by JJ Gould
Stan had half stood. “Good morning, Mrs. Hofer.”
Hofer was irritated. “Sit down, Martin. She ain’t no frickin’ queen of England.” He turned to his wife. “What I tell ya? I got meetings in my office. I wanna entertain some people, an’ I got no ice.”
Veronica responded to Hofer, but her eyes were on Martin. “Sure, Charlie. Comin’ right up.” She touched Martin on the shoulder. “Can I get you anything, Stan?”
“No, but thank you for asking.”
Hofer rolled his eyes again. Guy acts like James Bond. “Let’s cut to the chase.” He motioned to the papers in front of him.
Stan leaned forward. “Okay. Two of the walls have been moved. The drywall is up and mudded, ready to be textured. Wires are all pulled, and the boards are in, ready to be installed. We decided not to use the board from Hall Media. It was an old Gates model, hard to get parts for and a little long in the tooth. Plus, we didn’t want to show up and run the risk of staff members asking questions. One of the techs found out about a station in Alaska going bankrupt and got some pretty good used stuff—tape deck, cart desks, automation system—should be coming in tomorrow right after the painting is done. The transmitter is ancient—we’re talking tubes out of World War II. I guess the previous owners bought it all up as surplus at pennies on the dollar. My engineers say there’re enough tubes and parts to build ten transmitters, so we might as well keep it.”
Hofer looked at the Polaroids and ignored the schematics and the technical talk. Whatever. “So, this place gonna be done on time?”
“First of the month,” Martin said.
“And the name?”
This had caused a little argument. Hofer had wanted to put his mark on the call letters and wanted the assholes at the Oaks to know where their pain was coming from. “How ’bout FYOU?”
“Can’t. FCC regulations dictate anything west of the Mississippi must begin with a K.”
Hofer leered. “Okay, then, backward—KCUF.”
“Taken.”
Hofer pouted. “By who?”
“Hard rock station in California.”
Hofer tried again. “KUNT? KOCK?” Martin looked at him for a long minute until Hofer looked away. “Okay, okay.” He thought again. “How ’bout Karma?”
Martin nodded. “Better, but that’s taken too. Station out of Denver, KRMA.” Then he added, “Just got FCC approval yesterday. But KCAH—with your initials—is all yours.”
KCAH-AM 1620, the Voice of Truth. It wasn’t edgy enough for his taste, but Hofer could see how it might carry some weight with the other media in town. And it did sound legit, which was probably good too.
The first of April, KCAH would take to the airwaves, and Charles Alvin Hofer would use his station to crucify the mealy-mouthed pricks that dared look down at him.
Chapter 24 - Stan Martin
Stan stood next to the transmitter shack, looked up at the KCAH tower site, and got a queasy feeling. Tall and spindly, the red-and-white tower looked just like the thousands of others that dotted the landscape—harmless and almost invisible until you got close to it. Yikes.
Craning his neck, he could see Cal about halfway up. The KCAH tower was only four hundred feet tall. On paper, that seemed a mundane number. But standing next to it, craning his neck to look up at it, Stan felt his skin crawl. Hazard signs everywhere, shouting DANGER and HIGH VOLTAGE, and WARNING, weren’t helping.
He turned to Wes. “What’s he doing up there?”
Wes seemed unconcerned. “Climbing it.”
Stan studied him to see if he was being a smartass. Apparently not. “But why exactly is he climbing it?”
“Inspection.” Then in a rare burst of words, Wes said, “Towers are tricky. They need to be maintained to make sure they don’t fall. This one’s a pair of two-hundred-footers spliced together. Cal’s making sure it’s good is all.”
No big deal. Just like climbing a ladder with four hundred rungs. Stan shuddered. He’d climbed the side of an elevator once, not nearly as high and a lot more stable, and the memory of that was bad enough.
“How’s the signal?”
“Dunno.” After a fifteen-second pause, Wes said, “Checking the structure first. Then we’ll power it up and see.”
Stan motioned to the HIGH VOLTAGE sign. “What’s going to be hot when the power goes on?”
