When Righty got the news, he told Harold somberly, “It’s been a bloody night. I need to bathe both my body and my soul.”
Harold took him to a lake high in the mountains, where Righty cleaned the blood off of his body. He felt far more soiled on the inside, however, than ever before.
“Can I ask you one more favor, Harold?” Righty said, realizing that, if Harold had his limits of loyalty, he was exploring the outer limits.
“I’ll deliver the package to Sodorf,” Harold said calmly. “It’s on the way towards bringing you home,” he added with a smile.
Harold had hidden the package in the woods last night while Righty slept in the cabin.
He made a quick detour, picked it up, and dropped Righty off at his home.
As Righty approached his home at around 11 p.m., he was glad for what seemed like the first time in ages to be approaching a doorway without murder in his heart.
But he knew that whether he got any serious furlough from murder and mayhem would depend on tomorrow’s headlines, the government’s response, and what kinds of things he found when he began perusing the late Chief Benson’s personal files with the scrutiny of a microbiologist.
“It’s me, babe,” he said, entering the home.
The baby began to cry.
“Shhhhhhh,” he said softly as he picked Heather up, and to his surprise, once again her presence in his arms gave his soul the purifying bath that water and soap never could.
Though she pretended to sleep, Janie looked at her husband out of narrow slits, her heart warmed by the genuine love she could feel emanating from Richie whenever he was around their baby.
When he slid into bed beside her a half-hour later, she grabbed his right hand and laced her fingers with his. That hand had done some very violent things, but now it gently caressed her fingers.
Chapter 28
Righty’s formal academic career had ended with high school, but from time to time he had heard of the crushing stress those in the medical, legal, and accounting fields experienced when they awaited the results of their licensing examination.
The answer came in the form of a letter, and from what he had heard, the first line of the letter would either send the reader into an incomparable state of bliss or into an equally intense state of despair. Those in the former category would contemplate the bright future and moneymaking prospects ahead of them. Those in the latter would meditate upon approaching their friends and family with the shameful news—that years of study and many a pretty falon had been expended in vain on the poor soul’s insufficiently sharp mind.
Righty supposed that, if he were free to discuss his violent past couple of nights with a licensed professional, perhaps he would concede that Righty indeed knew exactly what it felt like to know that the direction of one’s future—namely, up or down—depended upon the contents of a sentence or two that he would be reading shortly.
As Righty set off towards Sivingdel on Harold’s back, ready to start buying one newspaper after another, his stomach churned. Either he was going to have to take Janie and the baby and hightail it out of Ringsetter like thieves in the night, or he would see the prospect of peaceful times ahead, which would involve a very cozy alliance with the new mayor and chief of police.
Harold set Righty down in the city park, and as he tipped his hat confidently at a passing officer, the policeman warned him, “Careful, sir; there’s a maniac on the loose in these woods.”
“Well, I can get awful cranky if someone interrupts my afternoon walk, so he had better steer clear of me,” Righty said, affecting a laugh.
The officer smiled and continued on his way.
Righty took a coach to the city square, where most of the newspapers were available, and picked up the first one he saw, which was written by The Sivingdel Gazette:
TERROR ARRIVES!
“The increasingly infamous Mr. Brass is the police’s top suspect in the cold-blooded arson and murder that rocked our city’s foundation to the core yesterday. Rumor has it that the elusive underworld figure was arrested not too long ago and destroyed the police station in a callous act of revenge.”
Righty put the newspaper back and went to another.
It had similar content. And so did several others.
He gulped as he approached the newspaper stand for The Sivingdel Times. He didn’t want to kill anyone tonight . . . or ever again for that matter. But a promise was a promise.
An excellent sketch of the fire at its zenith was engraved at the top of the paper.
SHAME ON YOU, MR. MAYOR!!
Righty, a bit flabbergasted, quickly paid for the paper and searched for a place he could sit down and read calmly.
“Mayor Roverdile, long known for his nefarious underworld ties, has not only crossed the line this time but left it a mile behind. Unimpeachable sources inside our city’s police department have informed The Sivingdel Times that the late Chief Lloyd Benson was engaged in a no-holds-barred investigation of the crooked mayor for embezzlement, bribery, malfeasance, and other serious felonies related to his ties with organized crime.
“Sources say ‘an indictment was a foregone conclusion,’ but the mayor had other plans and ordered his underworld contacts to smuggle a large amount of dynamite and flammable materials into the police station so that the investigation would ‘go up in smoke.’
“Thoroughness cannot be denied the mayor, however. In a crime matching the mayor’s modus operandi in the Sivingdel Police Station burning ‘to the t,’ it has been discovered that Chief Benson’s home was burned to the ground the night before the police station attack. Sources close to the investigation say ‘this was the clear work of hired professionals.’
“Two of the chief’s three dogs were found groggy but very much alive, with two gnawed pieces of steak located near the fence. The dogs whimpered when shown the steak, leaving no doubt it caused them to fall asleep at their posts.
