by Dan Stout
I unfolded the flier I’d taken from the imp-costumed teens and handed it to the cabbie.
* * *
The rally was well underway by the time I arrived, the hall full of lights and people, while outside a handful of wary patrol cops eyed the group of protesters on the far side of a barricade. I moved inside quickly, mindful of Bryyh’s admonition to stay out of the limelight.
Inside, the stage was dominated by Catherine CaCuri and a pack of doe-eyed sycophants. Far more interesting to me was the makeup of the crowd. Judging from the moderately layered clothes, a good portion of them were probably paying their tithe to their neighborhood boss. What surprised me was the number of attendees who seemed out of place. Middle- and upper-class types mingled with the locals, and there was a smattering of roughnecks and folks who’d clearly gone straight to the rally after getting off work. The variety of clothing indicated that they weren’t all 24th Ward people, and that CaCuri’s message resonated farther than I’d suspected.
I pushed my way to the far end of the hall and found a spot close to the stage, under an overhanging sign that pointed the way to the men’s rooms.
“Now this is an interesting development.” The voice in my ear oozed with self-satisfaction. I turned, and found myself next to a lanky human and a Mollenkampi, both dressed in layers and wearing press badges. I recognized Taran Glouchester and his photographer, the SOBs from the Union Record who’d branded me a rogue cop, then hailed me as a hero once the prevailing winds had changed. Glouchester smirked and the photographer carried her camera with the same ease that a soldier holds a rifle.
“Are you here in an official capacity?” he asked. “Or are you just showing your support for the CaCuris in the special election?”
I didn’t respond. Glouchester followed my gaze to the stage, where Katie CaCuri worked the crowd.
“Yeah, quite a show. Young Katie seems to be doing well, wouldn’t you say?”
“No comment.”
CaCuri wore more layers than she really needed for the neighborhood, and certainly more than she needed considering that she stood in the glare of the stage lights. But the fur trim set off her profile, and the thick coat over a light jacket made a statement about her connection to the working poor of all neighborhoods, to the cleaners and teachers and factory workers who kept the city alive. People who’d depended on the once-mighty oil fields, their production now halted; people who’d believed the discovery of manna would finally stop the city’s tailspin, until the AFS seized control of the strike. Her brother Thomas was nowhere to be seen. He clung to the wings, hiding in the pools of darkness. Someone who did his best work in the shadows. Just like me.
“This kind of thing isn’t your usual beat,” I said to Glouchester, not looking away from the stage.
“We’ll see.” He scanned the crowd, absorbing details. “More interesting now that you’re here. Let’s memorialize it. Klare?”
The photographer twisted, angling her body to pop a photo of me. Her eyes crinkled, and she let out a high-pitched whistle as she raised the camera again. “One more for the morning edition!”
I turned my back but she pivoted, moving around to my other side to get the shot.
The flashes got the attention of the crowd, and people turned to look. That in turn drew more attention, more flashes, more photos of the manna strike cop at a political rally. I needed to fade away before I did something that finally gave Bryyh a coronary.
Onstage, Catherine CaCuri peered in my direction.
“Can we get some lights on the crowd, please?” No lights came up, and she repeated herself. “I mean it, put some lights on this crowd.” She pointed at the sea of upturned faces. “This is Titanshade’s true real heart and soul, right out here.” She appealed to the very crowd she was praising, “Am I right?”
The crowd rumbled, and a series of spotlights came to life. Shading my eyes, I could see that they were set fixtures that weren’t on a swivel. Whatever she was up to had been preplanned.
She scanned the faces in the crowd. Her delight in the spotlight seemed genuine enough. I wondered how long she’d been craving the attention, pulling strings from the background and grinding her teeth as the puppets got the applause.
“Out in this crowd we have people from Old Orchard and Camden Terrace. People from the Estates and the Skytrails. We have—” She cut off, staring at me. Then she broke out in a wide grin. “We have a true hero here tonight. Friends, say hello to the man who helped ring in the new age of Titanshade. Say hello to the man who was there when the drills struck manna!”
The crowd cheered, and people in my vicinity edged away, letting the spotlight settle on me.
“Come up here, Detective!” Her amplified voice boomed out, “Come on!”
There was no way I was going up onstage, but I also didn’t know what to do. I waved at everyone, immediately regretting the motion as the sight of my mangled fingers set them off again.
Crowds love two- and three-syllable cadences, and for a brief, vertiginous moment, the walls echoed with chants of “Car-ter, Car-ter!”
Katie’s grin fell ever so slightly as the crowd chanted my name. She raised her hands, settling them down. Her words from our earlier meeting came back to me: Our base loves you.
“That’s the kind of citizen Titanshade needs,” she said. “Not demanding VIP treatment. A man who wants to get the job done, and doesn’t need special recognition to do it.” Ignoring the fact that special recognition was exactly what she was giving me, but the crowd went along with it.
Beside me Klare snapped more photos, the spotlight reflecting off her polished head plates as her partner grinned and watched from the crowd. I did my best to keep my features neutral, and listened to CaCuri whip the crowd into a frenzy.
