Metaltown (11 page)

He wondered if she had anyone setting her straight. Not from the sounds of it. Definitely not from the looks of it.

“Here.” He took off his scarf and offered it to her, more than a little regretful when the cold air gripped his throat.

“Oh. I couldn't.”

“Don't want to freeze to death. Besides, you can give it back next time you see me.”

She didn't laugh. That was promising.

Her prissy little nose crinkled up, but she took it, and folded it around her neck. He liked the way it clashed with her outfit. Soon enough, Metaltown would work its way into her clothes, and her pretty skin, and that scarf would blend right in.

It was kind of a shame, when he thought about it.

“I'm a little lost,” she admitted after a moment.

“You don't say.”

Her eyes narrowed, and now she took a step toward him. “You don't need to make fun of me,” she said. “I haven't done anything to deserve it. I've got things to do, and I don't have time to play games.”

“Is that what we're doing?” he asked, amused at her scolding. “Playing a game?”

Her lips parted slightly, and his gaze lowered there and stuck. Then he looked up, hoping she hadn't noticed, and jammed his hands into his pockets.

“Miss Hampton!”

A big man in a suit barreled into the alley, a line of sweat dripping from his black hair down his jaw. As his gaze moved from Lena to Colin, he bared his teeth.

“Finally,” Lena muttered.

Colin staggered back quickly.

“
Hampton?
” he managed.

“Miss Hampton, the car is waiting across the street.”

Lena nodded, eyes flicking between the two of them.

“Hampton?” Colin said again. Then he began to laugh. “You've got to be kidding me.”

So much for both of them having the same sad Bakerstown story.

“Is this boy harassing you?” The man glared at Colin.

“I suppose that depends on your definition of harassment,” said Lena, clearly more comfortable in the other man's presence. Colin choked a little, and she waved a hand. “We barely spoke, Aja.”

Barely spoke? It became immediately clear that she didn't want to be seen associating with him, and he nearly laughed at the irony of it.

She looked at him a second longer, as though expecting him to say something more, but what was he going to say to a Hampton? What was a Hampton even doing out here? They had middlemen like Minnick to run their factories. There was no reason for them to cross the beltway.

“Well … good-bye,” she finally said, shoving her hand out so quickly he flinched. Tentatively, he shook it. Again. And when he squeezed her fingers, just a little, she jerked away.

“Good-bye,” she said again.

“Bye.” He tipped his head forward, and she huffed, like he'd done it to annoy her.

With her servant clearing the way, she marched back into the crowded street, leaving Colin, bewildered, in the alley.

*   *   *

On his way to work, Colin stopped at the smoke shack outside the employee entrance of the Stamping Mill. The night crew was just about to get off, and there was still a half-hour before he had to report for his shift at Small Parts. As he waited outside the door, the chill hit him. The girl had taken his scarf, he realized, a little annoyed now that he knew she probably had thirty of them at home. He could still see how she'd turned up her nose at the offer.

He could still see all of her, perfectly.

I suppose that depends on your definition of harassment,
she'd said. Cold. Why he'd expected different was beyond him.

But something about her
was
different. The way she'd acknowledged him at all, instead of blowing him off. The way she'd shaken his hand when they said good-bye. He didn't know how she was related to the big boss, but it didn't matter. She wasn't just flush, she was powerful, and that meant hands off. Not that he was ever going to see her, anyway.

The door opened, and a rush of people exited the building. A few he knew greeted him with tired smiles and slaps on the back.

“Ida, your boy's here,” a man named Fritz called, one hand clasped on Colin's shoulder. Sweat had etched lines through the powder smears on his forehead and cheeks. “One more day down, eh, Colin?”

“Till what?” Colin asked.

“Till I die,” Fritz answered with a wink. “And I can get out of this rat hole.”

“Fritz, stop pestering my baby.”

