Chapter 16
1
Holly catches up with Kate’s truck at Sharko’s BBQ on Route 59 in DuPage County. They eat, then push on together.
For public consumption, Kate’s three-person party is registered at the Waldorf Astoria in Chicago, on East Walton Street. In actual fact, Holly has reserved a suite and two connecting rooms in her own name at the Peninsula, on East Superior. This has worked before but doesn’t this time, and not just because Kate has been followed from Madison by an ever-lengthening comet tail of eBayers. Some of these autograph-hungry pilgrims from Madison and points west have gotten in touch with Chicago eBayers, and some of those must have had contact with the anti-Kate brigade, because they’re also waiting and ready to be, in the words of one protestor, “Chicago nasty.”
Cops are keeping them on the other side of the street, but when Kate and Corrie get out of Kate’s F-150, they are greeted by a shower of babydolls soaked in fake blood. Most fall short, but one hits Corrie Anderson in the shoulder, leaving a red smear on her white blouse. She looks at it, surprised, then, on autopilot, bends to pick it up.
“Don’t,” Holly says. She has pulled her Chrysler in so close behind Kate’s truck at the loading/unloading zone that the bumpers are actually touching. She takes Corrie’s arm and hurries her under the canopy. Kate has already gone inside without looking back.
“ The new Holocaust! ” a woman screams. She sounds like she’s crying. The eBayers leave, realizing their target of opportunity has departed, but the rest of the protestors pick up the crying woman’s word and turn it into a chant: “ Holocaust! Holocaust! Holocaust! ”
This is their welcome to Chicago, that toddlin’ town.
In her suite, Kate tells Corrie that the press should come here instead of doing the afternoon Q-and-A at the Waldorf. Turning her attention to Holly, she says, “It wasn’t this way on my other tours.”
Someone wasn’t trying to kill you on your other tours , Holly doesn’t say.
“Fuck it, I’m tired of hiding from a bunch of Handmaid’s Tale propaganda-bots.”
What rises to Holly’s lips is It’s your funeral , which of course she also doesn’t say. What she says is, “You hired me to protect you, Kate. I’m doing my best. I have no idea how those… those autograph speculators are always ahead of us.”
“Don’t worry about the speculators, just throw yourself in front of me if you see someone pointing a gun,” Kate says. She sees something on Holly’s face that makes her add, “I’m joking, woman! Joking!”
Holly can feel blood rising in her cheeks. “It’s no joke. Does the name Lauri Carleton ring a bell?”
It’s been almost two years since the Carleton woman was shot dead by a man who was offended by her gay pride flag, but Kate knows the name. Of course she does. “What do you expect me to do, Holly? Back down? Show yellow? That’s what they want!”
Holly sighs. “I know you can’t do that, and I understand that having the press conference at the Waldorf doesn’t make sense, at least not now, but…”
“But what?” Kate with her legs planted apart, fists on slim hips. “But what ?”
“You might consider canceling it.”
“Not at all,” Kate says. Then adds, “Never.”
Corrie scurries into her connecting room to make calls and get away from any verbal fireworks, but there are none. Holly Gibney is not made to argue, especially with clients. What she’s made to do is her best. So she says she understands, and goes to her own room.
She has two texts, the first from Corrie, the second from Jerome Robinson.
Corrie: I thought U 2 were really going to get into it.
Holly: No.
Corrie: I’m going to the venue. Cadillac Palace Theatre. Have 2 take care of biz. Will be back for an early dinner. Can U get K to her presser?
Holly: Yes. Stay alert. To this she adds an eyes emoji.
She doesn’t like to think of Corrie—who has taken the most abuse from their stalker—going to the venue solo, but there’s only one Holly and her job is Kate. She opens the other text.
Jerome: Just getting started her late mother would faint. Just a little concealer, and by the way, is Trig’s reason for attending AA the central question? Is that the mystery of the thing? No. The central question, Holly realizes, is much simpler, and might be the key to everything.
To her own face in the mirror, she asks it aloud: “Why does he care enough about Alan Duffrey to kill people?”
2
Chrissy is nearing Chicago, can actually see the skyline, when she makes a sudden decision to change course. She goes south on I-57, and at Gilman will turn east. Unlike Holly, Chrissy has no problem using her phone while driving. She calls Deacon Andy. He answers on the first ring and asks two questions: Is everything all right, and is Chris on a burner?
