Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 1

by Joseph Flynn

Mango Mary’s — Key West, Florida

  Closing time drew near. The crowd in the bar had thinned to a huddle of determined drinkers, a few gregarious talkers and a guy in a straw hat. Those folks and a white-haired guy with a lined face who stepped up to Alice and put a business card on the bar in front of her.

  He said, “My name is Julius Miles.”

  His card said he was a lawyer from Miami.

  “Pretty fancy introduction, if all you want’s a drink,” Alice said.

  “I’d love a drink, but I have to drive home tonight and at my age even a little alcohol and getting behind the wheel would be a bad idea.”

  Alice always appreciated people who knew better than to be stupid.

  “How about a club soda with a twist of lime?” she said. “On the house.”

  Miles smiled warmly. “Thank you very much. I’d like that.”

  Alice got him his drink and waited to hear what he was selling.

  After taking a sip, Miles said, “I believe the gent near the door with the straw hat has a gun.”

  “A badge, too,” Alice told him.

  “I suspected as much. You might want to ask him over to hear what I have to say. Or not. Depending on how you feel.”

  Alice pointed a finger at the gun she was wearing openly.

  “Oh, I’m no physical threat. Farthest thing from it. But I’ve been asked to deliver a message to you. I was contacted by phone and paid in cash, delivered by a courier, for my services, so I’m afraid, even with the police present, I couldn’t identify my client.”

  “You do a lot of work like that?” Alice asked.

  “Only when I like the message I’m being asked to convey.”

  “I’ve got an idea who sent you. The people who redecorated my place.”

  “Yes, that’s what I was told, though I wasn’t given a name.”

  “Neither was I,” Alice said.

  “In any case, my client asked me to tell you that pursuing their grievance against you is no longer cost effective. In fact, the client would like to compensate you for damages done to your business. If I may …”

  Miles used two fingers to pull his suit coat open. An envelope projected from an inside pocket. The envelope bulged.

  “Go ahead,” Alice said.

  Miles put the envelope on the bar. Alice could see now that it was stuffed with cash. She was sure the lawyer hadn’t been hired to bring her singles, fives and tens. Or even twenties and fifties. Following that reasoning, there was a good chunk of money in front of her.

  Not having been born yesterday or even last year, Alice said, “Looks like a bribe to me. What’s it supposed to buy?”

  “Without reference to the nature of his interest, my client said he’d like to speak to the fellow you had tending bar for you on the evening when … the peace was disturbed. If you could provide me with his name and his whereabouts, if you know them, my client would be grateful. He also promised you would never hear from him again.”

  Alice tapped herself a club soda and sipped while she thought about that.

  Jackie had helped her the first night they’d met. He’d done an honest job working for her. Chased off the shitbirds who’d come calling. Then Carina Linberg had come in and there had been … what was it a lawyer like Miles would call it? An alienation of affection?

  Alice didn’t like the rich broad, but she thought Jackie had bad ideas in mind for Carina.

  She didn’t deserve that, but Alice didn’t deserve having bad guys come after her until they got lucky or she got careless. The chance to be free of them changed the way she had to look at things. Still, she had to be careful she didn’t work her way out of one bind only to get herself into another.

  Alice pushed the envelope with the cash back toward Miles.

  “I don’t want the money. You say it’s a gift now. Next week someone could come in and say it was a loan, and there’s interest due.”

  Miles put the money back inside his coat, and looked at Alice with new respect.

  “And the name?” he asked.

  “Jackie Richmond.”

  “Any idea where Jackie went?”

  Alice decided if Carina Linberg was with him at the wrong time she must not be living right.

  She said, “For the next little bit, Grand Cayman.”

  The White House

  McGill knocked on the door to the office Patti used for official business in the residence. He was given permission to enter and saw Patti sitting behind her desk, looking less than pleased. McGill closed the door. He sat in a guest chair and asked, “You, me or someone else?”

  “Damon Todd.”

