Apocalypticon (5 page)

Both men eyed her suspiciously, which wasn’t exactly the reaction Violet was used to receiving after this spiel. Wolf-eyed, tongue-lolling, hand-rubbing desire was much more common. “How do people pay for that?” Ben asked.

“Excellent question!” She reached into the podium and retrieved the menu. “The first few pages offer the prices of some of our more popular services in Loop Units. And if you flip to the back here, the last two pages show the common currencies we accept and how they translate into those Units.”

“A pack of cigarettes is one Unit?” Ben asked.

“A whole carton is worth ten,” she pointed out. “It’s really a fantastic deal.”

“Vodka, 750ml, 20 units.”

“Liquor is big business,” she said sweetly. “So tell me, boys. What’ll it be?”

Patrick took a step forward and laid his forearm on the podium. “Right. About that. This all looks very nice, really, you’ve obviously outdone yourselves. All of you! Nice work, everyone!” he called out to the army on the bridge, giving them a round of applause. A few confused busboys raised a hand in gratitude. “But here’s the thing. We don’t really need any of this. We just need to pass through.”

“Oh. Travelers,” she said, disappointed. “Well. We can provide you with the best escorts.”

“Do we need escorts?” Patrick asked.

“I don’t think we need escorts,” Ben said.

“Of course you need escorts. We retain majority control over the Loop, of course, and I assure you, all of our fine establishments are quite safe. But the streets can be another matter. Our escorts are guaranteed to provide you with safe passage. For a very nominal fee.”

“Of course,” Ben muttered.

Patrick waved a hand through the air. “I’m sure we’ll be fine on our own. Look! Bradford has a hammer!” Ben plucked the hammer out of his belt loop and held it up.

“Yes, I see that. Of course, you’re free to take your chances, but we require the fee either way, so really, you should take the escort.”

“How nominal is this fee?” Patrick asked.

Violet leaned in close so he could smell her perfume. “How nominal is your destination?”

Patrick nodded slowly and wagged a conspiratorial finger in the air. “I don’t think that makes any sense, but I see where you’re going with it. We need to get to Union Station.”

Violet’s smile flattened into a straight, thin line.
Those Amtrak sons of bitches.
She forced herself to smile again, but dammit, she hated losing business to the Red Caps. “Of course. An escort to the Adams Street Bridge. Fifty Units.”

Ben sputtered incredulously. “Fifty? Did you say fifty? Or fifteen?”

“Fifty. Five-oh.” Of course it was a ludicrous fee, but there was a steep Amtrak spite tax.

“Oh, come on. Fifty of your dumb Units just to walk ten blocks? No way!”

Patrick raised his hands. “Now, hold on, hold on. Look. Miss Violet—“

“Just Violet,” she said, her tongue dripping with honey.

Patrick smiled. “Sure. Look, just Violet. I understand your need for compensation. This is a very fine bridge, namely in that it hasn’t been blown to bits, and we’re happy to give you something for safe passage across it.”

“Like a fist to the mouth,” Bradford mumbled. Patrick kicked his shin again, hard. He screamed and hopped away from the bridge, cursing and howling.

“It’s just that fifty Units does seem a little unreasonable,” Patrick continued, “and I can’t help but notice that there’s another bridge right over there.” He nodded toward Lake Shore Drive. “Surely we can reach some sort of agreement that allows us to use your bridge instead of that other, probably much cheaper, bridge.”

Violet was ready for this. “Please do feel free to use the LSD Bridge, if you prefer. Our guests are free to use whichever option appeals to them. But you should know that the LSD Bridge is run by contractors, not by members of my team, and the authority of those contractors extends only until the southern end of the bridge. Once you cross into the city, you’re once again under our jurisdiction. And while of course you’re welcome to cross using their bridge, it’s possible that some of my busboys won’t take too kindly to that sort of slight. They’re very sensitive, they are. They don’t like it when people use the contractors’ bridge. Sometimes they act up and lash out, sometimes through physical violence. And since you won’t have paid for our safe passage escorts, well, there’s not much to be done to protect you, I’m afraid. So I do hope you’ll reconsider.” She beamed at him with her kindest smile.

