Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel)

by William Lashner

  I kept the Mazda as far behind as I could, obeying McDeiss’s terse commands while the Town Car wended its way across the long rural roads. “Slow down. Speed up. Give it more room.” Not surprisingly, he was better at the whole follow-without-being-seen thing and I deferred to his hard-won expertise.

  “Crap,” he said after the Lincoln had made still another turn. “They spotted us.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The way they took that turn, hard and without a signal. Close on in.”

  Suddenly our discreet following turned into a chase. I hit the gas, felt my tires slip before they engaged. The car screeched into a turn, I passed one of those buggies like a maniac, the car screeched again as I turned the other way. On either side of us were fields plowed straight as a comb’s teeth, silos and houses huddled within stands of trees, a rusty metal harvester pulled by three horses. There was a moment when I thought I’d lost the Lincoln, that the car had used its brawny power to escape, but McDeiss calmly directed me until there it was, ahead but in sight as it veered off onto a busier road called Old Philadelphia Pike.

  It was harder to get close now, with a bunch of cars between us and the Lincoln. The black car weaved desperately to lose us in the traffic, but McDeiss acted as a lookout while I weaved just as desperately. The buildings on the side of the road thickened and turned quaint, and the traffic slowed to a crawl. We moved in a processional through a touristy spot called Bird-in-Hand, with antique shops, and restaurants promising authentic Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. A lean man with a straw hat and gray beard lifted a box of apples.

  Melanie wasn’t after antiques or apple dumplings, I knew that, but where she was headed remained a mystery until, not far away and to our right we saw a small single-engine plane rise with twists and turns.

  “Her plane’s probably waiting on the runway,” I said.

  “I’m going to get on the horn to the local police now,” said McDeiss.

  “And tell them what?” I said. “Whatever Melanie did, she has the law on her side. That’s what those blue-backed documents were all about. Let me find out from her what’s really going on.”

  “You need to catch her first.”

  “I’m trying.”

  It wasn’t easy keeping track of her in the slow-moving jumble of traffic, but the kitsch on the sides of the road eased and the traffic accelerated and McDeiss caught a glimpse of the long black car taking a turn just past a gas station ahead on the right. I heaved past a long furniture truck and veered in front of it to follow with a right of my own, onto the road that led straight to the airport. And on that small airport road, with a pizza place on one side and a machinery shop on the other, I saw the Lincoln careening to the right again.

  I took the right right after, sped through a small parking area, then jagged to the left when I saw the black car sitting on a wide piece of asphalt bracketed by a shed on one side and a low hangar with a prop plane facing out in the other. And in front of the black car, waiting on the airport runway, was a small blue-nosed jet, an engine with the word “Honda” rising over its narrow white wing.

  I jabbed my Mazda beside the Town Car, leaped out to grab hold of the handle to Melanie’s door, and yanked it open.

  In the backseat the child was crying and Melanie sat with her arm around the girl’s shoulder, her face shot full of terror. But when she registered who had thrown open her door, something changed, brightened.

  “Victor,” she said. “Thank God it’s you.”

  CHAPTER 46

  AIR FORCE NONE

  I had gotten it wrong. Spectacularly. No surprise there. To put down everything I had gotten wrong during my miserable descent into the mire of politics, I’d have to write a book.

  I was standing between Melanie and McDeiss, newly clued in to the truth of what was actually happening, when the door to the plane disengaged from the body and dropped down, slowly down, revealing a set of bright-green stairs. The girl was still in the car, McDeiss was getting antsy, killers were still on the loose, push was coming to shove, and climbing down these stairs now was the Congressman’s wife.

  “Victor?” said Mrs. DeMathis. “I didn’t expect to see you here. The situation must be more dire than I imagined.”

  I stepped forward so that we could talk privately. “Melanie explained the situation to me,” I said. “I’m just a little surprised that you’re the one who has come for her.”

  “I don’t strike you as the maternal type?”

  “No, actually, you don’t. And certainly not with a child born of your husband’s illicit affair. I would think you’d want her as far away from you as possible.”

  “What must you think of me.”

  “Yes,” I said. “What must I.”

  “And you brought that insistent detective all the way from Philadelphia just to be sure my intentions were honorable.”

  “I wasn’t willing to let it go.”

  She smiled. “My goodness, Victor, are you ever in the wrong game.”

  “So what exactly are your intentions?”

  “At first, when I learned of the child during a drunken spat—where he sweetly used her existence to prove I was the barren one in our family—I contacted the agency just to see if there was anything I could do to help in difficult times. But after two murders, I realized the danger she was in from that insane woman, and my intentions changed. I intend now to take the girl away, to take her somewhere safe, until your detective neutralizes the threat. And then afterward, for as long as she needs it, to take care of her.”

  “As if she were your own.”

  “And isn’t she? What else do any of us have in this world other than an obligation to her?”

  “And your husband will be okay with that?”

