Scorch City

by Toby Ball

  83.

  Godtown was again empty under hazy, yellow skies. Westermann’s detectives split into three pairs, fanning out over the two square blocks. Grip tracked the progress of the other two pairs of detectives, thinking that it was like watching people moving around an empty movie set, knocking on the doors of prop houses. No one was out. The whole neighborhood was functionally deserted. The knocks on doors sounded like rifle shots. Grip was tense, the heat suffocating.

  Grip and Morphy started with Mary Little’s row house. Grip fought to stay focused on the canvassing at hand, but his mind kept drifting to the scene from the previous night: Westermann touching Jane Morphy’s hip—a comfortable, familiar gesture; Westermann’s disappearance into Morphy’s house. Grip was exhausted. He’d been unable to sleep last night. What he’d seen troubled him, as did the question of what, if anything, he should do about it. He felt pulled in opposite directions by his loyalties to Morphy and to the lieut, neither of whom he was eager to betray, either through acts of commission or omission. Did Westermann’s actions forfeit his claim to Grip’s loyalty? Where did his, Grip’s, best interests lie? In the end, those two considerations had led him to decide that he had to tell Morphy, because Westermann didn’t deserve Grip’s silence, and because if Morphy found out about his wife and found out that Grip knew and hadn’t told him … Grip didn’t want to spend much time ruminating about what that would lead to. Now he had to find the right moment to let Morphy know.

  With this distraction, Grip banged on Mary Little’s door; hard, but not intimidating. No answer. Grip put his ear to the door, heard nothing. He banged again, identified himself as police. Still nothing. Morphy played with the window to the right of the door and found it locked. Grip turned, shook his head, and they descended the steps.

  They walked up the next set of steps, Grip wondering if maybe the best time to tell Morphy was now, when they were busy; when maybe Morphy’s reaction would be tempered by being in public and in the midst of his duties. Grip banged on this new door. Again no answer. Again he put his ear to the door and was met with silence. Again, he yelled that he was police and to please come to the door and open up. But nobody was home. Grip watched a stray German shepherd weaving down the street, a dead rat hanging limp in his jaws. Grip noticed Morphy watching, too, the dog dripping red foam from his mouth. Grip pulled his gun from its holster, but Morphy put a hand on his arm and Grip put it back.

  They looked up the block to see that the other two pairs of detectives had encountered similar results. No one was on the streets in Godtown; no one was home.

  Morphy waited for the big dog to turn a corner, put two fingers in his mouth, and let out a piercing whistle. The other detectives looked their way, and Morphy pointed to the street, calling a meeting. Grip pulled a pack of cigarettes, shook two free, gave one to Morphy.

  “Morph,” he said, “we need to talk for a minute when we get done here.”

  “Okay,” Morphy said, seeming unconcerned.

  They met the other detectives in the street and talked things over, though there wasn’t really much to say. The houses were empty. The people had to be at the church. Grip thought that with Koss and Maddox down at headquarters, they might be able to bully their way in past whoever was minding the door.

  They walked back to their prowl cars and drove them around to the front of the church. It was quiet on the street, though when the last engine was cut, Grip thought he could hear a low murmur, as if people were murmuring hushed prayers inside.

  Morphy and Grip went to the huge double doors while the other detectives took places behind their squad cars, guns drawn but not visible from the church. Grip pounded on the door. People were definitely inside. He put his ear to the door, but didn’t hear approaching footsteps. He banged again and yelled, “Police,” but still no footsteps. Instead, the murmuring ended, replaced by a moment of silence and then by a burst of noise, like dozens, if not hundreds, of people screaming. Grip felt the chill on his back. He looked at Morphy, who was chewing on his lip, eyes narrow, as if he was pondering some moderately difficult riddle. The detectives behind the cars shifted around, nervous and antsy.

  “The fuck?” Grip said.

  Morphy grabbed the door handle and shook it. Locked. The volume seemed to crest. They didn’t have a warrant; the only windows were stained glass.

