The Twenty-Seventh City : A Novel

8

Once upon a time, the land had been a hunting ground for the Cahokia people, native Americans leading lives which bore so little connection with the subsequent Caucasian experience of the eastern plains that it seemed they must have taken the very land along with them when they vanished. History lives or dies in buildings, and the Cahokians didn’t build with stone. Across the river in Illinois and further down it in Missouri they did build huge earthen burial mounds, which survived to loom above the succeeding tribes like the worn peaks of a sunken Atlantis; but up here in the hills hardly a trace remained of the Cahokians, and only arrowheads marked the passage of the later Iowas and Sauks and Foxes, those Americans modern enough to be misnamed Indians.

It had taken white men to fix the land within a grid. They’d logged it over in the nineteenth century, hauling the wood five miles east to the Mississippi and floating it downstream to St. Louis, where it was chopped for steamboats or milled for houses. They had also tried to farm the land, but crops grew poorly on the rocky, uneven terrain. By the turn of the century it had fallen into the hands of creditors, who let it go to seed, as creditors will, the low land marshing over, the high ground gradually effacing the pioneer scars.

Buzz Wismer had bought up two sections in 1939 for little more reason than his faith in real estate, which couldn’t disintegrate the way his fledgling airplane business might. Ten years later, after the war had made a rich man of him once and for all, the land proved to offer security of a different sort. He had an extensive bomb shelter dug in the north face of the highest ridge here, a winter haven for the months when the prevailing winds blew from the north. His summer shelter was in the Ozarks, optimally situated to avoid fallout from both the silos and the urban centers. Unless, of course, the wind played tricks.

The land was beautiful. Secondary growth, the scrub oak and cottonwood, sycamore and sassafras, hawthorn and sumac, had crept from the safety of the ravines and vaulted, annually, ever farther into the old cornfields, converging and rising. Conifers consolidated early gains, blackberry brambles and cattails reaffirmed the swamps, the old apple orchard let down its hair, grew crazy in the sweet rot of its droppings, and no man could touch a twig of any of all of this without Buzz’s permission. He’d enclosed it with an eight-foot fence topped with barbed wire and bearing strongly worded signs at the few points where it broke to let deer in and out. Within the enclosure he let the woods grow. He avoided even making paths, preferring to forge rough ones as he went, fending off thorns with his machete and his boots and gloves. Farther up, on the stonier slopes, the going was easier.

At sixteen Buzz had been a barnstorming wunderkind, touring his way out of Warren County and into the city and then cross-country from there. He’d flown the upper Midwest, Alberta, Toronto, Quebec. He’d walked wings over New England, he’d buzzed rooftops in Aurora, and with cash in his pocket and his nickname on his fuselage, he’d headed home again. At an air show in St. Charles he bailed out from six hundred feet and broke both his legs. He restructured his priorities, marrying a nurse named Nancy George and going into business. His business throve, but his Nancy, having entered his life on a flight path nearly vertical, like the VTOLs he would later build, soon took off again. She was married to an oil man now, a fellow by the name of Howard Green.

Buzz’s current wife, Bev, was his third. People didn’t like Bev, and although Buzz didn’t either anymore, the slow revelation of the world’s lack of charity had appalled him. In order to have any daytime social life at all beyond the occasional lunch with Barbara Probst, Bev was reduced to giving bridge parties for the wives of Buzz’s lower-echelon engineers, wives who were honored that Wismer’s wife took an interest in them. In the evenings, lacking any sort of invitations, Bev made Buzz take her to dinner at the St. Louis Club — a duty which Buzz had for many years resented and taken pains to shirk. This fall, however, evenings at the St. Louis Club had become much more agreeable, because Princess Asha Hammaker had begun to dine there regularly with her husband Sidney.

Buzz was really enthusiastic about this Indian newcomer. Jammu he could take or leave; Asha Hammaker had depth. He and Bev had shared a television with the Hammakers at the Club’s election-night party. They had all shared a table at the Murphy girl’s wedding reception. And finally, in the Club bar on the first Saturday in December, Buzz had had a chance to spend several minutes alone with the Princess—“Call me Asha”—while Bev freshened up and Sidney was detained by Desmond, the maître d’. With a graceful sweeping motion Asha pushed her black hair off her forehead, off her dot, and caught it in back with both hands. “I’ve heard a secret about you,” she said, leaning closer to Buzz. “I’ve heard you’ve bought property in the city.”

“Ah? Well, yes. That’s true.”

“So glad to hear it.” She touched his wrist with two soft fingertips. “Planning to develop?”

“The property?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Maybe.”

“Maybe.” With a fingernail she traced a long, deliberate line down his wrist and across his palm, ending at the barrier of his wedding ring. “I’d like to discuss this with you sometime. But—” She rose abruptly from her seat. “Privately.”

Buzz looked over his shoulder and saw that General Norris, whiskey in hand, cigar in mouth, was watching him. Buzz smiled, and Asha hurried off. The General ambled over and proposed a hunting trip.

All fall, with mysterious frequency, the General had been dropping into Buzz’s life and standing him to drinks, talking of the agonies and ecstasies of corporate presidency, proffering cigars, and expanding endlessly on his Indian conspiracy theory. Buzz couldn’t figure out why Norris was suddenly so interested in spending time with him. The General had plenty of cronies and an army of sycophants, and he always seemed to have to hold his nose around Buzz. You could hardly call them friends.

And yet here they were on Buzz’s land at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday morning, preparing for a midday hunt. The two men sat on safari stools on the bungalow veranda, a hundred yards downhill from the shelter. The land was as still as a chapel on a weekday, the sky a bluish shade of white.

The General unzipped his gun case and displayed his weapon. “A big man needs a big stock,” he said. He wore a red-and-black lumberjack jacket, green trousers, and gigantic swamp boots. His big thumb stroked the walnut stock. “I had this custom-made, from the barrel on up. You guess what it cost me?”

Buzz was loading the magazine of his Sako.

“Try three grand,” the General said.

“That’s a lot,” said Buzz.

“Worth every nickel, dime, and penny of it. I show you the scope? Take a look at this field.”

With an effort — the gun weighed a ton — Buzz raised the scope to his eye. It was a bright, flat field, extra wide, parallax corrected, with a crisp reticle. But a scope was a scope. “Not bad.” He handed the gun back to the General.

“It fits my eye, Buzz. It fits my eye.” He paused. “You got some kind of toilet out here?”

Toilet? He had thirteen hundred acres of land. “Up at the shelter.”

“We’ll stop there a second.”

The General stepped daintily off the veranda. Buzz dropped a handful of cartridges into his jacket pocket and followed. At the shelter he opened three locks and two doors and sent Norris to the toilet, which probably hadn’t been used twice in twenty years. He hoped they could kill a deer quickly so they could return to the city in time for him to eat a late lunch and work eight hours. A couple of young men from R&D had helped him write a set of programs to simulate air current tensors. He was working on weather prediction from a relativistic viewpoint, basing his model on the mutating coordinates of an individual pressure system — a new wrinkle, and it had some potential, at least in “simple” meteorological fields like the Great Plains. Around 7:00 he’d call downstairs for a Reuben sandwich, chips, pickles, and a bottle of Guinness.

Up here on the ridge the trees held their peace. Their bare crowns were studded with squirrel nests and galls and bluejays chattering at the dusty sunbeams. Today would have been perfect for just walking. Except for a short-lived inch of snow last week, there had been no precipitation since well before Thanksgiving. The land was dry. The leaves sighed and fluttered when you kicked through them, the warmth shimmering up from the red clay underneath.

Norris banged the door shut behind him and mopped his forehead and his gray-blond eyebrows with a handkerchief the size of a guest towel. “Let’s go shoot us some wildlife. You got a rope?”

“Darn. I left it in the bungalow.”

“We’ll do without. I wanna git.”

At the top of the ridge they turned and headed west at a good clip, the General striding along in visibly higher spirits and Buzz tagging after him. His machete slapped his thigh, and his high Wellingtons, not made for forced marches, bit the beginnings of blisters into his ankles. The ground was just a tawny blur. Buzz’s idea of a hunt was sitting in a blind while the sun came up, drinking coffee, chatting with his son-in-law Eric and then, maybe, aiming at a deer. The General stopped. Buzz caught up with him in time to hear his question. “This Osage country?”

“Uh, not really.”

The General started walking again. “I assume there was such a tribe.”

“Oh yes. Yes. There were actually two tribes, and then…the Missouris. Who were related.” Buzz drove a wedge of air into his lungs. “They were in the lower Missouri valley when the French came. The Missouris and the Little Osages, they stayed by the river. They got pretty much wiped out by smallpox, and by the Great Lakes tribes—”

“And whiskey,” Norris said, staring straight ahead.

“Sure, by whiskey too. But the Big Osages, they hung on right into the twentieth century. Down in the Ozarks. Then Oklahoma. They got rich. They got rich from oil leases. Can we stop a minute?”

Norris stopped.

“At one point they were the richest Indian tribe in the world. Although maybe the new generation—”

Norris sniffed. “How do you know all this?”

“Don’t you read the Post-Dispatch?”

“Savages.”

“Well. They weren’t all that savage.”

“I haven’t seen much evidence to the contrary,” Norris said. “They were savages.”

“Well, of course. Although that’s a judgmental way of looking at it.”

“Bloodthirsty, naked savages.”

“They were that, yes, it’s true, although—”

“There was twelve folks injured in the stadium, Buzz. Twelve serious injuries. And what do we read in the Post-Dispatch? How thankful we all should be these Warriors’ bark is worse than their bite. I bet those twelve people in the hospital—”

“Thirteen, actually. Martin Probst was there—”

“Probst.” The General spat and hit a sweetgum tree.

“Yeah. He got really busted up. He broke his finger and gashed open his neck. He thinks he lost about a pint of blood, and Barbara took him—”

“He have a measuring cup with him?”

“Seriously. He was right in the thick of it.”

“Entertaining the ladies in the box seats.”

“No, General. They had to take him to the hospital. I don’t see what you have against him.”

“He’s a little dandified for my taste.”

“I thought you were friends.”

“You thought wrong.”

“Aw, don’t tell me you’re letting that little argument at Municipal Growth stand between you two? I’m sure he’s forgotten all about it. There’s absolutely no—”

“A little too faggified.”

“Now wait just a minute, General. Give the man a chance. I’m on your side, don’t forget, and I say you’re taking this Indian thing too seriously. Now pardon me, but Martin Probst happens to be one of the most patriotic, generous and masculine men I know. He was at the stadium on Sunday, he was fairly badly hurt, it took twelve stitches—”

“So wait. He—bled?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Well if he bled…” Norris frowned. “Maybe I’ve. Maybe I’ve. Hmmm.”

