"My idea is to announce your arrival in the briefing room on Thursday, two days after the election. I figure you can probably start in the week or so after that. I don't want to rush it too much and have the Record pissed off at me. We'll keep Dalton around until right after the holidays, then I have a slot saved for him over in the U.s. Trade Representative's office. He can talk about Rwanda or Chilean imports or whatever the fuck it is they talk about over there. He'll like that."
He wasn't really asking me about this; he was telling me. He wasn't so much looking for a yes or no as a simple acknowledgment that the Thursday after the election would be a good time to make the announcement. I must admit, his strategy did have a certain appeal to it. A weaker man might have said, "Yes, this all sounds good."
Instead, I said, in that unusually formal tone that I seemed to reserve just for him, "Sir, I have no government experience whatsoever. I don't even have political experience. I really don't believe I'm the guy you need in there right now, for your sake."
"Bullshit. I didn't have any presidential experience when I came to the Oval Office, and look at me. I'm up in virtually every poll. This is now my race to lose, and I won't. For chrissakes, the country loves me. Did you see that crowd today? It's almost absurd."
He continued, "I'd rather have someone from outside government than from within. I'd rather have someone who's skeptical of what I'm saying rather than another pansy-assed yes-man. You'd be the first hurdle to any idea. If it doesn't get past you, it doesn't go anywhere. You also understand the news media, and that's exactly what I need. I have to know from inside the White House how these things are going to play inside the press."
I started to believe him myself, started to think that, yes, I could help the president, that I was precisely what he needed, that I could turn his window of opportunity into a reality of success. He was good.
I'll give him that. That's probably why he was the president, seemingly destined to win a full term.
Then this voice popped into my mind for roughly the millionth time in the last week-that crystal-clear voice of an aging man who was warning me that this assassination attempt wasn't what it seemed.
Well, we were trying to figure out what it was, Havlicek and me. We were getting up early. We were staying up late. We were burning the phone lines, climbing on airplanes, helplessly waiting for calls from my anonymous voice, hopeful that the next little piece would make the entire puzzle clear. Some of the pieces were starting to come together. I had names to go on now, names like Paul Stemple and Curtis Black. They had a common bond-an armored car robbery some twenty years ago. We just had to figure out how the past related to the present.
"Mr. President, before I go on with my decision, I need to ask you something. Why did you pardon Paul Stemple?"
I could hear the tick of the grandfather clock behind me, the rhythmic breathing of Hutchins sitting across from me, the soft, absent tap of his glasses against the wooden tabletop. I looked at him and he looked at me, his forehead scrunched into an expression that may have been concern, but may just as well have been anger.
The moment stretched on, the rift of silence widening into a veritable canyon.
"Jack," he finally said, his voice straightforward, betraying neither anger nor surprise, "I don't really know. My best recollection is that Mr. Stemple was going to be pardoned by President Cole. I believe he was on his list after I was sworn in, so I went ahead and issued the pardon. I believe that's the case, though I'd have to double-check."
He had me with that answer. How was I supposed to check with Cole, or get one of his aides to dig up such minutiae in the throes of the last weekend of an election campaign?
As I sat in silence, Hutchins continued, his voice taking on more of an edge. "But here's what I do know. I'm the best goddamned president who'll ever seek your help. That's all you really need to know right now. As far as why I was shot, I'm hoping like hell to find that out as soon as I can. I really don't want to be shot again. I think you'll join me in agreement that it's not a fun thing."
Well, that all seemed like an effective evasion, leaving me little in the way of follow-up questions. Also, I really didn't have a good enough handle yet on what I was talking about to pursue the line any further. I was fishing, and going back and forth in my mind on whether I should throw out the name Curtis Black. I decided it was premature.
I gave it one more try, saying, "There's something terribly odd about that assassination attempt."
Okay, so now he seemed exasperated. "We have an army of FBI agents working on this issue right now. The only odd thing is that they haven't nailed down an exact motive yet. They will, Jack. In the meantime, you and this guy Havlicek are obsessing over a point that I'm sure will very quickly become clear. The FBI is doing their best work.
They're not trying to screw this thing up. They're not trying to cover anything up. Sometimes these investigations just aren't easy, and sometimes they don't work out in the neatly set schedules that you press people demand."
I said, "Maybe you're right," though not for half a second did I think he was.
Then I breathed a long sigh and said to Hutchins, "Sir, I've thought your offer over hard. I really have. I'm honored by it. I was tempted by it. But I can't accept it. I'm a newspaper reporter.
Sometimes I don't even think I have any say in the matter. It's just what I do, and what I'll continue to do, and what I sometimes suspect and fear I'll always do."
He stared at me again, silent. My mind flashed to the adoring, applauding crowd in the ballroom from a few minutes before, to all the noise and the festivity, and now to this room, to the sullen silence, to the juxtaposition that was often the president's life. He was the leader of the free world who had once told me he felt anything but free. Forget all his power. Here he was stewing that he couldn't persuade some reporter from South Boston to come work on his staff.