  Grip and Morphy returned to the cars.

  “What the hell is going on in there?” Dzeko asked.

  “The fuck does it sound like?” Grip responded, edgy. “There’s a boatload of people in their screaming their asses off.”

  “Why?”

  Grip rolled his eyes and made a disgusted noise.

  “I’m just asking.”

  “There’s nothing here for us,” Morphy said. The other detectives nodded, eager to get out of there. They got back into their cars to make the trip back to Headquarters, having failed in their modest goal to talk to somebody—anybody.

  Grip drove several blocks in silence, waiting for Morphy to ask him what they needed to talk about. But Morphy didn’t say anything. He seemed lost in his thoughts, whatever those were. Grip realized that he could just let the whole thing drop, that Morphy might very well never ask him about it. But he’d made his decision and had enough conviction that he wouldn’t drop it just because it was going to be hard as hell.

  “Larry,” Grip said.

  “Yeah?”

  “About what I had to tell you?”

  “Okay.”

  “I shadowed the lieut last night.”

  Morphy looked at him, surprised. “You did what?”

  “Shadowed the lieut.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Long story. Ed Wayne’s got some bug up his ass that the lieut’s a commie.”

  “Is he?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe. He met with Carla Bierhoff …”

  “She’s a Red, right?”

  “Yeah. He met with her and that reporter Frings. Maybe others. I don’t know.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “I know, but that’s not the thing. I followed him after that meeting, you know, to see where he went next. So I did, and he ended up at your place.”

  Morphy looked over at Grip. “I wasn’t there last night.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “So what? What happened?”

  “He knocked on the door, Jane answered.” Grip paused, dreading the next part.

  “And?”

  “He went in. Didn’t come out in the half hour that I stuck around.”

  Morphy’s gaze kept steady. “Am I hearing you right?”

  Grip nodded.

  “That’s interesting,” Morphy said, sounding as if he’d just heard that someone had eaten his sandwich.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Grip asked. But Morphy was back to staring out the windshield, lost in thoughts that Grip was happy not to know.

  84.

  Carla had come to expect a certain pace to the activity in the shanties—a certain pitch to the noise, a certain number of people in the narrow alleys. This day, though, the shanties were different—busier, louder, but also something less tangible—an urgency she hadn’t sensed in the past.

  The air was beginning to develop the grasping heat of late morning. Humidity rose off the weeds and concrete, and Carla felt her skin flush, sweat dampen her forehead. A group of young men stood at the intersection of two alleys, passing a reefer between them. Carla recognized Billy Lambert, his face less swollen, among the group. It was funny, she thought, she hadn’t realized he was part of the Samedi group.

  She waved to the men and they mostly waved back, recognizing her from past visits. She walked on into the maze, surprised to see the number of people and the purpose with which they moved. She walked sideways, hugging the walls for long stretches to avoid colliding with others carrying small farm animals, children, baskets of goods. Chatter came in quick patois bursts, the pitch somehow alarming. Even the menace that she so often fel
t walking through the shanties—or any other desperately poor place—alone, even this was different. The young men who so often seemed dangerous were preoccupied, not even noticing Carla. The place smelled of smoke from pungent wood. It felt like a prelude to an evacuation—or a siege.

  Eunice Prendergrast met Carla outside her shack, her round face drawn with stress. Betty Askins’s mouth was a tight line. None of the other usual women seemed to be around.

  “Eunice, what’s happening here?” Carla asked.

  Betty Askins answered, her voice quavering as she tried to suppress her rage. “There’s a rumor going around that Father Womé dreamed that the Community burned to the ground. People are preparing to leave.”

  Eunice wouldn’t meet Carla’s eyes. “There’s a ceremony in the Square tomorrow. We’ll be asking the lwa for protection.”

  Betty gave an exasperated sigh and looked to Carla. “We need to do what we can today and tomorrow. Food, medicine, clothing; whatever we had planned, we need to do it before tomorrow night.”