Buzz owed a lot to Martin and Barbara, if only for having been kind to Bev when many of his other friends were beginning to strike her and Buzz from their dinner-party lists. He pressed on. “I don’t think there’s any point in spurning an ally like Martin. It doesn’t make sense.”

Norris fingered the muzzle of his rifle reflectively. “He bled for the cause…”

“If you want to put it that way.”

“For the cause.”

“Give him another chance, General, what do you say?”

The General set out walking, and again Buzz had to trot to keep up. The woods were growing thicker, the land sloping downhill. They’d covered half a mile. Soon the mud bank overlooking the big western meadow came in sight, and Norris hopped nimbly down the slope, planting his feet sideways. Buzz staggered after him. The dried mud, a maze of cracks, sent up dust plumes as they crossed it. The land needed rain. Buzz smelled smoke, possibly from the farmhouse just outside the northwest corner of his property. A young couple had recently bought the land and did subsistence farming. The smoke had a refreshing tang.

“Ssst!” The General beckoned urgently.

Buzz joined him on a gravelly outcropping and looked down on the meadow spread out before them. There were deer in the weeds. Four, six, eight of them. The larger of the two stags had a prizewinning set of antlers.

The General stole back up the mud bank and out of sight. Buzz watched the deer. They were leaving the meadow, bounding without hurry towards the woods on the meadow’s western fringe. The larger stag hung back. If Buzz shot from a standing position he couldn’t possibly hit him. But if he sat down he couldn’t see. He braced himself against a maple trunk and spread his legs, shouldered the gun and followed the stag with the scope. The cross hairs wandered freely. The stag’s shoulders disappeared in weeds at the edge of the meadow. Buzz unlatched the safety, stared hard, and fired.

The butt kicked him nastily. The stag, untouched, was leaping into the dense underbrush. It ducked its antlers under low branches, leaped again and lurched sideways, falling with a crash.

The shot had come from Buzz’s left. A red jacket flashed farther up the slope. The General was racing down towards Buzz, who led the way.

The stag was lying on its side on a bed of oak leaves and pine needles. Blood trickled from a hole in its neck just above the shoulder blade. It wheezed. Buzz had never heard a deer breathe. It lay still, then pawed in the leaves with its horizontal front legs. Its hind legs were plainly paralyzed. The antlers tipped back and forth. Bright blood beaded on fur and glittered on the leaves. The smell of smoke, of wood smoke, hot smoke, grew stronger in Buzz’s nose.

Norris was catching his breath through his teeth.

“Good shot,” Buzz said.

“This baby can shoot. You wanna do the honors?”

Buzz’s stomach jumped. “No. Go ahead.”

Norris extended his hand like a surgeon. Buzz fumbled with the thong and placed the machete in the waiting hand. When Norris knelt Buzz shut his eyes. He heard the rip of flesh and connective tissue. He opened one eye. Blood was falling in a fat, fast, lumpy stream from the stag’s opened jugular. Norris smiled. “C’mere.”

Buzz shook his head.

The smile intensified. “C’mere.”

Buzz looked blankly away. His eyes burned. The air seemed to be hazing up with smoke. He heard another long rip of flesh. The General had slit the deer’s belly. He stood and put an arm around Buzz’s shoulders. “Your trophy, too,” he said, and led him to the carcass, and pulled him to his knees. The blood steamed, ferric, pungent. Buzz’s old thighs shook and gave way. He slumped back onto his heels.

Dust speckled the deer’s staring eyes.

“Feel the heart,” the General said.

“What?”

“Feel it. Hotter than any Injun bitch.”

Buzz watched the wave of blood sliding from the slit belly. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Feel it.”

“Wait a minute.”

“Feel it, Buzz.” The General grabbed his wrist and thrust his hand into the animal, under the rib cage and through the ruptured peritoneum. It was hot. Buzz groped. He located the unbeating heart. It was hot and his whole body grew sick with transformation, heat barreling up through his chest into his brain, the smoke in his lungs and face, throbbing in the passages, searing skin. The animal had defecated. Everything smoked, and Buzz, unhinged by the heat, thrust his other hand in, too. IT WAS HOT.

“All right.” The General was standing over him, smoking a bloody cigar. Buzz pulled away from the gore. His sleeves were crimson and sticky all the way up past the elbows. His fingers began to stiffen in the cold air. “You pass, Buzz boy,” the General said. “You hang this sucker in the den, and remember this the next time she go scratching your palm.”

Buzz looked up with a guilt that felt like love. He’d passed. The General, towering above him, drew heavily on the cigar and exhaled. But the smoke was invisible. The air was white. Buzz’s eyes wandered.

“Oh my,” he croaked.

A giant column of nimbus-gray smoke was rising in the east, from the center of his land. His land was burning.

The General turned. “Jesus.”

Buzz tried to stand up, tipped back, shoved off the ground with his arms, and rose unsteadily.

The General was already running. Buzz ran after him, leaving everything behind, gun, machete, trophy. The General carried his rifle above his head like a spear. His speed was incredible for a sixty-year-old businessman. He left Buzz in the dust.

“General, wait!”

The red jacket swerved and bobbed, receding up the hill on the far side of the meadow.

“Wait!” It was pointless. Buzz stopped and coughed and retched. Big clouds tumbled across the meadow. The sun had dwindled to a hazy beige star.

Call the county fire marshal. — The closest phone?

Kids in the farmhouse. He’d seen the phone lines.

He ran for the corner of his property and fell a dozen times in two hundred yards, landing in briars. Fresh pink slashes opened on the stained skin of his hands. He reached the fence, found the deer gate, and plodded desperately down the old weeded-over road to the farm.

Faded work clothes and yellowed underwear hung on sagging lines behind the farmhouse. He rapped on the back door and looked over his shoulder. The smoke column was widening and slanting south in the gentle, seasonable wind. On a day like this a fire would spread faster than a man could walk. Buzz rapped again, tried the door, and found it unlocked. He went inside. There was a nasty smell in the kitchen that seemed to come from the sink, where the remains of a bright orange stew were floating in a pot. Buzz saw cookbooks on the windowsill. Whole-Grain Treasures. Laurel’s Kitchen. Staples of India. Deena’s Guide to Cooking with the Weed. On the wall by the stove was a phone. He dialed zero and asked for the fire marshal.

The marshal said the fire had been reported. Local departments had been notified and a man had been sent up to dust.

“A plane?” Buzz said.

“Yes sir. What’s the water situation?”

“Not good. The streams are pretty low.”

“Firebreaks?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“We’ll do our best.”

The line went dead. Buzz ran out of the house and retraced his steps across the pasture and up the road. In the meadow, he stopped. The smoke had thickened, piling on in layers, shifting, settling, choking. Manpower, neighbors: he needed help with the fire, but he didn’t know his neighbors. There was too much wood, not enough field, and apple trees were growing in the middle of the only roads in. It took a plane…

He heard it. Approaching from behind him, the plane cut into view above the trees, still high but dropping. Tufts of orange fire retardant fell from its pipes. Reverently he watched it glide overhead and dive towards the smoke. The engine quieted, and as the wings cut into the downwind fringes of the column, he heard a gunshot. He heard two more, at two-second intervals. He dropped to his knees and clutched his hair.

Another shot.

“General, stop!” he yelled.

Another shot.

Its engine groaning afresh, the plane banked up and away from the smoke without releasing its load. It veered off to the south at a dangerous angle. Buzz lost it in the trees, and the General, his magazine empty, ceased his fire.

“Martin? It’s Norris.”

“Oh.” Probst’s eyes fell shut. “Morning.” Saturday morning, eight o’clock. Raindrops were inching down the windows, the gutters were creaking, and water splashed quietly in the bathroom as Barbara showered. “What can I do for you, General?”

“Martin, are you busy?”

“I was sleeping.”

“Reason I’m calling so early — you mind looking out your front window?”

“Maybe you could just tell me what’s out there,” Probst said.

“My car. I’m speaking from my car. Are you busy?”

“I have a tennis date at eleven.”

“We should be back by three or four.”

“I see.” Probst stretched his leg into the cool territory on Barbara’s side of the bed. “Where are we going?”

“Mexico.”

“Mexico. I see.”

“I’ll explain,” the General said. “Don’t worry about breakfast. I’ve got that under control.”

“You’re under the impression I’m going to Mexico with you?”

“Just come on out. I’ll explain.”

“Look, General. I can’t go waltzing off for the entire day.”

“I would’ve called yesterday, Martin, but the element of surprise.”

“I’m surprised all right.”

“Not you. Them. It won’t take but a few hours. This is important.”

“If it’s about Jammu again—”

The General hung up. Probst kicked back the covers and rolled out of bed. His head ached. Last night they’d had hot Szechuan platters and a lot of beer with Bob and Jill Montgomery, out in Chesterfield. He strode to the bathroom and turned the doorknob.

Locked? Locked?

“Just a minute!” Barbara sang.

What the hell? Locked the door?

He stormed back across the room, around the corner, down the hall, and burst into the bathroom through its unlocked flank. The Vitabath-saturated steam took his breath. Barbara poked her head through the shower curtain and gave him a puzzled, smiling frown. “What?”

“I want to shave.”

She frowned more deeply, hurt. “Go ahead.”

“Haven’t you been in there long enough?”

Her head disappeared. The water stopped. She never gave a thought to how much of it she used. “Hand me a towel.”

He grabbed a towel from her rack and parted the curtains. She jumped, shuddering, to make him feel like a stranger and a brute.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “General Norris is sitting in his car out in front.”

She wrapped herself in the towel without drying off and left with a slam. He opened the door and called after her, “I’m sorry!”

“Whatever for?”

Things had been bad since Luisa left.

He wet his beard with an inefficient one-handed tossing motion. Water coursed down his chest to the waistband of his pajamas, and he tried to hip-check it into the sink, but it had already gained the inside of his leg, trickling down as if unzipping him. He squirted a blob of shaving cream onto his left wrist, above the curved aluminum splint, and lathered his face with his right hand. He’d always used his left hand for lathering. His face felt unfamiliar, full of inaccessible nooks and crannies.

After he’d fought his way into the clothes he’d worn the night before (they smelled like restaurant), he went down to the kitchen and had Barbara tie his laces. She double-knotted them. The General honked the horn of his Rolls long and loud.

Probst was halfway down the front walk when Barbara spoke his name. He turned back. “Call me?” she said.