Patrick sighed. “Can I see the menu, please?” Violet reached into the podium and produced another booklet. He flipped to the last page and ran down the list of currency calculations. He muttered to himself as he read. “No...no...no...no...oh! A pound of coffee, six Units. What’ll you give me for this?” He reached into his pocket and produced a Ziploc bag full of light beige crystals.

Violet examined it suspiciously. “What on earth is that?”

Patrick looked at her like she was handicapped. “It’s obviously coffee.”

“That is not coffee.”

“Oh yes it is. Smell it.” He peeled the bag open and held it under her nose. She took a cautious sniff. It smelled like mushrooms and used dental floss.

“Jesus,” she sputtered, gagging. “Get that away from me.”

He looked hurt as he zipped the bag and held it close to his chest. “How many Units? Four?”

“None. It’s repulsive.”

“First of all, it is not repulsive, it is delicious, and it is the only thing that keeps me going! And, second, that’s just fine, because I wouldn’t trade it to you for all the Units in the world because you’re not worthy to chew it!” Just then, Ben dove onto the scene from out of nowhere and snatched the bag of off-white granules from Patrick’s hand.

“Excuse my friend, he’s an idiot. How much for his drugs?”

Violet raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“His drugs. This.” He shook the little Ziploc bag. “How much?”

“Don’t you dare!” Patrick cried. “She’s not worthy!” He grabbed for the gritty powder, but Ben pulled it back, out of reach.

“These are drugs. It’s...what do you call it. Not crack. What’s the other thing? Made from that flower.”

“Opium?” Violet suggested.

“Opium! Opium? No. That’s white. This is different. This is, um...what do you call it...this is...Patrick, what do you call this very rare and expensive drug?”

Patrick stood, open-mouthed and staring. A thin trickle of spittle spilled over his lip and dripped to the ground. “Erm. Yes. That is called...croke. That’s the street name, anyway. It’s a crack/coke hybrid.”

“Right. Croke,” Ben agreed.

Violet crossed her arms. “Crack
is
coke,” she said. But she wasn’t quite sure if it was true. She thought she remembered reading it somewhere, a few years back, when Newsweek did some major cover story on street drugs. But she couldn’t remember.

Patrick, however, did seem sure. He shook his head back and forth, hard. “No, no, no, that’s different. This is different. This is croke. And...I need it.” He made a half-hearted attempt to snatch the bag.

“Sorry, Patrick, but we need to get to the train,” Ben said, a little too loudly. He held the bag up a little too high. He avoided Violet’s eyes for a little too long. Everything about all this new development was a little too
something
. Violet mulled things over carefully. She had a hunch she was being swindled, but on the other hand, the big-headed one certainly acted like a drug addict. And if the claim were true, she could make a mint cutting the stuff and unloading it on the Loop refugees. She’d never heard of croke, but that wasn’t particularly surprising. People were always finding new powders and chemicals to shoot into their veins. Who could keep up?

She had an idea. “Okay,” she said to Patrick. “Do a line.”

Patrick turned his head so his ear canal pointed at her nose. “I’m sorry?”

“Do a line. Of your croke.”

He opened and closed his mouth like a fish. “So...right here?”

“Yes. Right here.” She put her hands on her hips and gave her best sassy snarl. “If it’s really a street drug, prove it. Do a line.”

“You don’t want him to do that; one line is worth, like, 80 Units. You should just take it all,” Ben said.

“It’s true,” Patrick chimed in. “I mean, I’m happy to do it. Obviously. I
need
to do it. Give it to me now, Bradford! Ha, ha!” He playfully reached for the bag. “We have a lot of fun with that. But it’s really in your best interest to just take the whole thing.”

“Do a line right now, or you can count yourselves shit out of luck and kiss the train goodbye. But, hey, if you jump in the river and swim, maybe you can reach Lower Wacker. We don’t control the underground, you could take your chances there.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the southern riverbank. The River Bridge Explosions had ripped away chunks of the retaining wall, exposing dark sections of Lower Wacker Drive. Patrick peered over her shoulder, squinting through the fog and into the gloom.

