Brighton called, and for once Brome was happy to hear him.
“Are you almost here? The cops lost Whales again.”
“Where?”
Brighton, full of disdain, relayed what he heard from the police.
“They brought a dog,” he concluded, “and the dog showed them where he got in the car four blocks away.”
“Are they sure he was armed?”
“There are bullet holes in one of the cars.”
“Did they see anybody else?”
“No. Where are you, anyway?”
“Stuck in traffic.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Fine,” Brome replied, swerving out of the lane. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Accelerating his sturdy, respectable Chrysler — driving an American car to work was more than a semi-official policy at the Bureau — Brome pushed down the window. Cold wind wrapped around his face, sliding inside through his nostrils and lifting the earlier thoughts and frustration away. He felt capable again, acquiring suddenly that occasional clarity of mind, which kept him from going back on the pill. At the same time, though, he was worried. If Whales was getting into gunfights with the cops, then stopping the pills may cause more damage than he expected. He had seen Whales’s diagnosis and treatment logs. Not identical, but pretty similar to his own. He did have Whales beat by a few days as far as going pill-free, however. And of course, no one was trying to shoot him on sight. He was fine. The stupid divorce thoughts aside, he was fine. But still, Brome was worried. He had a nagging feeling that instead of catching the bad guy, he may have to shoot one.
Meanwhile, the righteous indignation, accumulating within the collective battery of the traffic jam Brome was bypassing without properly explaining himself, began to spill over. The iron herd mooed loudly in outrage. He ignored them for about five minutes, refusing to settle the matter by placing the flasher on his roof, when a black Toyota fell in behind him. As he watched in the rear view mirror, another car jumped out of the throng to follow the Toyota. Ahead, skyscrapers rose like peaks he was about to conquer. By the time they blocked out the sun, it was quiet again, and Brome’s escort counted no less than three dozen cars.
Brighton met him in the garage. He waved his notebook in the air, as though to drive away all pleasant thoughts.
“Guess how many contacts I have for Whales in the last five years?” he asked. “I mean aside from other celebrities, hired labor and one night stands.”
Brome waited.
“Three. His ex-wife, with whom he hasn’t spoken in months, his doctor and his producer, both of whom are technically hired labor. That’s it. Can you believe it? Whales is a celebrity with no friends.”
“That doesn’t really surprise me,” replied Brome. Brighton nodded, as though to show that it didn’t really surprise him either. What if I were to compile such a list for you? Brome thought suddenly. What if I made it for myself?
No one had friends. The very concept of friendship was outdated. An archaism, leftover from the previous millennium. If you were to utter the word “friend” seriously, using it in conjunction with a possessive pronoun, in the presence of other people, the expression would embarrass everyone involved.
There were plenty of less ear-jarring synonyms in use, like partner, neighbor, coworker, classmate, compatriot and buddy. Of these, “buddy” was the one closest to the embarrassing old version, but it sounded less implicating, it sounded as though it was an inside joke, that’s why it was popular. Of course, in reality, that’s really what “buddy” was — a joke. The funny guy who came to watch the game at the bar. The guy, whose shoulders you weren’t afraid to wrap you arm around briefly at a barbecue.
I wonder if Brighton thinks I am his friend, Brome thought, clicking the seat belt.
“How about family? Parents?”
“They were in San Diego in ‘17.”
“No luck?”
“No.”
“I’m guessing none of these three live within five miles of the place the police lost him yesterday.”
“Not even within ten. But I’m hoping one of them might know something we don’t. Maybe a new habit, a dealer’s name, a place.”
Brome had no such hope, but he said nothing. Although ignorant of the HAPAL scale, Brome was well aware of Brighton’s — another semi-official thing — higher rank within their duo. Brighton had the track record. Brighton brought results. That’s why Brighton tolerated Brome’s frequent, semi-insolent questions. Brome was the question guy; Brighton was the answer guy. Brighton was there to make Brome a better fed.
