The Last Tomorrow (12 page)

Barry is cue-ball bald, with a black mustache on his lip about the width of his nose, which is itself blade-thin, granny glasses resting on it precariously. His narrow shoulders give way to a
large belly and backside before he dwindles down once more to skinny legs. He’s shaped a bit like an egg, and like an egg looks as though he may topple at any moment when standing upright.
His legs are currently crossed, calf on knee, a pale bit of one ankle visible between his garter-clipped argyle sock and the hem of his gray slacks. He wears a poorly knotted red bowtie.

It’s nearly six o’clock in the evening on the seventh of April, the day after his meeting with those two whores in that San Fernando Valley diner, the sun’s hovering over the
sea, threatening to sink into it hot and sizzle out, and Barry has just arrived. Seymour’s been nervously awaiting this meeting all day. He made phone calls, talked to Chief Parker about a
few cases, spoke with his chief deputy about a troublesome witness, and more, but he did it all with the absent confidence and knowledge of a professional who can do his day-to-day work without
full attention. Eighty-five per cent of his mind was on this bit of blackmail which has threatened his career and marriage. He awaits what Barry has to say with the same palm-sweaty dread with
which he awaits a verdict in a case he’s unsure of.

‘Well?’

‘I’ve looked over the boy’s file, talked with the detectives covering the case, and done some other digging besides,’ Barry says in his nasal but toneless voice. ‘I
think there’s a smart way to handle this, a way that might, with a little luck, even help to advance your career. Let me give you the facts and we’ll go from there, but they seem to me
to suggest a fairly straightforward approach.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Okay.’ Barry opens a folder in his lap and studies it a moment. ‘Okay. Here are the facts. One,’ he says, counting off with a finger, ‘the boy killed his
stepfather and was inspired by a comic-book story to carve a star into the man’s forehead. Two, psychologists such as Frederic Wertham have done research into comics and believe they damage
young minds and turn normal boys to violence. Three, the comic book that inspired the boy was published by E.M. Comics, which utilizes the Manning Printing Company of Newark, New Jersey, to do all
of its comic books and magazines. And four, said printing company is owned by none other than James Douglas Manning.

‘Now, I did some asking around, lined a few palms with silver, and while I don’t have any solid evidence of it at this point it looks like Manning controls and funds the publishing
company as well, uses both it and his printing company to clean dirty money. To twice-filter it, so to speak.’ He pauses, glances down at his file, flips through the pages, looks up again.
‘Okay. Those are the facts.’

Seymour nods but says nothing. He licks his lips, shuffling and reshuffling the information in his mind to see what kind of hand he might deal himself. He taps his fingers on his desk. The clock
ticks. After half a minute of silence he leans back in his chair and puts his hand over his open mouth, covering an unbelieving smile. Then, in a hushed tone, as if he might frighten the fact of it
away if he speaks too loudly, he says, ‘This could make my career.’

Barry nods.

‘I mean, Kefauver’s all but guaranteed the Democratic nomination come July, and all he did was bring a bunch of gangsters down to various courthouses to plead the fifth on
television. J. Edgar Hoover’s been trying to get to Manning since the days when his business was confined to breaking kneecaps in New Jersey, and I actually have a chance to nail the son of a
bitch. Forget taking on Fletcher Bowron. If this goes right I could have the governorship.’

‘Oh,’ Barry says. ‘I forgot the most crucial part of all this.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The Sheriff’s Department arrested James Manning’s accountant last night. Picked him up in front of one of those gambling joints out there on Sunset Boulevard west of LAPD
jurisdiction.’

‘What’d they get him on?’

‘Murder.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘I wouldn’t do a thing like that.’

Seymour shakes his head, barely able to believe it. Up until only a minute ago he’d thought his career might be finished.

‘I’ll talk to the accountant tomorrow morning. I want you to head over to the juvenile-detention facility and talk to the boy, see how malleable his recollection of the evening might
be. Take the mother along if you think it will help.’

