The Blue Death

by Joan Brady

  ‘Only forty-eight hours ago somebody made a pretty clumsy attempt to do the world a favour.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘I do hope that’s not the kind of work you lay claim to these days.’

  ‘Most certainly not. We trust that Mr Marion is recovering well.’

  Mr Huxtable crossed his hands behind his back again and walked on. For a few minutes the only sound was the soft warble of bluebirds. A pair of them flitted in and out of the trees.

  ‘What I don’t get,’ Jimmy said, ‘is how come David Marion is alive at all.’

  ‘We do not like to fail, Mr Z. On the other hand, we cannot always succeed. It’s the height of vanity to assume we can. At this point in time, our failure has cost us dear, but the most we can say is that the contract is under intensive administrative review.’

  Jimmy was shocked. ‘Jesus, the Freyls? You’re holding off because of the Freyls? Do they reach even to guys like you?’

  Mr Huxtable made a gurgling noise of disapproval. ‘Oh, my goodness, Mr Z. Special people are, one might say, our speciality. We are monitoring the situation very closely, and we understand there has come to be some urgency in the matter. But do let me emphasize, Mr Z, that we do not like bulls in china shops. To act precipitately would be to become a bull in a china shop. You understand me, I trust?’

  ‘Loud and clear.’

  ‘Nor will you object if we contact you in the near future?’

  ‘Christ, no. I’ll be sitting on pins and needles. I just hope it won’t be too long.’ They walked on a little further. ‘Anything you’d like me to do while I wait to hear from you?’

  ‘Hear from me? Oh, no, no, you won’t hear from me. Not from me personally.’

  ‘Yeah? Who then?’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly say, but we’re all the same, Mr Z. We’re all faceless.’

  Jimmy laughed. ‘I wouldn’t call you faceless.’

  ‘You just don’t know me well enough.’ They strolled on a few minutes in silence. ‘You had a question about Mr Morris Kline too?’

  ‘Did I?’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Oh, I think so. Yes, Mr Z. I think so.’

  25

  SPRINGFIELD & CHICAGO: The third Monday in August

  ‘Morris!’ Jimmy said, opening the front door to his lakeside house, shaking Morris’s hand, retaining it a moment in both of his. ‘Thanks for coming out all this way. Jesus, it’s hot outside. Come in, come in. Can I get you something to drink? What’ll you have? Scotch? Bourbon? I make a mean Martini.’

  Morris braced himself for a difficult and embarrassing negotiation; a warm handshake and an offer of a drink was the opening he’d feared. It wasn’t yet four in the afternoon. He accepted a glass of expensive mineral water and ice, followed Jimmy into his living room and sat – at Jimmy’s insistence – in an original Eames chair that Jimmy had spent a year locating in Houston and paid a small fortune for.

  Jimmy sat opposite him in an imitation Eames, gave his half-moon glasses a twirl, took a sip of straight Scotch in a chunky glass and began to explain the subtleties of manufacture that divided the real chair from the fake. He could see that Morris knew he was only laying ground. ‘Listen, Morris,’ Jimmy said then, ‘I owe you an apology. You see, it was all so unexpected.’

  ‘An apology?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I do. I was wrong. I admit it. I should never have asked you for your resignation. I’d just assumed you saw this UCAI contract as the opportunity I did. When you didn’t, I flew off the handle. Christ, it’s not as though you have no right to your opinion. You’re the guy with a right—’

  ‘Jimmy,’ Morris interrupted, ‘it took you several days to fire me.’

  ‘I’m a slow burner.’ Jimmy frowned, shrugged, gave a sheepish smile. ‘I’m pretty new to this mayor gig. Sometimes I . well, I overestimate who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing here. Look, Morris, what I’m trying to say is that I think you may have been right. I’m sitting on the fence here, and it ain’t comfortable. I mean, shit, I’m not a systems analyst and I know fuck-all about utilities, but I’ve learned a few things that make me nervous. Morris, I want you to come back as Director of Springfield Light and Power.’