First they went to Whales’s TV studio, which occupied the seventy-seventh floor of a ninety-story skyscraper on Wabash. The place trembled with chaotic shouting and panicky movement. As soon as the word got out that the federal agents had arrived, the shouting ceased, but the movement intensified. Staff positively ran in all direction. At the same time, the people responsible for Whales’s TV show avoided contact with the feds so much that they preferred to run into walls and each other over coming within reaching distance of the agents. Brome looked around. There’s at least one happy person on this floor somewhere, he thought. Brighton frowned, grabbed somebody with his tractor-beam gaze and arranged passage to the producer’s office.
The receptionist squeaked and pointed at the door, half out of her chair and half-smiling.
“Special Agent Brighton. This is Special Agent Brome,” Brighton announced, entering the bleak room with a long table, at the end of which, a red-faced man in a white shirt stretched tight over his abdomen struggled to rise.
“Yes, a good morning, if you would call the dawn of Apocalypse that. James Cornwell. I’ll do my best, although…” He didn’t finish the phrase, as though the ending was too obvious to bother.
Having uncorked from behind the desk, Mr. Cornwell showed surprising agility, jumping towards them on short legs. He thirsted to shake their hands, and Brighton allowed it. The producer beamed momentarily, before slumping back into appropriate sadness.
“Luke, old sport…” He almost sobbed. Brome glanced at him with brief interest, then tuned out, looking out of the window at the infinite city stretching westwards. Brighton took over, wasting almost twenty minutes.
They wasted another fifteen speaking with several studio grunts denounced by Cornwell. They had all just assumed Luke was sick. This was really, totally unexpected.
An hour later they were in the suburbs, ringing the bell of a red Victorian mansion.
Jennifer Carlson, as she had introduced herself, stood leaning on the counter by the sink much like Grace Brome had earlier that morning. A lingering habit, perhaps, from her married days. The kitchen was, of course, a lot larger, packed with all sorts of electronics, crystal and china. It also had no chairs, so they drank gourmet coffee standing up.
Besides that coffee, they didn’t get anything of value out of Ms. Carlson either. Her boyfriend, a curly-haired jock with an ice patch on his chin, fidgeted nearby. When Brighton questioned him on what he did for a living, he blushed, grabbed his chin, winced, and mumbled something to the effect of being an actor. He blushed even more when asked to point out the exact spot where Mr. Whales had punched him, but stayed when dismissed, taking hold of his girlfriend’s hand when Brighton continued to ask about Whales in general.
That’s when the phone rang, and they were soon in the Yukon again, buzzing back towards the city, because the surveillance team seemed to have found something. Brome studied the image they sent over while Brighton drove. It was a picture shot from one of the traffic cameras. A blue Civic, pushing twenty years probably, a girl at the wheel and a man in the seat next to her. No sign of Whales, but the man was fat, mustached, wearing a black jacket. Brome turned the screen towards Brighton, incredulous.
“Fat cop in civvies?”
Brighton took a glance and couldn’t help a triumphant little smile.
“That,” he said, “is Lloyd Freud. The second marshal.”
Chapter Nine
Lloyd told Iris to park the “Civic” on the side of a narrow tree-lined street four blocks away from our destination. Trees stood naked in their lines. Black oily leaves coated the lawns and some of the cars. It was around seven in the morning. It began to drizzle as we walked.
“Chicago weather for you,” Lloyd said cheerfully. “The climate in the whole world can go straight to hell, but you can never tell in Chicago, because the weather here changes three times a day. You just keep on living as if nothing’s happening.”
I didn’t comment. I thought it was a stupid thing to say. Iris was silent as well, and looked a little cold. It wasn’t the best morning to be out, having the adventure which could lead to imprisonment or death.
We followed Lloyd into an alley, coming eventually to the rear of what seemed to be a strip mall. The moist parking lot we entered was empty.
“Whatever it is, looks like it’s closed,” I said.
