"You look good, Jonnie," Griffin said. "Real good. Some people fall apart when they go Outside."
"You got me that job. Not much, but it's a job. Thanks."
"I did what I could. Why you got mixed up with -- " Griffin waved a hand in the air, as though to cleanse it of bad thoughts. "I did what I could," he repeated. "I'd like to do more."
"Can you help Katie?"
Griffin's rugged face grew pale. He blinked a few times, as though confused. "Not really," he said, as though just then recognizing the name -- Katie -- and placing it in context.
"I can't even visit her until she's served two years. Can you get them to -- "
"I don't have any control over the Water Works. Or their rules. There's nothing I can -- "
"You got me out. An early release."
Griffin nodded. "Influence goes only so far," he murmured.
Jamerson wanted to press on, to beg, to demand. Instead, he fell silent and sat again on the ledge by the window.
"These rooms aren't very hospitable," Griffin said.
Jamerson nodded in response. His former friend wanted something. He had no other reason for going through the trouble of finding him.
"Who're those guys with the black-and-white striped pants?" Jamerson asked.
"Private security. We hired them -- the department hired them -- for special work. Which brings me to a proposal, Jonnie. My proposal. A personal request."
Jamerson folded his arms across his chest. He set his lips into a thin line, a veneer of determined quietude coming into his lean face. "You got me a job back inside? My residency permit? What?"
Griffin didn't reply to the questions. He paced back and forth in front of the open door, still only a few feet inside the stark white room.
"I want you to do something, Jonnie. You do it and it works out, then I can help you get back into the city. Not your old job. Not with the department. But something in municipal government, I think. Something good enough to get you a large apartment, good food, better friends. You know. Almost like what you had before."
"And Katie?"
"Do this, Jonnie, and when Katie's released she'll have a place to go. Back to you. Inside the city. On the city side of the wall."
Jamerson swallowed, his mouth dry. His hands fluttered in his lap. He couldn't keep his eyes on Griffin. He looked at the floor, at the walls, and only occasionally at Griffin, who paced, kept pacing, his hands at his back and then at his sides.
"What do you want me to do?" Jamerson asked.
"Do you know Jake Stern?"
"I know the name."
"Ever meet him?"
"I don't run in that circle. He owns just about everything in the Promenade. He lives in the city, doesn't he?"
"Get to know him," Griffin said. He pulled a piece of thin cardboard from his pants pocket. He handed it to Jamerson. One side was blank. Plain dark brown. The other had the familiar horned ogre imprint.
"What is this?" Jamerson asked, puzzled that the ogre piece lacked a monetary amount on the back side.
"The person who shows you a similar token, but one with a ten where this one is blank, is someone you can trust."
Jamerson nodded, waited to hear more.
"We want to kill Jake Stern. I want you to help us. You're Outside. You can get close to him. What you do and how you do it -- we'll worked that out later."
"Why Stern?"
"Do you want to come home, Jonnie? Think about it. Do you want to come home?"
Jamerson nodded. He said, "Yeah. I want to come home."
Griffin smiled. "Then do what we need done. Help us kill Jake Stern. I'll take care of the rest."
Chapter Eleven
The weapon Potter took from the crate at Stern's shop didn't look new. Nor did it look worn and useless. Just used, with dark stains on the wooden grip. He hefted it in one hand and liked the pistol's balance. He released the magazine, which held six explosive pellets. He yanked on the slide to release the seventh pellet and grimaced to think the gun had been stored with a cartridge in the firing chamber. But the charge was nil. The rail gun wouldn't discharge if not fully charged. Still, where he'd trained, it was bad practice to leave anything -- pellet or gunpowder-type cartridge -- in the chamber when a weapon is put in storage.
He turned the butterfly knob behind the trigger clockwise until the tip of the pistol glowed blue to indicate a full load. Enough to send one of the inch long pellets traveling a hundred feet before losing momentum and falling to the ground. Not designed to pierce personal armor, these small guns with pistol grips and low-capacity magazines were ideal for close-quarter combat against civilians.
