Metaltown (6 page)

“Brotherhood has no jurisdiction over Small Parts, you little brown-nosed rat. Brotherhood protects the Stamping Mill and the chem plant. The grown-ups. You know who protects Small Parts? Me. And I'm about to take real good care of you.” White-flecked beads of spit sprayed from his mouth onto Colin's cheeks. One ruddy fist wound back, daring them to do something. Anything.

Colin didn't even flinch.

“We can work something out,” said Ty. “Overtime. Janitorial. I know you got something for us.” She hated giving in to slime like Minnick, but where else were they going to go for work? They weren't old enough to catch a shift at the chem plant, and she'd rather die in food testing than start working a corner like the whores outside Market Alley.

Colin breathed in slowly through his nostrils, then stuck a hand in his pocket and retracted a handful of coins that he held out for the angry foreman.

“Oh my, oh my,” said Minnick. “Now we're talking. Something shiny for your good friend Minnick.”

“That's right,” mumbled Colin.

“What else you got? Let's see that scrap of blanket there. What else? New duds?”

“Given to me by Mr. Schultz,” said Colin, and even if Minnick talked a hard game, Ty knew he wouldn't try to steal something Jed had given Colin. He liked to rough up the kids, but when another adult dressed him down he practically pissed himself.

Minnick spat a brown wad of chew out the corner of his mouth while he considered this.

“Get your asses inside,” he finally said. “Cross me again and you're done here.”

Ty exhaled.

They followed him in, placing their personals and weapons in the employee lockers while Minnick bolted the door. Colin, still grumbling over the lost green, stripped down to a thermal, frayed around the neck and thin enough to show patches of his skin. Ty glanced away quickly. Fool should have bought one of those when he had the chance.

She took off her coat and hat, but kept on all three sweaters she wore. She'd grown used to the heat of Small Parts. It wasn't comfortable, but it was a lot better to be hot than to remind a room full of guys that she wasn't exactly built the same as the rest of them.

They picked a high locker, like always, where anyone trying to lift anything would have to make an obvious show of it. No one tried much anyway. Stealing got you fired as fast as fighting, and besides, they all came in and out at the same time of day for the most part anyway.

Past the metal detectors, from out on the floor, came the familiar grind of gears and the consistent hum of the supply belt. The heat hit Ty like a furnace, and with it, the sharp tang of sweat. She moved to the rail, looking down over the factory floor at the hundred young workers who stood at their line stations as they had since dawn. Cutting tube casing or fuses, attaching wiring to batteries, springing the waterproof coils. Placing their finished products on the belt that snaked across the floor. This was what Ty had done every day for half her life. Ever since she'd been kicked out of the orphanage and sent to find work.

It was better than begging. That's what she always told herself, anyway.

“Uh-uh,” said Minnick from behind them. “I think we're going to go with that idea you had earlier. Janitorial, right? I don't believe anyone's cleaned my toilet since last summer. We'll start there, then move to the floor latrines, how's that sound, little rats?”

Ty sighed.

Better than begging.

 

6

LENA

The businessmen came in the late afternoon and gathered in the parlor room on the bottom floor of the Hamptons' home to smoke cigars and drink. Otto, a younger, less serious version of Josef, had graced them all with his presence, wearing a pressed black suit to match Lena's floor-length gown. Their attire was one step more formal than the rest of their guests'. There was never any doubt whose children they were.

Lena was positioned in the center of the room, fully exposed on all sides. Eight men, including the two from her own family, surrounded her, and half a dozen of the house staff were serving liquor and hors d'oeuvres. Otto was near the bar speaking to a man she'd never seen before. Middle class, from the look of his suit, and with a tail of hair that hung down to his sweat-rimmed collar. Her mouth tightened with disapproval as her brother withdrew his wallet and passed the other man a series of bills. She wondered why Otto owed him, and imagined it had something to do with a gambling debt at the Boat House. This would not be the first time she'd seen him pay out for losses.

