Scorch City Read online

  He left this behind, feeling the sweat soak the back of his shirt, and entered the blue-collar environs of Praeger’s Hill. Here they dispensed with paper bags to cover the bottles they drank from. Here packs of boys roamed the streets, jacked on adolescent adrenaline, looking for action. As the streets became more alive with possibility, Westermann moved with more swagger, almost a dare; no badge to hide behind.

  A thought forced its way into his mind. Pushing the girl’s body into the river, her skin stiff. He shook his head to rid himself of the memory.

  He came to a block of row houses and walked about halfway down, checking to see if the curtains were still open in a particular one. They were; the signal that he had been hoping for. He climbed the steps and, despite himself, looked up and down the block before knocking. He heard the pad of footsteps inside, and the door opened as far as the security chain would allow, then closed again, before opening wide.

  “Hello, Lieutenant.” The woman across the threshold was wearing a silk nightgown that seemed a size or two too small and over it a sheer robe of some sort. Her red hair was pulled into a pile on top of her head, and the streetlight picked up the sheen of perspiration on her pale skin. The word that Westermann associated with her was ravishing, and it was as apt tonight as it had ever been.

  He stepped across the threshold, sliding his hands onto her hips. “Hello, Mrs. Morphy.”

  17.

  At the same time, partway across the City, Carla Bierhoff hosted Frings and three other men at the apartment she lived in with her husband, Gerhard, a wealthy physicist at the Tech, one of the City’s best-known intellectuals. Frings knew Carla from years back, at a time when she was a labor organizer and agitator. She hadn’t aged much since then; her hair was longer and she was a little heavier, a little fuller, but she still had that something, not beauty exactly, but an exoticism with her dark hair and complexion and her turquoise eyes. She’d settled down when she married Gerhard, no longer putting herself in harm’s way; no longer openly agitating. Now she did it behind closed doors. Partly this was because she no longer had the recklessness of her youth, but part was because of her marriage to Gerhard and the attendant acceptance in his circles; acceptance that wouldn’t likely survive an arrest.

  Carla’s apartment was in a building at the peak of a hill overlooking the City, and her windows revealed, through a gray heat haze, the sprawl beneath them. The men at this meeting were professionals who believed that part of the responsibility that came with their success was to help the poor and the disadvantaged of the City. It wasn’t exactly a group, more a loose conglomeration, in constant flux, of people who could be called on to help with left-leaning causes on the condition of anonymity. There was no profit in the public knowing your politics. Over the years these businessmen had begun to identify each other and meet semiclandestinely in plain sight—at cocktail parties, dinners, small gatherings like this. They had become a recognizable clique, but no one knew the common purpose that united them. Or so they hoped.

  The small group meeting tonight was intended to work out the details for providing a number of Community needs: clothing, medical examinations, certain types of food, and the like. These things were necessary to keep the Uhuru Community, the impoverished utopia, functioning.

  Gerhard was working at the Tech tonight. He supported Carla’s endeavors but did not generally participate himself. He kept a distance to spare the Tech some headaches.

  The men drank whiskey. Carla sipped wine. As usual, there was music on—some horn-heavy jazz—because it was supposed to help beat the bugs. Frings didn’t actually believe that this music would mask their conversation in the unlikely event the apartment was bugged, but people seemed to find comfort in the effort.

  Carla pitched them on the urgency of the matter. The men—two businessmen, Spencer and Wright, who would donate money for food and clothing, and Berdych, a doctor who would conduct medical exams and round up medicines and vaccines—drank and listened. They were committed; it was only a matter of logistics.

  The whiskey bottle circulated again. The men gave estimates of the time it would take to secure the needed supplies and arrange for their delivery. Carla listened and pushed. Could they do it quicker? Frings watched silently. He was there for support, to put another name in the room. He’d smoked a reefer on the way over, calming down after the meeting with Panos and Deyna. Deyna was a potential problem, but Frings knew that overreacting would be the worst possible move. He had to see how things played out. It was a nervy game and he knew that the reefer was masking a real fear.

  Things wound down. The three men caught the hint and left, animated conversation receding in the hallway. Carla’s husband, Gerhard, would return soon from the Tech.

  “I had a sit-down with your buddy Father Womé today,” Frings said.

  This seemed to surprise Carla. “Going straight to the source?”

  “To hear you tell it, the source would be Mel Washington.”

  “Mel’s my source, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that Womé’s just a figurehead and Mel and his people run the show. Nine out of ten people in the Community, they’ll tell you they’re there because of Womé. They’ve probably never even heard of Mel. Have you ever been in the Community?”

  “No.”

  “You should go. I can take you or get Mel.”

  Frings smiled. “I don’t think being seen with Mel helps my carefully crafted reputation for impartiality too much.”

  Carla heard the irony and laughed. “That’s probably true. Let me take you around. Tomorrow? The next day?”

  “Well,” Frings said, getting to his original point, “I do want to look around. Womé mentioned that there have been attacks on Community people in the night. Have you heard anything about that?”

  “I haven’t seen any of the people who were assaulted, but I’ve heard. I know one of the boys. You want to see him?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Okay. Not tomorrow. The day after. You want to meet outside the shanties at eleven?”

