The Ark Sakura (4 page)

Had it been the man, I would have reacted differently. But the girl’s fingers were transparent, as if she had no bones. There seemed little enough chance that the ticket was in any danger.

“Great,” said the man. “We’re here to collect some money. Can
you
pay us?”

“I’m afraid business was pretty bad.”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t.” He raised his voice, as if his professional pride had been wounded. “I saw it with my own eyes. They were selling, all right.”

The girl nodded her head rapidly in agreement. Her look was intense. It seemed possible to interpret her reaction as a sincere defense of the eupcaccia—but that was ridiculous. She was a
sakura,
a shill; she couldn’t be serious. It had to be an act, I knew, and yet I couldn’t suppress a rush of affection. Rather like a cat-hater who finds a kitten purring and rubbing his legs. Without thinking, I indulged in a bit of small talk, thus inadvertently handing them a pretext to stay.

“Don’t you remember me?” I said, burying my chin in the folds of my neck, prickly with heat rash, to emphasize my bulk. “I remember you.”

“I remember you too,” said the girl, bringing her hands together. Her eyes sparkled. “You’re the one who bought the eupcaccia right after us, aren’t you?”

“That’s right. That was it; that was the only one he sold.”

“What do you mean?” said the man. “We bought one too, didn’t we? That makes at least two.”

“You can stop pretending. I know everything.”

“Like what?”

“Like what you two do for a living.”

They looked at each other and laughed nonchalantly. Consternation was apparent beneath the laughter.

“What’s
your
relationship to him?” the man asked.

“None. I just took a fancy to the eupcaccia, that’s all.”

“Funny. Why would he go and leave the store with a total stranger?”

“Nature called.”

The girl held the ticket case to her ear and shook it. “Say, what do you suppose this is?” Her voice was clear and a bit high, with a suggestion of strain. Was she flustered at having been found out?

“Any bug that thin and flat could only be made out of paper.” His voice was raspy and heavily ironic. He rotated his right shoulder and cracked his knuckles. “These days they have to have horns, or the kids won’t buy them.”

“Eupcaccias don’t have horns,” I said.

“That’s the whole trouble with them.”

“It’s something hard,” she said. “Metallic.”

Swiftly the man reached out for the remaining case. Over my dead body. I snatched it up and pocketed it.

“Is that nice?” he demanded.

“It’s not for sale.”

“You don’t mind if I look inside, do you?” The girl glanced up at me inquiringly.

“Go on and open it if you want. It’s a free country.” The man’s tone was brusque.

She shook the contents out onto the counter. The ornamental brass key fell out with a clatter, while the thin plastic card started to fly away, caught in a puff of wind. The man slammed it down in the nick of time, as if swatting a fly; he shook off my arm, which had shot out simultaneously, and backed off with a mischievous smile. He seemed bent on playing games.

“Well, well, what do we have here? A boat ticket. A ‘Ticket to Survival,’ no less. What do you know. Looking for people to sign on?”

Bouncing the key on her palm, the girl peered at the card in her companion’s hand. “There’s a map on the back.”

Where was the insect dealer? No matter how crowded the lavatory might have been, he was taking his sweet time. It had been a good five minutes now. Wasn’t he ever coming back? Had he taken such a dislike to me that he was willing to sacrifice both his suitcase and his wristwatch for the chance to escape? The irony was that these two seemed more interested than he had been. Maybe it was all for the best. It wasn’t sour grapes; there was just no reason it had to be the insect dealer and no one else. I studied the girl, first by herself, then comparing her with her companion. Had she been alone, I would have welcomed this turn of events unconditionally.

“Pardon me for asking, but what exactly are you two to each other?” I said. “Are you business partners, or what?” It was indeed a strange question. Hearing myself ask it, I wanted to stop up my ears. The man’s smile faded, and he wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I know. We’re a funny pair, aren’t we? People are always asking us that. Every time they do, I think of the saying ‘Catch big fish with little ones.’ ”

“People are always asking you that? What do you mean.”

“This person,” he said, indicating her with a jerk of his head, “seems to radiate loneliness. As if she were a pitiful waif forced against her will to do nasty men’s bidding. She stirs up men’s combativeness. It’s a kind of fishing by lure, if you follow me.”

