Birth of a Monster (17 page)

But something told him he didn’t want
to put Sam Higler’s face on the front page of his paper. Evening
came and found him still contemplating the issue, so he went
outside for a walk, hoping to arrive at a resolution no later than
by the time he returned to his office.

As he was nearing his office, he saw a
courier bringing that day’s paper from Sivingdel. Every morning,
numerous couriers left Sivingdel on swift ponies carrying copies of
the city’s two most prestigious papers—The Sivingdel Times and The
Sivingdel Gazette—to the capital city.

Randalls flagged down the courier and
promptly purchased a copy of each.

He was dumbstruck when he saw the
headline from The Sivingdel Times implicating the mayor in the
attack as a means to terminate an investigation into his own
criminal activities.

His eyes began voraciously devouring
every article in each paper relating to the police station attack,
glad to have an excuse to delay his own pending
decision.

Once he had read every pertinent
article, he set them aside and gazed long and hard into the sketch
of Sam Higler.

“Who are you, Mr. Higler?” he asked out
loud in his empty office.

A chill then traveled down his spine as
he realized he likely had the only existing sketch of Mr. Higler.
The sketch at the police station surely had been burned in the
fire, and unless the police had moved exceptionally quick and sent
a copy to the prosecutor’s office—which Randalls greatly
doubted—then this was it.

Did he see you?

He almost jumped backwards
as the thought hit him. Had there been a slight glance from side to
side, like that of a wild animal in captivity gazing back at those
surveying him from the safety of a barred fence?
Had
he been
seen?!

He couldn’t say for sure. He
felt it was unlikely, but if there was any
chance—
any
chance—that Mr. Higler had seen him, wasn’t Randalls living on
borrowed time with a quickly approaching expiration
date?

Then a thought occurred to him. There
was a middle ground. If he plastered this face onto the front page
of The Republic’s Gazette tomorrow, he may as well prepare his own
funeral arrangements.

But if he did nothing with the sketch,
his murder would likely never be solved.

The Capital Museum purchased a copy of
each of the top fifty newspapers daily and archived them. With
Senator Hutherton’s financial backing, he had managed to print more
papers, advertise more, and increase his sales, and he had just
recently made it into the top fifty.

He began writing out a potential
title—not a headline, not by a long shot, but a title to a small
article that would go almost in the very back of the
newspaper.

“Recent Mugshots from
Sivingdel Police
Station
”

“The following sketches
were made within the last several weeks at Sivingdel Police
Station. A brief description of the suspected crimes is under
each
.”

Yes, he liked that.

“Attempted bribery, SISA
violations, running a criminal enterprise
.”

That could go under Sam Higler’s
sketch.

He then began writing
something else on a separate piece of paper: “
If I die or disappear, the perpetrator is Sam Higler, the man
likely responsible for the burning of the Sivingdel Police
Station.
”

He folded it up and put it inside his
desk under some files.

He picked up Sam Higler’s sketch again,
mesmerized in spite of his fear, like a man ogling a rattlesnake
rather than running for safety.

He was not sure of the reason for his
fascination, but if it had been explained it would have made
perfect sense.

His skillfully guided pencil had
captured the birth of a monster.

Chapter 32

When Righty was in tenth grade, a
special guest had visited his school. It was a professor from the
country’s top law school, located in the capital city. The visit
had been part of a program where twice a week a professional in
high standing in his trade or profession had visited the school to
talk about various aspects of his job to help the young students to
know what career paths might be best for them.

Righty remembered the professor
explaining the onerous task of grading law school exams, although
he admitted it was done only twice a year and perhaps served as a
pleasant interruption to an overly cushy job. The professor
described in great detail the mountains of white papers that
started without a speck of red on them only to look like the scene
of a bloodbath by the time the professor’s dreaded red pen had
finished a couple weeks of frenzied slashing.

Righty supposed he was as close to
sharing this professorial experience as he ever would be as he
tucked himself away in his cabin with several small canisters of
red ink available, prepared to make marks with far more sinister
implications than the point deductions of the professor. Righty
pulled up a chair, pulled out the first stack of papers, put them
on his desk, and readied himself to peruse in infinitesimally small
detail all the paperwork the late Chief Lloyd Benson had
unwittingly bequeathed to him.

He had feared the chief’s notes would
be written cryptically, perhaps using number designations or other
code to refer to the various people he had dealings with in
Righty’s organization, with further encryption used to refer to the
nature of his dealings with these individuals.

So, his surprise could not have been
greater when, the first page read as follows:

“Operation Brass:

“Crabs – arrange for shipment from Tats
at specified time and place; arrest all, including Crabs for
appearances; later Crabs will testify.”

Righty’s blood began boiling
immediately. He continued reading, resisting an urge to go mount
Harold and track Crabs down with an aim to kill him before the hour
expired. After all, he was unlikely to find Crabs alone, and he
wanted to make each upcoming trip to Sivingdel was as productive as
possible.

A few hours later, much of the picture
came together. Crabs had been busted a few months ago and
threatened with multiple SISA charges, which, the police had
assured him, the prosecutor would file and obtain convictions on,
most likely resulting in a series of consecutive sentences that
would put Crabs away for the rest of his miserable life.

