The Night Sheriff, page 3
He stared at me. “You couldn’t? It filled the entire park.”
Well, intellectually I knew that. “Filled the park” doesn’t even come close. It’s supposed to affect the entire planet, but I hadn’t known that Bone Cat could hear it all the time. No wonder he was mad.
We tabled this discussion as I turned down the nearest lane and began to encounter other employees. You might not think that I would be a people person, but you would be quite wrong. Ordinarily, this is one of my favorite times of day, once Bone Cat is safely hidden away inside an inner pocket. Our guests might be credulous enough to believe him a bit of special effects wizardry, but most of our employees are knowledgeable enough about the current limits of technology that they recognize him as something truly inexplicable in a heartbeat, which makes him a bit of a conversation stopper.
We wander about the park, and I listen, taking secondhand delight in the overheard accounts of their travels and family dramas, politics and romances. In many ways, Zenonland is a community, bound together by the company we serve, with its own mores, politics, and customs, and thus, although I exist on its fringes, I take comfort from its familiarity.
Several of the secret gates swing open and the large street clearers rumble forth, their huge mechanical brush wheels scrubbing away at the streets. They are one of those modern inventions that I always find delightful.
Today, of course, the employee talk is mostly about the Happiness Machine. There has never been a catastrophic failure of a ride such as this, even at the company’s nadir in the seventies. There is even talk that the entire park might be shut down while inspectors go over everything. This is certainly a possibility, but I think the political influence wielded by the company might prevent that. There will be more outside inspectors, of course, a fact that the gremlins are all too aware of, and by the time they are done, there will be textbook evidence of a perfectly normal gas leak caused by simple human—not gremlin—error. I make mention that I was there when the “leak” happened. This is interesting enough that it temporarily overcomes the disquiet people normally feel when dealing with me, and thus I am able to add my take on things directly to the information exchange market.
But the Happiness Machine is not the only news of interest abroad tonight. As we walk along, I see clusters of people gathered about monitors showing a number of different late-night news programs that are discussing the top business news. Apparently there has been some sort of coup in the upper boardrooms of the Zenon Corporation itself, and the current CEO, Mr. Robert, has been forced out. There are numerous clips of him actually being dragged off of the company property by Zenon security, while he rants and shouts. This makes for excellent television, and everyone is wondering what is going on. Personally, I’m surprised. Mr. Robert seemed to be firmly in control of the board, and the company was doing quite well under his watch. Even more intriguing, no one is forthcoming with the identity of the new CEO, and there is rampant speculation as to his or her identity, which is to be revealed at an emergency stockholder’s meeting which has been called for later this week. This is all of great interest to us, as for our company, the arrival of new management is always a tricky thing, even without all of this drama.
The Zenon Corporation used to be family run, but those days are long over, and today, even the most bureaucratic and sheltered student of accountancy understands that we are something different. Whenever a new boss takes over an established firm, you hear about things like “corporate memory” and “traditions.” A new boss always likes to place their own stamp upon a recently acquired company. But trying that with the Zenon Corporation causes problems that are rife with the possibility of potential social media disaster.
Our company has produced a plethora of films and stories that have resonated with the young, sometimes to an astonishing degree, and the company works very hard at strengthening these bonds with the buying public, as it helps sell merchandise.
But what the businessmen were slow to understand was that in reality, the Zenon name was not marketing shirts, or plush toys, or anything material. They were marketing stories and dreams. They were crafting role models and exemplars. They were giving young people good memories and examples of how to behave in difficult situations. They were providing comfort in a confusing world and showing people that while things could get very bad, they could get better. These are things that all people, especially children, want and need to believe, and thus the Zenon Corporation, to a greater or lesser extent, influenced the world.
All well and good. But that sort of influence can be a two-way street. If you take it upon yourself to tell people how to live their lives, even tangentially, then they will take an interest in how you live yours. This is where things got complicated. An individual person is easy to judge, but since the death of Mr. Bartholomew, there has been no single person to act as a public lightning rod for our customers’ interest, and, indeed, the company makes an effort to present itself as a faceless aggregate, elevating no single standout creator, but presenting itself as a jolly team that regularly spits out enthralling entertainment. The unintended consequence of this is that people are interested in the company as a whole, which is bewildering for corporate types who assume that the public will care as little about the inner workings and politics of our company as they would about a manufacturer of plastic chairs.
As a result, the Zenon Corporation is quite possibly unique, in that there have been best-selling books written about our supposedly secret business workings, decision processes, and traditions. In self-defense, the inner circle of the corporation tends to keep sensitive secrets close to their vests. I, myself, am one of those secrets. A little bit of information that new bosses have to be informed about in awkward face-to-face meetings. Some things shouldn’t be written down where shareholders and institutional biographers could discover them.
