Political Pressure

1

Frank Krauser had already received his fifteen minutes of fame. Tomorrow he would be famous again, but he wouldn't live to see it. Frank Krauser was on his way out, about to meet his Maker. He was eating his proverbial final doughnut.

Doughnuts were what got Frank Krauser in trouble in the first place. He ate a lot of them, and he spaced them out throughout the course of the day. The problem was that he never left the Dunk-A-Donut shop in between doughnuts—even while he was on the clock for the Chicago Streets and Sanitation Department.

Somebody at Channel 8 News did some hard-core investigative reporting, which involved sitting in a car on the street and aiming a video camera at the front of the Dunk-A-Donuts, turning the camera on and letting it roll. The place was all windows; the camera saw everything that happened, clear as day. Channel 8 came back with six hard-hitting hours of video of Frank Krauser sitting in the corner booth at the doughnut shop, reading the Chicago Sun-Times, talking to cops and other city workers, chatting with the locals and the staff, reading the Chicago Tribune, reading the back of the sugar packets and generally not performing his duties as an employee of Streets and San.

At the end of six hours, Frank pushed himself to his feet, spent a good ten minutes making his farewells to the staff and he walked down the street to the work site, where the crew he was supervising was cleaning up after its day of street repairs.

Channel 8 didn't show all six hours, but it did broadcast forty-five seconds of it during a sweeps piece called "Slackers at Streets and Sanitation." The mayor held a news conference in his rumpled suit and promised an investigation and immediate reforms. Frank Krauser was suspended.

The Committee for a Cleaner Streets and Sanitation Department roamed the city of Chicago for days, then public interest waned. The committee turned in its official Report, which was actually the same report turned in years ago by a similar committee made up of the same committee members. They did go to the effort of changing the dates in the margin and, unlike the 1999 report, they ran the spell check. So you could say it was a new report.

Frank Krauser's suspension was lifted, which really irritated him. Unknown to Channel 8 News, it had been a paid suspension. Krauser was getting paid for doing nothing and found he really enjoyed it. Now he'd have to drive all the way out to the work site, every single day.

"It's inconvenient," he told his cousin, who was one of the top dogs at Streets and San. "What kind of a sham investigation did they do, anyway? You can't tell me they did a complete job in only two weeks."

"It was very thorough," his cousin said defensively. "I keep telling you to throw your back out or something, Frank. Go on disability. You can milk it until retirement."

"Easy for you to say," Frank said. "They only pay you like seventy percent of your salary."

"You'll save that much buying your doughnuts by the box at the grocery store, Frank."

Frank slammed the phone. His cousin was a moron. Supermarket doughnuts—he hated supermarket doughnuts!

So, unhappily, Frank went back on the job. Instead of getting his own four-block zone of the city, his cousin insisted on putting Frank's crew on a rotating schedule of work sites, so Frank always had to be looking for a new doughnut shop. Sometimes, after arriving at a new work site, he'd find himself without a doughnut shop within a mile or more! He was not walking that far!

So nowadays he had the crew drop him off first thing in the morning—he never even went to the work site.

Even worse, not every doughnut shop was the same. Even among Dunk-A-Donut franchise outlets there was a noticeable inconsistency in the quality of the product. Sometimes there would be no franchise, just a local bakery-type place, where they frowned on his hours of loitering even though he bought doughnuts one after another all day long.

On the very last day of his life, Frank Krauser discovered Krunchy Kreme Do-Nuts.

He'd heard about Krunchy Kreme. Who hadn't heard about Krunchy Kreme, the doughnut chain from the Deep South? People said eating a Krunchy Kreme doughnut was like taking a bite out of heaven. You could watch them being made! You could watch the doughnut move through a waterfall of doughnut glaze! Frank watched the news about the first Krunchy Kreme opening in the Chicago suburbs. Lines of patrons gathered outside at four in the morning—and the shop didn't even open until six! The first customers came out munching doughnuts and beaming for the news reporters. "Delicious! Scrumptious! The best doughnuts I have ever eaten!"

