A Conspiracy of Fear Read online

  His tears begin to fall. I moved close and held him. “We’re alive,” I whispered.

  “Not by much.”

  We both realized the truth of this. We clutched each other’s hands for the longest time.

  Finally, I leaned back and said, “And I’m pissed.”

  He said, “This is all my fault.”

  I opened my mouth to reassure him, but he cut me off. “I bankrolled these people. They opened because I reassured them.”

  “So did every police official in the city.”

  “But my cash strengthened their backbone. If I’d kept out of it, people would not have died.”

  “This is not your fault.” I used our catch phrase. “Killing turkeys causes winter.” We remind each other of that when one of us is pushing the logic of cause and effect too far. “Some madman did this. If not at this time and this gallery, then it would have been another time. We do not control the vicissitudes of the world.”

  “I know that. I still feel like shit.”

  “I do too, but I’m also pissed.”

  “What the hell was that with that water tower and the water flowing in the street?”

  We knew that one water tower had fallen in the Lakeview neighborhood not that long before with a crash and a rush of water as ours had tonight. Then some months ago in this very neighborhood, one had sprung a leak. When that happened a lot of businesses in the building below had been ruined, and they’d been forced to remove the thing before it actually fell.

  He said, “It couldn’t have been a coincidence.”

  I agreed.

  SEVEN

  Thursday – 8:22 P.M.

  While medical needs were attended to, Scott called his family. Minutes after he was done with them, the police came to talk to us. Beat cops interviewed us first. Then detectives took extensive notes. Finally a forensic team with maps getting location details spent time with us. I figured they’d match what we said with the DNA from the blood residue in the gallery vestibule. They’d know as precisely as possible where everyone was. Presumably it would help determine the exact angle of the shots and where the shooter had been firing from.

  To the detective I said, “This is a horror. An attack on a gay gallery, at a gay opening with all those protestors. Did one of them do it?”

  “No one is in custody at this time.”

  “Suspect? Person of interest.”

  “We’re just working the case.”

  “Did the shooter also make the water tower fall?”

  “No one knows. It’s going to take a long time to go over everything. There are a ton of different aspects to the investigation.”

  When we were done with all the cops, the hospital still wasn’t ready to discharge Scott. I went out to the washroom and washed my hands again. They still felt sticky. I had the irrational thought that, like Lady Macbeth, maybe the blood would never come off.

  In the hall I saw Sean’s parents. I looked at my watch. We’d been there for hours. I hadn’t noticed the time. I asked, “How is Sean?”

  His mom cried. His dad was misty eyed. “They don’t know. He’s still in surgery.” He choked up. He put his arm around his weeping wife. They clutched each other. I spent time comforting them as best I could.

  EIGHT

  Thursday – 9:32 P.M.

  I heard loud noises from the entrance to the ER. Arnie Schandle, the sculptor, was in the doorway. He was screaming, “This is all my fault. I killed these people.” Several of us rushed to him. His shirt was soaked in blood. The front of his jeans was sticky with it.

  A nurse was screaming at him, “Calm down. Wait your turn.” What she possibly thought her screams would do to help, I wasn’t sure. Then again, perhaps she was as traumatized as the rest of us by the horror of what happened, and for a moment, her professionalism slipped.

  I went up to Arnie and held onto both of his shoulders. I was almost a head taller than he was. My hands felt the damp and bloody shirt. He tried to squirm out of my grip. I held firm.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  The nurse said, “He has no wounds. He needs to leave.”

  I said, “I’ll take care of him.”

  A buzzer buzzed, and she rushed away.

  I spoke in my lowest voice, “Arnie, you’re not hurt.”

  “They’re all dead.”

  “Arnie, someone attacked us.”

  “But if I hadn’t made the sculpture.”

  “Arnie, you aren’t responsible for the craziness of the world.”

  He gazed into my eyes for several moments then collapsed into my arms. He began to weep. I held him tight.

  After a few minutes, he began to quieten. Benedict Ayrfield hurried up to me. “Is he all right?”

  “He doesn’t have any physical injuries.”

  “Thank God. What about you and Scott?”

  “We’re fine. Would you handle Arnie? His presence in the ER isn’t helping.”

  “Sure.” Ayrfield put his arm around the sculptor and led him off. I could hear Schandle muttering, “It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”

  He and the rest of us would be traumatized for a long, long time, the rest of our lives.

  As I turned to go back to Scott, I saw Darryl peeking out from another bay in the ER. I walked over.

  I asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I wasn’t hurt. How are you guys?”

  “Minor injuries. How are Mr. Fulham and the other members of the entourage?”

  “Mr. Fulham got a bullet to his left shoulder. The wound itself is not life threatening, but when you’re in your nineties any shock to the system can make things touch and go.” He drew a deep breath. “Caleb Howk, the actual writer in the group, was killed by falling glass.” He gasped and whispered. “He was cut nearly in two.” Tears fell. I held his hand. When he recovered himself, he said, “I don’t know about the others. Sorry, I have to get back to Mr. Fulham. He woke up a bit ago, and he gets disoriented easily if I’m not around.”

