Curse of the Afflicted

by David Chill

  "Dysfunctional government. Sometimes makes me want to vote Republican," he said and then held up a hand. "Just kidding, of course. I know where my money comes from."

  "You ever vote for the other side?"

  "I'll never tell," he smiled. "But upon occasion I've voted against my own client in a few primaries. Sometimes after you get to know a politician, you realize they're a walking dumpster fire. I call it patriotism."

  "That's noble of you."

  "Ah, in those cases I probably would have been fired before the general anyways," he laughed. "Well, how did you enjoy your brief tenure with Smilin' Rich?"

  "He did have a nice smile," I admitted. "Cosmetic dentistry?"

  "Ha! To say the least. I knew Rich Sudeau was a phony from day one, but you take what you can get at that level."

  "So what happened with you and Sudeau?" I asked. "Campaigns move consultants in and out all the time. But a pollster like you? You've been in this game for decades. We just show them the landscape, how they're doing at any given moment, and advise them on next steps to get their poll numbers up. I doubt your survey skills have eroded."

  "Nope. It was complicated. Look, I'm a little annoyed they dumped me. But Sudeau already had another pollster who was feeding him different numbers."

  "Oh?" I said, getting a little nervous. "Anyone can do a survey these days and make the numbers say what they want them to say."

  "Yup. Polling's gotten trickier, you know that. Lots of people just have cell phones, caller I.D., they don't answer their phones if they don't know you. And you can't reach everyone with online surveys, either, so you have to do modeling. Believe me, I cut the data a hundred ways, and Sudeau was still coming out a loser, no one's getting elected when they're polling in single digits. Rich had some name awareness and not much else. Nice smile, but nothing behind it. People thought he was in it for himself. No one knew much about him. Twenty years in national politics, and he was a blank slate."

  "You're preaching to the choir here," I said. "But Amber told me you were getting your face on TV too much. More than the candidate."

  "Believe what you want," Phelan said.

  "Uh-huh. And I also heard Sudeau was a bit of a wayward husband."

  Phelan smiled an ugly smile. "You heard about that too, huh?"

  "I met one of his paramours. Iris Hatcher. You know her?"

  "Sure, the one they found near the airport. Funny how they haven't released any details on what happened. Just a middle-aged woman discovered dead near LAX."

  "Funny isn't a word I'd use."

  "Right, sorry. Look, Iris was one of many. Rich walked around D.C. with his fly open. Not too particular about who he hooked up with. If they weren't so public a couple, Amber would have divorced him ages ago. Their marriage was a political partnership. Rich got the limelight, Greece got to pull the strings off stage, and Amber got her own behind-the-scenes power. It was all working out, and then it wasn't. Everyone liked good old Rich, but no one in America wanted him to be president."

  "This is fascinating. Thank you for being candid."

  Phelan smiled again and waved his hand. "No problem. And I have my reasons. They'll become clear soon enough, pal. But again, how are you holding up with all of this? An assassination is nothing you ever, ever want to get close to, much less be implicated in."

  "I didn't do anything."

  "I don't doubt that. But there are forces at work that may not have your best interests at heart. And you're a good guy. I don't want to see you get hurt."

  "So kind of you."

  "Look, you're a person of interest, and you always will be. Until the real killer is apprehended. And it's been almost two weeks and the Feds have nothing. If they can't find the culprit, they'll look for a fall guy, they always do. That's how the Feds operate. Each agency wants to claim credit for catching this guy. Makes them look like heroes, and the others look like chumps. They're going crazy right now, and no one's cooperating with each other."

  "Interesting. And what do you suggest I do about this? Go conduct my own investigation?"

  "I wouldn't go that far," he warned. "But I'd be careful, Ned. Very careful. When the Feds want to put the screws to someone, they do it. They don't care if it's above board or not. And these guys can get away with it, they’ve done it before. Sometimes the person gets vindicated, but there's nowhere to go and reclaim their reputation."

  "And you think they're targeting me?" I queried.

  "They need someone. I heard you had an alibi for where you were when Rich got shot. Downstairs in the hotel lounge. That's good. Witnesses. But they can still try and hang conspiracy on you. Say you were part of the plan."