  18.

  The next morning, Westermann hit his alarm clock and lay in bed, eyes closed against the light, wishing he could summon up some self-loathing after his visit to Jane Morphy but finding it just wasn’t there. Guilt didn’t eat at him as he felt it should. Instead, he pondered the question that hung over this affair: why? There were so many other women in the City—he’d been involved with a number—but he was insistent upon this one woman, who was married to, of all the people he knew, the man most likely to kill him if their tryst was ever discovered.

  Jane Morphy never asked him why. She had theories that she took a cruel plea sure in explaining to Westermann, knowing that her insights cut him. One night, she’d said, “You get bored with girls of your class—rich girls and college-educated girls. They’re not exciting to you. You can take them out and they make nice conversation. Some of them are probably even good fucks if they fuck at all.” Westermann had winced at this, not used to women who spoke like Jane. “But they don’t excite you. They don’t challenge you. You know their world, Piet. You don’t know mine. I’m a working-class girl and you sleep with me because it excites you and you know that you don’t have to marry me. You don’t even need to take me out.”

  He’d looked at her, thinking there was a bit of truth in this, but trying to see if this was her way of expressing some kind of hurt. But she’d been amused; even happy. She didn’t mind it. He’d asked her once why she would cheat on her husband. She’d said, “How else is a girl going to get a little excitement?” For some reason Westermann hadn’t felt up to challenging her and let it go.

  Westermann showered and soft-boiled two eggs that he ate with toast. His apartment was vast and elegant and nearly unfurnished. Westermann kept it to the minimum—dining room table and four chairs, a couple of easy chairs in the living room, a bed, bureau, a few bookcases, mostly filled. His father had given him the apartment as a graduation present, and while he couldn’t refus
e the gift—nobody refused Big Rolf—the bare walls and near-empty rooms were his protest. He couldn’t confront his father head-on; he had to get in his jabs at the margins.

  He stopped for his mail, found an invitation from his father to an event at the swank Helios Club, the day after tomorrow. Thanks for the notice. But for all he knew it had been sitting in his mail slot for days. He wished now that he hadn’t checked. He thought about sliding it back, but his father would know. Somehow he always knew.

  Leaving his building, Westermann made the Negro kid by the time he’d hit the bottom stair. The kid—maybe ten or twelve, thin, loose-limbed, with funny symmetrical scars on each cheek—followed from a distance for half a block, probably nervous. Westermann took the walk slow, giving the kid a chance to find his courage and catch up. At the crosswalk, Westermann paused to let a truck rattle past and heard the kid’s soft voice.

  “Mr. Westermann?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You dropped this.” The kid handed over a piece of paper folded in quarters. Westermann fished in his pocket, gave the boy a quarter, then crossed the street, leaving the boy staring at the coin in his hand. He read as he walked.

  COMMUNITY AT 10 AM. WATER SIDE. WE NEED TO TALK.

  Westermann tore it into eighths, carried it to the next public trash bin, and dumped it.

  The streets were full and Westermann let the crowd pull him along. He was exhausted. The nights with Jane Morphy left him drained; part sleep deprivation, part carnal release, part anxiety. Jane seemed to thrive on the anxiety; it made her jittery, wild.

  Morphy did not return early last night. Another bullet dodged. Could he dodge them forever?

  Out gambling, she’d said. It was what she always said. Westermann didn’t know whether he believed it, or if he thought she believed it. Westermann couldn’t tell with Morphy. What the hell would a guy like that do for kicks?

  Westermann took an unmarked car from the pool at Headquarters and drove to the Community. He had the windows down and hot air whirled wildly around the interior. His shirt clung to his back where it met the seat. Little puddle mirages preceded him in the streets, the asphalt soft under the tires.

  Washington was waiting outside the shanties on the river side, maybe a hundred yards from where the girl’s body was originally found. He wore an untucked short-sleeve shirt and his black-framed glasses. Warren Eddings was with him, skullcap in place. Westermann caught their tight expressions as he approached. He shook hands with the two men. Downriver, he spotted two men in suits and hats, probably cops, walking around the area where the body had “officially” been discovered. One was taking photos—maybe forensics guys come back.

  Eddings scowled at Westermann. “Things aren’t shaking out right.”

  “What do you mean?” Westermann spoke loudly to be heard above the rush of the river.

  “Detectives Grip and Morphy—they work for you?”

  Westermann nodded. “Sure.”

  “They paid a visit to Mel yesterday.”

  Westermann turned to Washington. “They did?”

  Washington nodded. “Wanted to let me know that we were in their sights.”

  Shit. “You know I can’t keep you totally out of this, Mel. We have to run a legitimate investigation and that means giving the Community a look. I’m trying to keep those two away from this side of the investigation.”

  Washington said, “Yeah, well, we weren’t surprised to see the other detectives—Plouffe and Souza, I think their names were—asking questions in the shanties. Normal cop stuff. But this visit from the other two, that was an attempt at intimidation. Let me emphasize that it was an attempt.”

