The Kettle
by Larry Tyler

In summer when it's hot, downtown is known as "The Kettle". That's a good name for it, the kettle. Everyone's crowded in together, the air gets wet and foul, the whole city smells like sweat, and gum wads come alive on the pavement and cling to your shoes like jilted lovers. I hate your hot sweaty guts and you hate mine. That's how it is in summer. We're all part of a big fetid stew, cooking in the kettle. It's when I wake up miserable and go to bed miserable, but it's when I get all my best stories.
On Thursday, the temperature topped off at a hundred and nine. I stood on the sidewalk, in the full glare of the sun, facing the building where Darla Herrera lived. A shot was fired inside, and the front door opened. Garrett Ridley stepped out and paused beside me for a moment, not looking at me, not looking at anything. "Now you've got your story if you still want it," he said. He turned and walked off, strolling toward the center of town.
I went inside and heard footsteps scampering upstairs. I saw eyes peeking through slits in doorways, fascinated at the sight of Darla Herrera's body sitting at the bottom of the stairs. The left side of her face was bathed in red. It looked like half a candy apple. The other side, beautiful but bland and unconcerned, stared toward a row of mailboxes along the wall. Her body slumped seductively. Her face, I noticed for the first time, was an example of an inspired racial mix. The right side of it, at least. A little Latino, a little Oriental, some Caucasian I guess. Spoiled by a bullet.
I took the cell phone out of my coat pocket and placed a call. "This is Powell," I said. "I've got a story for you but I've got five minutes on the outside to tell it." I drew a breath. "Police will be here pretty quick and they're probably going to tie me up for the rest of the day."
I was talking to Henry Buzzell, city editor. Henry's worthless most of the time, but he had the presence of mind to call Connie into his office. Connie takes shorthand. I gave them the whole story without taking my eyes off Darla Herrera. Later I gave the story to the police, and now I'm giving the story to you.
It starts-at least my part in it all-starts with a phone call I got from Heather Ridley, Garrett Ridley's wife. I'd seen her at some of the city functions before, but I had no idea she knew who I was. Somehow she knew me though, or heard about me, because she called the paper and asked for me by name. I went over to her house and prepared myself for a charity ball type story.
When I got there, she invited me into the living room and plopped herself down on the couch before I was offered or had time to select a seat for myself. Her gestures were broad and exaggerated. I figured her to be about two or three hours into a drunk, and I began to regret the visit, although I wasn't sure why yet. 
I sat in a chair across the room from her and looked around. The television was on. Apparently she'd been watching a soap opera. I collected a few breaths before I decided to interrupt her silence. "Ms. Ridley, can I ask what this is about?" I said. 
"It's about my husband, Garrett, Garrett Ridley, city councilor, Councilman Garrett Ridley, rising star of the Republican Party, hero to the humble voters, asshole, Garrett Asshole Ridley."
"Okay," I said. "I take it you're not very pleased with your husband at the moment."
She picked up a manila envelope from the coffee table and intended to toss it over to me, but it went wide of its mark. "Look at that," she said.
I didn't move from my chair. "What would I be looking at?" I asked, nodding toward the envelope on the floor.
"You'd be looking at my husband and another woman."
"I see."
"I see, too."
"You want the paper to run an exposé, Ms. Ridley?" 
She sat back on the couch and glared at the envelope without answering me. I felt a wave of pity come over me as I looked at her. Her whole life story could be culled from her slouching drunken posture. She had indeed married the rising star of the party. Garrett Ridley was only one election away from the party nomination for a House of Representatives seat, and maybe two more away from consideration as a Vice Presidential candidate. Because he was pretty, and slick, and never said anything in public unless it could be tied to wholesome values, Garrett Ridley was a party booster's purest political orgasm.
Heather Ridley, on the other hand, was his mistake. She was probably a cute little grab in high school when they met, cute enough to be an asset to Garrett when he was a young Ken Doll, just learning how to play politics. But she wasn't bright or sophisticated, and never would be, and never would be quite as cute as she was when she was fifteen, fifteen years ago. Now she just longed to sit on the couch and watch daytime TV in her stretch pants, tank top and house slippers. All that was missing were the bonbons. Probably it was just a matter of time before he found a way to dump her without scarring his pristine reputation, but for some reason she had decided to invite me over and hasten the inevitable.
I picked up the envelope and handed it back to her. "I'm going to do you a favor, Ms. Ridley," I said. "I'm not going to print anything about this. I'm not even going to look at the pictures. Instead, I'm going to give you a little while to think about what you're doing."
"You're scared of my husband, aren't you," she said accusingly.
"Of course I'm not," I said. 
Of course I was, at least, I was scared of his party. Newsmen can play dirty and politicians can play dirty. But I don't particularly like dirt, and I never want to be the one to sling the first mud ball.
"You're all going to protect him, aren't you? That bastard. You're all going to protect him."
"Ms. Ridley, there are other ways to go about this."