  Eunice nodded. “After the Square, I don’t know what will happen.”

  A group of children slowed as they passed Eunice’s house, walking with backs straight and chins high. Once past, they ran again, laughing.

  “You’ve got them trained well,” Betty said.

  Eunice didn’t so much as smile. Carla made a mental list of contacts she’d have to make, people she would have to coax into action, to speed up their charitable efforts.

  “I’ll send someone back later,” Carla said, “with an idea about when different things can be scheduled. Then you two can get your people to spread the word. We’ll do everything we can before tomorrow night.”

  Eunice smiled grimly. “I’m worried about the Community. I’m worried this could end very quickly.”

  Carla nodded. “I know.”

  85.

  The crowd outside the interview rooms was even larger now, and boisterous. Cigarette haze was heavy; some of the night-shift cops were liquored up. Bodies were close; the room was claustrophobic and smelled of sweat.

  Westermann had walked out of the Chief’s office angry and frustrated. Maddox had maintained his cool, made no mistakes. The presence of Big Rolf had confused Westermann—initially because of the betrayal he’d felt, but even more perplexing was the way Maddox had treated Big Rolf: like a servant, without the deference he usually commanded. Westermann’s head throbbed with stress.

  Kraatjes, though, had been more sanguine. “He’s hiding something, Piet. I know you wanted to get the big admission or a slip or something, but he’s too smart and your father would have stopped him even if he’d started to slip. You could tell from the moment we walked in—he feels protected; doesn’t think there are consequences to stonewalling us. So he went with that not-of-this-world shit and what can you do? But he’s hiding something, and I wasn’t sure about that until today.”

  “You have a theory?”

  “No. Not yet. Maybe we’ll get something out of Koss. He strikes me as someone we might be able to persuade to say more than he intends to.”

  Koss was sitting straight in his chair, shoulders squared to the door, when Kraatjes and Westermann came in. Koss’s face was flushed with the heat. His lawyer, a normally fastidious man, had his jacket on the back of his chair and his shirt was already soaked through. Westermann and Kraatjes sat down opposite Koss and his lawyer. Koss nodded to Westermann; cocky, familiar. Kraatjes registered this, then introduced himself to Koss and then both himself and Westermann to the lawyer. In the cramped confines of the IR, Koss seemed even bigger, his shoulders barely contained by the collared shirt he wore.

  Kraatjes said, “I assume you’ve been briefed about why you’re here.”

  Koss nodded. “Sure. The girls they found on the bank.”

  “Three of them. One ID’d as Lenore, last name unknown,” Kraatjes said.

  “Right.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  Westermann leaned forward in his chair. “Say that again.”

  Koss shrugged. “I knew her. I knew Lenore. Not well, but I knew her.”

  Kraatjes said, “Explain how you knew her.”

  “Dr. Vesterhue, I don’t know if you know, but he did work with a lot of the whores for the church. We paid him to do it. I was the liaison. I paid him, helped out when necessary. I met a lot of the girls.”

  “Do you know where Vesterhue is?”

  Koss frowned. “Why? Is he missing?” Maddox had professed surprise, too. Westermann ignored the question. “These girls that you met, do you remember a Mavis Talley?”

  Koss’s eyes darted to Westermann. “Mavis? Sure, I know her, too. Again, not well. I just know who they are.”

  Kraatjes picked up again. “What’s Lenore’s last name?”

  Koss shrugged. “I wouldn’t have known Mavis’s if you hadn’t just told me.”

  “Were you aware that Lenore was very ill?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How about Mavis Talley?”

  Koss shook his head. “Dr. Vesterhue made his visits. I don’t remember him visiting anybody specifically because they were sick. Maybe … no, I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

  Westermann was aware of something at the back of his mind, a question that he needed to ask. He couldn’t pull it forward; too much else happening.

  Kraatjes asked, “Did you visit Mavis Talley at City Hospital and subsequently have her discharged?”

