About The Lonesome

Post 401:

Together the Lonesome:

Chapters One Through Three:

Chapter One: Who is Anna Harrison?

            It was Jim’s second time at Fort Worth’s Harris Methodist Hospital. The first was his birth. As the shroud of drug-induced unconsciousness started to lift, he could see his two sisters standing on either side of him. They looked red-faced and weary. Their fancy outfits were wrinkled. Silk sleeves rolled up. Ready for battle, or already in the thick of it. As long as the conflict could be managed in high heels and perfectly applied makeup. A balding doctor with a drained face and long white whiskers stood over the end of the bed, tapping a metal clipboard against his distended belly. He seemed put out by his job. Jim recognized the look from personal experience, even with his addled faculties.

            “What happened?” the patient asked. The words were forced and almost indiscernible through his parched throat.

            Julie, the youngest of the three siblings, was gently holding his right hand. She started to speak but was cut off by the doctor.

            “Mr. Camp, you’re a very lucky man.” He mumbled lucky like it was a word he used a thousand times a day. It made Jim feel anything but. 

            “I am? In what way?” Jim’s questions continued to come out with a stiff affectation.  

            “We removed the bullet from your right shoulder. There was a good amount of blood loss, but the tissue damage could’ve been much worse. Much worse. Very (cough) lucky.”

            “Bullet?”

            “You got shot, honey.” Lela, the middle Camp sibling, was firmly holding his left hand.

            “Shot?” Jim said, instinctively trying to prop himself up. “Ah—okay, yeah. That makes sense. My shoulder feels—different.” The flash of pain was a catalyst for his memories. One by one they started to poke through the morphine haze.

            “Poor Jimmy,” Julie said, somehow keeping her socialite smile completely intact. Ironically, she maintained it with Spartan discipline. The product of innate good nature and the fact that boiled down, she treated life like an endless glamour-filled night on the town. The visage could be deceiving to the uninitiated, though. Julie was wonderfully empathetic and relentlessly clever if she so desired. Jim called it cocktail clever, and he meant it as a compliment.

            “Oh, it’s fine. You guys didn’t have to come down here. Really good to see you, though.”

            “Poor Jimmy,” Julie repeated. Lela flashed her sharp blue-gray eyes at their doting youngest sister.  

            “I’ll give you the room,” the doctor said, a little too loud considering the limited space. “Buzz for a nurse if you need anything. Other than that, just rest.”

            “Appreciate it, buddy,” Jim said.

            The doctor made a wordless and hurried exit, scratching at the remaining hairs flattened across the top of his age-spotted head.

            “That guy seemed stressed,” Jim whispered, childlike playfulness in his tone.

            “They say the medical profession can be quite taxing,” Julie chirped, nodding a little fervidly for the situation. She was still adjusting to a very unusual set of circumstances.

            “It’s not that,” Lela said, “this has been a rather unorthodox day. And that quack’s probably never had a person of means and consequence on his table. Not to mention the circus.” She threw another admonishing look at her sister and softened a bit to address Jim. “We insisted they fly in the top man in the field, but the administrator said there was no time—something about the rate of blood loss—I’m almost certain it was the hospital playing at some sort of plebian territoriality.”

            “It’s good to see you lightening up, Lela Bear.” Jim made large circles with his head, stretching the dormant muscles of his neck and upper back. The recovering shoulder smarted again, forcing him to accept the present as sternly sedentary.

            “I don’t like being made fun of. You don’t need to be flip,” she said, pulling her dry hand away. On the other side of the bed, Julie seemed to squeeze harder in an instinctual effort to make up for the loss.

            “A little hospital leeway, sis? Sympathy? That’s got to be a thing.”

            “I knew they’d dose you with too many drugs.”

            “Oh no,” the younger sister interjected, “overdosing is terrible. I’m on the board of several opioid addiction foundations. An epidemic, they say. The next generation—that’s something the family should really get behind.”

            Lela took an enormous breath, like she was hailing a higher power for an intake of patience. “Jim will be fine, Julie. But one of us better keep an eye on him at all times.” She pulled out a phone and started grinding her perfect teeth. Eighty fresh emails. Over a hundred new missed calls. All in the last ten minutes. “You hear Julie? One of us stays with James. These provincial hospitals aren’t much better than roach motels.”