“Both the chief’s and an as-of-yet unidentified person’s decapitated remains were found in the rubble, showing that whoever did this intended to make sure the job was done without surviving eyewitnesses.
“In a cynical game of smoke and mirrors, the mayor has been blaming the police station burning on organized crime, but what is clear now is that, regardless of who lit the fuse, it was the mayor who gave the order.
“Police say they plan to investigate city hall from top to bottom, rather than go after the mayor’s ‘underlings in the underworld,’ since they surely would not have carried out so brazen a crime unless acting on direct orders from the highest levels.
“In one final act of brutality, two National Drug Police agents were savagely murdered while en route to the nation’s capital. According to a law enforcement source closely involved with the investigation, ‘The two agents were likely fleeing for their lives, as we now have an eyewitness who saw them being threatened and chased out of the city.’
“The only question left is whether the police will arrest Mayor Roverdile before he carries out even more heinous acts of bloodshed in a maniacal attempt to cover his tracks.
“May Kasani help us all.”
Righty had to pinch himself to avoid bursting out laughing. With any luck, the tone in the other newspapers would change soon. After all, which story was more titillating? And everyone knew that, when it came to the news, The Sivingdel Times set the beat that the other papers marched to.
Righty went back to the park, found Harold in the forest, and took off towards Ringsetter. He told the konulans to search far and wide for a ranch anywhere within one to three hours from Ringsetter by horse . . . and with a white picket fence. Righty had a promise to fulfill.
But the rest of the day was going to be for him, Janie, and Heather.
Well, almost. He had another article to write for The Sivingdel Times. While he hoped Harry Felden was wise enough to realize the mayor’s demise needed to be reported in a manner consistent with today’s article, Righty felt the situat
ion was a bit too delicate to allow Harry back at the helm just yet.
Tomorrow’s top story was going to require just the right wording.
Chapter 29
“How in the hell did we miss this?!” a red-faced man bellowed at a trembling audience of six. He was Michael Felthammer, owner and executive editor of The Sivingdel Gazette, second only in size and prestige to The Sivingdel Times. They were his top assistant editors, and while their interns and secretaries may have trembled at their frown, they currently quivered before the tongue-lashing from their boss.
“This is the story of the century if not of the millennium!!” Felthammer roared, his eyes darting around at the hapless faces before him, searching for the slightest inkling that his toadies failed to appreciate the enormity of their screw-up.
Mournful faces, bowed heads, sighs, and lip-chewing informed him that they understood.
“Okay, okay,” he said, calming from the level of raging bull to cranky, in a one-man version of good cop/bad cop.
“Let’s think solutions. Andrea, Phil, Steve, Roger, Sam, Charles—lift your sources up and shake them until something falls out. If we don’t have something in tomorrow’s paper that we can provide the public unique from whatever juicy steak The Sivingdel Times serves tomorrow, we may as well pack all our bags and go home. Heck! I’ll go ask Harry Felden right now if he’d be interested in buying our paper out!”
Steve, who had been there the longest and often dared ask openly what the others scarcely dared ask within the safe confines of their own mind, suddenly said, “Sir, with all due respect, is there any chance Felden got fed a line of bull and ran with it? Maybe he thought it was too great a headline to pass up?”
“Gee, thanks, Genius Steve! That thought never even entered my mind, but let me summarize the facts here for you. We’re not talking about The Sivingdel Inquirer—we’re talking The Sivingdel Times, for Kasani’s sake! As much as I dislike that smug Harry, he wouldn’t run with a story like this unless it was ROCK solid! You print a story like this and it turns out to be bogus, and you’re not just looking at being made a laughingstock . . . you’re looking at defamation damages that could break the national bank! You’re looking at CRIMINAL charges!” His angry eyes scanned the room.
“Don’t go yelling ‘Liar! Liar!’ just because The Sivingdel Times has reporters that know how to get their hands dirty. As you have probably heard, the mayor was found dead last night—killed gangland style along with some other victims whose names my police contacts are keeping hush-hush, and the mayor had a note attached to his back about debts. You know what you’ve gotta do. Now get out of here, and GET to work!!”
The six assistant editors slinked out of the office like a group of naughty children that have just had their ears boxed. More than one of them had a thought that could be roughly summarized as follows: If the boss wants dirt written about the mayor, we’ll give it to him . . . even if the source is our own imagination!
Chapter 30
The next day Righty felt almost as anxious as the prior. He could imagine several headlines:
SHAME ON YOU, SIVINGDEL TIMES!
A NEW LOW IN JOURNALISM?!
HARRY FELDEN MOONLIGHTS FOR
THE SIVINGDEL INQUIRER, CONFUSES ARTICLES . . .
OOPS!!!
