The Raft (10 page)

“Rachael, it's...” Maggie started then
stopped.

“Maggie, I'm scared. I'm afraid that you're
going to get hurt and I... I love you. You have to come back to
dryland now. Before it's too late.”

There, she'd said it. It had to be said. And
there it was, out in the open, sitting on the table between
them.

Maggie turned her attention back to the
skyline of city.

Chapter 9

“Maggie! Maggie!” A thick, Eastern European
accent called the length of the
Geoduck's
rear deck. Maggie,
shocked out of her torpor, was happy to have something to distract
her from Rachael. She stood as a stout woman came charging joyfully
across the deck of bistro tables. “Maggie! My petrushka!”

“Piroshki,” Maggie smiled as they embraced.
It was anbear hug that lifted Maggie clean up off the deck. The
woman then took Maggie's face between her two thick, slab-like
hands and planted a kiss square on Maggie's lips.

“Petrushka!”

“Rachael,” Maggie turned, apparently unfazed
by the display of affection. “This is Piroshki, the owner of the
Geoduck
. Piroshki, this is my old friend from the dryland,
Rachael.”

“Little petrushka!” the woman cried out, her
mass quickly eclipsing Rachael. Before Rachael could react, her
face was also squeezed between two massive hands, and a wet,
maternal kiss planned full on the mouth.

“Nice to meet you,” Rachael said in shock, as
the two hands were withdrawn.

“Ah, the chowder today...” Piroshki gestured
at table with the used dishes. She seemed displeased.

“No, it was delicious,” Maggie assured.

“Yes, yes...” Rachael stammered to add.

“Ah, too kind. My Maggie...” Piroshki slapped
Maggie's cheek, then turned to directly address Rachael. “Maggie,
she take good care of old Piroshki. She take good care of whole
Raft. My petrushka...” She was still holding Maggie by the cheek.
Her tone suddenly turned serious. “I hear news. News of Meerkat. No
good, no good at all.” She shook her head in disgust.

“News travels fast,” Rachael remarked.

“You have no idea,” Maggie affirmed.

Piroshki brightened again. “But Maggie, she
solve. She great hero. You know?” Piroshki nodded at Rachael.

“Yes, I just learned.”

“She find out what happen to Meerkat, yes?”
She looked expectantly into Maggie's eyes. “Poor little
petrushka...”

“Don't worry, that is why we're here.” Maggie
took Piroshki's palm away from her face, held it affectionately,
and slid back into her seat. “We heard word that Meerkat was here
last night with Horus.”

“Ah!” Piroshki threw up her hands. The shock
caused Rachael to almost jump out of her seat. “No good Horus! You
find Horus, no?”

“Yes, but -”

“But Meerkat here, dancing in disco last
night, yes, but Horus, no. She dancing late... until grandson
Kalashnikov turn music off. No more dancing. Tell girls to go home!
Too late.”

“Girls?”

“Yes,” Piroshki said with unmovable
certitude. “Meerkat dancing with Tea Queen. No Horus!”

“Tea Queen?” Maggie seemed surprised. “Are
you sure?”

“Sure? Sure? Maggie, my sweet Maggie, you
think I not know all my little petrushkas?”

“No, no, of course. And they left together?
Just the two of them?”

“Yes. In little dinghy. No one else.”

“Thank you, Piroshki,” Maggie said, the
wheels in her head visibly turning. “Can we get our check?”

“Ha! Check!” Piroshki laughed, turning to
Rachael. “Maggie think her money good here. Ha!”

“Then thank you,” Rachael smiled.

Piroshki gave Rachael an affectionate slap on
the cheek, a slap hard enough to knock out a filling. “Little
petrushka. So lovely.”

And the heavy woman charged off across the
deck with the same intensity she'd shown charging towards Rachael
and Maggie's table.

“Who's Tea Queen?” Rachael asked when they
were alone. She knew she should have returned to the topic of
leaving the Raft, but her curiosity got the better of her.

“A witness? A suspect?” Maggie shrugged.

“I mean what's her connection to
Meerkat?”

“Oh, they're good friends. Best friends,
once, before Tea got married, had a baby.”

“She's obviously the last person to see
Meerkat alive.”

“Mmm...” Maggie mused. “Had enough to eat?”
she asked.

“Sure. We're going to talk to Tea Queen?”

