The great Boston frost had finally fallen, and sweet chilly air touched with blossoming spring fritted in through her open windows.
Despite the importance of her task, as quoted by the Boston Times, Poppy’s office was pathetically small. A loaned space paid for by the council, sure, but square and bleak with open brickwork on the walls and a train that rushed by on the hour and shook the panes in the windows.
As vaulted as Poppy Dickens was in the papers, it seemed to her that nobody desired for Winter to be caught, as all pushing for hearings and witnesses and evidence seemed to crumble no matter what legitimacy she presented, or quote from lawbook or constitution alike.
It pained her to use Arthur McManus – a philandering tabloid hustler who could speak and write just about passably (mostly emotive screeds for radical rags for shock value) – and slept with anything with a pulse (male, the only requirement.) However, even the so-called “Courier” had refused to cough up on her latest commission, no matter the amount of rolled dollar bills she stuffed in pockets or belts, and all traces of previous leads had dried up.
It all came down to the missing doctor, Bill.
It was a tragedy, the fire that swept up the little hospital downtown. Nevada-born Calhoun was a well-known medical professional beloved for his kindness. His emerging work in rare diseases, namely in children, had granted him excellent publicity.
You couldn’t blame people for their “childhood friend” but what a childhood friend. Edward Sallow, apparently, and if that wasn’t enough, according to Bill’s secretary, he had just suffered a formidable break with a long-term boyfriend. Graham – goddamn Graham! – the commissioner and the most feared man in Boston. Criminals fearing a police commissioner was always grand, but if you asked her, not as grand as to extend to fear from work acquaintances and members of the Government.
As a young man, Graham (a missionary from Utah) had fronted aid programs known as “The Missions” which offered aid, classes and opportunities – touched with conversion, naturally – to the disenfranchised. A major converted group had been ex-convicts, which had technically prospered until – fronted, ironically, but Graham – a massive group was returned to the can, over warnings of “recidivism.”
The Missions, who claimed all data on their dependents was 100% confidential and ethically sourced, refused to comment. Regardless, this alleged “take down” rocketed Graham to promotion after promotion. The Sheriff of The Northeast, whose “tough on crime” mania had made him popular in the casual terrorism of mob violence, but more than that, feared.
Whatever warm, friendly Bill saw in them was nigh on impossible to say but after a partnership spanning over fifteen years (thanks, Chel) and rumours that vanished out of the paper as soon as it arrived, it had (again according to Chel) fouled over the “signs” had become impossible to ignore and lo and behold, Calhoun had actively cut it off.
Which was good, Poppy thought, surely enough to get Bill on board as witness, but she hadn’t been the only one sniffing around. According to Chel, Winter’s boys had tried their arm at getting the skinny from Bill, as Sallow was causing tidal disruption on the mob scene, having built a rivalry with Eddie Winter.
A black eye and millions of dollars refused later, Bill had kept strum. Which gave Poppy hope for the law if he turned away so vehemently from criminals.
Then the unthinkable happened.
It had been a firestorm, that’s all she knew, creeping over the skyline like an unnatural dawn. The papers blazed with it. Arson. Innocents killed. Bill barely escaping alive. All trademarks of Winter’s specific brand of cruelty, only this one courted the inclusion of children.
It had all the makings of a public outcry, a call to arms. She wondered if this would be the one atrocity that would govern real, tangible change. Something she could finally use.
Then Bill Calhoun vanished.
It had been a frantic time. She had tried to send flowers. Chel had picked them up, uncharacteristically crying down the phone that she’d decorated his old office with them. She’d called around, paid the paperboys who fought with the news protectrons. No Bill.
Finally, Poppy had bribed some wandering bums who'd admitted seeing a man fitting Bill's description being hustled into a car with laurels "slit like scar lines" across the side. Didn't know the bum was a poet, but at least it tracked it straight to her source.
Sallow.