            “Provincial? You hear, Jimmy? Lela’s calling our hometown provincial. Again. She’s saying people check in but they don’t check out.” Julie was smiling tightly, trying to hide her pride at knowing the antiquated reference. “Are you referring to the hospital or the city, Lela dear?”

            “Take it easy on her, Jules,” Jim said with a grimace. “Man. Is it supposed to hurt this much? And where’s my necklace?”  

            Lela broke back in: “It’s in the drawer. And I’m calling the family physician. See what the hell is taking so long to get down here. I offered a company car, but of course—people have to do things their own way.”

            “Old Doctor Slattery’s most likely having to sojourn a mile through all the trucks and tents out there. It’s an absolute obstacle course. Dear little man. He’ll be covered in sweat.” Julie went to the window, like somehow she’d be able to confirm her theory with a quick glance.

            “Did you spot him?” Lela mocked, never looking up from her phone.

            “Charmless isn’t a virtue.” Julie let go of the blinds and then stared down at her perfectly manicured fingers, regretting looking outside. It allowed her sister an opening. One had to be on the absolute tips of their toes around Lela.  

            “What are you guys talking about?” Jim asked. “Trucks and tents?” He pressed a button hoping it would send either a nurse or another rush of morphine into his veins. The drugs made the tension a fraction more interesting—as interesting as his sisters’ entrenched rivalry could be. “Fill me in. I’m starting to remember spinning around.”

            “That was most likely the bullet,” Lela said, rejoining her hand with her brother’s.

            “And then—yeah—I remember looking up. Like I was knocked flat on my back.”

            “Also I think—from the bullet.” Lela was stiffening against the possibilities of tears. The drugs kept Jim from noticing, but Julie did. She said nothing and instantly felt guilty for needling her big sister at every turn. 

            “That’s so weird,” Jim said. He was casual about his observations, to where it almost sounded like reverie. The nature of his personality combined with the pressing situation was confounding to Lela and Julie. “I never figured anybody wanted to shoot me,” he continued, “but people get really mad sometimes.”

            “Darling,” said his younger sister, “it wasn’t you he was after.”

            “Who’s he?” Jim asked.

            “James,” Lela interrupted. He tightened up what little he could at the sound of his birth name. He only ever heard it from men in suits in the high reaches of Camp Tower or from Lela when she was trying to get something important to stick . “The man who shot you…”

            “Allegedly.”

            “What?”

            “You’re supposed to say allegedly. That’s what they do in the movies. You should get out more.” He whispered the last part. Julie laughed. Lela was nonplussed.

            “I should get out more—this coming from you—of all the people in the—”

            “It’s the drugs, Lela Bear. I pressed the button again. Drugs drugs drugs. I’ll shut up. You were saying. The man who shot me…”

            “He was trying to kill Anna Harrison. Some psycho assassin thing. He got startled. You were in the way, it seems. Dumb luck.”

            Julie was nodding her head and looking at down at him with crooked, tightly-closed lips. A few beats went by. Jim let his blurry eyes explore the fiberglass ceiling for a few seconds. Lela snuck a peek down at her watch, pretending she was searching out a new place to rub her brother’s hand.

            “Wow,” he said, startling his sisters out of the vacuum.

            “I know,” Julie said, still nodding in an offputtingly perfect tempo.

            “Just one of those things,” said Lela. “We should’ve known she was doing the photo shoot downtown today. Apparently it was a last minute change in her schedule. The odds of you walking by—”

            “Wow,” Jim repeated.

            “Crazy.”

            “But you’re going to be fine. The media might be a bit of a challenge. A few questions from the authorities. We understand this isn’t ideal for you, but help is here. Anything we can do.”

            “I was going to London today.”

            “It’s probably going to be a short stint before you can travel,” Lela said, back to her business tone. “Plus, we need to tie some of those loose ends.”

            “That really sucks,” Jim said. The news of his trip being postponed was the first thing to truly breach the happy palisades of his drug euphoria. “You know I have a buddy over there. We were going to have fun.”

            “We know all about your trip, Jimmy.” Julie rubbed his forearm and kissed his hand. “You’ve talked of nothing else for weeks.”

            “I’m really glad you guys came,” Jim said, giving each of his sisters their own wink and smile.

            It wasn’t normal for the Camp siblings, the little displays of affections and kind words, muted as they were. Hospital sounds took over while they figured out what to say: inscrutable beeps from the tree of sensors and wires next to the bed—the commotion of managed chaos out in the hall, mixed with the undertone of the fluorescent bulbs droning that one uncertain note.

