His attention was quickly diverted by shouts of “FIRE!” And it seemed out of nowhere flames quickly began devouring the top of the building. He had whipped out his sketch pad and begun drawing as quickly as he could, but the deafening sound of explosions and the chaos that quickly unraveled in the streets prompted him to turn tail and run for dear life.
Not knowing what other acts of violence might be in store for the city that day, he dashed back to his hotel, packed his items so quickly he practically broke his ankle in the process when he tripped over a piece of luggage, and skedaddled, feeling as if at any moment one of the surrounding buildings he was passing on his galloping horse might erupt into flames and consume him like dry kindling.
He breathed a sigh of relief once he had Sivingdel far behind him, but it seemed that no sooner had he achieved something truly approaching tranquility when he found the bashed-in remains of a corpse, both of whose hands had been severed. While he couldn’t be sure, he believed he had seen that man visit the police station a time or two with a partner looking really official and putting all the local cops on edge.
He almost got out his sketch pad, but a combination of disgust and a strong desire for self-preservation told him he needed to keep moving. He had ridden through the night and arrived in Selgen at around 4 a.m.
He went straight to his humble office, where he had a small room in the back, and went to sleep immediately.
That night his dreams—if nightmares can thus be called—made sleep a torment rather than a relief. He saw the body count in Sivingdel growing higher and higher. And he awoke after a mere five hours of sleep, energized by terror.
He then spent the rest of the day going around in circles in his mind as to what he would do with his most recent sketches. At Senator Hutherton’s behest, which involved a fee, he had been putting them front and center on the first page of The Republic’s Gazette each time he came back from Sivingdel so that he could bring as much attention to the drug peddlers as possible.
But something told him he didn’t want to put Sam Higler’s face on the front page of his paper. Evening came and found him still contemplating the issue, so he went outside for a walk, hoping to arrive at a resolution no later than by the time he returned to his office.
As he was nearing his office, he saw a courier bringing that day’s paper from Sivingdel. Every morning, numerous couriers left Sivingdel on swift ponies carrying copies of the city’s two most prestigious papers—The Sivingdel Times and The Sivingdel Gazette—to the capital city.
Randalls flagged down the courier and promptly purchased a copy of each.
He was dumbstruck when he saw the headline from The Sivingdel Times implicating the mayor in the attack as a means to terminate an investigation into his own criminal activities.
His eyes began voraciously devouring every article in each paper relating to the police station attack, glad to have an excuse to delay his own pending decision.
Once he had read every pertinent article, he set them aside and gazed long and hard into the sketch of Sam Higler.
“Who are you, Mr. Higler?” he asked out loud in his empty office.
A chill then traveled down his spine as he realized he likely had the only existing sketch of Mr. Higler. The sketch at the police station surely had been burned in the fire, and unless the police had moved exceptionally quick and sent a copy to the prosecutor’s office—which Randalls greatly doubted—then this was it.
Did he see you?
He almost jumped backwards as the thought hit him. Had there been a slight glance from side to side, like that of a wild animal in captivity gazing back at those surveying him from the safety of a barred fence? Had he been seen?!
He couldn’t say for sure. He felt it was unlikely, but if there was any chance—any chance—that Mr. Higler had seen him, wasn’t Randalls living on borrowed time with a quickly approaching expiration date?
Then a thought occurred to him. There was a middle ground. If he plastered this face onto the front page of The Republic’s Gazette tomorrow, he may as well prepare his own funeral arrangements.
But if he did nothing with the sketch, his murder would likely never be solved.
The Capital Museum purchased a copy of each of the top fifty newspapers daily and archived them. With Senator Hutherton’s financial backing, he had managed to print more papers, advertise more, and increase his sales, and he had just recently made it into the top fifty.
He began writing out a potential title—not a headline, not by a long shot, but a title to a small article that would go almost in the very back of the newspaper.
“Recent Mugshots from Sivingdel Police Station”
“The following sketches were made within the last several weeks at Sivingdel Police Station. A brief description of the suspected crimes is under each.”
Yes, he liked that.
“Attempted bribery, SISA violations, running a criminal enterprise.”
That could go under Sam Higler’s sketch.
He then began writing something else on a separate piece of paper: “If I die or disappear, the perpetrator is Sam Higler, the man likely responsible for the burning of the Sivingdel Police Station.”
He folded it up and put it inside his desk under some files.
He picked up Sam Higler’s sketch again, mesmerized in spite of his fear, like a man ogling a rattlesnake rather than running for safety.
He was not sure of the reason for his fascination, but if it had been explained it would have made perfect sense.
His skillfully guided pencil had captured the birth of a monster.
