Scorch City

by Toby Ball

  “Ellen, she is very frightened; very frightened. She says that leaving her church enrages her preacher. She says that anyone who leaves can never come back, and that the preacher, Madd …” Renate paused, uncertain.

  “Maddox.”

  “Ah, right. Mad-dox. This Maddox, he says that people who leave are going to burn in hell and everyone prays together very, very hard to keep their church together. She cries very hard when she thinks of this; she doesn’t like these memories. She cries that she has nowhere to go, that she knows no one.”

  Frings nodded, thinking about how terrifying it must be for her to be suddenly alone in the City.

  Frings heard movement back in the bedroom and finished his beer and put the kettle on to boil. He wondered what he should make her. Breakfast? He found a carton of eggs in the refrigerator and some cheese and an onion. He put a frying pan on the stove to heat and diced up a portion of the onion and pulled the cheese over a grater. He needed to figure out what to do with Ellen in the long term. Maybe he could locate a cheap apartment near the house where she worked. He wondered if it was safe for her to return to that job. Would Maddox’s people go looking for her? What would they do if they found her? Surely, the first place they would check would be at her job. Maybe he could find her another place to work.

  Ellen emerged from the bedroom wearing one of Renate’s robes. She had taken the time to straighten her hair, and her face was splotched red from cold water. Frings smiled at her and she gave a wavering smile back. She wasn’t comfortable alone with men.

  Frings cooked the omelet and Ellen paused before eating it, Frings thinking that maybe she was saying a silent grace or something. She ate quickly but neatly and seemed refreshed when it was over. Frings poured two cups of coffee and sat down opposite her at the small kitchen table.

  Frings said, “I talked to Renate.”

  “She’s very nice.”

  “She is. She’s concerned about you.”

  Ellen nodded.

  “Ellen, what do you think is going to happen with the church?”

  Frings saw her shoulders tense, her eyes drifting down to the table between them.

  “I mean, why did you leave now? You’ve been there for years. You told me about the howling, about how Maddox is becoming more fearful. But what do you think Maddox is going to do? He can’t keep this up forever.”

  “He’s waiting. We … they are all waiting.”

  “For what?” Frings leaned across the table despite himself.

  “The End of Days. The Final Battle. Maddox says it can happen at any time; that all the signs are there. We need to be ready.”

  “And the people in the church—you and the others—were …”

  She looked up at him, her eyes bright with some unidentifiable emotion. “Scared. We are all scared.”

  They sat for another half hour. Frings tried to make small talk, but Ellen had retreated into herself. Frings finally gave up and they sat in silence, drinking coffee, until Ellen decided to return to bed. Frings put a pillow on the couch, turned off the lights, and must have fallen asleep because he surfaced—briefly, but clear-minded—long enough to realize the question that he needed to ask her. Then he fell back asleep again, wondering in the last, confused moments of consciousness whether Renate would be home that night.

  92.

  A uniform knocked on the door and brought in fresh coffee. None of the men needed it; the energy in the room was high.

  “We drove all the way back to the ranch after that, a lot of the drive in the dark, which was very tough. Koss was in the lead car with Van Oot, who was driving, and Danny. They drank hard the whole way back. I was in the other jeep and Joe Turner was driving. We didn’t drink and we didn’t talk much. I just wanted to get back to the mine, forget the whole thing. But it didn’t turn out that way.

  “When we got back to the ranch, Van Oot and Danny were falling-down drunk and they found their way to beds somehow. Turner and me, we sat on the porch with Koss and he told us what he’d learned on the ride back—that the woman was Danny’s girlfriend, or something like that. We’d already figured that. He also said they thought this disease must have moved through pretty fast and that maybe half the village had fled. Nobody talked about it being contagious, but that was what everyone was thinking about. Nobody wanted to end up like the people we saw there.

