Five
Hank Simmons prowled through the shoe factory. He was looking for trouble. Lucy had seen him like this before. He would lash out at anybody who got out of line. If no one got out of line, he would lash out anyway. He was the foreman. What could the workers do to him? Nothing—and didn't he know it?
He peered at the basket by Lucy's sewing machine. His bald, shiny head gleamed under the fluorescent lights. The basket was nearly full. Even as the foreman watched, Lucy sewed on another instep strap and tossed in another shoe. Simmons only grunted. Even if he was looking for trouble, he couldn't find any here. Lucy went on working, doing her best to pretend he wasn't there.
Finally, muttering, he went on to Mildred's machine. She tried to ignore him, too. He picked a shoe out of her basket and held it about three inches in front of his nose. Then, angrily, he threw it back in. "You call that workmanship?" he demanded.
"Yes, Mr. Simmons." Mildred didn't get mad. No—she didn't show she got mad. There was a difference. "That's what I call it."
"Well, I don't," the foreman said loudly. "Those straps'll fall apart in nothing flat. Woo here can do it right. Why can't you? She didn't start that long ago, and you've been here since dirt."
Lucy knew Mildred was faster and neater on the sewing machine than she was herself. Mildred had to know it, too. But if she said what she was bound to be thinking, Hank Simmons would throw her out on her ear. All she did say was, "I'll try to do better, sir."
"I’l try to do better, sir,'" the foreman echoed mockingly. "You'd better do better, or you're in big trouble. You hear me, sister? Big trouble."
Without even waiting for an answer, he stomped off to terrorize somebody else. Mildred muttered under her breath. Lucy couldn't make out everything she said. That was a shame, because what she could understand sounded highly educational. "If I was his sister, I'd break every mirror in the house," was some of the mildest of it. It got warmer from there.
Before long, Lucy was giggling helplessly. Mildred sent her a look that should have sliced through solid steel. Somehow, it only made her giggle harder.
"Yeah, go ahead," Mildred said in a low voice. "You can laugh. He didn't land on you like a sack of manure."
"Not this time," Lucy answered. "You think he hasn't, though?" She stopped, because steam was still coming out of the older woman's ears. Lucy made herself quit giggling. She said the only thing she could: "I'm sorry, Mildred."
Mildred tried to stay angry. Lucy could see that. However hard she tried, she started laughing a few seconds after Lucy stopped. "I don't know why I let him get to me," she said. "He is just a sack of manure. But when he's there telling lies right to my face, I want to take him and sew his lips shut, that's what I want to do."
Lucy had thought she was over the giggles. That started them all over again. She and Mildred both howled. So did several of the women around them who'd heard.
Naturally, the foreman came storming back. "What's this?" he shouted. "What's this? What's going on here?"
"Nothing, Mr. Simmons," Mildred said sweetly. It was a good thing she answered, because Lucy couldn't talk right then. She kept imagining Hank Simmons under the sewing machine. Too bad it was only make-believe.
After lunch, Simmons called her away from her machine. Everybody stared at her. She wondered what she'd done. Simmons hardly ever let people stop working—she couldn't remember the last time, in fact. He'd found out somebody's mother was in an accident one morning, and he didn't tell the poor woman till lunch.
He took Lucy into the office and closed the door behind them. The walls were covered with pinup photos, big, small, and in-between. Simmons lit a cigarette. The smoke was especially nasty in the small, cramped space. He tapped ash into an ashtray on his desk that was already overflowing with butts.
From behind that smoke screen, he studied her as if she were a puzzle piece that didn't fit where he thought it should. He's going to make me say something first, Lucy realized. "What is it, Mr. Simmons?" she asked—the safest question she could think of.
"Fellow came in and wanted to talk about you earlier today," Simmons answered. "Not a big fellow, but important-looking. Important-sounding, too." He was impressed, no matter how he tried to hide it. "Fellow with connections," he added. "He made that real plain—real plain."
Till then, Lucy hadn't had any idea who this man might be. Now she did—or, if not who he was, what those connections were. She nodded back to the foreman. "I see," she said, as if she'd been sure all along.
"Why didn't you say you knew people with clout like that?" Hank Simmons stubbed out the cigarette and nervously lit another one. "Why didn't you tell me? You think I couldn't have fixed you up with a better job before this? I'm no dummy, Miss Woo. I know which side my bread's buttered on. You'd better believe I do."
Lucy blinked. He'd never called her Miss Woo before. She had to tell him something. "It was necessary," she said—let Simmons figure out what that meant.
He said, "Well, it sure isn't necessary now. This fellow made that real plain—real plain." He repeated the phrase again, this time with a kind of shudder. Then he asked, "You read and write, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," Lucy said, wondering why he cared.
He told her: "Okay, then. Starting tomorrow—no, starting right now—I'm taking you off your machine. You're a file clerk, as of today. Pay's fifteen dollars a week, and you get a half day off on Saturday. Go to the front office. Ask for Mrs. Cho. She knows you're coming. She'll show you what to do."
"Mrs. Cho," Lucy echoed in something not far from a daze. She got out of Hank Simmons' smelly office as fast as she could. The Triads, she thought dizzily. It must be the Triads. Had the "fellow with connections" said he'd murder Simmons if Lucy didn't get promoted? Or had he said he'd burn down the factory and everybody inside it? Whatever he'd said, it had done the trick.
Mrs. Cho was expecting Lucy. She showed her the paperwork that needed doing. It wasn't very hard. It was ridiculously easy, as a matter of fact. Lucy had dreamt of a job like this. She hadn't dreamt she could get one, though. And at almost twice the pay! And with a half-holiday on Saturday! It seemed too good to be true.
That brought her up short. Maybe it was too good to be true. The Triads hadn't got her this job because they were nice. They'd done it because they still wanted her help with Curious Notions. As soon as she thought it through, that seemed pretty plain.
And, as soon as she thought it through, it raised another question. What if she didn't help Stanley Hsu and his friends? They'd proved they could do things for her to get their way. What would they do to her if they didn't?
Paul's father often got on the telephone before he opened up Curious Notions. Farmers in the Central Valley had curious notions about when they were supposed to rise and shine. They were always up by the time Dad started calling them.
Usually, he talked about setting up deliveries or haggled over prices. This morning, he sounded angry at the world. "What do you mean you can't bring in those almonds, Mr. Triandos? We had a deal."
Chris Triandos had been selling almonds to people from the home timeline for years. Why shouldn't he? They paid better prices than anybody in this alternate would.
Dad paused to listen. The longer he listened, the madder he got. Paul could tell. His father didn't drum his fingers on the night-stand like that when he was in a good mood. At last, Mr. Triandos must have stopped talking. Dad burst out, "What do you mean, a little bird told you not to?"
Chris Triandos answered. Paul couldn't make out what he was saying, but he sounded excited. He always liked to talk. Paul had seen that whenever he brought almonds up to San Francisco.