Timebound (37 page)

The Midway Plaisance was already noisy, dusty, and crowded at nine thirty in the morning. The buildings weren’t as immense as those in the main Exposition, but what they lacked in size they made up for in color and design. In the space of a few city blocks, we passed replicas of an early American log cabin, an Irish castle, a collection of Asian-looking huts, and a smaller version of a Turkish mosque.

We stopped at a small concession stand just past the German Village, where I bought two lemonades. After a few minutes, we found a spot on one of the benches in front of the buildings.

Unlike the rest of the fair, where the visitors were mostly white, the Midway looked more like a modern city, with a wide array of races and nationalities. I looked a bit farther down the street and watched a man in Arabic dress pulling a camel toward us along the main road. A middle-aged woman was sitting sidesaddle atop the camel’s hump, clutching tightly to the edges and looking as though she was quite ready for the ride to end.

Mick followed my gaze. “That’s Cairo Street, down there. You should come back here when they do the Arab wedding this afternoon. It’s really—”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to have much of a chance to sightsee, Mick,” I said. “I’m here on assignment and I don’t have much time.”

I was a bit surprised to realize that I
was
genuinely sorry about the need to rush, since there was a lot that I would have loved to see if this were a pleasure trip. I felt a surge of jealousy for Katherine’s job, which had simply been to learn as much as she could.

“Too bad,” he said. “You c’n spend a week here an’ not see all of it. Not that you could really spend a week now, with it closin’ an’ all. It’ll be cool to walk through here again when all the people have gone—like it was when they was buildin’ it. I don’ really like the big crowds. An’ then ever’body here will get to start tearin’ it all down, I guess, and then go home.”

“Where’s home for your family, Mick? I mean, before you came to America.”

“County Clare—tha’s in Irelan’,” he said. “Town called Doolin. Pretty place me mom says, but the only work is fishin’. We been here since I was three or four. I kinda remember comin’ over on the boat, but not Irelan’.”

“So where will you go?” I asked. “I mean, soon there won’t be much work here for you and your mom, right?”

He nodded, with a rueful twist of his mouth. “Lady at church is tryin’ to talk me mother into movin’ back to the big farm we worked at when we first came to America, and she’s thinkin’ ’bout it. I can tell she is.”

“But you don’t want to go?”

He shook his head. “It was clean and we had more space an’ all, an’ it was great workin’ in the open air, but I don’ wanna go back there. Me dad didn’ wanna be on that farm—he didn’ trust ’em an’ neither do I. I’d rather stay in the city to work the fac’tries, even if it means bein’ cooped up all day.”

“What about school?” I asked, sipping the lemonade, cool and nicely tart, through a tall paper straw.

“Done with that,” Mick said, rubbing a line in the dust with his shoe. “Went to classes for ’bout two years on the farm before the fair started and me dad died. I c’n read an’ write just fine. C’n do my numbers, too. Anythin’ else I need to know I c’n learn on me own. I’m old enough now to help earn me keep.”

He lifted his chin proudly as he spoke and I was struck by how hard he was trying to be all grown-up. “When did your dad…,” I began hesitantly.

“Back in July,” he said. “After the fair started and the buildin’ work was finished, he got a job puttin’ out fires. You get a lot of little fires in the rest’rants and some of the ’lectrical buildins. Then there was a big fire in the Cold Storage Buildin’—weird to have a buildin’ with so much ice inside catch fire. Don’ know what caught it, but the flames was huge. All of the firefighters workin’ for the Exposition died and a bunch of those who came in from the city died, too. Took a long time, but they put it out, so none of the other buildins went up.”

“I’m sorry about your dad, Mick.”

“Yeah, me too. I miss him.” He was silent for a moment, and then he finished off the lemonade, his straw making a loud slurping sound as he pushed it around the ice to get the last few drops.

“I’m really not all that thirsty,” I said. That wasn’t entirely true—the air was dusty and I would have happily finished off the last half of the glass if not for the looming specter of trying to navigate a bathroom while wearing a bustle and ankle-length skirt. “You can finish mine, if you’d like.”

That earned me another grin. “You’re nicer than me other boss. She only gave me a peppermint one time, and that was ’cause she said me breath smelled like onions. Which prob’ly was true.” He quickly polished off the last few ounces in my glass and took the two empties back to the booth.

