by Ray Daniel
“Robin didn’t look as good as you in a crop top.”
“So, you get a modern, super-sexy female Robin.”
I flashed back to yesterday, when I had a guy trying to arrest me. “No.”
“No?”
“No. As much as I would like to have my own modern, super-sexy female Robin, I’m not going to have you following me around.”
“Why?”
“Did you see how many death threats I got?”
“Yes. But they aren’t serious.”
“That CapnMerica guy assaulted me in the street yesterday. That’s pretty serious.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Idiots can still be dangerous.”
“I’m helping you and that’s final.”
This had to be nipped in the bud. I stood.
“Where are you going?” asked E.
“I need to get home.”
“You’re just dumping me? Last night was a one-night stand?”
I squatted in front of E. “It doesn’t have to be. I like you.” I leaned in and gave E a kiss, which she accepted in tight-lipped annoyance. “But don’t forget, you still haven’t told me your name, so this does kind of feel like a one-night stand.”
I gathered my Danish and coffee. Waste not, want not.
E said, “Let me do something to help you.”
I needed to give her something safe, something harmless. I pulled out my phone. It was dead. I told E my phone number.
“You’re online more than me. Could you keep an eye on the mob for me? If it looks like something dangerous is brewing, give me a call.”
“Like an early-warning system.”
“Exactly.”
E beamed at me. Stood. Pulled me in close for a longer and softer kiss.
“Does kissing me break some sort of hero-sidekick HR policy?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” said E. “It’s just giving the people what they want.”
Twenty-Nine
I headed out to the sidewalk. Gave E a good-bye wave.
“Call me if you see something,” I said.
“Yessir, Mr. Tucker, sir.”
“Should it be Captain Tucker now that I have a sidekick?”
“Yes, but this can be your secret identity.”
I grinned a goofy grin, turned, and headed down Shawmut Street toward home, taking a right on Waltham. I finished my Danish, drained my coffee, threw the remains in someone’s forgotten trash can. It promised to be an amazingly warm day. The sun shone through leafless trees, baking me as I walked. Warm sunshine was something I hadn’t felt since the fall.
The brick of the houses on the narrow street merged with the brick in the sidewalk, delivering the red palette that keeps residents of the South End sane during the long, gray winter months. I kicked at a small pile of snow clinging to a curbstone. “Die, snow, die!” Pulled out my phone to tweet the same, realized that my phone had not magically recharged in my pocket, and put it back. It was just as well. The Twitter app had become more of a portal to hell than a social-media tool.
A black car containing two guys in suits rolled down Waltham toward me and stopped. Hook Nose stepped out.
“Mr. Tucker,” he called.
I kept a parked car between us.
“Um—who?” I said.
“We need you to get in the car, sir.”
“Right,” I said, and bolted up Waltham Street.
“Hey! Come back!”
“I don’t do kidnapping!” I shouted over my shoulder.
Waltham Street was one-way in the wrong direction for the car to chase me. Hook Nose had the choice of chasing me on foot, or riding the car around the block to chase me. They adopted both strategies. Hook Nose started running. His partner drove the car.
I ran down Waltham in my sneakers. The guy chasing me wore a suit, so I suspected he had a matching belt and shoes. Those are great for impressing people, but not so good for running.
“Stop! That’s an order! Stop!” he called from behind me.
Here is a crime-fighting tip from Captain Tucker: When someone chasing you yells “Stop!” don’t stop.
His words and the slapping of his shoes on the uneven bricks receded behind me. Amazingly, I found myself winning a physical contest. I was giddy with the power of my own body, and there was no way I was giving that up.
I reached the end of Waltham and looked down Tremont to see that friggin’ black car turning the corner from Milford. How the hell did that happen? Once a car gets stuck in the South End Amazing One-Way Maze, it almost never gets out.
I ran across Tremont, looking over my shoulder to see Hook Nose standing in the street, hands on knees, gasping for breath and waving for the black car to pick him up. I turned up Clarendon, running past another Do Not Enter sign that would keep the black car far behind.
I slowed to a jog. I wanted to be home more than anything. Then I could hole up and call for help, but I needed to get off the road. I pulled out my phone to check Uber or Zipcar. Still dead. Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! All those Luddites who ask, “What are you going to do if your phone dies?” would be laughing themselves silly.
I put my brain into spatial-relations mode, twisting and turning the map of the South End in my head, trying to remember the one-way streets and the way it all connected together. As I crossed Warren Street, I looked down to Dartmouth to see if the black car had figured things out. Didn’t see it. It either had missed its chance to turn or had done the smart thing and continued down Dartmouth to my house. I didn’t want to be on a two-way street, so I hustled past Warren, but now the roads worked against me. All the one-way roads allowed the car to get from Dartmouth to Clarendon. It was time to get off the street.
The South End is heaven for those of us who like food created in unique and quirky places. One of these places appeared in front of me, The Buttery. I entered, ordered a cup of coffee, and asked if I could use a charger.
