Each Precious Hour

by Gayle Wilson

  A man was walking through the shadows, staying close to the building. He was wearing some kind of low cap. Although it was too dark in the alley to see details of his clothing, the size seemed right for Emory. He appeared to be carrying a suitcase.

  “Emory,” Jared yelled.

  He had already started to run, even before he saw the tell-tale hesitation in the man’s stride. Emory was almost on the fringes of the crowd. Suddenly another figure appeared in the opening, coming into the alley from the cross street.

  Cop. Jared’s identification was automatic, maybe made from the hat he wore, but it was also sure. One of the officers he’d talked to at the front door? Or maybe someone had been sent out here to check in response to Robin’s call? The hotel management would know all the places where someone could leave the building.

  “Stop him!” Jared ordered. “NYPD. Stop that man.”

  He expected Emory to try to push past the officer or to run back at him. He did neither. He stopped, turning to face Jared.

  “What’s wrong?” Whitt said, his voice sounding genuinely puzzled. “Did I set off an alarm or something?”

  Or something, Jared thought. One that was long overdue.

  “We need to talk,” he said, as he reached Emory. The light coming into the alley from the street illuminated the face of the policeman better than it did Whitt’s.

  “Sure,” Emory said, his eyes moving questioningly from Jared’s face to that of the officer, who, in response to Jared’s shouted instructions, had drawn his weapon. “What about?”

  “About a man named Hal Edwards. Captain Henry Edwards,” Jared said, watching his eyes. “Remember him?”

  Whitt nodded. “The guy McCord killed in Vietnam. The guy he thought he killed. You find him?”

  You’re good, you bastard, Jared thought. Whitt’s inflection had been exactly right. A touch of surprise and relief. Of course, if he hadn’t been this good, he would never have been able to carry this off. Working day after day with James McCord. How do you spend all that time with a man you hate? Jared wondered. With a man you want to destroy?

  “I think we have found him,” he said aloud, “but I’m going to need your fingerprints to verify that.”

  “My fingerprints?” Whitt’s surprise sounded as genuine as the other. “You think I’m Edwards?” he said disbelievingly.

  “I think you’re the same murdering son of a bitch McCord tried to destroy back in Nam. Too bad he didn’t succeed.”

  “You got the wrong guy,” Whitt said, shaking his head and smiling a little, his hand raised, palm out. “I don’t know what the hell set you off on this, but you got the wrong guy.”

  “Then you won’t mind going with us to the nearest precinct and getting printed. You can clear this mistake up right away.”

  There was a momentary hesitation, and then Emory looked again at the cop blocking the end of the alley.

  “It’s too late, Edwards,” Jared said. “You gave it away. You knew exactly what McCord meant when he said ‘recon by fire.’ I had to think about it, but you didn’t. You never even hesitated. And civilians don’t call it ordnance, by the way. They say explosives. That should have tipped me off the very first night, but it didn’t. If it had, Gus might be alive.”

  “You’ve got this all wrong,” Whitt said again. “Bolton’s the explosives expert. You were going to look for him.”

  “But I won’t find him, will I? You killed Carl Bolton, just like you killed the others. You couldn’t afford to have any of them coming forward to verify McCord’s story, so you arranged their deaths. And then you tried to arrange McCord’s, first in Texas and then with the car bomb. When that didn’t work, you put the tabloids onto the murders of those men, knowing they would raise questions McCord couldn’t answer in time. And you finally got what you wanted. You got your revenge.”

  “McCord’s past just caught up with him. We knew all along it could happen. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “And nothing to do with the bomb? Except your print’s on it, isn’t it? You wanted him to know it was you. You couldn’t resist. You wanted McCord to realize you were alive....”

  Even as he said it, Jared saw the flaw. If the bomb killed McCord, there’d be no point in leaving the fingerprint. McCord wouldn’t have been around to hear about that discovery.

