lights were bright and clean-looking. Mid-hill, they were a little diffuse. Close in, they looked like candle flames flickering behind a spun glass curtain; even the seven-foot red letters that spelled out KA-POW! seemed a little tentative in the roiling mist.
To my right, the lights on Fountain Circle were pale, ghostly memories of lights, while the Pier showed as a multicolored smear against the thick air. I should’ve been able to hear the band playing at Neptune’s, and the waves crashing against the beach, but it was as if the mist stifled not only light, but sound, and I shivered, though not from the cold.
“Time to get home, Kate,” I said out loud, relieved to hear that my voice was crisp. I nodded, to let myself know I’d heard her. Damn’ fool thing to do, just stand around in the mist and get soaked. Past time to get home, is what it was. I was due for a shower and a glass of wine and a chapter of the latest book before I tucked myself into bed.
My usual route home from Fun Country is up the beach, but tonight, with the mist coming on so thick, I decided to stick to the streets.
Hands in pockets, I trotted across Fountain Circle, the lights of the midway that occupied the asphalt on the other side of the Pier slipping eerily into being as I approached.
Technically, the midway is part of Fun Country, but Marilyn has nothing to do with the managing of it. In my day, the maze of carny games and concessions had been run by a woman named Phyllis Savage. She’d retired, so Nancy told me, and been replaced by the fella who had been her assistant for a good few years, name of Jens Torbin. Among his other skills, Jens apparently had a light touch with an accounts book, and at the end of last Season, Fun Country New Jersey had decided enough was enough, and fired his ass.
I had no idea who ran the place now, though my guess was nobody. It’d been locked up tight since I’d hit town in April; hadn’t even opened for the Super Early Season. I wondered if Fun Country had decided that it, like Jens, was too much trouble for too little return.
Tonight, though, the lights were on.
Even more interesting, if you’re interested in that kind of thing, was that the gate stood, just a little, ajar.
There wasn’t much to want inside the midway—just a bunch of old games booths and concession stands tarped up for the winter. Still, it shouldn’t be standing open—somebody a little tipsy with music and beer, coming down the ramp from the Pier might see a shortcut to the truck, or to the house, trip over one of the tarp-covered games and break their fool neck.
Probably, I thought, going toward the swinging gate, the chain had rusted through, and the wind had jimmied the latch. Happened all the time. I’d just pull it to, latch it up and ask the land to pile up some dirt to keep it from swinging open again.
I reached for the gate—
A hand closed over mine.
I yelled.
Somebody else yelled.
The land leapt into action, showing me a woman with bright pink hair, purple eyes, a diamond chip glittering in one nostril, dressed, like me, in jeans and a denim jacket.
“Hold it!” I snapped. “Who are you?”
“Who am I?” her voice was low and rough—tailor-made for singing the blues. “Who the hell are you?”
“Kate Archer. I run the carousel, over the other side.”
There was a pause. The land helpfully showed me her face, which was round and slightly less pink than her hair, so I could see the moment when she decided that I could be telling the truth.
“Okay. I’m Peggy Marr, the new midway manager. I was supposed to start opening on weekends, but there was a problem at another park and Management shifted me in to sort it and fix it—” Her mouth twisted. “That’s what they call me, down Jersey. Peggy the Fixer.”
I grinned.
“Welcome to Archers Beach. Better late than never, right?”
“I guess, except—I just got in last night and I’ve literally been doing nothing else but going over the old files in that . . . office back there.” She shuddered. I guessed Jens hadn’t been tidy.
“I’m right up against it, aren’t I?” Peggy Marr said. “Season starts, what—Monday?”
“Next Friday,” I said, and heard her exhale hard.
“Well, that makes all the difference. All’s I have to do is come up with two dozen experienced operators and agents by Friday at . . . ?”
“Noon.”
“Noon. Great.”
“I might,” I said slowly, “be able to help. I can at least go over last Season’s list with you and see if I know how to get in touch with any of the operators.”
It would’ve been too much to say she got less tense, but she did look interested.
“That could be a big help, assuming they’re—well, we won’t know ’til we know, will we? When can you come by the office? I’ll tell you the truth, I gotta get something to eat, a shower and some sleep, but I can be back down here—say, seven? Tomorrow.”
The woman was driven, give her that. I nodded.
“Sure. I’ll meet you right here tomorrow at seven.” I stepped away from the gate, and turned left, toward Grand Avenue and home.
“See you then.”
“See you then,” she said behind me, and I heard a muted clang, as she latched the gate.
CHAPTER NINE
Saturday, June 10
Low Tide 4:38 A.M.
Sunrise 5:00 A.M. EDT
“I mean, look at these! What’re they, code names?” Peggy Marr drank deep of her Starbucks Vente strong, and waved a plump, well-manicured hand at the logbook.
“And contact information! What contact information? What’d he do, whistle ’em up the wind?”
It was ’way too early in the morning, and Peggy and I were in the manager’s office, a cramped little room behind The Last Mango Juice Bar.
