“I gotta go through all of them?” the BT whined.
“Just the letter N, Lieutenant.” Pablo winked. “I’m happy to grab a carton myself.”
The BT muttered a form of thanks, insisting it’d be worse if Pablo fell and broke his head than if he did, a worthless Black Top in a boring dead-end job. The private climbed the ladder with agitated sighs, disappearing for about five minutes, his loud swearing an audio buoy, before stumbling back down lugging four large boxes. He dug through a cardboard corridor, pulling out a folding table and a chair, which he wearily set up as if this took the last of his strength.
“Can I trust you not to steal anything? Otherwise I gotta watch.”
“What if you help?”
The private squinted warily. “I don’t know about restaurants or teeth.”
“You chew food, don’t you?”
They carefully searched the cartons, dumping the last files. The BT wiped his forehead. “All that for nothing.”
Pablo muttered, irritated. “You sure about the name?”
Diaz grunted and dug through the leases, architects’ plans, building codes and government certifications all over again.
“Maybe it’s under something else,” the BT suggested. “Maybe all the Jew places are in the same place.”
Pablo frowned. “Not back in 2036, anyway.”
“You got a year? Shit, why didn’t you tell me?” The BT scampered back up the ladder, triumphantly turning two boxes on their side so Pablo could clearly see the date. “I gotta get back to the front door. If you open a special chewing place, remember me. Paterno. Jake. Being a BT ain’t any fun if you don’t got someone to kill.”
“You’re top of my list for head chef.”
Pablo rolled the marble around the cartons twice for extra luck and opened the first box. More permits for more restaurants. Nikita’s Tacos on Sherman Avenue. Genni Ann’s Real Chicken on Morris Avenue. About forty more, but not a one regarding the best pastrami in New York, he allowed himself a tired smile.
The second box contained only company names. DeViers. Trumble. Chi-Chi. Kreplach.
Pablo chewed on his lower lip, the name dancing mistily. He opened the Kreplach Inc. folder. Three approved restaurant permits. Phyllis’s Soup Palace. Dorsky’s Dairy House.
And Needleman’s.
All three restaurants had identical personnel requirements. None. He re-read that. None. No people required.
On the last page was another company name, Olark LLC.
Pablo carefully balanced up the ladder, making two trips to the O column and rummaging through three cartons. No Olark, Inc. He clambered back onto the ladder, but 2037 and 2038 were no help. He had just finished 2039 when the BT rapped on the door.
“My shift’s ending. Sorry. You gotta go.”
“Give me one more second.” He fingered the marble and climbed back up another row. It took only five minutes. He was ready when the impatient private led him back downstairs to the front door, signing him out. The BT pressed his hand onto Pablo’s chest.
“Do I gotta frisk you?”
“That’s not the way a head chef talks to his boss.”
The soldier smiled sheepishly and frisked him anyway.
• • • •
BOCCICELLI AND FISHER didn’t quite know what to do with Frecklie. They had children. Fisher’s daughter attended Harvard State College, renamed in 2077 under the Third Anti-Elitism Act, and Boccicelli had two sons who managed real estate development in the rebuilding of lower Manhattan. These children smiled, laughed, talked. Blinked their blasted eyes.
This child was like a ‘bot, except he couldn’t make his eyes revolve in opposite directions.
“Wine?” Boccicelli held up a bottle of Jacksonville Chianti.
“He’s too young,” Fisher whispered before they were reported for corrupting a minor.
“Milk?” Boccicelli tried.
Frecklie shook his head again. His mother wasn’t all wrong. The Reg world was populated by morons.
“I have to get back to school soon…”
Boccicelli and Fisher erupted in loud cries about the importance of education, quizzing Frecklie about classes and teachers and interests and future plans.
He just stared, waiting until they’d exhausted themselves, then opened his notebook.
“The store.”
“The one downstairs?” Fisher asked, puzzled.
“There were six of them, all different sizes. All selling merchandise.”
“Selling’s good,” Boccicelli perked up.
“We can’t sell any.”
“Why not?”
The owners immediately assumed Frecklie had deprived them of a profit line. Their P&L was booming, for the little they could keep. But a large P&L recommended them for a stake in the new housing development that would go up just under their feet when this foul stadium was finally torn down.
“Merchandise can’t be sold at any war museum. It glorifies evil.” He tapped his blank notebook as if it contained the full text of the Remembrance Act 405 of 2074, banning, under penalty of loss of sibling privilege, any profits derived from suffering.
“This isn’t a museum.”
“It is now since we put up the exhibits, sirs.”
They exchanged nasty looks since the exhibits were Frecklie’s idea.
“Then what good is a store?” Boccicelli sneered.
“The Forgiveness line. I thought we’d offer t-shirts.”
“How can we sell something that glorifies pain or whatever?” Fisher asked, hoping he’d set up a trap.
“This looks ahead, not back. I think.”
Boccicelli scowled. “You think?”
“It’s a little murky. I only had time for so much research at the Central Library. No one’s sure since it’s sort of never really been done before.”
“Sort of?” Boccicelli proudly seized on the qualifying words.
“Yes sir,” Frecklie said, nodding gravely. “After Grandma finished all thirty-two Insights,” he waited for them to bow their necks respectfully, “a Fourth Cousin named,” Frecklie peered at a blank page in his textbook, “Sam Fuji celebrated Grandma’s birthday by unveiling a line of t-shirts with each of the Insights. He also produced plates and cups and some bedding, I think blankets and sheets, and everything went on sale simultaneously. He hadn’t told anyone and it wasn’t received very well.”
Fisher and Boccicelli frowned as one; the Falcons owner asked, “What happened?”
“It lasted only a few hours and the factories were destroyed and Sam Fuji was never seen again.”
Fisher visibly trembled. “I’ve never heard of this.”
“Because it was only a few hours, sir. Everything was destroyed, though I’ve heard, in the DV of course, that some t-shirts are still floating around, thirty-five years later, and
