Again he paused, and wondered if he should proceed, and again someone shouted at him to keep moving.
He walked into the park, past a young woman who flashed a scanner at his face. Off to his right stood a series of tables and kiosks. To his left, a three-side tent with a pointed canvas roof. Inside, chairs arranged in neat rows. At the far end, a flat screen. A pair of boys sold tickets from a booth. Laughter and the buzz of conversation emanated from the gathering crowd that slowly trickled into the makeshift theatre.
He turned towards the kiosks and scanned the signs describing what each vendor sold, signs that clung to bunting draped across the edge of the tables or clung to metal poles holding up the top of a narrow kiosk. In some places, the vendors stood amid children adorned with sandwich boards. Other kids handed out leaflets to passersby.
Again, Barrington stopped. Again, he wanted to retreat from the park, melt back into the ruined lakeside community. The park -- Grant's Promenade -- stood as a lively adjunct to the ruins on the other side of the avenue. It defied the misery and defeatism surrounding where he worked and lived. It was a carnival, like the ones he read about in eReaders when he was a child.
It frightened him one moment, inspired him the next. He resumed his steps, gravitating to the vendors arrayed in a ragged line in an open field of scabby grass and bare gravel. Elsewhere, cook fires smoked. Animals squealed in their pens. Children chased one another, as though playing tag. A few women pushed carts and advertised tea and beer and a brew called "scrap-wine." A couple of men stood outside a large tent and urged the crowd to come inside, promising that a small wager would bring instant wealth.
Barrington wandered alongside the line of vendors and barkers, hands in his pockets. A few of those commanding tables sought workers for the mills and factories that served the Outside. One promised good wages for anyone interested in working a tender running supplies to the fishing fleet in Lake Michigan and bringing the catch to shore. A few wanted to hire muckers, field hands, carters and other manual laborers.
Nobody advertised smuggling, Barrington noted with a wry grin, and then wondered if some of the jobs being offered were code words for less-than-legal operations. He slowly digested what he saw, what he read, but drew no conclusions. When a tall woman with straggly dark hair waved to him from her kiosk, he turned away, only to be verbally accosted by a square-faced man selling berths aboard a barge that traded living space for cleaning the day's catch of fish.
Confused, annoyed at himself because he didn't know what to do or where to turn, Barrington walked away from the kiosks and tables and barkers, onto a wide path that led downward into a large open area with cement walls on all sides. A stone stairway led back to the surface, but a paved ramp invited him to continue walking into the pit. People milled around him, jostling him the further he ventured. They knew where they were going, he thought. They wanted to go there. They carried on conversations in an easy and mindless manner. They didn't act as though they were headed into danger. Nothing of which to be wary. No concerns.
Barrington went along with the crowd, followed the path where it dipped. High walls narrowed the walkway's width. Above, guards wearing short black capes caught his eye. He quickly looked away, looked down at his shuffling feet, kept up with the crowd and followed its flow, emerging with everyone else where the walls stopped and the path joined an open field, that looked like it once was home to a grassy lawn. Now, it was full of gravel, with chunks of charred brick; in places, concrete slabs stood upright amid the debris.
Whatever the area had been in the past -- outdoor auditorium or arena or theatre -- it now hosted assorted games, with a small section set aside for children, where swing sets and climbing bars and other amusements entertained them. A few adults stood about, watching the kids. Most everyone else gravitated to the games, some of which required skill -- bowling, ball-and-bat swinging -- and others of pure chance. All, Barrington realized as he wandered, involved gambling.
Away from the tables and the pits and roped off gaming areas, on a small stage in a corner, a four-piece band played. The audience grouped itself around the dais. An older crowd. Appreciative, from the sound of their polite applause. The band members bowed, waved at the crowd, conferred with one another and then struck up another tune. Like their fans, they were also middle-aged or older. The banjo player sported a fluffy white beard, the drummer presented a scowl made up of crisscrossing scars on both cheeks. The woman at the acoustic keyboard set atop a pair of stacked cinder blocks weaved back and forth, her long gray hair flying about her bare shoulders, while the tall man playing a violin smiled and nodded at the audience, his naked feet tapping out the rhythm.