Potter assumed he wouldn't face sophisticated troops. He didn't need a scatter shot pop-pop, or an old-time high impact rifle with sighting scope, or a heftier rail gun with shoulder stock, bigger pellets, and longer range.
He pressed the safety button and put the pistol in his jacket pocket. He didn't like the bulge. He stuck the weapon in the waistband of his trousers, at the small of his back, and let his short jacket fall over it, hiding it from view. When he looked around the large room, where a handful of teenaged boys sat at workbenches while their instructor lectured on techniques for fixing old electrical equipment, Potter saw that his presence, his rummaging through the box of weapons, and everything else he did at the far end of the room seemed of no interest to anyone. Maybe they were used to this. Or maybe they were too afraid to be curious.
Stern ambled over to the table. The old man wore his amiable face tonight. A small cloth hat covered his bald head, the hat's stiff brim sporting small pins and decals -- animals and flowers and fanciful houses -- from the base of the crown to the brim's turned-up edges. An old man, and heavyset, his body like a rock, Jake Stern moved slowly, deliberately, as though walking was an effort.
"I want you to meet the man you're protecting," Stern said, his voice scratchy and barely louder than a whisper. He made an urgent gesture with his brown-spotted hand.
"Not you?" Potter said, surprised.
A short, hawk-faced man approached from the far end of the room.
"Henry Baumgarten," the newcomer said. He didn't offer a hand to shake. He kept his arms to his sides. Strings of fake brown hair clung to his wrinkled scalp, which had a lot more dark spots -- signs of age -- than Stern's hands. The hair curled at the ends and lay in a row across the top of Baumgarten's thin eyebrows. He looked old, as aged as Stern himself. Potter imagined the two as boys working to build Stern's empire.
"Henry's one of my accountants," Stern said. "Keep him alive."
Potter didn't respond. Neither smiled nor nodded. Outside was a dangerous place. He always kept alert whenever he accompanied Stern or a crew delivering product to be smuggled into the city or one or more men and women venturing Outside on Stern business. Potter didn't ask questions, never had an opinion.
"You stick by me," Baumgarten said. "I don't want nobody surprising me or anything. Got it?"
"Got it," Potter responded, and knew he'd need to work hard to even come close to liking this hawk-faced man. Had to be chemical, he thought. He had no other explanation. Just as he sometimes bonded in minutes with people he worked with, he sometimes felt immediate animosity with others.
"How long do I gotta stay out there, Jake?" Baumgarten asked.
"As long as it takes."
"You know," Baumgarten continued, "we ain't gonna fool nobody. They'll all know what we're up to."
"Then make sure they are fooled," Stern scowled. "I want to know who's cheating me, how exactly they're doing it, and then I'll tell you what to do about it."
Potter's gaze drifted to the floor. He felt Baumgarten's hot breath on his face. "You got this?"
"Sure," Potter said.
A few more men and women passed through the workshop. They traded jibes with one another, jostled each other, made a sudden racket that drew a silent reprimand -- a sharp glance, eyes narrowed -- from Stern.
Then the old man softened. He smiled. "T
hat's the rest of the team. We'll go out by way of the East Gate. After midnight. So get some sleep if you can. We've got three hours to kill."
Potter went to one of the private rooms set aside for personal use. Long and narrow, it housed a bed with a thin mattress, a sink and a refrigeration unit stuff with cold water and flavored drinks. No cider or beer or wine.
Sitting on the bed, Potter pulled his All-Pod from the inside pocket of his jacket. He pushed off his high-topped shoes, the soft ones with the rippled soles. The most comfortable ones he owned. Other clothes he'd packed in a small bag with a pull-string top. He didn't want to bring much, though he faced weeks or perhaps months Outside. If luck held, the job would be over by the time winter came.
He logged onto the Grand Bazaar Exchange, the interweb site popularly known as "Stern's Bank." He double-checked that Lydia would have enough in the account to print out any ogre tokens she'd need, that Carol's school fees were paid, and that the auto-transfer from his employee account to his personal one was active.
