by Paul Harris
* * *
MIKE OPENED his eyes and glanced at the glowing red numbers on the clock beside his bed. It was 5:34 a.m. He supposed he must have slept for a few hours but it did not feel that way. He stared at the ceiling through a deep emotional exhaustion that was uncoupled from a physical ability to sleep. His mind kept going round in circles. What would he do with this information? What happened to the candidate he believed in like no other politician? Was that man a lie? Or had Hodges really changed since his days as a warrior who fought the Cold War in the most brutal possible ways.
He sat up and kneaded his temples with his knuckles, trying to bore his way into his skull and wrestle with his confused thoughts. But it was no use. He just felt physically sick; bleary-eyed and yet panicked. He looked at his phone. He knew he should call Dee. Perhaps she would take matters into her own hand and make some decisions for him. But how would she react now that he had information to destroy Hodges’ campaign? And was that what he wanted?
Mike thought of all those long nights in Iowa and New Hampshire, the faces on the growing crowds of hopefuls, the people who believed in Hodges and what he stood for, who were looking for him to transform their lives. Nothing changed there. Hodges could still be the candidate they needed. But he could not reconcile that Hodges with the documents he saw. Hodges’ face, which always seemed so calm and compassionate, now appeared cold and calculating. His blue eyes were those of a killer, not a hero.
Mike stood up and thought of the hotel pool down below. He would take a swim, he decided. He would lose himself in the cool waters and surrender to the rhythms of exercise. He dug out a pair of trunks and padded downstairs through the silence of the still-sleeping hotel.
The pool was empty when he arrived and he slipped in and let the water caress his whole body and engulf him into its depths. It felt good and a glow of relief lit in his mind. Somewhere deep within him, at that moment, he knew he would make the right decision. He knew he could do it, even though he still was not sure of what it was. He slid into the easy routine of length after length and kept his pace absolutely steady, never varied, turn after turn. It was a Zen-like motion and his mind cleared. It was like he became weightless in the water as the burden of his thoughts lifted. On and on he swam until he hauled himself out of the water and lay, panting and gasping on the edge of the pool. He heard a noise and looked up. A cleaner walked in. She was surprised to see someone swimming so early and she nodded a shy hello and then turned on the television above the cabana bar at the far end of the pool. The distant drone of an early morning news show filled the air as Mike toweled himself dry.
Suddenly he heard the cleaner give a loud, sharp shriek and drop her mop with a clatter. She stood with one hand clamped in front of her mouth and stared at the TV screen. Her shoulders shook as she began to sob. She crossed herself quietly and mumbled a prayer.
Mike walked nearer so he could see the TV pictures more clearly and understand the newscaster’s breathless Spanish. He saw film of flashing police lights in a chaos of cars. He assumed it must be some awful car accident, perhaps near where this cleaner lived. He was about to offer her some words of consolation when suddenly the newscaster’s words struck him and became as clear as a bell with a single name ringing out like some toll of doom.
“Father Gregorio Villatoro…” the voice said “… was found dead in his church office in the early hours of this morning. Police sources will not say how he died but friends say he was shot and killed by an assailant who broke into the San Gabriel mission. Villatoro was one of the most outspoken critics of the army during the civil war but in recent years was a beloved figure among Guatemala City’s poorest residents for his charity efforts…”
Mike was transfixed. Villatoro was dead. The man he spoke to just a few hours earlier was no more, gunned down in the very building they met in. He looked at the cleaner. “Perhaps it was a robbery,” he said.
The cleaner looked at him, her cheeks streaked with tears and her bottom lip quivered. “Señor,” she said “Who would want to kill such a man? A robber would only have to ask and he would give him all that he had. Everyone knew this.”
Suddenly it was as if Mike’s whole world narrowed down into perfect clarity. Someone knew he was here and that he met Villatoro. They followed him to the church last night and broke in after he left and then murdered the priest. If that was true, then they also knew he stayed in this hotel. And, he realized almost in slow motion horror, they knew Lauren was here too. He looked above the pool, up seven stories to where their rooms were. The mirrored windows glinted opaquely in the first rays of the morning sun.