  “Not in custody or a body bag, I take it.”

  “No. Deputy Director DeWitt thought he had him, had lured him into a trap, but Todd sent in a decoy. The trap was sprung on the wrong person.”

  “Is the decoy talking?”

  “Won’t stop talking, from what I heard. He’s the son of a Delaware state senator. He was out driving Daddy’s Audi when he was approached by a man wearing a Boston Red Sox cap and asked how he’d like to play a prank on someone and make five hundred dollars, half up front. The young man was assured that no one would be harmed and no property would be vandalized. All he had to do was drive to an address in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, use his turn signal as if he was about to enter a driveway, stay on the road, honk his horn twice and drive back to Wilmington to collect the rest of his money.”

  McGill said, “The kid didn’t think that was a lot of money for doing very little?”

  Patti sighed. “From your point of view or mine, that’s obvious. When you or I were nineteen would we have jumped at the chance to make an easy five hundred dollars?”

  McGill said, “Well, if you’re going to be logical about it. How did Todd learn DeWitt fell for his trick?”

  “The decoy had an open cell phone link to him. He got to hear the young man curse at him saying what a ‘dickhead’ he was.”

  “DeWitt couldn’t even let the kid keep the cash, right?” McGill asked.

  “Evidence,” Patti said, “to be checked for DNA.”

  “The phone the kid used and the one he called were disposables.”

  Patti nodded. “Can’t fool an experienced policeman.”

  “I might have set up the trap a little differently,” McGill said.

  “But you weren’t going to interfere with the FBI.”

  “No. They do a lot of things well, but your average copper has more street smarts.”

  Patti said, “It’s not hard to read the subtext there. No more relying on others to catch Todd.”

  McGill nodded. “Sweetie and I are going to find him.”

  “You’ll take Elspeth with you?”

  McGilled smiled. “Sure, me and my Amazons. If DeWitt wants to feel useful, he has resources I might like to use. If I can’t charm him, you think you can?”

  Patti nodded. “One nice thing about my job? People find me persuasive.”

  5

  November, 2011

  Wheaton & Kennerly Advertising — Portland, Oregon

  Not that Putnam Shady had any complaints about Omaha, nobody had tried to kidnap or kill him there, and he and Darren Drucker had done a lot of good work, but he was glad to be in a place with more of a leading edge vibe.

  Over the past weeks, Putnam and Drucker had not only gotten the infrastructure for ShareAmerica, the populist lobbying fund, set up, Drucker had also created a Super PAC, Americans for Equity, to back progressive candidates on the federal, state and local levels.

  Foremost among those candidates would be Patricia Darden Grant. Federal Election Commission regulations forbade any coordination between Super PACs and a candidate’s campaign, not that the FEC had ever come down hard on any candidate or Super PAC even when the two appeared to be working hand in glove. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert made a mockery of the situation whenever the mood took them.

  Putnam Shady, however, was taking no chances that the Supreme Court, now minus t
wo conservative justices and with a new liberal balance of power, might reverse its previous ruling and junk Super PACs. Americans for Equity would steer clear of the presidential campaign entirely. Rather it would work to help the president by changing the nature of the Congress. If doing that drew voters to the polls who also supported the president, quelle coïncidence!

  To make the sale to a majority of the American electorate that Congress needed to be turned inside out, upside down and shaken several times, Putnam had traveled to Portland to visit with the principals of what he considered to be the finest advertising agency anywhere.

  He entered the office building on NW Fourteenth Avenue and took the elevator to the thirteenth floor where, according to advertising lore, happy accidents in creative thinking were encouraged on a daily basis. The agency principals, Dan, Shawn and Meg, who insisted that they be addressed by their first names, were waiting for Putnam as he stepped into the lobby.

  Shawn stepped forward, extended a hand and said, “Mr. Shady, love your name.”

  Putnam shook hands and said, “I’ve always liked it myself. Tried to live up to it as a young man. Lately, I’ve moderated my behavior somewhat.”