As instructed, I looked at the logbook, seeing two names right off that I knew. I ran a slow finger down the page, concentrating my attention, and the land’s attention. Yes, good. The land knew almost every name. I had, I thought, suspected as much.
Jens could very well have whistled to them on the wind. Or, more likely, they’d just shown up, when it was time, like they’d done Season after Season after . . .
Except, this Season, Jens hadn’t called, and when they showed up, as they probably had, on the traditional Set-Up Day before the first Early Season Friday, the gate had been locked and the midway shrouded.
Was Jens trenvay? I let the question seep into the land, but got its equivalent of a puzzled stare for my answer. Well. Gran would know, or Mr. Ignat’. But Jens was a side issue.
I looked up into Peggy Marr’s purple-that-doesn’t-exist-in-nature eyes.
“I think I can help you out,” I told her. “My family—well. This place is called Archers Beach, right? And I’m the Archer, great-great-great-and-etcetera-granddaughter of the guy who claimed this patch of land, and lucky he was that the local residents didn’t dispute him.”
“So you know everybody worth knowing?”
“Pretty much.” I looked back to the list, tapping the three names that had drawn a blank from t
he land.
“Manny Perez, Audrey Kruger, Stilton—I don’t have a clue. Could be, it’ll come to me, but right now, assume you’ll be short by these three.”
She leaned over my shoulder; I smelled amber, orange, agar . . . and espresso, from the cup—and ran her black-enameled forefinger down the page, much as I had done.
“So you think you can get hold of Moss, Vornflee, Felsic . . .”
“And all the other weird names, but not common old Manny Perez or Audrey Kruger,” I finished, taking her point. “That’s right. I’m guessing that they were traveling through and took pickup work for the summer. Do you want me to pass the word to the folks I’m sure of that they’re wanted?”
“Well, I’d rather have phone numbers, addresses, Social Security numbers and all that foolishness, but you know and I know that I’m over a barrel. I’ve gotta get this thing open, on time, or my ass is grass.”
“After the Jersey bosses screwed with your schedule themselves?”
She straightened with a sigh, and had another chug of high-test.
“The Jersey bosses are nothing if not arbitrary. In fact, Arbitrary and Cruel is the name of the parent firm. I have an assignment. The fact that a subsequent assignment interfered with my timing on the first isn’t really their problem, see?”
“At least it seems consistent,” I said, bracing my hip against Jens’ beat-up, Formica-topped metal desk. “I should probably say, before I put out the word—if you need Social Security numbers and home phones and all the rest of it, you might just want to make up a bunch of signs and post ’em around town. Or”—I snapped my fingers as inspiration hit—“you can ask Marilyn Michaud—she manages the other side—if she’s got any greenies who need hours.”
She frowned, crossed one arm over her chest and braced the opposite elbow in her palm. Drank coffee.
Drank more coffee, staring at nothing in particular.
I let her stare, leaning across the desk to snag my travel mug from the corner where I’d put it. My perfectly good, brought-from-home brew tasted a little weak, after breathing the fumes from the Starbucks Vente. Also, quarters were a little tight, even with me hugging the desk. The main office was long and shallow and sticky-smelling. The last being a contribution from the juice bar.
Peggy shifted, decisively, and shook her head.
“If I had time to train a new crew—but I don’t. I need experienced people, and I need ’em stat.” Another swallow—it was starting to look like she had a bottomless Vente, there—and a firm, unflinching look into my face.
“Tell me the worst—they need to be paid in cash?”
“They do,” I said, thinking that some on the list might actually possess such things as a home phone, or an address, or even a Social Security number. Some, but not all, and in order not to point up those who didn’t . . .
“Well, that starts to explain Jens’ system,” she said. She lifted the cup, sighed, and leaned over to put it on the corner of the desk. “All right, I can handle cash payments.”
“Getting that Social Security number might be a little tricky, too,” I said, delicately.
“Also consistent with the Jens system.” She looked grim. “All right. Here’s how we’ll handle it. We get everybody together, fill out the Social Security applications; I’ll send ’em in. They can start working, pending. That’s legal. Plus, Arbitrary and Cruel will have appropriate documentation. My ass will not be grass.” She smiled, tightly, purple eyes glittering. “Win-win-win.”
“Then I put out the word?”
“All of the words, yes. Tell them to come to work—now, today, as soon as they hear. Tell them I’ve got rules I have to stick by, notably from the IRS, that I’ll bend them as much as I can, and that I swear to God I’ll hamper them as little as humanly possible.”
That was a lot more than I was going to pass, but I nodded and slid to my feet, bringing my traveling mug with me.
“I’ll get started, then. If you need me for anything else—local guide, introductions—I’ll be at the carousel, or whoever’s at the carousel can find me.”
She nodded and held out her hand. I took it and we shook.
“Thanks, Kate. I owe you.”
“Let’s see if I can get your crew in first,” I said.
She snorted. “If not, then I’ll be asking you to hide me, so—either way, right?”