He started to run.
CHAPTER 22
HODGES APPEARED, AS he always did now, to a huge cheer along the rope line. Corralled at the front, that part of the crowd always first spotted the exact moment the candidate emerged from behind the stage and out into the auditorium. They screamed like teenagers welcoming the Beatles, even here among the usually sedate Myrtle Beach crowd. Hodges strode out and soon the rest of the giant convention center took their cue and the cavernous room filled to bursting with sound. A foot taller than most people anyway, Hodges seemed to grow to fill the space. He strode to the rope line and shook hands and grinned and laughed as people thrust themselves at him, palms outstretched like supplicants looking for a cure.
Dee watched from the side, like a prompter watching an actor go through his best lines. As she looked out over the 5,000 odd people crammed into the room, she itched for a cigarette but she did not want to miss any of Hodges’ speeches these days.
Dee surveyed the audience and noticed that the average complexion at Hodges’ rallies was a little darker in recent days. Their tactics in raising the race issue worked and undercut Stanton’s support among a lot of black voters. They had driven a wedge right through Stanton’s base.
Hodges was on stage now and waved his palms up and down gently trying to calm the noise. He glanced to one side and caught Dee’s eye as if to say: “What can I do?”
Let them applaud, Dee mouthed.
Hodges turned back and absorbed the cheers He sucked them in until finally the room fell quiet all by itself. Then he launched into his stump speech like a virtuoso conductor with an orchestra. He started slow, built up to the applause lines carefully, and then sprang them on his audience so they could not help but respond by rising up in their seats. As had happened in New Hampshire, many in the crowd were at their second or even third rally but they didn’t care. They did not come to listen to the speech. Not really. They came to participate in the experience. Like a revivalist meeting.
Dee looked at a young aide standing next to her. He was no older than twenty and decked with Hodges buttons on his smart jacket. Dee guessed this was his first campaign judging by the wide-eyed awe with which he watched the spectacle. Lucky bastard, she thought. It was not like this for her first time, she thought. Nothing had ever been like this. It took her thirty years to find it and this intern got it right off the bat. A home run at his first ball game. She felt a sudden, and rare, almost maternal urge for the young student.
“We’re almost there, kid,” she said. “Almost at the finish line and we’ll have this nomination in the bag.”
The boy did not tear his eyes away from Hodges. “You really think so?” he asked.
“Yup.” Dee nodded. “We’re on track to win this state. Once we’ve done that it is just a matter of letting Stanton draft her resignation speech.”
Dee thought of her recent meeting with Carver. If only he could hear this crowd, she thought. She knew he was probably out there watching it somewhere on cable news. But what she really wanted was for Carver to feel this crowd in the flesh, to fully understand why he lost. He made the safe bet with Stanton; the sensible bet. But Dee went with her gut. She knew Hodges was special and she trusted her instinct, like a fisherman working a bayou he had known since boyhood. Not planning anything, not consulting a guide, just using a feeling for her home waters.
&n
bsp; A huge roar snapped her out of her thoughts. Hodges finished his speech and walked back to the rope line to work the crush of supporters that surged forward. She knew it would take an hour. Hodges never left anyone disappointed. It was time to satisfy her nicotine craving, while she waited for him in his car.
She went outside, enjoyed the gentle warmth of the night air, and smoked cigarette after cigarette until she was surrounded by the nubs which lay on the ground around her like gun cartridges. Eventually Hodges joined her and together they got in the car to drive back to Columbia, a few hours away. Usually Hodges got a quick debrief from Dee and then grabbed a few hours precious sleep. But this time he was on a natural high, as if all the adulation he soaked up still bubbled around inside him, like a surfer riding a monster wave. Hodges talked animatedly about some of the people he met on the rope line. The young black guy who drove all the way from Spartanburg, a single mother of three from Charleston, a World War Two veteran who fought at Iwo Jima.
