“And if you get the interview?”
“That would take a bit longer, not sure how long. Of course, this person may not talk to me at all. Succeed or fail, I hope to be back in an hour or two.”
It was always much easier to get forgiveness than it was to receive advance permission.
“You hope?” Jane said. “Does he have a shotgun?”
“I didn’t say this person was a ‘he.’ The person might have a shotgun but I assess the likelihood of the individual using it on me to be very small.”
“Why can’t you tell me where you’re going?”
“Because it’s possible I might do things that could be seen as not exactly legal. I don’t want to harm you.”
“But you’re above the law, right?”
“No, but in some situations I’m used to being the law. Look, if you can’t handle this, I won’t go. Seriously. Your call.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
She thought a long time and then hugged me hard and kissed me.
“You’re a strange man, F.X. Shepherd, but I love you. Okay, go. I think maybe I can stand this. I don’t feel like being alone, so I’m going to get Skippy and bring him home. When you get home, we’ll both be here, waiting for you.”
84
The flight was exhilarating, passing over the Manhattan skyline lights at night, the City That Never Sleeps. The landing was surprisingly gentle. Top of the world. My destination was breathtaking, illuminated by Malibu mood lighting hidden in the Japanese landscaping. I took the plastic bag with the gray tube out of my backpack, removed the weapon and kept it ready. I walked past the burbling turquoise pool, the chaise lounges and built-in barbecue grill, and reached, with my gun-gloved hand, toward the brass handle of the closed glass patio door, the second hurdle. If you lived in a guarded, inaccessible luxury penthouse two hundred and fifty feet in the sky above Park Avenue, would you bother locking your patio door? I hoped it had never occurred to him. I hoped he was one of the few people living in Manhattan who didn’t have to worry about that. Fortunately, it was unlocked and I stepped inside.
There it was.
In the huge, high-ceilinged living room, with cream-colored carpeting and furniture, on the white wall above a cream couch, was a huge, framed grass-green flag under glass. The “Don’t Tread On Me” symbol of the American rebels. I turned on a few more lights to get a better view. Looking closer, you could see that around the bottom edge it had faded to a yellowish green over the past two hundred and fifty years or so. When I had caught a glimpse of it on Sparky’s drone footage of the penthouses at 740 Park Avenue, I had mistakenly thought it was one of those one-color paintings that sell for millions to gullible rich folk. It was actually one of the earliest versions of our flag, Old Glory. It was awe-inspiring. Brave men fought and died under that banner for the divine right not to pay taxes.
I was pretty confident that any scientific comparison tests would prove this was the flag from which the Tea Party Animal cut his musket ball wadding. The problem was the frame covered up the bottom of the flag.
I flipped the trigger assembly open on the octagonal tube. The red diode lit up. Weapon hot. I gently placed the live weapon on the glass coffee table in front of the couch, at the ready. I stood on the couch, no doubt leaving footprints. The black picture frame was custom brushed aluminum, the kind that fits together at the four corners with grooves and interlocking L-shaped metal strips. I looked around and spotted a pile of circular stone coasters on the table. I borrowed two, placed one flat on the glass in the lower left corner. I placed the second disc above it and started gently whacking the lower one with the upper. Nothing. I hit harder—which was a bit louder but did the trick. The bottom horizontal frame disconnected. I waited and listened, judging my distance to the weapon. I thought I faintly heard a television somewhere else inside the apartment. No alarm sounding, no dog barking, no shots. I carefully did the same thing to the right side, removed the bottom frame piece and quietly placed it, along with the coasters, on the couch.
Bingo.
The revealed bottom margin of the flag was badly yellowed and almost half of it had a longitudinal section missing, which was hidden by the framing. Siri was right. The cut looked fresh. This was the guy. He owned the flag and the hotel, secretly. Mr. Big, mastermind of the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Now what?
I came here to perforate the bastard with his own techno-musket but that would mean pulling a trigger, or at least pushing a button. I really didn’t want to do that. It would violate my oath. Clearly my imagination, or fate, was required.
He snuck up on me so silently, he was on the couch before I noticed. I jumped and almost yelled out in surprise. He was staring coolly at me.
A large, long-haired, fluffy white cat with yellow eyes.
“Goddamn, you scared the shit out of me,” I whispered to him.
He cocked his curious head at me. I was not expecting a watch-cat. He fluttered down onto the cushions, hopped onto the glass coffee table and began sniffing the loaded weapon. I scooped it up and backed away gingerly, before the pussycat could do anything loud or fatal. I exhaled and realized I had been holding my breath.
“Anything I can help you with, Shepherd?”
This time, startled again, I almost fired the damn weapon. I turned and there he was, in checkered red and green golf pants and green polo shirt, smiling at me like a warlord who knew I could never touch him.
My new friend, my parent’s hero—liberal billionaire Walter Cantor.
85
“Actually, yes you can help me,” I told Walter, vaguely pointing the mini-musket at him.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the tube. “Isn’t that one of the gun gadgets I saw in your paper?”
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “You know it is. Mind if I sit down for a sec?” I nodded at one of the two facing white armchairs.
