Dead Politician Society

Chapter 54: Laura

“John Alton!” Laura’s voice echoed in her empty wine glass. “That throws all bets out the window. He’s not a socialist like the rest, and he’s about as humanitarian as you are.”

“Sting.” Penny topped Laura up from their second bottle. “We’ll just have to dig deeper for our connection. If we’re lucky, his obituary should be arriving any minute.”

“Aren’t those being sent to your employee? Or can you monitor your staff’s email?”

“Of course I can. And do. Troops don’t command themselves.”

Laura stood by Penny’s window. She gazed down five stories to street level. She saw the Westin hotel, Captain John’s Seafood. It felt impossibly late to her, but there were plenty of cars, taxis, and foot traffic. For young people out clubbing, the night had barely begun.

“Here!” Penny clapped. She crooked a finger for Laura to join her at her computer.

Laura stumbled a bit as she moved around the desk. Had Penny been drinking as fast as her, or had Laura consumed most of this wine on her own?

They read the obituary together in silence.

John Alton: October 2, 1948-September 11, 2010

We are pleased to announce our fourth step toward a political utopia for the real world. John Alton, Finance Minister with dreams of buying Canada’s way out of environmental devastation, made his final speech last night at the St. Lawrence Hall.

We contemplated sparing his life. Alton was an altruist—albeit a misguided one—and not nearly as self-serving as his fellow victims this week. But there is a stain in his past that we could not ignore.

We cannot yet reveal what this stain is, but you can rest assured that by the end of next week, our mandate will be complete and our motive will be revealed.

For now, just accept that the world has one less parasite.

You’re welcome.

This has been a message from the Society for Political Utopia.

Laura reminded herself to breathe deeply. As she exhaled, she said calm under her breath—a trick she’d learned for public speaking but it came in handy now. Penny had shown her the other emails, but reading this as it came in was another thing entirely. She’d never been this close to evil. She hoped she didn’t have to get much closer.

“Well,” Penny said, “out of our three committees in common, Alton was on none of them.”

“Was he even a city politician?” Laura heard the slur in her words. It sounded more like shitty polishitun.

Penny’s mouth crinkled in amusement. “Not that I recall. We can find out easily enough on the Internet.”

Penny clicked her mouse and up popped Google. She lifted Laura’s hand and placed it on the mouse. “Here, you look. I’ll make us some coffee.”

“Coffee! That’s so perfect.” Laura tried to type John Alton into the search engine. Eventually she got the letters right and hit Enter.

Penny turned on the espresso machine and rinsed their wine glasses in her small bar sink. “So ultimately I think we’re looking for a supercommittee. One of those think tanks that include all three levels of government. We can rule out homelessness—that’s the city’s all by themselves; neither the province nor the feds want to touch it.”