Lloyd grinned. “The house of the Lord never closes.”
“You brought me to see a priest?”
“He’s also a doctor when he feels like it. A healer of souls and a healer of bodies are the same person for once.”
“I don’t need a healer of anything,” I argued.
“But I do,” Lloyd said. I was beginning to understand.
“Is he the one who supplies you the pills?”
He didn’t answer. He pulled at the knob, then slapped the door three times with an open palm.
“Why did we have to park four blocks away? Did you notice it was raining?”
“We won’t be using that car anymore,” he said. Something clanked on the other side of the door. “And I didn’t want the cops to find it here.”
I was going to say something to the effect of him dropping us off and then going to park the damn car wherever the hell he pleased, but the door opened presently. The face of the man on the other side of it was youthfully pink, despite his full head and mustache of white hair. He wore a maroon turtleneck and jeans and looked nothing like a priest. Nor a doctor, really. If anything, he could pass for an aging TV actor. He smiled, quickly scanning Iris and me. Finally, he nodded to Lloyd, taking a step back.
“Mr. Freud, please come in.”
“Father Young, I brought you some converts.”
“Please,” the white-haired man said, “call me Dr. Young.”
“I’m Iris,” Iris said, entering, while I processed that exchange. “This is Luke.”
“Of course. I do watch TV, you know. Keeps me sober. Come in, please.”
He led us through a darkened hallway into a small office drowned in paper. Newspapers, magazines, folders were piled on the desk and stacked in corners. Aside from it being a ton of actual paper and markings in ink on every single piece of print, I saw nothing religious about the room. Not even the measliest crucifix.
“Make yourselves comfortable. I have to finish my sermon,” Dr. Young said, gesturing indefinitely. “And get your medicine.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Dr. Young escaped through the door opposite the one we had come in through. As it opened briefly, I saw a pulpit and a slice of a large room with rows of gray folding chairs and ceiling painted hospital-blue. There were neither windows, nor people in my field of vision.
When the door closed, I turned to Lloyd. He had already filled the desk chair and was presently leaning dangerously far back in it. Iris found herself a seat under the wall. There was no seat left for me, but standing seemed more fitting for the talk I intended to have, anyway.
“So… Mr. Freud, is it? That kinda rhymes, doesn’t it?”
I received patronizing smiles and nods as answers to both rhetorical questions.
“I think it’s about time we had the rest of that conversation.”
Before he could reply, an improbably deep voice began to chant beyond the door to the nave. I could not make out the words, but it was plain the chant, or song, was measured and made of them. I blinked, and the office, Lloyd, unanswered questions, Chicago, were all gone. I was standing alone in the middle of a desert. It was nighttime and it was cold, and I heard the sound of water, and above me there were countless stars. In the distance in front of me, in the darkness, I saw huge triangular shapes. Another dark form was moving, a rider on top of a camel. I blinked and the vision vanished, but it left a lasting soothing effect, similar to what I’d felt after calling Paul the day before.
Lloyd nodded at the door.
“He’s really good at that.”
I just nodded and we listened for another minute in silence, which Lloyd interrupted.
“But it is time for you to learn some things. Here’s one: I am the other marshal.”
Soothed no longer, I gaped at him in complete bewilderment. As the deep voice continued to sing, something rustled and fell to the floor. I had sat on top of the desk.
“May I… May I see your ID?”
He chuckled. “Sorry, I tossed it at the beach by your house.” So the cops would find it, a thought came, searing through my mind.
“So you knew who set me up, because…” I started to say, when another, more important idea occurred to me. “Wait, did you… Did you kill your partner?”
“Not all partners are as chummy as they show on your favorite Tuesday night police drama.” Lloyd’s cheerfulness was also gone. His speech became abrupt, angry. “I barely knew the guy.”
“So you did kill him?” I wanted to say that, but it was Iris. We both turned to her. She sat straight and white-faced, hands on her knees. “Just like that?”