  “I was right the first time,” Jared said, rage building at the realization. “You meant to kill Robin, you son of a bitch, and you put that print there so McCord would know who had done it. That really would have been the ultimate revenge. Your brother had tried to kill his daughter, and then when that didn’t work, you decided Robin was the next best thing.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Whitt said.

  “Your brother and Larson were helping you, doing the dirty work, while you were pretending to run McCord’s campaign. You figured this was the place to be for making sure that dream never came true. For controlling things. Right at the seat of power.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Whitt said. “I never—”

  “Then come with me to the precinct and clear this all up,” Jared demanded. “Prove you aren’t Henry Edwards. Prove your prints don’t match the one on that bomb.”

  Edwards said nothing for several seconds. Jared held his eyes, waiting. At least the man wasn’t denying anything anymore.

  “Cuffs,” Jared said to the cop. He held out his hand to take them. He was aware when the cop shifted, removing one hand from the gun he was holding to get the handcuffs.

  Just as he did, Whitt swung the suitcase he held in a wide arc, aiming it at Jared’s head. Jared had time to get an arm up, partially blocking the blow, which was still powerful enough to send him stumbling against the side of the building.

  While the cop went into the classic shooter’s stance, yelling warnings, Edwards turned, swinging the suitcase again, aiming for the gun.

  Jared pushed himself off the wall, launching himself at the campaign manager. Still shouting, the cop stepped back, weapon extended. The suitcase barely missed his outstretched gun. Edwards let the arc continue, aiming again for Jared’s head.

  Jared ducked and spun away at the last second. The suitcase hit his shoulder full force just as the gun went off. Jared got turned around in time to see Edwards’ hands fly up, a reflex from the bullet that had struck him in the back of the neck. He dropped as if boneless, almost at Jared’s feet.

  Jared stooped down beside him. The cop came to stand over them, legs spread, the gun pointed at Edwards’ forehead. It was pretty obvious, however, that he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Get an ambulance,” Jared ordered. After a second or two, the officer lowered his gun and then disappeared back down the alley. The campaign manager’s eyes were open, distorted by the thick glasses. Slowly, they focused on Jared’s face.

  “Tell McCord...” he whispered. “Never...be president.”

  “Did you kill the others? The other men on the team?” Emory’s eyes closed. “Did you put that bomb in the senator’s car? Damn it, you almost killed Robin.”

  There was no response. Edwards’ face was composed, but the pool of blood under his head grew as the long minutes ticked by, the arrival of the ambulance delayed by the crowds in the Square.

  Finally in the distance came the sound of a siren. Jared lifted his head, looking toward the end of the alley. A few people were standing there, drawn by the sound of the shot. A couple of uniforms were keeping them away. Jared looked down again, and found Edwards’ eyes open. “Not...about Robin,” he said.

  The siren had been joined by another. It was obvious they were coming here, the wails growing louder. Edwards’ eyes closed again, lids falling like the slow blink of a doll’s eyes. He was smiling. And by the time the paramedics arrived, he was gone.

  IF McCORD WAS disappointed by the size of the turnout tonight, he wasn’t letting on, Jared thought, watching him. As he made his way toward Jared and his niece, the senator shook hands and slapped bac
ks and kissed cheeks. And he moved again with that big-as-Texas confidence that had been missing lately.

  Whitt Emory’s death and his identification as Henry Edwards had been on the ten o’clock news. They’d watched it in Robin’s room before they came up to the ballroom. She had wondered how this would change the dynamics of the campaign. Jared had wondered how the hell he could have been so slow in putting it all together.

  If he had been a little more on the ball, the limo driver might still be alive. Of course, before the car bomb, Jared hadn’t really known anything was going on. Like Robin, he had thought their biggest concern was a bunch of crackpots.

  Edwards’ craziness, however, was a lot different from that of the people who had been demonstrating in front of the hotel. His had been the kind Jared was more accustomed to, which might explain why he couldn’t shake his sense of guilt.

