Like a Boss (31 page)

“But you own a distillery,” said Star Woman.

“No amount of rum will ever make up what I owe for blowing up the lifter,” I said. “And I know my wages won’t, either. But it’s part of taking responsibility for my choice, and I’ll keep doing it until the day I’m ready to become compost. I stand by what I did, and it’s time for Letty to do the same.”

I waved my hand at the lower part of my presentation. “Every movement needs goals. This chaos sweeping over our city has none. So we’re going to whip some demands on the mob. Number One: turn on the damn Public.”

“I’m missing my stories!” called Big Jan from the grill. Finally, another laugh from the crowd.

“Number Two: we do what we’re doing here, but for the entire city. Everyone empties their larders to make sure everyone gets fed. No more hoarding, no more price gouging. If it took a week for our city to fall apart, then it’ll take a month to get us back on our feet.

“Number Three: full accounting of the Union’s finances, including any connections between the Union and the Co-Op’s Mutual Fund.” I touched the words on the wall. “This is a big one, because it’s going to show what’s been happening with the money. We all need to know what’s happened with our dues, with the money earned through the Contract, and just what the hell happened with all those Mutual shares. This is the kind of thing that will get people tossed into prison.

“Number Four: Letty and the entire Executive Committee are out, and they’re banned from any committee work for ten years. Same goes for anyone else responsible for the riots.”

“Why not ban them for life?” said one of the crowd.

“Because we still need the people we’ve got if we’re going to keep Santee from sliding back to the Industrial Age. We’re not the Big Three. We don’t have an endless supply of skilled workers. Plus we still have to live with each other, and that means reconciling with the people who’ve wronged us. If someone committed crimes, they need to be charged and tried. But if they just got caught up in the madness, then we need to work together and move forward. No grudges. That’s poison.”

“So, cookouts and presentations are what’s going to stop this mess?”

“If everyone’s busy eating and talking, they’re not hiding and hoarding,” I said. “Twenty-four hours ago, this place was in riot. Now you’re all here eating tacos and drinking bumboo. I think there are more people like us all throughout Santee. I would even say that the vast majority of people would rather talk and eat and drink instead of fight each other for a pack of dried beans. Don’t you think so?”

Nods. A lot of unsure faces.

“Seriously? Are the tacos that bad? If they suck, then we need to get something better. Come on!”

I pushed through the crowd, stepping over people as they munched away. I got two stalls away when I realized no one was following me. “I’m completely serious,” I said. “It’s not enough for us to get you here. We need to take this to another neighborhood. Soni! You know this city better than I do. Where should we go next to get something to eat?”

Soni coughed. “I could really go for doubles over in Bluffton.”

I snapped my fingers and grinned. “Perfect! You talking about Jaffa’s? Let’s go!” I grabbed the closest able-bodied people and hauled them to their feet. “We are going to Jaffa’s, and we’re going to ask Min-Na James to fire up the cooker and make us some by-God doubles.”

“What are doubles?” asked the woman I had pulled up. She had a crane tattooed on her cheek.

“Well, you’re not going to find out by sitting here.” We passed the remains of a dry goods stand, and the glint of glass caught my eye. I scooped up two liter jars full of chickpeas. Serendipity. “By the way, what’s your name? ’Cause I’d rather not call you Crane Face while we walk and talk.”

Half the crowd followed me, all of them buzzed on excitement and bumboo. I told Sharon, my new friend, all about the curried channa and the chutneys and the crunchy bara that make up perfect doubles. She told me about how she worked a Contract Slot on the Sou’s Reach reconstruction project because no one else could do her job. Also because no one wanted to be near the rotting molasses mess that Saarien had presided over during his tenure as Ward Chair. She wasn’t that keen on reconciling with him. I wasn’t either and said as much, but I pointed out that we would have to work with the fucker if we were going to get through this mess together.

Jaffa’s was two kilometers away, and I led the hundred or so that followed me through the streets. I made a point of talking as loud as I could, and my voice bounced off the shuttered rowhouses. People had broken out the hurricane shutters, and the coral steel slats not scored with soot glinted in the late morning light. Piles of burned garbage smoldered in the gutters, and someone had painted a giant red Union fist in the middle of the street. Someone else had added a raised middle finger in white.

