Flashpoint

by Ed Gorman

  I walked back to him and pointed to the pitcher on the nightstand. ‘Jane thought of everything. Believe it or not, we’re trying to keep you comfortable.’

  ‘Only because you think I’m going to rat some people out for you.’

  I lifted the pitcher and picked up an empty glass. ‘True enough, Howie. Otherwise I’d throw this in your face.’

  ‘Huh-uh,’ Ruskin said.

  ‘Huh-uh what?’

  ‘Huh-uh, I don’t want you to handle the water. I want her to.’

  She stood next to me now. ‘I told her you’d try and put the moves on her.’

  ‘Normally I’d try but in case you haven’t noticed I came close to dying a couple of hours ago and I’m kind of laid up as a result.’

  ‘“Close to dying,”’ I mumbled as I handed Jane the empty glass.

  ‘I heard that,’ Howie said. ‘You ever think that maybe I have a heart condition and that the trauma of being shot might kill me?’

  ‘You have a heart condition like I have this big eye on the back of my head.’

  ‘I saw that episode of The Twilight Zone, too,’ Ruskin said. ‘That big eye was pretty cool.’

  ‘Now you just lie back and I’ll pour you some water,’ Jane said. The maternal softness of her voice would have struck me as endearingly sweet if it hadn’t been wasted on a slug like ‘Howie’ Howard Ruskin.

  Around dawn – my travel alarm clock said 5:30 a.m. – I was awakened by a strange voice intruding on a dream that vanished instantly.

  ‘You bastard. Wake up and help me, Conrad.’

  My brain slipped from Park into Drive. Ruskin. Summoning me. I sat up, nudging against the Glock I’d kept next to me.

  ‘You’re supposed to be watching over me, remember, asshole?’

  Good to know he was still as obnoxious as ever. I swung around and sat on the edge of my bed in my boxers. ‘Oh. Right. What’s going on?’

  ‘I need to piss but every time I try to sit up I get dizzy. So I need some help to get to the john.’

  ‘All right. Just a second.’

  As I came around the far side of his bed to help him he said, ‘You didn’t plank her. I sure as hell would’ve.’

  ‘What the hell’re you talking about?’

  ‘The chick. That lady lawyer. I woulda banged her.’

  ‘You were supposed to be unconscious.’

  ‘Oh, right. It was in my contract. I was supposed to be unconscious while you and the lady lawyer got to second base. A guy as old as you are, second base is pretty pathetic.’

  ‘Good to know you’re back to normal.’

  ‘Some of the dialogue was pretty corny, let me tell you.’

  ‘We’ll work on it for the next time.’

  By now I was easing him out of the bed. Well, not exactly easing. In fact, I pretty much tore him out of the bed and he yelped when I did it.

  ‘Hey, asshole, take it easy. I’m wounded, remember? Just because you couldn’t close the deal with the chick, don’t take it out on me.’

  Funny, I was under the impression I’d more than closed the deal. When everything was wrapped up here she was going to visit me for a three-day weekend in Chicago. I wasn’t about to sully my anticipation of that by sharing it with him.

  ‘Somebody’s trying to kill you, Ruskin. I’d be more concerned with that than with my love life.’

  His hyena laugh. ‘Man, you don’t got no love life. Not from what I heard last night. You don’t know jack about chicks.’

  I shoved him into the john and pulled the door shut.

  ‘Hey, easy, man!’

  I walked over to the nightstand between the beds, picked up the remote and clicked on the tube.

  The supposedly liberal channel had a talking head who said – the newsreader said this was a sound bite from yesterday – ‘Right now, we have to face the facts. A senator on our side is not only fighting for his political life. He’s fighting the suspicion that he may have murdered his mistress.’ The man speaking was a rough-hewn fifty with gray hair and a pockmarked face. He was a reporter for a large Midwestern daily and was usually able to use facts to argue our case. But now he was calling Tracy Cabot Robert’s ‘mistress’ and in so doing sounded as if he was auditioning for a slot on Empire News.