"You're making an enormous mistake, young man," he said, sternly, looking me in the eye. He pushed his chair out and lifted himself up to show me to the door. "We're all done here," he said. "I have some business to do."
I got up and slowly walked over to the door, and when I got within a few feet of him, I stuck my hand out to shake his. He ignored me and said, "This is a decision you'll regret for a long time to come."
seventeen
It used to be you'd land at an airport in some far-flung city, someone would be there to meet you, thrilled that you had arrived. In fact, that was the reason you had flown in the first place-to actually see the people at the other end. Then age sets in, and with age comes responsibility, and with responsibility come the endless business flights to faraway places where no one particularly cares whether you've arrived in town or not. The only welcoming face is usually that of a reception clerk at the hotel, who asks for your credit card and sullenly punches your name into a computer before assigning you to one of the several hundred identical rooms upstairs. For me, it has gotten to the point that even when I arrive back in Washington from a long trip, there usually isn't even anyone who knows I'm coming home. It may not be a cruel world, but it can be a cold one.
I bring this up because as I stepped off the American Airlines flight from O'Hare to National at 8:30 P.m. Saturday and headed outside for a cab, a familiar female voice said from behind me, "Come here often?"
I turned slowly, not wanting to make a general jackass out of myself in case, as I suspected, the woman was actually talking to someone else.
There, walking two paces in back of me, was Samantha Stevens, special agent with the FBI.
"Only when I travel," I said. She flashed me a plastic smile and I asked, "You pulling into town or heading out?"
"Neither. I came to give you a lift." I must have looked a bit startled because she said soothingly, "I'm going to buy you dinner, whether you want it or not."
In fact, I did, even if she may have been the last person I expected to see, making the last offer I expected to receive. It seemed like a good idea. My
mind was about to explode, there was so much going on in it. I needed to give it a rest before I briefed Havlicek and Martin the following morning. On the flight back to D.c." I had made a series of calls to lawyer contacts and some police detectives I knew from my days on the Boston crime beat. I didn't learn nearly enough, but what I did learn was interesting. Black, in the words of one veteran investigator, was a Tom Sawyer type, a gang leader who could convince the others to whitewash the fence while he sat back and watched. He had a college education and was widely known on the streets for his brains and his gregariousness-his ability to get along with crooks and to talk his way out of trouble with cops. He was believed to be without a gun on the occasion of the heist, which would perhaps explain why the feds granted him immunity, certain that he couldn't have been the triggerman. His lack of practice might also explain why he was such an awful shot at the golf course that day, assuming that it was him. And yes, he had brown eyes, just like the dead shooter at Congressional Country Club.
What I hadn't learned was where Black had gone and who he had become, and it didn't seem like I was about to. No one even acknowledged that he had disappeared.
That left me with one remaining option: find Paul Stemple. He was the link in this whole equation that I didn't yet understand-not that I understood any of it all that well. The problem was, it wasn't even remotely clear where I was going to find him, or even how I was going to find him. All of this is a longer than necessary way of saying, a friendly face, a piece of fresh fish, and an ice-cold beer seemed like just the quick fix I needed.
"How in God's name did you know I was coming in tonight?" I asked.
"We have our ways," she said, smiling. I made a mental note to check on those ways in the very near future.
"Well, name the place," I said.
"Kinkead's," she said. "Do you have your car here? I cabbed over."
"I do."
We made incredibly vacuous chitchat on the way to the restaurant-the exact kind of conversation I like most. Once inside, she settled gracefully into the booth, sliding her lean body in and then crossing her long legs under the table. She wore her black hair tied back in a low ponytail, scrunched at the end by a small nondescript band. I had never seen her with that look before, and I'm probably not the first to say that she looked ravishing. Put those feelings away right now, I told myself.
We ordered some seafood ravioli and a plate of Ipswich fried clams to start, and I suggested-actually demanded-that she try the pepita-crusted salmon, the signature dish of owner Bob Kinkead. She did.
More chitchat until we both fell quiet as she spooned some clams and a ravioli off the appetizer plates and onto hers. She took a bite, exclaimed her approval in a sound I hoped to hear someday in a different venue, and gave me a searching look.
Out of nowhere, she said, "The only point I want to make before we get too far into dinner is that we need to have a working relationship. I don't know how else to say it other than being direct, so here goes: what I want now is to work with you. That's all I want right now."
Oh, my. There were about a million ways to read that little declaration, and being a guy, I probably wasn't in an effective position to properly interpret even one of them. My first take was that this was good news. She flatly stated that she wanted a working relationship, and she had a better understanding of the ground rules under which I work, meaning she needed to continue to bring something valuable to the exchange. This was good. My second take was that she seemed to be saying she wanted no personal relationship, given the way she specifically emphasized working relationship. That said, third, she indicated she only wanted a working relationship right now, which could be her way of saying we should get this investigation out of the way before we go off and have sex like two angry wolves in the snowy Montana wilderness. Or something like that.
"I'm all for working together." I was obviously playing this safe, never having been one to foreclose prematurely any options.
"Good," she said. "I hear you have some interesting stuff, and by my count, you owe me from the last time."