“Neither of you know anything about it, all right? I’m a soldier. I did my job.”
“Soldiers don’t kill innocent—”
“Bullshit!” Lloyd sprang up from the chair, cutting me off. The chair rolled backwards and hit the wall. “When were you a fucking soldier? Soldiers don’t know who they kill. They kill those who shoot at them. They kill those who look like they’d shoot at them. They kill who their generals tell them to kill. Nobody checks who’s innocent and who’s not. That’s why they’re soldiers.”
“But civilians—” Iris began.
“Kids!” Lloyd shouted at her. “I’ve seen a car full of kids shredded for failing to stop! A mother, a father, and seven children, none older than twelve — blown away! Like that! Not a single gun in the car. Not even a goddamn knife! One of them — a boy of eight or so — he didn’t die right away. Blood was gushing from his side and he just kept shaking and staring and turning his head, and all I could think was, ‘He doesn’t speak English, so he can’t even ask us why.’ And he died, and I sat there and couldn’t stop asking myself that…” Lloyd came back into present with a jerk. “Before you say that making one mistake is not the reason and blah, blah… Spare me. O’Malley wasn’t a civilian. He was not even a goddamn real marshal. He was an enemy soldier who didn’t know I was an enemy soldier.”
“Why did you kill him?” I asked.
“So you wouldn’t have to become a soldier.”
“That’s not a good enough reason to kill a person!”
“It is for my employer.”
“Well, he’s crazy then. I wouldn’t have gone either way. I got lawyers for that.”
“My employer seemed pretty confident that you would.”
“Is this Dr. Young your employer?”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“You’ll meet him.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m going to call 911, introduce myself and tell them I have located the murderer of a U.S. Marshal found in my condo. Then I am going to…” I wasn’t bluffing. I made my way towards the antique, “cordless” phone on the edge of the desk and actually picked up the receiver. A loud clank stopped me in my tracks. Looking over my shoulder, I saw that Lloyd was pointing the gun at me. I pretended to be calm.
“I don’t think your employer would appreciate—”
“You’re such a dumb shit still,” Ll
oyd said with disdain. “A cop almost put you in a box not twelve hours ago. Why don’t you ask for that guy specifically when you call? A whole week without pills, and your brain is still as fried as a breaded mushroom.”
“Well, certainly.” Dr. Young, who was suddenly in the room, said. Only then did I realize that the chanting had ceased. “He had you to enlighten him.” He tossed a small red bottle, and Lloyd caught it with his left hand. “I suggest you take your medicine, Mr. Freud.”
The murderer shook his head, reseated himself, dropped the gun in his lap and popped the bottle open. Customarily, he chased the pills with a hefty swig from his flask.
“You work for ‘Freedom,’” Iris said from her chair. Dr. Young smiled and waved his hand.
“No, no. Not for a long time. But there are good people even there.” Then he turned to me. “You see, Mr. Whales, Mr. Freud favors archaic methods resembling electro-shock therapy. He thinks just being out there sober should have scared you into understanding. Easy for him, of course, because he already knows, but quite shortsighted.”
“That’s why you’re the doctor and I am the grunt,” Lloyd remarked. His cheerful mood was returning quickly.
“You mean that’s why you kill people and he gives you pills so that you could sleep at night?”
His grin disappeared. “Listen, People’s Choice. I was ordered to prevent you from being drafted by any means necessary. What I had to do yesterday was necessary. I wasn’t pleased then and I’m even less pleased now, because I’m stuck babysitting you and I don’t see anything in your sniveling mug that would warrant the opinion my employer seems to have about your worth. The pills Doc gives me might help me bear O’Malley’s death for the rest of my life, but your whining is this close to becoming the straw that broke the camel’s back. And if you value your health, you don’t want that back to break.”
“Let us calm down,” Dr. Young said, stopping my response. “Don’t you think Mr. Whales is under enough stress without your threats, Mr. Freud?”
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