‘Right,’ Barry says, and gets to his feet. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

2

Next day Teddy Stuart is sitting at a metal table in a white room. His hands are cuffed. They rest like dead spiders on the table, only inches from a glass ashtray with three
smashed cigarette butts in it. He doesn’t know why he’s here. There’s no reason for him to be in an interrogation room. The next step should be the arraignment, at which
he’ll plead guilty. He’s already confessed to killing the card dealer. He’ll take what punishment they prescribe without argument.

Last night he dreamed about it: the murder. He believes he’ll be dreaming about it, red splashed across the walls of his mind, till the day he dies.

The door opens and a neat little bespectacled man in a blue suit walks in. He looks like the kind of man who’d use tongs to hold his own dick when taking a leak. Hanging from his right
hand is a black briefcase.

The door closes behind him and as it latches he twitches slightly. Then he walks to the table and sits across from Teddy. He sets his briefcase on the table, nudging it so its edges are parallel
to the table’s edges.

‘You’re Theodore Stuart.’

‘I am.’

‘My name is Seymour Markley. I’m the district attorney.’

Teddy doesn’t respond. He looks down at his dead-spider hands, brings them to life, pressing his fingertips together, pushing them until the skin beneath the nails is white. He
doesn’t want to talk to this man. He knows prison will be difficult, knows he might not make it through, but he knows also that he could. Meanwhile this man, this district attorney, is here
to suggest that Teddy commit suicide. Teddy knows it without needing to be told. There’s no other reason for either of them to be here.

Teddy regrets what he did, but he wants to live.

It’s true there’s some small part of his mind, some biblical corner, where his being stoned to death is the only true justice, and that corner of his mind is sometimes given voice at
night, when the moon is the only light in the sky and the shadows on the ceiling move like the living, but it’s morning now, and beneath the sun that part of his mind is silent as the
dead.

After a while the man says, ‘Do you not want to know why I’m sitting across from you?’

‘I know why you’re sitting across from me.’

‘You do?’

‘Because we don’t know each other well enough for you to sit in my lap.’

‘You’re facing a long prison sentence, Mr Stuart. Do you want to know why I’m here or not?’

‘Like I said, I already know why you’re here.’

‘Enlighten me.’

Teddy shakes his head. ‘I’ve confessed to what I’ve done. I’ve signed my confession. I want nothing to do with anything else.’

‘I just want to talk.’

‘That’s exactly what I
don’t
want to do.’

‘Do you go by Theodore or Teddy?’

‘My friends call me Teddy.’

‘What would you like me call you?’

‘Mr Stuart.’

‘No, that won’t do. I think we can be friends. In the end I think you’ll want us to be friends, Teddy.’

Teddy knows a threat when he hears one and knows he’s hearing one now. It’s in the tone of the district attorney’s voice. He doesn’t need it spelled out. He’s
confessed to murder in this man’s county; he owns Teddy. At least he believes he does.

‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘James Manning.’

Teddy blinks, but for a moment doesn’t respond. Then: ‘Who?’

‘You don’t know who James Manning is?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you.’

‘You must be the only person who lives on the East Coast who wouldn’t recognize the name. He runs criminal activity in half of New Jersey and in the last ten years has spread his
influence to lower Manhattan, particularly Greenwich Village, where he controls the heroin trade. He has associates in Chicago and Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He’s been connected with two
dozen murders. He’s most decidedly not smalltime.’

‘He’s done all that, huh? Someone should arrest him.’

The district attorney leans in toward Teddy. ‘I know you know who Manning is.’

‘I think I’ve heard of him.’

‘You’ve more than heard of him. You work for him.’

‘You’ve been misinformed. I’m a small-business owner.’

‘A small-business owner whose client list consists of a single name.’

Teddy says nothing.

The district attorney frowns a moment, then says, ‘I’m trying to help you, Teddy.’

‘You’re trying to help yourself.’

‘Is that so bad if it also helps you?’

‘Prison doesn’t frighten me as much as the grave.’

‘You’re afraid of Manning?’

‘I don’t step in front of trains either. That doesn’t mean I’m scared of em.’

‘I can protect you.’

Teddy laughs. ‘You gonna pray for me?’

