The Twenty-Seventh City (Bestselling Backlist) by Jonathan Franzen Read Free Book Online

an office-entertainment-hotel-shopping-center complex called West Port. He’d built the Ardmore West condominiums, western extensions of five county roads, and extra lanes on U.S. 40 out to the western county limits. Recently he’d begun work on Westhaven, a “comprehensive work and lifestyle environment” whose four million square feet of rental space were specifically intended to put West Port to shame.
    On the third Saturday of October, a week after Singh had formulated his plans for Luisa, Probst was driving his little Lincoln home from a Municipal Growth meeting, listening to KSLX-Radio’s Saturday-night jazz program. Benny Goodman was playing. The full moon had been rising five hours ago when Probst left home, but the weather had soured in the meantime. Raindrops spattered on the windshield as he drove down Lockwood Avenue. He was speeding, keeping pace with Goodman’s racing clarinet.
    The Municipal Growth meeting had been a bust. Hoping to build some esprit de corps , Probst had had the idea of scheduling a session on a Saturday night—a dinner meeting, beef Wellington for twenty-five in a private room at the Baseball Star’s restaurant. It had been a terrible idea. They didn’t even have a quorum until Probst called Rick Crawford and persuaded him to give up an evening at the theater. Everyone drank heavily while they waited for Crawford to arrive. The evening’s discussion of city hospital care was confused and interminable. And when Probst was finally about to move for adjournment, General Norris stood up and spoke for a full forty minutes.
    General Norris was the chief executive officer at General Synthetics, one of the country’s foremost chemical producers and a pillar of industry in St. Louis County. His personal wealth and extreme political views were almost mythical in magnitude. What he wanted to discuss tonight, he said, was conspiracy . He said he found it alarming and significant that during the same week in August two women from India had assumed positions of command in St. Louis. He pointed out that India was essentially a Soviet satellite, and he invited Municipal Growth to consider what might happen now that Jammu had control of the city police and the Princess had control of the man who ran the Hammaker Brewing Company and owned many of its assets. (Fortunately for all concerned, Sidney Hammaker was among the absentees tonight.) Norris said there were strong indications that Jammu, with the help of the Princess, was engaging in a conspiracy to subvert the government of St. Louis. He urged Municipal Growth to form a specialcommittee to monitor their actions in the city. He spoke of the FBI—
    Probst suggested that the FBI had better things to do than investigate the chief of police and the wife of Sidney Hammaker.
    General Norris said that he had not finished speaking.
    Probst said that he had heard enough and believed that everyone else had too. He said that Jammu appeared to be doing a fine job as police chief; it was merely a coincidence that she and the Princess had come on the scene at the same time. He said that furthermore, as a matter of policy, Municipal Growth should avoid taking any action that might jeopardize its effectiveness by polarizing its membership and calling attention to itself as something other than a strictly benevolent group.
    General Norris drummed his fingers on the table.
    Probst noted that it was Norris himself who had stood behind Rick Jergensen’s candidacy for chief of police. He noted that Jergensen’s candidacy—or, rather, the strength of his backers—had been a major factor in the stalemate, and that the stalemate had led directly to Jammu’s selection—
    “I resent that!” General Norris leaped to his feet and pointed at Probst. “I resent that! I resent that inference!”
    Probst adjourned the meeting. He knew he’d offended the General and his cronies, but he didn’t stick around to patch things up. For one thing, the General had already