“Dad, he’s an asshole.”
Dad shrugged. “He’s a politician.”
“Remember the underage-hooker thing?”
Dad nodded. “But he didn’t know she was underage.”
Was this my father I was talking to? “You mean if she was just old enough, that made it okay?”
He looked down at the floor. “No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying there are degrees. Look at Clinton back in the nineties. Look at our own Spitzer, a few years back. They get a little bit of power and they think they can do anything; then they find out they can’t and get cut down to size. They learn. Does that mean we cut ’em off from ever making a contribution again?”
I said nothing.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “After your mother and I got married, but before I got a job with the town, I was out of work. There was a guy building houses on the south side of town who was looking to hire. I knew something about him. I knew he was a drunk, that he abused his wife, that he beat his kids. He was a total shit, this guy. And I had a wife to look after, rent to pay. I had responsibilities. I took that job. I wasn’t proud of myself, but looking after your mother came ahead of my pride. I decided I’d work that job, and keep looking for something better in the meantime. And as soon as I found something with the town, I gave that bastard my notice and left. But through it all, your mother never went hungry, and she never spent a day without a roof over her head.”
I swallowed. “I hear you.”
“Yeah, Finley’s an asshole. But I think he loves this town, and maybe he’s what Promise Falls needs right now. Someone to shake things up.”
I nodded. We stood there facing each other. I put my arms around him and patted his back.
“You’re a good man,” I said as he returned the hug.
“Don’t be so sure,” Dad said.
TWENTY-FOUR
IT didn’t freak out Gloria Fenwick to be working in a deserted amusement park. At least, not in the daytime.
She’d worked for the corporation that owned Five Mountains and several other parks across the country, and she’d been posted at some of those other locations through the years. And that had meant being there in the off-season, winding things down after the children had gone back to school, their parents back to the drudgery of their jobs.
Fenwick was accustomed to strolling past riderless horses stuck in their tracks on the merry-go-round. She could never bring herself to ride any of the parks’ roller coasters, so the stillness of the Five Mountains Super Collider Coaster actually gave her comfort. She couldn’t stand close to it when it was in operation, feeling the supporting structure tremble and vibrate, always fearing the apparatus would collapse, sending dozens of people to their deaths.
The empty concession stands, the driverless bumper cars, the deserted parking lot. It was all just fine with Fenwick.
In the daytime.
But at night, well, that was a different story. At night, the place really did creep her out.
She felt reasonably secure in the park’s administrative offices, where she was now, as darkness fell. She had a mountain of work—no pun intended—still to deal with. There were several offers from different amusement parks for some of the Five Mountains rides. An Italian firm was putting up several million dollars for the Super Collider, which could be dismantled, shipped overseas, and reassembled. A group involved in the ongoing rebuilding of the Jersey Shore after Hurricane Sandy was interested in some of the concession stands. A representative from Disney wanted information on laid-off employees. They might have work for them at one of their theme parks.
Fenwick not only had to reply to all of them, but let the head office know about incoming offers. All the big decisions were made there. She was just the traffic cop, directing inquiries this way and that.
Plus, there were countless other duties involved in winding the place down. Dealing with creditors. One pending lawsuit from a woman whose dentures flew out while on the coaster. If all she’d wanted was some new teeth, Five Mountains would have bought her a set, but the woman was claiming emotional distress, too.
What a fucking world, Fenwick thought.
She didn’t work here entirely alone. She had an assistant most days, but he took off promptly at five, whether there was work left to deal with or not. And Five Mountains had engaged a security firm to watch the place, keep it from being vandalized, make sure homeless folks weren’t camped out in the inner workings of the log ride. Usually it was a guy named Norm through the day, who did three rounds: one at nine, another at one, and his last at five. In the evenings it was Malcolm. She knew for sure he inspected the park at ten, because she’d been here working that late on more than one occasion. He was supposed to come through again at two in the morning, and then four hours later at six.