            “Guys?”

            “What’s up, James?” For Lela it was the stuff of life. Having something to do, a question to answer. Things.  

            “You said Anna… Harrison. That’s who was supposed to get shot.”

            “I don’t think ‘supposed to’ is a decorous way of saying it, but yes.”

            “Okay,” James whispered. “I’m pretty tired.”

            Julie and Lela both looked at the door. They could figure out shifts in a minute.

            “Before I fall back. Sleepeee—who’s Anna Harrison?”

            “Oh, my handsome big brother,” Julie said sadly, still with a smile warmly fixed. “I’m afraid things are going to get a tad more complicated for the foreseeable future.”

            “That sucks. Complications have never been my forte.”

            “We know,” Lela said, “but that’s the lay of the land, Jimmy. We’ll sort it out.”

            “Couple things,” Jim said, shaking both their hands with playful abandon. “First, maybe give Jason and Teague a call.”

            “Sure,” Lela said through gritted teeth. “We’ll do that straight away.”

            “They’ve already texted,” Julie chimed.

            “So they know?”

            “Everybody knows,” the youngest sister rejoined, holding the phone up like that was the new universal accepted signal for everybody.

            “K then.”

            “What was the other thing?” Lela asked.

            “Tell that doctor to get back in here. I want to know the max amount of drugs I can do without dying.” Jim freed his right hand from Julie’s grasp and started smacking the inside of his left arm. “If he says no, tell him we’re super rich.”

            “Not sure that’s how it works.”

            “We’ll that’s just dumb. What about a yacht? Say we’ll buy him a yacht. A real nice one.”

            “Right,” Lela sighed. “A real nice yacht. I’ll get on it forthwith, brother.”

            “Thanks guys.” Jim put his head back and closed his eyes. Julie beamed at him like he was newborn baby snuggling down into a crib. Lela took a heavy breath and mumbled something under her breath: Anna Harrison. Nothing’s ever even close to simple.

Chapter Two: To Be Human

            Anna’s ears were ringing worse than usual. They always did, of course, but not like this. One unrelenting drone, on and on until it was the only thing she could think about. The problem had worsened over years of performing night after night, but the morning’s events had exacerbated the symptoms to a new level.

            “My ears aren’t right,” she said, whispering the phrase to no one in particular, interrupting the men asking her questions. Beth reacted by snapping her fingers. Three wooden people stationed around the suite suddenly became animated, looking at each other with saucer eyes, bolting about in random directions to the adjoining rooms. This was the newest crisis and it had to be dealt with swiftly. Cell phones and tablets were pulled out. The three labeled it “The Ear Situation” and began brainstorming and calling experts. There were always experts.

            Even in a Godforsaken wasteland like North Texas.

            Left in the hotel suite were two detectives from the Fort Worth Police Department and her manager, Beth Maclean. The one whose fingers prompted the flurry of activity from the crisis team.

            “Your ears, ma’am?” asked the younger detective. He was a little older than her, maybe thirty. Extremely attractive. Brown skin and perfect teeth, manly and lovely, like Denzel at the height of his powers. For a moment she forgot about the ringing and got lost in his warm eyes. Beth, who was sitting next to Anna on a stiff couch, tapped her leg and held out a watch as if to say, get it together.        

            “Ma’am?” the older one followed. His voice smacked of too many cigarettes and too much everything else. Gruff good looks and a square chin, though a little bit redneck and therefore a little boring.

            She finally broke from the handsome detective’s eyes and said, “I’m sorry. Is it just me?” she asked. “I think it was the gunshots. Hope it goes away before tomorrow’s show.”

            “We’re still talking about your ears?” asked the grizzled one, scratching at his neck stubble. The little hairs somehow seemed like a permanent feature. Like he hadn’t had a clean shave since he figured out that manliness was going to be his thing.

            “Sorry,” she said, “it’s just something musicians deal with. Singers. Perils of the trade and so forth. Only now—well, I won’t bore you any more. Policeman like yourselves, always in dangerous situations—me, talking about perils.” She looked down and rubbed her left earlobe, feeling embarrassed and sure she was embarrassing the officers. “Are your ears ringing as well?” she asked, leaning back and delicately crossing her long, muscular legs. She was dressed comfortably in tight jeans that stretched like sweatpants and an authentic vintage Black Crowes t-shirt.