Her father approached through the sweet-smelling haze, accompanied by a man with thinning gray hair. He wore strange boots—unfinished leather with a wide heel—and pants creased right down the center of his legs. A thin bolo tie was fastened by a silver clip just below his collar. She couldn't place where he might be from; no one around here dressed that way.

“My daughter Lena is a master of songs,” boasted her father, and despite her irritation at being dragged to this party as a centerpiece, she found herself blushing.

“Lovely dress,” the man said with a lopsided smile. The hand not holding a tumbler reached for her waist, and before she could sidestep, it slid along her stomach.

Lena fought the urge to jerk back, and remained composed despite the swelling anxiety. Her father had raised his glass to summon the staff for another drink. When he looked back his flat gaze met hers, dipping to the man's hand for only a moment. He said nothing about it.

Gracefully, Lena slid away.

“May I sing for you?” she asked, a calm tone masking her revulsion.

“Yes, please,” said the man. “But only if you answer one question.”

Lena froze. Her father's stare had hardened, his intentions clear.
Do not let me down.
Normally he would have redirected the conversation away from her. The fact that he was letting this man say whatever he liked made her realize the significance of their pending deal.

“Why should I do business with your father?”

Lena balked for only a moment before composing herself. She didn't know what this man did, much less how his company could serve to support Hampton Industries. How could she answer correctly without the proper background?

“Well, Lena?” Her father smiled, though the lines of his throat twitched. Perspiration beaded on her hairline.

“Anyone who goes into business with Hampton Industries is making an excellent decision,” she said slowly, gauging her father's response through her long black lashes. She tried to remember everything she'd ever heard her father say to a client. In his silence, she continued. “The company evolved during the war, and though we have no hand in agriculture or food production, our profit margins increased twelvefold during the famine. Why? Because we make weapons, sir. Mass produced, of the highest quality. And as long as humans roam this world they will find something worth killing each other over.”

Lena held her breath, bracing for her father's disappointment.

The man's mouth had held a straight line, but when she finished he placed his cigar between his thin lips and clapped generously, spilling liquor from his glass onto the floor. A maid hurried to clean it up before he could slip.

“Quite a showing, Josef. Ice cold.” The man began to ogle Lena's body in a way that made her want to slap him. She hated that her father still had said nothing. Had her words earned none of his pride?

Finally he smirked. “What can I say? She's a Hampton.” The man in the boots chuckled appreciatively.

She recognized the cue, and smiled pleasantly, though she felt ill.

“Sing something, dear,” said her father. As if she were one of his factory machines he could command with the press of a button.

But she was a machine. She was a Hampton. Emotionless and hard as steel.

Lena closed her eyes, summoning calm, drowning out the smoke and the boisterous male voices. Gradually, her pulse slowed. She took a steadying breath, and sang.

It was a ballad. She'd chosen one in the old language despite her earlier argument. She knew immediately from the silence filling the room that she'd made the right decision. This was what they wanted to hear, a song about a working man who'd become rich on love, only to see his beloved killed by a storm. A song about things as foreign to them as the lands across the sea. A song about a love that didn't exist.

She ended on a soft, haunting high note, and the room erupted into cheers. But when she opened her eyes, she found her father was no longer standing beside her. He had disappeared.

Lena gave a small curtsey, and quickly excused herself before the man in the boots could follow. By the time she stepped through the double doors onto the patio a sharp pain had lodged inside her chest. She hated these parties, hated being put on display. Hated the drinks and the smoke and the men's careless hands.

Her father hadn't even stayed to hear her sing.

Lena's eyes drifted over the river, to the district beyond Bakerstown, smoldering in the distance. Metaltown, the staff called it—the third section of the Northern capital, Tri-City, where Hampton Industries was located. A gray haze hung over the place, like a perpetual storm cloud, blocking out everything beneath.

“Brava.” Lena stiffened at the sound of her brother's voice.

Otto left the patio door swinging open and stalked toward her. She read his face; a lifetime of training had taught her to be ready when the lines beneath his dark eyes tightened, and when he threw his arm over her shoulders and squeezed, she went rigid as a flagpole.