  They knew a lot more now than they had a few hours ago. Emory’s prints had been a match for the one on the bomb—already identified as belonging to Henry Edwards. And they now knew that the Emory persona had indeed been created a long time ago.

  Created to get McCord? Maybe not, Jared acknowledged. Maybe back then Edwards had been the one trying to avoid an indictment for murder. Or at least to avoid a court-martial.

  “He really was crazy, you know,” McCord said, sticking out his hand to Jared as he bent to kiss Robin’s cheek. When he straightened, he put his other hand over Jared’s, holding, it between his big ones. “Edwards. He really was crazy.”

  “In Nam?” Jared asked.

  “Hell, we all were a little bit crazy there. Maybe those of us who did what we did about Edwards were crazier than most. I guess for some people that will always be open to question.”

  “I still don’t understand how he did this,” Robin said.

  “We’ll probably never know for sure,” McCord said. “Obviously my shot didn’t kill him. Somehow he dragged himself out of that fire we set and hid in the jungle until we’d left.”

  “You know he’d been hit. Burned. How did he survive?”

  “I been thinking about how he could have done it, ever since they identified that print. The Yards are the only way.”

  “The yards?” Robin repeated carefully.

  “Montagnards. We worked with them as advisors. That was our primary assignment. They hated the Vietnamese, some kind of racial thing, so they worked with the Americans. Edwards had a counterpart among the Yards. The guy who was in charge. If Edwards had been able to make contact with him, they would have taken care of him, no questions asked. Then, when the war ends, they help him get out of the country. To Thailand maybe. He lies low for a few years, saves enough to get back to the States and becomes Whitt Emory.”

  “Twenty-five years ago,” Jared said.

  The backtracking the FBI had done after the shooting had revealed that much. The “Whitt Emory” ID had been born about then. He’d been running an import business with connections to Indochina. It was only later he’d gone into politics. After McCord had started his own climb to prominence. Jared wondered if he’d been planning to get McCord since then.

  “Edwards was the kind of guy who would be able to seize the opportunities for making money that the chaos at the end of the war offered,” McCord said. “And he wouldn’t care how he did it.”

  “Drugs?” Jared asked.

  “Maybe. There were fortunes to be made that way. I know a couple of folks who, after the shooting stopped, took advantage of their knowledge of the region to get rich.”

  “You never recognized him.”

  McCord shook his head, his mouth tightening reflexively. “Bald. Damn Coke-bottle glasses. Maybe some plastic surgery. Maybe he didn’t entirely escape that fire. Maybe he had plastic surgery to get his face fixed. He must have hated my guts.”

  “The fire was supposed to destroy...the evidence?”

  McCord’s angry eyes came up quickly. “I’m not proud of what I did that day,” he said, “but in the same situation, I’d do it all again, even knowing what it was gonna cost me. Only this time, I’d make damn sure that bastard was dead. We all swore that what we had done would be left there. Dead and buried. None of us were proud of it, but I swear we didn’t have a choice. It was Edwards...or the rest of us,” he added softly. Jared nodded. He didn’t know whether McCord had done the right thing. History, maybe the American people, would have to make that assessment. And he was just as glad it wouldn’t be up to him to decide whether this man deserved to be president. All Jared knew was that Robin loved McCord like a father, and if he wanted to be a part of her life, then the cop in him would have to make peace with what McCord had done thirty years ago.

  “You don’t think much of me, do you?” the senator said.

  “I don’t think any of us know how we’d react until we are put into a situation. It’s not up to me to judge what you did, Senator. And...I guess I’m glad it’s not.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “I like a man who speaks his mind. You might be good enough, after all.” McCord’s tone had lightened, and Jared let go of his doubts, at least for tonight.

  “Good enough for Robin, you mean?”

  “For Robin. For that baby. You all decided what you’re gonna do about that?”

  “Not yet,” Jared said, unable to resist a glance at Robin’s face. She met his eyes, but hers were hard. Robin had decided. She had made that clear. I can walk away from you tomorrow, but...I can’t do the other. I can’t bury you.