He knew it would be. He knew that everything would be as before. He just wanted reassurance. He wouldn't have his All-Pod while Outside. Stern didn't like carrying one himself, didn't want his guards or anyone else working for him to carry one either. Without cell towers, Outside's coverage was spotty. All-Pod users relied on manual connections at the various exchanges. Without wireless access, the only thing an All-Pod could do was provide the city cops with a way to track people of interest when they ventured close enough to the walls to be picked up by a sensor or caught the interest of a drone sampling the airwaves.
Potter stored his All-Pod in a lock box tuned to his thumbprint. He slipped out of his heavy jacket, put his rail gun pistol in one of his shoes, lay back on the narrow cot, and shut his eyes.
Odd, but Ginny's was the face that popped into view and lulled him to sleep with soft remembered kisses.
#
The woman looked familiar, and Barrington continued watching her scurry alongside the long folding tables being set up outside a black-striped gray trailer. A banner unfurled, strung between two stanchions behind the tables, and someone cranked the banner higher than the top of the trailer. Young men and women took seats behind the tables. Workmen wheeled a signal tower to the back of the trailer. They raised a saucer shaped receiver several feet higher than the banner. The dish quivered in the breeze. Barrington glanced at the banner, which flapped in response to a sudden wind. Letters emblazoned across the light blue cloth spelled out the name of a law firm from the city. Merely that. The name. But no other explanation was necessary. He'd seen these pop-ups before. Eager first-year lawyers prepared to fish Outside for likely clients, people whose rights were trampled when exiled.
Barrington qualified, but he'd tired of trying to right the wrong. He'd made several applications for help when first exiled, but that was nearly two years ago. Since then, he'd never been contacted by anyone from Judicial Rights or Human Values or any of the half-dozen organizations dedicated to solving problems such as his.
Still, the woman looked familiar and he couldn't stop watching her from where he sat at the sidewalk cafe. The late summer sun scorched the concrete, the afternoon heavy with humidity, and a warm wind washed the lakeside park every now and then. Kids played in a shallow pool of murky water. They splashed each other. They laughed and shouted, the little ones naked and the older ones in clinging white shorts, the adolescent girls wearing halter tops.
Barrington signaled to the waiter to add this afternoon's snack to his tab, pushed back his chair and stood. He walked towards the woman who looked so familiar, a smile breaking out across his face, his dark skin glistening with sweat. He felt heavy. He didn't glide with ease from one side of the narrow street to the other. His one-time trim body had turned to fat from more than a year of easy work and easy money.
"Rita," he said to the athletic woman. She bolted upright from where she'd been squatting next to two young female lawyers. The girls blushed, eyes wide. Rita Jane Pandor turned, hands at her hips, her legs spread slightly as though she'd leap into combat. Even in this heat, she'd dressed as a professional, with an old-fashioned skirt and high heeled shoes, and a vest that offered a peek-a-boo look at her ample chest. She looked the part of someone who'd be in charge of the dozen or so young lawyers sitting at the tables.
Barrington stopped a few feet from her. He introduced himself.
Rita silently mouthed his name. Then spoke it out loud. "Paul Barrington," she said, echoing what he'd told her.
"Dell's friend? We met. Remember?"
Rita continued to stare. She fingered her short curly hair, twined the brown strands around one finger. Her light hazel eyes grew bright and wide.
"You disappeared," Rita said.
"I got exiled. Some city-wide purge."
Rita nodded. "Without due process. That was nearly two years ago."
"More."
She nodded again. Her hands twitched at her sides. "We're signing up clients for my firm." She gestured at the tables. Passers-by moved towards the lawyers.
"How's Dell?" Barrington asked.
"Dell? Fine. She's at Southern Illinois Academy." Rita beamed. "She made the Habitat List. When they finish building it, she'll go up."
Barrington managed a grin, pretended to be as proud of Dell as Dell's birth mother, the surrogate who'd carried Dell for nine months and then turned her over to her parents. He knew Dell had gone to the Illinois Southern Academy, accepted to a two-year program. Evidently, she kept knocking at a closed door marked "Habitat Candidates." Until she succeeded in getting into the elite program. She'd be going up to L5, to the still-to-be-built orbiting space colony.