  "Tough to do without any evidence," I shrugged and took another bite of my donut. This time I didn't hit a peanut butter vein and was a little disappointed.

  "Just be careful who you trust," he said, his voice growing quieter. "You're not part of their inner circle. Plus, you were the last person seen with Rich before the shooting. Maybe they're keeping you on because Greece just wants to find out what you know."

  "What I know won't take long to find out," I said dryly. "So, what are you going to do now? Sign up with another client?"

  Phelan smiled again, this time it was a little sly. "I've already got a new client," he said. "It'll be released soon, but I figured I'd give you a heads up. Cal Barkin."

  "I was half-joking," I stared at him. "Barkin? The old governor of Iowa?"

  "Oh, yeah. He'll start off as a favorite son, but that'll take the Iowa caucuses off the board. Every other candidate will just pass on Iowa now and go straight to New Hampshire."

  "Interesting."

  "You might want to give Amber a heads up on that," he chuckled. "Save her some money. She's going to need it."

  "She's a grieving widow," I said. "Not a candidate."

  Phelan smiled and held up his hand. "No microphones here, Ned. No one can hear you."

  "Feels like there are microphones everywhere," I said. "And video cameras. You can't hold many secrets these days."

  "True. I think Smilin’ Rich was tapping my phone. He seemed to know a lot about me, more than he should have.”

  “Oh, really?” I asked, my eyes widening.

  “Yeah, that’s what I concluded. It didn’t bother me that much, I don’t have a lot to hide. And personally I think privacy is overrated. In the end, this actually makes for a more honest society too, don't you think?"

  "More like an Orwellian nightmare," I said. "Pretty soon they'll be reading my thoughts."

  "That's how dictators stay in power. They sense when a supporter is going to become disloyal. Some of those tyrants say they know it before their supporters even do. That's how Saddam Hussein stayed in power so long. No palace coups when you kill off most of your lieutenants."

  "Glad America's not there yet."

  "Getting close. Oh, by the way," Phelan said, his voice getting even lower as he leaned forward, "I did want to mention something else to you about Amber. Since we were on the subject."

  "Oh?"

  "There's rumors of a sealed file that the Bethesda police have. Relates to the Sudeaus. Spousal battery. Thought you might appreciate a heads up."

  "I actually heard something about that," I said, thinking back to my last meeting with the vice president at the hotel. "Rich was worried it'd get out."

  "Yeah, not surprised he had it sealed. But nothing stays secret in Washington forever. Especially not when a presidential campaign gets going."

  "Rich is gone. Why would anyone care at this point if he beat his wife?"

  "Rich?" he laughed. "You've got it all wrong, my friend. Rich was the victim."

  "The victim?"

  "Oh, yeah. Juicy story. It'll get out eventually, you'll see. I guess Amber finally got sick of Rich's cheating. He was starting to get blatant, practically flaunting his infidelity. She was the one who took care of business."

  "I don't believe it."

  "You will, my friend. Apparently, that l
ady has quite a temper. And quite a right hook, too. Knocked Rich's front teeth right out."

  "Wow."

  "Oh, yeah. Ever wonder why the vice president had such a gleaming smile? It isn't the genes. He had a very good orthodontic surgeon. Put Humpty Dumpty's teeth back together again. Good as new. In fact, maybe better."

  Chapter 26

  Iris Hatcher. The more the Detective researched her background, the more he sensed a connection to the Assassin. She was at the Century Plaza that night for a reason. She was connected to the vice president. She was connected to Blair Lipschitz. And all paths led to Ned Baker. If the Assassin was still in town, he might very well approach Baker. Even just to take his temperature. Find out what Baker knew. Would the Assassin kill him? If he needed to, yes.

  The Detective found the office address for the Baker-Lipschitz Team and drove there. It was like any other office, but it was on Ocean Avenue and had windows facing the Pacific. They probably kept it because the view would impress clients. Nothing about their operation struck the Detective as compromised. So how was it possible they got caught up in the assassination of the man who was a heartbeat away from the presidency?