Now it was Wes’s turn to look at Stan, seeing if he was joking. Stan shrugged. The mechanics of how things worked had never been his strong suit, especially the mysteries of radio transmission.
Wes explained. “This whole tower’s gonna be hot. Top to bottom. Not like an FM tower, where you carry the transmitter to the top. In AM, the tower is the transmitter, like a big tuning fork.” Wes pointed to gray bulges in the guy wires, three sets of them spaced out on each wire. “Them insulators are called Johnny balls. They keep the charge from hitting the ground. You see them on a tower, you can definitely tell it’s an AM tower.” Then he pointed to a large amber rod at the base of the tower. “That’s insulated too. Solid glass. Keeps the electricity from reaching the ground. If this tower is on, and you touch it, you will be messed up. So you jump from the ice shield.”
Stan looked at the latticed-steel framework over the building that led out over the bundles of electrical cable like a heavy-duty dock. “Ice shield?”
“Yep. When you get freezing rain on this tower, and the wind starts blowing or the temperature rises, huge chunks of ice fall down like shrapnel.” Wes pointed to the end of the ice shield. “You stand on the edge of the dock-looking thing, and you jump, like leapfrog. Never step over.”
Stan studied it and cringed. “Like a bug zapper?”
Wes shrugged. “Not sure. Depends on the wattage. It’s not like regular electricity—it’s RF burns. It hurts long and deep and strange, kinda like being in a microwave. Parts of you get cooked.”
Stan thought about being in a microwave and shuddered. “But Cal’s off the ground, like a bird on a power line.”
Wes shrugged again. “Probably. Weird, though. Kinda like sound—sometimes the wires will pick up the frequency and zap you a bit.”
Zap you a bit. Stan felt his skin crawl.
Wes needled him. “How’d you like to be in the weather ball?”
Stan stared up four hundred feet at the small booth at the top of the tower and shuddered again. Not in a million years.
***
It had been a great promotion, best of the best. Sioux Empire National Bank had figured out a way to hook its name with the obsession of every South Dakotan and potential customer—the weather ball.
At the top of the bank building was a small tower that would change along with a heavily promoted ditty:
When the weather ball is glowing red, warmer weather is just ahead.
When the weather ball is shining white, colder weather is in sight.
When the weather ball is wearing green, no weather changes are foreseen.
Colors blinking by night and day say precipitation’s on the way.
Back in the day, the station manager of KCSC-AM 1620—King Corn Seed Company—had gotten the bank to pay for a weather ball at the top of the radio tower so it could be seen by farmers in the area. A small booth was placed there to shield the apparatus from moisture, but it kept failing anyway. Eventually, the bank lost interest, and the station was sold. The weather ball had stayed broken at the top of the tower, too expensive to fix or dismantle, a forgotten piece of Sioux Falls history.
Chapter 25 - Deidre Hall
Before she married the weak and wealthy Harrison Benjamin Hall IV, Deidre Hall knew she was bound for greatness. From a very young age, the girl then known as Deidre Keckley was aware that she was different. She hid it well, of course. She learned how to perform behaviors and emotions that others expected, and when she got older, she found that she could use her sexuality to easily mask her different nature.
The fact of the matter was that people disgusted her. They were so stupid. So easily manip
ulated. Controlling people was what life was about—a chance to move and maneuver, to take and build and control. As a young girl, she was fascinated to see what was inside things—to figure out what made them feel pain and how long they could withstand it.
Once her teacher caught her poking a stick into a cat’s eye by the edge of the schoolyard. Seeing the horrified look in her eyes, Deidre quickly burst into tears and sobbed uncontrollably, mumbling about a neighbor man who’d touched her and made her feel ashamed. The stupid cunt believed her, holding her close and telling her it would be all right. It was all right after a while. If she had to do it all over again, she would have thought of a different lie. She’d pointed out an elderly neighbor, a retired postman named John, and by sticking to her lie and sobbing and shuddering and shaking her head and shivering, she was able to make them believe her. There was no evidence, but there were a lot of angry neighbors, and one day John the postman was beaten up badly, and he moved away. Crisis averted.
