The Blue Death

by Joan Brady

  It’s a terrible thing to look into one’s soul and find a monster there. If it hadn’t been for Hugh, David might never have known. How can anybody forgive a man who foists himself into a life and lays bare an inner self like that?

  As for Hugh, he wasn’t quick to get a glimpse of what he’d done. His life was a rich man’s life, corporate law, Springfield dinner parties, a family he adored. But he puzzled over unexpected and disturbing changes in this boy, changes he couldn’t pin down, a shimmer of something alien that showed itself in the voice, the choice of words, the delivery. He knew he’d provoked it himself for the simple reason that he could sense the boy hated him for it. He just couldn’t figure out what his transgression had been. He began to read prisoners’ stories, talk to their families, interview ex-cons, dig into old records, re-examine David’s history.

  Years passed before the enormity of it dawned. Hugh Freyl, gentlest of men, had allowed his own arrogance – his rich, educated man’s ignorance – to turn this angry boy into a killer. He carried his guilt like Sisyphus under a stone, again and again trying to make amends. Once the kid decided to work, Hugh spent more and more time with him, hoping education would polish away such primitive urges. David flew through grade school, then through high school, then a bachelor’s degree from Chicago University’s extension school. Hugh encouraged him to take an interest in the world outside, to correspond with people. A couple of his friends even became visitors, and he knew that one of them got closer to David than he could ever hope to come. But that hadn’t worked out well either. How could Hugh have thought it might? A break-up was inevitable. When it came, it added heavily to his sins against David, and because of it, none of the other stratagems had a chance at success.

  Which left Hugh only one route to redemption. He made it his mission to get David out of prison. He bent rules for the first time in his life. He threatened people, finagled, lied, cheated. He’d never done anything like that before. In the end, David walked out a free man.

  And yet the alien shimmer that had developed in the prisoner only deepened in the free man. Within a year, Hugh saw himself as Dr Frankenstein rather than Sisyphus. At last he caught sight of the monster that David had lived with for years. That moment’s glimpse convinced him that what he’d created out of the best possible motives had brought only destruction – and could never bring anything else.

  Death came as a release for him. He’d even thanked his killer.

  29

  SPRINGFIELD: After the council meeting

  Becky was impressed. A vote of six to five in Jimmy’s favour! She hadn’t realized just how formidable an enemy the man could make.

  The Coalition had been so certain of victory that they’d planned a party at the Hilton, Springfield’s only skyscraper; the restaurant on its top floor looked out over the whole of town. She insisted they go ahead with it. Jimmy might have strong-armed half of his aldermen into voting his way, but he hadn’t defeated them and he certainly hadn’t defeated her. She’d just have to find another approach. A band played. There was laughter, dancing, liquor, good things to eat. At least their demonstrations were going to make wonderful television. Who could help being moved by such enthusiastic masses parading all in green and their spontaneous outburst of ‘Let us vote’?

  The party stopped for the first scheduled programme.

  ‘Headlines in Springfield this afternoon,’ began the anchor. ‘At a well-attended meeting this morning, City Council members approved a contract to privatize the water utility at Springfield Light and Power. I have Mayor Zemanski here in the studio with me right now. Mayor Zemanski, how did the vote go?’

  Jimmy came on, looking sleek and pleased. ‘It was close – I have to admit that – but we’ve awarded the contract to UCAI of St Louis. I’m proud to be in a position to be able to bring Springfield into the twenty-first century . ’

  And that was it. The news went on to motorists who’d been arrested for failing to pay parking tickets. When the anchor launched into a theft at a toy store out at the White Oaks Mall, the protesters at the Hilton burst into an uproar of protest.

  ‘What about the radio?’ somebody shouted.

  ‘Same thing,’ came the reply.

  ‘Try another station.’

  ‘They’re all the same.’

  The party broke up soon afterwards.

  Back at home, Becky kept both television and radio on through dinner. The short interview with Jimmy was repeated several times. Beyond that, nothing. She went to bed early, exhausted, puzzled, hoping sleep might bring inspiration. At ten, the telephone rang.