  Morris set his mineral water on a shiny surface beside him, studied the ice in it, then stood up. A bribe: exactly what the handshake and the offer of a drink had led him to expect. At least it hadn’t taken more than ten minutes to get to it. On Thursday morning – three days from now – Jimmy was all too likely to lose the Council vote on UCAI’s contract for Springfield’s water, and Morris was the reason why. Media coverage had been wide and generally against privatization; most of it touted Morris as the Coalition’s star witness.

  ‘Jimmy, I’m going to tell people just what I told them before,’ Morris said. ‘Selling the public’s water to a private company is a crime against their rights as citizens.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Morris. You think I don’t know that’s what you intend to do? Sit down, goddamnit. Now that Hugh Freyl is dead, you’re the only honest man I know. I want you to say what you think.’

  ‘I shall.’

  ‘The thing is, if there’s solid evidence one way or the other – something definitive – I want you to know about it first. I know you’ll judge it fairly. I know that if there’s something wrong you’ll see it and say so, even if it turns out to be your own assessment of the situation. I have to find out what really happened to contaminate the town’s water a couple of weeks ago. So do you.’

  ‘Not easy when you’ve denied me access to lab results and computer records.’

  Morris’s degree was in industrial technology; he’d gone straight from Illinois State University into senior management at the Snohomish public utility. He and Jimmy met on an airplane a few years ago, a flight from London to Chicago that spent hours on the runway at Heathrow before it left and hours more circling O’Hare before it landed. They both remembered the experience fondly: Jimmy’s easy charm and legal background, a lot of liquor, Morris’s intelligence and unexpected flashes of humour. Both were from poor backgrounds, and they’d grown maudlin about the opportunities that America offers to guys like them. They’d stayed in touch ever since.

  ‘I need your help, Morris,’ Jimmy said, ‘but I can’t release any information to you unless you come back to the utility.’

  ‘What happened to the need for higher security clearance?’

  ‘I’ll get around it.’

  ‘You just never stop, do you?’

  ‘Christ! I’m not trying to bribe you,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’m relying on your integrity here. I’m worried.’ Jimmy leaned forward, his worry abruptly palpable. ‘I bet you think that contamination didn’t have anything to do with sewage.’

  ‘The hospital records make that fairly clear.’

  ‘I bet you also think there’s something fishy about the power cut taking down only the new control room.’

  Morris just raised his eyebrows.

  ‘The data is seriously scrambled,’ Jimmy went on. ‘Nobody with the usual IT techniques has a hope in hell of picking it apart, but there’s this guy at the University of Illinois in Chicago with some really elaborate electronics. Quantum something. Or is it nano-something? They have a first-rate Computer Engineering department there, and he’s the only guy in the US who has this stuff. He seems to be getting data out, but it doesn’t make much sense. He doesn’t know enough about utilities to get it to add up. That’s why he needs you.’

  ‘The National Security Agency has all the expertise you need.’

  ‘This kid is NSA. Where the fuck else would anybody get this kind of equipment? And you’re the expert he wants to see. Come on, Morris, sit down, please. I really do need the help of an honest man.’

  When Morris had first spoken against privatization, Jimmy had been caught unprepared. It was not a mistake he would make again. He’d marginalize everything that Morris had told Becky – anoma
lies, withheld data, hospital records – and shroud it in patriotism and national security. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible for him to have sensed something Morris had missed. Jimmy did work a lot by gut feeling, and often he was right. It was one of the traits Morris admired in him.

  Morris studied the ice cubes floating in his mineral water. People are so complex, so tangled, but there doesn’t seem to be any great mystery in ice cubes, does there? They float. And yet ice is the only substance that does. It’s dense. All other dense substances sink. How can water be so ordinary and so out of the ordinary, both at the same time?

  If Jimmy was right and the Coalition was wrong, if Morris himself had misinformed the public, then he owed it to them to find out about it.

  He sat down again. ‘You’re reappointing me as director of the utility?’