“We are,” Maggie replied, wiping her mouth
with her napkin and dropping it on the table. Rachael grabbed her
coat.

#

The Raft was making preparations to set
sail.

On every vessel, as Maggie and Rachael made
their way back to the
Soft Cell
, Rafters were busily
preparing their boats to cast off. Decks were being cleared,
equipment stowed, sails were being checked and mended.

Back aboard the
Soft Cell
, Maggie
freed their mooring lines from the greater mass of the Raft that
encircled the
Kalakala
and motored off through the
archipelagos of bobbing craft in the surrounding water. Everywhere
there was evidence of industrious preparation, the feeling that a
great migration was about to begin.

Progressively, as they drifted away from the
Raft, the clutter of vessels began to thin around them. Soon, they
were clear and free in the open water of the Sound. As noon
approached, the warmth of the day was beginning. Maggie busied
herself with the sails, readying them to catch the cool southerly
breeze. Rachael sunned herself at the bow, her eyes hidden behind
her dark sunglasses. She'd found her purse, with her sunglasses and
phone, and brought both up to the prow of the
Soft Cell
.

It was a hard conversation with Peter.

Telling him she would be late, telling him it
was his responsibility to pick up Margaret at daycare. The call was
nothing new, work often kept Rachael late at the office. She knew
she couldn't lie to him, but this time it was different. Rachael
was, perhaps, only two or three miles from home, but she felt like
she was on another planet. The story of Meerkat's death would have
run in the morning edition, and Peter always read the
Times
with breakfast, keeping a keen eye out for Rachael's handiwork. But
Peter was no fool, he'd have put two and two together the second he
read the headline. And by now he'd be at the station, possibly with
Meerkat's case on his desk. So he gave no indication of shock when
Rachael explained where she was. He was silent. Concerned, perhaps.
Rachael didn't elaborate. He asked when she'd be home.

“Tonight... tomorrow... I don't know,”
Rachael replied.

“And you're safe?” he added.

“Yes, I'm with Maggie... she's... she's a
hard-ass.”

“Maggie? You never mentioned
that
before.”

“Well, she didn't used to be. I mean, not
when I knew her... But already today she's had a knock-down,
drag-out knife fight with a teenage thug – and come off the better
of it – and it's not even noon.”

Peter laughed. “Do I need to worry? Is she
going to break my nose when I meet her?”

“I'd be very careful if I were you,” Rachael
laughed, relieved. Peter was taking it well.

Peter let his chuckle taper off into silence.
Then, “The murder's made the TV News. The Chief was on, he seemed
to imply that the death was a Federal issue – a maritime case.”

“Shit,” Rachael punctuated.

“Not good news?”

It wasn't. “No.”

“They worried out there? The Rafters?”

“Word has only just started to spread.
Maggie's trying to stay ahead of the rumor mill. Find the murderer
before you guys have a chance to get involved. But her number one
suspect jumped off his boat and swam to shore. You guys picked up
any Rafters this morning? Any barefooted drifters come through
holding?”

“I don't think so, but it's early.” Peter
changed topics. “So, exactly how does this all work? On the Raft?
Is Maggie some sort of cop?”

“No, she tried to explain, but it barely
makes any sense. Everything out here is crazy. They're a law unto
themselves. Everything is ass-backwards. However any of this turns
out, I'm gonna have one great story to write when I get back.”

“If there's any Raft left to write
about...”

“Yeah, this whole situation has Waco written
all over it,” Rachael mused.

“And you want to be
inside
the
compound?”

“Look, I know it's complicated... Maggie and
you and me... but I can't just leave her out here. I known it's her
own fault, but...”

“I know, you don't have to explain.”

“But -”

“Really.”

Ugh. He always did that. Said the right thing
at the right time. It hit Rachael right in the chest, made her feel
all balled up inside. God, she loved him so much...

“Thank you. Look, the whole Raft is sailing
north tomorrow for some festival. It'll all be over, one way or
another, by then. But I'll try and be home for dinner. Really
try.”

“Good. Be safe.”

“I will. Give my love to Margaret. Don't
forget she has dance at 3 o'clock.”

“I'll remember. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Rachael hung up the phone.

“Everyone okay at home?” Maggie spoke up from
the cockpit.

“Yes, surprisingly, yes.” Rachael looked at
the phone in surprise.