  ‘Becky?’ It was Chuck Finch, the Coalition’s tame reporter on the Journal-Register.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Becky said irritably. ‘I want headlines tomorrow, Chuck. This is the story of a lifetime.’

  ‘I’m on indefinite leave of absence.’

  Becky pulled herself up on the pillows. ‘“On leave of absence”? Why? What’s that mean?’

  ‘I just wanted to let you know that you wouldn’t see what you want in the paper. It isn’t my fault, Becky. I did try. Really.’

  ‘You wrote the story?’

  ‘Felton thanked me’ – Felton was Chuck’s editor – ‘and put it aside without even looking at it.’

  Becky was too taken aback to speak.

  ‘That’s not all,’ Chuck said. ‘Morris Kline is dead.’

  The corner of Turner and Desplaines wasn’t far from Mrs O’Leary’s barn, the very place her cow kicked over the gas lantern that lit Chicago’s great fire in 1871. It killed hundreds of people and flattened whole swathes of the city. Nearly a century and a half later, that corner was once again dangerous at night, the area around it by now a barren semi-industrial leftover: low brick buildings and high arc lights, no place for a single person alone.

  It’s not far from the University of Illinois at Chicago though, and a group of their students – five of them stuffed into an ancient Volkswagen – were swinging around that corner when the car jolted. The student driving braked at once.

  ‘We hit somebody,’ she said, turning around. A hushed and worried argument followed while she focused the headlights on a shape on the road: the four others piled out of the car with her to investigate. Morris Kline’s head injuries had them all retching at once.

  The Chicago police told them that he’d been dead hours before the Volkswagen ran over him. Another car had smashed into him long enough ago for some of the blood around him to dry. The temperature that day had been so high that the tarmac was still hot to the touch. The flies were heavy. A car bumper and pieces from a shattered licence plate lay near the body.

  As city cops consoled the students, a country cop – fifty miles northwest, not far from Duck Lake Woods – was calling in a report about the still-smouldering relic of a stolen Honda Accord that turned out to have a missing bumper and a matching plate. Nobody really knows how many cars are stolen in and around Chicago, probably double the reported figure, which comes to something like seventy-five every day; the Honda Accord tops the list of models that car thieves go for. As Chuck told Becky, the police had little hope of finding out who’d stolen this one.

  A note in the dead man’s pocket read: ‘D Flaam, Comp Eng, 851 S Morgan, 08714413212.’ It’s only a short walk – if a dangerous one – from Taylor and Desplaines to South Morgan Street and the Computer Engineering department of the University.

  But the department had no records of anybody by the name of Flaam, no student nor staff nor alumni. The mobile phone number was out of service.

  Early the next morning, Becky sat down at her laptop to call an open meeting of the Coalition over sandwiches at noon that very day. Her email went out to all members and nearly two hundred supporters.

  Lillian’s family helped in the preparations, a couple of sisters, a couple of daughters, her son Hiram, and – because it was summer – a dozen of her grandchildren. They opened up the downstairs of Freyl House just as they had for the wedding reception,
but this time they pressed every chair into service to make rows of seats for an audience. They set out a side table where the caterers – Coalition supporters too and eager to help with this emergency – arranged pitchers of iced tea, glasses, platters piled high with sandwiches, fruit, cookies. People began arriving just before noon. Within ten minutes they’d filled the living room, and the food was beginning to disappear. More people crowded into the dining room. Nobody had expected so many. Not even Becky. They spilled out into the entryway.

  And they bristled with righteous indignation. Nothing binds a group so well. They greeted each other over one another’s shoulders, slapped each other’s backs, shared sandwiches, a camaraderie as strong as it had been for the Council meeting itself. They’d all spent hours on the Internet. They knew: Springfield blogs, threads, chat rooms boiled over with outrage at what had happened at that Council meeting – and what happened after it.

  ‘Zemanski poisons the water and gags the press,’ ran one.

  ‘Sabotage at a water plant, sabotage at the Old Capitol: Heil Hitler!’

  ‘Democracy? My ass!’

