Flashpoint

by Ed Gorman

  He pretended to be intensely interested in pulling a piece of cable a few feet along a baseboard.

  ‘You about done over there?’ I said. I didn’t bother to sound friendly.

  ‘I work here, remember?’

  ‘Great. But we’d like a little privacy, if you don’t mind.’ I realized I likely sounded like one of those Chicago hotshots who pushed around local TV people. At the moment I didn’t give a shit.

  He dropped the snaky black cable to the floor and rolled his eyes again. We weren’t in danger of becoming buddies. Then he sort of flounced – yes, flounced – toward the door and let himself out.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ Ben smiled.

  I returned the smile and then said, ‘OK, now we make a run for our cars. I’ll do what I can but they’ll be moving in a pack and that’ll make it even tougher.’

  ‘This is like a commando raid on our own cars,’ Robert said. ‘As long as I’ve been in public office I’ve never seen anything like this.’ Then he understood what he was really saying. ‘Of course, nobody ever thought I’d killed anybody before, either.’

  Ben had brought all of Robert’s other clothes along so we were ready to go, out of the studio, down the short hall, down the long hall and to the back door. I was the one who peeked out. Dark, wintry air and a blast of camera light that hid the mob behind in shadow. They could have been anything, vampires or werewolves or creatures up from the bowels of the earth as in all those wonderful old late-night horror movies I cherished enough to never watch again. The most I could see of any of them was the way some of the camera light illuminated their eyes, which only enhanced the feeling of inhuman beings.

  I looked back at them. ‘You ready?’

  ‘As we’ll ever be,’ Ben said.

  I pushed the door open only wide enough for me to step through. If their words had been bullets I would have been in ragged pieces on the ground. They pushed, lurched, lunged and surrounded me. I raised both arms as if I was about to bestow a papal blessing. ‘My name is Dev Conrad. I’m here to see if all you sensitive, caring people will do Senator Logan the kindness of letting him get to his car and go back to his home. I can assure you that everything you want to hear him say you’ll hear in the ninety-second statement he made on tape just now inside Channel Four.’

  ‘Did he admit he killed her?’

  ‘Why would he do that? He had nothing to do with her death.’

  ‘Does he have any idea of who did kill her then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If he’s innocent why does he need a high-powered attorney like Ben Zuckerman?’

  ‘Is that supposed to be a serious question?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He brought in Mr Zuckerman because before the police forensics team had even left the cabin where Ms Cabot’s body was found parts of the media – especially the TV media – had already found him guilty.’

  ‘Is there any truth to the rumors that he may resign?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How is his family dealing with all this?’

  ‘How would any family deal with it?’

  I didn’t have to look behind me to know that Ben had appeared. The group of thirty-plus with all their equipment started to lean in his direction as he ran toward his Buick. He was playing football again. Doing some broken field running and not looking back. But most of them stayed in place.

  ‘Was he having an affair with the Cabot woman?’

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude but these are the same questions you’ve been asking Mr Zuckerman. He was not having an affair with the Cabot woman.’

  I watched Ben swing the Buick around behind the reporters and honk his horn. Robert came rushing out. They were on him like leeches. He did a football run, too. Far to their right and then straight on to the car. Ben had tracked him so that before they could stop him he was diving into the open door and Ben was screeching away before that door was closed.

  In most circumstances, all this would have been funny. Everybody from the lowliest and most incompetent of TV writers to the great Federico Fellini had parodied the press trying to overwhelm and lynch its prey. But tonight it held no charm; no charm at all.

  The ones who’d strayed returned to the coven so they could join in yelling at me. I answered a few more questions and then said, ‘I’m afraid that’s it for tonight, friends. Now you know as much as I do about the whole story.’

