Carla approached the front steps of City Hall, past beat reporters and photographers setting up below a podium placed at a landing halfway up to the front entrance. A crowd had begun to gather at the lower stairs, though it wasn’t clear whether they had been drawn by the newsmen’s presence or because they knew what was about to happen or they just wanted to stay in the shade of City Hall. A mustard-colored haze leaked out of the storm drains, bringing with it a sulfurous odor.
Three youngish men stood smoking on the lower steps. One of the men, Carla realized, was watching her as she neared the steps. She identified him not by his face, which she had never seen up close, but by the attention he paid her and by his posture; the posture she had seen outside her apartment window earlier that day.
Early that morning, looking down the street from Carla’s apartment, Washington had spotted Art Deyna, standing just inside an alley across the street, watching the building. Gerhard, her husband, had been incensed, storming down to the street and confronting Deyna, demanding to know where he came off staking out their building. Carla had taken advantage of the commotion and snuck Washington out a service entrance that would have been in the Deyna’s line of vision had he not been receiving a tongue-lashing from one of the City’s most prominent scientists. Afterward, Gerhard had said that Deyna’s calm had been unnerving—just taking Gerhard’s rant with a funny smile, then saying, “So Mel Washington is up there, correct?”
Deyna winked at Carla as she passed. Startled, she brushed through the front door, greeted the guard briefly by name, and headed for the stairs at the back of the lobby.
A small group had congregated outside Truffant’s office: two cops and three men Carla recognized as Truffant’s assistants. One in particular eyed her worriedly, knowing that Carla meeting with Truffant could have no good outcome. That she was even able to get here was a result of her good relations with the City Hall guards, who were on orders that afternoon not to let the press or public down Truffant’s hall.
Carla considered asking the two cops to tell her whom Truffant was meeting with, but decided against it, not wanting to seem anxious in front of his aides. Instead, she paced slowly up and down the hall, eyeing the painted mural of fabled politicians from the City’s founding up to the turn of the century—men with impressive brows and luxuriant beards.
Truffant’s door opened and conversation spilled out into the corridor. Truffant was agitated, his voice pitched high. A man was with him, Truffant’s height but slim and pleasant-looking, wearing small, round glasses. Carla knew she recognized him and realized that it was Prosper Maddox. She watched Maddox shake hands with Truffant, patting the councilor’s arm with his left hand and leaning in to say some last thing. He pulled away and Truffant caught a glimpse of Carla. Maddox turned as well and smiled at her, showing no sign of recognition.
Truffant excused himself, walked over to Carla, and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
“Carla, how are you?”
“I’m good, Vic. I was wondering if you had a minute.”
Truffant looked at his watch. “I don’t …”
“A minute,” Carla said with more force this time.
Truffant reflexively looked to his aides, saw frowns and shaking heads. “For you,” he said, smiling, but reluctant, “a minute.”
They walked past Maddox, who gave her the smile again, and Truffant closed the door behind them. He stood with his hands cupped together before him.
“What is it, Carla?”
“The Uhuru Community—”
Truffant laughed, holding up his hands as if in self-defense. “Carla, I was worried that this was what you were here about. I’m making an announcement as soon as we’re done. Was the podium set up when you came in?”
“Vic, you don’t understand. Those girls, there’s really nothing—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. There’s nothing? Carla, I know you have spent time there trying to help, and I respect you for it. I really do. But the Uhuru Community has become a center of violence. First the attack on the police officer and now the deaths, it turns out, of three young women. Deaths, I might add, that have been kept under wraps by the mayor and the police force.”
“The police officer, he instigated the violence that night.”
“I don’t think you have the story here.”
Carla sighed in frustration. “I don’t?”
Truffant shook his head. “Carla, an off-duty police officer was beaten near to death while trying to help three citizens being assaulted by a mob. A mob from the Uhuru Community. Now I realize that you work with these people, but that doesn’t change the facts. And these three young women—murdered, Carla. Murdered within a shout of the Uhuru Community.”
Carla’s felt the heat in her face. She tried to keep her voice steady. “You know there’s no proof, Vic.”
She saw that Truffant was losing his cool as well. “You’re going to tell me what I know?”
“Those four men, including the police officer, were involved in several assaults on Uhuru Community residents over the past week. The assaults on those four men were the Community trying to defend itself.”
“Come on, Carla.”
“No. You know this is the truth. You know that there is no evidence—evidence, Vic—that ties those murders to the Community.”
“What I know is that tomorrow’s papers are going to run with the story that those Uhuru Community Negroes assaulted white citizens and a cop. They are going to report that three young women—young white women—were murdered essentially in the Community. The good people of this City are going to finally see these idol-worshipping, communist, un-American fiends for what they really are, Carla. That is the truth.”
“This is going to end badly, Vic. You are going to be turning people loose.”
“No, Carla, you’re wrong. Things are going to work out precisely because I am turning people loose. I know your sympathies, Carla. You’re a nice woman, but what you believe is dangerous, and I’ll be damned if I let you or anyone else talk me out of doing what needs to be done to save this City and our country.”
Truffant pulled the door open with abrupt force. Faces turned toward them from the hall. Carla could feel herself trembling, her jaw clenched.