  Morris Kline fared no better. A dead man has no choice but to become what the living make of him, and Springfield had rendered its verdict: Jimmy had bribed him not to appear at the Old Capitol with evidence of corruption at the heart of city government. Rumours of the amount varied widely. What didn’t vary was the conviction that Morris had betrayed them and that he’d got his just deserts on a back street in Chicago.

  Not long after noon, Becky manoeuvred her wheelchair into the living room to address the crowd from behind a rosewood dining table that had once belonged to Governor Adlai Stevenson. Banks of windows to either side of her looked out over sweeping lawns that were green despite the drought. At her back stood a William Morris screen, patterned flowers as delicate and yet as forceful as she was herself.

  ‘We can’t even begin to prove our mayor bribed his own utility director,’ she began, ‘or that either man played a role in contaminating our water. We have no evidence. But it certainly looks as though Jimmy persuaded the Council aldermen to vote in his favour even while they knew it was likely to cost them the next election. And it looks as though he went on to persuade the press to present only his view of events, not what actually happened. If nothing else, this displays a very great deal of power in the hands of one man. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find myself thinking, “Jimmy Zemanski? He does these things by himself?”’

  The crowd began talking all at once, over each other, around each other, consternation now adding to their outrage.

  Becky let them chatter a moment, then she called out, ‘Anybody here go to Walmart?’ Several people glanced at each other and thought of Jimmy’s jokes about her fragile mental state. Even Helen frowned in worry. ‘Come on, children,’ Becky pressed. ‘’Fess up. Donna?’

  ‘I once bought a camera there,’ said Donna. She was sitting in the front row. ‘Becky, dear, are you all—’

  ‘Kate?’ Becky cut in.

  At the back of the room, Kate shrugged. ‘What choice have I got? They’re cheap.’ There were titters, part sympathy, mainly uncertainty and worry about Becky’s wits.

  ‘Ruth?’

  Ruth Madison was draped over a sofa. She’d considered sending a copy of Becky’s email to Jimmy, then decided against it. Teasing him would be more fun if the whole business came as a shock. She did love to shock him; they’d planned to meet this evening, and she was already working out her strategy. Her husband, the banker, sat beside her, his hand resting on her knee. She grimaced at Becky and shook her head. ‘Vast ugly store, shaky corrugated ceiling, mountains of junk, tinkly music. Nobody would go there willingly.’

  ‘How would you—’ Becky began.

  ‘Look, Becky,’ Ruth interrupted, ‘if you’re not feeling so—’

  ‘—compare them to Saudi Arabia?’

  Ruth grimaced again. ‘Saudi sells oil. Walmart sells sweatshop scrapings from China. No comparison.’

  ‘Isn’t it nice when people say just what you want to hear?’ Becky said. ‘So you’d be surprised, would you, Ruth, if I told you that Walmart is richer than all of Arabia put together?’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe a word of it.’

  ‘It’s no secret, Ruth,’ Helen said irritably. ‘The World Bank says so. You’ll find it in Fortune magazine. Our own UCAI in St Louis has just managed to shove Kuwait down a—’ She broke off, sucked in her breath. ‘Oh, Grandma, I see! Jimmy isn’t the power behind this. UCAI is. They turned the Council vote. They blacked out the media. Jimmy doesn’t have the muscle for that kind of thing. How could we have thought he did? He’s merely their puppet. And that means it’s us against them, just like Kate said. And there’s—’ She broke off again to glance at Becky. ‘Right so far?’ Becky’s face already glowed with pride, so Helen ploughed on. ‘Jimmy is their route into Springfield. Without him, they have no spearhead. Without him, they can’t take control of our water. He’s got to go.’

  ‘Impeach him!’ somebody cried. The crowd took it up, just as they’d taken up ‘Let us vote’ in the Old Capitol. Becky had to bang her gavel again and again much as Jimmy himself had had to do.

  ‘Judge?’ she said then.