            “We weren’t there when it happened, ma’am,” the young one said, trying to keep his eyes from fixating on any one part of her for too long. Professionalism. The job.  

            “Weren’t you? Well—it seems somebody that was there should be doing all this questioning. It only makes sense.”

            Beth tapped her on the leg. She’d been the manager for ten years now and knew when her artist was getting snippy, even if these flyover cops didn’t.

            “We know how to do our jobs,” said the older one. “And how to run an investigation. I’m sorry about your ears, though. That sounds like a real dilemma.”

            Never mind, the manager thought, smiling on the inside from the officer’s brush-back tactic. She decided to chime in and perhaps expedite the process. “I think we’d all like to express how much we appreciate your efforts. Anything at all we need to know about today, things that might help us going forward? Is the gentleman who thwarted the gunman in decent enough nick?” Beth was at full speed and didn’t have the energy to tone down her thick Scottish accent or her foreign colloquialisms.

            “It looks like everyone is going to come through,” the junior man said. “And we can tell you that from a search of the assailant’s car and home, everything points to a lone man. That’s not to say for certain, but first glance. Just a loner type, sitting on too many stupid ideas.”

            “And yet he’s walking down the middle of a downtown street with a bloody bazooka. Fucking Texas. Unbloodybelievable.”

            “Unfortunately, we can’t withhold rights from folks with no criminal history,” Lorenz said, on a quick path to getting carried away.

            “I think we’re done here,” said the elder, tapping his partner on the arm. They rose together with a clatter of holsters and radios sounding off underneath their bargain suit jackets. “We’ll have a word with your security people, keep a presence around the hotel and at the stadium throughout the week. Very sorry this happened. Not the kind of thing we want our city known for.”

            They laid their business cards down on the table and nodded politely. “Detectives George Lorenz and Eric Gregg,” Beth said, leaning forward on the couch. “For coming by—really, cheers. Sorry for getting terse.”

            On the other side of the door, the investigators exchanged rolling eyes, but for completely different reasons. Gregg was frustrated by the amount of random people roaming the halls and the general confusion surrounding the entire situation. It seemed like all the galaxy’s freaks had descended on his hometown. In his mind, Fort Worth was not a fitting landing pad for madness. Now with the shooting—things would only be worse.

            “Pretty crazy,” Gregg sighed, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his weathered khaki pants. Large men in suits shook the hallway as they marched by—people with weird hair and plastic passes hung around their necks pattered through. Two whole floors of Fort Worth’s Omni Hotel were dedicated to the Anna Harrison crew, but still it felt claustrophobic.

            “That was,” Lorenz responded, dodging a kid in an ironic t-shirt and pants tight enough to grapple any male’s sperm count into oblivion. He shook his head and took out two pouches of tobacco, stuffing them tightly against his bottom teeth.

            “That was what?” Gregg asked. He patted his younger partner on the shoulder and directed him to the little soda and ice station twenty feet away. “You seem out of it.”

            “Sorry, Eric. But you know… ”

            “I don’t. I’m not a for the hell of it question guy. I ask when there’s something I ain’t getting.”

            The raised volume of Gregg’s voice had Lorenz raising his hands in defense. “Easy partner. Just saying—I don’t like saying it—a little intimidated in there.”

            “By the girl?”

            “By the girl.”

            “She’s an attractive woman. Is that what you’re saying? Swear. Marines. Not exactly poets, are you?”

            “It’s more than that, you old bastard,” Lorenz said, sensing their normal back and forth harassment returning to its proper place. “We were sitting there just now with one of the most recognizable faces on the planet.”

            “And?”

            “And that’s not a normal daily activity. I know you were army, but do I have to speak clearer?”

            “Your every word only serves to make the clear opaque.”

            Lorenz covered a laugh as they started toward the elevators. “You can act dumb, play around with words too fancy for your brain—but I know you were a little put off by the halo around that girl.”

            “My ten-year-old daughter might’ve been. Now that we’re talking about it, you two got more in common than I’m all that comfortable with. Maybe I call the elementary school, get her on the case.”

            “Funny,” Lorenz said, checking his phone. It was midday and the two men needed to push on. A lot of pressure would be coming—from all directions.

            Gregg felt a buzz from his pant leg and turned the phone slightly away from his partner, responding with a brief text.

            “Who was that?”

            “What?”