I expect that I’ll have another interview with another new boss, who will no doubt have ideas about how “things are going to change around here.” Bone Cat and I enjoy those meetings. We really do. I shall talk to Mr. Shulman about this new regime when I see him this evening. He pays a lot more attention to the power struggles within the company, and actually has dossiers on any group or individual that could potentially become his boss. These have served him well, and I have occasionally found them very useful. No doubt it will be a refreshing change of topic after he’s done shouting about the whole “bomber” thing. Besides, it will be a brand-new opportunity to submit my own little project to a fresh set of ears. I mention this, and Bone Cat groans. “Nobody is going to listen to your stupid idea.” To myself, I must admit that history supports him, but in my heart, I know I’m right. We shall see.
Ah, and now the true high point of my day. The reason why, if I’m to be honest, I am not already bothering Mr. Shulman. Bone Cat emerges from a pocket and swarms up my arm. “Hey, slow down, Valentino,” he says with a smirk, and I find that I am indeed walking a bit faster as I turn onto the boulevard next to the great pylons. I straighten myself and ease my stride. “Silence, churl,” I snarl.
The kiosk is one of the smaller ones. It sells little metal pins and buttons depicting the various cartoon animals that romp across the park. She’s there, as she is five nights a week. Her face looks tired. It’s been a busy day, as I can see from the number of hooks hanging half empty. She looks up and sees us, and the way her face lights up does more to make the world a beautiful place than all the fireworks that have illuminated the park since it opened.
“Sheriff,” she says demurely. She’s the one who gave me that particular sobriquet. For decades no one had ever really known what to call me. The name on my badge is difficult to pronounce for anyone not born within sight of those far eastern mountains, and, as I have mentioned, my job title is unspecified. But the very first night she saw me, as I loomed up out of the darkness, she smiled that beautiful smile and said, “Why, you must be the Night Sheriff.” And the name has stuck.
She is one of the youngest souls I’ve ever met. I believe that this may very well be her first trip through, to be honest. She is fascinated by Bone Cat and is one of the few to whom he has fully revealed himself. She doesn’t believe he’s a special effect, of course, but what makes her different is that she does not want me to explain him but is determined to figure “how I do it” herself. As a result, she tends to greet us with some new theory or other. These are always wrong, but never fail to be entertaining, and on slow days can easily provide the nucleus of an evening’s conversation. These conversations are far-ranging, as everything is so exciting and interesting to her, even while hauling out boxes of ridiculous pins and restocking thousands of little hooks night after night. I always offer to assist, and the quiet pleasure I get working beside her would be positively embarrassing if I still cared about such things.
Her name is Vandy, which no doubt accounts for my tolerance of her uncomplicated chatter. The first time I heard it, a look must have crossed my face, because she volunteered the information that it was an old family name, from an out-of-the-way village in the old country, and that her ancestors had come to America almost a hundred years ago.
I actually remember these particular ancestors. They both came from good families, who periodically produced exceptional individuals, as were the two in question. The young man was a fine storyteller, and the girl a beauty who had been promised to the simple-minded son of one of the village nobility. They would have been her great-great-great-grandparents, I believe. Theirs was a scandalous romance (to their immediate families, of course, everyone else found it rather tedious), and to the general population, the most memorable thing about them was their decision to flee the village, as opposed to accepting their predetermined role as a focal point for a protracted family feud that had every indication of supplying scandal, gossip, and eye-rolling entertainment to the community as a whole for an entire generation.
Leaving one’s village was a rare occurrence in those days. Most people lived their entire lives never traveling more than twenty kilometers from where they had been born.
You hear a lot of moaning about the loss of the ubiquity of small-town life, and a condemnation of the lonely anonymity found in big cities. People long for the days when “everyone knew your name.” This is because they have never experienced a day-to-day existence where not only did everyone know your name, but your marital relations, your medical history, the workings of your digestive system, your amorous proclivities, your finances, your vices, and every foolish mistake you had ever made since you were a toddler. Of course, you knew everyone else’s as well, which meant that, for your own survival, you were engaged in a constant game of dominance, influence, and brinksmanship; not to crush any enemy in particular, but just to assure that you were not the one everyone else talked about.
Back when our little mountain village first heard about the Americas (which was in the early 1800s, as I recall), everyone who didn’t dismiss it as a fad, or simply another tall tale, seemed to focus on how large it was. The stories that engaged them were the ones about vast rolling plains, endless forests, and the enormous homesteads that ordinary people could carve out for themselves just by doing what they were doing here already, without having to share a bedroom with Great-aunt Mȁṟinɠⱥ, whose garrulous presence dampened the ardor of even the freshest of newlyweds.
No, Vandy’s ancestors made the right choices, as had their subsequent progeny, if the result before me was any indication.
I had expressed an interest in her family history and discovered that the gift for storytelling had been deftly passed down through the generations, and our evenings were frequently graced with the old family stories of an isolated village and the monsters of the night that watched over it.
It is most peculiar to see yourself reflected thus in a mirror darkly so far from home. Occasionally, I remember the actual events from which her stories sprouted, and names and faces that I have not thought of for centuries would suddenly live again in my memory, like a trunk discovered in a junk shop that unexpectedly contains memorabilia from a life and a family you had been separated from long ago.
