Sometimes that desire tugged at Carl, too. On weekends he spent hours reading books he had salvaged from the library. With no light other than a small bedside lamp, he’d strain his eyes to read each page until he was satisfied until the next evening.
It didn’t matter what topic. His fascination often kept him there into the early morning, and when he was finished he would sit on the edge of his bed and think about what he had read and how it challenged virtually everything he had been taught to believe.
One time when he went back to the library to collect the last of the books in the room he found more had been added. However, rather than political tomes they were collections of poetry with names such as Tennyson and Frost and Elliot flashed across his eyes.
Smiling to himself, he took them home and read them as well.
***
One morning Carl got an early call at his place from Usher. His voice was low and soft.
“Meet me at the Ming Dynasty in ten minutes.”
Carl dressed, thinking nothing of the short message. He had received ones like it before, and not every story turned out to be urgent. Usher’s mood sometimes determined how he conveyed information.
Hurrying to the opium den, Carl was brought downstairs and found Usher at the sofa sitting upright as he inhaled from a hookah. There was a pale man beside him, dressed in plain clothes. His stern expression as he looked over at the stairs made Carl uncomfortable. Usher himself seemed uneasy as well.
“Come in, Carl, come in,” he said.
Carl stood in front of the sofa. Something about the man’s demeanor gave him away as a law enforcement officer. The jaw chin, the unwavering gaze, the stiff, formal posture. He didn’t act like a threat, and his hands were placed in his lap, but he was certain to have a weapon on him.
Usher stood up, bringing Carl over to the man. “This is Farrington. He’s the one I told you about.”
The man slowly rose and raised his head high. He then awkwardly offered his hand.
“Kenning. Michael Kenning.”
Carl briefly accepted the gesture.
“Let’s sit and talk.” Usher said as he took his seat once more and offered a pipe to Carl. He turned it down, preferring his own Virginia tobacco cigarettes and a cup of green tea from the pot on a table by the wall. The opium den always kept it warm and full.
“What’s this all about?” Carl asked.
Usher turned to Kenning. “You want to tell him, or should I?”
“I’ll tell him,” Kenning said. He put down his pipe and folded his hands. “You may not recognize me. I don’t expect you to. But I’m with the Seattle Police Department.”
Carl tried to show no emotion. “I see.”
Usher prodded Kenning. “Perhaps you tell him what you disclosed to me just last night.”
Kennings scratched his head and draped one arm across the sofa. He wasn’t a large man, but his calloused hands and blackened fingernails marked him as a beat cop. The aged wrinkles permeating his face from chin to forehead proved he had been out and seen much and endured much. He talked in an unhurried manner like it was nothing he hadn’t said before.
“I happened to be listening in on this conversation between my captain and the police chief, and it appears the feds are going to ramp up their efforts over here.”
Carl set down his cigarette after flicking off the ash. “How so?”
“They didn’t go into details much, but they mentioned joint operations. We don’t have the resources to help a lot, but my guess is they’re going to try to bring in ISA officers and equipment disguised as Seattle PD. That way it won’t draw a whole lot of eyes coming into town.”
Carl took the claim at face value. The subterfuge made sense. The Seattle police had an unofficial policy when it came to reporters and newspapers. If they didn’t see it, it didn’t happen. If reporters stayed out of trouble and didn’t bring trouble, they were left alone. The officers knew how things were; they weren’t ignorant about Norton’s control of SoDo and parts of the International District.
Kenning continued. “They want to bring in the muscle, the weaponry, the equipment, and start some low-level operations to begin with. Think of it as a beta test for their new campaign.”
“Against who?”
Kenning laughed humorlessly. “Well, that’s the kicker, isn’t it? They’re not going to target the newspapers themselves. They know you’ve got connections. They know that if they go after one of you, the rest will band together out of self-preservation. Whoever planned this wasn’t stupid. They don’t want to unite the newspapers and actually get them to cooperate.”
“For God’s sake, then who?”
“Your readers.”
Carl crossed his arms, cocked his head to the side, and then laughed as he stood up and walked over to the table to pour himself a cup of green tea.
He talked as he added two sugar cubes and stirred them in with the spoon. “What are they going to do? Yell at them? Scream and make a fuss? Threaten them? Our readers can read whatever the hell they want. The ISA can just sit there and sulk. Last time I checked, there’s no law against reading a newspaper.”
“Was.”
Carl paused, looked over at Kenning. The man’s pale face was now grave.
“Tell me,” Carl said as he stood in front of him. “What’s going on?”
Kenning took a long draw from the hookah and then exhaled in quick puffs. Through the haze he created, his eyes conveyed the same trepidation contained in his voice.
“I can’t tell you how I know this, but I do know that one of our senators or congressmen got someone on the Select Committee for Cybersecurity to enter a clause or provision inside a bill they’re working on. By the time the ISA begins moving men over here into Seattle, it will officially be a federal crime to read or be found in possession of a newspaper.”
Carl held the cup of tea near his chest, afraid he might drop it. He wanted to offer a witty reply, but there was not a lot to say.
