Time Was (31 page)

Killaine stared at him, fascinated.

Danny looked at her then touched his face. “What? Did I—oh, please tell me that I don't have something hanging off my—”

“No, no,” said Killaine, smiling. “It's just that”—she laughed—“I didn't understand a damn word you said.”

“Huh? Oh—I'm sorry, Miss Reyn—uh, Karen. When you've been a carny as long as I have, you start to speak a whole different language. It helps us understand each other—sorta like our own little code—but it can work against us when a bad element comes in.”

“Would you care to translate some of what you just said?”

“Well—sure I'm not boring you?”

Killaine propped her elbow up on the table and rested her chin in her hand.

She was absolutely smitten with him. “No,” she said. “You're not boring me at all.”

Good heavens, she felt like an adolescent girl who'd gotten a crush on her history teacher. This wasn't her, it wasn't her at all!

 . . . Still, it was nice. Danny Morgan had a way about him, despite his physical afflictions; his face alone held traces of a thousand places, a million stories.

To Killaine, that was incredibly attractive. In the five years Zac and the I-Bots had been on the run, she had never, ever, felt anything like this toward a client before. Morgan had a bone-weary charisma that she found hypnotic; that, combined with his gravelly voice, made him seem all the more enigmatic. There was such a passion for his work—albeit a deeply hidden, well-masked passion—evident in his every look, gesture, word, and inflection. She couldn't get over the way his eyes sparkled when he talked of the carnival life, and the way he—

“. . . okay?”

Killaine blinked, startled, and gave her head a little shake. “I'm . . . I'm sorry, Danny. I must have drifted off for a moment.”

“The heat. It gets pretty hot out here pretty early. Believe me, it's a lot better once night comes. Everything smells better, looks prettier.”

“I can imagine.”

“I didn't mean to startle you. Just wondering if you were okay.”

“I'm fine. I didn't mean to be rude. Go on.”

“Well, I was saying that this carnival isn't a racket show—at least, it
wasn't
until about four months ago.”

“And a racket show is—”

“A carnival that carries rigged games. And racket shows are dirty with patch money.” Before Killaine could ask him what that was, he held up his hand and continued. “Each agent working a rigged game pays his fixer—that's a person who's either got an in with local law enforcement or who
is
a local officer—anyway, the agent pays his fixer so much money a night to make sure that his game isn't busted if someone raises hell and accuses him of being less than forthright with his practice. The amount an agent pays depends on how much the fixer needs for this assurance, plus his percentage of the nightly take. The prices can get pretty high when a stick enters the picture.”

“And you want me to find the sticks that are working your midway?”

Morgan nodded his head. “I'm the storekeeper here—I'm in charge of the midway games. It's my responsibility to make sure that all the games are legit, that everyone who plays gets what they pay for, and that no one along my route is running a flat, count, or bat away store.” He saw the look on Killaine's face. “They're all crooked as my back. It's just that each kind has a different method of cheating. Look, Karen, I don't want to prattle on too much more about this, but—”

“I really don't mind.”

He smiled, then reached across and placed one of his gloved hands over hers. “That's awfully sweet of you to say, but I suspect you might be getting tired of the sound of my voice. I know I am.”

Killaine laughed. “You've got a wonderful voice.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Really think so?”

“Oh, yeah.”

A tight-lipped grin. “Well, yours isn't exactly hard on the ears, either. In fact, what with that Irish accent of yours, it's downright sultry. Reminds me of Maureen O'Hara's voice, with a little touch of Greer Garson thrown in.”

“Oh, I
love
Maureen O'Hara!” exclaimed Killaine. “
The Quiet Man
is one of my favorite movies!”

“Oh, a lady after my own heart. Wasn't Victor MacLaughlin terrific in that picture? I always liked Victor. I like Robert Mitchum, too. Thought he did a fine job in
Ryan's Daughter.
”

“That's my
favorite
movie!”

“You're kidding?”

“No.”

“Mine, too!”

And both of them laughed.

During the whole exchange, Danny didn't take his hand from Killaine's.

And she didn't mind one bit.

“I like you, Karen Reynolds,” said Morgan.

“I like
you
, Daniel Morgan.”

“Does that mean you'll take the job?”

“What exactly is the job?”

“I want you to come back here tomorrow night with one or two of your other people and try to get yourselves hired as sticks. To a flat store owner, a good stick is worth their price in gold.”

“What will happen?”

“If one of you gets hired as a stick, you'll be asked if you've got any partners. You'll say yes, and the booster grapevine will come alive. You'll be given instructions to move from one flat store to the other, and by the end of the evening I'll know where the flatties are.”

“And then?”

“And then the rest of us will run them off the midway. Carnies take care of their own, and they clean up their own messes. It's just that, in this case, the flatties are a bit more skilled at hiding themselves that I'm used to.” He shrugged. “Of course, it could just be I've lost my touch at spotting them. In any event, I've tucked aside enough money to cover your services for two days, plus your consulting fee. If you take the job, then one of your people is going to have to spend a day training with me.”

“Training?”

“Can't offer your services as a stick unless you can spot how the game's rigged. If the flattie knows that
you
know what he's up to, he'll have no choice but to hire you for the night.”

“Even if they've got a fixer?”

Morgan shook his head. “A fixer is only available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Let's say that a midway route's got four flat stores. On any given night, only one of them can hire a fixer and the other three can go hang. A smart fixer knows how important he is, and a lot of them make more money during a carny stopover than many of the owners.” He finished off his orange juice, wiped the sweat from his forehead, then leaned forward. “Karen, I hope you don't take offense to this, but it's not going to do me a whole helluva lot of good to go on about this if you're not going to take the job.”

