Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City - A Novel

And here were the police.

Half a dozen squad cars had parked broadside in the middle of Gravois. Probst stopped. In the mirror he saw that the Chevy had been stopped farther back; it was turning and leaving. Blue lights met white lights, the sky falling and shattering in luminous shards. Sirens and radios, headlights, snow. A policeman was pointing at Probst, waving his finger, mouthing words: Turn around. Probst jumped out. He was safe now.

“Turn around,” the policeman said.

“Where can I go?” Probst called.

“Road’s closed.” Beyond the man, others ran towards a roadblock with rifles and shotguns.

“What is it?”

“Turn around.”

More squad cars pulled up behind Probst, blocking his exit. Farther back, traffic was being diverted onto Morganford. Overhead, a helicopter.

“Unit Six Unit Six,” the radios squawked. “High rate of speed Kingshighway South. Unit Seven Holly Hills.”

Probst got back into his car. He really was blocked in. To his left he saw another motorist likewise stranded, his rear wheels on the traffic divider.

A van with a dish antenna on top was heading the wrong way up the empty northbound lanes of Gravois. It had hardly stopped when the rear door and both side doors opened, splitting the KSLX logos in two. A cameraman jumped out, followed by a reporter Probst recognized. It was Don Daizy. Camera lights ushered him forward to the line of squad cars, and now for the first time Probst picked out the focus of all this activity: in a trench coat, leaning against one of the cars, a megaphone dangling from one hand, a car-radio microphone poised in the other, Jammu.

Don Daizy approached her with his wire-laden retinue. An officer, pistol drawn, met him and turned him back. They exchanged words. A second officer seized the cameraman and led him away to the van. Daizy donned a headset and listened, squinting and nodding. He tapped a large microphone.

Probst switched on his car radio and watched Jammu. Night had fallen. The many flashers cast a light that was almost steady, as crickets merge into a single voice. Jack Strom was speaking on KSLX. Jammu was wearing snowboots. She stood motionless by the car, staring into whatever situation lay beyond the roadblock. Two officers alongside her were staring in the same direction.

“…following an abortive attack on a Bell Telephone installation in the southwest corner of the city. Residents in the area bounded by Chippewa, Gravois, and the River des Peres are urged to stay indoors . I repeat, in the area bounded by Chippewa Avenue, Gravois Avenue, and the city limits, residents—”

Probst would remember his first glimpse of her. In describing his adventure in the following weeks, he would dwell on her quiet domination of the scene, on how, by saying a few words into the radio every minute or two, by keeping almost completely still as the crisis progressed, she seemed to control every action of the men around her and of all the other men farther off in the darkness. He would remember her manner of dress, the snowboots and trench coat, the impromptu confidence, remember it even when she used her cool, cruel arguments to wring this hour — Sunday, December 10, 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. — for every last drop of its political value…

“Armed and dangerous. We switch now to Don Daizy, who is at the Gravois roadblock. Don?”

…Because the roadblocks would serve no purpose. The Osage Warriors, trapped at last, would dump their vehicle, cross the dry river, elude the sadly undermanned and unorganized local police south of it, and escape scot-free. Jammu would testify bitterly in Jefferson City: “We’d been waiting for this, we had the trap planned down to the last detail, and all of it was negated by a force not under my control.” Probst would hear these words, recognize the manipulation in them, and forgive her because he’d seen her during the moment itself, seen her in person, and he knew a professional when he saw one.

“The arteries are effectively blocked off, and in the distance I can see patrol cars fanning into the streets to the south and west…”

Daizy was speaking into his microphone.

“Chief Jammu is standing ten yards to my left and is directing the operation in conjunction with officers in the police chopper…”

Daizy’s voice spoke from Probst’s radio.

“From what I’ve been able to gather, the police received indications of the whereabouts of the terrorists several hours ago, and in the last twenty minutes they’ve been able to follow their movements with a high degree of precision…”

Daizy was gesturing while he spoke to his invisible audience, his lips moving in the patchwork light while his words, in perfect sync with the lips, beat like rain against the windows of Probst’s car.

Titus Klaxon and his Steamcats, local men who’d made the big time and beat it to LA, were playing an exclusive gig at Shea’s Lounge on Vandeventer Avenue, an event of a must-see nature. RC and Annie left their son Robbie with Clarence and Kate’s kids and let Clarence drive the four of them through a white-out winter storm and park in a vacancy whose identity and ownership (a lawn? a lot? a street?) were concealed by a foot of snow. This was the second storm in two days and still the sky was not exhausted. Passing the mute bouncer, RC watched Annie’s glasses grow foggy and blind her. She removed them and smiled, and he kissed her and squeezed her shoulders. On the darkened dais somebody was playing a fast beat on the high hat, which meant the show was nowhere close to starting. Ernie Shea, a friend of Clarence’s, ushered them all to a well-situated table and personally fetched a pitcher of Hammaker. The highhatter ceased. RC and Clarence, Kate and Annie all talked for a while about everything and nothing, like in the old days, a double date, except there hadn’t ever been old days like this. RC was ten and Annie two when Kate and Clarence married.

Soon enough Clarence walked his chair back a couple feet for a one-on-one with RC. “So, Off-sir,” he said. “How’s life?”

RC reflected. The main thing in his life right now was that he and Annie were getting squeezed out of their apartment by their landlord Sloane. There were new ordinances to keep the rent halfway reasonable, but Sloane was charging fees, doing noisy nighttime renovation in vacant apartments, and offering a tidy sum to anybody willing to move out. Already there’d been a lot of takers.

Clarence sniffed up a cigar and clamped down. “Not a hundred percent wonderful?” How bloodshot his eyes were was visible even in the low orange light and smoke. “What could be bad, Off-sir?”

“You interested, Clarence, or you just making fun of me?”

“I’m interested, Off-sir.”

“Then stop calling me that.” These Q&A sessions made RC nervous when Annie was right there in front of them. Clarence had an ulterior concern, as in, How’s life treating my little sister? “I’m fine,” RC said. “Except we’re getting squeezed out of our place.”

“That a fact?” Clarence puffed.

“Sloane was up on Saturday talking to Annie. He said supposedly he couldn’t afford not to.”

“Sloanes’ll be Sloanes.” Clarence’s eyes looked like it hurt for them to see. “What else is new.”

It wasn’t a question, but RC answered it. “Annie got that job, you know. I aced my communications test.”

“So you two all set to pay that nice high rent.”

RC drank his beer. The players moving at the back of the dais wore fishnet shirts and tank tops, while outside it was blizzarding to kill derelicts. It was no fun, RC thought, to hang around with a pessimist who was seeing his predictions confirmed, and that was what Clarence was, exactly that. It made RC want to apologize for the world, for all the bad things in it. He could live with the troubles and expenses of his life, but watching them match up with Clarence’s low expectations just killed him.