"The moment," the overseer had shot back, "is not only spoiled, but the bitch is suing us. The cameras caught it all, so she'll probably triple her fee for that one stupid ride."
"I don't get it."
"The big cheese saw and heard it all. He thought she deserved to have her kneecap broken for mouthing off like that. In fact, he was distinctly heard to say that it was too bad the horses didn't bust both of them and put her in a wheelchair."
"That's why I'm not fired?"
"That's why you're not fired," the overseer had said, handing Godfrey Grant a long-handled push broom and saying, "Now get to sweeping."
So Godfrey Grant got to sweeping. A year of sweeping had not endeared him to the job or Utiliduck or mouthy ingrate figure skaters, but in these hard times a job was a job and the truth was that between the heat and the bratty kids, being a greeter could be murder.
At least down in Utiliduck, it was cool and quiet and not much happened to spoil a man's workday.
So Grant was surprised when the white ceiling lights suddenly turned yellow. He had never seen that before. A moment later they shaded to orange, and section control doors began slamming shut.
The lights then became red, and a Klaxon started hooting.
"What's going on?" he asked a squad of security men as they pounded his way.
"Intruder alert."
"Someone trying to sneak in for free?"
The team leader stopped. "Can you handle a gun?"
"Gun?"
And he handed Grant a machine pistol with a mouse-head silhouette stamped on the buttstock.
"Be on the lookout for a guy in a T-shirt with thick wrists. If he comes this way, shoot on sight."
"Shoot?" muttered Godfrey Grant. "Who'd try to sneak into Utiliduck that would need shooting?"
The security team leader didn't reply. They kept running as if they were on a deck of an aircraft carrier during a strafing attack.
So Godfrey Grant tucked his machine pistol into his belt and went back to sweeping the trash that periodically dropped from the nest of ceiling pneumatic terminals.
It was his job to push the incoming trash into the waiting valve of a floor trash compactor. It would have been just as simple to have the stuff go directly into the compactor, but that was Beasley World up above. Anything could come dropping down with the trash. Wristwatches. Wallets. Guns. Medicine. Even cranky baby sisters who kept their older brothers from the Buccaneers of the Bahamas ride.
So Godfrey Grant maneuvered his push broom through the trash, keeping an eye peeled for valuables and inconvenient children.
When a pair of loafers dropped from above, bringing with them a tall skinny guy with thick wrists and the deadest eyes Godfrey Grant had ever seen, he dropped his broom and stammered, "You're the guy."
"What guy?"
"The guy with the thick wrists everybody's looking for."
The man seemed unperturbed. "That's me."
"I'm supposed to shoot you," said Grant.
"Go ahead."
"But I don't want to," Grant admitted.
"Suit yourself," the guy with the thick wrists said in a bored voice. He looked around, saw he was in a white room with slick walls and asked, "Where's Uncle Sam?"
Grant hesitated. "Beasley?"
"Yeah."
"He's been dead longer than I've been alive."
"They don't tell the custodial staff very much around here, do they?"
Grant looked blank.
"Where's the warmest room down here?" asked the man.
Grant frowned. "Warmest?"
"You heard me," said the guy with the thick wrists, drifting up to Grant. Grant backed off, thought he succeeded, but then his machine pistol was suddenly in the guy's right hand. He brought his other hand up, and the machined steel began complaining. It squeaked. It barked. It began coming to pieces as if it were made out of stale sugar cone.
"There's a room two lefts down that corridor, that no one's allowed to go into," Grant offered. "When people come out, they're usually sweating like pigs."
"Sounds about right."
"They're going to make me pay for that broken gun."
"Between you and me and the wall, I don't think anyone's going to be counting guns after I'm through."
And when the thick wristed guy was gone, Grant looked up. He could have sworn the tube he'd come out of was too narrow for a full-grown man. Although the guy was on the skinny side.
Shrugging, Godfrey Grant reached down to retrieve his long-handled push broom and resumed sweeping. After all, he was paid to push a broom, not deal with security problems.
Not to mention the skinny guy with the wrists had treated him better than his bosses ever did.
"FIRE that fuck, Maus."
"At once, Director."
"No, not at once, you idiot. That lumber-wristed meddler is running around loose. Swat him first. Then fire that fuck."
In the perpetually steamy Utiliduck control room, Captain Ernest Maus strode to the console and punched up the ceiling camera in the corridor approach.
The man with the thick wrists was walking purposefully along the corridor.