“I understand,” said Killaine, gripping his hand before he could take it away. “And I want to take the job, it's just . . .”

“Just what?”

She brushed her thumb over the back of his hand, once, very slowly, then looked up into his eyes. “Why is this so important to you?”

“Because I run a clean midway.”

“I know that, I know that you pride yourself on honest games, but I . . . I get the feeling there's something else. What is it?”

He stared at her. “Is this a deal-breaker?”

“No. I'm just curious.” She laughed. “Occupational hazard for the security business.”

“Uh-huh,” Morgan said, his face losing just a touch of its openness, its friendliness.

Killaine was immediately sorry she'd pushed her luck.

Morgan slowly pulled his hand away, grabbed his arm-crutches, rose from the table, and hobbled over to the feed camp's open entrance flap.

He watched the families wander by.

The mothers. The fathers. The teens.

The children, most of all.

Finally, he looked over his shoulder and said, “Could you come here for a minute?”

Killaine quickly rose from the table and joined him.

When she got there, she automatically put a hand on his shoulder as if they'd known each other all their lives and this was something she often did.

“Look at them, will you?” said Morgan, gesturing with his head toward a group of children who were being led along by two harried-looking mothers. “Everything's still
new
to them. Even if something bad's happened to them recently, they still laugh and giggle and, I don't know,
hope
, I guess. Remember when we were that young? How nothing bad ever followed us to the next morning? Maybe something bad happened
before
, but
now's
fun, you've got a ball to bounce or a model plane to fly or a doll to pretend with, and the day's full of mystery and wonder and things to look forward to and—” He stopped himself with a shake of his head.

“What is it, Danny?” said Killaine softly, gently squeezing his shoulder.

He looked at her with a deep, hidden sadness in his eyes. “You know, I once read this fairy tale about a young boy who discovered an ancient Egyptian vase, thousand of years old, and he wanted to open it up so he could get to the treasures inside. He tried to pry the lid off but he couldn't do it, so finally he loses his temper and smashes the vase to the floor and—you know what's inside? A rose. A single rose from five thousand years ago, perfectly preserved. And for a moment the boy inhales the scent of the rose and the air that had been sealed within the vase, and in that instant he feels cheated because he thought it was going to contain something valuable. Still, it's a nice smell, unlike any other rose he's ever smelled before. So he decides to give it to his mother. But when he opens his eyes and looks down again, the rose has crumbled into dust. The story ends many years later, when the boy is an old man lying on his deathbed, and the priest asks him if there are any further sins he wants to confess. The old man looks up at the priest and says, ‘I am ashamed that I didn't treasure the priceless gift the old rose gave to me.' And he dies. And no one knows what he meant by it.”

“That's a lovely story. Sad, but lovely.”

Morgan laughed. “Probably doesn't do much to answer your question, though.”

“Not really.”

He maneuvered around on his crutches to face her. “The ancient Greeks believed in two kinds of time, Karen:
chronos
and
kairos. Kairos
is not measurable. In
kairos
, you simply
are
, from the moment of your birth on. You
are
, wholly and positively.
Kairos
is especially strong in children, because they haven't learned to understand, let alone accept, concepts such as time and age and death. In children,
kairos
can break through
chronos:
When they're playing safely, drawing a picture for Mommy or Daddy, taking the first taste of the first ice-cream cone of summer, when they sing along to songs in a Disney cartoon, there is only
kairos.
As long as a child thinks it's immortal, it is.”

The intensity in his voice was hypnotic.

The look on his face was overpowering.

The fire in his eyes was breathtaking; Killaine couldn't look away.

“Think of every living child,” he said, “as being the burning bush that Moses saw—surrounded by the flames of
chronos
, but untouched by the fire. In
chronos
you're nothing more than a set of records, fingerprints, your social-security number, you're always watching the clock, aware of time passing—but in
kairos
, you are
Karen
and only Karen.

“Children don't know about
chronos
, and I'll be damned, Karen, if any of them are going to be forced to find out about it on my midway. I'll be damned if any of them are going to leave here without realizing the priceless gift of the old rose. Their innocence and joy and wonder will be taken away from them soon enough. The carnival remains one of the few places of wonder left to them, and I want it to remain that way. No child will leave here in
chronos
because some greedy son-of-a-bitch flat store owner took them for all the money in their piggy banks.

“Does
that
answer your question?”

“. . . yes . . .”

“Will you take the job? Will you help me keep
kairos
away from the kids?”

With not the least bit of self-consciousness, Killaine reached up and touched his cheek. “Yes, I will.”

“Good. If you could have your team member be here about noon, I'll start training him.”

She reached down and gripped his forearms. “It will be me.”

His smile brightened considerably. “
Really?
You want me to teach you . . .?”

Killaine felt herself actually blushing as she smiled. “Yes. Teach me.”

And for a long moment, they simply stood staring at one another and smiling.

Looking for all the world like a couple of love-struck teenagers.

 

Across the road from the carnival entrance gate, Rudy watched from behind an old newsstand for the redheaded bitch to leave.

Locating the building where he'd tried to dust DocScrap last night had been easier than he'd thought, thanks to a couple of well-placed packages of Stoke powder into the hands of Gash's RoofWatchers. The RWs were scattered all over Cemetery Ridge, their duty being to record the comings and goings of
anyone
in the area—even if it was just a pizza delivery boy

Rudy had laid the Stoke on them, and they'd been more than happy to listen to his description of the redheaded bitch. They'd agreed that Rudy's Stoke was enough for them to watch for one day and one night; then they either quit or he found a way to provide more of the drug for them.

Knowing they risked Gash's wrath for helping Rudy was outweighed by their love of Stoke.