“I'm so glad you liked it,” she said flatly.

“Did I say I liked it?” He rubbed his jaw with his free hand. “Oh well, it doesn't matter what I think. The rube did, and that's all that matters. What did you say to make him so interested? He needs a bib for all that drool.”

“Shouldn't you be down at the club?” Lena asked. “I hear they send out a search party if you roam too far away from the bar.”

He whistled through his teeth. “Don't be nasty.”

His arm lowered, hand gripping her waist as he jerked her closer. He pinched her hard on the ribs, grabbing the skin and twisting it, until she knew it would be black and blue and perfectly hidden beneath her clothes. Aware of voices near the door, she sucked in a harsh breath and held it while her eyes watered. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.

“I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that whatever you said got Father all out of sorts,” Otto said, finally releasing his hold. “He wants you to come to the factory with me tomorrow. Thinks it might be time you learned the family business.”

“He does?” Lena asked, still gritting her teeth.

“You know him. He's probably trying to teach a lesson of some sort. The importance of failure or something.”

Someone called him from inside, and he raised his hand, waving companionably. As he strode away, the pain in Lena's side receded, and she turned a curious gaze back toward Metaltown.

 

7

COLIN

At the end of the day Colin smelled like bleach and piss. If there was one thing he hated more than scrubbing toilets, it was scrubbing toilets while Minnick the perv watched, and knowing there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it if he wanted to keep his job.

Didn't stop him from visualizing forty different ways he could kill the bastard.

At least he and Ty were released on time with the others. Everyone knew that if Minnick didn't bring a fix to work, he got twitchy near closing time, and today the foreman wasn't about to stay late.

They lined up like usual, and walked one by one through the metal detector into the locker room. Colin was itching to get back out on the street. Maybe they'd only stayed half a day, but it had felt like three times that long with Minnick drooling at his back. After this morning, patience wasn't on his agenda.

“Johns look real shiny.” Zeke, a boy near Colin's age with a shaved head and deep brown skin, elbowed in beside him. “I could see my reflection in the bowl.”

“I aim to please,” answered Colin.

“So did I,” said Zeke.

“Why were you out, anyway?” Colin turned to see Matchstick, a kid Ty had known from St. Mary's who'd earned his name because he liked to lift the defective pieces from the scrap bin and rig mini explosives. He was only fourteen but as tall as Colin.

“We thought you'd been sacked,” said Martin Balzac, scratching his yellow, spiky hair. He lisped a little on account of several missing teeth.

“Heard you were doing work for Jed Schultz,” said Zeke. “He ever needs more guys, you tell him I'm good, okay?”

“How'd you hear that?” Colin asked, straightening up a little taller.

“Noneck saw you guys at Hayak's cart. Said Jed bought you something to eat.”

“He did,” said Colin. “Bought me some new duds, too.”

“You'll tell him I'm good to work?” asked Zeke again.

“New duds,” said Martin, laughing. “So that's why Minnick keeps giving you the eye.” He batted his white-blond lashes Colin's way.

Colin shoved him into the lockers as they headed toward the door.

*   *   *

They snagged what they could from the corner vendors and met on the beltway, the stretch of road over the train yards that separated Metaltown from Bakerstown. It was deserted, just as it had been when Colin and Ty had walked back from Gabe's house that morning. Folks stuck to their side of the tracks, especially at night. Even the cops, who housed themselves in McNulty's territory. That's why Colin and the others liked it. No Minnick breathing down their throats. No one telling them what they had to do.

Most were from Small Parts, though some of the younger workers from the uniform division or the chem plant came there to set fights, to make trades or make out, or smoke the herbs they stole from Market Alley. Zeke was still pressing Colin about the morning, and how he might get on with Jed. He had a sister to look after, currently over with a group of older girls getting her hair braided. Colin watched them, a scowl on his face. The more he talked about Jed, the more he thought about Gabe Wokowski, and Bakerstown, and how different things had been before Cherish had gotten sick.