  They didn’t believe me and kept shouting at me. I didn’t try an end run. I just started walking toward them and enough of them parted to let me continue my journey until I was clear of them. They stayed behind, a thundering herd, but I guess that by now they were as tired of it as I was. Bars and restaurants sounded much warmer and fuzzier than trying to browbeat a minor player into giving you something you knew he wasn’t going to give you anyway.

  I got in my Jeep and gave it the gas before clipping on the headlights, turning on the heat and strapping on my seat belt. I just wanted to get away from here. I did all these things in the next few blocks. I headed by pure instinct toward the same kind of refuge the press sought. My hotel and its restaurant.

  There was no escaping the reporters, of course. They were all over the lobby. For the most part these were the A-list boys and girls. Lesser lights would be on less generous expense accounts so would be staying where you had to do a lot of things for yourself, a constant reminder that you weren’t successful enough to deserve A-list treatment.

  I thought about going up to my room first but was led by a cosmic force into the restaurant where I asked for a table for two. It was warm in here and the candlelight had a nurturing effect on me, and when I speed-dialed and got Jane a great good peace settled on me as soon as she said she’d join me within ten minutes. There’s a kind of loneliness that only comes with being on the road. Not so much in your twenties and thirties, maybe, but for me my forties were starting to make the road seem bleak and endless.

  Jane seated herself with a smile and scents of woman, rain and, more faintly, perfume. The middle-aged waiter’s blue eyes very much approved of her looks.

  I’d waited until she was here to order. We decided on Scotch and waters and mushrooms stuffed with lobster meat as appetizers.

  ‘Channel Four led with it,’ she said. ‘The senator really did well. I’m prejudiced on his behalf so I did my best to be objective. He looked good, he sounded sincere and what he said made sense.’

  ‘He told the truth. The one thing I expect the right to jump on is the reference to his “enemies.” People always have a problem with that. But in this case I’m pretty sure it’s true. There’s a group called The Alliance for Liberty. That’s the only point of contact we have. Tracy Cabot’s old man was involved with them. But they may not be part of this at all so that’s why we can’t talk about them publicly. There are secret groups working twenty-four/seven and they get bolder all the time. Bring down enough senators on our side and they can take over the government.’

  ‘That sounds like a science fiction movie.’

  ‘Something like it happened before.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You can Google it – ‘The White House Putsch.’ I read about it a few times before but I needed to read up on it again. A retired Marine Corps major general named Smedley Butler claimed that a secret group of millionaires and billionaires were plotting to take over a veterans’ organization – those organizations were powerful back in the thirties – to use as the leading edge of a coup d’état that would overthrow FDR and seize control of the federal government.’

  ‘Was that really true?’

  ‘Well, historians are still arguing about it. The consensus seems to be that the plot was true and that a number of very, very rich men were involved. The debate seems to be over how close they came to actually acting on the plot. It’s the same today. I don’t know if anybody could pull it off but maybe they’d try it. There are a lot of true believers with a lot of money. There’s one big problem.’

  ‘What?’
/>
  ‘Now I sound like every conspiracy nut I’ve ever made fun of.’

  The waiter appeared again and Jane ordered a large Caesar salad. I ordered the salmon.

  After the waiter left, Jane said, ‘The idea of a coup is really scary. Most people wouldn’t think it was possible.’

  ‘There’s this movie I’ve seen a number of times where this actor named Kevin McCarthy is running down a road pounding on car windows and warning everyone that they’re coming.’

  ‘I love that movie. The first time I saw it I was eight. I was convinced that half the people I knew were pod people. I just wish it had a different title. You tell most people Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a great movie and they think you’re an idiot.’

  ‘It’s their loss. They’re the idiots. Anyway, I’m not even sure that’s what Ruskin is talking about. And he’s such a bullshit artist, who knows what he’s going to tell me when we finally catch up with him. The only thing I know is that he’s convinced whoever hired him has sent somebody to kill him.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘I believe he believes that. Which doesn’t mean it’s actually true.’

  ‘And you have no idea where he’s hiding?’