  A man more ancient than she was struggled to his feet. He wore a flowered shirt. ‘I hate to tell you this, but impeachment is very slow, and it doesn’t necessarily mean removal from office.’ The voice was quavery but everybody knew he’d served more than fifty years on the Illinois Supreme Court. ‘Clinton was impeached. The alleged crimes took six years to come to light. The actual procedure of impeachment took six months. And he stayed on. Furthermore, Zemanski would have to be tried and convicted for high crimes and misdemeanours and, as Becky said, we have no evidence that he’s done anything untoward. Nor do we have that kind of time. Nor can we be certain impeachment would achieve our aim even if we succeeded. A recall election is possible, but we’d need evidence for that too.’

  The judge let his words sink in, then looked around at the audience, so glum now, so jubilant only moments ago. ‘Anybody want to hear a practicable alternative?’

  30

  ST LOUIS: Saturday

  ‘I always enjoy your company, Mr Mayor,’ Francis Slad said, ‘but what could be so urgent you have to come to my home on a Saturday?’

  Francis Slad’s house looked . Well, Jimmy had expected something radiating Christian virtue like his brother’s St Louis office. How could anybody characterize this place? An orgasm of money? It stood north of the city, its foundations apparently afloat above a minor tributary of the Mississippi that burbled along beneath it, tumbled out over stones in front of it and on into the vast reaches of the river that filled the horizon. The floors belonged in a European castle, varieties of stone intricately inlaid. The furnishings were tasteful billionaire: chandeliers, embroidered silk, marble and white oak, all of it oozing cash and rarity. Nobody lived within a mile. This was protected land; no housing allowed. But as a rich lady once said, laws like that are only for the little people, not the Francis Slads of the world.

  Francis was an elegant figure himself, a slender man with long fingers and a classic profile; he lounged in his chair, weight on one hip, one shoulder raised, brows knitted, a distracted air about him that Jimmy knew could switch without warning to a sarcasm that cut deep. Jimmy was amazed every time he saw the brothers together. How could these two have come from the same mother? Much less in the same birth? Sebastian dozed on a Renaissance settee, a face of well-fed contentment, fat legs spread wide, giant testicles bulging like a farmyard hog.

  Jimmy felt awkward, unsure where to put his hands, embarrassed by the half-moon glasses that hung around his neck. He’d intended his imitation of Francis as flattery, but somehow he felt just clumsy: not at all what he’d expected. ‘The last time Becky Freyl made trouble,’ he said, shifting in his well-padded chair, ‘your brother seemed distressed that I hadn’t contacted you at once. This time I came as so
on as I could. The Council vote didn’t stop her. She’s gearing up to overturn our contract.’

  Francis looked up in surprise. ‘You can’t mean that, Mr Mayor. Your Council voted it into law.’

  ‘I do mean it.’

  ‘Can she do that?’

  ‘It’s a thirty-day referendum.’

  ‘What does it entail?’ Francis asked. ‘Another petition? Another vote? And if she wins?’

  ‘The contract is null and void as soon as the votes are counted on September twenty-fifth.’

  ‘You said thirty days. The twenty-fourth is exactly thirty days away.’

  ‘The papers only got filed yesterday.’ Jimmy shook his head unhappily. ‘I didn’t hear about it until last night. Like I say, that’s why I’m here.’

  Francis sighed. ‘Mrs Madison is your informant, I presume.’

  Jimmy shifted uncomfortably. These guys were beginning to remind him of Becky. Did they know everything? An early evening of drinks and dinner together should have ended in a scramble to the bedroom before they’d finished dessert. But she’d got him talking so lyrically about the football stadium to come – and his hopes of buying the Springfield Rams to play in it – that he’d given no more than a passing thought to the firm upper thighs beneath her summer dress. Coffee came and went. Jimmy poured out brandy and talked on. But as he refilled her snifter, she brought her feet up onto the wide Eames chair, sat tailor fashion in it, knees splayed, those wonderful legs fully exposed. She wore no underwear. Jimmy didn’t even remember putting his snifter down. His right hand was revelling in its goal between those thighs, his left fumbling at his trousers.

  That’s the moment she chose to say, ‘Oh, Jimmy, I forgot. I went to an emergency Coalition meeting at Becky’s. Guess what, sweetie? You haven’t beaten her yet. A referendum comes next. They’re going to overturn your vote.’