The smell of roasting meat and the scent of vegetables sizzling on a grill filled the air as a boy pushed a cart slowly past, an older man and woman -- his parents, Barrington assumed -- preceding him and holding out skewers for purchase. Several vendors offered beer and wine, hard cider and fruit-infused drinks made with plain water. The hawkers and dealers flowed like a wave, passing the dais where the musicians now finished their set, passing towards the gaming pits and gambling tables packed with patrons.
Barrington lingered at a bowling game. Typical ten-pin, much like what he sometimes played in a bowling alley near the Grand Bazaar in the city. Dell's father liked the game and Barrington accompanied him several times in an effort to win -- and keep -- his approval. Now, he watched as player after player put down one or more ogres and tried their luck. Unlike the conventional setting of the pins, these were recessed in place, which made them harder to knock down. The ball was small. It fit in the palm of the hand. The short space between the apex of the triangular arrangement of pins and the white line from which players rolled the ball added to the complexity since there wasn't much distance for the ball to gather momentum.
He moved on, his casual observations not enticing him enough to risk his limited funds. He passed a dice game, an upright wheel with numbers and colors and odd-and-even markers, and stopped when he found the races.
A large, round white table took up the center of the reserved area. The crowd spread out alongside a waist-high wooden rail. They clumped around places where small red flags emblazed with black numbers stood embedded in the table's edge. Between the table and the rail, several men and women wearing green aprons called for bets. They held a numbered placard in one hand, took bets and gave out chits in the other.
Eight numbers. Eight hawkers. And a growing and eager crowd.
An overturned metal dish sat in the center of the round white table. A clock ticked down the seconds. When it buzzed, the betting ceased. The crowd quieted, but didn't fall completely silent. Suddenly, the dish lifted. A harsh light bathed the table and several cock roaches scurried away. A few dashed back and forth from where they'd huddled under the dish to other parts of the table. A few ran for the edge and alongside it. The crowd roared. Until one roach fell off and a number flashed in green where the countdown numerals had been.
Some cheered. Some sighed. Many of the bettors melted away, disgust evident in how they littered the ground with their chits. A few lined up for the payoff at a table a few feet away from the race. Several youngsters hurried to trap and collect the roaches, which wore tiny backpacks with thin wires connected to their antennae. The kids worked carefully while an older woman, hands on her wide hips, barked orders, cautioning them to be careful not to hurt the insects.
Amused, Barrington moved on, though he cast an eye back at the roach racing table and stopped for a moment to watch the racing insects put into a glass jar, where they scrambled up the sleek sides, only to fall in a heap at the bottom. As he watched, a familiar form came into view on the far side of the race concession. The man's profile slipped into his peripheral vision, a profile dominated by protruding lips and a prominent nose.
Jake Stern.
Barrington continued to watch, turning so that Stern became the center of his attention. The short, barrel-chested man stood with his hands in his pocket
s, his stomach jutting out and falling over his belt. A soft cloth hat sat at the back of his bald head, the hat's narrow beak poking the air at an angle. Several younger men stood near him. On alert. Watching anyone who came close. Bodyguards.
Jake Stern conversed with a tall man standing in front of him, a man who nodded in response and didn't seem to say anything. Several times, Stern gestured at the gaming pits and tables scattered across the grounds. What's he doing here? Barrington wondered. If Stern has a way here, then he must have a way to get back.
But there'd be no answers, Barrington realized. One didn't go up to a man like Jake Stern and ask him questions.
