Sleeping Dogs

by Ed Gorman

  “So where is the tape now?” I said.

  “Right”—pause for hiccup—“here.”

  And with that she reached in her purse and brought forth this year’s version of the Maltese Falcon. The McGuffin. The one thing everybody wanted. She held it up, streetlights and traffic lights and bistro lights flashing behind it as we moved down the city streets.

  That tape should have glowed or been encrusted with barnacles or been heavy with the scrawl of some ancient and mysterious language. But it was just a standard miniature videocassette of the kind you can get at the supermarket for a buck or two.

  “Are you sure there aren’t any other copies floating around?”

  “I made sure of that.” And without a single hiccup. “The only time the tape was out of my hands was when I let Greaves use it for a few minutes to show you. I was in the other room listening. Then what I wanted was his laptop. I trashed his daughter’s place looking for it but I didn’t have any luck.”

  I decided against telling her that I had it. That might come later.

  She explained to me that she’d been with Greaves the morning they’d taped Warren, never let Greaves out of her sight in case he had the idea of making a copy for himself. She had the one and only copy.

  “So when he said he had the original tape, he was lying to me?”

  “Ab”—pause for hiccup—“solutely.”

  She laid the tape on the seat between us. “All yours.”

  “Thank you.”

  A chortle. “Now you should blackmail the bastard.”

  “I just want to get away from him. Fast as I can.”

  “I’m with you on that.”

  “I’m curious. What were you going to do with a million dollars?”

  She held up the briefcase and patted it. “Give it to Kate.”

  “Kate? She makes good money and she comes from money.”

  “Her dad died a while back and her brother took over the estate. I don’t know if you ever met him.” Pause for hiccup. “He’s a know-it-all. He lost nearly everything for them. They’re not poor, but they aren’t rich anymore”—pause for hiccup—“either.”

  “Why would Kate need a million dollars?”

  “Because Warren won’t give her very much for their daughter.”

  “Their daughter? Warren’s the father of Kate’s daughter?”

  She nodded. And then, in between hiccups, she told me the rest. Phil Wylie had long been in love with Kate. But Kate had long been in love with Warren. The falling-out between Phil and Warren had been over Kate. Phil felt that Warren should pay an informal kind of child support. Warren felt that Kate was a “big girl” and had known the consequences of having an affair with a married man. He gave her a small “stipend” every month. But he wouldn’t acknowledge paternity. Kate could have gone public but didn’t because she held out hope that someday Warren would leave Teresa and marry her. This was what Phil and Warren had clashed about. Phil thought Warren was acting despicably. Warren said that Phil was being irrational. Phil resigned in a great rage. Laura watched as he declined into paranoia and helplessness, ending in suicide.

  “Then nobody murdered him?”

  “No,” she said. “I was making us dinner in the kitchen when he jumped. I panicked and got out of there as fast as I could.”

  I saw a Denny’s and swerved in there.

  “You’re going into a Denny’s? Do you have any idea what kind of civil rights record they have?”

  “You need coffee and so do I. I’ve got to think all this through.”

  “Denny’s,” she said. Hiccup. “They’ll probably throw me out because I’m Chinese.”

  CHAPTER 29

  I exercised in the hotel gym the next morning and then had room service bring me up a poached egg and a slice of toast and a pot of coffee. After the food and a shower, I called Warren.

  “Where are you now?”

  “I just visited three plant gates. Why?”

  “I want you to come up to my hotel room.”

  “We finally going to have sex, are we?”

  “Nobody else. Alone.”

  “I was hoping for a three-way.”

  “When can I expect you?”

  “You sound pissed.”

  “When can I expect you?”

  “You’re taking over, huh? How about half an hour?”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  While I waited for him, I called my daughter and asked her how she’d like to see me for a few days. She was just as excited as I’d hoped she’d be. I sure was excited. Then I got on my computer and arranged for a round-trip plane ticket four days hence.

  Warren arrived five minutes early.

  He wore his tan camel’s-hair overcoat, one of his best blue suits, a white shirt with the golden collar bar, and his favorite blue rep tie. He put on some swagger to back up his first words to me: “I don’t like being pushed around by somebody on my payroll.”

  “Tough shit, Warren. And you won’t have to worry about taking any more shit from me. I’m resigning here and now.”

  “What?”

  “There’s coffee on that table over there. There’s also a videotape. The videotape. I’ve been assured that that’s the only copy.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Sure, Warren. This is all a gag. All the shit I’ve been through, I did it just for fun.”

  “My God,” he said, slipping out of his overcoat and draping it on a leather chair.

  He sat down and picked up the tape. He held it up as if he could see it simply by staring at the black plastic encasement. “I don’t believe this. So they fell for it, huh?”

  “You mean the way you shortchanged them by eight hundred thousand? No, they knew about it right away.” Laura and I checked the briefcase just before I let her out of the car. Good old Warren had cheated again.

  I sat across from him at the table.