Fearing the worst, she still sprang into action. Any calls to law enforcement was in vain. They had lost their prime witness; she had been denied her key to taking down Sallow.
She needed Calhoun, distressed and vengeful. A two-tier witness ready to testify against Winter and Sallow. Who could ask for me?
It was more than just work.
Calhoun was a personal friend, as she had been his client, overseeing the insemination of her wife, Rosie. Rosie had just been declared pregnant, and the long days and arduous tests has been worth it. It was a boy. He was to inherit the name of Rosie's father. Shaun Jr. Middle name Adam, after her brother's (nervous) help as donor. The most awkward hour of his life in a hospital box.
Rosie had cried about Calhoun's absence, citing him at achieving a long-term dream for them, and raged at Poppy's ruthlessness. There's more at stake, Poppy had replied, feeling cold and statue like in the small box like lounge with Rosie, hormonal, crying on the couch and surrounded by baby hampers and blankets and teething toys. Beyond us, even beyond the baby. Do you want Shaun to grow up in a world where crime is unpunished?
Then it came out. Papers, Chel. Sallow's sponsorship rebuilding Calhoun's hospital. Fully funded but (apparently) leaving it all to Bill. (Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.)
All of Sallow's previous sins wiped away in an instant. Immediate folk hero, propping up beloved Calhoun on the fat solid foundation of his money.
Bill was seen a few weeks later in public, arm wrapped, but calm, contented, half smiling at the camera, latched to Graham's side.
Then the coup de grace. Winter, slaughtered, hung up above the city he terrorised. The sight had been so gruesome - the papers that usually showcased atomic fire and war had refused to show the pictures. Two officers had fainted, and half the team had requested leave.
Winter gone, hospital rebuilt.
Justice, right?
These events had empowered Sallow's growing empire, all of which were none too positive. The last thing he needed was good publicity to strain his coffers more. Truth be told, she suspected him of having a hand in the disaster, if only to score Boston's most gifted doctor at his side and take care of Winter as well in a double death knell.
She needed to hear it all from the horse's mouth. She needed to talk to Bill.
This was not an easy task. Her sources had declared Bill unapproachable outside his office hours. "Protected from paparazzi" meant he was surrounded by Sallow's men at all times. Chel said Sallow was jumpy about the attack on Bill's life, but Poppy was certain it was so he couldn't lose a valuable cash cow.
Naturally, if you wanted something done right, you do it yourself.
It was late on a spring afternoon.
Beautiful weather, chilly in the shade and balmy in the sun, with a delicate wind and the scatter of blossoms around her sensible Mary Janes.
Poppy had observed Graham and Bill taking a walk along the Freedom Trail, looking at the monuments and conversing lightly under the sun. It was an unusual sight, for they were alone, and Graham, casual for once, looking every bit the Utah Sheriff in battered jeans and a shirt tucked in above the belt, and Bill, smiling peacefully in beige slacks and white top. (She had never known him to wear a tie.)
His fabled hair was rippled loose around his shoulders, a portion of it pulled up back in a bun. Graham's hand - despite the quick, nervous glances from onlookers - was always on Bill's back, arm, and most strangely, brushing against Bill’s knuckles.
Poppy had been forced to decide her unflattering shorts would have had to do for her so-called camouflage. Rosie's small-breasted pintuck top strained against her bust. It was almost indecent, but her wardrobe was in Sanctuary Hills and her assistant had brought her what Rosie had spare in her work locker.
She'd fluffed out her hair, tried for makeup. She looked like a cleavaged clown, but you did what you must to get ahead.
Poppy pretended to be engrossed in a poster for The Silver Shroud. Even on his off day, Graham was a hawk. His blizzard blues cut across the crowd, only for Bill to hurry him on, pointing at the tour guide protectron just being passed over by a group of school children.
The surrealistic sight of seeing a well-known mob dragon indulgently lacing his fingers with Calhoun and being led forward to a communal park area, well, hard to forget the man was a monster.