  “We spent the night at the ranch. Everyone was exhausted and slept through until the afternoon. When we finally woke up, Danny was vomiting and having cold sweats. It might have been a hangover, but everyone was real nervous. Then it hit me and we knew that we were in trouble. It started with the vomiting and then the chills. Turner wanted us to get in the jeep and head back to the mine; go to the infirmary there. I couldn’t go. I’ve been in combat. I know what my limits are and I just couldn’t go. Then it hit Van Oot and there was definitely no way we could do it with only two men healthy; so we were stuck.”

  Somebody was banging on the door. Westermann exhaled hard in frustration and got up. He cracked the door to find one of the deputy chiefs, a career cop named Flamini, looking pissed.

  “Get out here,” Flamini hissed.

  Westermann gave Kraatjes a look, then left the room to meet with Flamini.

  Flamini, within grasping distance of his pension, had one of those bodies with a thick torso and thin, bowed legs. His eyes were narrow with anger.

  “What the fuck is going on in there? I’ve got a lawyer, one of Truffant’s guys, down here who wants to know why you’ve pulled this kid in. Says he wants to be in the room.”

  “He’s not a suspect, sir. He’s a possible source in an investigation.”

  “Yeah? If that’s so, why the fuck is Truffant sending one of his lawyers down here—paying a fucking mint in the process—to get this kid out?”

  “I don’t have an answer for that.”

  “Well, you can consider your interview over or you can charge him with a crime and let the lawyer in.”

  The uniforms who were hanging around checked out the confrontation. Westermann looked around, saw Deyna leaning against the wall in the back. Their eyes met. Deyna winked.

  Flamini said, “What’s it going to be, Lieutenant?”

  Without turning, Westermann knocked twice on the door and waited until Kraatjes emerged.

  Flamini reddened. “Jesus fucking Christ, what are you doing in there, Jack?”

  Kraatjes stared at him. “We’re conducting an interview. What are you doing here?”

  Westermann said, “There’s press here.”

  “What?” Flamini snapped.

  Westermann nodded toward Deyna, and Westermann’s two superiors looked over. Deyna played it cool.

  Kraatjes spoke more quietly. “What are you doing here?”

  Flamini told him about the lawyer.

  Kraatjes kept his eyes on Flamini. “You can take this up with the Chief, but this interview is going to continue.”

  “This is coming from higher up than the Chief.”

  Kraatjes shook his head. “In this building, nobody’s higher up than the Chief.” Kraatjes turned back and opened the door. Westermann followed him in, leaving Flamini steaming but powerless.

  “I’m sorry about that, Jimmy,” Kraatjes said quietly, taking his seat. “You were telling us that you and Danny were both sick.”

  “Van Oot got sick, too. Not long after me—the vomiting, chills. I’m not sure how the days went, the three of us were really out of it, and Turner and Koss were trying to take care of us because the Africans who worked on the ranch got spooked when they saw us, the condition we were in, and just kind of disappeared. I remember—or I think I remember—being outside as it was becoming dark. I don’t know why I would have been. But the ranch had this huge porch, I think he called it a veranda, and it had these big wicker chairs and tables, and I remember looking at it in that yellow light and it being empty and thinking that we were totally alone out there; and we were dying.

  “I don’t know, maybe
four, five days after we got back, Danny was really sick—there was blood on the floor from where he’d been vomiting. We couldn’t wake him up. There was this wind that was howling and kicking up sand and dust, a real storm. These Africans showed up in two army jeeps. They pull up and there were maybe three with machine guns who stayed on the porch, and this other guy, real dark-skinned and wearing sunglasses, he came in and talked to Turner and Koss. They took him to see Danny and then Van Oot and me. We were all in bed. This guy was real thin and he wore his shirt unbuttoned and he had this wooden cross on a leather thong. Danny, this guy said, the life had already left him, like his body was just going through the motions of dying. Me and Van Oot, he gave us some kind of drink that he made, I didn’t see what was in it, but it was foul-tasting and I’ve drank strychnine in church, so I know. I threw a lot of it up, but some of it stayed down. I came out to see the rest of them on the porch. Van Oot and Danny were too sick to get out of bed, but Turner and Koss and the Africans were drinking beer.