  I clicked it off immediately. And in the silence that followed I heard faint sounds coming from the bathroom. Voice sounds. I walked over there and listened. I couldn’t catch the exact words but Ruskin was definitely talking to somebody. I tried the knob but the door was locked.

  ‘You wanna see me naked you’ll have to wait in line!’

  No point in standing here. I went over and made myself some coffee in the microwave. While it was becoming radioactive I grabbed my trousers and stepped into them. I was just retrieving my cup from the microwave when Ruskin came out of the john.

  ‘Hey, dude, you gotta help me.’

  He did look bad. Pale and weak and sweaty. And wobbly. I reached him in time to keep him from slumping to the floor. I got my arm underneath him and walked him carefully to his bed. I sat him down and then turned him around and helped him settle into his sleeping position.

  ‘You need to take it easy, Ruskin.’

  ‘I’m not some pussy. I can handle it.’

  I wasn’t rude enough to remind him that two minutes ago he’d called out for my help. ‘Just lie there and relax and tell me who you were talking to.’

  He was too wasted to call me a name. He just said, ‘Sarah.’

  ‘I’ve been trying her phone but she never answers.’

  ‘Two phones.’ Out of breath now.

  ‘She has two cell phones?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Clever.’

  He didn’t speak for two or three minutes. Eyes closed, breathing starting to settle down. Sleeping already?

  ‘She has a place for us.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Oh, no. That’ll be our secret.’ He waved me off. ‘Sleep,’ he said. Then he muttered: ‘Sleep.’ A few seconds later he had gone off. Or did a good imitation of going off anyway.

  Now it was my turn in the john. A quick shave and shower and when I came back out he was snoring. I put on a gray button-down shirt, my charcoal sport coat and black pants, black ribbed socks and black loafers.

  I spent twenty minutes on my laptop checking up on all the internals of our campaigns, plus I looked at all the messages. All my employees hoped that the Robert matter would turn out well and soon.

  It was then I looked at my travel alarm again and realized that it was six forty-three a.m. What the hell could I do at six forty-three a.m.?

  But an answer came soon after in the form of a knock and in the person of the little waif Sarah. Her face froze when she saw the Glock I held in my hand. It was pointed down and pressed flat against my leg. ‘Howard has one of those and it terrifies me.’

  A blue knit bag large enough to contain a small refrigerator was slung over her left shoulder. Whatever was inside bulged against the sides of the bag.

  I stepped back to let her in. Without another word she went to him. He still seemed pretty groggy but that didn’t deter her careful hugs and kisses and declarations of worry and love. I wondered if, even if she encouraged it, he would be strong enough to get to second base.

  Then he started declaring his own worry and love.

  It went on until I said, ‘I hate to mention it to you people, but somebody’s trying to kill him. And, Sarah, you’re trying to take him away from here.’

  She whipped around and that wan little face was just this side of nasty. ‘We don’t know anything about you!’

  ‘He called me, remember?’

  ‘So? We’re desperate. We don’t know who to trust. But that doesn’t mean you won’t turn us over to—’ She caught herself.

  ‘Turn you over to who? Or whom, if you prefer?’

  ‘We’re not sure. That’s the big problem.’

  I tried to play the reassuring father role. Acting 101. The voice
a little deeper, the tone a little softer, the pace a little slower, the plea for understanding the most important part of it all. ‘I have a vested interest in keeping him safe, Sarah.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t see what this has to do with me taking him now. I’ve picked out a good hiding place for us. And I’ve got a plan for sneaking us out of town.’

  ‘What if they’ve been watching you?’

  All the time we’d been talking, Howie had lain in place with his eyes closed. The way his mouth moved, his head jerked left and right sometimes and his lips made motions as if he was trying to speak, let me know that he was not only listening but also forming opinions about all this.

  ‘Oh, God. I hadn’t thought of any of this stuff.’ She took his hand in hers and brought it to her face. Touched it to her cheek. Her eyes were bright with tears. ‘I’m just trying to protect him, is all.’

  ‘I know you are, Sarah. But he’s better off here. I’m going to hire somebody to sit in here and watch the door.’