Chrissy answers yes to both, not bothering to tell Andy that today he’s using the wrong name. For Fallowes, the person he’s talking to will always be male. That’s okay with Chrissy (who would never consider using new-age pronouns like “they” or “them”), because both she and Deacon Andy share the common goal of ending Kate McKay’s reign of blood and terror.
“Chicago is out,” Chrissy says. “Too many cops, plus her damn bodyguard. That bitch is good at her job.”
“But it was the assistant who stopped that guy in Davenport,” Fallowes objects.
He’s obviously been following the news, but not closely enough. “It wasn’t Anderson, it was Gibney. The press got it wrong, as they often do. But Buckeye City is Gibney’s hometown, and I’m guessing—hoping—that once they get there, she’ll let her guard down and relax a little. Also, the cops there are chasing some crazy guy who’s killing people. That’s got to take their focus off our troublemaker.”
“Fine, your call as long as you keep the church out of it. What do you need from me?”
“The town is going to be crowded, because it’s not just McKay. That Black soul singer is starting her comeback tour there on Saturday. It’s a big deal. McKay is now on for Friday, got her date switched. Seven PM. The bodyguard has had them changing hotels, but that won’t work in Buckeye City, because the hotels are booked solid. I want you to find out where they’re staying and get me a room there. Can you do that?”
“I can,” Deacon Fallowes says. No waffling. Like the Gibney woman, he’s good at his job.
“Okay,” Chrissy says. “One way or the other, this ends in Buckeye City. I’ll be damned if I trail her all the way to Maine.”
She ends the call. An hour later, Andy Fallowes texts her.
KM party reserved at the Garden City Plaza in Buckeye City. Rooms 1109-1110-1111. I got you a single 2 floors down, 919. Room reserved on Hot Flash Ltd. credit card, but use your own card and make sure they delete Hot Flash info. You know why. Also delete this text.
They can’t entirely erase the digital trail leading back to Real Christ Holy, but they can at least obscure it. That matters because Chrissy may very well be caught or killed. The only pain in the ass is the need to make a stop along the way and become Christopher again. Christine has one photo ID, a Wisconsin driver’s license, but no credit card.
It’s the male half of his dual nature who has the Visa.
3
Jerome is continuing his research into radical-fundamentalist churches involved in violent protests (including some events that can only be called terrorism), when his phone rings. The area code is 818, which he recognizes as Los Angeles. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, he answers the way Holly does.
“Hello, this is Jerome, how can I help?”
“I’m Anthony Kelly, Sista Bessie’s tour manager. I got your number from your sister. We all love Barbara.”
“Me too, at least when she’s not being a booger. What can I do for you, Mr. Kelly?”
“Call me Tones. I’m hoping you’ll work for the tour, however briefly. At your mayor’s invitation, Betty is going to sing the National Anthem Friday night at a charity softball game. Someplace called Dingo Park?”
Jerome grins. “Dingley Park.”
“Right-right-right. She needs security from the venue to the hotel, then to the field, then back to the hotel again. It’s for the insurance. Your sister suggested you. She says you’ve worked part-time with a local investigation agency.”
“Finders Keepers. As it so happens, the woman I work for is doing her own security work right now.”
“Barbara says she’s with the women’s libber.”
Based on what Holly has told him, Jerome thinks Kate would prefer the term political activist , but doesn’t say so. “What kind of time commitment are we talking about, Mr. Kelly? Tones?”
“Just four hours or so. You meet her at the Mingo Auditorium around five-thirty PM, where she’ll be discussing clothes with her dresser—Alberta Wing. You then take her to the Garden City Plaza Hotel. Alberta has her own transpo. You have a car, right?”
“Sure.”
“Company car?”
“No, mine.”
“Fully insured, though? Collision, liability? Sorry to have to ask, but Global Insurance has got a huge policy on her. Fucking money-grubbers. Pardon my mouth.”
“No need. My boss feels the same, and we’re insured up the wazoo, both personal and company coverage. My boss gets a rate. Ours happens to be Progressive, not the Talking Donkey.”
“Yeah, I hate that donkey, all those big teeth. At the hotel, Betty will shower and change out of her rehearsal slops while you wait in our hospitality suite down the hall. At 6:15 or 6:20, you escort her downstairs. A car will be waiting. Alonzo Estevez, the hotel manager, has agreed to drive her to Dingley Park. You ride with her to the field, where I understand that a private dressing room has been set aside. She won’t be changing again, just wants some privacy before she does her thing. You with me so far?”