The horn honked again. He smiled in her direction and nodded. The door shut, and Barbara walked into the green gloom of the living room. She watched the car, the black hearse, swallow her husband. Alone, she let her gaze travel the length of the living room and back, and wished Luisa might step out of the closet, might step out and say anything, anything at all, say, “The big bowl was too hot, the middle bowl was too cold, but the little bowl, it was ju-u-u-u-u-u-st right”: Luisa, the conditional Goldilocks who’d arrived to steal the porridge and break the chair and left again to live happily ever after elsewhere, in the land of human beings…. Mama Bear padded through the enchanted forest to the kitchen and poured herself some coffee. She sat down at the table, and wiped her eyes, and sniffed. She would write Goldilocks another letter. Although they spoke on the phone every day, she and Goldilocks, it wasn’t enough. She wrote the date on the top page of her letter pad, December 9, and smoked a Winston, reworking her addiction, doing it consciously this time, noticing how. She never begged Goldilocks to come back. Goldilocks wasn’t an object, wasn’t an appliance. She was a person. She was acting one way now, but someday, soon, she’d act another way. For now, it pleased Mama Bear to see Papa Bear’s equilibrium upset. She wasn’t going to fix his life for him. But she wasn’t going to shut up, either. In an hour she’d call. For now, Dear Luisa. I’ve been Christmas shopping.

The smoke was bothering Probst. “Can I open a window?”

The General opened his own window and threw his cigar into the rain. It landed in the far gutter, like a roll of dog dirt. The traffic light turned green. Through the green-tinted windows it looked almost white. The engine hummed as the General accelerated up a wet empty ramp onto the Inner Belt. Probst looked again at the note he’d been given when he got in the car.

Probst slapped his thigh. “Gosh, it’s been ages since I was in Mexico.”

Norris gave him a severe look, but handed him another doughnut.

“So how’s Betty?” Probst said, munching.

“Betty’s well. President of the school board now.”

“I guess that means textbook hearings?”

“Not if she can avoid it.”

The northern extension of the Inner Belt cut between young apartment complexes and young windowless commercial facilities and brown morsels of parkland. In St. John, in the rain, Probst caught a glimpse of a tall old man in a bathrobe hanging a wreath on his balcony railing.

“Do you mind if I use your phone?” he asked.

“Go right ahead.”

He punched in the Ripleys’ number and got Audrey. He couldn’t resist telling her: “I’m calling from a car.”

“Oh really.” Her voice was dull.

“Could you tell Rolf I have to cancel this morning?”

He hung up with a pleasant feeling of irresponsibility. He turned to the General, who was wearing a black raincoat and, underneath, a very fine-looking cotton shirt with broad vertical stripes, maroon and black.

“Where’d you get that shirt?”

“Neiman.” The General was now driving through an industrial park somewhere east of the airport. At the rear of the park was a high fence with green plastic slats woven through its mesh and a cantilever gate at one end. He lowered his window, consulted a card, and pecked a string of numbers onto a telephone plate. The gate rose and they entered a lot in which eight or nine cars were parked. Behind the cars stood an unmarked hangar-like building with bulging Plexi-glas skylights. The pavement ran straight up to the bottom tier of its cinder-block walls without even token bordering, as if the building, like the cars, merely rested on the surface and could be moved.

Stepping out, Probst caught his bad hand on the door. His knee jerked, knocking the door into a neighboring car and making a sizable crease. The car was a green LeSabre, with rays of mud behind the wheels. He considered his responsibility to leave a note, but found himself following Norris instead. It wasn’t much of a car anyway.

At the door Norris punched more numbers, the last of which caused the lock to buzz. Inside, all was carpeted and dim. Shapes near the top of a low-gradient ramp defined themselves, step by step, as a desk with chrome legs and a man in silvered wraparounds. The man sat sideways with his feet poking out to the right of the desk. “Name?” he said. He had a flattop.

“Bancroft,” Norris said. “And a friend. I have a reservation, Suite 6. I’d like a different one.”

“Suite 12.” The man slid keys across the desk. He swiveled in his chair and faced the wall behind him. “Two lefts, follow the stairs, and another left.”

The walls were unpainted cinder block, the ceilings indeterminately high. The carpeting smelled new. Halfway down the second corridor they met an Oriental girl wearing only a T-shirt, black as her triangle of pubic hair. She was going the other way. Her fingers trailed along the wall. She looked up, and Probst tried to avert his eyes. She looked right through him.

“Was she blind?” he whispered.

“They’re all blind.”

“That’s terrible.”

“This place is seedy as shit. But very private.”

“What kind of thing is it?”

“Health club.”

Between the corridor and suite were two doors outfitted with deadbolts and enclosing a small vestibule. The suite itself was spacious. Probst backed up to take it all in. There was a kitchenette, a Universal bodybuilder, a king-sized bed, an Exercycle, a sunken whirlpool, a tanning unit, and a number of sadistic-looking machines he couldn’t identify. Near the door stood a white enamel box, roughly coffin-shaped, somewhat larger than a deep freeze. He knocked on it. “What’s this?”

“Sensory deprivation.”

Probst moved away from it. Warm air was pouring out of a heating vent behind him. The air smelled funny. Spiced.

“Seedy as shit,” the General repeated.

Probst walked to the bed and shed his coat. He glanced at the ceiling. There was a mirror. He looked one foot tall.

“So you found—”

The General covered his mouth with a scented hand. “I couldn’t even tell you what membership costs,” he said loudly. “I borried Pavel Nilson’s card.” From his raincoat he took two black boxes with a deluxe sheen to them. He touched a button. A red light flickered and gave way to a steady green light. He touched a button on the other box. “And that’ll keep us silent.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier just to meet in the woods?”

“I’m sixty years old. I like comfort. I’ll admit it. You?”

“Who doesn’t.”

The General sat down and removed his shoes. Probst shook off a tingling adulterous sensation. “You were in the woods on Tuesday, though.”

“Let’s not talk about that.” The General laid his striped shirt on the bed and Probst continued to admire it. “I mean to take a sauna. You join me.”

“Sure. Been quite a while.”

“Let me just give you some answers right off the bat. Yes, I shot at that plane. Yes, it was a mistake. No, I don’t regret it. No, I don’t think that fire was any accident. Yes, Buzz Wismer refused to take me back to town. No, I couldn’t care less. The reason you’re here is that there ain’t no point in conversing with Buzz Wismer.”

“You smell something?” Probst said.

Norris sniffed. “Incense.”

“Smells like a burning spice cake.”

“I smelt a whole lot worse in here. They got promiscuous heating.” Norris, now in boxer shorts, lit a cigar.

“So you found a bug.” Probst began to undress. Norris reached again into his raincoat and handed him a small transparent bag. Probst had a revelation. Bugs were called bugs because that was what they looked like. This one was tiny, about the diameter of a nickel and less than twice as thick. Eight leg-like prongs protruded from one of its faces.

“That’s high technology, Martin. That is very high technology.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“My office.”

“How?”

Norris nodded at the metal boxes. “Counter-technology. Which I will be glad to loan you.”

This was too alien for Probst. He was glad when Norris dug a more humane piece of goods from his raincoat, a bottle of whiskey, something Irish. “And you found a bug in your car,” he said.

“Yep. But I don’t want ’em to know it. This one here, I had the custodian find it accidentally.”

“What about your house?”

Norris shook his head as he walked to the kitchenette. “They got no use for my house.”

“‘They’ being your industrial competitors.”

“Don’t be dumb, Martin. You know who they is.” He selected a tumbler from the cabinets and poured himself a drink of whiskey. “Can I pour you something?”

“Whatever you got,” Probst quipped.

He received less than a tablespoon. This was the first time he’d ever been social and private with Norris, and he was finding him less stupid than the public General, more genteel. In the sauna they sat on opposing benches, their bodies slack in anticipation of the load of heat. Steam insinuated itself through the floorboards. Slowly it coaxed open Norris’s towel and granted a view of the boneless wealth, pink and furry, between his legs. His private parts. He’d been born with them.

“Time was,” he said, “I could phone a police department and get facts. But the city police won’t talk to me now. Jammu ain’t dealing with the Bureau much either. She’s got a headlock on the stadium investigation. You could say she don’t want to share the glory when she nails the terrorists. Or you could say she’s trying to protect them. I say the latter. But it’s still possible to find things out in this town. There were three tons of cordite in the stadium, in two batches, with a tank of nitrogen on each of them. There were eight smaller charges in the structure, enough to collapse most of the upper deck. There was also industrial chlorine, pressurized, enough to kill a battalion and blind a division. The timing devices were independent and not remote control. No receivers. The timing was coordinated and sequential, not simultaneous, with the gas last, to maximize lethality. It was set to commence at 2:25 p.m., CST. The explosion that did occur, the one that blew out the baseball statue—”

“Which I won’t miss,” Probst said.

“Anti-tank mine. Soviet apparently. The Bureau’s not sure.”

Probst leaned steeply into the wooden wall and shut his burning eyes.

“Conclusions,” the General said. “First, overnight security at the stadium leaves a lot to be desired. But we knew that. Security stinks everyplace. Second, these Warriors got international connections. The Soviet mine—”

“If it’s Soviet,” Probst said.

“And more telling, the tank of N₂. That’s Middle East. Born there, popularized there. Three, and this is where it gets bad, Martin, you with us?”

“I’m with us.”

“Three: very pointed steps were taken to kill upwards of ten thousand civilians and injure thirty thousand more. I ask you for a second to imagine that kind of carnage in downtown Saint Louie.”

Probst could not.

“Meanwhile a warning was communicated, to the city police, at 1:17 p.m., CST, sixty-eight minutes before the bombs were set to detonate. Now the police required four minutes to arrive at the scene, and an additional fifty-seven minutes to locate and defuse every charge. They didn’t miss a one, and there weren’t any accidents. So as it happened there were only seven minutes to spare. You smell some choreography in this? I do. But there’s another problem — and I seen not a mention of this, I heard not a line in any of the news media: why the hell spend a fortune on some very sophisticated materiel, run substantial risks in planting it, and then give a warning? Why bomb a car with no one in it? Why fire a machine gun into the only dark windows in a house? Why bomb an unmanned transmission tower? Sure there’s been some bloodshed, and I almost envy you the privilege of shedding it, Martin—”

“Thanks.”

“But if you pardon my saying, it’s not enough. Including that little attack on the tower, there’ve been four separate scenarios and no one even nicked by a bullet. To me it smells like somebody mighty squeamish is at work. Smells like a lady. It smells like Jammu.”

“She hasn’t struck me as particularly squeamish.”

“Sure, but that’s all show.”

“Come on,” Probst said. “You can’t have it both ways. If the terrorists are squeamish, if they’re just trying to disrupt things, with credible threats, then we’re OK. But if they’re serious, and nitrogen tanks sound pretty serious to me, then Jammu’s doing a good job and they’re running scared.”