He went back to the sofa. “How are they going to decide if you’re guilty?”
“Kid, you’re asking the wrong person,” Kenning replied. “I’m just telling you.”
“I should have seen this coming,” Usher said, his hands in his smoking jacket pockets as he paced around the table. He poured himself some tea, then for Kenning. They sipped on it and then worked the hookah until the room was clouded with opium smoke, their heads thrown back as they meditated.
Carl sat by himself, his emotions drifting from indignant to despondent and then back again. He then asked Kenning why he had come to them.
“Michael is an acquaintance of mine,” Usher said. “I felt I would keep his relationship with me close to the chest and not introduce to you until necessary. Now it’s necessary.”
“And you trust him?” Carl asked.
“Michael is trustworthy. I’ve known him long enough.”
“He’s going to betray someone,” Carl insisted. “Either his department, or us.”
“If it’s not you, what do you care?” Kenning asked.
“I don’t like people who betray.”
“I’m not betraying anybody. It’s called helping. For a price.’
“Naturally.”
Kenning threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t believe this shit. You think I’m risking my neck and my career out of charity? Sure, I’m sympathetic, but I got to pay bills, too!”
“If you don’t like what your people are doing, why don’t you leave?”
Kenning looked at him coldly. “It’s called loyalty. Some advice to you, kid; don’t be so arrogant. You think life is simple, that life choices are simple. They’re easy when you’re young and stupid and unaware and you got nothing to lose. When you get older, you find out that life isn’t clean-cut. Black and white thinking is for country club chats and debate clubs. Here, one guy is an asshole, but the next guy beside him is decent enough. One’s a bastard to some, a saint to others, an alright guy to the rest. It’s all about
your perspective.”
Kenning pointed at Usher. “I want to work with you through him. He wanted you to meet me, so you know where you’re getting your info from. The reason for that is because some of the stuff I’ll tell you, you won’t be able to confirm anywhere else. You’ll have to just trust me, and right now you can look me in the eye and speak to me face to face and you know I’m the real deal.”
“What do I owe you for this?” Carl asked.
“I’m taking care of that,” Usher said.
“Not good enough. If I’m not paying him, I’m not the customer.”
“Stop assuming the worst.”
“I can’t afford not to.”
Usher revealed a mischievous grin. “Let’s just say that I aim to profit from this mutually beneficial arrangement in a way that is of no detriment to your aims.”
Carl studied Kenning closely. He had no choice, but to take what was offered.
But he still didn’t trust him.
***
No songs were sung that night at the Fighting Sailor. No cheers or loud chatter. The normal lighthearted conversation was replaced with a quiet sense of angst that could be felt in every man as he drank his ale or shot of whiskey.
Carl had sensed it since he had returned to the newspaper that afternoon. There had been no need to break the news. Word had already come via the teletype, with Fred pounding out the story for the front page.
More details had come in since his chat with Kenning. A political nonprofit planned to challenge the new law on constitutional grounds, but a straw poll of legal scholars anticipating a court outcome was totally lopsided in its favor. Whether the law was constitutional or not didn’t matter; for some reason, what mattered were the opinions of five people.
If it worried Norton, he was keeping a tight lip about it. The newsroom gossip had no rumors of him panicking or having another secret meeting behind closed doors.
However, the announcement had put Fred in a crossed mood when they headed for the pub. He drank by himself at the counter, spitting chew into a jar on the stool beside him. Tom and Carl had taken their usual booth. Tom seemed uninterested in discussing the law’s legal justification. His primary concern was how it would impact them.
“What about that cop, Kenning?”
Carl put his chin in his hand. “We’ll see. I don’t trust him, but he might be an honest cop, as hard as that might be to believe.”
“Just remember to keep me in the loop. I am your driver, so if they’re gunning for you it would be nice to let me know as well.”
“Yeah, can’t have anything happen to you, otherwise I might have to drive that Mustang myself.”
Tom chuckled. “Don’t joke about that.”
Duong and Ian barged through the front door.
“It’s total bullshit!” Ian exclaimed.
“You really think people will keep reading?” Duong “Even if it means a prison sentence?”
“Some might stop reading,” Donovan, the bartender theorized. “But I’ve talked to people and they all say that they are going to keep buying copies and having it delivered to their homes.”
“Seattle’s not the problem,” Fred said. “Norton has a huge customer base outside the city. Lots of readers in the Bellevue area get our paper. They might stop doing that. I find it hard to blame ‘em. Unlike here, the police cooperate fully with the ISA over there, since their office is located within pissing distance. And I highly doubt the law was passed just to deal with a couple thousand readers here in Seattle. There are other places, too. We’re not the center of the universe, as hard as it may be for some to imagine.”
“What are we going to do?” Duong asked.
“Keep doing what we’re doing and adapt accordingly.”
Few seemed encouraged by his remark. Ian shook his head. “I just don’t get how they could do that.”
“Easy,” Fred said. “They’re the government. As a D.C. asshole once said, stroke of the pen, law of the land.”
“What does that mean?” Carl asked.
“They’re the government, they got the power.”