  “God, Dev. I really appreciate this. All that bullshit is behind us now. That is if they were telling you the truth about this being the only copy.”

  “I’m positive it is.”

  “How the hell did you pull it off?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You have the tape. They have your two hundred thousand.”

  He leaned back. The pleasure in his gaze was replaced by suspicion. “You keep saying ‘they.’ Who are we talking about here exactly, anyway?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What?”

  “Something went wrong on their end. A falling-out. Or somebody just got scared. We did everything by telephone. The guy I talked to said he just wanted it to be over. He was obviously an amateur. He was also very nervous. He brought up the subject of copies of the tape. He explained that there was only one copy, because if there were others floating around the police could trace them back to him. That’s why I think they or whoever just got terrified of getting caught. A pro would never have accepted the two hundred thousand. If his motive was political, he would have turned it over to a TV station. If it was just money, he would’ve added on another quarter million just because you screwed him. But like I said, this guy was no pro.”

  Still suspicious: “He have anything to do with queering my drink?”

  “He said he did it and that it wasn’t difficult.”

  After a long pause, he said, “You’re not telling me the truth here, Dev. Something’s wrong with your story.”

  There was a lot wrong with my story, but I didn’t want to involve Laura. If she was to be found out, he’d have to do the finding himself.

  “Accept your good fortune, Warren.”

  “So you’re going to leave it like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “I want the truth.”

  “You’ve got the truth as far as you need to know it. Now take the tape and get the hell out of here.”

  “The cops could make you talk.”

  I enjoyed laughing at him. “Think about it, Warren. You sic the cops on me and the tape stor
y’ll be front and center. You really want that?”

  “You don’t have the right to do this.”

  “Sure I do. Now get up and get out.”

  I walked around to the side of his chair and said, “Let’s go, Warren. I’ve got things to do today.” I was burning to tell him that I knew about Kate’s child, but I was afraid that if I did he’d know I’d learned about it from Laura.

  He stood up and did a very stupid thing. He swung on me. He was a better puncher than I’d thought. He didn’t hit me square in the face, but his punch landed hard enough on my ear to induce great momentary pain. He was getting ready to throw another one but I was quicker. I hit him right below the sternum, hit him hard enough to drive him back a few feet. I not only took his breath, I brought him to nausea. He covered his mouth and stumbled toward the bathroom. Even senators sound disgusting when they’re puking. He stayed in there for a while washing up.

  When he came out, I was holding his overcoat in one hand and his tape in the other. He angrily swiped the tape from me and shoved it in the pocket of the overcoat, which he took with his other hand. Then he walked straight to the door and out without once looking back. He closed the door gently behind him.

  I wished I’d been able to beat him up, but he had a campaign to run. Black eyes and a broken nose are a bitch to explain.

  CHAPTER 30

  A campaign luncheon was scheduled for Warren, sponsored by a civic group famous for the food it served. Gabe, Kate, Laura, and Billy would be there. So it would be a good time to sneak into the office, get my stuff, and sneak back out.

  I sat drinking coffee in the hotel restaurant, waiting for noon and allowing myself a few moments of orgasmic self-pity.

  Gosh, and here we had Mrs. Conrad’s little boy Dev, always trying to make this a better world, getting stomped on for all his troubles. What a decent, righteous hero-type he was. And such a giving man, too. The perfect husband, the perfect father. If only those around him could see past his cynicism and pain and recognize him for the gallant man he really was.

  But I couldn’t kid myself very long. I was just as dirty as the rest of them. I pretended otherwise. I needed to or I couldn’t do my job. I had to try and function as a conscience of sorts. But what kind of conscience was I? I was doing everything I could to destroy Jim Lake. I believed he would continue to perpetuate the lies and constitutional perversions of the current administration. I believed that he would continue to use the real threat of terrorism for nothing more than political gain. This crew couldn’t stick up a gas station let alone win a war.

  But vile as Lake was, I was just as vile. I was going to use his onetime venereal disease to bring him down. I fought his fight on his terms and had no regrets. And if Warren was a deceitful, arrogant peacock, so be it. All these stories we’re taught about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. They make me cringe with their sentimental bullshit. Most great leaders are deeply flawed men. George Washington mightily abused his open-ended expense account during his first term. But it’s what they do for the common good that matters. So we put up with them because in general they’re no better or no worse than the rest of us.

  My trouble with Warren now was that he wouldn’t do right by Kate and that he’d helped destroy a decent but troubled friend named Phil Wylie. Warren’s flaws weren’t all that exotic, but I cared deeply about Kate and had come to admire Phil Wylie in the days since his death.

  I spent twenty minutes in my office filling up a small cardboard box with goodies I probably wouldn’t be needing to look at ever again. The last things I took down were the eight hardcover books I kept on a shelf above my computer. Novels by Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, Raymond Chandler, Doctorow, Theodore Dreiser, David Madden, Joyce Carol Oates, and Richard Matheson. I read them when I needed to zone out of here, desperate to remind myself that there were other and equally important worlds.