Chapter 32
When Righty was in tenth grade, a special guest had visited his school. It was a professor from the country’s top law school, located in the capital city. The visit had been part of a program where twice a week a professional in high standing in his trade or profession had visited the school to talk about various aspects of his job to help the young students to know what career paths might be best for them.
Righty remembered the professor explaining the onerous task of grading law school exams, although he admitted it was done only twice a year and perhaps served as a pleasant interruption to an overly cushy job. The professor described in great detail the mountains of white papers that started without a speck of red on them only to look like the scene of a bloodbath by the time the professor’s dreaded red pen had finished a couple weeks of frenzied slashing.
Righty supposed he was as close to sharing this professorial experience as he ever would be as he tucked himself away in his cabin with several small canisters of red ink available, prepared to make marks with far more sinister implications than the point deductions of the professor. Righty pulled up a chair, pulled out the first stack of papers, put them on his desk, and readied himself to peruse in infinitesimally small detail all the paperwork the late Chief Lloyd Benson had unwittingly bequeathed to him.
He had feared the chief’s notes would be written cryptically, perhaps using number designations or other code to refer to the various people he had dealings with in Righty’s organization, with further encryption used to refer to the nature of his dealings with these individuals.
So, his surprise could not have been greater when, the first page read as follows:
“Operation Brass:
“Crabs – arrange for shipment from Tats at specified time and place; arrest all, including Crabs for appearances; later Crabs will testify.”
Righty’s blood began boiling immediately. He continued reading, resisting an urge to go mount Harold and track Crabs down with an aim to kill him before the hour expired. After all, he was unlikely to find Crabs alone, and he wanted to make each upcoming trip to Sivingdel was as productive as possible.
A few hours later, much of the picture came together. Crabs had been busted a few months ago and threatened with multiple SISA charges, which, the police had assured him, the prosecutor would file and obtain convictions on, most likely resu
lting in a series of consecutive sentences that would put Crabs away for the rest of his miserable life.
He had flipped and begun revealing every last detail of the organization the chief had wanted to know. Fortunately for Righty, Crabs had little to tell besides the fact he went by “Mr. Brass,” had only appeared in the criminal underworld a short time ago, and had rapidly ascended to power due to a combination of his doctorate in fisticuffs and his nearly inexhaustible supply of top-notch Smokeless Green.
“Source?” the chief had written at the margin in this section.
Righty spent all of that morning going over the papers, forsaking his customary three hours of morning sword practice. But he felt it was justified, given that he was in a race to find and kill the traitors in his organization before they caused further harm.
He read all afternoon and deep into the evening. What he ascertained was that it had started with several of the lowest retailers getting arrested and threatened in a manner similar to Crabs’ situation, after which they had flipped, which ultimately led to Crabs’ arrest.
It was very unnerving to Righty how skillfully the police had managed to pull these arrests off and sway his men’s loyalty without word getting out. More disturbing still was the fact these men feared prison more than Mr. Brass. If things went his way, that situation would soon reverse itself.
Righty read until nearly 10 p.m., at which point he returned home.
The next day, he started at 5 a.m., determined for decisive action later on that evening.
By the time he was nearing completion of the documents, it seemed there were over two dozen people in the organization who had been compromised.
But before he could begin to formulate a plan of action for dealing with these traitors he saw the most titillating bit of information yet: George Hoffmeyer.
Mr. Hoffmeyer had faded in and out of his mind but had never completely vanished even though it had been years since he last saw him. His thinly concealed offer to Righty to provide money laundering services shortly after Righty reported the barrels of seed missing from Roger’s Grocery Store had unnerved him, and he felt Mr. Hoffmeyer was almost certainly aware that either Righty or Roger had stolen the seeds due to their having become illegal and, hence, valuable.
And it would only take a minimal amount of snooping to determine which of the two was the more likely culprit: Roger, who had continued in the store he had owned for years and who could almost always be seen toiling away in there, or Righty, a man who had acquired his own store shortly after the seeds were lost and was able to keep the store afloat without almost ever bothering to show up and work there.
But Righty had always figured it would be best to simply leave Mr. Hoffmeyer alone unless he ever discovered he was snooping on Righty.
Righty began reading voraciously to discover what business Mr. Hoffmeyer had in the late chief’s notes.
“Complains market share steadily decreasing ever since his distributor, Heavy Sam, was pulverized by the brutal Mr. Brass.”
Righty’s blood turned cold. Mr. Hoffmeyer had been Heavy Sam’s connection?!
For a moment, he couldn’t have been more surprised if he read the name of one of his former drinking buddies, but then it quickly began to make sense. Mr. Hoffmeyer would have legitimate international business connections, since he had been a major inventory supplier for years and had many of his products imported.