“Yes.”
“A little before seven PM, Red—her sax player—will accompany her to the pitcher’s mound. Red plays, she sings. You escort her back to the hotel, job done. What do you think?”
“Wouldn’t a cop be a better choice?”
“A cop is exactly what she doesn’t want. What she wants is Barbara’s book-writing brother, who—according to Bets—happens to be Black and beautiful. I haven’t met you so I’m taking her word for the beautiful part. Sista B Concerts Ltd. will pay you six hundred dollars for your time.”
Jerome thinks about it, but not too long. “Okay, sounds good. May bring a colleague, if okay.”
“Sure, but I’m only authorized to pay for one. Are you and your, um, colleague coming to the show Saturday night?”
“That’s the plan. And I’ll be there with my folks. They can’t wait to see Barb on the big stage. Me too.”
“I’ll have seats for you in the third row,” Tones says. “First is too close, your ears will get blasted and your necks will get stiff from looking up. Only three? I’ve got the whole row reserved. The women’s libber’s party is coming, too.”
Jerome considers. He’s smiling. This is actually pretty cool. “Better make it eight. Barb’s aunts and their husbands will come from Cleveland if there are seats for them.”
“Family reunion, I like it, consider it done. Backstage passes, too. Get them at the Will Call window.”
“Thanks.”
“No, thank you . I won’t see you Friday. I’ll be checking the sound and making sure the women’s libber doesn’t screw up our equipment once she’s done talking. The lady says she can work around the amps and mics no problem, but I’m from Missouri.”
Jerome has no idea what that means, so he just repeats his instructions—as Holly insists when working for Finders Keepers—and ends the call. He immediately makes another one.
“This is Happy,” John says. “Hey, J, what do you say?”
“I say I may not be able to do the whole game on Friday night,” Jerome tells him, “but to make up for it, how would you like to be part of Sista Bessie’s security detail?”
“Dude, are you kidding me? I pissed my didies dancing to her music, back in the day!”
“I’m not kidding. Plus comp tickets to her show on Saturday night, and backstagers. I’m getting six hundred and I’ll split it with you. What do you think?”
“What do you think I think? I am so there. Gimme the deets.”
Jerome fills him in, thinking Three hundred each for four hours’ work. Seems almost too easy.
As it turns out, he doesn’t know the half of it.
4
Kate comes onstage that Tuesday night wearing a Chicago Cubs cap and a White Sox jersey with her name on the back. The crowd loves her for that, and for every word out of her mouth. Holly has seen it all before, and she knows that in deep blue Chicago Kate is preaching to the choir (only a small contingent of boo-birds), but her eloquence is still mesmerizing. Back and forth she goes, exhorting, pleading, joking, angry, heartfelt, outraged, hopeful. Holly has discovered Kate can be petty and insecure. That night in Chicago it doesn’t matter. That night she gives a performance for the ages.
“I want to close tonight by asking you to remember the words of John the Apostle. He said, ‘If any man loves the world, the love of God the Father is not in him.’ But theology as practiced by Christian fundamentalists is all about the world. Mixing religion with politics is dangerous. Not the road to Calvary but the one that leads to fascism.”
From the audience, someone screams, “ YOU LIE! ”
“Check your Bible,” Kate says. “First John, chapter 2, verse 15.”
“ HELL AWAITS THE LIAR! ” the screamer responds. Ushers are moving toward him, but he’s standing on a walker and they are reluctant to approach, lest they be accused of manhandling a disabled person.
“I will take my chances on hell,” Kate says, “but Chicago has been heaven for this woman. You’ve been a wonderful audience. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
She is called back three times by a seemingly endless wave of applause and comes offstage crackling with energy. She sweeps Holly into a hug. Holly, who often shrinks from physical contact, hugs her back.
“It was good tonight, wasn’t it?” Kate murmurs.
“Better than good,” Holly says, and a cold thought— This woman is begging to be assassinated —makes her hug Kate tighter. “It was great .”
5
Holly is up early on Wednesday morning for the four-hour drive from Chicago to Toledo. She gets out of the shower to find texts from John Ackerly and Jerome.
John: I may have seen your boy Trig, but I think he looked different and was going under a different name. Wish I could remember.
Holly: Try.
John: Trying.
Jerome: I have gotten my own bodyguard gig. Sista Bessie, Friday night. She’s singing the N’tl Anthem at Dingley. Barbara recommended me.