They settled beside the protectron, listening, Joshua idly picking up a pamphlet. He scanned it, nudging Bill to point onward to the next point of interest, Bill nodding along. Poppy saw his lips mouth "Old North Church."
Poppy quickly looked behind her, at the bulk of tourists following the red line across the paving. A church, especially one as small as the North, would be difficult to hide in.
Luckily, they seemed to be postponing that excursion, moving onward past the tourist robot to the swan boats bobbing on the lake. A small, upstart cafe with white lace table cloths, surrounded by an ornate kissing gate, seemed to be their stop. If anything, it must have been arranged, for they were seated swiftly, away from everyone else, overlooking the sun sparkling on the shore and the fresh apple blooms drooping on the grandstand.
For a single moment, Poppy regretted the beautiful day, imagining radiant Rosie in her buttery sun dress, with tea and cake and a glass of champagne.
She waved it off. Graham had risen to look at something closer - maybe another tourist plaque - and for one, solitary second, Calhoun was free, looking over the menu.
Her shadow fell across it.
Bill Calhoun lifted his head, putting down a half-eaten breadstick.
"Mrs Dickens," he said, as if nothing else had occurred since Rosie's last ultrasound. "How are you?"
"Bill," Graham's shoes were moving so fast she was certain he was bringing up the pavement. "Can I talk to you?"
A longer shadow glazed her back.
"Ms Dickens," Graham stated, dryly.
"Commissioner Graham," she did not stutter. "I just require Dr Calhoun for a moment. A personal matter. My son."
Titles had power. In this casual scene, she wrestled them out, dividing them into neat, lawful quarters. She was good at reminding certain people.
I know who you are. You cannot hide for me.
Last time she saw Graham, he was completing a crossword at the back of one of Sallow's many trials.
"Poppy," Bill broke their revue, with so gentle a voice that guilt panged through her. She beat it down. "Of course. We won't be a moment, Joshua."
"Of course," Graham seated himself, eyes on fire, now just that well-mannered preacher's son with the tragic haircut. She had seen pictures, before Sallow got his hands into him. Snakeskin and golden watches later. Ugh. "I think congratulations are in order."
"Oh." She blinked. Bill rose to standing, beaming at him. If there had been any doubts about the nature of their relationship, this confirmed once and for all they were at least intimate. She detested the thought. "Thank you."
Graham nodded at her, his glass of water lifted to toast, but his bird of prey glower still predated behind his glare. He was no fool. Neither was she.
"Come now, Poppy." It was unlike Bill, but as he guided her to the shade of a neighbouring tree, she wondered if he used her given name to disarm her. "Is everything alright? Is Rosie suffering any complications?"
Safely away from Graham, Poppy let her mask slip. She gripped his arm, manoeuvring him to the other side of the trunk. Graham, eyes like button fasteners, took a slow sip of his water.
"Cut the bullshit," She wanted to shake him. Another part of her wanted to kiss him. Relief and anger were strange bedfellows. "What happened? I haven't been able to get you for weeks. I've been out of my mind."
Bill looked carefully down. So did she. Her palms were clamped painfully around his bandaged arm. She let go.
"Look," she said, wiping her hands on her ugly shorts. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about what happened at the hospital."
Clouds drew in Bill's face, making him grey, gaunt. The embers of that terrible day rose between them, but she didn't stop.
"But what's that all about Sallow being this great benefactor?" She dragged them back to the present. "Oh, him pumping money into social projects? When in the hell did he ever do something like that?"
Bill looked straight through her.
"Is that a bad thing?"
Now she wanted to choke him. For playing dumb. For linking hands with a parasitical enforcer wearing law as a mask in broad daylight.
"Come on," she said, squeezing his shoulder. "You're not a fool, Bill. You know exactly what kind of man he is. What kind of man..." She clammed up, for Graham had shifted his seat, the wintery half mask of his face just visible behind the trunk. "Look. Can you not see this publicity stunt is a way for him to further his own power? To use you, your research, and this senseless tragedy as a manipulative front?"