“That’s dead wrong. That’s god-damned wrong.” The General balled up his towel, threw it into the steam, threw himself to his feet and began to pace in a tight square. “It ain’t just disruption. Too much money in it, too much foreign equipment, too much know-how. But it ain’t exactly serious either. It’s Jammu, Martin. It’s the oldest trick in the book. You create the illusion of terror, then you get credit for stamping it out; you get funds, you get power. And that’s exactly what’s going on. Jammu’s riding high. Look at Jim Hutchinson, would you. Nobody can figure out why the Warriors went after him and his station. And nobody asks why he’s still alive. It makes me weep it’s so obvious. Hutchinson backs Jammu. He didn’t two months ago. Now he’s her biggest fan, and there ain’t no talking to him anymore. That’s why he ain’t been killed. KSLX is just one editorial after another in favor of the police, in favor of the funding increases, in favor of Jammu personally, and you know as well as I do every dinkhead thinks KSLX is the voice of St. Louis. But it ain’t, it’s the voice of Jim Hutchinson, and look what’s happened!”

“But,” Probst said. The sweat was running now, a thousand shallow worms. “It seems to me that nothing much has changed. Hutch was always a liberal. Jammu’s a liberal, at least partly, to read the paper. Hutch supports her now. He’s still a liberal. You were thinking about conspiracies three months ago. You’re still thinking about them. You knew it before it started. You haven’t changed. All I see is coincidences. Indians and Indians. A princess, a policewoman, both from Bombay. The first Big Red game I’ve been to in years happens to be the fateful one. Coincidence, nothing else. I could make something of it, but why bother. ‘God is Red.’ You probably think that means communist.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I don’t see any compelling reason for them to give hints like that. I see some reasons not to. I don’t see any compelling reason for Jammu to start planting bombs when she’s doing just fine the way she is. I don’t think she’s even capable of it. I don’t think real people act that way. I don’t think one person by herself — remember she’s new to the force — I don’t think she even has time to do much more than her job. Obviously I haven’t changed either. I was saying this three months ago.”

There was a pause. Dark gaps in the light steam writhed and rose, closed and opened. Then the General said, “You haven’t been paying much attention, Probst.”

The remark hurt. Its vagueness.

“Do you even read a newspaper?”

He was distracted by a flare of pain in his broken finger. Sweat and condensation had soaked the green sponge of the splint. “I, uh.” He clenched his teeth to clear his head. “Usually.”

“Know anything about North Side real estate?”

“It’s — what? Doing pretty well?”

“You better find out. Know anything about the Hammaker Corporation?”

“Like what?”

“Like the announcement they’ll be making on Tuesday—”

Tuesday was Probst’s birthday.

“—that the City of St. Louis will own twenty-one percent of its common stock, in other words a third of the stock now in the hands of the Hammaker family.”

“That’s outrageous,” Probst said. “What are you talking about?”

“Facts. Granted, it’s a special arrangement, no voting privileges. Granted, it’s hush-hush. But it’s a gift. To the city. Which is heading for a financial crisis.”

“They can’t do that. It’s not granted in the Charter.”

“They can so.” The General’s teeth gleamed in the steam. “That paragraph they voted in when they thought they’d have to buy the Blues to keep ’em here. They can own part or all of any enterprise, I quote, that’s manifestly a civic institution. And Hammaker plainly qualifies as a civic institution.”

“That’s outrageous,” Probst repeated.

“Facts. After all, who’s really running Hammaker these days? The royal bimbo, is who. The one who’s also coming on to Buzz Wismer.”

“Coincidence.”

“Conspiracy. Now I don’t mean this quite as unkind as it may sound, but. You’re the chairman of Municipal Growth — you’re supposed to pay attention.”

“I have been paying attention, General. I’ve paid attention to the hospitals. I’ve paid attention to desegregation. To the bond renegotiations.”

“Fiddling while the city burns. While the Reds hire ninety percent blacks for the city police. While a pair of bitches nationalize a private industry. While your brother-in-law double-crosses Municipal Growth. While somebody perverts your own daughter.”

The sauna seemed to spin, Norris filling it centrifugally, in tangents, a bodily swastika. There was a leg in front of Probst, an arm in one corner, another against the opposite wall, trunk, neck, head vaulting over him, and dangling in the focus of his vision was a somber white-haired scrotum. “I’ve had enough sauna,” he said.

“I haven’t.”

“My private life is none of your business.”

“Martin, I know it ain’t. But people talk. People hear things. You ought to know what people say.”

“I’d rather not.”

“God Almighty. I never seen so many ostriches.” The voice shook with emotion. “Haven’t you ever met somebody whose guts you hated but everybody else thinks she’s the hottest thing this side of the sun? And you know you’re right, you know you see something. How’s it make you feel? Everybody cheering, and here she’s putting fifty thousand innocent folks in danger. You think it’s a thrill to get your legs blown off? People don’t think. And Buzz Wismer? Sure, he’s getting a little soft around the edges, but he still manages to keep that company in the black, year in, year out. And I see this phony Asian princess rubbing up against him, and him interested. I try to do something, all right? I see my city in trouble. I try to shore up. You and me ain’t friends. Our paths wouldn’t ordinarily cross. But I had this pitcher, when I heard you bled, I had this pitcher, and it got me hoping again. We’re at the center of things, you and me.”

Probst felt calm. The danger was past. He could handle abstractions. He raised his glass, but only a single drop reached his tongue, watery sweet.

“It ain’t the blacks that get me,” Norris said. “It ain’t even the Reds so much. It’s these Asians, the industrial Japs and these Injuns here. They got no morals, it’s me me me me me. Me win, me first. You know they don’t even go to movies in Japan?”

“It’s funny you say that.” Probst smiled. “Because that’s probably what the British thought about the Americans fifty years ago. No culture, everything for business. Not playing fair. It feels bad when you’re not on top anymore. We can’t compete with Japanese industry. Or — or communist athletes. So we turn to finer things. Movies. Ethics.”

“So you’re saying sour grapes.”

“Sure.” He didn’t mean this. He was an optimist. He tried to think of something optimistic to say. “Jammu is…Did you bring that bottle?”

“No.”

“Jammu’s tackling problems. She’s doing a fine job, completely apart from the terrorist investigation. Nobody thought it was possible. She’s doing it. Crime’s dropping. We’ll discuss the figures at the next MG meeting. I think you’re jealous of her. I think we’re all a little jealous.”

“I don’t deny that she’s a ruthless cop,” Norris said. “But what you can’t deny is that there weren’t any terrorists before Jammu came to town. I see no accidents.”

“I do. Where does that leave us?”

“I’m saying grant me the possibility. Don’t work against me, don’t cast aspersions. I was sorry Jammu got the nod in July but this ain’t personal. I didn’t know nothing in July. So do me a favor. Take my signal detector and sweep your house and your office and your car. Do it today, before they know you got the technology. Then call an emergency MG meeting. Talk to Hutchinson, Hammaker, Meisner, Wesley, and for God’s sake talk to Ripley. Wake up. Get the facts. We need you.”

“I’m glad you think so, General.”

“Sam, if you want.”

“Sure. Sam.”

Few men were invited to use the General’s first name; it was said to be an honor.

Later, when he and Probst left the health club, everything was changed. Three inches of snow had fallen and more was coming down, whole airborne valleys, white peaks, blue forests and gray fields. It was 10:30. The car Probst had dented must have left just moments earlier. There was a black, snowless oblong on the pavement, an exhaust smudge to the rear, fresh tire tracks, and footprints. Probst stared through the falling snow at the footprints. They were nondescript.

“Have to beg off, old chap. Sorry, but. P’raps in January.” Rolf stuck the old pegs into his trousers and zipped up. He viewed his timepiece with mock dismay. “Blast. How’d it get to be so late?”

“You insisted on another set,” Martin hissed. “That’s how.”

“Carried away, what. Manly competition.” Rolf chuckled, and donned his overcoat.

“Cut it out, Rolf,” Martin said. Still in his shorts, he advanced predatorily. “You weren’t in any hurry half an hour ago.”

“But I was, old chap. I was. I just didn’t let on. ’Twas politeness pure and simple.”

“Don’t give me that.” Martin took another step, and Rolf was obliged to issue a cough, of high denomination, in self-defense. Martin recoiled. “Cover your mouth, why don’t you.”

“Came too quick.”

“One hour, Rolf.”

“Would if I could but I can’t.”

Martin’s hand clutched his arm. He brushed it off, coughing, gave his scarf a jaunty flip, and turned to leave.

“Look, Rolf. I don’t know what kind of lies you’ve been spreading—”

“Ignorance is bliss, old boy. Must run. Business calls. Cheerio!”

And away he went down the warm and paneled hallways of the Club. Only at the door did he remember the Sno. It was still falling from a tarnished afternoon sky. He plunged into it. His steps were chopping, oblique, as he fought his way up the drive to the garage. All this Sno. He liked Sno even less than he liked Petz.

Lies? What could Martin have had in mind? Surely not the little anecdote about the brat. He’d merely embellished the facts handed him by Audreykins. Scarcely much point in scampering off like this if that was all the trouble was. But probably there was more. Martin seemed frightfully queer today. First he’d rung to break their date. Then at noon he’d rung to insist they play after all. His game was queer, too. Usually he played like a robot—“Heh! Heh! Your! Point!”—but today, the broken finger perhaps ruining his backhand, he’d become a lunger. And then in the dressing room he’d charged at Rolf like a fist-shaped doggie. “I wanna tawk to yew.” Seemed to have got wind of something. Tee hee. Wonder what. Tee hee.

Rolf tobogganed merrily in fourth gear up Warson Road, his shoulders hunched, his nose at the windshield. He wasn’t going home; Martin might track him down there. Thump!

An object had struck the back window. Sno-ball?

Thump, thump! Two of them hit the car broadside. They’d come from the school, Ladue High. Thump! He was losing control of the car. Thump! Gad, he detested this substance. He slid through an intersection. There was no braking. More Sno-balls landed in the brown slush to his left.

But he reached the Marriott without further travail. He had a key to her suite, and he entered softly. She sat in underthings, a collection of rounded angles draped across an armchair, reading a magazine. She looked up. “Who is it?”

“It’s Rolf.” He winked.

While she changed he noted the room’s untidiness, the inside-out laundry and scattered Tarot cards, the Tab cans and ashtrays. An aroma of curry. Badly out of character. Later he would have to discipline.

She came back in a green wool business suit and low-heeled shoes. “So what brings you here, on—?” She frowned a bit.

“On such a yucky day?” he prompted.

“On such a yucky day.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” he said. “Thought I’d stop in. Martin isn’t here?”