            “You really didn’t hear me, or are you doing that thing where you act like you didn’t hear me?”

            “Yeah. It’s called ignoring.”

            “Whatever. Figure out yet why they put us on point with this case? It’s huge. Accept the situation or not, it’s huge.”

            As the elevator closed, Gregg pressed L and decided he couldn’t resist a little self-exaltation. Besides, the real answer was something he couldn’t disclose. “How about you accept the fact that you happen to be blessed, God knows why, with the best frigging partner in Texas. The Rangers call daily for my services. FBI, Homeland—it’s not something I like to bring up, but there it is. Who else would they put on this thing?”

            “Right” Lorenz whispered, rubbing a hand through his closely-cropped hair. “Can you stop? The elevator music is more interesting.”

            “A little gratitude is all I’m asking. I’d like to maybe move up in the world, but I tell ‘em the same thing—this Lorenz kid—jarhead, tobacco-using, teen-beat reading, knuckleheaded—”

            “Enough,” Lorenz said, leaning against the back wall of the elevator. “Frigging longest ride of my life. Things worked more efficient in Afghanistan.”

            “Okay,” Gregg said, “just busting balls kid. You know I love you.”

            “Yeah. Besides, I should’ve said that the music is more relevant. Words matter, you’re always telling me.”

            The senior detective laughed at that one. Lorenz was a damn good cop, young and capable. He liked working with the kid. It felt like the beginning stages of passing the torch. Cops like George made him feel the future might not be the complete pile of crap he always assumed it would be.

             As they finally reached the lobby Detective Gregg said, “Just try to keep it in your pants. The girl and the halo talk and whatnot. Angels. Angels have halos and help people. They don’t bitch about the ringing in their ears.”

            “Noted,” Lorenz said, smiling furtively.

            “Just don’t say I never taught you nothing.”

            Back in the suite, Anna Harrison listened to Beth rattle off the schedule for the remainder of the day. It was truncated. Abbreviated. Shortened.

            A thought occurred to her. After someone tries to violently snuff out my life, shouldn’t the rest of the day be cancelled? Aborted? Squashed?

            “If it were anyone else,” she said, interrupting her manager’s list. Beth looked at her with bemusement and held out her tablet as if to say, can I finish this? Anna remained on the couch, staring at her own lap in silence.

            Seconds ticked by and Beth asked, “What’s that?” It was clear her bemusement had transmuted into full-blown frustration. “I need clarity, Anna. Otherwise I can’t do my job.”

            The singer was poised like a spring. Tension from the day’s events—tension from what was on the rest of the docket—a release was required. The laws of God and humankind and natural law seemed to demand it of her. Beth and all her bluster, those permanently wide eyes, the nest of graying red hair pulled chaotically atop her head—it was about to meet Anna’s release.

            “Clarity,” the star said, standing up from the couch for the first time in hours. “Clarity it is. I’m not doing anything for the rest of the day.”

            “What might that mean, darling?”

            “It means that I’m not rehearsing. We’ve been doing the same set for six months. The same riffs, licks, choreography, lighting, instrument changes, intros, outros, reprises, pyrotechnics, interludes, and any other crap I’m forgetting about. As for later, no charity meet and greet, and no interview with what’s her stupid face.”

            “Is this a proper American meltdown?” Beth asked, brow at full furrow.

            “I don’t know what you call it. I’ve never had a proper meltdown, you British schoolmarm. I’m almost thirty years old, gigantic entertainment empire balanced on my shoulders, and I’ve never had a proper meltdown. You know why?”

            “Why?”

            “Because there hasn’t been time for one. Not since I started calling myself an adult and developed a decent pair of tits. Writing, recording, performing, keeping this body, keeping on top, staying away from crazy guys, my movie career—being an international spokesman for whatever unimaginably important cause just popped up all of a sudden out of nowhere that never before existed—”

            “It’s been a proper run. You should be proud.”

            “Pride would require a moment to consider it all.”

            “Isn’t that what you’re doing now.”

            “No! I’m having a meltdown. I don’t pride. I feel like ass.”

            “Well okay then,” Beth said, finally setting down her tablet. It was like watching someone detaching a limb. “It just seems a bit diva if you’re asking me. Are you going to do this every time a nutter with a gun has a go?”

            “How dare—” The singer stomped her foot and thought about a full-throttled physical assault. “Are you shitting me, Beth?”

