The Last Tomorrow

THIRTY-FIVE

1

Seymour Markley pulls a white cloth from his pocket, snaps it, and cleans his glasses, wiping the lenses in a circular motion one after the other. Without them, the men sitting across from him are mere flesh-colored smudges without eyes or noses or mouths, like someone smeared out their oil-paint faces with the swipe of a thumb. Once the glasses are clean he puts them back on and blinks at Barry and the man sitting beside him, Peter Burton, the deputy district attorney charged with providing the grand jury with legal advice on this investigation once the indictment is presented. They have once more been made human, features having grown from their faces as he placed the glasses upon his nose. He folds the cloth into quarters and puts it back into his pocket.

He has but one question on his mind. What are they going to do about this investigation now that Theodore Stuart is dead? The police haven’t yet apprehended the man who killed him, despite their confidence two nights ago, so he can’t question him about a possible connection to James Manning, and even if he could it doesn’t look like there is one. And he needs one.

He’d planned on presenting the indictment to the grand jury tomorrow morning, once he’d finished lining everything up. He wanted to hand them most of a case. But just as it was coming together, fate knocked it apart. He’s postponed till Friday. He needs at least fourteen members of the twenty-three member grand jury to return an affirmative vote if they’re going to indict, and this is unprecedented legal ground.

When he had Stuart in custody he was sure he’d get the votes, and with a true bill from the grand jury he wouldn’t be standing alone behind a shaky case. Their vote for indictment would protect him, to some degree, from allegations of recklessness. He’d still have to work hard to convince his supporters in the movie industry that this case wouldn’t end up hurting them — he’s gotten more pushback than he expected there, but then the threat those whores made against him clouded his thinking — but at least he wouldn’t be standing alone. Now he’s not so sure the jury will come back with the votes, and if he doesn’t get the votes, it’s over. And his career is irreparably damaged.

Seymour looks at the two men sitting across from him.

Barry, with his elbows on the arms of his chair and his fingertips pressed together, looks like a man preparing for prayer.

Peter Burton, all nerves, with a head of curly blond hair in need of a trim, sits peeling the paper off a cigarette while bits of tobacco fall into his lap.

‘Okay,’ Seymour says. ‘The way I see it, the investigation must to do three things if there’s to be a case. One, it must result in evidence that James Manning is the money behind E.M. Comics. We had testimony to that effect until Theodore Stuart was killed, now we don’t, but I’m confident we can get there. You can’t run a business without leaving a paper trail somewhere. We just need to uncover it. Two, it will need to result in evidence that Down City compelled the boy to commit a murder he would not otherwise have committed. We’ll have the testimony of the boy himself for that, as well as the testimony of Frederic Wertham, an expert in the field. With the way people feel about comics these days, this is the least of our worries. Mothers are already throwing them into trash bins and church groups are burning them. Half of the grand jury will be convinced before any evidence is presented to them. Three, it must result in evidence that James Manning was criminally negligent in allowing the comic to go to press. We need evidence that he knew of the dangers and let the comic end up on newsstands anyway. That’s the tough part, and that’s what might stall the case before it’s even begun. We’re out on a limb here, and to be perfectly frank, it has me worried. Any thoughts?’

Seymour’s telephone rings.

He looks down at it. It rings a second time. He told his girl not to put any calls through, so why is his telephone ringing? It had better be important. He holds up a finger to the two men sitting across from him, picks up the receiver midway through the third ring.

2

Barry watches his boss pick up the telephone, put it to his ear.

‘Yes?’

He looks down at his hands, at his fingertips touching, pushes them hard against each other so the skin goes white beneath the fingernails. He thinks of the discussions he’s been having with Maxine.

‘Put him through.’

He’s been talking with her about quitting. They discussed it over dinner last night and the night before. Maxine always asks the same thing. What will we do about money? It’s a good question, an important one, and his answer now is the same as it was then. I don’t know. But he knows this. He’s been compromised by his work here. He wanted this job because of his respect for the idea that he lived in a nation governed by laws, and that breaking them meant you faced consequences, and that those consequences were meted out to the guilty without regard to who they were or what their social status might be. The problem is, it’s bullshit. It’s a lie. And he’s been actively participating in that lie.

‘What bad news?’

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but he doesn’t think he can continue doing this. He knows he can’t. Maybe he’ll bang on the ivories in a piano bar somewhere. At least he’ll be able to look himself in the mirror.

‘Are you certain?’

He looks up to see his boss’s face drain of color.

Into the phone Seymour says, ‘How could this happen?’

He puts his hand over his opened mouth.

‘You need to find him.’

He hangs up the phone and looks across the desk.

‘There was an accident.’

‘What kind of accident?’

‘Automobile.’

‘What happened?’

‘A sheriff’s deputy crashed into a Mack truck. He was transporting our witness.’

‘Is anyone hurt?’

‘The deputy’s dead from injuries and another man’s been shot.’

‘In a car accident?’

‘It’s confused right now.’

‘What about the boy?’

‘Fled the scene. And it looks like he took the deputy’s service revolver with him.’

3

Seymour closes his eyes and rubs his temples with the first two fingers on each hand. His head is throbbing. He can’t believe what a nightmare this has become. It might be time to end it. Without Theodore Stuart or the boy to testify they have very little to work with. They have the Bunker Hill murder and a weak connection to a comic book with a weak connection to James Manning. They have the skeleton of something, maybe, but the meat has been torn away from the bones and hauled off by hyenas.

And the threat against him has been eliminated.

He won’t be able to simply drop it. He made the grand-jury investigation a public matter, and the public will demand answers. His career will suffer, probably permanently, but if he cuts his losses now it won’t be over. He needs to think this through.

The telephone rings again.

He looks at it hatefully, considers picking it up and dropping it right back down into its cradle. He wants it silenced.

Instead he grabs it, puts it to his ear.

‘What now?’

‘Candice Richardson and her lawyer have arrived.’