Read Hard Road for Free Online

since the middle of Grant Park wasn't anywhere one would ordinarily "drop by." I was just curious to find out what was new, and didn't particularly expect to run into Plumly.
     
     
Plumly had been sitting at one of the two desks in the temporary little structure, filling out some kind of city permit. I said, "Hi, Tom."
     
     
"Cat! Nice to see you. Wanta do my job? I'm tellin' you, if I see one more stack of forms from the city, my joints are gonna seize up like the Tin Woodman."
     
     
"Aren't the forms all done by now?"
     
     
"I wish. They've got some idea that we didn't send in half the food permit sheets. You know, the health certifications for the food handlers. But we did. The city lost them."
     
     
"Well, did you keep copies?"
     
     
"Please! Every single piece of paper is copied three times and filed in three different offices. My company office, the council offices, and Barry's office. God forbid one of the offices should have a fire."
     
     
"Well, send them the copies and prove you filled them out earlier."
     
     
He gave me a pitying grin. "Don't you think I've thought of that? Sure, I could prove to them we did it before. Wouldn't matter. They want an original. The actual ink on the actual paper they give you. With real pen dents. Nothing else is good enough."
     
     
"Oh."
     
     
"Sound like a Chicago municipal-style, moronic, pointless, unnecessary demand to you?"
     
     
"It really does."
     
     
"I gotta get out of here for a couple of minutes. Otherwise I'll freak." He slapped the pile of finished papers down next to the larger stack of unfinished ones. "Let me show you what's new."
     
     
I had not spent much time with Plumly and didn't know him well at all. He seemed pleasant but maybe a little harried. He had been a Chicago cop for twenty-five years, then retired at the age of fifty and formed his own security firm. That had been only four years ago, and yet he had landed this plum job, so I assumed that he had some clout someplace. While clout was a true Chicago phenomenon, I didn't much like it.
     
     
We walked out of the Emerald City castle into a beautiful sunny afternoon. In the three days since I had last been there in the park, a whole lot had been accomplished. Most of the extra landscaping was now in place. The paths were painted yellow, although the brown overlay depicting the brick grid pattern hadn't gone down on top yet. Several of the rides were up, and the Kansas Tornado was being tested. Like a theatrical load-in, the festival had to move in all at once. You don't tie up public space any longer than you have to.
     
     
"Been a lot of last-minute work, I suppose," I said to Plumly, just to get the conversation going.
     
     
"Oh, jeez, yes! Everything that could go wrong went wrong."
     
     
"What are you doing right now?"
     
     
"As you say, last-minute stuff. We're checking staff applicants' backgrounds through Lexis, Nexis, and public databases. Half of these vendors didn't know who-all would be working for them until this week. Their own staff is mostly needed at their regular stores. We prevent crime. I hope. It's not just clearing the employees, although that's big. You don't really want serial killer John Wayne Gacy working in the popcorn booth."
     
     
"No."
     
     
"These days there are a lot of lawsuits about what's now called negligent hiring. There's no national database of non-hirables yet. So you have to cybersearch every person individually on several databases. We also do preventive design. You can set up the physical space so that crime is less likely. For instance, I'm sure you realize the food stands are not part of the ticket system. The tickets are for rides. The customers pay for specific food when they buy it."
     
     
"Actually, I hadn't thought about it."
     
     
"Well, anyway. They do. So, unlike the rides, the food stands take in hard cash. I make the stands all keep their cash register more than an arm's length from the counter."
     
     
"Oh, I