by Toby Ball
“What is it, Carla?”
“The Uhuru Community—”
Truffant laughed, holding up his hands as if in self-defense. “Carla, I was worried that this was what you were here about. I’m making an announcement as soon as we’re done. Was the podium set up when you came in?”
“Vic, you don’t understand. Those girls, there’s really nothing—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. There’s nothing? Carla, I know you have spent time there trying to help, and I respect you for it. I really do. But the Uhuru Community has become a center of violence. First the attack on the police officer and now the deaths, it turns out, of three young women. Deaths, I might add, that have been kept under wraps by the mayor and the police force.”
“The police officer, he instigated the violence that night.”
“I don’t think you have the story here.”
Carla sighed in frustration. “I don’t?”
Truffant shook his head. “Carla, an off-duty police officer was beaten near to death while trying to help three citizens being assaulted by a mob. A mob from the Uhuru Community. Now I realize that you work with these people, but that doesn’t change the facts. And these three young women—murdered, Carla. Murdered within a shout of the Uhuru Community.”
Carla’s felt the heat in her face. She tried to keep her voice steady. “You know there’s no proof, Vic.”
She saw that Truffant was losing his cool as well. “You’re going to tell me what I know?”
“Those four men, including the police officer, were involved in several assaults on Uhuru Community residents over the past week. The assaults on those four men were the Community trying to defend itself.”
“Come on, Carla.”
“No. You know this is the truth. You know that there is no evidence—evidence, Vic—that ties those murders to the Community.”
“What I know is that tomorrow’s papers are going to run with the story that those Uhuru Community Negroes assaulted white citizens and a cop. They are going to report that three young women—young white women—were murdered essentially in the Community. The good people of this City are going to finally see these idol-worshipping, communist, un-American fiends for what they really are, Carla. That is the truth.”
“This is going to end badly, Vic. You are going to be turning people loose.”
“No, Carla, you’re wrong. Things are going to work out precisely because I am turning people loose. I know your sympathies, Carla. You’re a nice woman, but what you believe is dangerous, and I’ll be damned if I let you or anyone else talk me out of doing what needs to be done to save this City and our country.”
Truffant pulled the door open with abrupt force. Faces turned toward them from the hall. Carla could feel herself trembling, her jaw clenched.
77.
Panos was up and looking out his window, leaning against the sill; a situation both unusual and alarming. Panos’s physical state was diminished enough that he was rarely out of his chair unless it was absolutely required. The exception was when he needed to burn nervous energy, which meant that something was up. Frings was pretty sure he knew what it was.
“Chief?” Frings asked.
Panos, rolling his body against the sill, turned to him. “Frank, have a seat.”
Frings sat and watched Panos lean from the window until he could put a hand on his desk and then edge slowly to his chair and sit.
“Frank, I know you to have been following the girls who’ve been killed on the riverbank. There is news.”
Frings leaned forward in his chair. “I know.”
“You know? I’m sorry, Frank, how do you come to know this?”
“I’ve got a source.”
Panos watched Frings. Frings stared at his hands.
“Ask me the question, Frank.”
“What question?”
“The big question—how do I know?”
Frings didn’t think it mattered much. Everyone would know soon enough and the trouble would really begin.
Panos said, “Truffant is holding a press conference.” He glanced at his heavy watch. “Right now.”
Frings stared, feeling slightly unreal.
“Deyna is there. You know, Frank, you killed his story. He had the scoop and you talked me into killing it. Now everyone will have it.”
“You want an apology?”
“No. I want you to understand, Deyna is young; this was his first big one. You stopped it.”
“It had to be stopped.”
“Well, there’s no chance of that now.”
“I know.”
“We’re running the story.”
Frings nodded.
“Deyna will be on the front page.”
“Let me get you something, too.”
“Of course, Frank. Of course.”
Frings walked out into the sun and pulled his hat down to shield his eyes. He turned up the block but heard someone calling his name from across the street; a woman’s voice. He stopped and, to his alarm, saw Ellen Aust sitting on a bench, discreetly waving to him, barely moving her hand.
Ellen stood to greet him as he approached. She wore her maid gear: formless dress, flat shoes, hair up. Frings saw the tension in her shoulders and in the way she was fighting to keep her expression neutral.
“Ellen, this isn’t a great idea, meeting here.”
“I need to get out.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Okay, but let’s go somewhere and talk.” He put his hand on her shoulder and ushered her along the sidewalk to a diner a couple of blocks down. They took a table at the back, Ellen facing away from the door. The place smelled of stale coffee and bacon grease. The patrons were mostly gray men, sitting quietly, sweating over their newspapers.
“What’s going on?” Frings asked carefully.
“I … I don’t know what I believe anymore. Dr. Maddox is so sure that the end is near. He says the signs are all there, but I don’t know. He’s like a different person. Maybe it’s the fear or his work, but I don’t know that he’s not gone crazy.”
“Ellen.” Frings spoke softly, trying to calm her by keeping his own voice steady. “What is scaring you? What has changed?”