“Right,” I said, and took my leave.
I figured I’d find her on the beach, working the trash cans by the dunes, but the land pushed me in the opposite direction, across the tracks, across First Street, to Lisa’s Pizza, right there on the corner and already open at 8:05—and there it left me as if my next step should be obvious.
Well, no, not exactly. Here I stood at the corner of Archer and First, the red-and-white tile of the pizza stand three inches from my nose. Immediately on my right was Archer Avenue. Immediately on my left, was . . . nothing much, really—no, wait. About a dozen steps down First Street was Daddy’s Dance Club. I walked thataway.
The red-and-white tiles of Lisa’s facade changed to grayish barn-siding, pierced by a white utility door that was locked up nice and tight. Just beyond the utility door was a narrow space between the end of Lisa’s building and the start of the dance club’s building.
It wasn’t nearly wide enough to qualify as an alley; it almost failed the walkway test. Breezeway, maybe. Luckily, I’m smallish and not claustrophobic. Also, I only had to walk about two dozen steps before the breezeway opened into a courtyard spacious enough to admit a trash truck, which would surely need access, given that the place was redolent with Dumpsters.
On the ground by the Dumpster nearest the dance club’s back wall were several mismatched and grubby canvas bags. Protruding from the Dumpster was a bony, khaki-covered posterior; good, no-slip shoes on her feet, braced on the middle seam.
I set my shoulder against the wall, crossed my arms and waited.
Soda cans arced out of the Dumpster and clattered to the asphalt. The posterior wriggled around, one foot alarmingly rose from the seam, and I thought I heard a few pungent curse words.
Twenty-four returnables later, the scavenger turned and jumped down to the ground, landing handily amid her bounty. Immediately, she snatched up one of the bags and began to shove her take into it.
I cleared my throat.
“’Morning, Gaby.”
“Eek!”
She threw the bag away from her, soda cans escaping in a wide arc, and slammed her back against the Dumpster she’d just looted, hands up at heart level, face averted, shadowed by the grubby gimme hat.
Not exactly the bravest of toasters, our Gaby.
“Oh, c’mon, Gaby, it’s Kate!”
“Kate?”
She cautiously turned her head, peering at me from beneath the double protection of brim and strawlike hair.
“What’re you doin’ here, Kate? The returnables are mine. By arrangement.”
“Sure they are,” I said, soothingly. “Though it’s a little rude of ’em there at the club not to set ’em out separate. You could get hurt, if you fell into a Dumpster.”
Gaby snorted.
“Badder things come to me than fallin’ in a trash can,” she said derisively, “and I’m none the worse.”
“That’s fine, but there’s no sense pushing your luck,” I said. “I’ll just talk to the manager, okay? Tell her to set the returnables out by themselves. Make it easier on you.”
“That’d be a kindness,” she said.
“No problem. But why I was looking for you . . .”
“Come lookin’ for me!” she shrieked. “Why?”
“Well, if you’d rest a spell, I’d tell you,” I said, testily.
She gulped and ducked her head. “Beg pardon, Guardian.”
“I need you to pass the word, to Felsic, Moss, Vornflee and all the rest who took work at the midway. There’s a new manager in and she’s eager to accept their service. They’ll have to fill out forms, and give a good address
, but she’ll pay in cash, and she needs them for setup now.”
Gaby shifted from foot to foot, not exactly looking at me, which was Gaby’s way.
“Midway’s been locked up, all spring.”
“Well, now it’s open. Can you pass the message?”
“I can.”
I considered that. Gaby was timid, and she had a certain gratifying respect for my station. But she was, blood and bone, heart and soul—trenvay.
“Will you pass the message? To the appropriate folk? Now?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, which?”
“Yes, yes, and yes again!” she snapped, stamping her foot.
I’d never seen Gaby do anything as assertive as lose her temper. Truth told, it was because I knew her to be timid and accommodating that I’d chosen her as my messenger. That and the notion that Gaby was more likely to have personal knowledge of the midway trenvay than, say, Bob, if only because her quest for returnables would have made her a regular at the concession stands’ trash cans.
Still, I hadn’t meant to be rude. As a matter of fact, being rude was the one vice of all those the powerful are likely to fall heir to that Grandfather Aeronymous took the trouble to warn me about.
I inclined my head, gravely.
“Thank you, Gaby, for your service. The land and the Guardian appreciate you.”
She stared at me, mouth open, then closed it with a snap, and straightened inside her patchwork jacket.
“That’s no trouble at all, Guardian. Not a bit o’trouble; glad to serve. Felsic’s the one who can get the others. A word to Felsic, that’s all it needs.”
“Thank you for taking care of it,” I said. As it came about, Grandfather hadn’t set a particular value on thanking people. He’d merely noted that a gracious sovereign tended to receive more willing service from his people, and therefore had to spend less time persuading them, or punishing them. Which freed up time to cruise the other Five Worlds and steal maiden lady Guardians away from their land and their duty.