  Only after I dealt with the books did I take a closer look at the notes on my desk. There were three of them, from Gabe, Laura, and Kate respectively. Kate had also left me the two-week expense breakdown, which, for some reason, I started looking through. No reason to, now that I was no longer associated with Warren. I suppose it was just habit. Seeing if we were anywhere near our goal of containing costs.

  The report ran to three pages with airline charges listed last. One line stood out. A round-trip ticket had been purchased, but the ticket holder had canceled before the flight.

  The round-trip had been to Galesburg, Illinois. The trip I’d sent Billy on. The trip he’d written a very persuasive field report about.

  Apparently without ever having gone there.

  I wanted to check that date against another piece of information. I hadn’t closed my computer up yet. I logged on and went through several days of Tribune headlines until I came to the story I wanted.

  On the same morning Billy had canceled his flight, R. D. Greaves had been found dead in his hotel apartment.

  I was shrugging into my coat when the phone rang.

  “I’m calling on my cell, Bunny. I’m in the ladies’ room. This luncheon is really dull.” Kate. Trying hard to sound happy. But not succeeding. “What are you up to?”

  “Just packing things up.”

  “You make that sound so final.”

  “Just for the weekend.” I wasn’t ready to tell her the truth, that I was leaving the campaign. I had other things I needed to do first. “You okay?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “That’s not real convincing.”

  Long silence. “I guess I might as well tell you.”

  I was half-afraid to hear. “You’re unhappy. I’d appreciate knowing why. Maybe I can help.”

  “Not with this, Bunny. Teresa found out that Warren and I once had a little thing.”

  No mention of the baby.

  “Enterprising lady. Hired a hacker. Went through our e-mails.”

  “E-mails are dangerous.”

  “But it was very civilized, actually. She came over to my place and told me she’d found out. What she wanted was for me to tell her that it was over. That now we just worked together, Warren and I.”

  “That must have been some conversation.”

  “I left a message on your room machine. I just needed to hear your voice.”

  “You think things are cool now?”

  “She doesn’t want any publicity. She wants to go back to Washington and pick right up where she left off. And I sure don’t want any publicity. Wouldn’t want anything of this to touch on my sweet little daughter.”

  “Your daughter’s all that matters.”

  “What’s so funny is that I don’t give a damn about Warren anymore and neither does she. We were both laughing about that. All she’s worried about is that the scandal might hurt him politically and that would hurt her in getting back to Washington.”

  “Good old Warren.”

  “Well, I need to get back to that boring luncheon. Bye, Bunny.”

  CHAPTER 31

  I was on autopilot for the next forty-five minutes. I’d parked my car next to the side door, so loading my stuff into it was no problem. And then I started driving. But even if I wasn’t aware of it, I had a destination. I kept on driving.

  I sat in the car for a long time and just stared at the second-floor apartment. Maybe I should forget it. Just go back to my hotel. You could make a case that he’d done the world a favor. There were too many R. D. Greaveses in the world anyway.

  He wouldn’t have done it without a good reason. Killing wouldn’t have come naturally to him. He would have been pushed into it. That I was certain of.

  But then my fear for him became fear for the campaign. I was still a political operative. The implications of all this started scaring me.

  Which would be worse? The public knowing that family-values Jim Lake had been unfaithful to his wife and picked up VD because of it?

  Or that Senator Nichols had employed a staffer who was implicated in a murder?

  But the oper
ative in me was working fast.

  How about the family-values man with VD who’d employed R. D. Greaves? Maybe dragging Greaves’s history into it would be enough.

  I knocked. Inside I could hear the TV. Billy answered the door.

  “I thought I’d stop by and see if we owe you any expense money for that Galesburg trip. You didn’t hand any chits in. And why aren’t you at that luncheon?”

  “I’m feeling under the weather, Dev. I didn’t go in to work today.”

  “I need to talk to you, Billy. I need for you to tell me where you were when you were supposed to be in Galesburg.” The screen door was locked inside. I rattled the knob. “Open up, Billy.”

  “Come back tomorrow.”

  “Open the door, Billy.”

  “You don’t have any right—”

  I looked straight at him through the rusted screening. “Sure I do, Billy. Sure I do.”

  He shook his head. Sighed. But he opened the door.

  The first thing he did was shut off the TV. The second thing he did was pour more whiskey from the bottle on the coffee table into his glass. The third thing he did was say, “I filed a report, didn’t I? So I had to have been there, right?”

  “You forgot one thing. Your canceled plane ticket. It showed up on the printout from the airline.”

  “Story of my life.”

  “Oh, bullshit, Billy. It’s not the story of your life. You’re a very hot speechwriter. You just made a mistake. You made the mistake most of us would.”

  “You wouldn’t have made that mistake.”

  “Are you crazy? Of course I would’ve. And so would Warren and Gabe. Laura and Kate, they probably wouldn’t have, because they’re smarter than we are.”