            “Of course I’m shitting you. Didn’t you see me put down my tablet?”

            Harrison didn’t know how to respond. Beth held out her meaty arms and softly asked for a hug. After an awkward moment the short distance was bridged and Anna was crying and laughing against the shoulder of the person that had spent most of the last decade by her side. It occurred that the manager might be “handling” her, but in that moment it didn’t rate on the priority list. She needed a cry about what had happened to her and a laugh about how bad she was at being outraged. “I’m sorry I called you schoolmarm,” Anna sobbed. “So stupid.”

            A few more hearty squeezes. “No problem, love. You’ve always been a bit bottled.”

            “It’s like I have to be.”

            “I know. But not today. Today you do whatever you want. It can be nothing or anything.”

            A knock on the door. Beth’s assistant walked in and set down a stack of magazines, all with Anna’s face or body featured on the cover. The young woman was sweaty, talking on her phone, completely oblivious to the emotional moment transpiring before her. She was out of the room almost before there was time to react to her entrance. That was the life. People in and out, doing things, setting items in stacks and rows, presenting this or that for approval or review. The people were just delivery machines, mostly. Of course there were some recognizable faces, but Anna never really knew what to say. Thank you was about it. Politeness and cordiality, but hardly ever anything close to real familiarity.

            They finally separated and Anna went over to look at the stack of the magazines. She picked them up and brought them back her couch home base. “The Unbreakable Multiracial Anna Harrison,” she said, holding up a magazine for empowered women.

            “Creative license,” Beth said, smiling down at her client’s teary face. She was a little at sea, trying to figure out what to do with her hands. No tablet and all. After a few twiddles and finger snaps she stuffed her fists into the pockets of her passé  oversized jeans. 

            “The Universally Beloved Anna,” she said, tossing a fashion weekly to the floor.

            “Huh. Your eyes look frigging fabulous in that one. They’re like green and oriental. It’s striking.”

            “They are green. And I’m a little oriental.”

            “And don’t worry about the headline. Universally is a big word,” Beth smiled. “Generally is all one can really hope for, I’ve always said.”

            “You never said that,” the singer rejoined, sniffing snot and holding up an issue of a red-bordered respected weekly news periodical. It read Is Global Ambassador Anna Harrison America’s Next Multicultural Hope?

            “Would you stuff it already? For God’s sake girl you’re going to give yourself a blooming heart attack, looking at all that bollocks.”

            Anna pushed the rest of the magazines over and crossed her arms. Her thoughts were darting in all directions and she needed to slow down. What did Beth say before? Do whatever you want. She consolidated air in deep controlled breaths—some relaxation thing recommended to her by this shrink or that—and focused on what she really wanted. “I know what I’m going to do.”

            “Lovely. How can I help?”

            “I need to get in touch with three guys. Gentlemen.”

            “O-kay. This sounds interesting.”

            “It’s not like that.”

            “Just having a laugh. Who do you want to speak with?”

            “First, my brother. He’s probably worried sick.”

            “Of course.”

            “Then the men who saved me. The cop and the other guy.”

            “I don’t know if they’re going to let you talk to those lads. Not really sure how it works, privacy laws and all that.”

            “Nothing public. I just want to be human and say thanks to the people that saved my life.”

            “You want to be human,” Beth said, grabbing her tablet and reinitiating herself into management mode. “Suppose I can see that.”

Chapter Three: A Town to Run

            The footage of the shooting was everywhere. By the following morning, it seemed all of humanity had viewed it at least once. The clip had everything. A beautiful auburn-haired worldwide star surrounded by admirers, an icy-eyed man bent on violence, an act of attempted heroism, plus an act of actual heroism. Tacked on the end of the version getting the most circulation was video statement by the gunman himself, left on his phone the day before. How this “manifesto” got out was still a matter of speculation and mystery. Someone involved in the chain of custody at the PD was paid by the journalist and businessman Colin Adair, owner of one of the internet’s biggest news outlets, but no one knew the identity of the particular culprit. Adair’s version, posted on TheInformers.com, included several pedestrian’s phone videos and bits of traffic camera footage spliced neatly together in an almost cinematic fashion. It was reaching a billion views. Mayor Tilly Werner watched it on a laptop from her seldom-used downtown office, not five blocks from where the incident took place. “Crank up the dad-gum air conditioning already, Lester. My holy heaven, it’s got to be a hundred already. And get me somebody from the police department, crying out loud.”

