The Throat

Rheginos, and read only a few words before I realized that, like most of Millhaven, the local television had capitulated to Walter Dragonette.

I had been hoping that a combination of gnostic hugger-mugger and whatever was on the afternoon talk shows would keep me diverted until John surfaced again, but instead of Phil Donahue or Oprah Winfrey there appeared on the screen a news anchorman I remembered from the early sixties. He seemed almost eerily preserved, with the same combed-back blond hair, the same heavy brown eyeglasses, and the same stolid presence and accentless voice. With the air of unswerveable common sense I remembered, he was repeating, probably for the twentieth or thirtieth time, that regular programming had been suspended so that the All-Action News Team could 'maintain continuous reportage of this tragic story.' Even though I had seen this man read the evening news for years, I could not remember his name—Jimbo Somehow or Jumbo Somebody. He adjusted his glasses. The All- Action News Team would stay with events as they broke in the Walter Dragonette case until evening programming began at seven, giving us advice and commentary by experts in the fields of criminology and psychology, counseling us on how to discuss these events with our children, and trying in every way to serve a grieving community through good reportage by caring reporters. On a panel behind his face a mob of people occupying the middle of North Twentieth Street watched orange-clad technicians from the Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Task Force carry weighty drums out of the little white house.

Rheginos's teacher, the author of 'The Treatise on the Resurrection,' said 'do not think the resurrection is an illusion. It is the truth! Indeed, it is more fitting to say that the world is an illusion, rather than the resurrection.'

The news anchor slipped from view as the screen filled with a live shot of the multitude spilling across Armory Place. These people were angry. They wanted their innocence back. Jimbo explained: 'Already calls have been heard for the firing of the chief of police, Arden Vass, the dismissal of Roman Novotny, the police commissioner, and the fourth ward's aldermen, Hector Rilk and George Vandenmeter, and the impeachment of the mayor, Merlin Waterford.'

I could read the lettering on some of the signs punching up and down in rhythm to the crowd's chants: WHERE ARE YOU MERLIN? and DISMEMBER HECTOR AND GEORGE. At the top of the long flight of marble steps leading to the front of police headquarters, a gray-haired black man in a dark double-breasted suit orated into a bullhorn. '… reclaim for ourselves and our children the safety of these neighborhoods… in the face of official neglect… in the face of official ignorance…' Seedy ghosts with cassette recorders, ghosts with dandruff on the shoulders of hideous purple shirts, with cameras and notebooks, with thick glasses sliding down their noses, prowled through the crowd.

A younger blond male head, as square as Jimbo's but attached to a sweating neck and a torso wrapped in a tan safari jacket, buried the speaker's words under the announcement that the Reverend Clement Moore, a longtime community spokesman and civil rights activist, had called for a full-scale investigation of the Millhaven Police Department and was demanding reparations for the families of Walter Dragonette's victims. Reverend Moore had announced that his 'protest prayer meetings' would continue until the resignations of Chief Vass, Commissioner Novotny, and Mayor Waterford. In a matter of days, the Reverend Moore expected that the protest prayer meetings would be joined by his fellow reverend, Al Sharpton, of New York City.

Back to you in the studio, Jimbo.

Jimbo tilted his massive blond head forward and intoned: 'And now for our daily commentary from Joe Ruddier. What do you make of all this, Joe?'

I perked up as another gigantic and familiar face crowded the screen. Joe Ruddier, another longtime member of the All-Action News Team, had been instantly celebrated for his absolute self-certainty and his passionate advocacy of the local teams. His face, always verging toward bright red and now a sizzling purple, had swollen to twice its earlier size. Ruddier had evidently been promoted to political commentary.

'What do I make of all this? I'll tell you what I make of this! I think it's a disgrace! What happened to the Millhaven where a guy could go out for a beer an' a bratwurst without stumbling over a severed head? And as for outside agitators—'

I used the remote to mute this tirade when the telephone rang.

As before, I picked it up to keep the ringing from waking John Ransom, and as before, it was necessary to establish my identity as an old friend from out of town before the caller would reveal his own identity. But this time, I thought I knew the caller's name as soon as a hesitant voice asked, 'Mr. Ransom? Could I speak to Mr. Ransom?' A name I had heard on the answering machine came immediately into my mind.

I said that John was sleeping and explained why a stranger was answering his telephone.

'Oh, okay,' the caller said. 'You're staying with them for a while? You're a friend of the Ransoms?'

I explained that, too.

Long pause. 'Well, could you answer a question for me? You know what's happening with Mrs. Ransom and everything, and I don't want to keep disturbing Mr. Ransom. He never—I don't know if—…'

I waited for him to begin again.

'I wonder if you could just sort of fill me in, and everything.'

'Is your name Byron Dorian?'

He gasped. 'You've heard about me?'

'I recognize your style,' I said. 'You left a message on John's machine this morning.'

'Oh! Hah!' He gave a weak chuckle, as if he had caught me trying to amuse him. 'So, what's happening with April, with Mrs. Ransom? I'd really like to hear that she's getting better.'

'Would you mind telling me your connection to the Ransoms?'

'My connection?'

'Do you work at Barnett?'

There came another uneasy laugh. 'Why, is something wrong?'

'Since I'm acting for the family,' I said, 'I just want to know who I'm talking to.'

'Well, sure. I'm a painter, and Mrs. Ransom came to my studio when she found out what sort of work I was doing, and she liked what she saw, so she commissioned me to do two paintings for their bedroom.'

'The nudes,' I said.

'You've seen them? Mrs. Ransom liked them a lot, and that was really flattering to me, you've probably seen the rest of their collection, all that great work, you know, it was like having a patron, well, a patron who was a friend…'

His voice trailed off. Through one of the glass panels beside the front door I watched the reporters tossing crumpled candy bar wrappers toward the hedge. Five or six elderly people had taken up places on the steps and sidewalk across the street and settled in to enjoy the show.

'Well,' I said, 'I'm afraid I have bad news for you.'

'Oh, no,' said Dorian. .

'Mrs. Ransom died this morning.'

'Oh, no. Did she ever recover consciousness?'

'No, she didn't. Byron, Mrs. Ransom did not die of her injuries. Walter Dragonette managed to find out that she was in Shady Mount and that her condition was improving, and he got past the guard this morning and killed her.'

'On the day he got arrested?'

I agreed that it seemed almost unbelievable.

'Well, what—what kind of world is this? What is going on? Did he know anything about her?'

'He barely knew her,' I said.

'Because she was, this was the most amazing woman, I mean there was so much to her, she was incredibly kind and generous and sympathetic…' For a time I listened to him breathing hard. 'I'll let you go back to what you were doing. I just never thought—'

'No, of course not,' I said.

'It's too much.'

The reporters were gathering for another siege of the door, but I could not hang up on Byron Dorian while his grief pummeled him, and I peered out the slit of window while listening to his stifled moans and gasps.