“Please,” he said, sitting opposite me and confidently crossing his thin legs.
His white cat took a seat on the couch and glared at me.
“How the hell did you get in here?”
“Magic. I’ll show you later. Right now I’d like to talk about your big green flag, Walter.”
“Incredible, isn’t it? Flown at the Battle of Long Island in Brooklyn Heights, a decoy action that allowed Washington and the Continental Army to escape capture by the British— and later win the war. Touched by men who gave their lives for this great country.”
“And by the man who is trying to destroy it.”
“You lost me there, Shepherd.”
“You’re going to play dumb? Really? Okay. You and your New Minutemen cut a strip off the edge of your nifty souvenir here to use as silk wadding for the silver musket balls that killed Percy Chesterfield and the others.”
“I see. Your theory is that my flag was used by these killers but that’s impossible, Shepherd. It’s been hanging right there for years. Hermetically sealed in nitrogen—which you have let escape. I’m very angry about that, not to mention your mysterious break-in.”
“You don’t look angry at all, Walter.”
“I don’t?”
“No. You look… I don’t know… pleased. You finally get to brag about how you engineered this whole plot. It must have taken years and millions of bucks but the downside was you could never take credit for it.”
“What plot? The murders? Sorry to disappoint, but there is no proof I’m involved.”
“When the police and feds use their expensive machines to compare your flag to the silk used in the shootings, they’ll have a match, not to mention other evidence against you.”
“Firstly, I assume you caused this damage yourself, this evening. You are aware, I hope, that there are several other flags like this in existence, including one or two that have gone missing? Tests of silk wadding, flags, silver musket balls or silver Flowing Hair dollars will prove nothing I have to worry about. Anything else? I’m flying to the Virgin Islands in
the morning.”
“You own the Knickerbocker Convention Center. You can deny it all you like, but the proof is there—buried under a mountain of paper and shell corporations.”
“Did you bring a copy of this proof with you?”
“No. A witness. Several, actually. Some of whom were just arrested. We know about your access to the staff, the soundproof rooms, the smoke detectors, everything.”
The crow’s feet wrinkles around his blue eyes crinkled quizzically but his game face didn’t crack.
“I know that’s not possible, Shepherd. It’s late. Please don’t waste my time with bluffing. I know I have done nothing wrong.”
“Not doing anything wrong is sometimes not the same thing as not breaking the law.”
“In terms of logic, yes, you could make that argument. Isn’t that the position of these New Minutemen, that they didn’t commit murder but executed traitors?”
“Yes, that is your thinking, I assume.”
“You also seem to be familiar with that line of thought—the ends justify the means.”
“I am. So are you.”
“So you say. I was happy to hear that the police locked up that whole group of right-wing zealots. I wondered if you had a hand in the arrests?”
“I did. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, son—you’ve done the country a service.”
“Like you?”
“I was also happy to see those New Minutemen gunmen brought to justice. Terrible way to die but they were traitors. You did that also?”
“Me? They threatened a U.S. Navy destroyer and then they attacked it. Didn’t you see that story of mine? It was also on TV.”
“I did, yes,” he laughed. “But it struck me as incredibly foolhardy to warn a warship in advance that you were going to attack and then do so. Suicidal, in fact.”
“That’s the thing with zealots, Walter. They go too far.”
“Sometimes with a little help, eh, Shepherd?”
“I don’t think any of us here, including your cat, will be admitting any crimes this evening.”
“Exactly,” he concluded, with a palms-up, we’re-done gesture. He shot a bored glance at his gold Rolex.
“Your problem, Walter, is you’re a zealot, but you’re a sentimental zealot.”
“I’m a registered Democrat. But I am sentimental about my grandchildren.”
“The zealot part is easy, Walter. You spent the last few years plotting to exploit the rift between Republicans and the Looney Tune Don’t-Tread-On-Me Tea Baggers in a way that would ensure a Democratic victory, shatter their party for a generation and end any chance of a Republican president for decades.”
“Sounds like a good thing to me.”
“I’m sure it does sound like a good thing to you, Walter.”
“My guess is you agree with me.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Of course it does, my boy. You might want to join the winning side.”
“No thanks. I was on the winning side for the past decade,” I told him. “The problem was we had to keep winning every day. So, what did it for you, Walter? Gerrymandering? Union-busting? Denying black people and others the vote? Candidates like Miranda Dodge coming too close to the Oval Office and the nuclear button?”
“Those are all terrible things,” Walter agreed. “You know, Wall Street has been very good to me but capitalism is stronger than democracy and has actually defeated it. Greed has infected our country and is metastasizing. Our liberty has been bought and sold. They are currently reversing a generation of civil rights progress and rigging elections in advance to throw the result to someone with fewer votes. I can’t pretend I’m not glad someone took them on. But it has nothing to do with me and it’s past my bedtime.”
86
It was not quite Walter’s bedtime yet.
“The sentimental part, Walter, is that you allowed me to live,” I told him. “Thank you, by the way.”
“I allowed you to live?”