“You know, Dee, I’ve got about six hours sleep in the past three days, but I feel as fine as I’ve ever felt in my life,” Hodges said. “It’s like these folks give me their energy. I walk away from meeting them feeling like I’m on fire.”
Hodges stared out of the window into the darkness of the freeway; just lights and signs hurtling by in the gloom.
“That’s great,” Dee replied. “One more push and South Carolina is ours. The numbers are strong enough. We just have to stay on track.”
Dee thought for a moment. She had not planned on bringing up the next step until the result was in. She wanted no jinx on their heads. But her last encounter with Carver convinced her the moment was right.
“We need to have a chat about the national campaign,” she said. “We’re going to be taking on an incumbent president. Doesn’t matter that he’s a fuck up whom everyone hates, that’s still no easy task.”
Hodges turned to look at Dee, but remained silent at the implication of her words. Dee continued. “We need to think about what we do with Stanton and her staff. Whom to bring on board, whom to ditch, whether you want her on the ticket.”
Hodges pursed his lips, nodded slowly, and then turned back to look outside. A sign flashed by, pointing the way to Marion, a town a few miles off the Interstate. “I’m hungry, Dee,” he said. “Let’s grab a bite.”
Dee tapped the driver on the shoulder and told him to get off the main road and head to Marion. Within a few miles they were crawling down the main drag, all but deserted except for a couple of dilapidated bars and a half-empty diner. They pulled up outside the restaurant and Dee and Hodges walked inside. There were half a dozen customers and Dee and Hodges settled themselves into a corner booth, its leather worn but spotlessly clean. A young waitress walked over with a cheerful grin and handed them menus. Dee thought she caught a look of recognition in the woman’s face as she glanced at Hodges as he ordered a cheeseburger and fries. As she walked away, she looked over her shoulder, slightly puzzled.
“You know,” Dee said and gestured around her. “You ain’t going to be able to do this sort of thing anymore.”
Hodges sipped his iced water. “I know,” he said.
“The White House is going to be at stake soon,” she said. “Nothing is going to be the same once we win here. Everything will change. Everything you have ever known.”
Hodges nodded. “I knew that going in,” he said. “Christine and I talked about what it would do to us. We knew the pressures but we figured it was worth it.”
He paused a moment and held Dee with his gaze. “I mean what I say out there, Dee,” he said. “That’s why they respond the way they do. They know I’m different. That when I say I’ll change this country and help them make their lives better, I mean it. They’re not cheering for me out there. They’re cheering for themselves. They’re cheering because they’ve finally got a bit of hope that things will be better.”
The waitress returned laden with two plates piled high with food. She turned to leave but then stopped herself and looked at Hodges. “Say, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but aren’t you running for President?”
Hodges smiled, stood up and shook her hand. “Yes, ma’am. Jack Hodges. I’d be honored to have your vote and help change this country.”
The waitress squealed with delight and almost curtsied as she yelled back towards a knot of regular diners hunched over a corner of the counter. “Ya’ll were right, John and Larry,” she said. “It’s Hodges!”
Three of the men stood up and walked over. They were followed by another waitress. Then a couple of Hispanic chefs from the kitchen. Soon a knot of a dozen people crowded around the table, talking with Hodges, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back. Dee settled back in her seat and stayed out of the action. She looked down at Hodges’ burger, which was steadily going cold. He had managed to take just a single bite.
Poor son of a bitch, she thought. This win will send him to Heaven and he ain’t even had a chance to finish his Last Supper.
* * *
MIKE DID not wait for the elevator to come down to the lobby. He burst through the emergency exit doors, triggering an alarm, and sprinted up the stairs. He leapt them three or four at a time and counted off the stories as he ran. He had no idea what waited for him, but he knew he must move as quickly as possible. At last, while his breath came in great ragged gasps, he reached the seventh floor and pushed open the door. He turned left, down the corridor and toward his and Lauren’s rooms. He ran around a corner and stopped short.