“So how do we bring that attitude to the halls of power?” Katie spoke with a finger raised, answering her own question. “By paying attention to the details. By insisting that your politicians, your leaders, your public servants prioritize Titanshade businesses and goods. Titanshade’s citizens deserve to be treated as priority number one.” The slightest twist of her hand, and the raised finger turned from questioning to insistent, a statement of priority. The crowd began to cheer.
Speaking louder she declared, “Titanshade . . .” Hand still raised, she pulled the finger back into a clenched fist, extended into the air. “Titan First!”
The applause and cheers morphed into wild support and adulation. She had them. I was forgotten, along with the milquetoast politicians at her side. Catherine CaCuri was a natural star, and she beamed as cheers echoed in the hall: “Tri-ple C! Tri-ple C!”
Katie stalked back and forth across the stage, one hand cradling the mic, the other outstretched to the crowd as she called out, “How many roughnecks in the audience tonight?”
There was a rousing cheer, which I knew was louder than the numbers might indicate. If my old man had been any indication, a typical oil field roughneck made about twice as much noise as a normal person. Three times, if they didn’t wear their hearing protection often enough.
“And how many of you got laid off when the Squibs started buying up the oil wells?” Again there were yells, more subdued this time.
“You were all told that you’d get jobs on the wind farms, yeah?” She nodded, biting her lip. “I know that’s what they told me. ‘We’ll take care of our roughnecks,’ they said. ‘We won’t forget who built this town,’ they said.” Katie scowled, her eyes flashing. “And now that they found the manna, where are the jobs? Not on any wind farm, that’s for damn sure.”
True enough, the Squibs’ foreign investment was on the back burner, now that the AFS had declared the fields a national security issue. It would be fought in court, but in the meantime, there was very little work to be had on the ice plains.
Her voice dripped with disappointment. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. �
�There was a time when Titanshaders were known as roughnecks,” she said. “We were known as the toughest sons of bitches in the civilized world!” Cheers again. Everyone likes to romanticize their own history.
“So why are we rolling over now?” She paced the stage, a wild animal behind bars, with a glint in her eye that said that maybe it wasn’t her who was in the cage. “Why are we letting the soft southerners tell us how to run our own house?” Katie pivoted, pointing into the audience. “If someone breaks into your home, to steal your property? What do you do?” She didn’t give anyone time to shout a coherent answer. “I’ll tell you what I’d do—I’d kick their ass and send them packing!”
The crowd surged, cheering. I had to admit, it sounded good. But the people stealing the manna strike were in the halls of government, on City Council and the AFS, not the streets of Titanshade. I tried to tune out the rhetoric and focus on the reason I’d come: looking at the crowd through Jane’s eyes. I searched for whatever it was she’d been fascinated by, the thing that had driven her to draw these people on buildings and in notebooks.
“If they won’t do it for us,” Katie pointed over her shoulder, back toward the Mount and the wealthy city center, “then we’ll have to do it for ourselves!”
Cheers again, raised fists mimicking her earlier gesture. I wondered what drew Jane’s eye to the CaCuris and their followers. Was it fear, hatred, or an artist’s desire for empathy? I also wondered how the crowd would have reacted to her, a newcomer, attending a rally like this one.
“They’re coming in from Fracinica.” Katie gave the AFS capital a sneering sibilance. “They’re coming in from Norgaerev.” Even the longtime ally of Titanshade sounded sinister on Katie’s lips. “They’re coming in from everywhere, like a lottery winner’s new best friends. And why did they come? To take your jobs. To take your homes. To take your share of the manna.”
Boos and hissing from the crowd. I pictured them confronting Jane after hearing Katie’s speech, imagined the insults and objects they’d hurl at her. Or would they refrain, holding their real anger for the politicians responsible for freezing the oil drilling, and the resultant lack of steady paychecks?
“The Squibs. The Fracinicans.” Katie listed her chosen scapegoats with loathing and disdain. “The Therreau. The newcomer leeches and manna-swipes. When you see them in the street, in your stores, when you see them in the bars and in food pantries, you tell them . . .” She raised her voice to a scream, “You tell them Titanshade is for Titanshaders!”
Fist raised, a symbol of defiance, the long tail of her coat whipped around her and the crowd ate up every minute of it.
She stormed off the stage, past the flustered politicians, and into the role of professional fearmonger.
To my right, Glouchester grinned at his photographer. “Did you get a shot of Mister Popular in the spotlight?”
I winced, imagining what Captain Bryyh would say about my night out. The photographer nodded, and gave me a friendly nudge with her elbow—a polite gesture from an opponent who knew she had me beat.
Glouchester patted his belly and cackled. “Too bad Thomas hasn’t beaten anyone to death in public for a while. That would make this little gathering more interesting.”
The wording caught my attention. “Did you say in public?”
The reporter wiped a hand across his mouth, as though he’d just finished a burger on the run. “Oh, yeah. No one talks about it, but that’s the only serious time he’s done. He was ten, a nasty little shit even back then. Went everywhere with his twin sister and their older brother, Roger. Real tight family, loyal, best of friends, all the usual bullshit. Until one day Roger started picking on Thomas.”