“Sure!” said the kid behind the counter. He wore a nose ring and a black Red Sox cap. He gave me my coffee, produced an iPhone connector. “Here you go.”
I pulled out my phone with its non-Apple connector. “Got a Droid charger?”
“We don’t serve their kind here.”
“Okay then, just the coffee—and a scone.” I can never give up a chance at a scone.
“You got it.” He put the scone in a bag and rang me up. “What can I get you gentlemen?” he said over my shoulder.
“We’re good,” a man said. “We got what we came for.”
I turned. Hook Nose stood behind me with a stocky black guy, the one who had been driving the car.
Hook Nose said, “Mr. Tucker, would you come with us?”
“No,” I said.
“What?”
“No. I’m not going with you. Do I look like an idiot?”
They stared at me.
“The answer is no. No, I do not look like an idiot.” I pointed at the kid behind the counter. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Um …”
“C’mon, what’s your name?”
“Sanjay,” said the white kid with red hair.
“Seriously? Did you just make up a name?”
The kid looked at his shoes. “No.”
“You just made up a name.”
The black guy touched my elbow, to guide me away.
I cocked my cup of coffee at him. “Don’t touch me.”
He pulled his hands back, held them up in a wasn’t-me-ref gesture.
I said, “Sanjay, go dial 911.”
Hook Nose said, “No, wait a second—Sanjay. There’s no need.”
“Looks like a big need to me,” I said.
“We were sent to find you and take you to a meeting with our boss,” said the other guy.
“Yeah? Who’s you
r boss?”
“Kamela Jones.”
“Never heard of her.”
“You hear of Senator Endicott?”
“Of course I have.”
“Kamela Jones is his chief of staff.”
“And you are?”
“Other staff.”
“I’ll tell you what, ‘other staff,’ let’s do this. You invite me to a meeting with Kamela Jones, and I go to the office where the meeting is being held at a certain time of day, and then we have a meeting, and then I leave. You think that would work?”
“We were going to do that, but nobody could find you,” said the driver.
“You didn’t answer your phone,” said Hook Nose.
I waggled the dead phone at them. “Long night.”
We set a time. At one o’clock I’d find out how I could be of service to a US senator.
Thirty
For the most part, Boston dodged the stained-concrete bullet that was 1960s brutalist architecture. But, we took one straight to the chest when it came to Government Center. The broad brick plain, adorned with the imposing inverted pyramid that is City Hall, shows just how badly things could have gone.
The 1960s time warp extends to the John F. Kennedy Federal Building that sits just off of City Hall Plaza. The building looks like three eight-track tapes haphazardly thrown onto a shelf, two vertical, one on its side. Jael and I entered the base of the eight-tracks, walking past a statue named Thermopylae that looked as if the cast of the movie 300 had been the victims of a transporter accident on the Enterprise.
Hook Nose met us in the lobby. Stuck out his hand.
“Pat Turner,” he said. He looked at Jael. “Who is this little lady?”
“My bodyguard,” I said.
Pat laughed.
I didn’t laugh. “Her name is Jael.”
Pat shook her hand and we went through the metal detectors. Jael’s handbag went through the X-ray machine without incident. I cocked an eyebrow at her.
“I planned ahead,” she said.
“How did you plan ahead?” asked Pat.
“I left my handgun at home.”
Pat laughed again, and again, he laughed alone.
“Jesus,” Pat said to himself, pushing the elevator button. The rest of the ride was an exercise in awkward silence. We watched the elevator numbers change. The door opened and Pat led us to a conference room.
Mel Hunter sat in the room alongside a trim black woman with short gray hair wearing a black suit and sporting a gold Apple Watch. They stood as we entered.
“Kamela Jones,” she said sticking out her hand. “You know Special Agent Hunter. I’m hoping you can help us.”
“You might have found me more receptive if you hadn’t sent Hook … um … Pat and his friend to chase me through the South End.”
Kamela looked at Pat. “You chased him?”
“He ran.”
“What are you, a beagle?”
“You said it was important.”
Kamela shook her head and waved a hand in dismissal. Pat retreated, leaving the four of us in the room.
“I apologize,” said Kamela.
“You’re not the one that chased me.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Why am I here?”
“You’re here because Mel said that you could be trusted to be discreet, and because you’re somewhat involved in this situation.”
I looked at Hunter. “She gets to call you Mel?”
“She works for a senator,” said Hunter.
I asked Kamela, “What is this situation that I’m somewhat involved in?”
“Can you be trusted to be discreet?” Kamela looked me straight in the eyes.
“Sure,” I said. “I can be trusted absolutely if you don’t tell me anything and let me go about my business. Special Agent Hunter should be able to handle whatever this is.”
“Are you saying you won’t help?”
“I’m saying that I have no idea what’s going on.”
“Let’s sit.”