“Why do people tolerate it?”
“What else are they going to do? It’s the government telling them to do it.”
“So?”
“They’re the ones who make the laws.”
“Why?”
Carl looked at the group of reporters around him. “Someone tell me something: Why do they get to make the laws?”
“Doesn’t the Constitution say so?” Tom said.
“What if I were to write up a constitution of my own that said I get to make the laws?”
“People would say they didn’t agree to it,” Duong remarked.
“So? I didn’t agree to the Constitution,” Carl said.
“What’s your point?” Fred asked.
“What is a government?”
Fred rolled his good eye as he ordered a whiskey. “What is this, some political science 101 lecture?”
“No. It’s a question that nobody seems to be able to answer.”
Taking his shot, Fred slammed the glass on the counter. His speech was started to slow down. “You want the theoretical answer or the real answer? From what I’ve gathered in my decades spent on this godforsaken planet, the theoretical answer is that a government is a group of people that everyone else has picked to make decisions for them about what the law is going to be and how to enforce them. But practically speaking, a government is a group of the most power-hungry meddling, narcissistic people in a society who lie and cheat and backstab to get into power and then do more lying and cheating and stealing to stay that way, along with the barrel of a gun.”
“That sounds a lot like the gang,” Duong observed.
“Maybe that’s what a government really is,” Carl replied.
The comment seemed to end the discussion. Everyone ordered another round sat at the counter.
Fred leaned over to Carl, who was sitting beside him. “Don’t obsess over it.”
“Obsess over what?”
“Politics. Just don’t do it. Stop trying to think of how the world should be. Do you honestly believe that this is what I imagined myself doing at my age? I should be retired, enjoying some foo-foo drink on the beach in a random Caribbean island while gawking at the hot young things walking around in bikinis that you can see if you look hard enough at their ass. That’s what I should be doing. What I am doing is working here because the alternative is going to jail because I can’t afford alimony or child support.”
He clenched his fist hard as he eyed Carl sternly. “You think you have a beef with the government? Imagine spending the best years of your life fighting in some damn fool war somebody told was needed to keep us safe. Then imagine coming home and before you know it you’re in front of a courtroom judge telling you when you’re allowed to see your own kids. Some stranger who didn’t raise them and didn’t change their diapers or teach them how to walk or stay up all night because they got the flu or show them how to ride a bicycle without the training wheels and any other thing got to tell me when I got to see them. He then told me how much money I had to pay my ex, because apparently talking the house and my hotrod and my dog wasn’t enough. That judge didn’t have a gun or a knife or any weapon. All he had was a gavel. It shouldn’t have happened, because my wife shouldn’t have left me and taken everything I cared about with her. But I knew when that judge pounded that gavel there were men somewhere out there with guns who would shoot me if I didn’t do what he said. That’s when the theoretical gets tossed out the door and you accept that you’re never get to see your kids again because you know within a week the ex will be moving to another part of the country where nobody knows her or what she’s done.”
Swearing loudly, Fred slammed his hand on the bar in a rare outburst. His fist as tight as a vise grip, he barked for a refill. He threw the drink back violently and then brought his face close to Carl’s. His eyes were bright and wide.
“The guy with th
e gun makes the law,” he said. “Might doesn’t make right, but being right has nothing to do with who wins or loses a fight. When someone tries to force you to do what they want, you can either do it or fight them. Reason and logic mean nothing in the real world if the guy on the other side doesn’t give two shits. You don’t argue with them. You just survive as best you can, avoid them if possible, but when you’ve got to kill, you kill the bastard.”
He grabbed Carl by the arm. “Now do you understand now what I meant when I said you must never hesitate?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Glad we got that sorted out.”
Fred shoved him away and then moved to the corner and sulked. The effects of his heavy drinking started to show when he tried to spit tobacco into his bottle and struck his arm instead. He was wiping it off with a towel when Tom slid over to Carl with an ale in hand.
“Marriage sounds like loads of fun,” Carl remarked offhandedly. “Glad I don’t have to worry about that.”
“What about when you get married?” Tom asked.
“Ha! Are you kidding me? What kind of idiot would do something like that?”
“Me.”
Carl paused. “I just don’t see the point in marriage. There’s no benefit to it, here.”
“What if you want to have kids?”
“Why would I want to have kids?”
“What if you did?”
“I probably wouldn’t be here. I’d be putting up with bullshit over at the news site and letting the ISA take a giant shit all over my work. But I decided I didn’t want kids, so I came here.”
He prodded Tom skeptically. “You honestly want to get married and have kids?”
Tom was stoic. “At some point I’d like to look at it. Not right now. Maybe in the future.”
“Why later?”
“Maybe I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. Maybe I want to settle down at some point. We’re young, but we’re not always going to be young.”
Carl subtly eyed Fred. “That’s what marriage gets you. A broken heart and estranged children.”
“You really think women can’t love men?”
“Of course, they can. The ladies love me, sometimes too much for my taste. But the whole idea of just being with one person and then trying to raise kids while living here…it just sounds ridiculous.”
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