  He first spoke with Baker and then with Lipschitz. He liked Baker, despised Lipschitz. Baker was the upstanding citizen, the family guy, the man in the gray nondescript suit. Lipschitz was the flashy one, the L.A. sharpie, the pretty man with a quip and a smile and a deflection for every question. The Detective hated phonies like Lipschitz, but men like him were everywhere in this town. They were mostly harmless, gnats that just got in the way. Could this one be wrapped up in the biggest murder case L.A. had seen in decades? Unlikely. But there had to be a connection, a link, some unseen tie to the Assassin. He knew it, he felt it in his bones. Iris Hatcher. Lipschitz had a brief fling with her, and she was Rich Sudeau's long-term mistress. The Detective interrogated Lipschitz relentlessly, pushing all the right buttons. Lipschitz cracked, the way weak men do, finally yelling his answers back. The way a cornered animal would react. But there was little to learn from Lipschitz, he was a dry hole. His involvement in the assassination was, at best, incidental.

  In contrast, when he talked to Baker, he knew intuitively something was different. The Detective could read Baker's face like a book when he brought up Iris Hatcher. There was an involvement, perhaps not sexual, but some kind of visceral connection. He read it in the brief movement of his face, the momentary twitch, the odd look in his eyes. The man was not a poker player, but it wouldn't have mattered. The Detective had been doing this job for a long time. There was something about Iris that had touched Ned Baker, an untold story that lay stowed beneath the surface. The Detective knew something was bothering the man. Mary Lynn had once told him he had the gift of reading minds. He missed Mary Lynn. It had been three years since she had passed.

  The Detective asked Baker if he had driven to the Century Plaza that night, and of course he said yes. He asked him to recant the events of that night, and couldn't help but notice the sigh, the exhaustion at having to go through this ordeal yet again. The chance meeting with Iris Hatcher surprised him. Baker seemed to be telling the truth, that he had simply run into Iris inadvertently that night. The Detective knew about her affair with the vice president, he just didn't know why Sudeau had risked allowing the paths of Baker and Iris to cross. Maybe Sudeau was just sloppy, the clumsy scheduling of an inept politician. The Detective had met many of these so-called leaders over the past few decades. They were no different than the average Joe. Some were bright, some were stupid, most were in-between. He didn't know much about Sudeau, but he sensed the vice president was not one of the sharpest knives in the drawer.

  But then Baker said something jarring, an off-hand comment that sometimes emerges from witnesses, unwittingly providing an errant piece to the puzzle. Baker shook his head at what happened to Iris, how awful it must have been, the woman being strangled near the airport. The Detective paused for a moment. This was a delicate slice of evidence, a finding that had not been disseminated to the public. The media were told that an unidentified woman was found dead in an airport parking lot, a tidbit designed to avert public intrigue. A brief mention on the ten o'clock news was not going to evoke much interest. Not in L.A. The details of Iris's death were left intentionally vague, per a request from the CIA. The truth would remain a secret. Yet Baker somehow knew she died and how she died. He was involved.

  The Detective finished up the interview by asking Baker for a copy of his driver's license and car registration. The man frowned, but the Detective assured him it was strictly routine. He loved saying that, it meant nothing, but it allowed him the leeway to ask for things he had no business asking for. Baker went out for a minute, returning with copies and handing them to the Detective. He asked if there was anything more he could do to help the LAPD. The Detective told him not at the moment. But they would be in touch.

  The Detective took the elevator down to the garage, found the unflashy Honda Pilot, and matched the license plate with the registration form. He then applied a GPS device inside the Pilot's fender. It was illegal as hell, but the Detective had stopped playing by the rules years ago. The rules hindered, the rules did not help. But when the Detective affixed the device, he felt his hand brush against something. He bent down further and checked under the fender. Strange, he thought, as he pulled out a small flashlight to look closer. Well, well. It was another GPS device. Apparently someone had the same idea as the Detective. He thought of removing it, but there were limits to how much you could mess with federal law enforcement ...