“No, he’s at a football game. Let me take your coat.” She flicked Sno off the collar. He pinched her fanny. “Oh, you prick!” she whispered, close to his ear, as she moved to the closet. He grabbed her hand. She dug her thumbnail into his palm and wrenched free. “How dare you?”

Suddenly he coughed, shaking his head to deny validity to the interruption.

“Pneumonia,” she said.

He sighed. “Do we have to start all over again?”

“I’m sorry.” She blinked. “It’s such a yucky day.”

“Isn’t it, though. You must be lonely here.”

She turned and reached up to hang the coat, and with one sharp tug he had her skirt down.

She squealed very convincingly. “Rolf Ripley!” She backed into the empty, swinging hangers, tangled her feet in the skirt, and fell against the back wall of the closet. He knelt. “At last,” he said.

“Oh Rolf. Oh Rolf. Here?”

He made ready. “Here.”

She took his fingers into her mouth and nibbled. She frowned. “But what if Martin—”

“He’s at the game. The game just started.”

She relaxed. A hanger fell, belatedly, and bounced off his shoulder. He bore down with his Eveready. She cupped the glans and began a slow, beckoning stroke with the flat of her index finger. “Oh,” she said. “I’ve wanted you.”

Probst was awake at dawn the next morning and frying himself breakfast by 7:15. Mormons chorused on KSLX. Barbara was still sleeping. He’d tied his laces in square knots, using his teeth.

He made phone calls, appointments, slots in the day ahead of him. He was wearing a black suit with narrow lapels, a red tie, and a white button-down with fine gray stripes. In the bathroom mirror he looked diplomatic, upper-echelon. His hair was definitely going gray, and his face was narrower than usual, more of a prominence, less of a plate. Its heat felt unvanquishable when he walked out the back door into the icy air. The engine caught at once and roared.

Driving this morning was like boating, the dips and sprays, with every surface equally navigable. The roads were empty. Under snow the city looked nineteenth-century.

Probst was still trying to process the information the General — Sam — had given him yesterday. It took longer when he had to do it by himself, without Barbara’s help. He’d come home from the health club with an almost physical need to divulge and discuss, but the need died when he saw her, the simmer of resentment in her eyes, the dark fire. Even sweeping the house gave him no joy (it didn’t turn up any bugs, either) when she paid no attention. She sat reading and smoking until the den smelled like Canadian bacon.

“Entrez-vous,” Chuck Meisner said, holding open the storm door. Probst entered stomping, scuffing snow into the rug. Even on a Sunday morning the Meisner living room seemed freshly vacuumed, freshly dusted, the cushions freshly plumped. Chuck was wearing shapeless country clothes, corduroy and wool.

“Can I get you something? Coffee? Bloody Mary?”

“Nothing, thanks, Chuck.” His body was primed. He needed nothing.

“Is this — something you want to talk about upstairs?”

“Yes. That would be good.”

Probst and Barbara had seen quite a lot of the Meisners this fall. Chuck was president of the First National Bank and a director at First Union and Centerre. If people had been withholding facts from Probst, for whatever reason, then Chuck was likely one of them. Of course in private Chuck had always been as tight-lipped about professional matters as a funeral-home owner. And Probst did all his banking at Boatmen’s, the Hammaker bank, which, his regard for Chuck notwithstanding, he’d long felt was the best managed in St. Louis. He didn’t believe in socializing with bankers. Pure money, like pure sexuality, was an evil demon in friendship. Other contractors in St. Louis tended to bank incestuously with brothers or brothers-in-law and they often had highly flexible credit lines, which were legal but rather unethical; Probst did not. He enjoyed seeing Chuck because Chuck was a Democrat, and Probst liked oddities, men who ran against the grain a little. A Democratic banker — it was a mild sensation, like fresh papaya.

Chuck planted himself behind the massive antique desk in his study and indicated the correct chair for Probst. Outside the window, a cloud of windborne snowflakes, marvelously tiny, a heavenly host, swirled in the sunlight. The walls creaked in the wind. Probst hoped Chuck assumed he’d come for personal advice, an investment question, a tax shelter, a sewage bond. He didn’t like to mislead a friend, but the confrontation with Rolf yesterday had made him leery of stating his business prematurely. Now he was ready to come straight to the point. He began by taking a good look at his friend, and he got no further than this.

Chuck looked terrible.

He knew it, too. He met Probst’s eyes expectantly, with the guilt, the sad candor, of a man detected engaging in a vice. His eyelids were puffed and folded, the whites a solid pink. There was a purple crack in his upper lip. His hair was lifeless.

“I don’t look so great, do I?”

“Have you been sick?”

“I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in over two months.”

Probst recognized the controlled fury in Chuck’s voice. Over two months. The phrase was cruel self-propaganda, a complaint spoken silently again and again, an inner goad (You know, that den smells like Canadian bacon) until the complaint became so meaningful, so powerful, that voicing it could only lessen it, and having it was defeat.

“I don’t remember you seeming that tired,” Probst said.

“Sometimes I’m OK.” Chuck closed his eyes. “You think you’re getting by. And then one bad night.” He shook his head.

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yes. I have pills. And amino acids. Last week I saw a hypnotist. Bea has me started with an analyst. And the result is, I slept about twenty minutes last night. On Tuesday I got six hours. The next night, zero.” It seemed to tax Chuck to speak at any length. It took an ugly effort.

“Do they know what the problem is?” Probst said.

“I tried cutting out booze, coffee. I didn’t eat meat for a while. I went all-protein for a while. I switched beds, which actually helped, but only for one night. I did all right at the ABA conference in San Francisco, but that was only three days, I came back, and wham. I tried meditation. Yoga, jogging, no jogging, hot baths. Warm milk, bedtime snacks, lots of Valium. I’m totally unconscious, I’m in a stupor, but the sleep part of me, Martin—” He raised his hands and, with his fingers, caged what he was describing. “The sleep part of me is wide awake.”

“What do you think it is?”

“That’s the thing. Everything seems like it might be important. The side of the bed I sleep on. Working too hard. Not working enough. Do I need to get angry? Or do I need to stay calm? Weekend versus week night, red wine versus white. You know? Because there’s got to be a reason for this, and any part of my life, anything I do every day — There are so many variables, so many combinations. I can’t pinpoint the important ones by any process of elimination. What if the reasons I can’t sleep are eating sugar, going to bed too early, and watching sports on the weekend? I could never isolate that. But I lie there for hours turning over the variables. I can’t remember when I ever slept well. As if my whole life had been this way.”

Probst was stuck now. This was no time for a confrontation, no matter how friendly. He cleared his throat and remembered the box in his pocket. He lifted it out and set it on his knee.

“What’s that?” Chuck said.

“A toy I got yesterday.” Probst pressed the Test button. Red light. The red light! Had he damaged it?

“What is it?”

Probst rose and circled his chair. As he passed the window, the box began to squeal like a quartz alarm clock. He backed away from the window, and the squeal faltered. “I think this room is bugged,” he announced. He scanned the wall to the left of the window, playing games with the squeal, to locate the center of the electronic irritation. At waist level he found a spot on the wall where the paint was a shade lighter than the rest. He tapped on the spot. Hollow. He punched his finger right through. It was stiff gauze, glued over a hole and painted to match the wall. He tore it away. The hole was an inch in diameter and half an inch deep. In the center, its legs embedded in rough plaster, was a bug. He opened his penknife and pried it free. A hair-thin wire, eight or ten inches long, peeled away from under the fresh paint. He dumped it on Chuck’s desk.

“Did you know this was here?” Chuck said.

“Of course not. But I think you should know that Sam Norris found a bug identical to this one in his office.”

“Oh did he?” The sharpness of Chuck’s reply surprised him. “Are you sure he really found it?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning are you sure he didn’t just get it from a friend and say he found it?” Chuck’s croaking was repellent. “Sam Norris, as you call him, has been courting the hell out of Bobby Caputo and Oscar Thorpe at the FBI. My first reaction to this thing here”—Chuck swept the bug off the desk onto the Persian rug—“is the name Hoover. Norris doesn’t trust me anymore. My behavior is suspect. And since when are you on good terms with him? I thought you weren’t even speaking.”

“Well…”

“You’re surprised I mention the FBI. So I don’t suppose you heard Norris flew a private investigator to Bombay to dig up muck on Jammu, either. Or that he’s a handshake and two signatures away from outright buying the Globe-Democrat, because nobody prints him anymore.” Chuck sighed and rocked in the stationary chair. He waved his arms weakly. “So there’s a bug in here. I don’t imagine it’s the first time. But what Norris doesn’t know, what the FBI doesn’t know, is that not everyone is a sneak like them. I have nothing to hide.”

Except from me and Barbara, Probst thought. You hid your exhaustion. “Then tell me what’s going on in North St. Louis.”

“Nothing more than what’s in the papers every night.” Chuck raised his voice, as if many stupid people had been asking him this very question. “Nothing more than business as usual. The public invests more than just money in us, Martin. It invests its trust, and that’s a pretty important thing. We’ve a responsibility to our investors to use that money — that trust — in the most productive way possible. We’d be negligent not to. Now, to my knowledge, there’s been no excessive speculation on the North Side. Property values have risen, and the various institutions I serve have seen fit to protect their future and the future of the depositor — the little man, Martin — by making some selected and I believe wise purchases in the area. To add to what we already had. And, of course, to replace what we’d sold before we properly assessed the market’s strength. There’s some very choice property down there, and it’s about time the city made something of it. We’re in the business of encouraging development. It’s part of our public trust. I think the time is coming. We’re certainly quite satisfied with the crime situation at present.”

Probst, with a hypothetical wave of his fingers: “But this has no adverse effect on the overall economy of the region?”

“How can increased investment have an adverse effect?” Chuck grinned like a kindergarten teacher.

“Well, for instance, in West County.”

“Oh, Martin. That particular region is still so healthy. So healthy. You have nothing to worry about on that score. Is that what’s worrying you? Goodness! West County? Nothing to worry about, nothing at all.”

Probst’s next stop was back in Webster Groves, in Webster Park, behind the library. He kicked his way up the unshoveled walk and rang the doorbell. He waited. He hadn’t heard the bell. The bell was broken? He knocked. Soon the door was opened by an unshaven man, Probst’s age, wearing jeans and a green collarless surgeon’s smock. “Martin Probst? Howdy.” The man extended a hand and pulled Probst inside. “Rodney Thompson.”

In intermingling piles along the baseboards of the Thompson living room were hundreds of magazines, mostly of the sort with text but no pictures on the cover. The air smelled strongly of dated pancakes. Plants in the windows had shed a mulch on the wooden floor, and someone had spilled a cup of coffee on the wool rug by the television set. The cup still lay on its side.