  ‘If you’ll accept, I most certainly am.’

  ‘I’ll have full access to all the information I’ve requested? And on Thursday, I’m to surprise everybody with what I’ve found?’

  Jimmy sighed, nodded. ‘I just don’t know how to handle what this kid seems to be—’ He broke off, sighed again. ‘I’m not a total shit, and now I’m a little scared. Something just doesn’t smell right. Morris, I don’t know what to—’ He broke off once more. ‘Look, we have to find out what happened to that water. Catch a flight to Chicago as soon as you can. This afternoon. You can be in town by eight. See the boy genius. Study the data. We’ll decide where to go from there as soon as you get back.’

  ‘What’s the young man’s name?’ he said.

  ‘Dieter Flaam. All of twenty-three years old. One of those irritating kids who speaks a dozen languages and calculates faster than his computer. NSA actually built this chunk of machinery for him, and they built it in Chicago because he likes Chicago. He even has living quarters in the department.’

  ‘What about the lab results?’ Morris asked. ‘I can study them on the plane.’

  ‘They’ll be waiting for you at the airport.’ Jimmy finished off his Scotch and got up. ‘God, it’s good to have you on board again. I’ve missed you. Just make sure you’re back in Springfield on Wednesday night, huh?’

  26

  SPRINGFIELD: Thursday

  Coalition volunteers arrived at the Old Capitol before dawn. They set up stands around the plaza in front of Greek Revival columns and tall, carved doors. Next came hundreds of green placards, baseball caps and T-shirts that shouted:

  NO TO PRIVATIZATION

  or

  THIS IS A DEMOCRACY

  or

  LET US VOTE

  By eight, members of the public began to appear. By nine, there were hundreds of them: Coalition supporters, water-plant workers, sewage-plant workers, high school students, college students, clergy, ordinary townspeople. So many had taken up the placards, baseball caps, T-shirts, that they made a sea of green, which spilled out of the plaza and filled the street beyond.

  Police on horseback appeared at the edges of the crowd.

  A megaphone announced: ‘Ladies and gentlemen! May I have your attention. Give us room. Give us room.’

  A circle opened up. A giant puppet, ten feet tall, strutted out with Jimmy’s cowlick and half-moon glasses. He primped the cowlick. He twirled the glasses. The crowd laughed. He drew an endlessly long baton out of his trouser pocket. He examined it. No, not a baton: a scroll. He unfurled it, and everybody could see the words:

  THE PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO VOTE

  He pulled out a match, flicked it. A flame shot up, and he lit the paper. The crowd roared, anger this time. The police on horseback moved in closer.

  As soon as the doors to the Old Capitol opened, the crowds pushed inside, placards and all, up the sweeping north staircase and into the Representatives Hall, a high-ceilinged chamber with fluted columns and heavy chandeliers. At the far end, Jimmy Zemanski stood at the mahogany lectern where Abraham Lincoln had delivered the most important speech of his career and the opening shot in the American Civil War: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’

  Behind Jimmy hung the portrait of George Washington, to one side, the Stars and Stripes, to the other, Springfield’s own flag in blue. The city’s ten aldermen and alderwomen sat at a long table in front of him. This room was the largest in the Old Capitol, but it wasn’t large enough for all of the protesters. When no more could squeeze in, they crowded hallways and lobbies at the top of the stairs and below them. Jimmy himself had made arrangements for Becky. As he opened the meeting, she sat in her wheelchair, Helen by her side, Kate, Donna and a crush of Coalition members around her.

  As soon as the preliminaries were over, Jimmy began.

  ‘We can all see what’s happening in the countryside around us.’ He had a good voice, resonant, flexible, not too polished but fully in command. ‘Baked riverbeds. The pond that used to be Lake Springfield, dead trees along the old Route 66, dead cattle in the fields beyond. We all know what the problem is: there just isn’t enough water to go around, and every day there’s less of it. The science makes my head spin. The political issues are mind-bending, but we can do something. We can have more water. We’re your Council. You elected us to represent your interests. That’s what we’re going to do today: decide if we have the courage to accept UCAI’s offer and embrace the world of the future.’