Holly: Good luck. I know you’ll do a great job. I find bodyguarding rather unpleasant. Your opinion may differ.
Jerome: I have tix to Sista Bessie’s concert on Sat. nite. Can U come? Watch Barb onstage?
Holly: I would love to but we are moving on to Cincinnati. Send vid. Come to hotel if you can. Garden City Plaza.
Jerome: Roger that.
Marching dots suggest Jerome has something more to say, but Holly can’t wait for it. She’s about to turn off her phone and toss her suitcase in the Chrysler when it comes.
Jerome: Hollyberry. And I still have one left .
This is followed by a laughing-to-tears emoji. Holly has to laugh herself.
6
The trip to Toledo is uneventful and by mid-afternoon, Holly is once more spotting her client in another hotel pool. Back and forth Kate goes, churning and burning in her red suit. Corrie comes down at quarter to three and tells Kate she might want to get out of the water. Bad news, she says.
“Just tell me,” Kate says. Gasps, really. “I want to get in four more laps.”
“I don’t think you’ll want to hear this while you’re swimming.”
Kate leg-kicks to the edge of the pool and puts her arms on the curbing. Her hair is plastered to the sides of her face. “Spill it.”
“We’re canceled tonight.”
“What?”
“Anonymous caller says that if you speak, an outfit called DOOM—Defense Of Our Mothers—is going to storm the building with automatic weapons and grenades. Caller said mass casualties will result.”
Kate doesn’t so much climb out of the pool as erupt from it. Holly holds out a towel, which Kate ignores. “They’re shutting us down over a fucking swat call?”
“The call I got came from the Chief of Police himse—”
“I don’t care if it came from the Pope of Rome! Killing my date over a goddam anonymous call? Trying to shut me up?” Kate whirls on Holly. “Can they do it?”
“They can. Public safety issue.”
“But if they can do it here, they can do it anywhere! You see that, right? Some dingdong makes one call and that’s all it takes to muzzle me? Bullshit! Bull… SHIT! ”
Holly says, “When is your press conference?”
Corrie answers. “Four.”
“Make that point,” Holly says. “Suggest the police are capitulating to—”
“Suggest it? I’ll come right out and say it!”
Of course you will , Holly thinks. And she knows Kate is almost certainly right; there may be doom, but there is no DOOM. Some right-to-lifer made the swat call, or a Mom for Liberty, or a congregant at one of Jerome’s nutball churches. Of course it could also have been some high school kid doing it for yucks.
Holly speaks low and patiently, as she does with distraught clients, but doesn’t know if it will do any good. Kate isn’t distraught; she’s boiling. “My point is you have to protect the rest of your tour. This can even work in your favor.”
Also in mine, because the more police protection you get, the easier my job becomes .
Although going forward, she knows, the police will be more interested in protecting the people who come to see Kate speak than Kate herself. On the drive from Chicago, Holly has decided—reluctantly—that she will be continuing with Kate to the bitter end. Both her father and her Uncle Henry used to tell her that you don’t quit a job until the job is done.
Now Kate says, “Will it make any difference if I call the Chief? Tell him I’ll make his police force look bad, cowardly, at my presser?”
“The press has already been informed,” Corrie replies. “Chief Troendle told me that right away. He said if there was going to be a mass shooting, it wasn’t going to be in his town.”
Kate walks back and forth, bare feet leaving tracks that disappear behind her. Holly has never felt any sexual attraction to women, but she can still admire that trim, well-kept body. It doesn’t hurt that Kate is once more throwing off psychic sparks.
“Tomorrow is a travel day, right?”
“Yes,” Corrie says. “We’re going to Buckeye City. You’re speaking at the Mingo on Friday. Stepping over Sista Bessie’s band equipment to do it.”
“Got it, got it, but today we’re in Toledo. Is there a park where I can hold a rally tonight?”
“You’d need a permit from Parks and Rec,” Holly says, “or whatever they call it in this town. Which you won’t get.”
“So basically you’re saying Toledo fucked me at the drive-thru.” Back and forth Kate goes, hands locked together at the small of her back. She reminds Holly of Captain Bligh striding the foredeck of H.M.S. Bounty . “Suppose we hold a rally anyway.”
Corrie’s expression says she already knows, but doesn’t want to be the one to say it.
“You could try,” Holly says, “but you might find yourself arrested and stuck here long enough to frack up the rest of your tour. Especially if someone did get hurt. My advice would be—”
Kate waves her away. “I know your advice. Yeah-yeah-yeah, blah-blah-blah, write off tonight, protect the rest of the tour.” She paces, head down, long thighs dripping. “I hate letting those cocksucking motherfuckers win, but you’re probably right.”