"No," He replied quietly. "No, I do not."
"How?" Her voice crept up sharply, sending the birds from the trees. Graham half stood. Bill sternly looked at him. He reluctantly retook his seat. "You warned me about him yourself. Stay away from Sallow, Poppy. I remember."
"I stand by that," Bill said. "He would agree, I know that much."
"Then why let him take advantage of you?" She dropped her tone, as if talking to one of her battered clients. Bill's eyes narrowed. No fool indeed. "Let me help you. You're the only one who can bring him down. You know things people would kill to know. You know..."
"After the fire," Bill interrupted her. "When I looked at that smouldering husk, with Salah dead in my arms, no one came forward. No sponsors, no charities, no law enforcement. I had reported the threats. Requested someone to get us moved, even with the children so sick they could barely leave their beds. Nothing was done. I had onehundred and sixty-two children with thirty-eight staff. Nobody helped. We had to move them out into the alleyways, onto the roads. Some had to be carried, three at a time. Seven dead from being removed from intensive care."
The butter sun overhead couldn't dispel the chill on her skin.
Bill's face was luminous with pain.
"Bill..." She began to speak, but Bill held up a hand to silence her.
"Do not speak to me about the so-called weight of my choices. You're right. I know some things, but this I know above all. I have a responsibility to these children. To my patients."
"You have my sympathy," she shot back. "But one act of goodwill is not enough to redeem a man like Sallow."
Bill shook his head.
"I cannot help you, Poppy. Don't ask me again."
"You'll take his help?" She pushed. "How do you know he isn't isolating you? Keeping any other option at arm's length so he could use you as an emotive battering ram for the press?"
Bill laughed. It was high and bitter.
"He did it for me," he said. "For me. For our friendship. No other reason."
Poppy was running out of sticks to pull.
"For you?" She snarked, and it fell out of her mouth before she could reel it in. "He doesn't love anything. A man like that..."
She could swear Bill almost bristled. Almost.
"You're still not going to get the answer you wished for," he responded, weary. "This appeal to emotion is not working."
She flinched. Glanced at Bill, glanced at his apologetic expression. He always looked like he came out of a poetry book, almost unreal. But now, he was very real and used one of her favourite defences against her. Appeal to emotion.
"Fine," she hardened. "Edward Sallow is corrupt. He runs gangland-like processes through the city. Racketeering, shakedowns, blackmail, psychological and physical warfare on rivals. He fattens the pockets of socialised politicians whilst he has his missionary attack dog on as police commissioner."
Bill's head snapped up. Something she hadn't seen before - ferocity – dug into his expression.
She wouldn't shut up.
"...he took care of Winter. Big whoop! Now he can replace him, cannibalise his businesses, influences, money and whatever else monster mobsters have. His five-thousand-dollar collection of Hawaiian shirts and tracksuits. Whatever! Are you really going to stand by and let that happen?"
The wind caught her hair, sticking to her mascara. She was panting hard, wrestling with herself, with a flush that ran blood up and down her legs. They made other people dizzy. For her, it kept her rocked, rooted.
Bill tilted his head and looked at her for a long time.
"And what shall happen if I do?"
She closed her mouth. Her impassioned hands found their way back to her side.
"What do you mean?"
"If I did spill my guts," he continued. "What actually would occur? Arrests? The falling of his entire enterprise?"
"That would be for the courts to decide." She cannot lie about this. It's hard to lie to those brandy eyes.
"You sound unsure."
"There is no certainty to anything," she clipped back. "There is no guarantee, but it is better than..."
"Then what?" Bill said, quietly. "Betraying my friend? Losing my hospital? Losing..." He glanced over at Joshua, who looked intensely back. She swallowed, uncomfortable. "...him. What actual change - with this Government of ours - would it do, if he is as well connected as you say he is?"
Poppy thought of her tiny office and shaky windowpanes.