“He hadn’t before then?” I asked. “Doesn’t sound like most big brothers I’ve known.”
“Maybe.” Glouchester scowled. He didn’t like to have his stories interrupted. “Maybe the brother was only big in age, not size. Could be that day Roger said exactly the wrong thing. Regardless, young Thomas didn’t take well to it. He got his hands on his brother and started swinging.” The newsman mimicked a slow-motion roundhouse punch. “And he didn’t stop until dear old Roger was dead.”
I whistled, low and appreciative, to encourage him to continue.
“It was such a vicious killing, the City Attorney tried Thomas as an adult,” he said. “Only one thing saved him. Ten-year-old Catherine stood in court, in front of all those adults, and testified that their beloved brother Roger had been out of control. She swore Thomas acted in self-defense, that he saved both their lives. She lied so well he got away with monitoring and probation. It’s worked out for them since then, the brains and the monster on a leash.” He gestured at the rally hall, the crowds who’d filled it. “Katie and Thomas united. And there ain’t no living person coming between those two.”
I chewed my lip, considering that story. Something didn’t quite line up. Glouchester mistook my expression for shock.
“Didn’t know about that, huh? Don’t beat yourself up. The files are sealed and it was a long time ago. But hey, she probably saved her brother’s life! A good deed, if you ignore the part about covering up her older brother’s murder.”
The crowd was dispersing, the occasional cheers of “triple-C” still being thrown about. Klare lifted her camera, snapping a few shots of the rapidly emptying hall and Titan First banners slumping toward the stage boards.
“Let’s get backstage.” Glouchester bounced on the balls of his feet, scrapping for another fight. “I got some questions to hit Katie with that’ll get some great reaction shots. C’mon!” The two of them jogged away, leaving me in a rapidly dwindling sea of Titanshaders, each one eager to trade their fears for anger, and hang the result on the nearest scapegoat. But just because people are afraid of something, does that make it less real? The drilling freeze and manna seizure were concrete facts, and had pushed the city into a delicate, dangerous balance: unable to reap the benefits of the windfall, yet prevented from going back to life as normal. The manna strike had been a lifeline thrown to a city full of desperate people, and now it seemed like it was being pulled away just when it was within our reach.
I wandered out of the rally building and past the barricade, the police holding back protesters chanting angry slogans of love and acceptance. I scanned the faces, quickly turning my back when I saw a woman who might have been Talena near the front, leading the cheers and pumping her fist, a stark counterpoint to the figure Katie CaCuri had cut onstage. If it was Talena, I didn’t want her to think I’d been there to support a mobster’s political aspirations. I also needed time to process what I’d heard. I didn’t like the CaCuris, and I certainly didn’t trust them. They were preying on fear, but those fears stemmed from real issues. People were already suffering because of the drilling freeze, and even Gellica had admitted that there was talk in the AFS of nationalizing the manna strike. Was it better to have Paulus and the AFS running roughshod over the city, or a home-grown street thug in power?
I walked the streets as I thought, winding mountwise toward the warmer neighborhoods at the city’s core. I considered heading home or to the Bunker, but the thought of either was unappealing after listening to the frenzied cheers of CaCuri’s supporters. Especially after I’d found myself wondering if they were right. So I went with my always-present backup plan: I looked for someplace I could buy a drink.
13
WHEN AN ANIMAL IS WOUNDED and needs to regroup, it retreats to its den, a place where it feels safe licking its wounds and plotting revenge. Me? I go to a bar.
My favorite stop, Mickey the Finn’s, was a bit of a hike, but I figured that anyplace that had beer and sandwiches would do in a pinch. So I slipped into a middle-of-the-road place on the south side of Planchette Avenue and took a seat at a wobbly two-seat table with a view of the door.
Perched on my chair, I laid out my notebook and flipped through the pages. It was an old habit drive
n half by hope that the answers would magically reveal themselves to me, and half from the knowledge that the truth was in there waiting for me to find it, buried under a half ton of lies, deceit, and distractions.
But in the pages of scribbles I found only the story of a forgotten woman in an alley, murdered and mutilated while no one could be bothered to remember her name. Maybe she knew an artist, maybe she was in an alley frequented by drug dealers. Or maybe she simply got caught up in the gang wars and political schisms that seemed to be tearing the city apart.
When the waiter appeared I gave my order and scanned the bar. The group across from me had cleared out, giving me a view of a corner table I’d overlooked when I entered. Detective Hemingway was there, beer in hand as she flipped though page after page of carbon copies. She already had smudged fingers and a dark mark on her nose where she’d absentmindedly scratched an itch. I had a minute to myself before my drink arrived, and if I didn’t say anything, it was only a matter of time before she spotted me. So I headed over. It’s always better to feel like a loser on your own schedule, rather than someone else’s.
* * *
It’s been pointed out more than once that I have a limited set of people skills. I can bore a killer into incriminating himself. I can cajole a blackmailer into revealing how they obtained the dirt on their victim. And I could irritate friends and family enough that they stop inviting me to parties. But I’m not so great at talking to people who are angry at me. And Hemingway? She was angry.