  Meg asked, “Ms. Sweeney’s doing?”

  Putnam grinned. “You’ve done your homework.”

  He was pleased rather than annoyed that they’d checked him out.

  Dan asked, “Is that a new ring you’re wearing? Doesn’t have a settled-in look yet.”

  An eye for detail was good, too, Putnam thought.

  Then Shawn said, “We’ve never done political work before. Don’t know that we’re interested.”

  Putnam told them, “I’m not asking you to help elect any particular candidate. What I want you to do is help make democracy work for the American people again.”

  The three ad hotshots looked at each other.

  Meg said, “That’s all? Maybe the interns can find a spare moment.”

  Having talked his way past the lobby, Putnam was settled in a comfortable chair at a conference table facing Shawn, Dan and Meg. He told them, “The simple truth is ninety-nine and ninety-nine one hundredths of all political advertising is slime.”

  “Maybe a bit more than that,” Meg said.

  “You don’t want to overdo the decimal place thing,” Putnam suggested.

  Three heads bobbed in appreciation. The man was right.

  Putnam continued, “The Department of Justice is about to file fraud charges against a Super PAC supporting Senator Howard Hurlbert and his new True South Party, alleging that they’ve substantively misrepresented the president’s record and the intentions she has for a second term, should she have one.”

  Dan said, “You know, that bothers me. It sounds like an infringement of free speech.”

  “So you’d have no problem with a competitor of one of your clients lying about your client day in and day out to take away their market share?” Putnam asked. “Maybe this competitor would also malign your client’s character as well. You’d be okay with that, too?”

  Dan laughed. “Well, hell, if you’re going to put it that way.”

  Putnam said, “I am. Here’s the thing. The DOJ isn’t kidding around. Lying in political commercials, strange as it may sound, is going to be out for the coming election. The professional liars might take their case, essentially as Dan just characterized it, to the Supreme Court. Only the Supremes have lost two of their most conservative members. You can look for decisions from our highest court to take on a whole new slant.”

  Shawn asked, “What’s any of that got to do with us?”

  Putnam explained, “The political ad hacks are going to be put out of business. Hundreds of millions of ad dollars will go looking for people who are good at doing positive advertising.”

  “Like us,” Dan said.

  “Like some of our top competitors,” Shawn added.

  Putnam told them, “You’re beginning to see the light. I like your work the best, but if you’re not interested …”

  Meg said, “You’ll take your millions elsewhere.”

  “I will, but I’ll have a few craft brews before I leave town.”

  Meg asked Putnam, “What do you think was the best positive ad done for a president in the past fifty years?”

  “That’s a softball question,” he said. “‘Morning in America’ for Ronald Reagan.”

  Shawn asked, “You know who created it?”

  “Hal Riney. Wrote it and narrated it. He also did the bear in the woods ad. Didn’t like that one as much.”

  Dan said, “For bonus points, what shop did Riney work for?”

  “When he did ‘Morning in America?’ His own shop, Hal Riney and Partners.”

  Putnam did his research, too. He knew Riney was a hero to advertising creatives.

  Especially the ones who worked on the West Coast where Riney had.

  “Give us a minute, will you, Mr. Shady?” Shawn said.

  Putnam stepped out of the conference room and looked at his watch.

  Wheaton and Kennerly signed on with Americans for Equity and ShareAmerica in thirty-six seconds.

  The new business partners repaired to the Bridgeport Brewing Company to sample the wares. After the second round, Putnam excused himself to call Sweetie and tell her of his triumph, and ask if was safe enough to come home for a brief visit. Celibacy had lost its charm.

  Sweetie told him to hurry. She and James J. McGill were going hunting soon.