"Then you allow evil," she countered, for she could think of nothing else to say. Exhausted. Appeal to emotion. Appeal to morals.
"I allow for practicality," He patted her shoulder. There was tenderness in it, and she ached. "I hope Shaun is born well, Ms Dickens."
He passed under the grandstand, shadows floating over his face, to find Graham, who took his hand as he sat. Bill covered his face, his previous peace forgotten, and she saw his lie fall from his lips at his partner's probing. Graham sought her out in the crowd, but she fled into the shade of the wall, fuming.
There was no guarantee. That was the choice all of them made when they took their oaths to serve America. She could not convince Bill to forsake the comforts provided by Edward to break ranks. What was the cost of that? Nice lunches with your monstrous boyfriend in public?
Her heels clacked clacked clacked through the side streets. She hit a puddle and water sprayed up into her stockings.
A well-stocked hospital with money to burn? Okay, the latter she could understand. The former - well, what Bill saw in that walking automaton was anybody's guess. The rumours and reports surrounding Graham were fearsome enough to cause some sleepless nights.
The state of Winter's body had been blamed - well, attributed - to Graham's trademark savagery. (No proof, of course.) To think the man who read pamphlets about swan boats could mutilate a body so badly, hardened policeman vacated their stomachs at the sight.
These next few days, the rain had returned. She stuck up her umbrella, floundering off to her office. Rosie was in Vegas at some Robco annual event. As typical of corporate culture, even as her stomach was beginning to crown under her jumpsuit, she still had to give speeches and fix up old models to show off.
The distance drained her. Poppy’s clacking slowed. On the way to her little office, mulling over her next move. Sallow had gotten his claws into Bill after he was driven past a certain breaking point. Maybe, with evidence of his crimes coming to light, another breaking point (she shuddered at this thought) could be achieved. As harsh as it sounded, another break could be her way in. She tugged her folders to her chest, but her mind was ripe. No choice, huh? Well, she would deliver one in due time. She had the lead, she knew he had the info, she -
The world spun. Her folders spilled from her arms, and her cigarette, half lit, smoked out in the puddle by her feet.
The two walls of the alleyway - one behind and the opposite one close, tight - loomed above her head, reaching toward the sky.
Joshua Graham's gun was pushed under her ribs. His hand was pressed over his mouth. His face, ridged with stress and angular like a Norman Rockwell picture from hell, swam in front of her.
"I believe," he spoke, calm. "That man or woman, under God, is created equal."
She went to scream, and he clicked off the safety. She froze, pulsing with fear and fury.
"So," he continued. "I will not hesitate to kill you if you approach Dr Calhoun again. If you poach off his grief, his grace, if you whisper poison to him about me, his chosen..."
Venom spat from the word, and the barrel pushed in painfully. She almost wanted him to do it. See what kind of man you are, missionary my ass.
"Then," he returned to eerie tranquillity. "Your days will be numbered. Make no mistake. Know that it was for his sake I hesitated, for if it was the other, he would not."
He released her. She stumbled back into the street.
"Heeded." She said, chilly. "But I won't give up. Not until I see you and that Californian pig of yours breaking rock behind razor wire."
Graham holstered his gun. He was an automaton again, waiting for whatever hellish key Edward wielded to screw him up again. He was frightening in the way ghost stories and old urban myths were. Thank God she had a flashlight.
"I admire your conviction," he returned, in the same placid, quasi pleasant tone he had greeted her with beside the swan boats. "Pursue us if you wish. But stay away from Bill. That is all I have to say on the matter."
She opened her mouth. Closed it like a goldfish.
Would it be a cliche to call after "You'll never get away with this" or "Justice will prevail" or "fuck you."
The last one prevailed, tumbling out of her mouth as Graham slid into a passing car and vanished into the dreg.
"I won't give up," she said, over and over to herself, in the rain, snatching up her reports. "Fucking Mormon motherless bastard. I won't give up."
She knew it was time to return to her office.