“Oh, those two men are dancing!” he said. Violet reached into the Hostess’s podium and handed him a pair of binoculars. He pointed them at the two men in question, and his face went pale. “Oh, no. No, they’re not dancing. One of them’s beating the other one to death with a pipe.”

“But, hey,” Violet said with a smirk. “You have a hammer.” Patrick looked at Ben. Ben looked at Patrick. Violet looked at her French-manicured nails. “You want to use my bridge? Sell me on your drugs.” She stepped around the podium, snatched the baggie from Ben, and shook out a little pile of the tan dust. “Well?” Patrick bit his lip and eyed the powder. Beads of sweat popped up on his brow. His skin became almost translucent. His nervousness was palpable.
Nice try, hobo
, she thought. Who did they think they were dealing with?

But then he took a step up to the podium, and Violet couldn’t help but wonder if the sweat and the shaking and the paleness really were nothing but a drug addict’s reaction to fix he knew would be his last for a long, long time. He smoothed the pile down with a gentle, trembling finger and formed it into a long, low line. Then he spread his legs, took three deep breaths, cracked his neck, put a finger to one nostril, and sucked the crystals into his sinuses, into the bloodstream that would carry the chemicals straight to the nerves in his brain.

Something red and sparking exploded in Patrick’s cranium. It was like a drunken fairy dust fireworks show in there. He gasped for air and clamped on to the edge of the podium to keep his hands from grabbing the bridge rail and ripping it right out of the concrete. “Wow!” he yelled. “Wow!” He shook his head a few times, then wiped a bit of beige powder from his nostrils. “Oh, yeah, that. Yeah. That feels good,” he sputtered, his eyes welling up with tears.

Violet was impressed. The drugs must be pretty good. “Okay. 50 Units. For the whole bag.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Ben, waving his hands, “no way. That’s at least 85 Units worth of crack. Croke,” he quickly corrected himself. Wait, hadn’t he already said a line was worth 80?
Shit.
He was horrible at math. Well, it was too late now. “You want 50 Units worth, you can take 50 Units worth, but if you want the whole bag,
you
owe
us
35 Units.”

“Ooo, good math,” Patrick choked.

“Thank you.”

Violet hesitated. She wasn’t in the habit of haggling with short men, but Patrick was already tripping over himself, swaying this way and that through the middle of La Salle, holding his forehead in both hands and moaning. This croke was some sort of next-level narcotic, for sure. She could unload that amount for 5,000 Units, easy. She decided not to push her luck. “Fine. 35 Units. We’ll settle up on the way. Grab your friend before he falls into the river.”

Downtown was a train wreck, mostly metaphorically, but in some cases, literally (the El hadn’t fared well in the apocalypse). As they followed a few feet behind the self-proclaimed Concierge of Chicago, Ben couldn’t help but notice how crummy it all was. Every single building along the river had its windows blown out; some of the buildings themselves had toppled over, ripping huge gashes into other skyscrapers on the way down. Trash littered the roads, which wasn’t uncommon, but it was all so indicative of high-spirited people; empty wine bottles, clean pig ribs, broken Champaign flutes, used condoms, soggy lace underthings. He wondered just how many people were holed up in this part of town.

Violet led them down Wacker Drive, which curved south along the Chicago River where it forked, not too far from the La Salle Bridge. The gang of teenage waiters in tuxedos watched them go. There were probably two dozen of the young employees on that bridge, and they looked like they hadn’t eaten nearly as well as their mistress. Their eyes were yellowed and dripping mucus, their cheeks sunken and hollow, their hair thinning to gray wisps...it was unsettling. Violet was up ahead now, speaking in quick, hushed tones to a muscular man in his mid-30s trying way too hard to look like Wesley Snipes, circa
Demolition Man
. As far as Ben could tell, the woman was completely off her rocker, so in hindsight, it wasn’t too surprising that she’d fallen for the coffee grounds. Off her rocker or not, though, she had a terrific ass, one that made his throat make weird sounds as it twitched along in front of him.