  “I’ve made clear to him that he has no choice. Whatever his objections, he’ll give way and be grateful for it in the end. I’ve given my life over to the man still on the plane, and all he has proven over and again is that he is unworthy of it. And you wonder why I drink. But now fate and Ossana’s insanity have given me another chance.”

  “So now you’ll use the girl to find some sort of meaning in your meaningless existence.”

  “And is that so terrible? If I clutch her like a ring buoy in a salt sea, is that so terrible? All she’ll know is my warm arms and beating heart, all she’ll know is my strength and my love. I’ve so much to give and now I get to give it to her. Is that so terrible?”

  There was steel within her that I had never seen before. Maybe because it was the first time I had seen her when she wasn’t drunk.

  “No,” I said. “That’s not so terrible. She’s a lucky girl.”

  “One of us is,” she said as she walked past me.

  She said something to Melanie before opening the door and climbing into the backseat next to the girl. Melanie had convinced the Orphans’ Court to award custody of the child to the Congressman. Now Mrs. DeMathis was going to spirit the girl away and raise her as her own, and it was all legal as sin. I gestured to McDeiss to wait on the tarmac before I climbed the stairs onto the plane.

  The cabin of the small jet was tiny, pale and plush, with two narrow seats facing each other on either side of the aisle and another seat facing the door. Congressman DeMathis was sitting toward the rear, his body stiff, his tie tight, his glass three-quarters empty. He didn’t react when he saw me. He looked like a guy holding on for dear life as his plane headed nose-first into the ground. His chief of staff, Tom Mitchum, was standing beside him, wringing his hands.

  “Dammit, Victor, how did you let it get this far?” said Mitchum. “How could you shovel our money to Ossana? Why would you finance her?”

  “You’re looking at the wrong bagman,” I said. “I haven’t given her a cent. Someone else is serving up her salad.”

  “Who?”

  “That’s not the question. The ques
tion is for whom. Any ideas, Tom?”

  Mitchum worked his lips as if trying to pull a hair out of his teeth.

  “That’s right,” I said. “No matter the crime or the cost, let’s all swallow our cocks for the Big Butter. Good idea, too, because the way things are shaping up, you’ll be looking for a private-sector job in November. Now crawl off the plane and give me a moment with the Congressman.”

  Mitchum stared at me with something like hate in his eyes, self-hate maybe, before the Congressman gave a little wave of his hand. After Mitchum left, I sat across from the Congressman and leaned forward.

  “Where is your sister?” I said.

  “I still can’t believe it’s over.”

  “We need to find her.”

  “I’m lost, Victor, drifting in space, and it is brutally cold. What am I going to do now?”

  “Take care of your daughter.”

  “My niece.”

  Niece? Did that make any sense? The little girl certainly looked enough like Ossana to be her daughter, but then why would Ossana DeMathis work so hard to hide her existence? Who was she really protecting?

  “Where’s Ossana?”

  “I don’t know. Who the hell knows? All I know is I’m out in the cold and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Don’t expect tears. That’s just the way it is with political careers. Like relationships, they all end badly.”

  He shook his head, as if he were shaking himself out of a trance. “I’m not talking about my career. Why would I be talking about my career? My fund-raising is strong, my positions test well, the people will support me no matter what. It’s my seat as long as I want it. And I still want it.”

  “Where is Ossana, Congressman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We need to find her before she hurts your niece.”

  “My daughter.”

  “I thought you said—”

  “How do I get over something like this? You knew her, you understood.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “Amanda. What else would I be talking about?”

  “You’re right,” I said, incredulous at my own incredulity. “What else.”

  “I loved her, I saw a future with her.”

  “As long as you didn’t have to divorce your wife.”

  “Amanda understood my circumstances.”

  “Whose plane is this?”

  “A supporter’s.”

  “Which?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it matters. It matters very much.”

  “I can still feel her touch, the silk of her skin, the very smell of her. She smelled young and earthy, like fresh lilacs. I can’t let go of the way she made me feel.”

  “Like a politician?”

  “Like the man I wanted to be. When I was young, the mother of one of my friends called me “The Senator,” because even as a boy I was so accomplished. And I liked it. It fit the vision I had of myself. And so did Amanda. The way she laughed, the way she stroked my chest.”

  “Where are you taking the girl?”

  “It’s my wife who has insisted on taking care of her. I suppose it will give her something to do. A friend has a house in North Carolina. We’re going to stay there for a bit. Hide from the press, plot the future. I need to gear up for the campaign. It would all be no problem if only I didn’t feel so cold.”

  “This should heat you up. She was betraying you.”

  “Who?”

  “Duddleman. She was murdered in Philadelphia, but she spent the day here, in Lancaster, investigating the Shoeless Joan murder. She was trying to find the key to it all, trying to find the girl.”

  “My niece.”

  “Right. Of course. Why do I have the urge to slap you silly? We’re talking about the little girl with the liver disease who your sister gave to some adoption agency, who then gave her to Jessica Barnes. The little girl you were so desperate to keep a secret that you hired me to buy Jessica’s silence. Duddleman wanted to rise in the journalism game and she was going to do it on the carcass of your career. I admired the hell out of that. I wished her well.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s why she died. Your sister—”

  “It doesn’t change the way I feel.”

