The Brain Eaters

Chapter 2

The wails of the old Milwaukee Herald building were streaked with the soot of many decades. The bricks were crumbling at the edges. Many of the windowpanes were cracked and taped over. The roof leaked under heavy rain, and the floors always creaked. The newspaper for which the building was named was in approximately the same state of decay. Beyond hope of renovation. Moribund. The Herald continued to exist only as a tax shelter for the absentee owners.

The staff, editorial and production, had no illusions about their future or the future of the Herald. It was a distant number three in a city that could barely support two daily newspapers. The employees were a dispirited lot of has-beens and no-talents gloomily putting in their time. For most of them the Herald was the last stop on a downhill road. Better than the unemployment lines. But not much.

Since it was an afternoon paper, the editorial offices of the Herald were virtually deserted on Friday evening. The staff had long since fled to their homes or to a bar where they could dull the pain with the anesthetic of their choice.

In the gloom of the old-fashioned city room, with its silent typewriters — no fancy computer terminals for the Herald — sat Corey Macklin. He had a lanky six-foot-two build, close-cropped brown hair, and an eyebrow scar that gave him a slightly mocking expression. At thirty-five, he should have been more than a general-assignment reporter, but there were reasons. Unlike most of his coworkers, Corey had not written off the future. He still had hopes. Corey’s problems were with his past.

He was working late that Friday night in a futile effort to make some kind of a worthwhile story out of his latest assignment — a citizen’s protest over the topless bars that had sprung up around the airport. Heaven forbid that visitors coming into Mitchell Field should think Milwaukee was some kind of hellhole.

Topless bars, for Christ’ sake. In San Francisco, where Corey had worked a few years back, the topless bar was considered a quaint, harmless token of the past. Like pinup girls. In Milwaukee they were just discovering the insidious power of boobs to inflame young minds.

Corey could see now that there was no way the story would play without pictures. He had talked the editor out of a photographer for half a day, but the only worthwhile shots they got would never see publication. The ship might be sinking, but management would never fall back on tits to stay afloat.

Corey Macklin had no intention of going down with this particular ship. His efforts concentrated on keeping his own head above water until he got his ticket off the Herald and out of Milwaukee. That ticket would be the Big Story. The story that would make him. The one every reporter dreams about but only one in a thousand finds. Corey Macklin would find it, or he would die trying.

Three years before, Corey Macklin had been a lot closer to the Big Story than he was now. In those days he’d been considered a rising star by people in his profession. He was then an investigative reporter in San Francisco. His dedication and the quality of his work had brought him offers from the Associated Press, Time-Life, and CBS.

He was a young man who had it made. He had a good salary, a bright future, lots of friends, and a special lady who slept with him without turning it into a contest. Yes, Corey Macklin had it made. Then he broke the Story. Alas, not the Big Story, but for him it could have been the Last Story.

It concerned a popular, if controversial, member of Women for Women who was appointed special women’s rights adviser to the city council. While working on a related story, Corey discovered that the popular WFW lady was actually a drag queen from New Orleans named Horace Benton.

In a rare lapse of journalistic good sense, Corey wrote the story. Worse, he played it for laughs. In any other city it might have been good for a few chuckles, but this was San Francisco. In one short column he had insulted the feminists, the homosexual community, local civic leaders, and the city government. Within a week the rising star was an out-of-work troublemaker. His friends were suddenly busy elsewhere, and his lady moved in with a local TV anchorman.

For about a month Corey stayed drunk, hoping that by the time he sobered up, the whole thing would have blown over and he could pick up his career. No way. The AP, Time-Life, and CBS were no longer interested. Neither was any other major news outlet. In vain, Corey protested that he was neither antifeminist nor antigay. Too late; the word was out. And so was Corey Macklin.

At about the time he closed out his bank account, Corey found a job at that journalistic dustbin the Milwaukee Herald. It was, he reminded himself, cleaner than pimping, if not nearly as well paying.