Colin's ma was tall for a woman, built thick and strong. Her face was much like his, with a broad jaw and tired, blue eyes. The sleeves of her stained shirt were rolled up to her elbows. Colin leaned in automatically for her to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“You look tired. Everything all right at home?” She cracked her neck, rolled her shoulders.

“Yeah,” he said. “Everything's fine. She slept through the night.” He didn't really know if that was true, of course—he'd only been home for a few minutes after he'd dumped Hayden at their friend Shima's to sober up. But when he'd come in, he'd heard Cherish's heavy breathing from the bedroom, and she hadn't roused when he'd rinsed her blood-soaked rags.

“Did Hayden check in?” With a heavy sigh, she pulled a hand-rolled cigarette from her pocket and stuck it between her teeth. It took her four strikes to light the match. He hated that his brother made her worry.

“He did,” Colin said. “He left early for work, though.”

“He look okay?”

“Looked fine to me.” Which he had. When he wasn't doubled up with the fever chills on Shima's floor.

Ida took a handkerchief out of her pocket. A few crumbled crackers were inside, and she handed them over to Colin.

“I'm okay.” He'd eaten at Shima's, and besides, he knew this was all his ma would have until the end of her shift.

“All right.” Ida pulled his collar tighter around his neck, her lips thinning to hold the cigarette in place. “Anything big I should know about?”

I talked to a Hampton this morning.
“Nope,” said Colin.

“Anything new at the factory?”

Minnick made me scrub the johns because I ran an errand for Jed.
“Where's your coat?”

“Inside.”

“Another full?”

She nodded. Colin felt bad for her; she'd been working more double shifts over the past few months. She paid her dues to the Brotherhood like everyone else, but her salary was barely enough to keep the lights on, and the money Jed Schultz sent was never enough.

If Hayden could get himself together, they'd do better. If Hayden could get himself clean, he could be the one helping out, and Colin, like Fritz, could get out of this rat hole.

Bastard was set on ruining everything.

Colin chewed a sharp edge off his pinky nail.

A buzzer went off inside the factory. Ida crushed the end of her cigarette against the wall, and tucked it back in her pocket. Then she hugged him, and Colin could feel how skinny she was getting.

Damn Hayden, and damn his stupid nitro.

“Love you,” he said.

“I love you, Colin. Be good today. Do the right thing.”

“Don't I always?” He smirked.

“Yes,” she answered, her brows still furrowed. “You always do.”

*   *   *

Ty was already inside by the time he reached Small Parts. He recognized her things in the locker, and placed his beside them. Minnick didn't even glance up as Colin passed through the metal detector; either he was in need of a fix or they had an inspection today. He was pastier than normal, and his collar was already soaked with a ring of sweat.

The warehouse was warm, but the machinery had just started up and it would only be a matter of time before the room was blazing. The place was already alive with the crank and hum of grinding metal. He wasn't surprised by Matchstick's black eye, or by Martin's self-satisfied smirk. Zeke only yawned when Colin passed.

He ducked under the moving belt, and made his way toward the center of the floor where he and Ty were stationed. She was in the usual place wearing her usual padding. How she could stand the heat, he'd never know. Her eyes were down, her bare fingers twisting together two narrow metal rods.

“You're late,” she said irritably. “I've already done a dozen pieces so far. You'd better hurry and catch up.”

Beside her on the hip-high table were the fuses that Colin would connect to the waterproof copper wiring and transport down the line. Another few stops and that detonator would be packed into a plastic sheath, and screwed onto the nose of a bomb. By the time they reached the hot room—a curtained area in the back—the workers would pack them with white phosphorus and nitroglycerine, sent over from the chem plant. Those jobs were the worst: first the burns on the hands, then the red eyes, then the sores around the nose and inside the mouth. Most workers there lasted six months before they started getting really sick. Once they started missing work, they got sacked.

They didn't have protective gear like they did across the bridge at the chem plant. There was no reason to; they were just rats, like Minnick always said.