We worked our way down toward the Ferris wheel, which seemed even more enormous as we drew closer. It was easily five times as high as the one I’d ridden on at the county fair last year, and it cast a shadow far down the Midway. I sank gratefully down onto a vacant bench just around the corner of the next building, which afforded us a clear view of the ride’s loading dock. The blister on my heel was becoming annoying and I really didn’t want to stand about while we waited for Katherine’s party to arrive.

“So we’ll just sit here an’ wait ’til they come? I c’n help keep an eye out… Are we gonna follow ’em when they leave an’ see where they go, or what?”

He seemed to be growing increasingly impatient with the no questions rule, and I decided it couldn’t hurt to lay out the basic game plan. “Well, I actually need to get close to the woman—the one who’s with him? They’ll be in a big group, about a hundred people, along with the mayor, so it shouldn’t be hard to spot them.”

“Oh,” he said, nodding sagely. “It’s a political story you’re writin’ then. The bad bloke’s tryin’ to buy off the mayor, is he?”

“No, no.” I shook my head. “I’m not writing about the mayor. I just need to speak with the woman for a couple of minutes without the ‘bloke,’ as you call him, overhearing us.”

“Okay, tha’s easy enough,” he said. “I’ll get Paulie to put us in their wagon.”

“In their…
what
?” I asked. “And who is Paulie?”

“The wagon on the big wheel,” he said, nodding toward the carriages where people were now entering. “You said there was about a hundred in the group? Twen’y of ’em at leas’ will be too chicken to ride, you’ll see, an’ the wagons hol’ sixty people each. So it’s just a matter of us gettin’ on the right wagon.”

I looked up to the very top of the wheel and thought he was probably right about the people who chickened out. The pit of my stomach tightened at the thought of going up that high in something that had been built in the 1890s, long before those comforting little signs that show a carnival ride has passed inspection.

“So Paulie,” Mick continued, “he knows me—he can just shove us in wi’ the rest of ’em. The ladies may all ride in one so the men can smoke, but if they’re together, then I’ll distract the bloke and you can have a chat wi’ the lady.”

“But I don’t think there will be any children in this group,” I said. “It’s a lot of mayors and their wives…”

He shrugged. “Won’ matter,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “I sneak on all the time withou’ payin’. Lotsa kids do it—just gotta find a coupla ladies wi’ big skirts an’ sorta squeeze between ’em. Paulie don’ care so long as nobody sees me. Most times, the ladies keep your secret when they do notice you, if you ac’ like you ain’ never been able to ride it before. An’ if they do complain, Paulie’ll just yell at me when we get off and call me a buncha names, maybe throw somethin’ at me, so he don’ get in no trouble.”

“Well,” I laughed, “at least you won’t have to sneak on without paying this time.” I handed him a dollar and a quarter. “Buy us two tickets and give Paulie the quarter as a tip for his help.”

“Right.” He hopped up from the bench. “You jus’ stay here, since your foot’s hurtin’, an’ I’ll be back.”

I had to give him credit for being observant. I hadn’t said anything about the blister, and if I was limping, I wouldn’t have thought it was enough that anyone would notice, since I was covered pretty much from head to toe.

Mick sprinted over to the booth and waited in the short line to buy the tickets, then paused for a minute to talk with Paulie, a boy about my age. They both looked in my direction, and Paulie gave a little wave, then Mick headed back to the bench.

“All set,” he said with a grin. “If you’re sure they’ll be here at ten fifteen, we don’ have but a coupla minutes, maybe five. When you see the mayor headin’ this way, we’ll go over and you just kinda blend in toward the end of the line. If there ain’ no other kids, I’ll keep outta the way ’til you start t’ get in an’ then slip in beside you.”

It was as good a plan as any I could think of. “Even if they realize we aren’t part of the mayor’s group,” I said, “they can hardly evict us once the wheel starts spinning, right?”

“I don’ think the mayor would be too fussed,” Mick said. “He likes kids. Tried to get the fair bosses to let poor kids in Chicago see the exhibits for free, but they said no.”