  “The guy with the sunglasses said his name was Senah Glélé—I remember the name, Koss wouldn’t shut up about him. Anyway, Glélé said that he’d been sent by Legba to save the children of Jesus. I had a pretty good fever; he seemed strange but no stranger than anything else.”

  “Who’s Legba?” Westermann asked. “A tribal chief?”

  “What? A chief?” Jimmy laughed cynically. “No, Legba’s an African god. They had a lot of gods over there.”

  Westermann nodded. “Sorry, Jimmy, please go on.”

  “Yeah, well, Glélé, he said Koss had the disease, too, but he wasn’t affected by it, maybe because he was so close to God. I remember that he stared for a long time at Koss, like studying or something, and that wasn’t something Koss normally would have been good with. But he let Glélé do it.

  “They left, but by then Danny was gone and Van Oot died the next morning. I started recovering quickly after the visit, but you can see how it left me.” Symmes pointed to his sagging face, his withered arm.

  “Koss knew that I was a Christian, but what most interested him was what Glélé had said about him not being affected by the disease because he was so close to God. He really took that to heart, started thinking he was special, or chosen, or something. The thing was, when we made it back to the mine and they were able to take blood samples and all that, it turned out later that he did have the virus, but he didn’t show any symptoms. So Glélé had been right.”

  Kraatjes had his hands together, fingers and palms flat against each other. He looked somewhere over Symmes’s shoulder, trusting that Westermann would catch Symmes’s reactions.

  “Do you think, James, that your Christian faith saved you?”

  Symmes’s shoulders drooped. “I’ve thought about that a lot. I know what Koss thinks, that he’s some kind of special child of God or some such. Me, I don’t know. Van Oot and his friend were so far gone by the time Glélé arrived, it might have just been too late for that medicine to help them. I’ll tell you this though; before then, Koss wasn’t one for religion, so I don’t know why the Lord would have spared him. But I don’t know.”

  Westermann asked, “Do you know that Ole Koss is in Prosper Maddox’s congregation?”

  “I do.”

  “What do you think of that?”

  “Koss, well, he found religion real fast once he thought he had a special part in it. He knew about Dr. Maddox from me, from killing time out at the mine. So, I guess it doesn’t surprise me too much.”

  Westermann was about to follow up when there was a perfunctory knock and the door was flung open. A uniform stepped in, followed by Flamini. “This interview is over,” Flamini said, smirking.

  Kraatjes was out of his chair. Westermann stayed seated, deferring to his authority.

  “You get in touch with the Chief?”

  “The mayor did.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The Chief knows the pecking order.”

  Kraatjes nodded and turned to Symmes. “You want to leave?”

  Symmes seemed confused by the situation and stared mutely at Kraatjes.

  Flamini said, “Let’s get him out of the room, there’s someone here to take him.”

  Outside, Ole Koss stood with his arms crossed, and next to him, Big Rolf. Westermann stared at his father, feeling the anger rising in him.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” Koss said, as if they were just two good friends meeting after a long separation.

  Symmes was silent, his eyes darting desperately back and forth between Kraatjes and Koss.

  “Jimmy?” Koss pressed.

  “Ole.” Symmes’s voice sounded hollow, lost.

  Westermann put his hand on Symmes’s shoulder, leaned in so that he could talk in his ear. “You want to leave with Ole Koss? We can set you up with a bunk here, if you want, or a hotel where we put up witnesses. You don’t have to leave with him.”

  Symmes nodded, seeming to understand.

  Big Rolf looked to Kraatjes. “My client would like a word with Mr. Symmes. I assume you have no objection.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Koss and Symmes walked to a corner of the squad room. A group of uniforms eyed Koss, gave him room.

  Westermann seethed. “Rolf.” He nodded to his office. His father followed him in. Westermann left the door open; saw some uniforms looking in from across the squad room.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Big Rolf played it neutral. “I’m Prosper Maddox’s lawyer, Piet. I’m representing his interests.”

  “But why this? Why now? You haven’t represented him in the past, have you?”