#
Visiting the Promenade became a welcomed habit, one that Barrington looked forward to during the long hours of clearing debris left by the wreck of some forgotten office building. He found an eatery in the leafy part of the park where he could sit under a dark awning and enjoy a bowl of soup and a slab of meat that wasn't all gristle and fat like that served at the dormitory building where he lived. Though he husbanded his cash -- the loose Mylar ogres he'd collected as payment from his job -- he found he couldn't help but fall victim to the ten-pin gambling pit. He suspected some sort of scam because he invariably knocked them all down with his first ball, which caused him to add another ogre to a subsequent bet, which he always lost because one or more of the pins remained standing when he rolled the second ball.
The roach races intrigued him. He studied the insects from afar and then from as close as he could get to them. They were modified with electronics that registered when and if they fell from the edge of the table. Tiny plastic packs adhered to the insects' backs. The roaches themselves measured about a finger in length, with the width of a thumb. They were huge compared to the pests Barrington found in the dorm.
"Where'd you find roaches that big?" he asked one of the men taking bets.
"Beats me. Ask Andy." The bet-taker waved to one of the young men inspecting the table's sensors that recorded the insects' fall from the table.
Andy looked up from his work.
"Guy has a question for you."
"We're not hiring," Andy said.
"I'm just curious about the roaches," Barrington said, voice raised to carry the distance.
Andy approached. "Why? You lose too much?" He squared his narrow shoulders, hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans. He shuffled his feet back and forth as he came to a stop, his salvage-rubber sandals digging into the gravel-filled floor.
"I worked with auto electronics," Barrington said. "So I'm curious about the roaches. Never saw anything like them. Where'd you get insects that big?"
"They're all over out here," Andy said, and waved a lean hand in the direction of the shattered city streets on the other side of the avenue. "In the old buildings. Basements. All over." He shrugged and added, "Still not hiring, if that's what you're looking for, a job or something." Andy's long face reddened a bit. He blinked several times, as though trying to focus.
Barrington stared back at the boy. And that's what he was. A boy. In the city-proper he'd still be in high school.
"You run the concession?" Barrington asked.
"Me and my brother." Andy nodded in the general direction of an older boy, who immediately sauntered away from the railing where he'd been in discussion with some patrons. He tossed back his thick dark hair and narrowed his eyes, a hard look on his angular face.
"What do you want?"
Andy grinned. "He's just asking questions, Kenny. It's okay."
Kenny lifted his eyes and Barrington lifted his. Their mutual stares lasted for more than a moment.
"I've been out here a month," Barrington said. "I worked with boards and stuff in the city. Maybe you need some help. I don't know. I'm breaking my back with field work."
"Worked with boards?" Kenny said, sniffing on the last word. "Doing what? Pulling?"
Barrington wet his lips. He nodded.
Kenny snorted. "You need to know more than how to pull a board and put in a replacement to work here."
"I know a little bit about -- "
"Know what?" Kenny interrupted. He waved a hand at the table. "Every skirt, every pit has a game like this. Mice. Roaches. Even mega-ants."
Barrington zeroed in on only one word that Kenny said. "Skirt?"
Kenny let loose a sigh. "Outskirts. What you call Outside. City outskirts."
Barrington nodded.
"But all those games," Kenny continued, shoulders hunched, hands waving in no particular direction, "got one problem. Which we solved."
Barrington waited. Kenny calmed down, lowered his shoulders, his hands at his sides. "What problem?" Barrington asked.
"You haven't really been out here long, have you? And I'll bet you've never seen a game like this, a race like this." Kenny smiled, his incisors visible at the seam of his thin lips. "You need judges, and that makes for arguments. Which of the damn insects won the race? Not always so easy to tell."
Barrington glanced at the array of sensors ringing the white table. He understood. Kenny and Andy -- known as the Raft brothers, he eventually learned -- wired their racing roaches so that the first one off the edge of the table, the winner of the race, tripped a sensor. That not only signaled a winner, but locked out all the other sensors. Only one roach could win, one signal fired.
No arguments.
"Ingenuous," Barrington said after Kenny's explanation.
"You want a job?" Kenny asked.
"I'd love a job. Yes."
"Can you wire up a sensor? Can you solder the electronics? Can you do something more than just change out boards in a car's chassis?"