  Westbound Interstate 80 — Ottawa, Illinois

  Olin Anderson sat behind the wheel of the 2012 Buick Enclave in Gold Mist Metallic. Arn Crosby rode shotgun. Damon Todd had the second row of seats to himself. Their luggage was in back. They carried no firearms, no knives, no chemical sprays. No alcohol, drugs or tobacco. Not even a pack of chewing gum. Avoiding the temptation to spit a wad out the window.

  Not catch the attention of any Barney Fife, behind on his ticket-writing quota.

  What they did have was a valid title to the vehicle in the name of Michael Ludwig, Anderson’s current alias. Crosby was now Gerald Hobart. Todd was Thomas Gower. Each of them had a valid Virginia driver’s license in his new name. Crosby had been happy to discover that his computer hacking skills, though rusty, were still effective on state software that hadn’t been updated since he and Anderson had gotten locked up.

  Their cover story was that they were grassroots political organizers heading to California in advance of the upcoming primary elections. Their specialty, if anyone wanted to know, was get out the vote efforts. Their party? It would depend on where they were if they got stopped. That and the color, gender and ethnicity of the cop.

  It had been Anderson’s idea to go with the political angle.

  What with the president changing her allegiance and a new party, True South, in the hunt, everybody was already thinking ahead to the next election. Political operatives would soon be overrunning the country like termites with timber rights. Three white guys in a Buick, they’d fit right in with the crowd.

  Crosby hadn’t cared to debate the validity of Anderson’s points.

  Todd had barely paid attention. He’d just felt, after the failed attempt to capture them in Pennsylvania, it was time to relocate from Charlottesville. Head west somewhere, exact location to be determined. They’d left Fletcher Penrose unharmed, though Todd had the feeling that Crosby and Anderson would have liked to kill him.

  They did leave Penrose one hundred and forty thousand dollars poorer, a trifle compared to the enhanced earnings Todd’s work on the professor had brought him. They’d used forty thousand to buy the SUV and deposited the rest in a JP Morgan Chase account to cover their expenses.

  As far as Todd knew, the CIA didn’t put out all-points bulletins. The FBI, yeah, they worked with state and local cops. Sometimes. But Todd felt sure this wouldn’t be one of those times.

  The last thing the federal government would want was to have Todd, Crosby and Anderson taken into custody and given a chance to talk to lawyers. Tha
t happened, all sorts of secrets might come out. The kind that presidents of both parties strained to keep secret.

  The way Todd saw it was —

  Speaking for the first time in hours, he asked his traveling companions, “What’s that euphemism spy agencies use for killing people?”

  Crosby and Anderson looked at each other.

  Crosby said, “You mean terminate with extreme prejudice?”

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Anderson said.

  “What?” Todd asked.

  “Hollywood bullshit,” Crosby explained.

  “Oh.” Todd sounded disappointed. “What’s the real word?”

  “Kill,” Anderson told him.

  “Mundane,” Todd said.

  “Gets the message across,” Crosby replied.

  Todd slumped in his seat.

  Anderson saw him in his rear view mirror, looking despondent, and asked, “You think bloodshed comes with a soundtrack? Cheers from the people in the movie theater?”

  “It’s not like that,” Crosby told him.

  “Sorry to spoil your fun, Doc,” Anderson said.

  Todd told them, “I was thinking about us getting killed.”

  Crosby and Anderson sighed in unison. That disturbed Todd. He didn’t like the idea of them teaming up against him in any fashion. Even voicing sounds of condescension.

  “What?” he asked again, trying to sound calm.

  Not quite making it.

  “You tell him,” Anderson told Crosby.

  Crosby said, “You were thinking the Agency, the FBI or your old pal McGill is going to gun us down, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “You said you’d never let yourselves be taken prisoner again,” Todd responded.

  “We won’t. We weren’t lying about that. But if we were to find a place we like and decided to settle in there, leading quiet lives, giving no sign of causing trouble for anyone, what do you think would happen?”

  “You’d be found; we’d be found.”

  Anderson snorted. “Why? Because the government’s get-those-assholes budget never runs out of money?”