  Westermann thought for a minute, considering his words. Crows were making a racket, pulling at something in the weeds. “I’ll speak to them. Detectives Grip and Morphy are good investigators. Detective Grip, however, also has very strong political beliefs that were probably a factor in their decision to visit you. I’ll talk to him and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

  Eddings said, “It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

  Washington held out a calming hand. “It’s not just the visit they paid me that’s concerning.”

  Westermann raised his eyebrows.

  Eddings said, “They were down by the water yesterday. The kids were watching them. A couple came and found us and told us what was going on, that we should come have a look.”

  Behind Washington and Eddings, the men from downriver were ambling their way. Westermann kept half an eye on their approach.

  Washington said, “They were taking boards and logs that they’d found and putting them in the water at various points on the riverbank and watching where the current took them.”

  Westermann’s pulse pounded. “Did he—”

  “Find the spot?” Washington finished the thought, shaking his head. “Close. He narrowed it down. All those sunken docks and debris under the water, they cause some funny patterns in the current. I think by the time they left, they had a pretty good idea of where we first found her.”

  The two men in suits were twenty yards away, clearly coming over to talk. Westermann lifted his chin toward them and Washington and Eddings turned. The men stopped. The one without the camera was thin, a boyish face below his fedora. Smooth jaw—probably never had to shave.

  “Lieutenant Westermann,” the man said.

  “That’s right.”

  With practiced speed, the man with the camera—unshaven, unkempt—snapped a photo of Westermann with Washington and Eddings.

  “What’s—,” Westermann started.

  The photographer wound and shot a second photo.

  “What the hell?” Eddings made a move toward the cameraman, but Washington stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. The cameraman walked back downstream in a hurry.

  The other man stayed behind, fixing Westermann with a grin. “I left you a message, Lieutenant. You didn’t get back to me, but we do need to talk sometime. Sometime soon. Call me at the Gazette when you get a chance. Ask for Art Deyna.”

  19.

  It had been a morning of wall-to-wall meetings, and Frings took advantage of a brief break by sitting out on the fifth-floor fire escape, sharing a reefer with a young beat reporter named Latapy. A group of four pigeons—the same four pigeons that always came—perched on a metal railing. Frings and Latapy blew marijuana smoke at them.

  Frings liked Latapy. Latapy was young and eager—Frings didn’t necessarily like him for that—but smart and savvy enough to listen to the more experienced reporters. And he was funny. He wasn’t a prima donna, trying to rewrite the rules. Had Frings been a prima donna at that age? Probably, to be honest.

  Frings asked, “Do you know Art Deyna at all?”

  “Deyna? Sure. Don’t you?”

  Frings took a hit off the reefer, holding the smoke in as he shook his head.

  Latapy said, “Why? What’s up?”

  “He a decent gink?”

  “Gink?”

  “What? Am I dating myself? Is he a decent ‘chap’? ‘Bloke’? ‘Guy’?”

  Latapy laughed, exhaling a plume of smoke at the pigeons. “He’s fine. Not my cup of tea, but fine.”

  “Why? What’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know. He’s a little serious, I guess. Looks out for himself. Not the kind of guy to be friends with, really.”

  “He good on the beat?”

  “He thinks he’s good. And he’s probably right. Look, Frank, what’s the story?”

  Frings shrugged, not wanting to make this a bigger deal. “We’re working on different parts of the same story. I just wanted a sense of him.”

  “You two are working the same story?” Latapy was genuinely surprised. Most of the younger reporters looked up to Frings; were even intimidated by his reputation. One of that generation actually competing for a story with Frings was a big step up. “I don’t know how he’ll be with you, Frank. But if it was me, I’d keep my eye on him. He’ll
go after the story hard. He likes to compete and you would be a big trophy.”

  Frings sighed, staring at the stoned pigeons.

  In an editorial meeting, Frings’s mind wandered to Westermann, the man he had chosen as a coconspirator. He liked Westermann, to a degree, and considered him one of the smarter cops Frings had known—maybe the smartest. But Frings also knew how weak Westermann could be; had seen it himself, doing research for a feature he’d written on Westermann just as the police were rolling out the System.

  There was a story Frings could have written, should have written; the story would have sold papers, put him back in the spotlight, rendered the truth. The story would have sent Westermann back to a desk somewhere or out of the force entirely, and this had stopped Frings. Not so much what would befall Westermann, but the fate of his system. The events of that night didn’t call into question anything about the System, but they called into question everything about Westermann as a cop, and Frings knew that the System’s opponents would use its creator’s failings to impeach the thing itself. So he’d written a different story, one where heroism and cowardice were inverted.

  What happened: Frings was spending the night as a ride-along with Westermann, getting material for a story on the force’s controversial “Golden Boy.” Smart, good-looking college boy with a world of possibilities chooses to be a cop and soon has the majority of the force despising him.

  Then there was his father, Big Rolf Westermann, maybe the best-known lawyer in the City, with a penchant for rich clients and headlines. Cops hated Big Rolf’s grandstanding, his belittling of police, but Big Rolf evoked fear, too. No one wanted to look like a fool, or worse, corrupt, on the stand. His son, Frings thought, might be an attractive proxy.