“Buffalo Bill, though,” he added, nodding off toward the end of the Midway, “was differ’nt. See those tents over there? That’s his Wild West Show. He tol’ the mayor he’d do it—had a waif’s day where all the kids in the city got a free show, free candy, free ice cream. That was
some
day. ’Course,” he noted with a serious look, “they make a lot of money over there—I bet the fair bosses wish they’da let Bill’s show be part of the Midway. Said he was too ‘low class.’ But they got Indian shows at the Expo, too—just nowhere near as good as Buffalo Bill’s.”

He fell silent then, alternating between sitting on the bench and walking over to the corner of the building every thirty seconds or so to peer around the edge.

After the third or fourth trip to the corner, he sat down again and slid a bit closer. “There’s a big group down just pas’ the lemonade stand. It’s them. You can never mistake the mayor; he’s a big guy and he’s got this hat—well, you’ll see.”

I did see, about two minutes later, when a tall, rather portly man in a slouchy-looking black hat rounded the corner and approached the ticket booth. Mick was right—he wore a professional suit, complete with the typical waistcoat and pocket watch, but Carter Henry Harrison definitely had his own style. All of the men wore hats—a wide array of bowlers, straw boaters, and a few top hats in the mix—but Harrison’s hat had a slightly disreputable, cowboyish quality. It reminded me a bit of the fedora that Indiana Jones wore.

The mayor waved his hand toward the large delegation behind him and paused to hear something that one of the women was saying. Her hair was light brown with a few streaks of gray, and she wore a navy dress with a white lace bodice. She was an attractive lady, with wire-rimmed glasses, about my height and build. The mayor laughed heartily at whatever she had said and patted her on the arm before turning back to the crowd.

“If any of you are concerned, like Mrs. Salter here, let me assure you that the wheel is perfectly safe. The very first passenger was the inventor’s own wife, and no, Mr. Ferris wasn’t seeking to get rid of his good lady.”

There was a polite chuckle from the group, and then Harrison continued. “I will just need a moment to speak to this kind person to arrange our passage, and then”—he motioned dramatically toward the top of the wheel—“the sky is our only limit.”

Several of the women followed his arm upward with their eyes, and one of them, a plump middle-aged woman in a pale
pink bonnet, gasped out loud. I don’t know if she had actually not looked at the wheel until that moment or if the reality had only just sunk in, but she wrenched her arm away from that of the friend next to her. “I’m sorry, Harriet. I know I said I would go up with you, but there is absolutely no way that I am stepping foot inside that steel monster.” She shuddered visibly and shook her head. “No. I’ll wait for you here.” She walked over to join a dozen or so women, and a couple men, who had gathered to watch their braver compatriots from the other side of the street. After a few seconds, her friend looked up at the wheel and, with a rather pained expression, decided that she, too, would remain on the ground.

Searching the crowd, I found Saul first, standing with a large cluster of men. A few seconds later, I spotted Katherine’s feather, directly behind the woman in the navy and white dress who had just been talking to the mayor. They were near the center of the group, which, with the exception of these two women, seemed to have mostly separated by sex, with the women congregating on one side of the platform and the men on the other. Several members of the women’s group were eyeing the two gender traitors, with tight-lipped expressions that made their disapproval quite clear.

I nudged Mick with my elbow. “That’s her. I’m not sure about the other woman she’s talking to. It might be the woman mayor they invited…” It seemed the most likely possibility, although I wouldn’t have described the vivacious woman as “a meek little mouse,” as Katherine had done.

“A woman mayor. If that don’ beat all.” Mick squinted a bit to try and get a better look, but both of the women were partially blocked from view by several of the men standing between us. “I’m gonna head over near Paulie, so you just slide into whichever wagon she goes an’ I’ll follow.”

I moved toward the gender line demarcating the two groups and pretended to be looking through my bag for something as the men’s group stepped aside and gallantly allowed the women
to board first. I could pick out Katherine’s higher-pitched voice among the lower rumble of the men’s conversation. She was talking to the other woman, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying, and as they made no effort to join the women’s group, I hung back as well.

The door was closed on the first cart, and several women laughed and waved gloved fingers at the men in the delegation. I shifted toward the outside of the platform, near the back of the line. A few of the men gave disapproving looks to Katherine and her companion, and one gave a haughty sniff in my direction as well, as we moved toward the “men’s” car and began to board. It seemed Mick was right. They’d been looking forward to a quick smoke and weren’t too happy that they would now have to ask permission from the women on board.