“This room doesn’t get much use,” Thompson said. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and walked back to the kitchen. Probst also did.

“So you’re Luisa’s father.”

“Yes.”

“I guess our wives have spoken.” Thompson sat down and drank from a tall glass of orange juice and, swallowing, signaled an offer of the same to Probst, who shook his head. “And you’re the man who built the Arch.”

“Not singlehandedly.” Standard comeback.

“Of course not. It’s an achievement nonetheless. I’m very impressed. Impressed with Luisa, too. I like her.”

Probst wished he could figure out a way of asking, within the context of this get-acquainted visit, just how much time the Thompsons had spent with her.

“She talks a lot about you, very positively, although I also understand you’re not on such good terms at the moment, for whatever reasons.”

“How often do you see her?” Probst asked.

“We’ve taken them to dinner a couple of times. We try to make an effort to stay in touch. These are difficult years for kids. I know Duane’s going through some re-evaluations, sounding out alternatives, trying to get his act together. We stay in touch. Not that Pat and I have a lot of time these days. Pat’s working, by the way, sorry she missed you. We’ll all have to get together sometime, all six of us.”

Thompson squinted at a nearby calendar.

“Not this weekend, though, I mean not the coming one. I guess after Christmas. January. Oh. Or February. You can all come over, we’ll make a night of it. The kids really love Pat’s paella. Fracture?”

“Yes.” Probst exhibited his finger more completely, and then, for the twentieth time, related the stadium story. The last ten times, he’d told it identically, word for word.

Thompson nodded at every sentence. He made large swooping nods, smaller horizontal rows of nods, rotational nods of total comprehension and agreement, odd nods in angled planes, singsong windshield-wiper nods. When Probst was done, he said: “As far as Lu and Duane go, it’s hard to tell how serious they are, but I think pretty. She seems very determined to assert her independence.” Thompson flattened the front page of the Sunday Post and read a few lines. “It’s really a matter of values when you get right down to it. The old story, right? There’s not much I can add, personally, beyond the fact that both Pat and myself like Lu very much. What’s more, we respect her.” He looked at his watch.

It had been two weeks since Buzz Wismer had seen Martin Probst. Much had changed. Martin hadn’t. He looked awake and fit when he arrived, that Sunday afternoon, at Buzz’s office. Even the aluminum splint added. He looked like a brilliant soldier on leave.

“I thought,” he said, “that you might be able to fill me in on what Rolf Ripley is up to these days. I’m married to his sister-in-law and I know less than nothing.”

“Well,” Buzz said. “There was the hoopla about his new defense electronics division. From what I hear, though, that’s been in the works for quite some time.”

“Stop right there,” Martin said calmly. “How did you know it had been in the works?”

“Well. I guess I would know. We’re in competition for engineers. My people in personnel told me back in March he was recruiting in new areas. More computer, more nuclear—”

“OK. Fine. What else?”

“Lately, you mean? Well. There are rumors he’s moving some of his operations back into the city.”

“But the papers print that kind of stuff all the time.”

“That’s true. I took this more seriously, though, because my own name was mentioned in the same connection. A lot of stockholders saw the rumor, I think even the New York Times picked up the story, and I got calls from as far away as Boston. I felt we had to ask the Post about its sources, which is like pulling teeth. To make a long story short, it appears that a highly placed officer in Ripleycorp started the relocation rumor, and he said that we were also considering a move.”

“So it didn’t originate with you?”

“No and yes.” Buzz explained that while the rumor hadn’t originated with him, it had caused him to direct Finance to look into the feasibility of a change of headquarters. Finance had advised against it but had hedged by suggesting they nevertheless purchase some property in the city before prices rose any further. Buzz had authorized the purchase. It had been routine. But he actually felt his face growing hot as he explained it to Martin, as if he were revealing a guilty secret, something primitive, because the purchase was associated with Asha.

Martin smiled wistfully. “Thanks for telling me, Buzz. Businesswise, as you’re aware, I need to know what’s coming next, and in some way in the past few months I’ve failed to pay attention. It’s bad leadership on my part, too — I feel a kind of stewardship this year as MG chairman. At the same time, I don’t exactly think it’s my fault. Haven’t the trends around here always been visible to everyone years in advance? Like Clayton, the highways, the waterfront, West County. There used to be an openness, and I don’t see it anymore. This is why I want to know what your sense of things is.”

It wasn’t what Martin said, Buzz thought, or even how he said it, it was the underlying honesty, the almost obtuseness. This man was whole. Evil puzzled him. He hadn’t changed.

“My…sense of things. I think we’re all right, really.” Buzz blinked. “I’ve had a pretty upsetting week, I guess. And I tend to lose sight of…”

“What do you think of Asha Hammaker?” Martin asked suddenly.

For a second Buzz had the distinct suspicion that this was the only question Martin had come to ask him.

“I don’t mean personally,” Martin added. “I mean as a businesswoman.”

“As a businesswoman I have no idea.”

“Have you heard anything about a transfer of stock to the city?”

“But lest you have heard rumors,” Buzz continued, unwilling to pass up this chance to confess, “I should add that it’s true that Mrs. Hammaker has several times made overtures of a, em, physical character to me and perhaps to others as well, in public, so that there may be rumors to that effect which you may have heard.”

Martin smiled and shook his head with rhetorical amusement. “Why don’t they ever do that to me?”

Their eyes met. Buzz felt a laugh drawn out of him like a splinter.

It was after Probst had left the Wismer complex and turned south again, it was in the very middle of the long day he’d cut out for himself, when his breakfast was spent on the morning and remained only as metabolic by-products and a faint sourness of juice in his mouth — it was then that the weekend’s burden of facts and conjectures, possibilities and risen consciousness became too much for him.

He experienced a dullness. The low midwinter sun on the land ahead of him was blindingly white, unbelievably bright, and the wet and snowy streets were a catalogue of nonsense. Chunks of every size and every shape obliterated the simple lines underneath. In the brilliance, at traffic lights, he couldn’t see which of the three lights was shining, the red, the yellow, or the green. He slowed for all of them, coasting through the intersections.

And it was then, as his eyes sought relief in the rearview mirror, in the darker, cooler scenes behind him, that he began to suspect that he was being tailed. The car was a big old Chevy, a white one. He thought he remembered having seen it earlier, in Webster Park, and now it was a hundred feet behind him on Hanley Road. The windshield was a rough-edged bar of reflected sunlight.

The car followed him into Clayton, and when he made a right turn onto Maryland Avenue the car did too. He pulled into the Straub’s parking lot to buy some fruit for lunch, and the car drove on past, its occupants still masked by the glare.

In Jim Hutchinson’s living room he performed another stealthy check for bugs and got a green light. Jim returned from his study, where he’d taken a telephone call.

“I’m aware,” he said, “that the General finds it suspicious that the Warriors haven’t bagged me yet. On the other hand, they shoot real bullets. Have you ever been shot at? It’s not an experience I’m eager to repeat. For your information, the helicopter shot out these windows to your left, because we generally eat dinner in the front room. Contrary to what you’ve probably been told, these windows were not dark. The curtains in the breakfast room were drawn, however, and they’re also screened by trees and the house behind us. As far as the car bomb goes, I’m not sure. There are indications it detonated unexpectedly, an hour ahead of schedule. I was going out at eleven that morning. The grenade at our transmitter found its mark, and was not aimed at soft targets. Since then, I’ve taken more precautions. The police have also been helpful. Apparently the Warriors have changed their tactics. That’s fine with me. I’d prefer not to get gunned down on the street just to set the General’s mind at rest. It’s also true I’ve changed my mind about Jammu. There’s nothing to prove by stubbornness. I’ve met with her several times personally, and I can assure you that she’s not a terrorist.”

“How do you know?”

“Aren’t you the one who’s been arguing against it all fall? And anyway, I have a sense. I was a reporter for twenty years. Jammu isn’t completely straight with me — she has no reason to be — but she’s not that crooked, either. Not as crooked as Norris, for instance.”

“Is it true he’s buying the Globe?”

“He’d like to. Whether anyone will let him, I don’t know.”

“If he’s trying to, why hasn’t it been reported?”

Jim thought for a moment. “No comment. Let’s just say professional courtesy. At this stage, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Anyway, I’m sure the Post will run a story by the end of the week.”

“What about the Hammaker stock deal?”

“Now, that. That you’ll hear about on the news — nationally, I’d guess. It’s a good example of one of the ways Jammu isn’t playing straight. Asha Hammaker, née Parvati Asha Umeshwari Nandaksachandra, is not just another Asian glamour girl. For one thing, she’s forty-one years old—”

“Wow.” Probst’s head wagged. He would have guessed twenty-five.

“She has three advanced degrees, Berkeley, London School, and somewhere Indian, she spent five years working for the Tatas, rose to the equivalent of vice president, and then in 1975 underwent a political and perhaps religious conversion, completely unexplained, spent two years in jail, worked for three years in Bombay as a marxist agitator, and then, most surprising of all, embarked on yet another career, as a professional stage actress, at which again she was highly successful. Maybe you didn’t hear how young Hammaker met her?”

“I didn’t think anyone knew.”

“She was filming in Mexico, I think her first sizable film role. Hammaker was vacationing down there. This was February or March. April at the latest.” Jim paused, as if waiting for Probst to see something.

At length he did. “Jammu wasn’t invited here until July. In April she wouldn’t have known she was coming.”

“Couldn’t have known,” Jim amended. “Bill O’Connell could have stayed on as chief for another fourteen months, or Jergensen could have replaced him. She couldn’t have known she’d be coming here.”

“Unless Asha had something to do with—”

“With both the retirement and the replacement fight? Impossible. She hadn’t even moved to St. Louis, and she wasn’t a Hammaker yet.”

“Jim, why don’t you fill the General in on some of this?”

“It’s pointless. You know he isn’t rational. And there are certain coincidences he could exploit if he knew about them. Evidently Jammu and Asha were well acquainted in Bombay. How do I know? I asked Jammu. If I told the General, the facts would show that not only have two extraordinarily talented women from Bombay shown up in our unremarkable St. Louis within three months of each other, but they also happen to be friends. Clearly Jammu expressed interest in the job because Asha was on her way to St. Louis already, and it’s a fact of immigration that groups tend to cluster in one city. Jammu’s no exception. But the coincidence remains, and I don’t care to nurture the General’s illusions any more than I can help it.”

“So what about the stock?”