"Really? What is it you hear?"
She gave me a smile that I wasn't sure how to read.
"Word in our shop is that you and your colleague are on the verge of springing another major story. There's a lot of speculation over what it might be, though I don't think anyone pretends to know for certain."
She paused and eyed me, searching, I'm sure, for reaction. I didn't betray any, so she continued.
"Of course, the hope is that you guys do a story that might answer the question of who the Secret Service shot that day at the golf course."
I still didn't say anything. This was an odd turning of tables for me.
Usually, I'm the one prodding, evaluating, trying to elicit any reaction. After years of watching people squirm across from me, I think I came equipped with at least some idea how to carry myself right then. I tried not to bat an eye.
I said, "We're working hard, Havlicek and me. We're getting some leads, and we're following them. But we're not where we want to be yet. Right now, we don't have a story, just a lot of ideas."
I know I was starting to sound like all those jackass cops I had covered all those years, the ones who would say of a sensational quadruple murder case, "We're assembling the forensic, eyewitness, and circumstantial evidence and continuing to pursue further leads. We will solve this case on our timetable, not yours."
We locked eyes for a long moment, not in any intimate fashion-this was, after all, the renewal of a working relationship, as she herself had said-but in an attempt to size each other up. To that end, I contorted my mouth ever so slightly to project the aura of sincerity.
She said, "Well, you boys better put a move on it, or you're going to let a whole bureau of federal agents down." She smiled, and so did I.
I regarded her for another moment. Samantha Stevens looked outright elegant, in an unfailingly wholesome kind of way-an athlete who will forever retain her physical grace. She had barely a trace of makeup on the perfect lines of her cheeks. The bags under her eyes, as I've said, betrayed that she had nary a worry in the world about the ravaging affects of age. Every other characteristic screamed eternal youth.
She seemed unusually poised on this Saturday night, confident, comfortable, able to enjoy the food and the company and still try to accomplish what I was learning was her goal: to leave with more information than she had when she arrived. Looking at her, I had the inclination to rest my hand on top of hers, even for a moment.
Instead, I pulled a piece of crusty homemade bread from the basket, took a bite, and said, in a manner intended to goad, "Why don't you tell me what you have?"
She smiled at that, too. "By my calculation, it's your turn."
"I think you've miscalculated." As I talked, she took a piece of bread from the basket herself and playfully bit into it. "Sam, we're actively pursuing a story. I've told you that. We have what we hope are some good leads, but I don't know yet if they're going to pan out.
My sense is, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you're not in as active a stage as I am, so it might be better if you helped me rather than vice versa, or at least went first in this exchange."
Truth is, I have no idea about the fundamental logic of this argument.
The salient fact to take away is that it marked the first time since I'd known Samantha Stevens that I addressed her as Sam, and that, to me anyway, meant that a significant bridge had been crossed, even if I was yet to learn where exactly that bridge had taken me. Score one for Jack, even if no one was actually keeping score.
She seemed to think all this over, perhaps even the Sam part. I don't know. As she stared at points unknown, our waiter arrived with our entrees and set them down before each of us. Sam looked her salmon over carefully.
"I guarantee you'll like it," I said. "If you don't, I'll take you home and microwave up some Swedish meatballs."
Opening her eyes wide in horror at the idea, she said, with mock panic,
"I'm sure I'll like it."
After her first bite, she did that exclamation thing again, saying,
"Oh, my God. This is unbelievable."
"You like?" I asked.
"I love."
Bob Kinkead stopped by the table in full chef's regalia, telling me he'd been watching me on television, and I didn't look as bad as he would have thought. After he left, I gave Stevens a nod, as in, Let's continue.
She said, "Here's what I'm learning about Drinker. He answers only to the director, while I still answer to about two other layers of management. Drinker doesn't speak to my bosses. I can't speak to the director. Drinker barely speaks to me." She hesitated for a second, then said, "And here's the interesting part. I know he and the president talk on the phone all the time-almost every day. I saw Drinker's call logs."
"Would that be so unusual, an investigating agent talking regularly to the victim of the crime?"
"Well, this is no normal crime, and no normal victim. I'll concede, we've only had two presidential assassination attempts since JFK was killed-Squeaky Fromme shooting Ford in seventy-five, and Hinckley shooting Reagan in eighty-one. So there's not exactly a lot of precedent or an FBI manual on how to handle this. But come on, you don't think it's bizarre, an agent and the president talking regularly about the investigation?"
I said, "You know, I was in the Oval Office last week when Hutchins got a call on a line that said "FBI." He was pretty abrupt with the caller, said he'd talk to him later. In retrospect, it could have been Drinker. But why wouldn't they speak regularly?"
"Well, they might. But put this in perspective. The president's a busy guy. He's trying to win an election. He doesn't need constant contact with the investigator on the case. If he did want regular updates, he'd be more likely to get them from the FBI director. We're pretty big on the chain of command over there. And it's not like this has been a textbook investigation, I seem to remember reading a few stories on the front page of the Boston Record that indicated we were fucking this thing up nine ways from hell."
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