  ‘None. But he also seems to believe that I’m the only one he can trust. He thinks a number of people on his side are involved. He can’t be sure which ones. That would go along with the conspiracy, of course. So I expect to hear from him.’

  She sat back; a melancholy smile. ‘I really am a small-town girl. I thought it was a big deal to have a sitting senator from here and go to parties at his house occasionally where other sitting senators and well-connected political people were hanging out. But all this intrigue – I have to slow it down every couple of hours just to take it all in. And now Ruskin insisting somebody’s trying to kill him.’

  ‘Robert was set up. Nothing illegal was done on either side so there’s no case against it. A senator made a fool of himself over a pretty woman. In an election cycle that can make a difference between winning and losing. What they’d planned was simple. They’d leak some incriminating photos of the Cabot woman and Robert together – they’d have the hotel clerk testify that she was afraid of him; they’d have testimony that Robert was there in the parking lot clearly angry with her – and that would be that. Robert would be finished. The Cabot woman’s murder changed everything.’

  The food was served and the aromas reminded me of how hungry I was.

  The salmon and Caesar salad were both tasty and the second Scotch and water so good I knew I needed to cut myself off. Be pretty easy to sit here and get hammered, especially with Jane framed in the candlelight.

  ‘It’s just so nice to sit and relax for a while,’ Jane said. Then laughed. ‘I keep sounding older every year. More like my mom. She worked hard all her life – she raised my brother and me after my father decided he wanted to stay in the Navy and have a girl in every port – in a place that was a forerunner of Walmart. By the time I was a sophomore in high school I was an activist because I saw how big business treated people like my mother. Long hours, no health insurance, the threat of firing if the word got out that you even mentioned anything about unionizing. So several times a week after ten-to-twelve-hour days she’d sit at our little dinner table and let one of her shoes drop off so she could rub her foot and say, “It’s just so nice to sit here and relax for a while.” I’d been doing ninety percent of the housework and washing and ironing all the clothes since seventh grade to help her out. And my younger brother always had jobs. Thank God I got scholarships for college.’ She used her fork to point to her salad. ‘Sometimes when I eat at a good restaurant I feel guilty because my mom could never afford it. She died of heart disease. I wish there was time travel so I could take her to Chicago and buy her a nice dress and take her to a fancy restaurant and get her a good car. The old Chevy she drove was almost twenty years old.’ For a few moments she was a little girl again doting on the woman who bore her and loved her and raised her. And obviously raised her well. ‘She was a wonderful woman.’

  ‘I’m getting the same feeling about you.’

  Too much. I’d embarrassed her; I couldn’t tell if she was blushing but her expression portrayed her discomfort. ‘I’m selfish and self-centered and have a bad temper. My mom was none of those things, Dev.’ I’d also managed to irritate her. She’d mythologized her mother into a perfect creature. Now I knew better than to try and argue with her.

  My cell phone toned. It was Sarah, but at a speed and decibel that defied comprehension. All I was able to get on the first pass were the words ‘scared’ and ‘screaming.’

  ‘Sarah, Sarah. You have to slow down. I can’t understand you.’

  Jane’s eyes were fixed on mine. She’d picked up on the alarm in my voice.

  Sarah was sobbing now. ‘He ran out the door. I can’t believe he had the strength to do it.’

  ‘I assume you mean Howie?’

  ‘Yes! And Hawkins went after him.’

  ‘Hawkins? How did he know where you were?’

  ‘That’s just it. Howard said you told him. He said you sold us out so Hawkins could kill him.’ Everything she said was between sobs.

  ‘I couldn’t have told him. I don’t know where you are.’

  ‘The Sleep Tight. A motel out by the airport. If you didn’t tell him, I don’t know who did.’