“I think Jammu and Asha engineered the deal. As far as Jammu goes, it’s a power play. You help rescue a city financially, you get to ask some favors in return, and it will be interesting to see in the next few months just what kind of favors she asks. She also has a much-expanded payroll to meet, and she’s very unwilling to lay off all the men she’s added in the last three months. As far as the Hammakers go, this won’t bankrupt them. I imagine she looks at it this way: she and Sidney are the only heirs to all those assets, there aren’t any children in the offing — although if Sidney doesn’t know her age he may not be aware of this — so what’s the point in hanging on to assets that are irrelevant to their present lifestyle? They cut it loose, send it to the city, get all the public credit, plus they have something valuable to add to their already-monstrous marketing arsenal: Hammaker is such an institution, it’s even owned by the city it’s made in. They lose none of their control of the corporation, and if Asha’s half as smart as she looks I bet they can take those shares back whenever they need to. Which will give new meaning to the term Indian giver. For now, the city will be putting the whole lump up immediately as collateral for a loan arranged by—”

“Chuck Meisner,” Probst said.

“The Felix Rohatyn of St. Louis. Is what he wants to be. Chuck’s OK, though. I think he’s overextended, but that’s partly because the city is overextended. I take it you’ve seen him recently?”

“This morning. It didn’t even occur to me to ask about the Hammaker thing. He’s not well, you know.”

“Insomnia.”

“You know everything.”

“Not really.”

“Well, you know more than I do. You should put out a newsletter. I’d pay a lot for a subscription.”

Jim smiled. “My position never strikes me as that unusual. If you want what I’ve got, you have to come ask for it. The same goes for Jammu. I wish some men like you would go and see her, instead of speculating.”

“I’d need a pretext,” Probst said, wondering why he hadn’t thought of this himself. “But tell me what you know about Rolf Ripley.”

“You know more than I do. I assume he’s approached you about the development he’s planning—”

Probst saw black. “Development?”

“What I’ve heard is basically outline, North Side, twelve blocks. Executive offices, rental space, his research wing, and maybe ultimately some manufacturing as well, and of course the obligatory apartment units. No towers, I guess. What — eight, nine stories max?”

“We hadn’t really discussed it yet,” Probst said.

“Well.” Jim glanced at him shrewdly over his glasses. “Once you’ve worked things out with Harvey Ardmore—”

“Ardmore?”

“Martin.” Jim’s voice dropped practically to a whisper. “You do know, don’t you, that he’s filing for bankruptcy?”

By now it must have been clear how little Probst knew.

“I hope he doesn’t owe you anything,” Jim added.

Ardmore, the Westhaven developer, owed Probst a quarter of the total bill. Probst had paid the subcontractors in advance, but Ardmore’s payment wasn’t due until this week. “Bankrupt?” Probst said.

“Very possibly. He’s been making the rounds, but no one’s listening. The suburban banks are all plenty strapped as it is. This boom is knocking the bottom out of West County speculation. It has the makings of by far the largest set of developments in the history of the area. Not acreage-wise, naturally. But definitely dollar-wise. And this is only a prophecy, of course, but I believe the result is going to be the re-entry of the city into the county, and on the city’s terms, not the county’s. You wait. Remember who said it first.”

Probst got a phone call from Buzz soon after he’d arrived at the mayor’s office. He walked the telephone to the windows and looked down at the grimy snowbanks along Tucker Boulevard, and beyond, across the Mall, to an Arch that was golden in the failing sun. “Go ahead, Buzz.”

“Well,” Buzz said. “Ed Smetana — you’ve met Ed — he was in for a while, and we had a look at your gadget. The battery and circuit are American; local, in fact. It’s a General Syn Power Seed and a Ripleycorp chip, not made exactly for this function but obviously close enough. I’d guess it’s something he makes for the CIA. As for the mike and housing, which are really the deftest part of the construction — I couldn’t tell you. No idea. It would take a forensics lab. The only other interesting thing is that the transmitter has a maximum range of no more than three hundred meters, which would mean there’s a receiver very close to where you found this.”

“All right. Thanks very much, Buzz. I’ll talk to you again soon.”

“Do. Do, Martin.”

Probst started to return to his seat, but something he’d glimpsed subliminally on Tucker brought him back to the windows. A large white Chevy was parked directly below him, idling. The driver was screened by the top of the car and shaded by City Hall.

“Something down there?” Pete Wesley asked.

“Snow,” Probst replied. He went back to his seat, a leather chair with cracks. The phone had interrupted a murky monologue of Wesley’s, an upbeat message as far as Probst could tell, real Chamber of Commerce talk. Probst had never cared for Wesley. It seemed to him that American mayors fell into two distinct physical classes: sprawling endomorphs with loud personalities who could roll right over any opposition, and bland men or women with small, narrow builds well adapted to wriggling out of difficulties. Pete Wesley belonged to the latter class. His face was like the face of generic Homo sapiens in encyclopedias.

“As I was saying, Martin, it’s very gratifying to see you here.”

Probst closed his eyes. Impolite. He opened them.

“Because for a man born and raised in the city, and based here — don’t think I don’t know your business address — dare I say we haven’t been seeing enough of you lately?” Wesley paused. “Let me upshot here for a moment. Let me toss out a couple of questions. I’ve been thinking about your situation lately, trying to feel my way under your skin. Having been in business myself I’ve got a pretty good handle on the central questions. For instance: What are the limits to growth in an enterprise like yours? Have you given any thought to the theoretics here? I have, and now stop me if I’m totally off the wall — The limits to growth for you, Martin Probst, must number one be the uncertainty of the market, number two the resulting inability to go on mustering capital indefinitely, and number three the internal considerations, such as the need for tight and centralized control of operations. How’m I doing?”

Because it was abstract, Probst found himself engaged by the question. He shifted his legs. “Well, to those limits I might add that the market is finite as well as uncertain, and that unlimited growth is of far less importance to me than quality work, a fair situation for my employees, and in particular a sane workload for my executives.”

Wesley nodded through this. “Right. Absolutely. The market is finite. But so is the universe! It’s still very large, right? Let me give you a present-day scenario. Say suddenly a whole lot of new office buildings are going up, and to build one you’ve got to have a big crane. I wouldn’t know for sure how many big cranes you have, but let’s say two.”

“One, actually. If you’re talking about the derrick we—”

“One. Fine. Even better. So even if six big projects are going up simultaneously, you can still only bid on one of them. You could bid on more, but you’d have to figure in the cost of renting or financing more cranes, which could make you uncompetitive. Am I right?”

“You’re not altogether wrong.”

“But now let’s say that tomorrow something happens that will make it a whole lot easier to finance a crane. Something — whatever, all right? And let’s also say that because you’re hoping to do a number of very similar projects, all in the same area, not miles apart but blocks apart, five hundred feet, you’ll be able to work more efficiently, and you’ll be able to knock enough off your bids so that even with extra financing costs you’re still competitive. Isn’t it possible that you could land all six contracts and quintuple the revenues you’d otherwise expect?”

“That would depend entirely on the terms of the financing,” Probst said calmly. In the simplicity of Wesley’s scenario, the feigned naïveté, he sensed the imminent proffering of an illegality, and he had always been skillful at leading men on into self-incrimination.

“Say the terms were good,” Wesley replied. “Say it was in the best interests of certain extremely influential citizens to involve you, with your stature, your leadership, your whole history, to involve you in the rejuvenation of the city, in a set of projects that no matter how you look at it is in the best interests of the people of St. Louis, all of the people, all of the city. Your city.”

“You’re referring to the North Side.”

“North Side, South Side, West End, whatever. I ask hypothetically.”

“I don’t care for hypotheses,” Probst said with an air of cool criminality. “I like facts.”

“OK. The fact is, I do know of a group of men, good men, men you’ve known all your life, who do match up with the picture I’ve drawn for you.”

“Why aren’t they speaking to me themselves?”

“In a sense, they are. Call me a representative.”

So: an admission. “Is Rolf Ripley another representative?” Probst asked. “Because if he is, then I’m quite sure you’re mistaken about their interest in involving me.”

“Martin. Have you ever stopped to think what life might be like in other businesses besides contracting? In businesses that are more speculative? If you have, then I’m sure you can imagine how loath we are to widen our circle prematurely.”

Circle. Ring. Clique. Something clicked in Probst and pulled him to his feet. “I have no more questions,” he said.

Wesley stared as if he hardly dared to hope he’d convinced Probst without a struggle. “Surely you’d like some details.”

Probst put on his coat, and now that he was standing he observed that the spools in Mayor Wesley’s Dictaphone were turning. “No thanks.” He looped his scarf around his neck and tugged it to a choke. “I’ve no use for cliques.”

“Sit down, Martin.” Wesley’s tone was kindly. “Please. Sit down. I’ve obviously given you the wrong impression. This isn’t a clique — God knows, I hate the very idea. This is something for everyone.”

Probst checked to see that he had his glove. Yes. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll wait until I hear about it like everyone else.”

Wesley shook his head at Probst’s failure to grasp. “People aren’t going to be interested if men like you aren’t.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find plenty who are interested. Takes all kinds. Because, Pete, if what you’re saying is true, then all you have to do is bring it up at Municipal Growth. Thursday night, seven o’clock.”

“I’m ex officio.”

“Hammaker then. Or Ripley.”

“Martin, you know damn well you’re the one they’ll listen to. Some of these men aren’t even going to Municipal Growth anymore.”

“I’ve noticed. I’ve spoken with them.”

“Well, you should know they’re not above resigning if the group doesn’t start showing a little more relevance to their concerns.”

“If they miss a third meeting they’re out anyway,” Probst said. “Now, I’m going to leave, Mayor, but first, if you’re so inclined, you might answer me one question: Why try to bargain? Either you need me or you don’t.”

“Well. I like you, Martin. There’s nobody who doesn’t—”

“Blah, blah, blah.”

“Now wait a second. I’m telling you this for your own good. I’m doing you a favor. Do you understand? Sometimes I wonder if you’re not just a little bit of a snob. The redevelopment is going through no matter what, with you or without you. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. But we’re your friends. We want you aboard. We want you on the team. You’re a team player, and we’d miss you. The business community has stuck together under the same leadership for more than twenty years—”

“The white business community.” Probst wondered where this line had come from.

“The community that counts, the people who have a real stake in St. Louis. We’ve stuck together, taken care of our own, and we’re going to keep on doing just that. So let’s not have any ugliness.”

Probst strolled to the windows. The white Chevy was gone. The Arch was black. “And my bargaining power?”

“Very simple. You don’t have any if you won’t play ball. But if you do play, you can have just about anything you want. You’d automatically be chairman, you’d—”

“Chairman of what?”

“Whatever. You’d have constant access to the big picture. You’d have more work, and could do it more efficiently, than you ever could before.”

“And if I won’t play ball?”

“Don’t expect many offers.”