“Then you're not in trouble?”

“No, not yet.” Rachael pulled herself to her
feet and walked barefooted back to the cockpit. She found her purse
and returned her phone to it.

“You found yourself a nice guy.” Maggie said,
not looking away from the helm.

“I told you: don't start with me.”

“I'm not starting anything. Just saying. I
can speak, this is my boat.”

“Yeah, he's a nice guy. A cop. Seattle.”

“A cop?” Maggie shot Rachael a glance.
“Curiouser and curiouser.”

“Would it make you happy if I just jumped
overboard and swam home?” Rachael said sarcastically.

“Come on, I don't mean anything.”

“You're being horrible.”

“Sorry.” Maggie returned her eyes to the bow.
They sailed on in silence, the sun warm and the sails filled with
the southerly breeze. The skyline of the city was closing.

“Where are we going?” Rachael asked,
realizing their course was taking them directly away from the
Raft.

“We're looking for Tea Queen, remember?”

“Yes, but you're heading for Seattle.”

“Tea Queen is a scarecrow.”

Rachael deflated. More lingo.
“Scarecrow?”

“A Rafter with a day job... well, a dryfoot
day job. She designs websites, or databases, or something with
computers. I forget, anyway she needs WiFi to do her work, that
means she can't stray too far from the towers of the big city. Not
during the week. Noon on a Thursday, she'll be in line-of-sight to
downtown. You can count on it.”

“Rafters hold down real jobs... Is that
legal?”

“No, of course not. Strictly under the table.
Or at least as I understand it. But Gandalf has been talking about
going above board with the whole deal, strictly legitimate. Did you
see those three guys back there playing golf with the Gray
Beards?”

“Yes, Tiger Print said they were from
Arrowsoft.”

“I bet that perked up your ears?”

“It certainly did.”

“Well, Gandalf is trying to get them to open
an office out here on the Raft.”

“How would that work?”

“No more telecommuting for the scarecrows. No
more paying them under the table in greenbacks. A lot of Rafters
used to work in the tech sector. There's a lot of talent. But many
Rafters refuse to take dollars on principle. Anything backed by the
US Government. They prefer their own money.”

“Raft money? What do you use instead of
dollars? Seashells? Polished rocks? Sharpened bits of wood?”
Rachael smirked.

Maggie smiled back. “Sum,” she simply
replied.

Rachael resisted the urge to parrot back the
word. She was starting to feel like a tourist who'd forgotten her
translating dictionary. “And this has something to do with this
Exchange you mentioned before? The wizard's mystery room full of
gold?”

Maggie nodded. “Full marks to the pretty girl
who's been paying attention.”

“Do I dare ask you to explain it?”

Maggie chuckled. “The Exchange? It's a
website really, not much more. Gandalf started it back in the
earliest days of the Raft, a barter exchange – you know, a message
board – where people could exchange labor for goods. They were all
as broke as Frenchmen back then, and no one wanted to keep cash on
hand lest the tax man came along and take it.

“So the Raft ran a barter economy back then.
Of course, as the Raft grew, it became obvious that barter wouldn't
scale, even with the help of technology. A barter exchange was
great, but what the Raft needed was something that served as a
currency. Gandalf got into the banking business quite by accident:
he let users of the Exchange bank hours in the system. Man-hours,
time worked. If you wanted to barter something with someone, but
weren't interested in what they had to barter with, you could take
a promissory note on their future labor. 'For this galley table, I
owe you six hours of engine repair.' That sort of thing.

“Well, right there you got a unit of
exchange. Money. And before you know it, the whole Raft is thinking
about the value of things in terms of the man-hours invested into
the product. 'That meal took an hour to cook, so I'll charge you
one hour for it.' 'This boat took twelve men three months to build,
therefore it's worth six thousand hours.' It just grew from
there.”

“Your money is...
time
?”

“The value of things is the time invested
into their construction, yes. I know, it makes us all sound like
communists, but it works. Think about it, what other currency is
simultaneously inflation and deflation resistant? You can't
increase or decrease the length of an hour, and everyone has in
their gut an instinct of its apparent worth. And the economy grows
at exactly the rate people put labor into it, and shrinks at
exactly the rate that people take work out of it. The Raft's
economy grows and shrinks, but the value of a man-hour doesn't.
It's the perfect store of value.”