            “Chief Ryland, I’m assuming,” Lester said, stomping over to the dusty thermostat hanging slightly crooked on the wall opposite Werner’s desk. They rarely used the downtown office, but under the circumstances, things had to appear official. Mayor Tilly Werner was going to be in her office, because, by Holy Mary and the Saints, that’s probably where the average idiot imagined she should be.

            “Does it have to be Ryland?” the mayor asked, slipping off her heels, sinking begrudgingly back into the stuffy leather rolling chair. She hated it. Everything about the office. They’d ripped everything right down to the floorboards and sheetrock, but it still smelled like spit tobacco and cattle drives. Tilly was a tough lady, Texas in her bones, but Blessed Christmas, she ought to have a decent place to do her “official” work. She ought to have someone “official” to talk to other than Chief Ryland.

            “The first call, you need to talk to him. It’ll look better, politically,” Lester said. He was already sweating through his blue short-sleeved button-down, and it wasn’t far past breakfast.

            “Politically’s all you care about, Lester. This ain’t Chicago or New York. Someday you’re going to understand that, I guess, or I guess you may never. This city has its own ways, deep in the dirt—things an Atlantic finds hard to decipher. Handshakes over whisky. Making deals on real stock. Not pieces of paper. Living things, brought up with sweat and toil, life ripped right out the pages of the Bible. Men and women on the land, putting in more than a day’s honest labor. Without them, there’d be none of this. No fancy glass buildings or ritzy neighborhoods or anything else. The realness of the past. And now this mess. Holy Moses, it feels like I’m the mayor of Dallas. They should’ve outlawed banking in this county. Ruined everything. Speaking of Dallas, Why wasn’t Harrison staying there?”

            Lester Orsonhall thought about sitting down but opted not to, knowing he’d soak his pants through. “You get that out of your system?” he asked, looking unwaveringly at the day’s itinerary. He didn’t expect an answer to his question and wasn’t really seeking one. The whole salt and spit and Fort Worth is the last bastion of the Real West speech was one he’d heard on many occasions—always triggered when the boss had too much on her plate and no firm footing. Tilly Werner was a smart woman, but her temper could play tricks with the better angels that normally held sway over her moods. Nonlocals became “Atlantics” and old black and white footage of the Fort Worth Stock Exchange played like Wall Street and OPEC and the IMF in her mind. Orsonhall was still young, but he’d been at her side long enough to ride the ups and downs. The hot air and bluster would dissipate as the day went on, assuming there were no major setbacks.

            “Okay,” he started, calm and even, like hitting the room’s reset button. “Chief Ryland and you need to get on the same page, for obvious reasons. The press—”

            “Do we need a press conference?”

            “I don’t think it can be avoided. This is one of those deals that’s so big, it’s going to be a little while before we can get our heads around it.”

            “Bring in the cutie,” the mayor said, referring to Sela Stein, their new media relations consultant. “Is she available? Tell me good news, Lester.”

            “She is. I’ve already put a call in. This is the type of thing people like her live for. She’s got the bit between.”

            “Well that’s good.”

            “It is until she starts grandstanding. We’re paying her to help you, not herself.”

            “That’s not how this thing works. People have to understand their roles.”

            “I’ll watch her. Make sure she’s not making a mark at your expense.”

            “Cutie’s smart enough to know that’ll get her a bad reputation.”

            “One would think.”

            “Flying in from Washington?”

            “Yes ma’am. Landed at DFW a few minutes ago.”

            “We should’ve sent a car.”

            “We did,” Lester said, keeping his eyes on the itinerary and his mind sharp. He had to address the barrage of questions already launched his way before moving  forward. Mayor Werner was hunched at the laptop, pressing the spacebar over and over again, like every other person in the world with an internet connection. “And Harrison was staying here because her people thought it would be less of a scene. Probably a shorter drive to AT&T Stadium from here. Travel time. Not sure if that’s a factor with these entertainment types.”

            Tilly Werner paused the video and looked up but said nothing.

            Lester pressed forth. “But first the police. We need to figure out how this Colin Adair asshole got those tapes. Obviously the one from the shooter is bad enough, but the city footage probably makes us look even more inept.”

            “You think anybody in that gang of back-patters is going to inform?”