I’m sure that maudlin nostalgia factors highly in regards to my fondness for the girl. Yes, that must be it. There can be no other reason I’ve endured listening to her endless recitations about her schooling, her dissatisfaction with her hair, her life, and her constant inability to find a young man who recognizes her sterling qualities, which are patently obvious. Even back in that isolated village, the women of her line were sought out for their hips alone, not to mention her family’s head for business. It’s criminally underutilized here, but there’s no denying she has the knack for it. She keeps track of every sale in her head and her books balance perfectly every night. Her future husband’s business, no matter what it will be, will make her bride price back within the first year, if I’m any judge. I do not understand what is wrong with the young men of this country.
I have tried discussing it with Bone Cat, but he is probably one of the few entities more clueless about the finer points of romance than I am. Any penchant I may have had at that particular art when I was a young man has no doubt atrophied over time. But sometimes, listening to her, I get the distinct impression that couples who are thinking about keeping company together only discuss future finances and business strategies in the most shallow and superficial of ways. At times, I could believe they don’t discuss them at all! No doubt I’m just not up on the current slang for such things.
She is also one of those peculiar people who are fascinated by Zenonland itself. Its history and its legends. To her delight, I appear to be equally obsessive, as I can talk knowledgeably about incidents and minutiae from decades past. Tonight, of course, she asks me about the events at the Happiness Machine. I welcome this, as it allows me to reinforce the story I disseminated earlier. I look forward to presenting it to Mr. Shulman. Vandy listens closely, and a frown settles on her face.
“Is there a problem?”
“I didn’t think there were still any active gas lines in the park.” I stare at her blankly. She meditatively winds a lock of hair around her finger. “Weren’t they all decommissioned in the eighties?”
They most certainly were. I realize that I have foolishly allowed myself to fall into an old habit. Natural gas had long served as a convenient excuse for any amount of death and destruction that I had not publicly wished to own up to. We even had some naturally occurring incidents in the first few days that the park opened. It was decades ago, of course, but I had reached for it unthinkingly. Mr. Mortimer would have been quite disappointed in me. “It must have been an old line they missed.” It is an implausible and unsatisfying excuse, as it obviously doesn’t explain why there was still enough gas present to produce the observed explosion. But I am aided by the fact that Vandy doesn’t expect me to actually have all the answers. I shall have to work on this.
Eventually Vandy finishes up. The boxes are stowed, the register is tallied, and everything is wiped down until it sparkles. I then walk with her, because it is on my way, to the nearest door down to the employee tunnels, where she’ll clock out before heading home.
I offer her my arm as we walk, an act that I still find extraordinarily strange, and one that even today has me looking about for an outraged chaperone. We started doing it about a year ago, when the fool girl twisted her ankle while getting down off a stepladder. Obviously I couldn’t just let her hobble along, and she wouldn’t let me carry her, and the feel of her warm little hand upon my arm stayed with me for hours. She seemed to expect it the next night, even though she had been competently taped up by the park physician, which was surprising, considering the jackanapes couldn’t keep his pop eyes off of me, even though she was the one sitting right there in front of him. Probably because I had mentioned that he would be very, very, very sorry if he did a shoddy job. Afterwards, when her ankle was quite healed, there simply wasn’t a polite way to tell her to not do it.
She seems to be walking slower today, like she has something on her mind. I’m sure I’ll hear about it eventually; if she wishes to say something, no power on Earth will stop her.
We stroll down the boulevard, occasionally dodging golf carts full of maintenance crews. Despite the bustle, the park itself seems lonely. It was designed to have endless rivers of humanity pouring through it, and much like a riverbed during a drought, it is obvious that it is not doing what it should be doing.
Vandy clears her throat in an artificial fashion. Heavens, she’s actually quite nervous about something. I give her a pleasant smile of encouragement. “So, Sheriff,” she says, “I’m assuming you have the same work schedule as me?” A reasonable assumption, since I’m always here when she is. The company is very strict about employees adhering to a five days on, two days off schedule. God forbid you accrue any overtime. “Which means you’re off tomorrow, so I was wondering if maybe you’d like to go out for a drink. Or something.” This last is delivered in a breathless voice that rapidly ascends into a squeak.
I …
I stop and look at her. Her hand is tight on my arm and her eyes obviously want to look away, but they don’t. They look into mine and what I see there is a fierce determination. There is fear, but it is an exotic flavor that I discover I have no wish to taste. “I … I cannot.”
She slumps. “You have other plans? That’s cool …”
“That is not it. You do not understand. We are too different.”
“Look, if it’s the age thing, I know you’re an older guy. I’ll be honest, I find that kind of hot―”
I actually gawp at her, caught up in a mélange of emotions that almost causes me to trip over a curb. “You have no idea how old I am.” Something in my voice obviously gives her pause.
“… So tell me.”
A wave of sadness crashes over me, because I am about to tell Vandy the truth. I like her too much to lie to her and this meant that I would probably never see her again, or else I would have to kill her. I really hated it when that happened. I hadn’t told anyone the whole truth (who wasn’t part of the upper echelons of the company) for almost thirty years. It hardly ever ends well.