  “Men like you, it’s never about the truth of things. It’s only about your own precious sense of self. She was trying to be nice, that mother of your friend, calling you The Senator. But she sure as hell did a job on you. Where’s your sister?”

  “I don’t know, I told you.”

  “Well, you better find out fast. And tie your shoes tight, because I get a sense, Congressman, that she’s coming for you next, jilted heart and all.”

  I left the plane feeling disoriented and disgusted, with myself as much as anything. I couldn’t get down the stairs of that tiny plane fast enough.

  Mrs. DeMathis was talking to McDeiss and Mitchum and Melanie while holding the little girl’s hand. Her name was Calynne; I got it off the legal documents Melanie showed me. Little Calynne, carrying her own little suitcase, was eyeing the plane with a child’s wariness. When she looked at me, I could see the fear in her tense smile. I walked over and kneeled down next to her, letting the conversation between the adults twitter back and forth above my head.

  “Are you scared?” I said.

  “I’ve never been on a plane before.”

  “It’s fun. Did you ever go to Dutch Wonderland?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s your favorite ride?”

  “The Turtle Whirl.”

  “It’s just like that but without all the spinning. And they let you drink soda.”

  “Really?”

  “Make sure you ask for the soda. Mrs. DeMathis is going to take care of you now.”

  “I miss my mommy.”

  “Yes, I know. Do you have a picture?”

  “My grammom gave me one.”

  “Good.” I took out a business card and gave it to her. It was stupid, I know, it embarrasses me now, but I did it. “Put it with the picture. If you ever need anything, have someone call me. Anytime. And I’ll come running. Even if only to get you off the Turtle Whirl.”

  “Okay.”

  “Bye-bye, Calynne. Take your medicine.”

  “I will,” she said.

  I looked up. McDeiss was staring at me, like I was an ambulance chaser sticking his card in a dead man’s mouth. I stood and stepped back. Mrs. DeMathis smiled at me before slowly leading Calynne toward the plane, Melanie and Mitchum following behind.

  I watched them all enter, watched as the hydraulic piston slowly pulled the door up, watched until it sealed shut. Then I took out my phone and snapped a picture of the plane before its engines started and the thing pulled away to the end of the runway. The plane turned and paused, began to shake, and, with a shout, up it went.

  Damn.

  I thought of the man barreling through the sky, the man who would now be acting as Calynne’s father. How could I ever have ended up an errand boy for such a creature? I wondered if they were all like him, self-absorbed twits who cared for nothing so much as their own power and privilege, careening off one another, like pinballs in the granite-cloaked corridors, blindly pursuing their little prizes while the country burned.

  CHAPTER 47

  NIETZSCHE’S SISTER

  With the girl safe for the moment, it was time to find a killer, and I was no longer in the mood to chase.

  The man behind the airport counter hadn’t shaved today, or yesterday, for that matter, and I had the distinct impression he had no intention of shaving tomorrow. The mismatched files on his desk were covered by an unfolded Wawa wrapper holding half a hoagie. When he saw us come through the door, he clicked something off the computer screen, somethin
g pornographic and baldly fetishistic, no doubt, and made a backhanded swipe of his greasy maw, loosing slivers of lettuce onto the wrapper.

  “What can I do you for?” he said, mouth still full.

  “The plane that just left,” I said. “Do you know where it’s headed?”

  “Sure, hold on a sec.” He slapped his hands clean. “The HondaJet, right?” He pushed the edge of the wrapper from his keyboard and started tap-tapping. “That’s a sweeter bird than we normally have landing here. Usually the jets, even the small ones, end up at LNS. But we’re big enough if they’re small enough, and that one surely was. I got the flight plan somewhere in here.”

  “We can wait,” I said.

  He looked up, annoyed at being rushed, before he started searching through the files on his desk.

  McDeiss leaned on the counter, took out his badge, clicked it a couple times on the counter. It took a moment for the guy to notice the clicking and what was causing it. When he did, he stopped his search and looked at the badge, up at McDeiss’s face, back down at the badge.

  “You’re not local,” he said.

  “Philadelphia,” said McDeiss. “Homicide.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “A little out of your jurisdiction, isn’t it?”

  “That’s why we’re asking and not telling,” said McDeiss. “You want telling, I can make a call.”

  “No,” he said, with a glance at the door as if a horde of Lancaster cops were about to burst through. “Asking is fine. Just give me another minute and I’ll get this stuff for you.”

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “I know where the plane is going. I just wanted to know if the jet’s destination has been logged into the system.”

  “It will be as soon as I put in the flight plan.”

  “Then let’s say you don’t. There’s a kid on that plane who is trying to get away from a stalker. We need to keep her whereabouts as private as possible until the detective here can ensure her safety. I’m a lawyer and I represent the man on the plane, who happens to be the girl’s father. He hired the jet to get her out of harm’s way. We should help him, don’t you think?”