If he saw anything like that, it would probably mean a group of stern-faced detectives would be marching over to The Sivingdel Times at this very moment, or perhaps were already there, maybe holding Harry Felden upside down from a window asking him when he began writing stories at the behest of kingpins. From there, a whole five minutes would elapse before he would show them the mysterious note threatening his family.
Everyone would calm down, and Harry Felden would write a retraction article along with a verbatim copy of the savage threats he and his family had been subjected to. The riotous call for Mr. Brass’s head would quickly resume in all the newspapers, and he would need to take Janie and the baby and hightail it out of the country like one of those desperate outlaws he had been reading about recently in the late Chief Benson’s copy of Brutality During the Prohibition Wars.
He took a deep breath and approached the stand for The Sivingdel Gazette. Practically flinching, he picked up a copy:
WE THOUGHT WE KNEW YOU, MR. MAYOR!
Righty quickly paid for a copy, then purchased a copy from the adjacent The Sivingdel Times stand, and headed off for a place he could sit and relax. He found a nearby bench and turned back to the article from the Gazette:
“To call it ‘a double life’ would perhaps not do the situation justice. While we mourn the violent way in which Mayor Roverdile deceased last night, there can be little doubt that such a fate awaits all who lie in bed with organized crime. Rumors of Roverdile’s ties to the underworld had long persisted, but only recently have law enforcement sources begun to talk.
“Per one anonymous detective, ‘I thought for a long time I could just look the other way. I felt the mayor was untouchable and would put me away forever if I talked. But once I saw what he did to my brothers at the police station, I knew it was time to speak out.’”
Righty smiled inwardly but kept a stony exterior. He flipped over to The Sivingdel Times:
SLAIN—THE MAYOR
VICTIM—THE GALLOWS!
“While death at the hands of our city’s gangsters may have been poetic justice for the now infamous Mayor Roverdile, we at The Sivingdel Times believe that a public trial and execution would have had a more powerful deterrent effect on future politicians who believe themselves above the law.
“Detectives close to the case say the gambling debt may have merely been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, with the primary motive being a fear amongst the underworld hierarchy that the mayor was going to make them take the fall while he posed as the restorer of law and order. Some sources say the gangsters had even come to fear extrajudicial acts of violence from the mayor because these gangsters epitomized ‘knowing too much.’”
Righty felt the deepest sense of relief he had experienced in a long time. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he could see the clearing. It was so very beautiful.
But he had some papers to look over in his cabin, and he flinched inwardly at the thought of what he might find there.
Chapter 31
While Righty Rick enjoyed a sublime respite from the bloody forty-eight hours that were now behind him, journalist Stephen Randalls was at the apogee of distress. He and Righty had shared something special together, though Righty was utterly oblivious to the fact, and to Mr. Randalls it was just a hunch.
Approximately forty-eight hours ago, Mr. Randalls had been inside the processing area of the Sivingdel Police Station, tucked away in the shadows while an interesting prisoner had sat under a bright light like an artifact on display.
Mr. Randalls had sketched enough mugshots for The Republic’s Gazette for the task to become rather mundane, but he knew from the moment arrestee Sam Higler walked in to be sketched that this was no ordinary arrest and no ordinary criminal.
The man looked like he was carved out of solid granite—chest, arm, and shoulder muscles bulging out ferociously, yet aesthetically, like the well-designed exterior of a deadly trebuchet, capable of hurling missiles mercilessly at its enemies.
And the man was seething. Though the casual observed might have thought him calm or even broken, Mr. Randalls was no ordinary observer. He had always had a keen eye for a man’s state of mind, and inside Sam Higler fateful clouds were slowly churning, bearing all the hallmarks of a nasty hurricane in formation.
Mr. Randalls had inquired after Sam Higler’s departure from the processing area what his offense was and why he was in his underwear rather his normal clothes. The processing officer feigned ignorance until handed a small bribe, at which point he recalled that Sam Higler appeared to be a first-time guest at the jail and that he had showed up asking to speak to Tats and then to the chief. A search of his clo
thing quickly discovered so much money in so many hidden pockets that they decided to remove his clothing as evidence of attempted bribery.
Mr. Randalls couldn’t help but wonder at that very moment if this could be the elusive Mr. Brass—the man who had maintained secret and sacrosanct his real name, whatever it was, and who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere to acquire city kingpin status as if it were as simple as picking up a glass of water and drinking it.
Having been busy in Sivingdel for the last several weeks, lurking around the jail processing area for a SISA-related arrest to happen so that he could sketch the hapless miscreants, he had accumulated a couple dozen sketches of suspects, and had been planning on heading back to the capital city the next morning, but a strange hunch had told him to stick around.
He had left the jail for lunch and had been heading back there when he saw a scuffle near the doors to the police station entrance. It looked like a group of men had chained the doors shut, but he was too far away to be sure. Although he could see the men in question were very well dressed, he couldn’t make out their faces.