“Yeah?” said Santiago, producing and lighting a hand-rolled cigarette. “Why? You having trouble? Cop life got you down?”
“You got no idea,” groaned Lumler. For a long moment he stared at his friend, but the fading light made the smaller man’s expression unreadable. Finally he frowned and looked out at the river and the work crew. One more cast, a couple more fish.
“It’s this whole Reformist thing,” he said, voice low, even conspiratorial. “The traitors. You read about that, right? Heard the speeches?”
“Sure,” said Santiago. “They run ‘em often enough. Know Your Traitor! Don’t Be a Negativist! Blech.”
“Yeah, well,” said Lumler, “that ain’t the half of it. Hell, the Governor’s gone totally sideways about it! Sees traitors everywhere, you know? An’ of course, that means the Chief is all batshit about it, too. But, thing is, this shit is real! There are traitors. There is such a thing as the Reformist Movement. It ain’t like the Governor says it is—leastways I hope not—but it’s real alright. I’ve seen proof.”
Santiago nodded and smoked for a moment. Across the way, the leader of the Proc Crew, his voice clear across the quiet water, finally called a halt to the day. The workers all slumped in relief and the boat slowly floated off downstream. Finally Santiago spoke up.
“There was a bombing,” he said softly. “Wasn’t there? Two days ago, about ten at night?”
Lumler nodded, waited.
“And it wasn’t a deformo attack, was it?”
Lumler shook his head. “Nope.”
Now Santiago waited. Finally Lumler shrugged.
“Some old lady blew herself up,” he said, watching the shadows lengthen. His voice was quiet, but heavy and rough. “We were supposed to search her place. Suspicion of possession of seditious material. Pretty standard. But when we go in, she’s like, wired up. To about eight sticks of dynamite. Sweaty, old, unstable dynamite. Just sittin’ there in her rocking chair. Shit you not. So we stopped, you know? Pulled up and sorta just stood there, waitin’ for this nice little old lady to decide whether or not to blow us all to shit, but…”
“But what?” prompted his friend, smoking.
“Well, she wanted the Chief,” Lumler said, shifting his weight. “She wasn’t like, worked up or even afraid or anything, she just sits there, calm-like, and tells us she wants to see the Chief. Well, of course he wasn’t about to go in there! Not him. Not Hanson fucking Knox. But anyway, she keeps like, demanding to see the Chief and he keeps orderin’ us to shoot her, like over the radio, and, well, things went south. I dove outta the room, just when she hit the button, but the two other guys, they weren’t so lucky. Blast wiped out the whole goddamn apartment. Nothing left of those two poor bastards but chunks ‘bout the size of yer fist.”
“Jesus,” breathed Santiago, his cigarette smoldering. “And this was an old lady? Did you get her name?”
“Sarah something,” said Lumler, waving a meaty hand. “But that ain’t my point, man. Young, old, what’s the difference? No, what I wanna know is, why? You know? Why? Those were good guys she blew up. One of ‘em just had a kid! Why blow him up like that? What did he ever do to her?”
“Not what he did,” shrugged Santiago. Lumler thought his friend looked kind of pale, but maybe it was just the poor light. “It was what he was.”
“What the fuck’s that mean?”
“She wanted to kill Knox, right? And she did kill two Police Force officers, yes? So she wanted to take out PF men. Not any particular PF man, since she couldn’t get her like, chosen target, but PF men nonetheless. Any PF men.”
“Huh,” said Lumler, and scratched his chin. “I see what you mean. But still, why kill the police?”
“You’re a symbol,” said Santiago. “You represent New America. Or at least the bad parts, anyway.”
“Whattaya mean, the bad parts?” rumbled Lumler. “What’re you tryin’ to say?”
“Hey, don’t get me wrong,” said the other in protest. “You guys in black do a tough job and you do it well. I mean, someone has to do it, right? It’s just…” He hesitated, went on. “Well, truth is, it’s getting around about the Chief. How… unstable he is, you know? People talk.”
“Yeah?” Lumler said darkly. “And how’d they hear about that, huh? Any ideas?”
“Not from me, if that’s what you mean,” said Santiago defensively. “I mean, do you really think I’d jeopardize my career—my life—with some two-bit gossip crap like that? Come on.”
Lumler considered, but it only took a second before he shook his head and gave a short bark of a laugh.
“No,” he said wryly, “I don’t guess you would, at that. But then, who is talkin’? Ain’t any of my men, I know that!”
“I don’t know about that,” said Santiago, crushing out his smoke. “But it’s more than just talk. There’ve been a couple of, whatever, scenes with the Chief. Kinda ugly scenes. You know what I mean, don’t you? Like that thing down at the Liberty Saloon?”
Lumler scowled deeply. He’d hoped that incident had blown over. Guess not. Angrily, he swept off his cap and wiped his brow. Suddenly the evening seemed too still and too quiet. Then, somewhere far off, a single gunshot rang out, causing a dog to start barking, and he relaxed a little and put his cap back on.
“Yeah, that one was bad,” he said. “You remember Fat Phil, the bartender down there? Guy with one eye?”
“Not really. Don’t go to the Liberty too much.”
“Smart man,” said Lumler. “Place is a shithole. But anyway, the bartender was named Phil an’ he only he had the one eye. He’s on the PF payroll, and is s’posed to listen in on what people are sayin’ and shit. Who’s like, disgruntled, you know? Basic rat work. But so far, he ain’t told us nothin’. Not a tip, not a fuckin’ thing, an’ he’s had like, three months. So me and the Chief go in there that night. Place is real slow, you know? Just a few old winos. The Chief tells me to watch the door, which I do, while he goes over to the bar to talk to Phil. So those two like, chat for a while and then, before I even knew what he was doin’, the Chief just sorta attacks Phil. ‘Cept he didn’t just attack the guy. He didn’t hit him or kick him or smack him with his baton or anything like that. No, what he does is, he grabs a fuckin’ corkscrew offa the bar and jams it—wham!—right into Phil’s eye. An’ he goes over the bar, screamin’ and clawin’ an’ shit, an’ the blood’s all over the place an’ Phil is screamin’ an’… aw, fuck. It was goddamn crazy, man. Just fuckin’ nuts. Had to haul Phil out inna body bag. And the worst thing? It ain’t even close to what you’d call police work, you know? More like…”
“Murder?” said Santiago, very softly.
Lumler shrugged laconically. “Guess so. I mean, I wasn’t a cop Before or anything. I ain’t any expert. But then, I dunno, we ain’t got a court system here, do we? No judges or juries, no lawyers, just what the Governor decides. So is it murder? I mean, yeah it woulda been, Before, but now? I dunno.”
“Huh, yeah,” said Santiago. “Good point. Order is one thing. Law is another.”
Lumler, unsure of what his friend meant but unwilling to admit it, just grunted and nodded a little. The light was fading quickly now; in another half hour it would be full dark. Lumler heaved a beefy sigh and shook his head.
“But whattaya gonna do?” he said resignedly. “Since the Sick, everything’s gone to shit. This here, New America, the whole thing, it’s like, all we got, you know? All there is. And it’s all the Governor’s doing, ain’t it? Before he came along, there was just gangs. Just little bands of survies. No power, no water, no food. And now? We got all that stuff back. And thanks to who?”