  I checked on Scott. I gave him the news I had about Sean, Fulham, and the entourage.

  “Cut in half! Can we handle this? Can anyone?”

  “Do we have a choice?”

  He trembled. “Poor Sean. Those poor parents. I should go to them.”

  “Are you cleared to get up yet?”

  He shook his head.

  I said, “Then we’re going to be here a while.”

  Scott was waiting for a visit from his regular doctor who would be able to make a judgment about his wound and its relation to his career. I asked him if he wanted us to just go to the guy’s office. It was after nine-thirty. Scott said that the team and the doctor agreed that a quick stop tonight in the hospital from the team physician was in order. My head was beginning to throb so I took one of the pain pills the nurse had given me to last until we had the prescription filled.

  I went to get some orange juice for both of us. I ran into my mom and dad in the hall. They embraced me. Somehow mom’s hug was different. Memories of childhood, safety, and warmth swept through me in seconds. I couldn’t help myself. I wept in her arms. My dad joined us in a group hug. I was glad they had disregarded my words and drove in.

  As soon as I stopped crying, she put the tip of a finger on the bandage on the side of my head.

  I said, “Just a scratch.”

  She asked, “How is Scott?”

  “He’s okay. We’re going to be fine. He’s had x-rays. We’re waiting for a final okay from his regular doctor.”

  My mother glanced at my clothes. She took a shirt and pair of jeans out of the satchel she carried by way of purse. Someone once teased my mom that she carried everything in her purse except the kitchen sink. At which she had pulled out handy-wipes and tissues and hand towels. She said, “I didn’t know what you’d need. I have a set of clothes for Scott as well.” In a few minutes I was in some of my old clothes she must have gotten from some deep closet from the house I grew up in. It was a comfort to be in something that wa
sn’t damp.

  NINE

  Thursday - 10:30 P.M.

  Mom and dad offered to stay and drive us home, but we were only a few blocks away from our condo. I told them we’d be okay to walk, and after a few more hugs for Scott and me, they left around ten-thirty.

  The hospital finally released us just before midnight. Scott was told his new wound would be unlikely to affect his career. With a million dollar investment in his rehab, they weren’t taking any chances. He’d have more examinations when he went for his regular rehab appointment the next afternoon.

  I did a last check on Sean. He was still in surgery.

  We walked from the hospital up Michigan Avenue to Lake Shore Drive and our condo. I thought of the horrific disaster we’d been part of, escaped with our lives from. I wondered what survivors of other disasters said to each other when they finally got home. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. Emily Post’s proper etiquette for disaster survival? I think not.

  Traffic was light. The pouring rain had stopped sometime while we were in the hospital. A cool mist flew in off the lake. We held hands and walked close together. We said nothing on the trudge home. In the elevator we were silent.

  Once inside the door we flung our arms around each other as if we would never let each other go. I wanted to be in the safety of his arms forever.

  I said, “I never want to lose you.”

  “We’re safe. We’re okay. I love you.”

  I wished we could stay clutched in each other’s arms forever. We held each other. Then I felt him becoming aroused. I wanted to touch every part of him. To reassure myself that he was a living, breathing entity, and maybe if I touched him in enough places, and loved him enough, maybe nothing bad would ever happen to us. At least for a little while, in the midst of our passion, I could pretend that this was so. We didn’t make it out of the entryway, and our clothes were only half off when we finished.

  Sated, we lay back and let our breathing get back to normal. I could see the bare skin of his arm in the ambient light from the city outside. I wanted to touch every pore, to count every hair. If it took me until forever to do either or both, as long as I was with him, I wouldn’t care. Then we were in each other arm’s again. I just didn’t want to leave the clutch of his embrace, not be touching him somehow, somewhere. We finished a second time and then a third with his strong well-muscled body thrashing against mine.

  Reality intruded in terms of a need for a trip to the washroom. We stood up, threw off our few remaining clothes, and used the master bathroom off our bedroom.

  We took time to examine each other’s wounds. Scott had to use two mirrors to examine the back of his shoulder. We mumbled and murmured and muttered, as if a voice at normal level would upset the balance of the universe and cause death to rain down on us, as if holding still and remaining quiet could stop time and all danger.

  We wound up in the kitchen. Scott wore baggy plaid boxer shorts. I was in black boxer briefs. We didn’t decide to eat, just started grabbing a few things from the fridge and then the table was full with olives and cheese and salami and pickled vegetables and cold chicken and left over antipasta salad and cashews and pecans and strawberries and cream and chocolate chip cookies from Ghiradelli across from the Water Tower.

  We sat next to each other and surveyed the provender. At first we picked at it. Then a chicken leg and pickles and hunks of sharp cheddar cheese were gone.

  I was surprised how much we ate and how rapidly. We’d planned to have dinner after the opening. After several minutes, I took a deep breath. “I’m still scared.”

  He nodded, picked up a chicken drumstick, devoured it. He wiped his face and hands with a napkin. “I am too.”