We arranged ourselves around the conference table: Jael and me on one side, Hunter on the other, Kamela at the head, iPad poised for note-taking. Kamela stared at me, tapping her Apple Pencil on the table. I relaxed and admired the handsome woman in her black suit and skirt. Intelligence worked behind her eyes as she looked from me to Jael.
“You are Jael?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jael said.
“Mel said that you could also be trusted.”
Jael said nothing. Waited.
“This is a hell of a thing,” said Kamela, face in her hands.
“What is this thing, exactly?” I asked.
“I screen all of Senator Endicott’s e-mail,” said Kamela.
“He must get millions of e-mails.”
“I mean his private e-mails.”
“Ah.”
“Recently the senator received an e-mail instructing him how to vote on an upcoming bill.”
“Instructing?”
“They had attached a video to the e-mail,” said Hunter.
“Aha.”
“Exactly,” said Kamela.
“Video of some hot young woman and the senator?”
“What?” Kamela radiated disgust. “No!”
“I just presumed.”
“You presumed wrong.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s ageist.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And sexist.”
“Sexist? How can it be sexist?”
“You just assume that young women are throwing themselves at the senator.”
“You mean it was a guy?”
“No! It was not a guy.”
“Sorry.”
“I find you insensitive.”
“I’ll cop to insensitive.”
Jael offered, “And childish.”
“And childish.”
“And disgusting,” said Kamela.
“Okay,” I said. “But not sexist.”
Hunter asked, “Why are you being a jerk?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Just got a little peeved that Kamela sent goons—”
“Pat and Michael,” said Kamela.
“Pat and Michael to chase me down to help the senator hush up a problem with keeping it in his pants.”
“It’s not so simple. The video—”
The conference-room door opened. A gray-haired man poked his head in: Senator Endicott in the flesh. I felt the momentary disorientation of having a face I’d only seen on TV and in the newspapers come to life before me. Endicott entered the room. Shook our hands. Sat down.
“Did you tell him?” he asked Kamela.
“We were just discussing it,” said Kamela. “I’m trying to decide if he is the right man for the job.”
“Special Agent Hunter spoke highly of him.”
I gave Hunter a look. You spoke highly of me?
She rolled her eyes.
Kamela said, “Yes, Agent Hunter spoke highly of his skills.”
“And of his discretion.”
“Yes.”
Endicott turned to me. “What did you think of the video?”
“I haven’t seen the video,” I said.
Endicott turned to Kamela. “What’s up?”
“I was hoping not to have to show it,” said Kamela.
“How is he supposed to know he’s got the right video?” asked Endicott.
“It would be the only video with you in it.”
“Still, he needs to know the stakes.”
I interrupted. “Senator, Kamela tells me that you were instructed to make a certain vote?”
“Yes,” said Endicott. “Regarding technology sales to China.
I’ve been told to support China.”
“Or else …”
“Dammit, Kamela, show him the video. I’m going to get some coffee.” He stood and left the room.
“Is he embarrassed?” I asked.
Kamela pursed her lips, tapped a few times on her iPad, and positioned the screen so Jael and I could see it.
The video shook as someone propped what was probably a smartphone into place, then settled onto an ornate bed featuring a geometric metal headboard. A woman lay on the bed wearing a simple blue nightgown and fuzzy handcuffs. The handcuffs, one on each wrist, fastened her wrists to the headboard.
The woman said, “Landon, you’re sure nobody will see this?”
Landon Endicott entered the frame wearing plaid boxers. “Nobody but me.”
“Why do you want it?”
Endicott climbed into the bed and kissed the woman on the neck. “I get lonely in Washington.”
“Why can’t you just get porn off the Internet?”
“Because those women aren’t as beautiful as you.”
The woman smiled, tugged at her wrists. “I seem to be stuck here. There’s nothing I can do to stop you, senator.”
“Then it seems you’re in luck, my dear.”
The woman laughed. Endicott ran a hand up her thigh, sliding the nightgown higher.
“Wait. Before I forget,” said the woman. “The man from the sprinkler company called. They need to turn on the system on the Cape house. Somebody has to let them in.”
Endicott rolled away, reached for a pen, and made a note on a note pad. “Got it,” he said, then rolled back to the woman and resumed his kissing.
I had seen enough. “Okay, I get it,” I said. “You can turn it off.”
Kamela stopped the video. “I’ve never made it past that point myself.”
The door opened and Endicott stepped back into the room with a coffee. Sat. “So you’ve seen it?” he asked.
“Some of it,” I said. “It’s a movie of you and your wife.”
“Yes,” said Endicott. “Betty.”
“Embarrassing.”
“Sure.”
“How are you going to vote?”
“I’m not going to let this video change my vote.”
“I see.”
“I refuse to let those bastards win.”
“No, but the video—”
“The video shows that my wife, Betty, and I have a fun and active sex life after forty years of marriage—and that my wife is still beautiful. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”