  The audience growled.

  ‘I hear you,’ he went on. ‘You don’t like it. Well, I’ll tell you something. I don’t like it either. But I like the alternative far less. Forget the trees and cows. Think about yourselves, your children, your grandchildren. Another few years and where are you? Where are we all? If we don’t act now, my friends – I mean right now – we’re going to be dying of thirst ourselves. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: literally dying of thirst.’

  He glanced down at the agenda in front of him, then went on. ‘An issue this crucial calls for a great deal of thought and discussion. That’s what we’re here to do today.’ He paused. ‘The Chair recognizes Kate Bagalayos, the first speaker for the Coalition of Concerned Citizens of Springfield. Hand her the microphone, Walter.’

  Kate rose from her seat beside Becky and took the microphone. She looked very much a foreigner in this all-too-American of places, high cheekbones, wide face, almond eyes. Her hands were trembling; the sheaf of notes she held in them trembled too. She bent her head over them.

  ‘Water is worth money.’ There was a tremor in her voice as well, and the voice was so soft that people had to cup their ears to hear. ‘It’s worth lots of money. In Africa they call it blue gold, and they’ve fought wars over it for generations. Today, the issue at home is becoming just the same as—’

  She broke off as she caught a glimpse of Jimmy up at the Council table. He’d closed his eyes and was running an impatient hand over them. Her anger was so abrupt, and it took her by such surprise that her voice soared.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Jimmy Zemanski? Why can’t you see what’s happening?Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s bullets and tanks in Africa. Here it’s only words. But it’s a “water war” just the same. It’s us against them, and who’s to say it won’t come to bullets and tanks? God gave us water because we have to have it to live. He didn’t give it to UCAI for a bigger market share. He didn’t give it to you or your aldermen to sell to them. Honourable members of the Council, think of Lincoln. Don’t divide our house. Stay with us. Listen to us. We elected you, and we need you now. The issue is simple. Water is for life, not for profit.’

  The audience gave her a standing ovation. She looked around at them, surprised all over again, a little puzzled but delighted too.

  ‘Tell me,’ Jimmy said when the room quietened. ‘Did anybody else’s faucet spew out some nasty stuff a couple of weeks ago? I’m not the only one, am I?’

  ‘You probably did it yourself!’ came a shout from the audience.

  ‘Aw, come on. How come Ms Bagalayos didn’t mention it? Perhaps it slipped her mind. Or – who knows? – perhaps this Coaliti
on is sidestepping the whole issue. Now why would they do that, huh? Think maybe it’s because contaminated water shows the utility isn’t up to handling a commodity we have to have to live? That if we can get it at all – and that’s a big “if” – it will come to us only thanks to the financial muscle of UCAI’s Grand canal? That we can’t possibly pay for ourselves? What kind of irresponsibility is this?’

  He looked down at the agenda in front of him. ‘The Chair calls Morris Kline, who’s scheduled to speak in support of the Coalition. Maybe he can help us out here.’

  The room fell silent. This was what they’d come to hear.

  ‘Mr Kline?’ Jimmy asked, looking around him.

  Becky leaned over to Helen. ‘Where’s Morris gone?’ she whispered.

  Helen just grimaced.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Becky demanded.

  ‘There are rumours, Grandma.’

  ‘Rumours?’

  Helen took in a breath. ‘Apparently Jimmy gave him an enormous bribe to get out of town.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘Jimmy told Ruth.’

  ‘Ruth? Ruth Madison? Why would he tell her?’

  Helen rolled her eyes. ‘Grandma, he’s fucking her.’

  ‘Oh,’ Becky said. ‘Really? Silly woman. But Morris? Fiddlesticks.’ A man with the honesty – to say nothing of the courage – to keep his opinions to himself until he could publicly defy the mayor who’d appointed him: a Don Quixote wouldn’t back out now, not just for money.