“Dr. Maddox, he changes from moment to moment; he’ll be screaming from the altar and then he’ll just stop and say nothing, like he’s in a trance. Sometimes he weeps and he can’t stop. Is he going crazy? I don’t know what he’ll do. But what if he’s not crazy? What if he’s right?”
“He’s not right.”
Ellen talked fast. “I don’t know if I would have even thought about it if I hadn’t seen you. We never really talk to people from outside. When I talked to you, that seemed normal—like what I remember of normal. Now it’s different. Now it’s dark and there’s fear and there are enemies coming for us, at least that’s what Dr. Maddox says. And it all seems right when you are in the middle of it. But when you are out, even for just a little bit, the whole … situation starts to seem strange. And then there are the howls.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I told you that Dr. Maddox says we are surrounded by enemies that lurk in the abandoned buildings, watching us, waiting for us to let our guard down.”
Frings nodded.
“We howl at night, to scare them away. We gather in the sanctuary and have candles all around so that it’s kind of light inside, but it looks dark from the outside. And then we howl; he has us scream as loud as we can. We sometimes do it for nearly an hour. To scare off our enemies, he says.”
There was a question in her expression: Is this crazy? Frings wasn’t sure what to say. If her account was accurate, Maddox was insane. But could he tell her that? Is that what she needed to hear?
Frings shrugged.
“I need to leave.” Ellen’s face was pale; her eyelids drooped. She seemed to be barely holding herself together. “I haven’t slept …” Her voice trailed off.
Frings thought about the depth of fear that would lead her to ab
andon everything she knew in the City to seek refuge with a relative stranger. He moved his head to the side a little to make sure she was looking at him. She was chewing hard on her lip and Frings thought it might bleed at any moment. “Listen, Ellen. We can go from here right to my apartment. My girlfriend will look after you. You’ll be safe there. We’ll figure something out.”
She looked at him, dazed, and nodded.
78.
A professor friend of Gerhard Bierhoff’s—a Red back in the thirties—owned a town house near the Tech. The friend was intrigued by the communal experiment at the Uhuru Community, and Carla had arranged for Mel Washington to stay with him for the time being. The professor was off teaching an evening class. Carla, Washington, and Frings sat in the living room, all green floral fabrics and high windows. The heavy curtains had been drawn. Usually fastidious, Washington looked terrible—unshaven, eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion and stress—even a few days underground had taken their toll. Carla and Frings joined the usually teetotaling Washington for a glass of the professor’s brandy, trying to get him to relax.
“Any word? The cops still looking for me?”
“We’ll know more when Piet gets here,” Frings said.
Carla put her hand on Washington’s arm. “You’re safe here.”
Washington looked at her with hard eyes. “I’m a prisoner here. I need to get out. This is a critical time.”
There wasn’t much to say about that, so Carla and Frings were quiet, sipping their brandies.
Westermann arrived. Nobody shook hands and Westermann waved off the brandy.
“Anyone on the street?” Washington asked.
“Watching this house?” Westermann said. “No. I don’t think so. They’ve lowered the priority on finding you, Mel. They took in a couple of kids from the Community. But it’s part of a bigger picture: Uhuru Community violence. You know about the third girl?”
Washington nodded.
“It’s getting tight. Really tight. But we are making some progress going after Maddox.”
This brought the other three to attention.
Westermann continued, “We’re bringing him in tomorrow.”
Washington looked dubious.
Carla asked, “What’s his connection?”
Westermann looked to Frings, who gave him nothing. “That’s just what it is—a connection. Or, I guess, connections. He keeps popping up.”
“Nothing concrete, though,” Washington said.
“We’re getting there. Look, it’s our only chance. If it isn’t Maddox, then it’s going to fall on the Community. That’s just a fact. But that’s not why I’m here, right?”
Frings walked to the window and pulled the corner of the curtain back to peer out the window to the street. An older woman walked a small dog along the tree-lined street, waited while the dog relieved itself on a tree. A couple walked hand in hand behind two blond kids, who raced ahead of them and then ran back. Cars were parked the length of the block, but he couldn’t see any that were occupied. He felt the eyes of the other three on him.
“Piet, Ellen Aust came to visit me today.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“She’s leaving Maddox’s church; said they are getting out of control.” Frings sat back down.
“Out of control?”
“Maddox seems to have gone off the deep end. He thinks the police coming through Godtown now, that they’re agents of the devil or something like that. He’s gone paranoid, thinks there are people hiding in the buildings around Godtown. Ellen says Maddox has the congregation howl at night to scare them off.”
Westermann said, “I’ve heard that.”
“From who?”
“No, I heard them howling. Down in Godtown.”
Frings looked at him. “The other thing is that Maddox thinks the world is going to end soon and that”—he looked at Washington—“Father Womé is the Antichrist. Maddox thinks it’s all about to play out.”
Washington looked stricken.
Carla said, “What does that mean?”
Frings shrugged. “I have no idea, but it can’t be good, can it? Maddox thinks he’s in a battle of good against evil. Who knows what he thinks he needs to do. At the very least, it’s another connection between Maddox and the Uhuru Community. It might even have something to do with those girls.”
