They Vote in Chicago

Then the sky opened up, and the rain crashed into the hotel pool. Mercifully, it was closed for the season. The reporters watching the decoy spotted him getting into another car, but they were too far away to cover the distance.

“Mr. Baumbart - Mr. Baumbart - Mr. Baum-”

The rain slowed to a canter as the first of two sedans pulled away. He noted that more than a few reporters gnashed their jagged teeth in his wake, then lurched out of the way as the second of the two sedans fell into place behind his.

“Gavin Baumbart.”

By now he was accustomed to strangers calling his name, but Gavin rocked back this time. The speaker was someone he used to see on his mother’s television every time he visited, right up to the day she took on a dead nurse. “Pastor” Jackson Whitehouse was sitting in the opposite passenger seat. 

The pastor introduced himself and extended a curled red hand. It was a color that usually indicated heat, but Gavin shuddered at the cold. The pastor noticed his discomfort.

“Poor circulation, Sir,” he said. “I assure you I am as alive as you are, although there is no question that my time as a living, breathing, human being is running short. I can also assure you that when I do give up my ghost to the Almighty, my body will stay put.”

“Pastor Whitehouse-”

“Please, Mr. Baumbart, our ride to the courthouse is very short, and I simply must say my piece before we get there. Your lawyer -” here he curled his lip in disgust at the trailing sedan “- has seen fit to keep me away from you during the proceedings, believing me to be an ‘inflammatory character.’ So be it. But you should know who has paid your legal fees, and who ultimately has Jeremy’s best interests at heart.”

The sedans ranked high enough in importance to be shadowed by two police cruisers, but even they had to stop for a funeral procession. Gavin groped for the door handle.

“Tracy and I always had Jeremy’s best interests at heart. Now he’s only got me.”

“Of course he does, Mr. Baumbart. And we will see to it that he always does.”

The door popped open, and Gavin stepped out into a strong downpour. Pastor Whitehouse heaved a sigh that might have come from the heavens.

“The dead always want nice people like you to keep an open mind, Mr. Baumbart. If you aren’t careful, they’ll open it just wide enough to eat your brain.”

Gavin screwed up his face and scampered back to the second sedan. His lawyer smiled and raised two fingers. Lucy Tourmaline wore a wire headset and peered into a satellite video uplink. Bought with Whitehouse money? There was no time to wonder, because he could see the video feed on the laptop monitor, and identified a Court TV correspondent.

“-does Mr. Baumbart believe he alone can provide a nurturing environment for his son?”

“He does, Margo, and let me also answer the question you’ve been leading up to since we’re due in court in a few minutes: Gavin Baumbart respects the living and the dead. He bares no ill will toward his former wife. In fact, he still loves her very much. But we will not allow Jeremy to become a political football when he still has a loving father who can provide for him. And the law will continue to support that.”

The host thanked her for her contribution, and severed the connection. Lucy took off her headset and regarded her reflection in the blank monitor. “I wonder if my hair is too alive,” she mused. “Maybe it seems offensive to the undead on the jury.”

“Ms. Tourmaline, I just - ”

“Please, Gavin, call me Lucy.”

“Lucy. I understand not wanting to offend the dead. But if we keep conferring respect and admiration for their “culture” and “rights,” aren’t we undoing our own case?”

Lucy opened her mouth, and then shut it. For a moment Gavin thought her face seemed completely lifeless. Then she rallied.

“Gavin, it’s like I keep telling you. We win the public relations battle; we win the trial. As soon as the opposing counsel painted this custody hearing as a battle for civil rights, we lost the moderates who decide these things. With every press release and interview, I convey your “live and let live” attitude to another group of moderates. After that, the legal part will be a cakewalk.”

Gavin snuck a peek at her leather binder. It was the only evidence that she had prepared any legal strategy whatsoever. “Lucy, did you use that bit about “live and let live” in your interviews?

“In the last three interviews. It just came to me.”

They had reached the courthouse.

“Mr. Baumbart, how can you take Jeremy away from his mother?”

“Mr. Baumbart, are you and your wife still intimate?”

“Mr. Baumbart, do you think about death?”

His lawyer led him up the steps with purposeful strides taken in zombie-manufactured footwear. Tracy and her council shambled on a parallel course, but they had to meet in the doorway in an awkward, shuffling knot. The cameras flashed faster.

Tracy had obviously seen some expensive morticians. Her skin tone was even, and her pupils full. Somehow she had masked the formaldehyde odor with some sickening sweet fragrance. Someone with deep pockets must have been bankrolling her, as well.

Gavin waved his hand toward the entrance. She glided in without a backward glance. She wore cigarette pants and a herringbone oxford that didn’t completely hide the small, dim patch that covered her stomach, and the much larger dark red scaring that covered her back. He decided, for the umpteenth time, how much easier things would have been if he had aimed for her head.