"Oh, give me a break!" Frank said to Officer Raymond O'Farrell. Ray and Frank often shared coffee and French Delights about midmorning—when Frank was working anywhere near Ray's beat.

Ray shrugged. "I hear they're good."

"Maybe good, but how much better can it get? I mean, you believe these idiots?"

But Frank Krauser's interest was piqued. Krunchy Kreme shops started opening inside the Chicago city limits. Finally the day came when Frank Krauser's crew was transferred to a new work site within two blocks of Krunchy Kreme.

"Drop me there," he told his assistant supervisor. "I'm gonna see if these damn things are as good as everybody says."

The morning rush was over, but the place was still pretty packed. Frank bought a couple of Krunchy Kremes and a big coffee, then paused for a moment to gaze at the famous doughnut factory through the windows.

Dough was extruded in rings onto the stainless-steel conveyor, which carried them down into a vat of hot oil. They bubbled and bobbed before emerging golden brown. Up the little roller coaster they moved, cooling for a twenty seconds or so, and then they reached the famous waterfall of glaze.

The rich-looking glaze spilled thick and gooey over the hot doughnuts, drenching them in sugary goodness. Frank Krauser had to admit, it looked delicious.

Then came a series of gleaming steel dispensing machines, which coated the doughnuts with a shower of multicolor sprinkles or toasted coconut or crushed nuts, or drenched them yet again, with chocolate or white frosting. A select few doughnuts were penetrated by a rapid-fire cream-filling machine, whose nozzle dripped cream between thrusts.

Frank Krauser felt himself becoming aroused.

"All for show," he told himself as he broke away and took the only empty booth in the place.

It was a nice enough place. Clean. Polite people behind the counter. Coffee smelled good. But none of that mattered if the doughnut failed the Frank Krauser quality test.

At 9:18 a.m. on that momentous Monday morning, Frank Krauser bit into his first Krunchy Kreme.

At 11:56 a.m. on that same morning, he bit into his eighteenth.

"So, they as good as they all say, Frank?" asked Officer Ray, who stopped in about two that afternoon.

"Better believe it!" Frank leaned back in his chair and pulled tight on the bottom of his T-shirt. "They gave me this."

'"Krunchy Kreme Konvert,'" Ray read aloud from the front of the shirt.

"And proud of it. I ain't never eatin' no other doughnuts!" Frank didn't know how prophetic his words were.

When Ray went back to work, Frank noticed the Ford SUV parked across the street. He was sure he had noticed it before. Like an hour ago. He could see the silhouettes of two men sitting inside. Frank got worried. If he got busted again on Channel 8 News, it might not blow over so fast. He might be forced to take unpaid leave.

At four o'clock the SUV was still there, and Frank knew it was another damn news camera in there, violating his privacy. His assistant supervisor showed up at five.

By then Frank had a brilliant plan. "Listen, Paul, I'm staying here. You go back and have Margie mark me as off today. Say it's a personal day."

"How you gonna get home, Frank?"

"I'll take a cab. Later."

Paul left. Frank chuckled with self-satisfaction. Let them film him all day. He wasn't officially working today, so he really wasn't doing anything wrong. As an added bonus, Frank had a good excuse for staying right there at Krunchy Kreme Do-Nuts. He could eat doughnuts and egg on the idiots from Channel 8.

When Frank Krauser finally headed home to his south-side town house, he strolled past the site where his crew had been yanking out sidewalks all day. A cement truck was parked there, its huge drum turning, keeping the concrete mixed inside. Must have a night shift coming to pour it overnight so the new concrete could set before the morning vandals came along with the bright idea to write their names in it.

A vehicle roared up the street and swerved, coming to a halt with a chirp of tires right in front of him. It was the Ford SUV from the doughnut shop.

"What the fuck?"

The doors opened, front and back, and the four men who emerged wore tight black outfits that covered them completely except for their hands and heads. Those were covered in white gloves and white ski masks.

"Who are you clowns?"