“This person,” he had said. How much more impersonal could you be? Perhaps there was hope. Or perhaps he was only glorying in his fishing skills. The sight of him became even more irritating.

“Sorry—I don’t go in much for fishing,” I said.

Slowly the girl’s smile faded. She did have an air of loneliness about her, despite her way of glancing up at you, and the lines at either corner of her mouth, and her fairly heavy makeup. It might well be a look that was carefully contrived and calculated, I thought.

“Well, what about this merchandise? Don’t we at least get an explanation?” He flicked the card with a fingernail and spoke with rising insistency. “You can’t choose your customers; it’s not fair. Once the goods are on the counter, that’s it. You have to play fair. The bug man may have told you— half of these stalls are here only because I put in a good word for the owners with the management. That gives me a certain stake in what goes on here. I can’t have you picking and choosing among customers.”

“You don’t understand. These aren’t for sale. That’s what I’ve been telling you all along.”

“Tsk tsk. The rule is that anything displayed on the counter has to be for sale.”

“In that case, I apologize. I’m sorry. Now will you please hand it back?”

“The bug man must have told you some ridiculous story about us. That we’re a couple of
sakura
or something.”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“Officially, a
sakura
is a shill, a sidewalk vendor’s assistant—somebody who makes a purchase or lays down a bet to encourage onlookers to do the same. Only nobody calls us that anymore. The job’s no different, but we have a respectable-sounding title: sales promoters, we’re called. The department stores treat us like proper agents, with our own accounts and everything.”

The girl grasped the man’s wrist to hold it still, as the excited swaying of his body interfered with her attempts to focus on the map on the back of the card. Now was my chance. I reached out for the ticket, my fingers moving to the precise spot, at the precise speed, that I had intended. In fat people, the bottom half of the body may be weighted down, but from the waist up, heaviness is no bar to agility.

Yet I failed. The ticket was gone from between his fingers. Sleight of hand. He waved his other arm with a flourish, and the ticket reappeared, ensconced between two fingers; he blew on it, and it spun like a windmill.

“I give up. Please let me have it back,” I said. “Then we’ll talk.”

“Say, this must be pretty valuable, from the way you’re carrying on about it.”

“Didn’t use the right psychology.” The girl laughed, glancing from the card to me. “You’re just encouraging him.”

“It
is
valuable,” I said, in a voice so feeble that I made myself sick. “It’s worth more than anybody here could begin to afford.”

“Don’t underestimate me.”

“That’s not what I mean.” That crazy insect dealer, I thought—how long could he go on peeing? “If you don’t know how to use it, it won’t do you any good.” Nothing to do but relax and wait to be rescued. “It would be a total waste.” Still, no telling how effective his reinforcement would prove until the time came. “It’s not like ordinary merchandise, where you pay the money and it’s yours.” In terms of sheer physical strength, the insect dealer might have an edge, but in actual combat the shill would probably prove the more adept. It was a good match. If the shill had the sharpness of wire, the insect dealer had the toughness. And I myself counted for something. Weight can be a valuable weapon, provided you use it correctly.

The girl spoke up. “A boat ticket can only mean some kind of boat. What kind, is the question.”

“The real question is the key,” said the man. “What does it unlock?”

“Finding the answer to that may be easier than you think… .“ Her voice was brightly animated, as if she were leafing through a travel brochure. Then she dangled the key roguishly near the tip of her nose. The ticket might be gone, but I at least wanted the key back. Capturing sitting flies in my bare hands is one of my hobbies. I fixed my eyes on her hand. The man had put one over on me, but with the girl I had more confidence. Still, something made me hesitate. Perhaps it was self-reproach, a warning that I was getting too emotional. The insect dealer had been utterly uninterested, yet I had gone out of my way to press a ticket on him. Now, when the shills grabbed eagerly at the bait, I found myself trying desperately to retrieve it. Mustn’t be prey to impulse. The thing to do was play for time, and wait till I could join forces with the insect dealer. Above all, I had to see that tickets to survival did not start getting scattered around out of all control.

A furious rain came lashing down, bombarding us with great pellets of water. Spray obscured visibility. The concrete floor hummed in resonance. Shoppers ran en masse for the exits, while stallkeepers raced to take in their wares.