After that, she was much more careful. She excelled in biology, pretending to be squeamish at the dissection labs, then moved on to college and a nursing degree. She didn’t have the mind for all the memorization a doctor’s degree required, but she also didn’t have the patience or see the need. As a nurse, she’d been able to study the doctors up close until she could select the one who would be most useful to her.
Now Deidre Hall had a name that gave her instant access to power and secrets and invulnerability. Stupid little Benjy had almost taken that away from her—almost destroyed the Hall name—but fortunately, she’d been able to discover the problem and take care of it. In her observation, men were either goats or sheep.
When she first saw Devon LaCroix in the bar, she immediately knew he was a goat—a stupid sex-driven goat—and from there it was easy. She got him to take her to her hotel room and agree to a mutual shower and a little choking as a way to increase stimulus. And as he was erect and inside her, thrusting away, she choked him… and poof, he collapsed, dazed and unresponsive. Fortunately, he was in the shower. She quickly rolled him on his back, grabbed the scalpel that was waiting next to the sink, and poked it deep into his carotid. Riding his convulsing corpse, she climaxed. Then, waiting a full twenty minutes for the blood to drain away with the hot water gave her time to compose herself, get the garbage bags, and get to work.
It was pretty simple really—not much different from cutting up a chicken. With a sharp scalpel for the tendons and a knowledge of joints and anatomy, snik-snak, she finished up. Ninety minutes later, she was showered with her hair done and makeup applied, and two heavy suitcases were waiting by the door.
Chapter 26 - Oscar Holmberg
Oscar Holmberg was a junior at Northern State, working his way through school, doing odd hours at the Ramada. The call came at eleven o’clock at night. Weird that somebody checks out at night, but oh well. The chick wore dark glasses, had a big handbag almost like a shopping bag, and carried two huge Samsonite suitcases. Mother of God, they’re heavy! Fortunately they had those little wheels on the bottom, but even so, one of them flopped over as he pulled it into the elevator, and it was a bitch setting the thing upright.
Then he brought them out to her car, and shit, he had to hoist those bad boys into the trunk of her rental car. There was plenty of room in the trunk. Geez, you could toss a body in here! But even so, the thing sagged a bit.
Oscar wiped the sweat off his brow, because his brow was sweaty and because that was a good way to get a little extra tip money. “There ya go, lady. So whaddaya got in there, a side of beef?”
She flickered a smile, gave him a fiver, and drove away.
Chapter 27 - Claire
It turned out the Lakota was named John, too, just like her son. John Returns From Hunt. He was born into the Sicangu Lakota Reservation, out by Rosebud, and had lived a life of trouble and turmoil.
He did not talk much at first. He would show up at the start of the day and ask to hold her baby. It scared the hell out of Stan. She’d told him about the hire but not in a lot of detail, so when he headed out to the Shark—his name for his trusty old Chrysler 300—he was surprised to see this enormous Indian with scars and tattoos hanging out in the parking lot by Claire’s truck. Stan had a recent history with scary-looking guys who’d almost killed him, so he was a little gun-shy.
Fortunately, Claire was right behind him on the way to her old jobsite. Introductions were made and apologies accepted. Stan then looked at Claire with that penetrating look he was known for. She was holding baby John.
Once Stan had driven away, the Indian asked, “Can I hold your baby?”
Claire shrugged and handed him off. From then on, she started calling them Big John and Little John.
Their mornings would start at about five thirty. Claire would make a pot of coffee, scramble some eggs with toast or something similar—fast-order stuff she could whip up in a hurry, a relic from her waitress days. Stan would come back from a run about six o’clock. By then, Big John would be there, crowding in the kitchen if the weather was bad or, on warm days, sitting outside on their stoop, drinking coffee, eating, watching the weather, and waiting.