"Sure," Barrington said, certain that he'd learn what he needed to learn if given the chance.
"I'll give you a trial. One week. Afternoons. Setting up whatever roaches we catch. I want to start another concession, maybe closer to the lake, beach-side. You show me, you know what you're doing and it'll be permanent. Paid in ogres, of course. But a lot more than what you're making clearing junk and stuff out of some field."
"Thanks," Barrington said, and smiled and shook Kenny's hand.
Part Two : City-Proper
Chapter Four
The old man caught Sergeant Kyle Potter's eye.
"That guy," one of Potter's new recruits whispered. "See him? That's Jake Stern."
Potter's image of the criminal kingpin had been that of a very tall, very fit, robust man of middle age, with harsh eyes and dark hair. Seeing a short old man with a pot belly, in a wrinkled gray suit, and a band of gray hair around his age-spot-speckled scalp squelched the image. But why care? So long as he got paid for each man, woman or child smuggled into the city, Potter didn't care what this so-called kingpin looked like.
Over the course of the past five years, Potter never spoke to the old man, let alone met him face-to-face. Stern had intermediaries for that. The old man might mix with the rabble, might exchange a few words with his people on the ground floor of his network, but he steered clear of city officials -- the police and commissioners and department heads -- that kept the smuggling operation running smoothly. People slipped into the city from Outside, people like Potter facilitated the transaction, and Stern Enterprises grew fatter.
Potter took to ignoring Stern when he popped up. He ignored him when he saw him at the Grand Bazaar, where Potter liked to go to decompress after a full day of work, especially the days when one near-riot after another had to be tamped down. He ignored him at the checkpoints where police patrols congregated and waited to turn back infiltrators they weren't paid to let across the wall. He ignored, as well, any news reports about the patrician named Jake Stern, a man of simple tastes who led a simple life, offered work to the destitute, and harbored entire families seeking refuge from forced migration out of Chicago.
When WISH week -- the Winter Solstice Holiday -- came, Potter readily accepted Stern's bonus, a ten-spot ogre piece printed on plastic and redeemable at the Grand Bazaar. But, come New Year's, Potter had more th
an enjoying himself on his mind. Even the city's elite troops were called out for double shifts. Between the onset of cold weather and street duty putting down the usual end-of-year riots, Potter had too many problems to deal with and no time to spend Stern's ten-spot bonus.
He hated winter. Hated it almost as much as he hated visiting his mother and father in their retirement community, a gated enclave, on the other side of the wall. Hated it enough that he found it easy to take out his anger on the city's citizenry, cracking heads with his steel baton whenever he knew he'd get away with it.
If people wanted to riot in the streets, drunk on alcohol or high on kick-weed, then they paid the consequences. Potter enjoyed lining them up in an alley, ranting at them, "You're on my time now. Potter's time. Sergeant Potter's time."
He liked picking out some slobbering guy a head or so taller than himself and sending him to his knees with a stiff jab of the baton to his gut. He remembered when big guys picked on small, heavyset kids liked himself when he was in school. As an adult, whenever he had a few miscreants cornered, Potter got even for all the times he'd been hurt in the past.
Standing at the squad car parked to block access to the alley, Potter took inventory of the afternoon's haul. Gum laced with Exciter, an artificial mania drug commonly referred to as pepper-uppers; a few Mylar ogres printed Outside; and assorted rings and diamond earrings and pins. The best of the jewelry, he'd sell. Something mediocre but shiny would go to his mistress, Ginny; and any leftover bauble could be a gift for his wife, Lydia.
Keep the ladies happy! That's what his father said, though Potter doubted that his hawk-nosed old man -- a dumpy guy with bad breath and obnoxious body odor -- had ever enjoyed a bevy of lovers. Potter saw his father as a dour functionary doing a boring day's work as a factory overseer, with an equally tiresome wife who'd never been the powerful career counselor she professed to be.
Triptych Page 7