In the confusion, the pair ran off and disappeared. There was no time even to call to them to stop. I started to chase after them, squeezing out through the side opening of the stall, when the weight of accumulated rainwater on the canvas roof caused the supports to lean. My foot got caught in the crosspiece, and I fell forward, flat on my face. A sharp pain flashed though my knee like incandescent light. Weak knees are the bane of the very fat.

Someone helped me up from behind, so near I could smell the sweat in his armpits. It was the insect dealer.

“Where in hell have
you
been?”

“Sorry. I didn’t think it would take so long, but it turned out I had to take a crap too. I’ve had loose bowels off and on for a while. Maybe it’s the weather; who knows?”

“Go after them. Hurry!”

“After who?”

“The shills, of course.” I stood and started to run off ahead of him, but my left leg was rubbery and lacking totally in sensation. I clung to his shoulder, barely managing to keep upright.

“That woman is a looker, isn’t she?” he enthused. “That face makes me want to take her in my arms. That ass makes me want—”

“Never mind that. They ran off with my stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“The tickets. They swiped them and ran off.”

“Now why would they want to do a thing like that?” He pulled me back under the canvas, out of the rain. I would have resisted, but my leg wasn’t obeying orders.

“You wouldn’t take it so lightly if you knew how much those tickets are worth.”

“How should I know? I’m sure
they
don’t, either.”

“Their instincts were better than yours, though.”

The scanty hair on his big round head looked as if someone had scribbled it on with a ballpoint pen. Water dripped from his earlobes and the point of his chin, as if someone had left the faucet running.

“Relax,” he said. “I think I know where they went. If you can walk, I’ll let you lean on my shoulder.”

There was pain like a scattering of broken needles, but normal sensation was beginning to return. I gripped the shoulder of the insect dealer, who carried the suitcase, and we headed toward the exit, getting wet to the skin. The store loudspeakers were announcing closing time to the accompaniment of “Auld Lang Syne.” The man evidently in charge of dismantling stalls came dashing up the emergency stairway, pulled out a crowbar from the toolbag slung around his hips, and set to work, starting in a corner.

In front of the elevators there was a roofed area some fifteen feet square, filled with a jostling crowd seeking escape from the rain. The overload bell was ringing, and the elevator doors were wide open. No one moved to get out. No one could have—the elevator was packed too tight. Angry shouts … crying children … women’s screams … and the bell, ringing and ringing …

“Hopeless. Damn!”

“We’ve got to hurry and find them! The man had a crew cut, and the woman had curly hair. She was wearing a T-shirt printed with some kind of scenery on the front—”

“Forget it. Take a look at that. No way.”

“Why not take the stairs?”

“We’re on the ninth floor, you know.”

“So? I don’t care.”

We circled around in back of the elevators till we came to a white steel door. On it was a wooden sign marked EMERGENCY EXIT. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

The door swung open to a noise like the buzzing of ten thousand horseflies—the hum of motors reverberating down the pit of the stairwell. It was a steep, strictly-business stairway, a world away from the gaudy bustle of the store interior. The walls were of plain concrete, adorned only with large numbers on each landing to mark off the successive floors. The air smelled of raw pelts hanging up to dry.

The railing was on the left, which made it easier for me to favor my injured left knee. On the sixth-floor landing we stopped for breath; I tried straightening my leg and putting weight on it. There was a watery sensation, but the pain remained local. The insect dealer’s glasses were starting to steam over.

“Are you sure you know where they went?” I asked.

“They have an office. A rented one, with just a phone, but an office.”

“ ‘Shills for hire,’ is that it?”

“It’s a referral agency for sidewalk vendors. They keep a percentage of the space rental fee.”

“Then they
are
racketeers. I knew it. He tried to gloss it over—called himself a ‘sales promoter’ or some damn thing.”

“They don’t seem to have any direct connections to organized crime, though. If they did, they could never deal with the department store here so openly. Who knows, maybe they pay their dues on the sly.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. There was something slimy about them.”

“Her too?”

The question was impossible for me to answer in an offhand way. I stopped, pretending my knee hurt. The insect dealer shifted the suitcase to his other hand and looked back at me, a faint smile on his face.