Then he noticed that the masked men were carrying small plastic devices, each with a pair of metal probes at the front. They also had machine guns dangling from shoulder straps.

"You ain't from Channel 8!" Frank exclaimed, protectively pulling his big sack of Krunchy Kremes to his chest.

The biggest of the gunmen approached Frank silently and swiftly, his eyes blazing behind his mask. Frank

turned to run and found that one of the black-and-white clowns was right behind him, holding one of the little plastic things at him. Sparks of blue electricity sizzled out from the twin metal studs.

"Hey, assho—"

Frank's flabby arms were locked behind him in a pair of arms that felt more like steel clamps. "Hey! Lemme go, you piece of shit!"

Frank leaned forward and swung his great girth from side to side, the dangling sack of doughnuts flying all over the place. Frank lifted his assailant right off the ground—but the lock on Frank's arms didn't weaken.

Another one of the black-and-whites came right up to Frank and stuck the zapper in his neck. Frank couldn't get his feet moving, and he felt a painful jolt that stiffened his wobbly limbs.

The next thing he knew, Frank Krauser was being carried. There were grunts and curses, and it seemed he was being hoisted high off the ground before being dumped on a cold metal platform. A loud rumble nearby came to a stop.

"He'll never fit!" somebody complained.

"We'll make him fit."

Frank was able to shift his head enough to see the back end of the cement mixer just a few feet away, and watched with growing horror as the black-and-white clowns attached a big screw clamp to the opening and cranked it, forcing it apart. The steel ripped. Soon the entrance into the cement mixer was widened enough for—

"No. No way," Frank croaked.

"Yes way," said the great big black-and-white. Behind the white mask the hulk was grinning.

"Why?"

"You are corrupt," said the unemotional voice of another man.

"I ain't!"

"These are a symbol of your corruption." The man lifted the bag of Krunchy Kremes that Frank still clenched in his frozen fist. Frank jerked the bag away.

"Guess you need another dose of cooperation," the smaller man said, and put the stun device to Frank's throat again. Frank jerked and went limp. Lightning flashes obscured his vision, but he felt himself being lifted again. It took all four of them to get him up, cursing and screaming.

Where were the cops? This was the city of Chicago. There were four million people. Hadn't anybody called the cops?

They had his upper body inside the drum when they paused to gather their strength. Frank could feel his legs dangling outside. His vision cleared enough for him to see, by the light of the street lamp, the mass of wet concrete that waited below to swallow him. He forced his body to work, to move. He pushed against the slimy insides of the drum and lost his grip on the doughnut sack, which slid down, down, down into the concrete, where it rested on the surface. Frank sobbed.

"Come on, let's finish this," said one of his assailants.

Frank felt their hands on his legs and he started kicking, feebly. They grabbed his ankles anyway and pushed all of him inside the mixer.

He whimpered and tried making his arms work, tried to get himself turned, and only managed to move sideways before he slid into the concrete. His head landed on the sack of doughnuts and forced them into the wet mess. Frank felt the cold mass embracing him and he tried to shout. The gritty, heavy stuff filled his mouth and covered his eyes.

With a last surge of adrenaline, Frank crawled upright and thrust his body out of the concrete. He opened his eyes and saw the light outside the mixer for a moment. He cried out and reached for the light, but then the junk blotted it out for the final time. He clawed for purchase, unable to see, unable to hear.

But he did feel the rumble of the engine. He felt his world begin to turn.

None of the media outlets really knew how to handle the event. Channel 8, the news station that had vilified Frank Krauser the previous year, wouldn't touch it. A few of the other stations tried to come up with a Frank-Krauser-as-victim angle but gave up. Most of the coverage was limited to anecdotal blurbs in the papers and a twenty-second brief on the morning news show. The police never could decide if Krauser was murdered or not, so they conveniently decided on "not" and forgot about him. In fact, before very long, almost everybody had forgotten about Frank Krauser.

He had simply not been a very important person. That morning, though, one man who read about Frank Krauser's death in the online newspapers had been searching for just this kind of thing. What he read made his lemony face pucker with concern.