In the past two years he had labored at the derelict old newspaper with one thought sustaining him. Get the Big Story, the one he could turn into a book, get rich, and get out. Then he would give them all the finger — the feminists, the faggots, the San Francisco city council, and the broad now sleeping with the blow-dried anchorman. All he needed was one thing. The Big Story.

Corey gave up on the tit piece and tossed it into the Out basket. It might make a filler for the slim Saturday edition, back among the stereo ads. The Big Story it was not.

He walked out of the musty old building, ignoring the scattered souls who were spending their Friday evening there, and stepped out onto the street.

The day had been unusually hot for June, and it had not cooled off any when the sun went down. There was a tension in the air that could mean a storm approaching off the lake. Good. He was in the mood for a storm.

Corey got into his scarred-up Cutlass and drove south toward the crummy neighborhood where he had his crummy bachelor apartment. He snapped on the radio, got static, snapped it off. He did not really want to go back to his apartment. There was no beer in the fridge, nothing there to read, and the thought of spending Friday night watching “The Best of Johnny” did not appeal. He turned off the freeway and headed for Vic’s.

Corey had stumbled on Vic’s Old Milwaukee Tavern one rainy Sunday afternoon when his TV had gone out right at the kickoff of a Dallas-Green Bay game. Before the quarter ended, he had found Vic’s, where the patrons showed a knowledge of the game that would have shamed the Herald sports staff. The beer was cold, the pretzels were free, and Vic’s wife made the best sausage Corey had ever tasted. Also, the Packers had won on that particular Sunday, so everybody was in a great mood. It was one of Corey’s few good times since he had come to Milwaukee.

He parked up the block and started along the sidewalk toward the crackling neon sign over Vic’s. Thirty yards away he pulled up. It seemed noisier than usual, even for a Friday night. Loud voices. Breaking glass. It was something more than the ordinary argument over pool or the Brewers. Somebody ran out the door into the street. Corey felt the muscles tense along his shoulders. He quickened his pace. He was about to walk straight into the Big Story.

The antithesis of the crumbling brick Herald was the creamy white complex of low, functional buildings occupied by the Biotron Division of Global Industries, Inc. Biotron was nestled in a pastoral setting north of Milwaukee, a few miles outside Appleton.

From the highway it resembled a small private college, with its rolling green mall and stately elms. The effect of the sturdy wall that surrounded the cluster of buildings was softened by the vines and shrubbery that grew along it in artful profusion.

The employees of Biotron, too, were in marked contrast to the crew of the Herald. Young, dedicated, enthusiastic, their shoes were always shined, their hair in place, their ID badges pinned just so over their left breast pockets. They were the type of employees often seen smiling out of institutional ads in Business Week.

One of them, biochemist Dena Falkner, was the last one working that Friday in the biochem lab. Strands of her caramel-blonde hair had come loose from the straight-back style she wore to work, and a small frown drew her brows together.

Dena’s reason for working late was to review the test results for a new pesticide weapon in the battle against the gypsy moth. She watched the figures march in glowing green ranks across the screen of her computer terminal, but her mind was not on gypsy moths. Her mind was on Stuart Anderson. For some three months the company helicopter pilot had been a fun companion on dates, if a little too swift in the bedroom. It had been a couple of weeks now since she had seen him, but it was the manner of his leaving that disturbed her.

Dena had been dressing for a dinner date with Stu when a call came from Dr. Kitzmiller’s office. She was told that Stu had been transferred for an indefinite period to the Rio de Janeiro office and had to leave immediately. There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask at the time, but when your company carried sensitive government contracts, as Biotron sometimes did, you kept the questions to a minimum.

It was conceivable that Stu Anderson, in the excitement of a glamorous new assignment, could forget about their date. He was not what you would call overly sensitive. Still, there was something about it that didn’t feel right.

It was not that her heart was broken. The arrangement between Dena and Stu had been strictly a convenience for both of them. For Dena, her work came first. Social life was pleasant but definitely nonessential. Rather than commute from Milwaukee, or even the shorter distance from Appleton, she had taken a small house in the almost nonexistent little town of Wheeler just up the road from the plant.

