"Aren't the forms all done by now?"
"I wish. They've got some idea that we didn't send in half the food permit sheets. You know, the health certifications for the food handlers. But we did. The city lost them."
"Well, did you keep copies?"
"Please! Every single piece of paper is copied three times and filed in three different offices. My company office, the council offices, and Barry's office. God forbid one of the offices should have a fire."
"Well, send them the copies and prove you filled them out earlier."
He gave me a pitying grin. "Don't you think I've thought of that? Sure, I could prove to them we did it before. Wouldn't matter. They want an original. The actual ink on the actual paper they give you. With real pen dents. Nothing else is good enough."
"Oh."
"Sound like a Chicago municipal-style, moronic, pointless, unnecessary demand to you?"
"It really does."
"I gotta get out of here for a couple of minutes. Otherwise I'll freak." He slapped the pile of finished papers down next to the larger stack of unfinished ones. "Let me show you what's new."
I had not spent much time with Plumly and didn't know him well at all. He seemed pleasant but maybe a little harried. He had been a Chicago cop for twenty-five years, then retired at the age of fifty and formed his own security firm. That had been only four years ago, and yet he had landed this plum job, so I assumed that he had some clout someplace. While clout was a true Chicago phenomenon, I didn't much like it.
We walked out of the Emerald City castle into a beautiful sunny afternoon. In the three days since I had last been there in the park, a whole lot had been accomplished. Most of the extra landscaping was now in place. The paths were painted yellow, although the brown overlay depicting the brick grid pattern hadn't gone down on top yet. Several of the rides were up, and the Kansas Tornado was being tested. Like a theatrical load-in, the festival had to move in all at once. You don't tie up public space any longer than you have to.
"Been a lot of last-minute work, I suppose," I said to Plumly, just to get the conversation going.
"Oh, jeez, yes! Everything that could go wrong went wrong."
"What are you doing right now?"
"As you say, last-minute stuff. We're checking staff applicants' backgrounds through Lexis, Nexis, and public databases. Half of these vendors didn't know who-all would be working for them until this week. Their own staff is mostly needed at their regular stores. We
prevent
crime. I hope. It's not just clearing the employees, although that's big. You don't really want serial killer John Wayne Gacy working in the popcorn booth."
"No."
"These days there are a lot of lawsuits about what's now called negligent hiring. There's no national database of non-hirables yet. So you have to cybersearch every person individually on several databases. We also do preventive design. You can set up the physical space so that crime is less likely. For instance, I'm sure you realize the food stands are not part of the ticket system. The tickets are for rides. The customers pay for specific food when they buy it."
"Actually, I hadn't thought about it."
"Well, anyway. They do. So, unlike the rides, the food stands take in hard cash. I make the stands all keep their cash register more than an arm's length from the counter."
"Oh, I see. So the customer can't reach over and snatch cash out of the cash drawer."
"Right. It's perfectly simple, but people don't think of it. Especially restaurants that are used to doing it their own way on their own premises. They aren't always thrilled, either, when I tell them they have to do it my way here. Tomorrow they'll be finishing the setup of the booths. Even though I told them several times, I'll go around and find out that half of them didn't conform."
"So you actually train the vendors."
"Sure. We do all kinds of things. Preplanning, for instance, so that the space is kind of cut up and foot traffic is organized for small groups, so that you don't encourage mobs. Fire prevention. We wander around eyeballing everything and asking ourselves, How could that particular booth or ride or whatever catch on fire? A lot of the hot-food booths have serious fire potential. There's LP gas for cooking and hot fat for frying and so on. There's huge barrels of wastepaper. We get somebody from the fire department in to take a look, of course. Other duties? We install security cameras. And once the festival opens, we'll get into the ever-popular policing of alcohol and drugs."
"You can buy beer at the BluesFest."
"But not at the Oz Festival. This is a child-oriented event. Still, there will be plenty of people selling prohibited substances under the table."
"A security firm must need multitalented people."
"We have to have a lot of different specialists these days. We even do corporate liability consultation. Security in the United States is a thirty-billion-dollar business. But it's like any other business. To grow, you have to have a track record, credits. Unfortunately, you have to have a track record to get hired and you have to get hired to develop a track record. We did the JazzFest. And one of the art festivals. And we've done a lot of smaller jobs around the Chicago area. But this assignment is very important for us as a company. The Oz Festival is going to be our biggest credit. It's gotta be perfect."
"So you're being extra thorough."
"Yeah. Check and recheck. Back and forth. Round and round. Man! I wish I had wheels like a Wheeler."
"You know about the Wheelers?" I said without thinking. In
Ozma of Oz
, Dorothy washes ashore in a chicken coop after an accident at sea. She finds herself on a strange coast, where the hostile natives have wheels instead of hands and feet. Naturally, they are able to pursue her faster than she can run, but she evades them by running up a rock-studded hillside.
Plumly studied my face. "You're surprised I know about Wheelers, aren't you?"
"Um, frankly, I guess I am."
He stopped in his tracks, standing on the Yellow Brick Road. "You're a reporter, Ms. Marsala. You know my company is relatively new. I'm sure you think I paid somebody off to get this job. Chicago politics as usual?"
"Well, it wouldn't be
un
usual, would it?"