  ‘Like a bodyguard?’

  ‘Basically, yes.’

  ‘Do we know we can trust him?’

  ‘Or her.’

  ‘I don’t know about a “her.” Howard has too many “hers” around him.’ Her possessiveness made me wonder about her relationship with Tracy Cabot. She would have had the opportunity to pay a visit to the cabin.

  ‘All right. I’ll make sure it’s a man.’

  ‘But I already told this guy we’d rent his little house.’

  ‘Tell him something came up.’

  She still had her hand in his. ‘What do you think, Howard?’

  ‘I like the idea of a bodyguard.’

  Before she could say anything else, I said, ‘Let me make a call.’ For this I went over to the window. The streets of the small city were crowded now. The workday was beginning. Suddenly, being in my Jeep and soaring along the Dan Ryan to my offices sounded comfortable. I was almost sentimental about the idea. It was a much more enjoyable notion than spending the day trying to clear a senator of a possible murder charge and hiring bodyguards and trying to keep a guy I despised alive.

  ‘This is a great way to start the day. Hearing from you. Let me shut off my hairdryer. There.’

  ‘Nice to hear your voice, too. But I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you a favor before you even have your breakfast.’

  ‘Sure. Is everything all right?’

  As Jane and I talked Sarah emptied the contents of her knit bag onto the bed. Two sweaters, two shirts, two pairs of pants, as well as socks and underwear. I wondered if Howie had any idea how lucky he was that she loved him.

  ‘I think so. But to make sure I need to hire somebody like a bodyguard. Do you know anybody like that?’

  ‘In fact, I do. I mean, we do at the office. His name is Leo Guild. He’s a former detective who took early retirement to start doing investigations for law offices and individuals who can afford him. He does so much work for us we have him on a monthly retainer. We’re by far his biggest client.’

  ‘Has he ever done anything like being a bodyguard?’

  ‘A few times, yes. And he also has a brother who was in a security detail in the Marines. We used both of them as bodyguards last year. We had a client who’d gotten crosswise with the mob downstate. He was terrified they were going to kill him before we could get him to the FBI. He wanted us to evaluate his connection and see how much he could be liable for. We all felt that the FBI would make a deal if he told them what he knew. So Leo put him in a hotel room and traded shifts with his brother for two days. There wasn’t any problem.’

  ‘Think we could get him over here right away?’

  ‘We can try. I’ll see what he says.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Sarah was sitting him up now. Carefully. Lovingly. ‘He’s starving. Would you call room service, Mr Conrad?’

  ‘I will if you’ll call me Dev.’

  ‘Dev, then.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Now that I think about it.’

  ‘Like bacon and eggs and hash browns and coffee?’

  Ruskin said, ‘Yeah, God, get it up here right away.’

  I went to the room phone and punched in the room service number. The clatter in the background signified that numerous guests were firing in their orders. Bacon, eggs, hash browns – I was making myself hungry just saying the words. Plus two pots of coffee.

  In the meantime I used the remote. Rage would wake me up for sure so I turned on Empire News and there were the Three Witches, as they’d come to be called by people on our side. Between plastic surgery and Botox they were as close to being cyborgs as science had yet gotten.

  My day had officially started. Within thirty seconds I was muy pissed.

  NINETEEN

  The redhead, a recent ‘honors’ graduate from Holy Shit University, was saying, ‘I hope this makes people look at Senator Logan’s party and what it really stands for. If you don’t have respect for capitalism and if you’re not willing to use force to demonstrate that the United States is still the dominant force in this world – except for God, of course – you see the slippery slope this puts you on. You have a mistress, which is sinful enough, but then you go even further and take her life.’

  ‘Allegedly, Candy. You have to say “allegedly.”’

  ‘Well, all right, then, I’ll say “allegedly” but I think everybody listening has made up his or her mind because the facts are already in.’

  ‘I hate to keep saying this, Candy, but to be honest the facts aren’t all in. We need to be careful here.’

  Candy did not look happy. ‘I take your point, Brooke, but I’m speaking to a greater truth than just the justice system.’