  “Life’s too short for whatever’s going on between you two,” McCord advised. “Maybe you have to be my age before you figure that out, but I hope not. I hope you’re both smart enough not to have to learn everything the hard way. I lost my son’s childhood. And I can’t get it back, no matter what I do.”

  Robin said nothing, her face stiff and a little set. McCord smiled at her, but she didn’t return it. Nothing had really changed, Jared acknowledged. They were still the same two people they had been when this had started.

  “Well,” the senator said. He put his hand on Robin’s cheek, caressingly, despite her lack of response. “I expect you two will figure it out. Don’t take too long. That baby needs a name. And a daddy. We could make a couple of announcements at midnight. I’m not opposed to sharing the spotlight.”

  He patted Jared on the shoulder and then ambled across the room, still glad-handing his guests. He stopped to talk to a policeman who had come into the ballroom from the foyer.

  A couple of announcements at midnight. Which would be nice, Jared admitted. Now if only he could convince Robin...

  “So what happens next?” he asked, looking down at her.

  “I’ll go back to Texas, I suppose,” Robin said. “At least for a while. Then maybe back to Washington.”

  “You looking forward to going home?”

  “I haven’t lived at the ranch in a long time. According to Uncle Jim, things have changed. I guess I’ve changed, too.”

  “What kind of changes? At the ranch, I mean.”

  “Levi’s getting married and moving to Montana. And Clint Richards is going to be running the Altamira from now on.”

  “What does it mean for you? Richards running the ranch?”

  “Just...that it won’t be the same, I suppose,” Robin said.

  “I don’t think what you’re asking of me is fair.” Despite the non sequitur, her eyes said she knew what he meant.

  “I know you don’t. But...I’m still asking it, Jared. Seeing Gus that night...”

  “I know,” he said. He did know. During the last few days he had felt some of those same fears that haunted Robin. Fear that something could happen to her or to the baby.

  Not...about Robin. Edwards had said that just before he died. Jared had assumed he was trying to tell him that he hadn’t been targeting Robin. Whatever Edwards had meant wasn’t important now, however. Jared needed to let go of what had happened this afternoon. Just push it out of his mind and think about tonight. The last night he would ever sp
end with Robin?

  “Let’s dance,” he suggested.

  They were playing a lot of oldies. A lot of sixties stuff. Probably McCord’s choice. Why not? Jared thought, walking Robin onto the floor. It was McCord’s night. Let him enjoy it. And maybe what had come to light with Edwards’ death would even reverse that drop in his approval ratings.

  They hadn’t made more than a couple of turns when the music died, replaced by the introductory screech of a microphone. Surprised, Jared glanced toward the stage. McCord was standing at the mike, hands help up, palms facing the crowd.

  “If I could have your attention, ladies and gentlemen,” the senator’s voice boomed. He backed away, laughing a little. “Sorry about that. Got overeager, I guess.”

  “What now?” Robin asked, her voice concerned.

  “Doesn’t look like bad news,” Jared said, assessing the senator’s expression. McCord put his arm around the tall man standing beside him. They were both smiling.

  “I have the honor and the privilege of introducing you all to an old friend of mine. This is Carl Bolton, who just flew in from his home in Hong Kong. And he’s got a story to tell you. You press boys be sure you get this down. I want you to tell people what Carl Bolton, who was with me in Vietnam, has to say. Which is just exactly what I been telling you all along.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Carl Bolton’s story had been mesmerizing, Jared admitted. And as he told it, there had been no sound in the ballroom. Hearing about the incident from someone besides McCord had made a difference. At least for him. It would almost certainly make a difference with the press. And with the public, as well.

  Bolton didn’t stint in his praise of James McCord, both for getting them out of that jungle alive and for getting them out of the situation Edwards had put the team in. On the heels of the revelation earlier tonight about Edwards’ long masquerade as Whitt Emory, Bolton’s testimony was powerful. Maybe even compelling enough for that change in momentum McCord had been hoping for.