“Lemons into lemonade,” Holly ventures, and braces herself for a McKay tirade. It doesn’t come. Kate is deep in her own head.
“Okay, here’s my line: The cops are giving in to one anonymous swat-caller as an excuse to abridge my First Amendment rights. Except abridge is too fancy. I’ll say they want an excuse to flush my First Amendment rights down the shitter.”
Holly begins, “I think—”
Kate waves her off. “Down the toilet, all right? Down the motherfucking commode . Does that work?”
“You might leave out—”
“Motherfucking? Yeah, probably.” Kate tries to keep being mad, but snorts laughter.
“It works,” Corrie says.
“They’re also trying to protect your fans,” Holly says, but Kate ignores this.
“Listen, Corrie.”
“Listening.”
“Tell the press I’m gonna have a major announcement. I want TV. Blogs. All the websites. Politico, Axios, Kos, HuffPo , a fucking TikTok video. The socials. And get me on with a few of those drive-time radio assholes tomorrow morning, the ones who call themselves Bill and the Shark or Will and the Wolfman or whatever. Let people know they should come to Buckeye City because I will be at the Mongo.”
“Mingo,” Holly says. She’s thinking about how a maniac named Brady Hartsfield tried to blow that place up. She doesn’t trust that old saying about lightning never striking twice in the same place, but what can she do? She’s never felt more along for the ride than she does now.
Kate faces Corrie. Holly always thought that stuff about blazing eyes was so much romance novel dookie, but Kate’s actually do seem to blaze. “Get going, Cor. We’re going to spin this motherfucker until it catches fire.”
7
Trig leaves work early, passing a word with Jerry Allison, the building’s elderly janitor, then going to Dingley Park. From the park’s far side, beyond the trees, comes the tink of aluminum bats and the sounds of men yelling and hooting as the cops and firemen practice. He tells himself he’s not there to find another surrogate juror (or possibly a surrogate judge), but only to make sure the druggie girl’s body hasn’t been discovered… but he’s got the Taurus in one pocket of his sportcoat, and a hypo loaded with pentobarbital—purchased by mail for just forty-five dollars—in the other. If someone happens along, he could shoot or OD them and stash the body with that of the druggie girl. If female, he could leave the name of Amy Gottschalk, Juror 4. If male, the name of Judge Irving Witterson, that haughty son of a bitch who first denied Duffrey bail and then sentenced him to the max.
He’s also thinking of games he went to with his father here, how he loved and dreaded them. When the long-gone Buckeye Bullets would score, his father would rub his head and give him a hug. He loved those hugs. After a win, there would be ice cream at Dutchy’s. No ice cream when the Bullets lost, and after those games Trig had to be careful what he said, lest he be slapped, punched, or pushed into the kitchen counter again. Oh, the blood that time! Daddy sopping it up with a dishtowel and saying, Ah, you baby, a few stitches will close that. Tell em that you stumbled over your own clumsy feet, you hear me? And of course that was what he did.
Where was Mom in all of this? Gone.
So said his father on the few occasions when Trig dared to ask (and by the time he was ten, she was at best just a hazy recollection, not a real mother but only the idea of one). She quit the family and we don’t talk about quitters, so why don’t you just go on and shut the fuck up.
Trig gets a Coke at Frankie’s Fabulous Fish Wagon and walks around the Holman Rink, which looks completely deserted. He sniffs for any aroma of decomposing druggie, but there’s nothing. At least so far as he can tell.
Around to the front again, heading for his car, and presto, another druggie girl shows up. In that dirty halter top and tattered jeans, she can be nothing else. It’s as if he’s ordered her! Trig gives her a smile and slides his hand into the pocket of his sportcoat. He can already see himself putting Amy Gottschalk’s name in this loser’s dead hand. But then a young man emerges from the pine grove behind her. He’s as scruffy as she is but wearing an Army shirt with cutoff sleeves, and he’s built like a brick shithouse.
“Wait up, Mary,” he says. Then, to Trig: “Hey, man—you got an extra couple of bucks for a couple of vets? Get us a coffee or something?”
Trig takes his hand off the capped hypodermic, gives him a five, then heads to his car, hoping the scruffy guy won’t close in from behind and mug him. That would be a joke on old Trigger, wouldn’t it?