“Raine.”
“Raine. Interesting name. Just… Raine?”
“Nicholas Raine.”
Did the Authority, who had to still be looking for him, have that name? Or did they just know there was a survivor somewhere out there?
If the latter, a nameless survivor could have been easily killed in this world in a dozen different ways.
“Good name. Let’s talk turkey, son.”
“Let’s.”
“See, I don’t know much about you. Not much at all. And Dan, well we deal with him. Hell, in my city we deal with everyone. ” He laughed. “Except muties. They’re kinda hard to deal with, if you know what I mean.”
Raine nodded.
“Even the Authority. They come here, we do some trading. I let them know that I am a big supporter… a big supporter of the Visionary. They tend to leave us alone.”
A knock on the door, and a young man came in and handed the mayor a sheet of paper… and walked out again without a word.
And Raine wondered: Did this guy get elected? Appointed? Who or what made Clayton mayor?
“So,” Clayton continued, “my motto is simple: ‘No trouble.’ With anyone. Now son, you might be trouble. That is, unless you fit in.”
“That would be the goal.”
The words made Clayton smile. “Good. Just what I hoped to hear. ’Cause you see, though Dan spoke well of you, seems he has his own problems.”
“What happened?”
“Seems the Authority came looking for… somebody. They took his daughter. In case Dan learned anything.”
At that moment Raine wondered if he might have to shoot himself out of this office, then out of this damn city.
He wouldn’t have given much for his chances of success.
“The Authority will keep looking. Trust me on that one. They’ll find… whoever they are looking for.”
Bastard’s enjoying this, Raine knew.
My life in his hands.
Or in Clayton’s words… my “balls.”
Still, someone who was willing to deal with everyone from bandits to the Enforcers might be looking for what worked best for him in his city. The fact that they were still speaking meant it wasn’t time for him to pull out his gun and start making his goodbyes.
Clayton stood up and walked over to the window.
He looked out and tapped it.
“All the good people out there,” he said with a look back at Raine, “and some of the not so good-they need what I get them. The food, the water, the fuel. More important-the reason to live.”
He turned away from the window.
“And I think… you might help me with that reason, Mr. Raine. Seems you can fight. Seems like you can drive. Some people come here from all over, from all the settlements, from small shit-ass towns that barely hang on. They even come from the Capital. Know why? They come here to race. To race and to live.”
Clayton had walked around to the front of the desk. He sat down on the edge, looking down at Raine. So close now. He stubbed out the ersatz stogie in a glass ashtray.
“The races keep people happy. Lets people fit in here, too. You race, why you’d be just like anyone else who came here seeking… fame and fortune.”
The bastard knows, Raine thought. But he’s willing to risk using me.
“So you’re saying you’ll let me stay if-”
Clayton put up a hand. “Son, I can find you real work. On the routes. But you’re going to need to work up to a better buggy.” He thought for a moment-or at least was putting on a show of thinking. “The races,” Clayton said, snapping his fingers. “ That’s the ticket.”
In just moments the job, a real job, had vanished.
“You see, Wellspring is an open city. You can come and go as you like. That is, if you got a place to stay. Place to keep your buggy. If you got work. Then, it’s an open city. I’m just… suggesting
… that if you want to stay. If you want to get yourself some better wheels…”
Clayton sent another ring of smoke up toward the ceiling. “If you want to avoid any problems… you’ll race. Maybe then, after a while, I can get you some work keeping the routes open.”
Again Raine thought about Dan talking about the races. He had seen the stadium as he drove here. Big place. Hold a lot of good citizens.
The racing car fans.
Thinking: The bastard has me.
If I have to race, then I’ll race.
After all-how bad could it be?
“Okay. I’ll race, then.”
Clayton leaned forward and slapped him on the shoulder, a big smile showing his teeth freshly covered with the brownish goo from his smoke.
“Welcome to Wellspring, Raine.”
THIRTY
Clayton led Raine out of his office and down to the street. The two guards at the entrance nodded.
“That your buggy? God-not much, is she?”
“Does what it has to.”
“Well, if you’re gonna race, you’ll have to get some tweaking done to it. And you’ll need a sponsor.”
“What is that?”
“Sponsor, son. Someone who pays your way into the race in exchange for getting their name promoted. Advertising. Not my area of… expertise. Go see Jackie Weeks, the race promoter; he can get you set up. Tell him I sent you. Race is tomorrow. I’ll be there. So will everyone else in town.”
Clayton again shook his head at Raine’s buggy. “Didn’t know you were driving something so… small, so beat-up. But hell, got you here, didn’t it?”
“Yes, it did.”
Clayton flipped his monocle device up, like a jeweler looking away from his examination of a rare stone.
“I can’t make you any promises, Raine. About anything. But you just remember that today, here, now… I did you…” He leaned close “… a fucking favor.”
Raine nodded. This was a world of fear. You never knew when you would need something, from somebody. A place where favors could be very, very valuable.
Is that why Clayton didn’t deal him to the Authority?
Or did that deal lay ahead?
One day at a time.
Clayton told him how to find Weeks-in his office at the back entrance to the stadium-and Raine got into his buggy. As he drove, he thought of Dan… and Loosum.
If there was a way he could do anything about that, he would. And Kvasir, too.
He felt a growing need for payback, a need to change things. But for now he had a race to worry about.
Jackie Weeks walked around Raine’s buggy.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah-Clayton called me… told me you’d be coming over. Christ, look at this thing.” Weeks looked up, his round face disgusted. “You want to take this into the stadium?”
“If you have something better…”
“Right, right right-sure, we just give away Cuprinos.”
“Cuprino?”
Another shake of Weeks’s head, followed by no explanation. “Look, Mick in the shop handles all the prerace checkouts. Could be he can do something with this. Engine may not be too bad. But where the hell are your defenses?”
“Defenses? It’s a race, isn’t it?”
Weeks smiled now, followed by the condescending groan of one who knew something about talking to a total newbie.
“Yeah. Just a race.” He shook his head. “You need to protect your buggy. Accidents happen out there. Got it?”
Raine wasn’t too sure.
“Accidents? What the hell kind of accidents?”
Weeks leaned close, as if passing on a secret. “The cars, they bump into each other. Sometimes they crash. It’s a race, but… it’s also something else.”
Raine thought: Right. It’s a goddamn demolition derby.
“So, Mick might be able to do something for you. But Clayton said you got no sponsor? Key-rist. You can’t drive-can’t pay the tab-without a sponsor.”
“Any ideas?”
“Been to Sally’s yet?”
“What is that?”
“Keep forgetting… you’re new here. You know nothing. Sally’s is a bar, run by Sally LePrine. She used to be a regular sponsor at the races. Lets everyone know where to go for a drink, to hang and talk buggies. But she lost her driver.”