A few doors opened as we passed, and the wary faces of men, women, and children peeked out. I made a point of waving at everyone who made eye contact with me. “We’re going to Jaffa’s!” I yelled. Most of them slipped back into their houses, the doors banging shut. A few joined our little parade, though, and I made sure that anyone who was hungry got something to munch on.

Jaffa’s sat on the corner of Vicarage Street and Ham Park Road. A cloud of frying oil and curried chickpeas should have hovered over the intersection. Now there was just the stench of ash and rotting trash. The shop wasn’t just closed. Min-Na had put up the hurricane shields, then hammered boards across the door and the windows. For a finishing touch, he’d splashed paint across the front: CLOSED UNTIL YOU SORT OUT THIS BULLSHIT. I knocked on the door, the hurricane shield rattling under my knuckles. “Min-Na! How much for doubles?”

A rock crashed next to my feet. I yelped and hopped back. Min-Na James and his son stood atop the flat roof. Both of them had fist-sized rocks in their hands, and their arms were cocked back. They had tied their dreadlocks back into tight braids, and their faces were hard and exhausted.

“Can’t you read?” yelled Min-Na.

“Well, I’m trying to sort out the bullshit. Does that warrant some lunch?”

Min-Na narrowed his eyes as he looked at the lot of us; one of his dreadlocks drifted out of his hair clip and flopped across his temple. “What are you talking about?”

“I said, we’re working things out. I’m really hungry and would really like doubles. You open or what?”

He lowered his arm, then leaned over the edge of the roof. “Are you serious?”

I held up the jars of chickpeas. “Even brought something in case your stocks were running low.”

Min-Na looked at the jars. “I hope you don’t expect me to feed everyone with
that
.”

I looked back at the people behind me. There were a lot of new faces, and some of the buttoned-up houses had opened. I turned back to Min-Na. “How much would you need?”

Within the hour, the shutters at Jaffa’s were off. The three cafés and the ramen-ya farther up Vicarage had also opened up, but the smell of curry and frying bara overpowered everything else. Min-Na had turned his nose up at my offerings. (“They’re dried, and that’ll take a day to soak into usefulness,” he’d said, handing the jars to his son before opening up his walk-in fridge.) His eyes were dead tired, but he smiled as he stirred giant pots of simmering chickpeas in the kitchen. His son poured curry on the baras and handed the doubles out. People crunched their food, leaning forward to keep the sauce from dribbling down their clothes.

I found a closed-up flower shop whose owners didn’t respond to my rapping on the hurricane shields. After getting the pens back from Jianji and his friends, I redrew my diagram from Bakaara, linking all the different groups that had failed us. If my professors from B-School hadn’t had heart attacks when they’d heard I’d Breached, this cobbled-together chart would have done the job. Precision counted, not just in data but in presentation. I’d done so well in my classes, and, now, sixteen years later, I was writing on walls in an attempt to convince people to stop fighting and work together.

This time, I didn’t try to get everyone’s attention. I just talked with the people who drifted over, food in hand, to find out what I was doing. A few turned away as soon as I told them, but most stayed and listened. A lot of them argued, saying that this was all the fault of the Freeborn or the Union (and a lot of that depended on whether the speaker had a tattoo on their cheek or not). Everyone took pictures with their pais, saying they’d pass around what they saw through peer-to-peer. I reminded them to pass around food through the same method.

One woman with a metal Temple pin on her shirt gave me an angry stare as she wiped at the boxes. The ink didn’t smear, so she just rubbed harder. Finally, she banged on the shutter and got in my face. “We are
not
dupes!” she yelled, a finger held up to my nose.

I smiled. She huffed and walked away.

“That wasn’t pleasant,” said Onanefe. He had stood a few meters away and let me do the talking.

“No, but it’s to be expected,” I said. “No one likes finding out that the thing they believe in is hurting people. I’m sure I’ll get plenty of Union people screaming at me soon enough, calling me a traitor and a parasite and all that.” I shrugged. “As long as no one’s swinging machetes, they can yell all they want.”

“You think this is going to be enough?” He took a bite of his doubles, cradling the bara and leaning forward like a pro. “These little block parties?”

