They weighed out the fish, transferring them to Ellen’s ice chests. Ellen was buying a dozen of the waewaeli that weighed in at two hundred and thirty-two pounds. At two dollars a pound, it came out to a little under five hundred dollars. A very good morning’s work once she expensed out the cost of gasoline. If she could do it every day of the year, she’d be rich. Ellen, however, could only afford to buy this much once a month for Shutdown. Any other day, she only bought one or two fish. Nor could Law hope for safe fishing in the winter when the streams ran deep enough for the man-eating bigger fish to navigate.
“You don’t know who it was that called you?” Ellen asked.
“I just have a number.”
“You didn’t think to ask?”
“I asked, she didn’t say.”
Ellen plunged her hands into ice water and then wiped them clean. She took out her phone. “What’s the number?”
“It’s on my call list.” Law turned her hip toward Ellen.
“Is this your way to get me to feel you up?”
“Will that work?”
Ellen slapped her and got Law’s phone out of her front pocket without unnecessary (disappointingly so) groping. (Played for the opposite team: no check.)
“You calling her?” Law asked. It was her experience that you never got straight answers from crazy people.
“No, I’m back-tracing her number. The joys of having geeky friends is that they give you wonderful apps. Widget gave me a reverse-number look-up program when she helped me with my bookkeeping software. Oh. Gee.”
“What?”
“That’s a payphone in Market Square.”
Either Crazy Lady didn’t have a phone, or she didn’t want anyone to trace the call back to her. Law suspected it was the latter. “Tricky.”
“What are you going to do now?”
All the girls that Law helped usually asked—if not with words, with a desperate look—for Law to bail them out of trouble. As soon as the girls were tucked someplace safe, they spilled out their stories. Not all the details—usually they were ashamed of their weaknesses—but at least who the hell they were running from. It was possible that the mystery caller knew something that Snow didn’t. Maybe Snow didn’t even know she was in trouble. (Although the fact that she had dodged all the basic questions seemed to indicate she did.)
It was possible that Snow didn’t trust Law simply because she was a human. Elves came to Pittsburgh via the train. The station was downtown, surrounded by skyscrapers. The enclaves where most elves lived were at the Rim, uphill nearly three miles. The most likely scenario was that Snow had been grabbed and taken by humans before she had ever gotten to the safety of the enclaves.
“I need to sell the rest of my fish. I might as well take her out to the Rim; see if she belongs out there.”
It was less than twelve hours to Shutdown and the city hummed with activity. The EIA troops were heading out to the border checkpoints. The Pittsburgh Police were going into Nazi mode and towing anyone that illegally parked. The shops downtown and the Strip District were preparing for a massive horde of trucks to pull up and deliver an entire month’s worth of goods. Families wanting first dibs on rare big-ticket items were drifting in. In every abandoned lot and empty warehouse, food stands like Ellen’s were preparing to feed the incoming masses. Across the street, Gene Thompson had pulled in with his BBQ chicken truck, complete with trailer rigged as a wood-burning fire pit. Gene was splitting hickory with an axe, and smoke already scented the air.
Law checked her truck just the same as if she’d left it parked on an abandoned, weed-choked lot instead of a city block. She banged on the side panels to frighten out small mammals and heat-seeking snakes. She carefully popped the hood and scanned over the engine to make sure no rats had chewed through hoses or belts. She took a few steps back, knelt and scanned under her pickup, looking for the telltale gleam of eyes or brake fluids on the pavement. She opened the driver’s door and scanned the cabin to make sure there was nothing up in the dash, under the seat, or behind it.
Snow had been through the routine at Fairywood. She helped look although it wasn’t clear the elf knew what they were searching for. Newly arrived humans always teased Law for her caution but they’d never found themselves suddenly sharing a cab with a two-foot-wide spider while going sixty miles per hour. (Luckily the steel spinner had frightened Brisbane as badly as it scared Law. The spider instantly became a pincushion nailed to the dashboard.)
Brisbane ignored the precautions and climbed up into the cab with his usual disdain.
Law was not one to give credit to rumors. People liked to talk. Just because they ran out of facts didn’t stop the mouth from flapping. It always amazed her that people who had never set foot in one of the elf enclaves could go on and on about what supposedly went on behind the high stone walls.
She delivered to the side door that gave access to the motor court, instead of to the front door that led to the public dining areas. Technically, the area was more enclosed than the restaurant part of the enclave. The elves, though, were less careful with the doors and what they said.
Over time it had become obvious to Law that the enclaves operated as tiny little city-states, allied but fiercely competitive. Each had an orchard within the forbidden center courtyard, extensive raised vegetable beds, greenhouses, chicken coops and small herds of indi. While humans might gossip about how the enclaves were nothing more than thinly disguised brothels, they were, in fact, cutthroat restaurateurs. If Law sold trout to Caraway’s enclave, she would need to sell crayfish to Poppymeadow’s. It played into some odd “you’re one of us” mindset that the elves had. She was “their” supplier only if she gave them exclusive stock.
Law suspected that the loudest rumormongers were the humans that failed to pick up the cultural subtlety. They made the mistake of trying to peddle one type of goods to all the enclaves and found the door slammed in their faces. Which was fine with Law; it meant more business for her. It also meant she was more aware that she had to walk a tightrope to stay “one of us” with everyone.
Normally, Caraway’s side gate stood open all day and she could back right into the motor court. The big doors were shut. She backed her Dodge up so its tailgate nearly touched the inward-swinging gate to make unloading easier. Snow sank down in the seat to peer nervously over the back of the bench seat at the enclave. She had only shown curiosity to the rest of the city, so it was a little worrisome that she seemed scared of other elves.
“Stay,” Law said to Snow and Brisbane. The elves thought porcupine was a delicacy and had tried to buy him for dinner more than once.
She knocked on the door by the spyhole. The slot slid aside immediately. Brown eyes so dark they might as well be black inspected her and then the slot shut again.
What the hell? Since when did elves come with dark brown eyes?
She stood a moment frowning at the gate. She could sell her fish elsewhere but she’d promised to deliver trout to Caraway’s today. If she failed to deliver, she might lose Caraway as a customer forever. She knocked again and called out in Elvish. “Nicadae! Fish! Fresh fish! Very fresh! Very good! You buy!”
The slot opened again and a more familiar set of vivid blue eyes gazed out.
“Law!” The owner of this set of eyes cried. “Forgiveness! Wait!”
And the slot closed again.
Law glanced at her pickup. Snow’s stormy gray eyes watched her with surprise and dismay. Snow’s blue-black hair and gray eyes should have been a giant clue-by-four whacking Law upside the head. She knew that elves were very much “us” and “them” even household to household. A handful of elves in Pittsburgh didn’t have straight black hair; Ginger Wine was a beautiful auburn. The elves that didn’t, though, tended to wear Wind Clan blue as if to compensate. Snow was dressed in pure white.