A man stood outside Lauren’s room. His back was to Mike. The man studied a bit of paper and then slowly folded it and put it in his back pocket, looking first at Mike’s room and then at Lauren’s, apparently weighing which to try first. Then he turned to Lauren’s door and Mike saw his face for the first time. He recognized the pockmarked features immediately. It was Federico, the General’s guard. Mike had a sudden flashback of sitting in the back of the man’s car listening to him swear and rail against los Indios and praise all the hard things the General had to do during the war.
Mike was unsure of what to do. Federico was still unaware of him. He put his hand up to knock on Lauren’s door and his other reached around to the back of his waist. His hand hovered over a bulge in his belt and Mike saw the dark outline of a revolver poke from underneath his shirt.
“Hey!” Mike called out, without thinking. Federico stopped with his fist just inches from rapping on Lauren’s door. His mouth flinched with surprise as he turned to Mike, but his expression betrayed nothing of the calculations going on in his mind. Mike realized the insanity of his situation as Federico looked at him like a wolf regards its prey, just waiting for the moment to pounce. Mike suddenly knew what it was to be hunted by something that wanted to kill you; to coldly and mercilessly rip away your life. He knew, in that instant of fear that Federico could not be reasoned with. He could not be talked out of this act. Federico moved. He walked purposefully forward and the weight of his predatory eyes pinned Mike to the spot. Federico removed the gun from behind his back and let it hang in his hand against his thigh, holding it casually as he continued to walk. He was thirty yards away now. Then twenty. Then ten. And still Mike could not move. Luck saved him. A cleaning lady pushed a trolley piled high with fluffy white towels around the corner behind Mike and almost slammed into him.
“Perdon, señor!” she blurted and then looked at Federico, her eyes drawn as if by gravity to the weapon he carried. She let out a bloodcurdling scream. Federico stopped, suddenly unsure of what to do. At that moment, drawn by the sudden yell, a door burst open on Federico’s left, and a fat, white man emerged, wearing a hotel dressing gown.
“Hey buddy, what’s all the…” he said in a loud American accent.
The movement caught Federico by surprise but he spun around on instinct. He whipped his pistol across the man’s face and struck him in the temple, sending a fine spray of blood into the air. The man went down like a collapsed building and from inside his room
another scream rang out. Suddenly all was a blur of movement. The spell on Mike broke and he ran forward. A look of panic crossed Federico’s face. He gazed at the fat American on the floor in front of him and leveled his gun at the man’s head. Then he turned to see Mike charge towards him, yelling at the top of his voice. Any semblance of control that Federico had over the situation evaporated into thin air. With a strangled groan of frustration, he tucked the gun back into his belt and sprinted away down the corridor.
Mike ran after him, past the stricken American, and stopped at Lauren’s door. He knocked on it furiously. “Lauren! Lauren! Get up!”
The door opened and Lauren’s stunned and confused face greeted him.
“What the hell is all the noise?” she asked.
Mike burst past her into her room. He pulled her after him and kicked the door shut. She looked angry and yanked herself away from him.
“Mike!” she snapped.
He put a finger across her lips.
“Villatoro is dead,” he said. “He was murdered last night and the guy who did it was just outside your door. We have to leave right now. It’s not safe.”
Laurent went pale and slumped down on the bed. “He’s dead?” she whispered.
Mike nodded feverishly and tossed Lauren’s empty suitcase on the bed and threw some clothes inside it. He felt himself losing his grip as panic flicked at the edges of his mind.
“Yes, he’s fucking dead!” he said. “And we will be too if we don’t get the hell out of here.”
Lauren looked at him blankly. “But why?” she whispered.
Mike stopped and closed his eyes. He breathed in and out like a steam engine gathering strength. “Hodges and Carillo worked together during the civil war. They helped murder and torture opposition fighters, peasants, guerrillas, the whole lot. Natalia too. We’ve stumbled right into a war crimes cover up.”