“There won’t be a next time, Bam. I’m sorry.”
“You’re getting rid of me just because of one stupid screwup?”
“No one is getting rid of you,” Connor tells her. “But you won’t be running food service anymore.”
She burns him a long, hateful glare, then says, “Fine. To hell with you. I don’t need this crap.”
“Thank you, Bam,” he says, having no idea what possessed him to thank her. “Send John in on your way out.”
Bam kicks the jet hatch open and storms out. She turns to John, who waits nervously outside, twisted in a full body flinch from her angry exit.
“Go on in,” Bam growls at him. “He’s firing you.”
- - -
That night Connor finds Starkey doing close-up magic for a bunch of Whollies beneath the recreation jet.
“How does he do that?” kids ask as he makes bracelets disappear from wrists and appear in other people’s pockets. When he’s done, Connor approaches him.
“You’re pretty good. But as the guy in charge, I should ask you to tell me how it’s done.”
Starkey only smiles. “A magician never reveals his secrets, not even to the guy in charge.”
“Listen,” says Connor, cutting to the chase, “there’s something I want to talk to you about. I’ve decided to shake things up in the Holy of Whollies.”
“A change for the better, I hope,” Starkey says, gripping his stomach. Connor chuckles because he already knows Starkey sees where this is going, but that’s okay.
“How would you like to be in charge of food?”
“I love food,” Starkey says. “And I’m not just saying that.”
“Do you think you can handle a team of thirty and get food on the tables three times a day for everyone else?”
Starkey waves his hand and makes an egg appear out of thin air, then hands it to Connor. He saw the egg trick a few minutes earlier, but now its relevance makes it even more entertaining.
“Great,” says Connor. “Now conjure up seven hundred more for breakfast.” And he walks away, chuckling to himself, knowing that Starkey does have what it takes to make things happen, and make them happen right.
For once Connor’s sure he’s made the right decision.
8 - Risa
In the early evenings, when the desert begins to cool, Risa plays piano beneath the left wing of Air Force One. She plays pieces that she knows by heart and pieces from sheet music that have found their way into the Graveyard.
As for the piano itself, it’s a black baby grand Hyundai—which made her laugh when she first saw it. She didn’t think Hyundai made pianos—but then, why should that surprise her? Multinationals can make anything they want if people will buy it. She once read that Mercedes-Benz had gotten heavy into artificial hearts before the Unwind Accord made such technology pointless. “The Pulsar Omega,” the advertisement went. “Take luxury to heart.” They invested a fortune in the product, only to lose every penny once unwinding began, and artificial hearts went the way of pagers and CDs.
Tonight she plays a forceful yet subtle Chopin sonata. It pours out like a ground fog, echoing within the hollow fuse-lages where the Whollies live. She knows it comforts them. Even those kids who claim to despise classical music have come asking her why she isn’t playing when she’s skipped a night. So she plays for them, but not really, because it’s herself that she’s playing for. Sometimes she has an audience sitting before her in the dust. Other times, like tonight, it’s just her. Sometimes Connor comes. He’ll sit beside her, yet somehow be distant, as if afraid to invade her musical space. The times Connor comes are her favorite, but he does not come often enough.
“He’s got too much on his mind,” Hayden has told her, making the excuses that Connor should make for himself. “He’s a man of the people.” Then he added with a smirk, “Or at least of two people.”
Hayden never passes up a chance to throw a verbal barb about Connor’s uninvited appendage. It ticks her off, because some things are no laughing matter. Sometimes she catches Connor looking at the arm with an expression that is so opaque, it frightens her. Like maybe he’s going to pull out an ax and chop the thing off right in front of everyone. Even though he also bears a replacement eye, the match is perfect, and the source unknown. It holds no power over him . . . but Roland’s arm is different, holding heavy emotional baggage in its powerful grasp.
d been suggested that Connor take over the old Air Force One, but that was the Admiral’s style, not Connor’s. Instead he settled on a small, sleek corporate jet from the outskirts of the graveyard, and had it towed to the north end of the main aisle.
Connor occasionally hears kids grumbling about it: “Look at him living like a king, while the rest of us get nothing but a bedroll.”
“Nature of the beast,” Trace is always quick to remind him. “Respect doesn’t come without a little resentment.”
Connor knows he’s right, but he doesn’t have to like it.