Carla said, “I think we need to assume that the shanties are under real threat. We need to distribute food, vaccines, figure out an alternative place for people to go if the shanties get bulldozed or—”
Westermann stood up, tried to stretch away some of the tension. “We’re going to rattle Maddox’s cage a little more tomorrow. We’ll see what happens.”
Frings massaged the back of his neck, wondering if this would be a good move or disastrous.
79.
At the end of the block, Grip leaned against an elm tree, smoking a cigarette and waiting for someone to come out of the town house Westermann had entered earlier. Something about shadowing his boss made Grip feel sordid. But Ed Wayne had planted suspicion in Grip’s mind and he needed to see this through, if only to prove Westermann’s guiltlessness to himself. Grip found his flask and considered a nip before deciding that he didn’t feel like whiskey on top of the heat and his fatigue.
A hell of a lot of pedestrians were out at this time of the evening. They’d probably been waiting for the temperature to drop only to be rewarded with this stifling night in which to walk their dogs, venture to the grocer’s, or whatever it was they were doing. Grip drew a few glances from people not used to a tough-looking stranger loitering on this block. Grip smiled absently, keeping his attention on the town house.
A month ago, he would have considered letting Morphy in on this. But Grip was increasingly reluctant to confide in Morphy. It wasn’t necessarily that Grip distrusted him, more that he was growing to increasingly believe that he didn’t understand his partner. It was possible, he thought, that Morphy was genuinely unfathomable, that he didn’t have a stable enough personality to get a fix on. Whom could Grip trust? He would have said the lieut, but here he was staking the man out. Shit.
He was dismayed to find that he was down to three cigarettes. He lit one, figuring he’d deal with getting more when the time came. Hopefully the night would pick up and he wouldn’t be smoking out of boredom. He wondered who was inside with Westermann; classy neighborhood like this, near the Tech. Maybe he had a girl here, Grip thought. The lieut must have a girl—or girls—somewhere. With his looks …
The door to the town house opened and two men and a woman emerged. They paused briefly on the sidewalk, exchanging a few words. The lieut was there, of course, and two others who looked familiar. Westermann left the other two, walking away from Grip. The other two headed toward him. He pushed away from the tree and strode for the corner, realizing now who the two were: Frank Frings and Carla Bierhoff. Not only was Bierhoff a known communist, but just a couple of nights before he’d seen those two exact people at Floyd Christian’s place, where he felt sure he’d just missed Mel Washington. Now they were meeting with the lieut.
Washington.
Frings.
Red Carla.
The lieut.
Grip cursed Ed Wayne.
He hurried down a parallel block and took a right, moving quickly so that he could get within sighting distance of Westermann. Sweat flowed down his face with the effort. Halfway down the second block he saw Westermann step out from the corner in front of him. Grip slowed down abruptly and moved to the side, getting closer to the row of houses. Westermann didn’t seem to glance in his direction, instead crossing the road and continuing down the block to Grip’s left. Grip stopped for a second, giving his heart a chance to recover and Westermann time to put some distance between them.
Grip followed Westermann for close to a half hour through exhausted neighborhoods. Westermann’s size made him an ideal tail, easily followed from a block behind. Keeping up was still a bitch, though, because Westermann’s stride was s
o much longer than Grip’s. He had to work hard to keep up the pace. The effort and the temperature wore him down.
Five blocks from Morphy’s row house, Grip sussed out Westermann’s destination. He felt strange, as if he were being left out of something. Why would the lieut be visiting Morphy at home? He’d never visited Grip at home. Was this a frequent occurrence, and if so, why didn’t either of them ever mention it to Grip—especially Morphy?
Grip continued to tail Westermann for another block, preoccupied with these thoughts, until he remembered that Morphy wasn’t home, which meant that he had followed Westermann all this way for essentially nothing—other than the disquieting knowledge that Westermann and Morphy were meeting behind his back.
They arrived at Morphy’s block and Westermann paused on the sidewalk, smoothing his hair with both hands. Grip stood in the shadow of a stoop and watched Westermann knock on Morphy’s door. They both waited. The door opened, and from that distance, Grip caught a glimpse of Mrs. Morphy. He waited for her to tell the lieut that Morphy wasn’t home, but the body language didn’t jibe with that particular conversation. Westermann stepped in, and Grip was fairly sure that he saw the lieut touch Morphy’s wife’s hip with his open hand before the door closed. He was watching this over a distance, but he felt sure that was what he had seen.
He sat down on the steps, his mind racing. Only one thing could really be happening in that house. It seemed in some ways a betrayal, and in other ways it just seemed crazy. It was one thing to sleep with another man’s wife—immoral, courting trouble. But Morphy’s wife? It was like Russian roulette—the best possible luck got you nothing; anything less got you killed. And why would Westermann, who Grip assumed would have no trouble pulling birds, take this kind of risk? Morphy’s wife was paralyzingly sexual—at least to Grip—but still …
Grip sat on the steps for a half hour, until there was no possibility that he had misread the situation. Satisfied that he understood, Grip walked to a nearby liquor store, picking up a bottle and a pack of cigarettes for the walk home.