‘I can keep you in protective custody for a start.’

Teddy shakes his head. ‘I can’t help you.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘It amounts to the same, doesn’t it?’

The district attorney taps his fingers on the metal table and cocks his head to the left, looking at him as though he were an interesting species of insect.

‘What do you want, Teddy?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I can offer you immunity.’

‘Only God can offer me that.’

‘This card dealer you killed, why did you do it?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘The deputy who brought you in said you were a wreck. Said you wept. And I’ve heard you haven’t been eating much. You don’t
look
like a man with small
appetites.’

Teddy shrugs again but says nothing.

‘You’ve worked for Manning a long time. You must now the details of a dozen murders or more. You must know the names of a dozen widows. I don’t want them. All I want is
information on his businesses, how they’re financially connected.’

‘I can’t help you.’

‘I want you to think about something. If you give me this information, it’s possible you can prevent more death. It’s possible, if you do this, that you’ll be saving more
lives than you’ve taken. You mentioned God earlier. I think God might take notice of the balance of your life, might see you’ve done more good than harm. And if you give me this
information, you
will
have done more good than harm. The card dealer you killed will still be dead, of course, and that’s a terrible thing, a tragedy, but it’s nothing compared
to how many lives you can save.’

The district attorney gets to his feet.

‘Think about it,’ he says.

He puts a card onto the metal table and pushes it toward Teddy.

Teddy picks it up and looks at it. Then he looks to the district attorney. He thinks of the card dealer, Francis, lying dead on the asphalt. The red gashes. The white bone beneath. The blank
eyes. Blood pouring from him, then the blood stopping as the heart quit beating.

‘If you change your mind about talking to me, call.’

The district attorney picks up his briefcase, turns to the door, and walks away. Teddy watches the door close behind him, then looks once more at the card.

3

On Wednesday, the ninth of April, before the sun has even risen, Seymour Markley sits on the couch in his pajamas, waiting. He’d have taken a shower and dressed, but
didn’t want to wake Margaret from her sleep, so he padded out here and here he remains, seated, watching the windows go from black to gray, watching green yards and beige houses and blue sky
emerge slowly from the darkness as if surfacing from the depths of some murky sea. He thinks of the phone call he got from Theodore Stuart a mere hour after meeting with him. He thinks of
yesterday’s last-minute press conference. He thinks of the future.

A soft thump on the front porch.

Seymour gets to his feet and walks to the door. He pulls it open to see this morning’s paper lying on the welcome mat. He leans down and picks it up. He inhales the cool morning air,
glances out to the street, watches the paperboy ride his bicycle deeper into the block and throw a roll of newsprint toward the Smiths’ front door.

And . . . thump.

He steps back into the house, closing the door gently behind him.

Back at the couch he sits down and opens the paper. His photo dominates the front page below the fold. His hair combed neatly. His mouth open in silent speech. Fist gripping a copy of a comic
book.

As he reads the accompanying text, a smile touches his lips.

1

On Monday morning, the seventh of April, while Seymour Markley is asking his chief investigator Barry Carlyle to look into a rather important matter and get back to him before
the end of the day, and three days before Eugene Dahl will come home to find an envelope nailed to his front door, Sandy Duncan is sitting on a white-painted school bus, looking out the window at
the world as it passes by; he sees a blur of color as the road moves under him, as it sweeps beneath the bus like a great gray ribbon, bringing the juvenile-detention facility closer to him, and
closer still.

2

He spent the night in a holding cell with several other boys, most of whom were older than him, as most of the boys on this bus are older than him. It was frightening. He
couldn’t sleep at all. He lay awake, listening to thirty or fourty other boys breathing, snoring, yelling out in their sleep. He thinks he heard someone masturbating. He thinks he heard
someone else weeping almost silently. He knows early this morning he heard someone’s muffled cries as he was punched repeatedly, and when sunlight arrived he saw a boy of fourteen or fifteen
sitting alone in the corner with a face both purple and bloody.

They were given food, gray undifferentiated slop they called oatmeal, served in dented metal bowls like dog-food dishes.