Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City - A Novel

The bus came. She threw a new cigarette into a puddle — you grew up to be a litterer — and got on, dropping her quarters into the box. She sat down across from the rear doors and looked forward at the black cleaning women sitting in the seats for the handicapped and elderly, returning home to their families. One of them leaned forward, her chin and hands propped on the handle of her umbrella, and spoke in a low voice to the others, who sat with their heads bowed to the no-slip floor and the collapsed umbrellas lying at their feet like drenched, docile pets. Lights in store windows on Big Bend drifted by, solitary and painful, burning in the greater darkness.

Three hundred officers had been assigned to patrol on foot to ensure that St. Louis Night proceeded in an orderly manner, as a crowd in excess of 500,000 was expected to pour into the downtown area for the festivities. Sidewalk duty wouldn’t have been too bad if the weather was nice, but the rain was still coming down and a mean wind was kicking up. RC and Sergeant Dom Luzzi sat snug and lucky in their squad car, listening to the radio and skirting the main event, the authorized forklifts and vans plowing back and forth between the reserve parking zones and festival sites, the white tents on the Mall, the canopied booths and tables. The St. Louis skyline was lit up in sections, the floors like illuminated aquariums on shelves in a dark room. But where were the fish?

At 5:25 RC and Luzzi responded to a call from the offices of KSLX, where a group of street people were harassing employees as they left for home. Luzzi pulled the car around the police line blocking the inbound lanes of Olive Street and sped to the scene. Their arrival scattered the street people. They saw the soles of shoes flying up the alleys. A crowd of KSLX employees, many of whom RC recognized, dispersed and headed for the parking lot. Whoever was working the lot would have his hands full for a couple of minutes. RC craned his neck and saw they now had a woman there doing the parking.

Luzzi spoke with the security guard and got back in the car. “Something about a Benjamin Brown,” he said.

“Huh.”

“Are you familiar with the individual?”

“It’s a name you hear.”

“If these people stick around and make trouble in the crowd tonight, they’ll be picked up separately. They aren’t local.”

“No, sir?”

Luzzi shook his head and jotted on his pad. “East St. Louis.”

“The root of all evil.”

“We’ve had enough of your humor, White.”

When Gopal failed to make his scheduled call at 4:00 and another hour passed without her phone ringing, Jammu began to worry, routinely. She wondered what had been going on in England in the last twenty-four hours. She wondered what was going on in St. Louis. If her phone didn’t ring she had no way of knowing. She called the Hammaker residence and found out nothing, called Singh’s place and got no answer. She tried Martin at his office.

“No,” his secretary said. “He left a while ago with Mrs. Probst.”

It took Jammu a moment to find her voice. “When was this?”

“Oh, three o’clock or so.”

“All right, thank you.”

Things had been too quiet.

Either Singh had released Barbara to destroy the operation, or else Devi had returned. Knowing Devi to be resourceful, Gopal to be punctual, and Singh to be loyal if not to her then at least to the operation, Jammu concluded that Mrs. Probst was Devi and that Gopal, her strong arm, quite possibly was dead.

Where was her authority now?

Jack came in the front door shaking his umbrella. His coat was a woolen carapace, a tall gray bell without tucks or flaps. Probst looked up from the sofa with a smile, aware that his presence here was surprising. But Jack only nodded. “Hello Martin.” The pitch of his voice rose on the last syllable. A hint of angry tears.

Probst crossed the room and extended a hand. “Hi, Jack.”

“Good to see you.” Jack’s grip was weak. “What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion. Just thought I’d drop in.”

Jack wouldn’t look at him. “Great. Excuse me a second.” He swung around, and with a nonchalance undermined by little hitches in his stride, like the grabbing of a wet chamois on a windshield, he walked to the kitchen. He was obviously nursing a grudge. But perhaps he would abandon it. Probst sat down on the sofa again. He didn’t mind waiting. Waiting rooms were places in which it was impossible to think.

In the kitchen, where melted cheese had joined the hamburger and onions, there were murmured consultations. Probst had already accepted Elaine’s invitation to stay for dinner, and her murmurs were placating. Jack’s were upbraiding. Then hers became more heated, and Jack’s more resigned. He returned to the living room composing his hair and adjusting the cuffs of his baby blue sweater. “Do you want a beer, Martin?”

Again his voice rose as he spoke and cracked on the last syllable.

“Sure, thanks,” Probst said. “I’m not interrupting anything?”

Jack didn’t answer. He went to the kitchen and returned with a can of Hammaker, set it on the coffee table in front of Probst, turned on the television, and marched back to the kitchen. Probst was amazed. He never got the silent treatment from anyone but Barbara and Luisa.

“Oh, for pete’s sake, Jack.” Elaine was angry.

“…tonight as fire fighters from three communities continue to pour water on his three-story house, which burned to the ground late this afternoon. Cliff Quinlan has a live mini-cam report.”

“Don, no one knows how the fire started, Webster Groves fire chief Kirk McGraw has said it’s too early to speculate on the possibility of arson, I don’t think anyone here really thinks the blaze was in any way related to Probst’s recent political activities, but this has been a deadly fire. When Webster Groves fire fighters arrived, they witnessed a man believed to be Probst’s, ah, gardener entering the house. He did not come out again. The intensity of the heat has made recovery of the body impossible thus far, and it may be another one to three hours before it’s determined whether any other persons were in the house at the time of the blaze. The one known victim is the, ah, gardener, who lived on the property and has not been seen. However, neighbors say that Probst’s car is not on the property, so it appears unlikely that he himself was in the house. I’ve asked Chief McGraw how a fire could burn out of control for as long as it did in this residential neighborhood.”

“Well, Cliff, first I’d have to point up the secluded nature of the residence, you see the hedges and the fence, the residence is set well back from the street, and at the period of time in question, namely the late afternoon, with visibility being what it was—”

Telephones rang throughout the house.

“Yes, he is,” Jack said in the kitchen. He appeared in the doorway. “Martin, it’s for you.” He pointed — jabbed — a finger at the phone on the console in the hall. Then he withdrew again to the kitchen.

Probst retrieved his coat from the closet and walked out the front door into the rain. He’d hardly recognized the Webster Groves scene on the news. But he could identify the phone call with certainty. It was the summons he’d been waiting for. Only Jammu would have thought to look for him here. He’d mentioned Jack to her once, and once, he was learning, was all she needed.

She woke up with a headache and some grogginess, but basically the substance he’d given her had treated her as gently as he himself had. For a while she lay breathing experimentally, accustoming herself to consciousness, expecting dinner. But when she shifted her legs and opened her eyes she saw that everything had changed. The fetter was gone, the sheets were clean, a big lamp with a shade stood on a dresser by a chair on which her clothes—