  “My client hasn’t been the target of police harassment in the past. He hasn’t needed representation.”

  Westermann shook his head. “Do you have any idea what is going on here?”

  Big Rolf reddened. “How dare you?”

  Westermann saw then that his father had no idea; no idea at all.

  “Rolf,” he said slowly, “if Jimmy Symmes walks out of here with Koss, whatever happens after that is on your conscience.”

  Big Rolf opened his mouth to speak, but Westermann brushed past him.

  Koss and Symmes stood with Kraatjes.

  Westermann said, “Are you staying with us, Jimmy?”

  Symmes shook his head.

  Kraatjes said, “He’s decided to leave with Mr. Koss.”

  Westermann saw that Koss had Symmes’s bag. “You sure?”

  Koss stepped forward. “He’s made his decision.”

  Big Rolf joined them. Koss took Symmes by the arm and led him toward the exit, Symmes hobbling along with the help of his cane. Big Rolf took a step to follow, stopped, and looked at Westermann. Westermann met his father’s eyes and saw things he’d never before seen there: confusion, uncertainty, fear.

  93.

  Frings woke to a noise, confused for a moment by the topography of the living room. He pushed himself up on an elbow and saw Renate’s silhouette in the kitchen doorway. He found her drinking a glass of water, her face pale without makeup in the harsh light of the kitchen.

  “Our friend is sleeping in the bed?” Renate’s shoulders sagged with exhaustion.

  Frings nodded. “She needed the sleep and I would have been stuck in the bedroom if she was out here.”

  Renate nodded, showing Frings her palm, not happy but without the energy to fight about it.

  “You can sleep in the bed with her,” Frings suggested.

  Renate was about to reply—doubtless something petulant—when the bedroom door opened and Ellen emerged, again in Renate’s robe. Renate’s mood changed instantly, as it often did, and she rushed over to Ellen, putting her hands on the woman’s shoulders, asking her how she was. Ellen smiled shyly and the two women sat at the table. Ellen offered to sleep on the couch, but Renate wouldn’t hear of it. Frings wondered if Renate was going to share the bed with Ellen or whether he was going to end up on the floor with Renate sleeping on the couch. Either way, he pulled another beer from
the refrigerator.

  The women were deep in conversation, so Frings went out to the living room and found half a reefer in the ashtray. He smoked, listening to the traffic noise, trying to empty his mind, but thinking about the shanties and wondering what might be happening there this night.

  Eventually Ellen and Renate left the kitchen, turning off the light as they did. Renate told him that the two women would sleep in the bed; he could have the couch.

  “Before you go,” Frings said.

  “Yes?”

  “Ellen, did you have a doctor? Was his name Vesterhue?”

  “It was Dr. Vesterhue sometimes.”

  “But sometimes it was a different doctor?”

  “Sometimes I saw Dr. Berdych. Why?”

  “Just wondering,” Frings said, but his body tingled with adrenaline. “I’ll grab the alarm clock from the bedroom. I need to be up early.”

  94.

  Grip had never seen Crippen’s filled the way it was tonight. More young people drinking than he’d seen here before, rowdy and loud. The radio hate was jacked up from the back room, the static adding to the din. Violence was in the air. Grip didn’t like it.

  Ed Wayne sat at a corner table, eyes glazed where you could see them through the swelling. Empty shot glasses were arrayed before him. Grip maneuvered his way over, keeping the cop look to deter the drunks in the crowd. At Wayne’s table he hovered until an older guy got the picture and left after shaking Wayne’s hand. Grip sat down as a guy came back with a tray of beer bottles and whiskey shots.

  “The fuck you doing here, Ed?”

  “I was crawling the fucking walls; thought I was going to kill my old lady.”

  Grip wasn’t surprised by what Wayne said, but still felt the disgust. “What’s with all the kids?” Nodding back toward the room.

  “There was a meeting a couple hours ago, talking about the Uhuru Community and communism and some religious shit. The guys stuck around afterward. Fucking crazy, some of them. Glad they’re on our side.”

  “Who was running the meeting?”