After Stan showered, shaved, and got dressed, he would slide into the table, finish his breakfast, and play with Little John a bit, talking morning talk with Claire. Then he’d kiss the baby, hand him off to Big John on the stoop, and head off to work. A moment after that, Claire would appear outside with a refresher for Big John’s mug and a mug of her own. They would sit together on the stoop and plan the day, Little John staring in Big John’s eyes and Big John staring back.
While she drank her coffee, Claire would watch the two of them out of the corner of her eye. She wasn’t sure what was happening. The look they shared seemed so personal that she felt like she was intruding on some hidden conversation that was none of her business. When the look was done, Big John would sigh deeply, exhaling something from within. Then, eyes down, he would look gently in her direction, ready for the day’s work.
That day, it was the concrete work. Claire had sent Big John off to get his driver's license, a necessity she was willing to pay for, and was expecting a contractor to bid on a foundation that house would be moved to. She had the permits the city needed and had the plot staked out with slats of wood topped with pink plastic streamers.
She was eying the property, with Little John in her arms, when the guy from Top Notch pulled in. “Mornin’!”
He had a new truck and wore a striped work shirt rolled up to the biceps with the name Sonny sewed onto the patch over his shirt pocket.
“Mornin’!” Claire stepped up while Sonny looked around. “Anyone here?”
“Yeah, I am.”
It was an aggravation but one Claire was getting used to. Perplexed men at the city office, perplexed men at the jobsite, perplexed men at the lumberyard, all wondering where the man was.
Sonny rolled his Oakleys back off his face and perched them upside down on the back of his head. He was in shape and knew it. He put his hands on his hips, looking down at her. “So you the one in charge?” The sentence amused him.
Rather than get into that, Claire motioned to the ground in front of her. “I want a basement, nine feet deep, about five feet below grade. I figure I’ll have the dirt work graded up the side at about ten degrees so it’ll cover up most of the foundation in front and give me a walk-out on the back facing the alley.”
Sonny was watching her talk. His eyes had done a slow appraisal from her shoes on up. Apparently, he was impressed. “This’ll work out great!” He was fiddling with the ring on his finger.
Claire was pretty certain by that point but wanted to make sure. “Here.” She handed the baby over to him—or tried to.
Little John squirmed and fought and scowled. Sonny looked nonplussed. “What do you want me to do?” He looked doubtfully at the silent but squirming baby.
Claire nodded. Suspicions confirmed. “I want you to leave and not bother coming back.”
; Claire spun on her heel and headed inside to set an appointment for the next contractor.
Chapter 28 - Harrison Hall
Dr. Harrison Hall kept a light but constant surgical schedule—about two surgeries a week, enough to keep his hand in, stay up-to-date with the constant evolution of medicine, and know he hated it. Well, maybe not hate. The surgery was okay. It was the constant nattering of the patients, like bleating sheep before the slaughter, that he didn’t like.
“Is this going to hurt?”
“How long will it take to recover?”
“What will this cost?”
And the staff members were almost worse—the leery ones who recognized his name and avoided eye contact as well as the sycophantic ones who hung on his every word, laughing like jackasses at the right moment. He hated the glances between the nurses, the unheard conversation, the judging and comparing.
And the very worst of all were the salespeople. The hallways were littered with pharmaceutical sales reps with their constant free lunches and seminars. There were hospital-bed salespeople, lab-equipment salespeople, software and hardware reps and those who sold x-ray, temperature, ultrasound, and CAT scan machines … all patrolling the halls like sharks, wearing hungry, savage smiles, looking to rip out a pound of profits.
It was much safer in his office. There he could protect himself with layers of gatekeepers and soundproof doors and calm receptionists to chase them away. But… but the one time he could have used a competent person to quickly explain the ins and outs of a certain device without having to wade through insipid instruction videos or pamphlets in twelve languages and impossible jargon…
He glared at the nurse and the rest of the surgical team. “So where is the Panco rep?”
Silence. Finally, a nurse spoke up. “She’s driving up from Omaha. She was in surgery early this morning and was going to get here as soon as she could.”