Colin made certain he was so good at building detonators that Minnick would never have reason to transfer him down the line.

“How'd you get in here so early?” he asked Ty.

“Minnick crashed in his office last night.” She wiped a line of sweat off her cheek with the back of her hand, and it came back streaked with blood.

Colin's muscles went tight. He removed the handkerchief from his pocket, and walked to the water barrel to dampen it. When he came back, he passed it over to her without a word. She hesitated a moment before pressing the rag into the side of her head. When she looked up, Colin could see that her lip was split open again, and that half of her short, messy hair was matted with dry blood.

He took his place beside her and picked up one of the pieces, exhaling slowly as he fitted it to the wire. His palms were already beginning to sweat, though, so he put it down and dipped his hands in one of the powder bowls near their station. When they were dry, he grabbed some needle-nose pliers and went to work.

“Where we headed tonight?” he asked. She knew what he meant.

“I took care of it,” she said. “You find your brother?”

“Where,” he said carefully. “The Board and Care?”

“I said I took care of it.”

Colin pierced his thumb with the sharp copper wire and swore. He didn't look at her. “You hurt, Ty?”

“I'm fine, all right? Just drop it.”

He shook his head. He knew Ty, and he knew when she'd taken care of business. She came back haughty and good-tempered, and talked more than usual. But when she was like this, when she wouldn't tell him what had happened, he knew she'd lost.

If he hadn't been with Hayden, he could have had her back.

“I found him,” said Colin. “He's burning it off at Shima's.”

Shima made her rent money watching people's kids while they worked. He'd met her just after he'd moved here—she'd made Ty and him rice after she'd found them begging in Market Alley. She'd been there for him ever since, cleaning him up after a fight, nursing Hayden through a bender. She was a lockbox of secrets, and he thought she was as good as gold.

Ty nodded, glad for the change of subject.

They worked in silence as the time passed, finding a rhythm twisting wires, inspecting pieces, throwing defective parts into the incinerator carts. They stretched their necks and backs, and dried their hands with white powder, but did not sit down. Minnick would have had their asses if they had.

The hours were marked by Maggie, the water girl, coming through with her jar and cup. She liked to linger. Normally Colin didn't mind, but today he found himself wishing she would just move on.

“Don't you have a job to do?” Ty finally barked. Maggie glared at her, and continued down the line.

“On the floor!” Martin yelled from the battery section.

“On the floor!” Colin automatically passed on to Plastics. The workers focused on their jobs, heads down, backs straight. The foreman was coming through.

Minnick appeared at the top of the stairs, flanked by two individuals: a slender man in a dark suit that Colin recognized immediately as the boss of Small Parts, and … Lena.

Colin dropped the part on the table, and the coil snapped off the metal bar.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ty said between her teeth. “Quick! Throw it in the pile before you have to count it as an error.”

He spun around and tossed it into the defectives cart just as Minnick walked through.

“And as you can see, we do the detonator piecework here,” the foreman was saying, an unnatural, almost scary smile plastered on his face.

Lena was still back with Martin, watching how he put together the batteries. Colin thought the poor guy was probably pissing himself being that close to a girl like her.

Ty followed his gaze and grumbled, “If I was flush, I'd buy some damn clothes that fit.”

Colin thought Lena's clothes fit her just fine.

“Lena, for God's sake, will you please focus?” Otto Hampton said. “I don't want to be here all day.” Colin's shoulders tightened involuntarily.

Lena's head cranked back, a tight look in her eyes that her brother disregarded with a wave of his hand.

“Good work,” she said to Martin.

She wasn't wearing Colin's scarf anymore, and he was more disappointed at that than he would have guessed. She'd probably burned it the second she'd left the alley. He kept watching her, ignoring Ty's hiss that he keep his eyes on his work. He willed her to see him, to recognize him, to say anything.

It was killing him that she didn't see him.

“What's down that way?” she asked, pointing to where the chemicals were packed into the metal canisters.