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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 the 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.

But never mind that.

In the present case, I was truly grateful to Gaby for taking on the task, therefore, I shouldn’t stint on my thanks.

“I’ll talk to the manager here about that returnables box,” I told her, moving away from the wall. “And now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

“No need for excuses from the likes of me! Go, go! I’ll see to Felsic. Leave it to me!”

I nodded once more and left it to her.