"Nope. But I didn't. I got the job through nepotism; that's a fact. My brother's married to the— Oh well. You could look that up, if it matters to you, although I can't imagine why it would. I got preference, yes, but I didn't pay anybody off. I draw the line at payoffs. In fact, I hate them." From the clench of his jaw, I thought he was telling the truth.
"Just theoretically, what's the difference between payoffs and nepotism, morality-wise?"
"In one case money changes hands; in the other, it doesn't."
"I know that." Unfortunately, I couldn't stop myself from frowning.
"Okay. Maybe there's not much difference. But I think when you introduce cold cash into a situation, it's just more corrupting." He heaved a sigh and changed the subject. "Anyway, I suppose you think a former cop who gets a job through favoritism doesn't have the sensitivity to read books?"
"Oh, great," I said. "When I came here a few minutes ago, I was just curious about what was new in Oz. Now I'm superficial, hasty, and biased."
"Know thyself."
I laughed. "All right. I guess that's fair in a way. So you tell me. What sort of person are you?"
"A person who admires whimsy. You know, of all the delights of L. Frank Baum, I think whimsy was the most important. Remember the Gump, from
The Land of Oz
? He was a flying creature made up of two sofas, some leaves from a potted palm, and the stuffed head of an elklike animal? Wonderful!" He smiled. "People rarely do whimsy anymore. Nowadays it's all plotting or characterization or— gasp! —social significance."
I said, "I would think a security specialist like you would prefer reality."
"If you can build a safe reality, you will have time and space for your whimsy. But I like this work. I'm very happy to have this job. My company needs it badly, if we're going to survive. Still, the festival is quite commercial. And there's something a little non-Oz about that."
"Commercial? Of course. Somebody has to pay for all this. How would you get people to put up Flying Monkey merry-go-rounds if they weren't at least being paid for their work?"
"I understand the problem. Somebody has to pay me and my staff, after all. I just wonder—"
"What?"
"Whether the right people are making the decisions."
* * *
The Oz Festival was going to be a big credit for his company? Oh, lord! Now he was dead and the festival had a killer loose. I suppose it's a good thing we don't know what's lying in wait for us.
Thinking about Plumly, I wished now that I could introduce Jeremy to him, to show him that, however commercial the festival might be, a child loved it. Too late.
* * *
Down in the tunnel, I cuddled Jeremy. The silhouette up in the lighted end, the vague figure that reminded me of the Tin Woodman, moved, his head angling as if looking into the shaft. He couldn't possibly see us, because we were in darkness, but he suspected we were here.
The figure was distorted by the odd perspective, us looking up through a tunnel at him. Also the shape was illuminated from the back with yellow Winkie-country light so it was impossible to see features.
I couldn't even begin to guess whether it was Barry or not, or even a man or a woman.
I whispered into the child's ear, "Jeremy, be very quiet, and take my hand. We're going to move out of here."
He did exactly what I told him. What a good little guy he was. We walked carefully, first along the level area, then down another slope, watching out for trash and mud, both of which increased in quantity as we went downward.
The slope was gentle, though, and even after five minutes of picking our way, we were probably only ten or fifteen feet below the ground surface. That was my best guess, but it was terribly hard to tell.
On a level floor again, Jeremy and I felt our way into a smaller tunnel that led off the big sloping one. There were concrete groins here, and they formed alcoves behind themselves that offered shallow hiding places. The light from the outside hardly reached us. The damp air smelled horrible.
"Aunt Cat," Jeremy whispered in my ear, "I don't like this place."
"Neither do I, but let's wait here just a few minutes and see if the bad guy gives up and goes away."
After a couple of minutes something altered. The distant light, now barely visible far off, changed in intensity. Someone was moving through the tunnel.
Jeremy and I slipped into one of the alcoves and found that it had a still smaller space behind it formed by an old iron pillar. These iron supports are all over Chicago— under Chicago, really— because the city was built on what had been a swamp. In the late 1800s, many of the downtown streets were raised above swamp level on cast-iron stilts, the roadways and sidewalks laid over iron grids. In the century since then, many of the tunnel spaces underneath have simply been forgotten.
We huddled behind the pillar. It was rusty and flaky and something damp was running down one side, making dripping sounds as it hit the floor, but I was grateful for the icky pillar's existence.
Very little glow of light reached into our alcove. But the dim light was a lifeline. I couldn't imagine how horrible it would have been down here if we had been in total darkness. When I saw the glow dim slightly, my heart sank. I squeezed Jeremy's arm, hoping he would be silent.
If it were Barry moving around out there in the tunnel, wouldn't he call out to us? Wouldn't he call for Jeremy?
And if he called, should I answer?
If he called, would I be able to stop Jeremy from answering?
5
LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS
If I caught sight of the man, and if it was Barry, I decided I would cover Jeremy's eyes. He mustn't see his father trying to kill him. And what we could do about it later, assuming we survived, would just have to be decided when and if that time came.
But, in my heart, I could not believe the killer was Barry. He was a gentle man. He had never shown the least sign of violence, beyond a certain childhood fascination with the high school wrestling team. In fact, he was probably back at the festival offices, handling the crisis and coordinating with the police. He would assume we had left the park, since Jennifer had told him we would. He would think we were halfway home by now, safe and sound.
We held absolutely quiet and perfectly still. I was so scared Jeremy might twitch, or call out, or sneeze, or just whimper, that I felt nauseated. Then, when he didn't, I was so proud of him, I kissed the top of his head.
If we ever get out of this, kid, you can have all the ice cream I can afford.