            “Probably not, but we have to ask. It’ll look bad if we don’t. Po—”

            “Politically. I wasn’t born yesterday, Lester.” Mayor Werner stood up and smacked her computer closed, giving her young advisor a sporting punch on the arm. “But you’re right to wrangle me in. The folks said I was a hothead from day one. You do a good job taking care of things around here, son. Next year it’ll be the statehouse or even a congressional run.”

            “Absolutely,” he said, reveling in the boss’ sudden reacquired solidity. Lester was bereft of a social life in Panther City or Cowtown or Funkytown or whatever the hell the yokels called it. He was ready to move on and advance his career. Austin or Washington D.C. would be huge; in his mind, he was already ten pounds lighter and back to his unassumingly handsome self, able to get laid without propping up his sexual market value with future career prospect credits. “Absolutely,” he repeated, stalling the whole cart before the horse thing going on in his head.

            “So after I talk to the chief, it’s a call to both heroes.”

            “I think that’d be wise.”

            “What are the odds?” Mayor Werner asked, slipping back into her heels. “James Camp coming to the rescue. Nobody even remembered he was alive until he almost gets himself killed. Unbelievable. I haven’t seen that boy’s face in a heap a years.”

            “What’s with this guy?” Lester asked. “Obviously I know the Camp family—”

            Werner put a halting hand up and sat back down on her desk, crossing her arms. “Let me just stop you there, Atlantic.”

            “I’m from Little Rock.”

            “Exactly. Anyhow, my people and the Camps go way back. The Werner family built up a lot of this area, development and the like. The Camps built up a hell of a lot more. Investment land. They jumped on that idea while every cowpuncher and dirt farmer thought this wouldn’t amount to nothing more than played-out prairie.”

            She walked to the window and pulled up the blinds with a little bit of drama. The view took in everything east of downtown plus a good chunk of the land to the north and south. Thirty miles to Dallas was basically nothing but urban sprawl, highways built on other highways. Shopping malls. Fracking rigs for natural gas drilling. Places that served too much food to too many fat people. Countless little strip malls and storage units and office plazas and enough concrete to build a road to the Moon and back. The more country suburbs were down south of town, miles and miles of mildly undulating rows of identical houses. The northern neighborhoods were newer, but not much different—from any high point (not that one would be easy to find) a person might be baffled by the sheer number of neat little roofs winding off to the horizon. For the people that owned the land it was built on—people with patience—investment land, as Tilly Werner called it—the riches were untold. Unless the new generation was screwing the pooch.

            “I checked their net worth last night. Couldn’t believe it.”

            “Don’t believe it. Jove’s sake, some dinky computer search ain’t gonna lay out all the dirty pies and dirty fingers. Google doesn’t track that kind of rich.”

            “So they’re corrupt?” Lester said. He had his pen out, writing down any and all new information. So far he had dirty pies and dirty fingers.

            “Well,” Tilly said, drawing out the word. “Corrupt has a fluid definition.”

            “Does it?”

            “Gets more fluid all the time. Not that I’m really all that concerned about it. The Camp boy is going to be fine.”

            “Yes,” Lester said, looking at his notes. “And he’s not a boy. Almost forty, my notes say.”

            “Bit of weirdo. Find out the real story there, work with the cutie. See if there’s anything the media and this Informers site missed. Sleazy bastards. Nothing’s sacred anymore.”

            The political advisor scribbled away and wiped some sweat from his brow. Cold air was finally shooting down from the vents in the high ceiling, making the old room almost comfortable. “And the main thing?”

            “It’s still the main thing. We need to find out that pretty girl’s state of mind. If she doesn’t play those shows, the whole year’s a big fat fail. You find out, Lester. I’ll go crawling on my hands and knees. Kiss the ring. Whatever it takes. The entire economy of North Texas is riding on those four days going off without a hitch.”

            A knock on the door. The mayor’s personal assistant poked her little head in and said, “It’s Bill. From the Chamber of Commerce. He’s out in the hall. Also Pedro from the DOT wants to go over a few highway reroutes for the concerts. Then there’s Alison Green from Public Works and your mother’s personal nurse. She leaned a little more into the office. “And—calls from the city council.”

            “Who?”

            “All of them,” she said, retreating with collapsed shoulders and a look of defeat.

            “Looks like you’ve got a ship to steer,” Lester said, shifting focus up to gauge his boss’ reaction. She appeared set to the task. Unflagging.

            “I’ll take care of this crap. After that, we get to work on everything that matters.”