  Brooke glanced at Gabrielle. Concern in their eyes. To their credit they were being reasonably honest brokers this morning. The single word that was taped inside their heads was LAWSUIT.

  Gabrielle, a former runway model, said, ‘The best point you’re making, Candy, is that senators are role models whether they want to be or not.’

  Enough.

  The other channels I checked were more subdued but two of them had adapted the same theme. Robert, it was said, was ‘in hiding.’ People ‘close to him’ were saying that both he and his family were ‘coming apart.’ Someone in his Washington office ‘would not rule out’ resignation. This was likely all bullshit. There are always go-to people in Washington who pretend to know everything. The press always goes to them because they can be counted on to give inflammatory statements. By tonight these same people would be talking about Robert’s forthcoming sex-change operation and also his forthcoming admission that he’d been selling some of America’s most secret information to Venusian agents.

  Ben Zuckerman was busy with his electric shaver when I called. I knew this because it was humming away when he clicked on. ‘Lemme turn this damned thing off.’

  ‘The news gets juicier every couple of hours.’

  ‘They’re killing us. I’ve got to get him in front of some cameras, Dev, and you’ve got to help me. When was the last time you talked to him?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Well, he called me in the middle of the night. He’s back to resigning.’

  ‘When I heard that on the news this morning I thought it was bullshit.’

  ‘Just a lucky guess. But if we ever have to go to court a resignation will look like hell. Juries will wonder why somebody as powerful as a United States senator wouldn’t stand tall and defend himself. And keep his job.’

  ‘How did you end the conversation?’

  ‘I said I wanted him to talk to you about it.’

  ‘He can be stubborn.’

  ‘I believe he’s innocent, Dev. And I think you do, too. Are you learning anything that might interest Hammell?’

  He’d heard about last night and Ruskin being shot at. But he was shocked to hear that Ruskin was in my hotel room with his lover and a bodyguard on the way.

  At the mention of his name, Ruskin
tried to shout but didn’t have the energy so he just said, ‘Who you talking to?’

  ‘Ben Zuckerman.’

  ‘He’s a jerk-off. What’d he say about me?’

  ‘That you’re a jerk-off.’

  ‘Tell that putz he’s a candy-ass punk.’

  ‘He says you’re a candy-ass punk, Ruskin.’

  Sarah had no trouble shouting. ‘Are you all little boys? I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, Dev.’

  ‘Having a little fun. We need it.’ But she was right. How easy and mindless it is sometimes to slip back to fourth grade and the playground. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll get out to Robert’s as soon as I can, Ben.’

  ‘I’d really appreciate it. I’ve got another press conference scheduled at nine. I’m dying out there. I have absolutely nothing to say. All I can do is try and knock down the worst of the rumors. They’re all over the place. I’m told one of the radio boys hinted that Robert is planning to flee the country. That’ll be on Empire News very soon. They’ll be demanding that he turn in his passport.’

  ‘Where’s my food?’ Ruskin wanted to know as soon as I’d clicked off.

  ‘It’ll be here very soon.’

  ‘I don’t know why I decided to hook up with you, Conrad.’

  I walked over to his bedside. ‘We have a little bit of time to talk. I can’t be any help at all unless I know what’s going on.’

  ‘I’ve been shot and now I’m starving to death. Why should I talk?’

  ‘Howard, you promised me you’d be cooperative with Dev.’

  ‘What’s he done for me so far?’

  ‘What I need to know from you, Howard, is who hired you for the job on the senator.’

  ‘No way, Conrad. Not until I get guaranteed protection and immunity. Then I tell everything.’

  He couldn’t come right out and help me.

  ‘If I talk now I have nothing to barter with.’

  ‘Please tell him, Howard. I’ll leave the room if you want me to.’

  For once there was no bravado. ‘I can’t tell him, Sarah. If I do, I got nothing.’

  ‘I keep forgetting you’re actually a grown man. You keep sounding like a twelve-year-old.’

  ‘I don’t care if I sound like a twelve-year-old. I’m scared.’