  “Mavis was in the hospital?” Koss made a good show of really thinking this one over. “I don’t believe I knew she was there. I can tell you for certain that I didn’t visit her.”

  “Did—,” Kraatjes began.

  Koss’s lawyer spoke up. “I’m afraid I have to interject. My understanding regarding this interview was that Mr. Koss was going to provide you with some help vis-à-vis the investigation into the young woman’s—”

  “Women’s,” Westermann said.

  “Thank you. Women’s deaths. This seems as though he is being treated as a suspect.”

  Kraatjes nodded. “I’m sorry if we have given that impression. We are trying to determine the nature of the church’s—and your client’s—relationship with these young women.”

  “Whores,” Koss said, and everyone looked at him.

  The lawyer’s eyes bulged. “I think that maybe this interview should end now.”

  Westermann wiped the sweat from his brow, concentrating on the table. Koss began to stand.

  “One last question?” Then, before the lawyer could object, Westermann asked, “Do you know a guy named James Symmes?”

  Koss smiled. “Sure. Jimmy Symmes. Of course. We were in the army together.”

  86.

  Warren Eddings sat slumped in a chair in the corner of a coffee shop in Little Lisbon that was, depending on one’s viewpoint, either famous or infamous as a gathering place for unionists and communists. The place was in decline, but it was still considered friendly ground, and Warren Eddings was as safe here as anywhere else in the City.

  Frings removed his hat and placed it on the next seat. The inside band was saturated with sweat; Frings’s hair dripped onto his collar. The owner, an ancient man with a tangled beard that hung to his sternum, brought over two tiny cups of espresso. A radio played tinny Gypsy music.

  Eddings looked drawn, as if he hadn’t slept in a week. He hadn’t shaved in days, his cheeks and upper lip showing stubble above his beard, which he’d bound with string.

  Frings cocked his head, trying to get Eddings’s eye. “Warren. What’s going on here?”

  Eddings looked up, lids almost too heavy to keep open. “It’s falling apart very quickly.”

  “The Community?”

  Eddings snorted, nodding.

  Frings said, “I really think that we can get through this.”

  “No. It’s not Truffant. It’s the Community. The people, they’re going to end it.”

  “I don’t foll
ow.”

  “You know how I’ve been trying to tell you that the Community, it’s not ours? We don’t run it; we just try to do what we can to keep it going?”

  “Yeah, I get that, Warren. You made it pretty clear.”

  “Mmmh,” Eddings said, looking into his cup. Frings took a sip of his and felt the heat in his face.

  Eddings said, “The Community, whatever else it is, it’s a religious community—superstitious and religious. People in the shanties are preparing to leave because of some dream that Womé had. A goddamn dream.”

  “I don’t—”

  Eddings banged his fist on the table. “Open your eyes, Frank. Look around. You think those people need any more convincing their world is going to come down around them? Truffant. Fucking crackers throwing Molotov cocktails at the shanties at night? This dream, it just confirms what they already know.”

  Frings nodded.

  Eddings took a deep breath, settling down. “They’re going to do one of their ceremonies at the Square tomorrow night. More superstitious bullshit, but maybe it will give them some courage; get them to try to make this work.”

  “You going to be there?”

  This drew a rueful laugh. “Yeah, I suppose I will. Those are our people, for better or worse, right?”

  “I’m going, too.”

  Eddings looked up. “Really?”

  “Womé more or less invited me to come.”

  “Okay.”

  They drank in silence for a few moments. Frings thought about what Eddings had said.

  “Warren?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where’s Mel? I don’t think I know where he went after our meeting last night.”

  “He’s safe.”

  “You can trust me, Warren. I kept him safe for days.”

  Eddings considered this. “He’s at the old rail yard, staying in the Black Comet Line.”

  87.

  Winston walked with his eyes cast to the sidewalk before him. He was troubled. He had his guitar slung over his shoulder in its jerry-rigged case. The intensity in his eyes had people on the sidewalk moving out of his way, though he was unaware of this, caught up as he was in his thoughts.