“Some friends.”

Wesley stuttered. “I didn’t—”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” Probst spun around. “Make no mistake about it, Mayor. I don’t believe ten percent of what you’ve told me. But even hypothetically, what you’re talking about is unfair advantage. I imagine you’ll tell me it’s legal, and I’ve heard that kind of crap all my life. Legal. But no matter how you paint it over, you’re still talking about an unfair advantage for someone, either for me or for someone else. That’s not my idea of good business, that’s not my idea of right living. Now, Mayor,” Probst realized he was close to tears, “I still have a little bit of say in how this city is run, and I can assure you right now I’m going to do everything in my power to see that this community doesn’t fall into the hands of any syndicate, no matter how nice the people running it are, no matter what good friends of mine they are. As for the rest, we will discuss it later, seven p.m., Thursday, and if you’re not there, you’re gone, you’re kicked out, you’re through — I’ve got the votes, Pete — and we can talk about this in the presence of more than just your Dictaphone.”

“Oh, for shit.” Jammu peeled off her headphones and threw them on her desk. “What’s he doing running the Dictaphone?”

Singh removed the other set of headphones and placed them on the desk next to hers. “He knows we’re listening?”

“No.” She fell heavily against the back of her chair, working herself into a brand of snit Singh recognized but hadn’t seen for quite some time. “But he knows I don’t need a transcript. A summary would do.”

“He’s dabbling in conspiracy,” Singh said. “It’s catching.”

She stamped on the floor, slammed a drawer, stamped again.

“The Dictaphone had nothing to do with it,” Singh continued in tones well crafted and soothing. “Probst was already quite ‘exercised’ enough—”

“Asshole. Self-righteous asshole.”

“Calm down, hey? Why not. You must be hungry.” He nudged a half-eaten blueberry muffin, the second of the two he’d brought her, into greater prominence on her desk.

She flattened it with her fist and knocked the pieces to the floor. “Get out of here, Singh. You’re on my nerves. The phone’s going to ring—”

“Any minute,” said Singh. “And you will rush off and we will not have had our ‘conference.’ I’ll be at a loss. Won’t know what to do. Valuable hours will go wasted.” He moved to the eastern windows with steps that softly stroked the carpeting. “Calm down. Why not. So Wesley misplayed him. So what. I’m not surprised.”

“Wesley did fine,” Jammu hissed. “It was your Probst—”

“Mm, quite. As I said. It wasn’t the Dictaphone. It was my Probst. And if we’d had just a very few minutes before my Probst arrived next door, I would have told you why this was no surprise.”

“Because you’ve wasted three entire months.”

Singh gazed out the window at the silhouetted Arch. The sun was gone but the day was bright. “Could be,” he said. “Although you know I’ve done as well as anyone could. The same goes for Wesley. My compliments. Especially his avoidance of any mention of your name. Shows dedication. A true political trooper. Now me, for example, I would have blamed you for everything at the first sign of resistance in Probst.”

“I can’t stand that bastard.”

“Sure, Chief. That’s natural.”

“He’s a disaster.”

“Oh, hardly.” Singh prepared a clove smoke, lit it, drew, and heard his powerful exhalation. “The informational aspect is not at all dire. I had more than enough time to silence his house. He did, I admit, surprise me when he found the mike in Meisner’s study. But this is not unhelpful. Now he’s convinced that his devices work. I’ll rewire both devices in the next few days, and we’ll be in business again. ‘Green lights’ only. You’ve said it yourself: all leaks here are self-containing. And the loss of data has been minimal. The only substantive exchange I missed was an hour he spent with Wismer. Small price to pay. And where else was he today? I sense you are about to ask me this question.”

Below on Tucker, Martin Probst was unlocking his car, wrenching open the door, looking as angry as he’d sounded. Should be more careful with those doors, Singh thought. “He saw Duane Thompson’s father, a short meaningless conversation, then Wismer, then Hutchinson. When I could, I took the liberty of eavesdropping with a directional mike. The sound left much to be desired, but I got the gist. You might tell Gopal, incidentally, that Bunny Hutchinson has been detected in her adultery.”

“He knows,” Jammu said. “He arranged the detection. Would you—”

“Of course. Busy man. How unsophisticated of me. But would I—? Yes. I will. It can now be safely said that Probst is no longer in a state of suspended animation.”

“In the State, you mean. You said that was the State, you said he was in it three weeks ago. Now he isn’t.”

“On the contrary. He is. A textbook dialectic, really. Absolute freedom, absolute terror, the French Revolution à la Hegel. It’s the proof, not the refutation.”

“Would you get to the point? I have two minutes at most.”

“And you’ll be busy all night.”

“This is a major object lesson.”

“Fine,” said Singh. “I believe that nothing has changed. We expected Probst to awaken at some point, and he has, by way of Norris. But to be awake is hardly the same as to be aware. Have you read my abstract of his meeting with Norris yesterday?”

“No.”

“I urge you to. It’s one of my best. Norris — and now Probst — knows more about the stadium incident than I ever did. But even Norris, who thinks about it constantly, cannot see the point of the warning the Warriors gave.”

“I should hope not.”

“He can’t, and won’t, though it was implicit in the entire conversation. Likewise Hutchinson. He seems to know quite a bit about Asha—”

“I helped him with his research,” Jammu said. “I wanted him to know exactly when she and Hammaker met.”

“He does. And I don’t guess he’ll figure out how—”

“Of course he won’t. Nobody knows but Asha.”

“Although if you have a moment—”

“I don’t,” Jammu said. “But what?”

“Norris’s private eye?”

“The man’s name is Pokorny. Bhise stung him on a whiskey violation, put him in the holding pen for sex criminals. Three days, and when the consul got him out, Birjinder set up an auto accident.”

“Fatal?”

“No, but he took a taxi from the hospital to the airport.”

“Pokorny. What is that — Hungarian?”

“The point, Singh. I have five seconds.”

“Four, three, two, one. I’m waiting. Well. Yes, the point. No one, not even I, can judge what effect these revelations will have on Probst. But he has the facts. Hutchinson told him about Harvey Ardmore and Westhaven. When he cools down, he may reconsider much of what he’s said today.”

“Doubt it.”

“No harm in waiting until Thursday. Municipal Growth.”

“No harm, but it’s four days. What if the girl comes home?”

“Won’t happen. In any case, I need the time.”

“For.”

“Getting Barbara.”

“Set it in motion tomorrow, Singh. You can always back out.”

“Is what I’d planned to do. But I have your leave?”

“To get Barbara?”

Singh nodded.

“Yes, if you keep it simple. Yes, if you think it will help.”

“I will, it will.”

The phone rang. Singh leaned and looked down on Tucker. Probst’s car was gone. It left an empty slot at the curb, the vivid absence that remains when an object has vanished between glances, blinked away: living history, the departure that precedes the connection.

The phone rang a second time. Singh turned. Jammu was already gone, the door of her outer office falling shut. Her chair was empty.

A white sedan appeared in Probst’s mirror when he crossed the railyards on 18th Street. It followed him lazily, hugging the snowpiles in the gutters, low to the ground. Was it the same car he’d been seeing all day? Whose hoodlums would these be? Wesley’s? Norris’s? He eased up on the gas, hoping the green light ahead would turn yellow. He wanted the Chevy to stop right behind him. Visibility was good now. But the light didn’t change. He floated on through the intersection, hardly glancing at the empty street in front of him. The Chevy was weaving from one side of its lane to the other. A week ago, two days ago, Probst would not have believed it was actually tailing him, but his credulity had stretched. They were following him, somebody interested in his movements. They thought they could do whatever they pleased. They’d spread while he slumbered, people plotting, not working, sneaking to avoid the real work, the real tests of merit, seeking to circle in together to protect their stupidity and nourish their stinking lazy greed…

At Chouteau Avenue a light changed for him. He stopped dead, well in advance of the stop line, surprising the Chevy, which surged and filled the mirror. Its tires screeched. He popped open the door and leaped out, and immediately he knew he’d made a mistake.

There were five youths in the car, two up front, three in back. All four doors opened. The youths had high cheeks that seemed to force their eyes half closed, red complexions and yellow crewcuts, huge arms. They held Hammaker cans.

“Hey, motherfucker,” the driver said, slamming his door and advancing on Probst.

Probst backed away a step. The fifth youth, a skinny guy with thick glasses, climbed from the Chevy. Probst looked from face to face. No one said a word. No cars passed. Sunday late in a non-neighborhood, upwind from I-44: it was pretty desolate.

“Dick-in-mouth,” the driver said. The other four grouped at his shoulders. They wore jean jackets, army jackets. Probst saw a tattooed Stars and Stripes. The driver hawked and spat on the Lincoln. No one knew who Probst was. Never had, never could.

The driver hit him in the ear.

He staggered into the Lincoln. “Watch that,” he said huskily.

“Watch that!” Falsetto.

“Dickface.”

“Fairy.”

“Watch that!”

The skinny guy began to urinate on the trunk. The others whooped. The driver grabbed Probst and spun him around, and Probst, lucid at last, said:

“Here come the cops.”

While everyone turned, he jerked free and jumped back in the Lincoln, locking the door. The youths began to pound on the roof and windows. Gobs of spit hit the windshield, and Probst accelerated through a red light. There was a thud on the roof and a Hammaker can skittered off to his left. Behind him the last of the four doors closed. The Chevy’s windows sprouted arms, four arms, all of them giving Probst the finger.

Soon he was in the innermost lane of I-44, and the Chevy was tailgating. He could imagine them plowing right into him. His wipers smeared the spit into opaque arcs. He was doing 85. At this rate he’d be home in ten minutes. But so would they. His ear rang. He couldn’t lead them home. They’d stone his house. Where were the police? For once he wished they were out prowling with their radar guns. He thought of his office, his citadel, and the precinct house across the street.

Quickly he exited. He ran a yellow but didn’t shake the Chevy. Right on his tail, it barreled back up the opposite entrance ramp onto the expressway. Four hands continued to give him the finger. This was terrible. Where were the police?

The punks followed him through the 12th Street interchange and down I-55. In the gloom around him, in the gray constricted streets, blue lights darted like passenger-train windows, and there was a great silence, as of a city gone dead, as if Probst too were dying and sight and balance were the only senses he could still command. Here was the hulking smoking brewery, in the shadow of which he’d misplayed Helen Scott, here the red gleams on its smokestacks, here Broadway, all the side streets which were already dying when he’d left them thirty years ago, here Chippewa, here Gravois, funeral homes and Boatmen’s Bank, here the lot where Katie Flynn’s dry-goods store had stood until her retarded son played with matches, here a gypsy gambling den in what used to be a Polish grocery—

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.