Grit on the Gumshoe's Heel II

Thursday 1 December 40 PY

Dear Diary,

I trailed Jennings for almost a week. I thought that seeing one man surreptitiously pick his nose was quite enough for me. This time it was the main gist of my job. The process was easier than I had anticipated. The biggest challenge was convincing the cabbie that I really was serious about "follow that taxi". Jenningss seemed oblivious to being trailed.

After a simple dinner, he always picked a copy of the Sun, went to the track, and placed two bets. The first bet boxed the horses with the worst odds in a $2 exacta. The next bet boxed the best two odds. If there was a scratch, reclaimed his wager. He kept to himself.

To keep my cover, I put a dollar on the favorite to show. Louisa taught me more than I ever wanted to know about handicapping and her second boyfriend and this one time at Coney Island, etcetera. My horse didn't come in once.

Jennings always went to the same teller, even if the line was longer. The teller was a chain smoking Caucasian woman into her fifties . She always wore a solid colored dress that hung limply from her thin body. The woman only smiled at Jennings.

On the fourth day, I noticed that Jennings wasn't holding his paper after leaving the line. The following day, I queued behind him. He left the paper at the counter, which the teller slipped under the counter as I put a dollar on Lone Filly.

I stayed for the other races to keep an eye on the teller. During the second to last race, a stallion named Goldbug snapped its leg coming around the final bend. Two men draped a blanket over his head and shot him with a shotgun.

The teller left soon afterward and headed toward the employees' exit. I sprinted out of the main entrance to a nearby building. She clutched a canvas backpack masquerading as a purse. From the track, I sprinted from alley to alley to keep out of her sight until she entered the El station. I bought a newspaper to hide behind and sat in the same rail car. The teller spent the time knitting a blue scarf.

The passengers thinned as the rail approached the Central Dome. We were the last two passengers. I expected her to get off before Rockefeller Terminal, which was a gate to the Central Dome. I did not have a dome pass. The teller did not get off and calmly clicked away with her needles. The navy blue suit and hat of the El conductor bobbed closer in the adjacent car.

I checked my purse. After the day's wagers, I was left with ten greenbacks and loose change. The rest was in extra-Dome currency or script.

The El conductors only took Paradigm dollars. There were forty odd script in my wallet were not enough to persuade the conductor. Even if I got out at the stop, the Terminal was technically inside of the dome and the script was still worthless.

The Paradigm public transit system guarded by the Military Police. I counted six different brown jackets circulating through the cars. Force was not an option. Last week, a pair of extra-Dome illegals tried to sneak into the Dome by hanging onto the underbelly of the train cars. One fell off. The other was shot by an MP sniper. Evasion was equally unwise.

Moments later, the large MP conductor loomed over me.

"Good evening" I said.
"Pass please," he rumbled.
"One moment," I redoubled my scrambling to buy time.

The man with the low sloping brow put his massive and hairy hand on my shoulder. A clear voice spoke from behind him.

"Please excuse my niece, she forgot that I was holding the pass."

The conductor took a look at her golden certificate for a moment and grunted. The chain smoking teller slipped the certificated into her purse before settling next to me. Her name was Tiffany. Fanny to her friends, she asked me to call her Fanny.

Her hand continued their knitting. Every five clicks, she pulled the rolled tobacco from her lips and tapped the ashed onto the ground. The train docked briefly at the tower of the Rockefeller building. Evening darkened into night. The reflected windows of the El receded into the Dome glass toward the inky sky. Above, the street lamp snapped on one by one as the office buildings lit up, illuminating a bent city in the sky.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" Fanny asked. "Everything looks beautiful when you're in love."
"Excuse me?" I turned my head mechanically. She continued talking without missing a beat.
"Well, it's obvious, a woman doesn't go to race track alone and then leave after one bet."
"You're wrong, but thank you."
"You're welcome," she responded. "But I speak from experience and feel that I am right. I was in love once, and I can see it in you. It's not always a bolt out of the blue, but if it's really out of the blue, it'll change your course all the same. You're young and proud, the same as I was. I'll introduce you to Paul, he's my niece's fiance. You'll see, it'll all work out."

She fell silent as the EL descended toward street level. We exited onto a platform at East 49th. Paul Jennings waited for us with a crooked grin on his face. His held his coat under his arm. He said hello to Aunt Fanny. He said hello to his shadow, that would have been me. I had fallen in with strange people.

More later,

R. Dorothy Wayneright

P.S. I spoke with Carris after this incident. The mistake with the ticket was easier to make than one would think. Transit prices are deceptive; a ticket priced to go to Rockefeller Terminal is good for any destination inside the Central Dome, but without a pass I could not get into the Dome. That means that outsiders pay for the extra miles that the Dome dwellers travel inside the dome.

Paradigm has numerous subsidiaries outside of the Domes and the salarymen need to commute safely, hence the El. Among the extra-Dome residents, young women ride the rail the most. Most work the night shift and are willing to pay the El prices for the safety. This accounts for the canned movie plot of a weary woman meeting a handsome and clean cut Paradigm man on the El. It's Louisa's fault that I know this. Another group of rail riders are composed of another breed of young woman who do business with lonely male commuters.

At the time, I glanced at Fanny's ticket and bought the same.

Up until this point, I had not thought of movement as a privilege.

P.P.S. Another cultural note, Paradigm issued dollars (AKA greenbacks) are the standard currency and that was what Roger exclusively spent. Outside of his darkened demesne, I found out that local banks, credit unions, and other extra-Dome organizations printed their own notes of credit and promissory notes with varying degrees of stability and success. These lesser currencies are called script. Flashing a fistful of greenbacks is a way to attract several varieties of attention.