Rita said, "You just disappeared."
Barrington poured out as much of his story as he could in a burst of fast-spoken words. He'd been part of a roundup. Denied the customary 45 days' grace period for finding a new job and transported immediately.
"I tried to send word back to Dell," he said.
"She never knew. I never found out anything about you. Dell asked me to. I tried. The city isn't exactly open about things like that, these purges."
A crowd formed at the tables. Lines sprang up in front of each of the young lawyers. Barrington remembered his early days Outside, when he joined lines like these in the hope of getting redress.
"We're taking on new cases," Rita said, smiling. "Shaking the tree." She motioned at the youngsters sitting so professional and ready on their side of the tables, acting like a mother hen proud of her brood.
"Is there any way I can see Dell?"
Rita frowned.
Barrington felt something rise in his throat. "Just see her."
"You know how the Academy works. It's closed. Even her parents don't see her except once a quarter on visitation day."
"When's that?"
Rita continued to frown. "Why don't you let us take your case? We don't take a retainer. When we get you reinstated, we'll arrange a job to validate your work permit, and then take a cut of your salary. All very fair. Very easy on you Exiles."
"You don't want me to see Dell."
"She's better off thinking you're dead, Paul. That's what she's thought the past two years. You're dead and she's got the life she wants, the Academy. Just what she always wanted. So back off."
Barrington swallowed, physically hurt by the intensity of Rita's glare, the anger in her face, the way her arms hung at her sides. She looked ready to maul him. Nearby, two Rounders slapped the palms of their hands with the blunt ends of their wooden clubs. Other Rounders policed the lines forming in front of the lawyers. Another guarded the communications dish on the tower next to the trailer.
"Tell her I'm not dead." Barrington walked away, head shaking.
"We can take your case," Rita shouted after him.
He didn't want her to. He didn't want to go back to the city, back to the other side of the walls and fences. He'd built a life for himself Outside. His former life -- made bright by Dell -- was lost to h
im forever, as was the woman he loved.
He stifled the tears at the backs of his eyes. He blinked. He put his head down. He kept walking.
#
The apartment didn't get any larger, no matter how far apart they put their narrow beds or how high they hung the curtain separating Potter's side of the underground room from Henry Baumgarten's. Bare white walls and sparse furnishings lent an air of austerity and openness, but still Potter felt hemmed in, crammed into a small space with a man he'd grown to detest after six weeks of side-by-side living.
Baumgarten entered the room, a coarse red towel around his middle, hair dripping wet, feet leaving tracks on the tiles. His skinny body had an incongruous ring of fat around the middle. His skin sagged from beneath his chin, made more pronounced by his being naked. With one hand holding his towel in place, Baumgarten slid the curtain to close off his side of the room, shielding himself from view.
Potter didn't look after an initial glance at the hawk-faced man coming into the room from his once-a-week shower. He didn't think it helped their cause to be fastidious about hygiene. Potter washed up in a basin, shaved occasionally, paid scant attention to the fringe of hair surrounding his bald pate, and tried to look the part of a newly exiled city dweller adapting to life Outside.
That was the assignment. Which was why Stern hadn't given them individual rooms in one of the high-end apartment buildings he owned north of the river. Or more comfortable dwellings close to Grant's Promenade. Once Outside, they had to make their own way, and in the six weeks they'd been here the best they could do was this single room in a sub-basement.
Rooms like this one took up the entire underground floor of what had once been a parking lot. Thin plasterboard walls separated one domicile from another. Narrow corridors gave access. Overhead, a second floor in this cavernous space provided similar accommodations.
Baumgarten parted the curtain. "There's still water in the cistern."
"Next week," Potter said. The thought of two full minutes under hot water spraying his body after an initial soap-up enticed him. So did dipping himself into Lake Michigan, but he didn't rush up the coastal road to the beach, pay an exorbitant fee to walk on the sand, and dive fully clothed into the waves.
Triptych Page 22