"What do you mean, other ways?" she asked.
"I mean, you should be thinking about this with a cool, sober head. If you decide you need to take some action against your husband, you ought to talk to a lawyer first. You don't want to start by dragging your husband into a scandal. Believe me, even if it sounds good to you right now, you'll regret it if you do anything impulsive."
"I'm not being impulsive."
"Aren't you?"
"No I'm not. Or maybe I am, I don't know. But, anyway, there's nothing wrong with being impulsive, is there? I like impulsive people. Don't you ever do impulsive things, Mr. Powell? Wouldn't you like to be impulsive sometime? Or maybe even right now, Mr. Powell?"
I measured my words. "Impulsive is okay, Ms. Ridley, as long as you stay clever about what you do. And you want to stay clever about this situation, don't you?"
"Clever?" she asked. She was thinking something over. I had no idea what. "You think that's what I should do? I don't know about that. You could be right, but you know what? I don't want the bastard to get away with this." 
"Maybe you ought to just start by talking this over with your husband," I suggested diplomatically. 
She laughed. "I'm not going to give that asshole the opportunity to try and slither out of this," she said defiantly. "He's done. His career, his marriage, everything. That bastard burned all his bridges this time."
I figured it was a good time for me to make my departure, so I stood up, stated my case for thoughtful deliberation one more time, and showed myself to the door, hoping that was that. But of course it wasn't.
If I had any thought that I had dodged a bullet, I found out differently the next morning when I was called into the publisher's office. No one gets called into the publisher's office unless they are about to be knighted or about to be beheaded. I was there for a beheading.
The paper's publisher, Reynold Hayes, was there, seated and waiting for me, along with his secretary, three editors, and City Councilman Garrett Ridley.
"Sit down, Mr. Powell," Hayes told me. I did what I was told. 
Hayes regarded me for a long moment, then looked over at Ridley. Ridley sat forward and glared at me. "Well, Mr. Powell, my wife has told me about your conversation with her yesterday."
I nodded my head solemnly.
"She told me about your pathetic plot to blackmail me. It didn't work, it's not going to work, and I want to let you know I intend to prosecute you to the full extent of the law."
"Blackmail you?" I said.
"Please don't waste our time with useless denials," Hayes said to me. He picked an envelope up off his desk, the envelope that Heather Ridley had tossed at me the day before. He handed it over to his secretary and directed her to put it on the desk in front of me. I picked it up and noticed immediately it didn't weigh as much as it did the day before. This time I opened it and looked at the pictures inside.
"Those are photographs of me," Ridley said. "And the woman I'm with is a longtime friend of my wife's and mine, Darla Herrera, but then you already know that."
There was a picture of Ridley and Herrera in front of a building, talking, another of them going into the building, a couple of them in a car, and a couple shadowy pictures of them climbing up a flight of stairs. I saw the number, 412 on the outside of the building. I wondered what kind of neighborhood Darla Herrera lived in. It was hard to tell from the photos.
I slid the pictures back in the envelope. "Mr. Ridley, I didn't take these pictures, and I didn't have them taken by anyone else. As a matter of fact, your wife had these pictures in her possession when I arrived at your house yesterday. She wanted our newspaper to print them and I refused. Your wife was quite intoxicated at the time."
Ridley rose to his feet. "I'd be very careful what I said at this point if I were you," he told me. "Unless you and your paper want to add slander to the charges I plan to bring against you."
Hayes rose out of his chair with those words and said to Ridley, "This paper has no intention of supporting Mr. Powell in this matter, Mr. Ridley. I hope you realize we don't tolerate this kind of behavior." He looked at me. "You're immediately suspended, Powell. Get out of my sight. And I would advise you to seek the services of a good attorney, because, between Mr. Ridley's charges against you and ours, you will be spending a lot of time in court."
That was it. I went back to my office, cleaned my desk out, and got on the elevator. 
On my way down to the lobby, I wondered whether Garrett Ridley had the brains to come up with this scheme on his own or whether he ran straight to the party bosses with his problem and let the machine concoct this for him. It was good. He could probably even get my paper to write a nice little story condemning me if he wanted. But how did he plan to silence his wife?
I got outside the building and the heat blasted down on me immediately. The air scorched like an iron and the direct sunlight stung against my skin. It was hot enough to make thinking difficult and vengeance easy. But I had no strategy for revenge. What I did have was the faint hope that Heather Ridley hated her husband enough to back my story. I knew there were originally more pictures in the envelope than Garrett Ridley brought to the publisher's office, and the ones he left home were probably the incriminating ones. It would be nice to find those pictures so I could pull Garrett Ridley off his sanctimonious pedestal and let the voters vote his ass out of office. Oh yes, and vindicate myself. 
I got half a block down the street when the midmorning heat pushed me into a bar. I ordered one shot, drank it, ordered a second and took it over to a booth. I took out my cell phone and my address book and dialed Heather Ridley's number.