  As we had in the hospital, we talked of death and destruction and fear and trembling and the last dramatic blast of the crash and fall of the water tower. The horror did not lessen. During a pause in our recollections, I finally had the chance to give him Fulham’s story.

  “Murder?” he asked.

  “That’s what he said.”

  Scott shook his head. “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t know. If he’d gone back and killed one of the bullies who hurt him, that would still be wrong, but kind of understandable. His parents were assholes, but in that time and place, it may or may not be forgivable, but it’s unfortunately typical to this day in some places. But to never see your mom and dad again? Ever?” I shook my head. “We can’t become like them, can’t become like our oppressors.”

  Scott said, “How many of us have the strength of Mandela to come out of twenty-seven years of prison ready to forgive?”

  “I don’t know if I could.”

  Scott reiterated, “I can’t believe Fulham killed a guy.”

  “That’s what he said.” I shrugged. “I can do some checking on the Internet. See if there was an unexplained death back then in that area, if it even made the papers. Although connected with a baseball team, you’d think it would.”

  “Unless they tried to cover it up.”

  “Maybe. If he really killed somebody, I’m appalled. My biggest question is how did he get away with it? Nobody missed a guy who just disappeared? Another problem is, this is an ancient memory from an old man. He could be mistaken.”

  Scott said, “His memory could be playing tricks. His mind could be having trouble connecting synapses. Did Darryl say he had dementia, Alzheimer’s?”

  “I didn’t tell him what Fulham said, but I asked about his memory. He said for a guy his age, the doctors said he was doing well. I guess I’ll try to find out more tomorrow.” I glanced at the clock. “Today now.”

  Scott finished his chocolate chip gelato ice cream with chocolate sauce and cashews, put the dish and spoon in the dishwasher, and said, “This might sound really far out, but are these events connected?”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Scott said, “The massacre today, him not getting into the Hall of Fame fifty years ago, and the murder another twenty years before that.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  Scott said, “I feel awful for the families of those who died and for those people who were seriously injured. I feel a little sympathy for Peter Fulham. He was alone in a crowd in a time from long ago.” He sighed, “I wish we could say that kind of horror had stopped happening to gay people, but we were a victim of just that tonight. Does it ever end?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He shook his head, “Fulham is an old man with such guilt and sadness. I’m surprised it didn’t drive him insane or to suicide.”

  “There’s more to this story. I’m sure of it, or at least I suspect so.”

  “You’re going to investigate?”

  “I’m not sure there’s much I can do about investigating the attack tonight, but I bet there are people I can talk to about what happened to Fulham, maybe the murder, but more likely him not getting into the Hall of Fame.”

  It was just after one when we finished cleaning the kitchen and got into bed. I thought I’d been sated, but lying naked next to him led to another round of intense passion.

  Much later when I woke, Scott was on his stomach. I know his breathing. I could tell he was asleep. His head was partly on my shoulder. His left hand and arm on my abs. I rested my right hand on the back of his head and caressed his hair.

  The clock on the night table said 4:37 A.M. I stared at the ceiling. The closed drapes let bits of city light into the room.

  Lying there wide-awake was kind of pointless. I got up, threw on the plaid boxers Scott had been wearing. Sometimes I like to wear the clothes he’s worn that he hasn’t laundered yet, knowing bits of him were on them, and they were permeated with his smell, masculine sweat and light deodorant. Wearing a pair of his game-worn underwear was a fantastic treat.

  I sat in one of the array of cushy armchairs that looked out over the lights of the city to the south of us. The horrors of the evening rushed back into my waking memory. I got up and paced for a while then decided to chec
k the latest news.

  I drifted to our electronics room and called up the Internet. Every site I went to was filled with news of what some were calling the Great Chicago Massacre. No one had been arrested. Nor were there any suspects or persons of interests. There was little hope in finding some clue in the video footage from the gallery itself as the shots had originated from outside. The surveillance cameras in the area were proving of little use as the rain had caused most of the people on the streets to be moving with open umbrellas or at the least their heads covered. I knew it would take hours at the least to check all of those video sources.

  No one could be sure whether or not the fall of the water tower had been caused by the shooter. It would take daylight and a herd of investigators before they could determine what happened to it. No one had found out when the thing had last been inspected.

  They’d identified the place that the shooter had most likely been firing from, but they feared all the evidence might have been washed away by the rain and even more likely by the flood from the water tower. Two of the dead had been crushed by the falling behemoth.

  All the articles insisted the shots had originated from the roof, but I knew I’d seen flashes directly across the street.

  I was sure my memory was right. What then were those flashes? Maybe not connected at all, a coincidental event? I didn’t believe in coincidental events, not for this much of a horror. I tried looking at the camera footage, but each site or channel had different views being shown in an electronic jumble that was essentially incomprehensible. The pouring rain and dark clouds had made viewing even more difficult. Usable cell phone footage was less available than in the immediate aftermath of the Boston massacre. The steady firing had driven people to seek shelter not stand there holding electronic devices. The rain kept things blurry. Those few who had been brave or stupid enough to stand and take pictures had often had their phones damaged by the rain, or if they hung around, even swept away and damaged in the gush of water from the water tower.