Wheeler suited Dena. It was quiet, clean, close to work, and she was not expected to take any part in the community life, which consisted of monthly grange meetings and an annual Waupaca County Settlers’ picnic. When she wanted to be with a man, there was always Stu. Or there had been until two weeks before.

Then, a few days earlier, Dena had noticed another strange thing. Not only was there a new man replacing Stu on the helicopter crew, but the other pilot, Lloyd Bratz, was gone, too. She had called Lloyd’s home in Appleton, but the telephone seemed to be out of order.

On an impulse, Dena cut off the computer, locked her desk, and left the plant. She aimed her Datsun down the highway toward Appleton. She was relieved to see that the recent highway repair was complete and there was no need to detour.

Lloyd and Helen Bratz lived in a mobile-home park called Lakeview Terrace, which ignored the fact that Lake Winnebago was on the far end of town and well out of sight. Dena parked between painted diagonal lines in a space marked for visitors. She walked up to the neat little unit where Helen and Lloyd lived and knocked on the door.

The four of them had gone out to dinner together on a couple of occasions. The two men enjoyed a kind of locker-room companionship, but Dena and Helen Bratz had found little in common. Dena remembered her as a plump, quiet woman who smiled at everything anybody said. She opened the door now, keeping the night chain attached, and peered out. That night, Helen Bratz was not smiling. Her eyes had a haunted look.

“Yes?”

“Hi.”

No response from the other woman, who seemed to be trying to look over Dena’s shoulder.

“I’m Dena Falkner. From Biotron? Stu Anderson’s date?”

Recognition came at last to Helen Bratz. “Oh, yes. Is there something …?”

“I wonder if I could come in for a minute.”

“Well … I’m kind of busy….”

“I won’t stay long.”

Reluctantly, Helen Bratz released the chain and opened the door.

“Things are really a mess.”

Dena looked around the compact living room. There were piles of clothing, stacks of dishes and cooking utensils, scattered books and papers, and a number of sturdy cardboard cartons.

“Moving?”

“Uh, yes. Lloyd was transferred, you know.”

“Really? Where to?”

“Uh, out West.”

Dena looked around. “Is he here now?”

“No,” Helen said quickly. “He’s — he’s, uh, gone on ahead. To find us a place to live.”

You are a really rotten liar, Dena thought. Aloud she said, “It happened rather suddenly, didn’t it?”

“Yes, I guess so. That’s the way it is with pilots.”

“Apparently. I suppose you knew Stu was transferred, too.”

“Yes, yes, I heard.”

Helen Bratz kept looking at the door as though she expected someone to burst through it. Right on cue, there was a discreet knock. She ran to open it. A well-dressed man with neat gray hair and careful eyes stood outside.

“The car is here, Mrs. Bratz.” His careful eyes scanned Dena.

“I’ll be ready in a minute.” To Dena she said, “Excuse me, but I have to go now.”

Dena looked around at the cartons and the stacks of unpacked belongings.

Helen Bratz caught her questioning look. “Biotron is sending someone out in the morning to finish up the packing. What a relief. I really hate packing. Don’t you?”

Helen Bratz’s voice had begun to rise and threatened to slide into hysteria. The well-dressed man cleared his throat softly and glanced at the thin gold watch on his wrist.

“The car is waiting, Mrs. Bratz.”

Helen looked at Dena. Her eyes immediately jumped away from contact. “I really have to go now.”

“Yes, well, I’ll be on my way.” She felt the careful eyes of the man follow her out the door.

Dena walked to her parking place, got into the Datsun, and sat there in the dark until Helen Bratz came out with the man. Helen had a light coat thrown over her dress. She carried a small suitcase. The man helped her into the back seat of a dark blue Cadillac, then got in behind her. An unseen driver started the engine and drove away.

Dena sat in the dark for another fifteen minutes trying to fit it all together. What was haunting Helen Bratz? Why had she lied? Where was Stuart Anderson?

She lit a Carlton and smoked it down to the filter. She was trying to quit, but that night she deserved a smoke. At least.