On the fifth ring, she answered. Her voice was smoky and thick. Ten o'clock was an early wakeup call for her.
"Good morning, Ms. Ridley," I said. "This is Powell from the Chronicle."
"Powell," she said. Her brain was slow to click into gear.
"You asked me to look at some photographs yesterday."
"Mm. Yes."
"Well, your husband came up with an unusual twist this morning, Ms. Ridley. He showed up at my newspaper accusing me of trying to blackmail him."
"Blackmail?" I heard a lighter click in the background. She was lighting a cigarette.
"That's right. He took a few select photos from the envelope you showed me yesterday and turned them over to my publisher. He said I brought them to you yesterday and made a blackmail threat. He managed to get me fired, and convinced my boss you and Darla Herrera are best buddies."
Heather Ridley laughed. Not the kind of support I was looking for.
* * * * *
"I'm glad you're amused, Ms. Ridley, but I'd like to remind you this whole mess started with you wanting to nail your husband for cheating on you. Do you remember that? As it stands right now, he's free and clear to keep balling this Herrera woman to his heart's content while you and I are left out in the cold. We're going to need each other's help."
"I don't need your help, Mr. Powell."
"No? I thought you said you weren't going to let your husband slither out of this. He's slithering right now, like a goddamned king snake."
"He won't slither out of this," Heather said.
"Unless we work together he will."
"No, I don't think so," she said lackadaisically.
I drew in a breath and tried to think of a sentence that didn't start out with the words, "Look here you stupid bitch."
"I sent a package of photos to his office today," Heather said. "He'll open the package as soon as he gets to the office."
"What do you mean, a package of photos? What photos?"
"Be clever, isn't that what you said to me? You told me to be clever, so I took your advice."
"I don't understand what you're getting at, Ms. Ridley."
"Garrett didn't make up that story about you blackmailing him, Mr. Powell. I did. I told him you showed up yesterday with photos of him and Darla Herrera and threatened to have them published if he didn't pay to keep them out of print."
"Why would you tell him that? That's nuts."
"Is it? Guess what else I did. I was the one who took the pictures out of the envelope, not him. The real sexy ones, the ones that are going to fry his ass. I took them out and mailed them to his office with a note."
"I don't get it. What possible-"
"And the note was a blackmail note, signed by Darla Herrera. Be clever, that's what you said, right?"
"A blackmail note?"
"You don't get it? Maybe I'm just more clever than you are. Or maybe I just know my husband well. Mr. Asshole Politician will flip right out of his socks when he sees those pictures and reads that note. I think I've solved my marital problem without your help, Mr. Powell. Don't you think so? Thanks for your advice." She hung up the phone and left me puzzling for a long moment. When it sunk in, it hit hard.
I called Garrett Ridley's office. His secretary said he came in briefly five minutes before, then left almost immediately. I asked the bartender for a phone book and looked up "Herrera" in it. There was a D. Herrera at the address, 412 Lincoln Avenue. 412 Lincoln was four blocks away, and about a half block west. Four long blocks. I jotted down the phone number and headed out toward Lincoln Avenue on foot.
I dialed the number as a jogged down the street. The line was busy. I tried again. Busy. Sweat poured off me before I reached the first corner. My legs wobbled. I slowed to a fast walk, trotting a few paces whenever I felt a surge of strength. Another attempt to reach her by phone, and it was still busy. Get off the goddamned phone. By the time I reached Lincoln Avenue, breaths of air came in labored gulps. I saw Garrett Ridley's car pull up in front of an apartment building. He got out and walked to the front door. I tried to call out to him, but my lungs were empty. A sharp pain cut through my chest as I sucked in smog-infested air.
Ridley waited for Darla Herrera to open the door, then stepped inside. I tried running again. Ridley's head was lowered. He looked grim and determined. The door shut behind him. My feet shuffled along the sidewalk, the hot wind slammed against me. Staggering like a drunk, I reached the front door and poked angrily at the buzzer under Darla Herrera's name.
Then I heard the shot.
The rest, you know. Most of it, anyway. The police made a half-hearted search for Garrett Ridley that day. I suppose they figured it was too hot to put up much of a chase. Garrett Ridley, the last I saw of him, walked to the corner, turned toward the ugly center of the city, and shot his brains out on a bus stop bench. 
Heather Ridley got interviewed by my paper and rode out the wounded woman routine for all it was worth, and then some.
And I got my job back. 
And also I learned some kind of lesson out of this, I guess. I like stories with a moral to them, don't you? Stories with a moral and no morality. The lesson I learned is don't be so free giving out advice. 
Or maybe the lesson is, I'm not as clever as I like to think I am.
Or maybe the lesson is just keep out of the kettle in summer unless you care to be part of the stew. Maybe that's it.
Just as simple as that.

Larry Tyler grew up--as much as he was going to--in California, and ended up in Maine. He has written journal articles, and short stories for various publications, including Nefarious, Stark Raving Sanity, Mysterical-e and MysteryNet.