  But I knew. It wasn’t a person, it was a thing. A tracking device. Hawkins had slapped it on their rental just as he’d slapped one on mine. Where it had been the other night when he shot at but failed to kill Ruskin. That good ole buddy of mine, the finest bellman money could buy, Earl Leonard, had lied to me, of course. And Hawkins had paid him to lie, to provide him with an alibi so I wouldn’t think an investigator for a US Attorney, a patriotic cuss and a man among men, could possibly lie under any circumstances.

  ‘Sarah, Sarah, listen to me. Howard is right. Hawkins may be trying to kill him. I’m on my way. You just sit tight and wait for me.’

  Now she was crying so hard she couldn’t even form words. I thumbed the phone off.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I can explain on the way, if you want to ride along.’

  That smile of hers could get her into Top Secret rooms without a pass. ‘Of course I want to ride along.’

  I waved the waiter over. ‘I’ll leave you a fifty-dollar tip if you can get us out of here in under three minutes.’

  He needed fifteen seconds to compute what I’d said then he jerked the card so hard he almost took my hand off with it. And then he was running, yes, running, toward the cash register area.

  We were a little more leisurely in our sojourn to the front of the restaurant. We merely jogged there.

  The well-dressed middle-aged woman who would normally have processed our card had been pushed aside by the waiter. I knew this from the way her eyes and mouth were set in a Ted-Bundy-spots-his-prey look. Later she would see to it that the manager would take care of the matter for her. Castration with a butter knife would be only the beginning.

  I had no idea if he’d made the three minutes or not, but I added fifty dollars to the bill and we rushed out of there.

  I spotted our bellman Earl over by the elevators, but like the restaurant manager I’d have to wait until later for my vengeance. Jane and I raced to the hall that would take us to the side door and then the parking lot.

  I shot out of the parking lot and into the dark, cold night. Suddenly Howie’s conspiracy theory sounded a lot more believable.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The red and blue emergency lights bouncing off low-hanging rain clouds told a story I didn’t want to hear. And we were still three blocks away from the motel.

  The parking lot on the west side of the motel was set up for making a movie. All the props and people in place. You had your three police vehicles, your four uniformed coppers, your ambulance with the back door open and you had your crowd of motel guests all bundled up against the low thirties
temp. It wasn’t even quite eight o’clock but a few of the women had nightgowns showing under the hems of their winter coats. And screeching into place seconds before I turned into the lot a van with CHANNEL 6 NEWS NOW! splashed across the side in red and yellow action colors.

  No problem finding a parking space. The thing was you had to park way back because that was where the police officer, a large man with a flashlight you could club a black bear to death with, directed us. Something terrible had happened in this lot not very long ago.

  The official perimeter was at least fifty yards from the motel itself and another squad car pulled in to reinforce the way these officers had decided to mark off the crime scene. Jane shivered next to me. It felt twenty instead of thirty.

  We walked up to a slender African-American woman in a dark blue police uniform who was reminding people about the perimeter.

  ‘Excuse me, Officer.’

  She did not seem unduly charmed by my presence. ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Can you fill me in a little on what happened?’

  ‘Fill you in? Are you with the press?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why would I fill you in?’

  Since I couldn’t give her a quick answer – I certainly didn’t want to bring up Robert’s name – she walked away.

  Jane said, ‘I was going to talk to her but she left so quickly.’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Well, not know her know her, but I met her once or twice at police charity functions. Just wait here. It’s worth a try.’

  She left as fast as the cop had.

  I eased closer to the crowd itself. A number of them were walking in place and rubbing their hands together or covering their ears with their hands. A prairie wind was streaking across the lot rattling signage and some of those tiny new two-seater cars.

  More TV station vans arrived and reporters and camera people were deployed to the front lines where they positioned themselves like snipers.

  The crowd members offered conflicting stories. There’d been a shooting or a knifing or a bludgeoning. It had been a lovers’ argument or a robbery or a drug deal. There was one dead, there were two dead, there were three dead. Real, real helpful. And by this time my entire face felt as if it had been Botoxed by the cold night winds.