He was obviously getting Smokeless Green legitimately before SISA—it had been compliments of his seeds that Righty was now a multimillionaire. When SISA was passed, he had obviously made the decision to keep selling Smokeless Green, and his source had agreed to continue supplying it to him—that could be the only explanation for how he could get it at quantities sufficient to supply the entire city before Righty had taken over the market.
But where does Smokeless Green come from?
Righty had given the question little thought before, but it now enticed his curiosity greatly. Mr. Hoffmeyer would probably know, since his source was almost certainly foreign.
Righty felt great inward distress as he decided what he was going to do about Mr. Hoffmeyer. He had instinctually liked the man from the first moment he met him. He seemed a bit sneaky, but perhaps only in the sense he didn’t mind breaking the law, not in the backstabbing sense.
Could we possibly work together?
His recent decision to have Robert go to Sivingdel and establish a new store was clear evidence he realized he had to expand his legitimate areas of business or forever be burying money in the ground and living like a pauper with his family for fear of being asked where his money was coming from.
Perhaps Mr. Hoffmeyer could greatly accelerate the process and create numerous businesses for him in a matter of weeks.
But Mr. Hoffmeyer is in the game. And he knows who you are. He knows what town you live in. He could easily find out where your house is . . . where your family is . . . .
Righty noticed his fists were clenched.
Heavy Sam tried to kill you, and Mr. Hoffmeyer was Sam’s source. Doesn’t that mean Mr. Hoffmeyer gave the order?
Not necessarily; maybe Sam was just acting on his own.
But their interests were aligned—killing you would have meant Sam kept his market and Mr. Hoffmeyer kept the sales going.
The more he thought about it, it just didn’t seem there was any way he and Mr. Hoffmeyer could play in the same sandbox.
Then, a more terrifying thought came to him.
If he knows Mr. Brass and Richard Simmers are one and the same, all he has to do is leak your name to the police or press, and there won’t be a hole in the world dark enough and deep enough for you to crawl into.
A lot of policemen would probably like to avenge their fallen comrades.
And in the process, Mr. Hoffmeyer would get his city back.
Chapter 33
When Tats had left his house the afternoon he was to go chain the doors to the police station shut in broad daylight—for what end, he did not know, but he had a hunch it wasn’t to kick off a lock-in party—he had left one of his swiftest horses tied up at home stocked with everything he would need for the three-week vacation mandated by Mr. Brass.
This included a few sets of clothes, provisions for him and the horse, and, most importantly, money.
As he set off for Sodorf City, it was with a much different mentality than the one he had last time. On that occasion, he had been charged with tracking down his sister, whom he hadn’t seen in years, in a city he had never seen, and all to broker a business arrangement that he knew would make or break him in the eyes of Mr. Brass.
He had been apprehensive, unconfident, and just eager to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible.
While he certainly had his share of nervousness this time, it was of a wholly different nature. He didn’t really think of this so much as a trip to go see Sodorf City. This was a trip to go see Rose.
While perhaps the pulse of any man in his early twenties will accelerate rapidly at the prospect of an amorous encounter, several factors coalesced in his mind like large clouds over a prairie turning into a tornado of unbridled passion.
One day ago, he had been sitting in a nearly pitch-black cell facing the strong possibility of forty hard years in a similar dungeon with nothing to fill his days but the memories of his short life as a free man.
Now, he had a million falons in his saddlebags as spending money while he set off to unashamedly rent the object of his desires. A different man might have struggled beneath the weight of devising the best strategy for conquering his love. A bouquet of fresh flowers, an exquisite necklace, the right phrase—like arrows in a quiver he would fire them wildly at the heart he sought to make his, hoping that one would fly true.
But Tats had the luck of being an enamored with one available to purchase, and thus he galloped southwestward with the confidence of a consumer rather than the apprehensions of a suitor.
Alas, his mi
nd was not all clear. Perhaps, Rose would decide he was too complicated a patron for her, regardless of his ability to pay. After all, it was surely not a nightly occurrence for a client to propose marriage and later talk her into showing him the residence of her frightening employer, in the process of which she ended up nearly being kidnapped and was then a forced guest at her boss’s home.
Rose may have considered that to be a sign her luck was running out in the flesh profession or that it was at least time to seek a change of venue.
Every such thought served as a more powerful stimulant to Tats’ senses than Smokeless Green had during his last trip, and while perhaps the effect was slightly reduced for his horse, Valiant, the noble animal seemed to sense his master’s eagerness to arrive at their destination and accommodated him by adding some celerity to his gait.
Tats slept maybe five hours that night, mostly for the benefit of Valiant, and in the morning they were off with the rising sun.
That evening, Tats entered the city, heart palpitating more quickly now, but he couldn’t help but notice that, if it seemed the city had an energy to it last time, that was nothing to what he sensed now. New businesses were springing up everywhere, and he didn’t think he saw a single vacant building.
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