He had flipped and begun revealing
every last detail of the organization the chief had wanted to know.
Fortunately for Righty, Crabs had little to tell besides the fact
he went by “Mr. Brass,” had only appeared in the criminal
underworld a short time ago, and had rapidly ascended to power due
to a combination of his doctorate in fisticuffs and his nearly
inexhaustible supply of top-notch Smokeless Green.

“Source?
” the chief had written at the margin in this
section.

Righty spent all of that morning going
over the papers, forsaking his customary three hours of morning
sword practice. But he felt it was justified, given that he was in
a race to find and kill the traitors in his organization before
they caused further harm.

He read all afternoon and deep into the
evening. What he ascertained was that it had started with several
of the lowest retailers getting arrested and threatened in a manner
similar to Crabs’ situation, after which they had flipped, which
ultimately led to Crabs’ arrest.

It was very unnerving to Righty how
skillfully the police had managed to pull these arrests off and
sway his men’s loyalty without word getting out. More disturbing
still was the fact these men feared prison more than Mr. Brass. If
things went his way, that situation would soon reverse
itself.

Righty read until nearly 10 p.m., at
which point he returned home.

The next day, he started at 5 a.m.,
determined for decisive action later on that evening.

By the time he was nearing completion
of the documents, it seemed there were over two dozen people in the
organization who had been compromised.

But before he could begin to
formulate a plan of action for dealing with these traitors he saw
the most titillating bit of information yet:
George Hoffmeyer
.

Mr. Hoffmeyer had faded in and out of
his mind but had never completely vanished even though it had been
years since he last saw him. His thinly concealed offer to Righty
to provide money laundering services shortly after Righty reported
the barrels of seed missing from Roger’s Grocery Store had unnerved
him, and he felt Mr. Hoffmeyer was almost certainly aware that
either Righty or Roger had stolen the seeds due to their having
become illegal and, hence, valuable.

And it would only take a minimal amount
of snooping to determine which of the two was the more likely
culprit: Roger, who had continued in the store he had owned for
years and who could almost always be seen toiling away in there, or
Righty, a man who had acquired his own store shortly after the
seeds were lost and was able to keep the store afloat without
almost ever bothering to show up and work there.

But Righty had always figured it would
be best to simply leave Mr. Hoffmeyer alone unless he ever
discovered he was snooping on Righty.

Righty began reading voraciously to
discover what business Mr. Hoffmeyer had in the late chief’s
notes.

“Complains market share
steadily decreasing ever since his distributor, Heavy Sam, was
pulverized by the brutal Mr. Brass.
”

Righty’s blood turned cold. Mr.
Hoffmeyer had been Heavy Sam’s connection?!

For a moment, he couldn’t have been
more surprised if he read the name of one of his former drinking
buddies, but then it quickly began to make sense. Mr. Hoffmeyer
would have legitimate international business connections, since he
had been a major inventory supplier for years and had many of his
products imported.

He was obviously getting Smokeless
Green legitimately before SISA—it had been compliments of his seeds
that Righty was now a multimillionaire. When SISA was passed, he
had obviously made the decision to keep selling Smokeless Green,
and his source had agreed to continue supplying it to him—that
could be the only explanation for how he could get it at quantities
sufficient to supply the entire city before Righty had taken over
the market.

But where does Smokeless
Green come from?

Righty had given the question little
thought before, but it now enticed his curiosity greatly. Mr.
Hoffmeyer would probably know, since his source was almost
certainly foreign.

Righty felt great inward distress as he
decided what he was going to do about Mr. Hoffmeyer. He had
instinctually liked the man from the first moment he met him. He
seemed a bit sneaky, but perhaps only in the sense he didn’t mind
breaking the law, not in the backstabbing sense.

Could we possibly work
together?

His recent decision to have Robert go
to Sivingdel and establish a new store was clear evidence he
realized he had to expand his legitimate areas of business or
forever be burying money in the ground and living like a pauper
with his family for fear of being asked where his money was coming
from.

Perhaps Mr. Hoffmeyer could greatly
accelerate the process and create numerous businesses for him in a
matter of weeks.

But Mr. Hoffmeyer is in the
game. And he knows who you are. He knows what town you live in. He
could easily find out where your house is . . . where your family
is . . . .

Righty noticed his fists were
clenched.

Heavy Sam tried to kill you,
and Mr. Hoffmeyer was Sam’s source. Doesn’t that mean Mr. Hoffmeyer
gave the order?

Not necessarily; maybe Sam
was just acting on his own.

But their interests were
aligned—killing you would have meant Sam kept his market and Mr.
Hoffmeyer kept the sales going.

The more he thought about it, it just
didn’t seem there was any way he and Mr. Hoffmeyer could play in
the same sandbox.

Then, a more terrifying thought came to
him.

If he knows Mr. Brass and
Richard Simmers are one and the same, all he has to do is leak your
name to the police or press, and there won’t be a hole in the world
dark enough and deep enough for you to crawl into.