  * * *

  My first chemo infusion was administered on a dark gray Tuesday morning, and per Dr. Ashland's directions, I had started taking Decadron the day before. He told me the drug would offset the nastier side effects of chemotherapy, but it also provided me with a remarkable jolt of energy. For the first time in weeks, I felt revitalized, alive enough to even drive down to the office. I quickly wrote the questionnaire for the Amber Sudeau poll and passed it to Wanda with instructions to proof and send it back to me the next day. I sorted through file drawers, an exercise I had delayed for years, always finding a reason to put it off. Suddenly it was easy. I read industry journals that normally piled up on a corner of my desk. I even welcomed in an uninvited LAPD Detective, Karl Mooring, who was doing an investigation into Iris. I calmly answered the same old questions, although I probably exhibited a slight trace of annoyance. I couldn't say the same for Blair, however. His loud voice, outraged and aggrieved, could be heard throughout the office, and probably on the next floor as well.

  As I moved swimmingly through the day and into the evening, I discovered that one of Isaac Newton's theories was absolutely correct. For every action there is a reaction. And the problem with taking a steroid like Decadron was that the surge it generated could not be switched off so easily. I arrived home at five o'clock and grilled some chicken using my Carolina gold barbecue recipe, a concoction that included Dijon mustard, something I loved and which Leslie and Angelina tolerated with mild exasperation. I watched a movie, read the better part of an old Raymond Chandler mystery, and yet by midnight I was still alert and beaming and ready for more. Sleep finally came, but it came very late, I dozed off at about two-thirty in the morning, a slumber that was neither long nor deep.

  Six o'clock arrived quickly, and I woke to the sound of my cell phone buzzing and twinkling. It turned out to be Eli, calling to tell me he had been in touch with his oncologist friend in Las Vegas, who said that Dr. Knott's theory on T.S. levels was not widely shared. Eli hastened to add that Dr. Knott might, in fact, be correct in the end, but an unproven theory is just that. A theory. The smart money said Alimta was likely to work for me, and with the thought of fewer side effects dancing around in my head, I thanked Eli for taking the time to make the call, and for his guidance.

  Leslie and I arrived at Dr. Ashland's infusion center at seven-thirty. After a brief huddle with the nursing staff, they led us to a lounge area that had easy chai
rs, hassocks, and long poles holding up clear bags of fluid. A number of patients were already set up with an I.V. tube and a drip mechanism, the chemicals flowing directly into their veins. A few were reading, others were making light conversation, one was fast asleep. Two patients were completely bald; both were women, both about my age. I began to recognize that at some point, concern about vanity slips away.

  One of the nurses came over and told me her name was Helena and she'd be taking care of me today. It was not unlike the friendly greeting typical of a perky waitress in a restaurant. She asked how I was doing and if I needed anything right away. I did not, so she told me she'd be back to hook me up once the doctor approved my protocol. After about twenty minutes, Dr. Ashland approached.

  "Good morning. Are you all set?" he asked.

  "Ready for lift-off."

  "All right. Listen, I spoke with Eli this morning. I gather there was some concern about which chemo to use. I'm okay if you want to go with Dr. Knott's suggestion. I won't be offended, believe me. I just wanted to confirm you're good with Alimta."

  I nodded. "I'm good with it."

  "All right," he said and waved Helena back over. She drew some blood for testing and set up an I.V. in my left arm. She told me that with three chemo treatments lined up for me today, putting in the I.V. meant she only needed to stick me once. When one chemo was finished, they would be able to seamlessly transition to the next treatment. I had no idea what she was talking about, but acted as if I did.

  "Let me set you up with a pump," she said, wheeling over one of those long poles with a clear bag of fluid attached. "This is the Avastin. Should take about an hour to drain into you. Then we'll move on to the Alimta next."

  She smiled and asked if I was comfortable. It was a well-meaning question, but one that fostered all the soft-edged charm of asking a condemned man how he was enjoying the unsteady walk to the gallows. There is no good way to remove the thick cloud of the untenable fate I was feeling. We all know our time is coming, but we don't typically dwell on it until the moment is thrust upon us. And as deftly as I had been avoiding these ominous thoughts for weeks, the simple act of jabbing my arm with a needle and connecting it to a tube of poison, motivated me to stare face-to-face into my own dark reality.