“They’ll have to be,” I said. “If we can get more people out into the streets to eat and talk, I think we’ll have a breakthrough by dinner.”

“You’ve got a lot faith in the people.”

“I have faith in their stomachs and their need for someone to do something.”

“But not themselves?”

“I am always willing to step aside if someone who isn’t insane wants to take the lead,” I said, wishing I’d gotten a second doubles for myself. “That person has yet to show up.”

“Give it time,” said Onanefe. “Once word gets around about the free grub, you’re going to have everyone showing up, including the nutbars.”

“Maybe,” I said, my stomach growling. “But first, I’m getting seconds.”

Min-Na stood at the door as I entered his place. “Hope you’ve got a line on some more food,” he said. “At this rate, I’ll be out in a day.”

“In a day, I hope everyone will be spending money again,” I said. “In the meantime, could you make me one more with extra pommecythere chow?”

“We’re all out,” he said. “Unless you want to go in the back and make more.”

I nodded. “Tell me what to do, and I’m on it.”

He grunted and handed me a key. “The pantry’s behind, in the alley. Get everything you can carry. They’re about to go bad. And don’t lose my key!”

I walked through the kitchen to the alley. A pantry shed as big me stood against the café’s back wall. Inside were sacks of pommecythere, all orange and spikey and fuzzy. I scratched the skin off one and took a whiff, and the smell like sweet mango and sharp orange floated into my nose. I chuckled as I scooped up the bag. Twenty-four hours ago, I was hiding in a burnt-out konbini. Now everything almost felt like normal. I’d make the chow for Min-Na, hit a few more neighborhoods, then get home to Brushhead to rally Big Lily and everyone else. Tomorrow, we’d press our case against Letty and end all this bullshit.

Someone bumped my shoulder. “Jesus, Min-Na, I haven’t lost your key–”

I had just enough time to register Jennifer’s smooth face and dead eyes before she put a black bag over my head. I smelled the harsh tang of chloroform, and I was out.

I woke with a start, the bag still over my head. I was on my side, my hands bound behind my back. I strained; the caneplas zip tie cut into my wrists. The floor jumped, and I bashed my shoulder (the one that I’d forgotten had been stabbed until
now
) into something heavy and metal. I fought to get up, but I just knocked my head against whatever had hurt my shoulder. I rolled on the floor for a bit until my head cleared.

“Don’t thrash,” said Jennifer from my left. It was the older one. “The Prez wants you unbruised.”

I tensed, then let out a breath as I got to my knees. “Should I be happy that she hasn’t killed me, yet?”

Jennifer snorted. “You think this is all about you. No wonder you were so bad at being a Ward Chair.”

“I was a
great
Ward Chair, because I made a point of not trying to murder anyone else.”

“If the Prez wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

“What about you? You want me dead?”

The floor bumped, and I realized we were in the back of a lorry. “Well?”

Jennifer cleared her throat. “Just don’t talk. It’s easier if you don’t talk.”

I felt a hand on my neck, and that was answer enough. I took a guess where the hand’s owner’s nose was and drove my head up as hard as I could. I made contact but didn’t hear that satisfying
crunch
. Instead, I got a harsh laugh. “You can’t hurt me, remember?” she said. “That whole reinforced skeleton. Just stay down. She wants you unbruised, but she didn’t say anything about unhurt.”

“What’s in it for you? Or do you just like cracking skulls while your sister sells Mutual shares?”

“I told you to stop talking.”

“Why? Letty’s going to kill me when she’s done with me. Whatever her scheme is, it’s going to end up with a lot more people hurt or dead. She’ll probably do the same to you and your sister. She doesn’t care about you or me or anything but hanging on to power, Jennifer. She’s letting our city burn. She’s setting off car bombs. She’s–”

That got me a zap from a taser. My body stiffened, and the scream froze in my throat.
Fuck
, I hated tasers.

I fought for breath. “Jennifer, people will
die
.” I ran through my brief interactions with her and tried to think of a single time she’d shown weakness. Everyone had one. What was hers?

Agamjot Patil. Jennifer froze when she saw Agamjot unconscious on the floor. “Did you really Breach so you could see kids die?”

Jennifer whipped the bag off my face and held the taser up to my nose. “I swear to fucking God I will put this into your eyeballs and pull the trigger.”