“Yeah, that’s why you’re so amused by me being here. You like me, admit it.”
“Well, Shepherd, I did—until you burglarized my penthouse and damaged my priceless historical artifact.”
“That’s why you ordered the New Minutemen not to kill me—just to scare the shit out of me, to warn me off. I don’t even think you told them to shoot my dog. That was only because he attacked one of them.”
“You think I gave orders to those gunmen?” he asked, smiling broadly now.
“Sure,” I smiled back. “Not directly, of course. Insulated. I’m sure the blue blood hotel shooters and the New Minutemen all thought they were being funded and directed by right-wing militia central and maybe they were—but it was just little old Liberal you, Walter, and your mountains of money.”
“You know, Shepherd, listening to you spin your conspiracy theory, it occurs to me that you, and those around you, might still be in great danger.”
Neither of us was still smiling.
“You make a good point,” he continued. “If there is big money and other fanatics behind what you’ve uncovered, they might be coming after you very soon—especially if they hear that you have proof against them. You wouldn’t want to lose your parents or your lovely girlfriend Jane. Please be very, very careful. Your opponent may not be the kind of man to make the same mistake twice.”
It had been a while since I had been threatened with death so politely.
“Thanks, Walter. And thanks for making this easier. Did you say you were flying to the Virgin Islands in the morning?”
“Yes, I have a place there.”
“Don’t be so modest, Walter. I read you have your own island.”
“Correct. As the license plates there say, it’s ‘The American Paradise.’ It’s very relaxing.”
“Yes, I’m sure paradise is very relaxing.”
“I’m afraid I should really call the police now,” Walter announced, starting to rise.
I pointed the weapon at him and waved him back down into his seat.
“Are you threatening me, son?”
“Not if you sit down.”
He sat down. I used my phone to send a text and to look up a GPS heading. I plugged it into a program that slaved to two nearby remotes. I had to cancel and override several error warnings before I could re-program the course, heading and altitude.
“Do you understand what I told you, about the danger you face?”
“Yeah, got it, Walter. Thanks, I’m taking care of that right now.”
“On your phone?”
“Sort of.”
“You kids and your gadgets. Meanwhile, the real world passes you by.”
“I’m arranging to end any threat from my opponent first, because I don’t like it when people play God and fuck with my country. Or tread on me or my family. Or my dog,” I told him.
“So you’re risking your life and those of your loved ones, for macho revenge?”
“No. Please understand me, Walter. I had a job, a responsibility. I promised my client, Percy Chesterfield, that I would keep him safe. I failed. My job then changed—find the fucks who did it and take them down. Even the rich fucks too powerful to get caught. It’s not really about rich people, left or right, buying the government. It’s about We The People. Not Me The People.”
“So it’s macho pride.”
“No, professional ethics—and good business. If I let you bump off my customers and get away with it, how will I ever make a living as a private detective in this town? Tonight is about cutting off the head of the snake. That way, nobody else gets bitten.”
“If you’re going to scotch a snake, make sure you have the right snake,” he warned.
“Oh, I have the right snake—you.”
“Shepherd,” Walter said, in a condescending tone, “what have we been talking about all this time? You have no proof, son.”
“First, I don’t always operate on a law enforcement model. I sometimes function in intel
ligence mode. If it looks like a snake, moves like a snake, hisses like a snake, bites like a snake—it’s a snake. Second, I do have evidence.”
“Other than the flag?”
“Yeah. You talk too much. You said I should be worried about the safety of my loved ones, including Jane. You’ve never met Jane and I never mentioned her. How did you know her name, Walter?”
“I… I’m not sure. Did I use her name? Maybe your parents told me. Yes, of course, that’s it.”
“Bullshit. You also said the cops wouldn’t find anything if they tested the flag, the silver musket balls or the Flowing Hair dollars. I never mentioned silver dollars in print or to you, much less Flowing Hair dollars specifically. How did you know the balls were melted coins, Walter? Oh, snap!”
Walter seemed confused about the colloquial meaning of the word snap but he knew when he had fucked up.
“I never said that!” Walter tried. “Wait! You told me about the first silver coins being melted down—you told me, down in the lobby, remember?”
“No. Actually, I told you the musket balls were silver and were a police holdback—but I never told you that Flowing Hair dollars were melted down to make the musket balls. You just know that, Walter. It was your idea. See, that’s the thing. These Tea Party nuts profess to revere our system but break all the rules. You really believe in America and democracy, Walter. That’s why you used sacred coins, a historic flag and young people whose ancestors were Founding Fathers. These weren’t mass murders or political assassinations to you. This was almost a religious sacrifice, a sacred purgation of evil for a higher cause.”
He stared at me, stunned for a moment—like I had read his mind—before he snapped out of it.
“You can’t prove that! Do you have that alleged statement on a recording device?”
“No. You got me there, old buddy. I can’t prove in court that you spilled the beans—or, the coins. I guess you win again. I should be moving on. Do you still want to know how I arrived atop your skyscraper building this evening?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Okay, Walter, I’ll show you. Out on the patio. But then I really have to go.”
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