The Distance Beacons

by Richard Bowker

  I stood up and took out the eight dollars. "I guess my performance has not been satisfactory," I said, with an air of injured innocence. "In that case I have no choice but to refund your—"

  "Sit down," Bolton thundered.

  I reluctantly did as I was told.

  "Now tell us everything that happened to you. Let's see if we can get anywhere in figuring this out."

  I summarized for them what I thought was relevant about my day on the case.

  "So there's a possibility that the Church of the New Beginning is behind this," Bolton said.

  "It's conceivable," I replied. "I didn't really think so at the time I talked to Flynn Dobler, but—"

  "But maybe you asked the wrong questions," Cowens said. "I'll have my people look into Dobler."

  "I don't want any indiscriminate roundups of suspects, Bob," Bolton warned. "Just because they dress funny and don't like us doesn't mean we can arrest them. That's just the kind of publicity the president doesn't want."

  "My duty is to keep her alive, not to worry about publicity," Cowens muttered.

  "Your duty is to obey lawfully appointed civilian authorities," Bolton responded.

  There was a brief silence. The rebuke hung in the air like a thundercloud. I decided to change the subject. "I wonder if any progress has been made on the government angle," I said.

  Both men looked at me. "What government angle?" Cowens demanded.

  "The file on TSAR. Did you find out who started it?"

  Cowens gave me his usual frigid stare. "That has not yet been determined."

  "Well, it could be important," I said. "When I was in your records department the other day, I noticed that the TSAR file wasn't dog-eared and faded like all the others. That suggests to me that it was put in there very recently."

  "Yes? So what?"

  "If no one 'fesses up to starting the file, that means we're not talking about a case of faulty memory. Someone may be lying because he started the file to divert attention from the real conspirators—but he just didn't do a very good job of it. And that would explain why I got beaten up: he saw me here and figured out what I was up to, and he decided he had to make his point again."

  "But who are these 'real' conspirators?" Bolton asked. "Why bother with this charade?"

  "Well, it's my understanding that a lot of people in the government are opposed to the referendum. If these threats get the president to cancel it and they can blame the opposition, I guess that would make them very happy."

  Bolton shook his head. "I don't buy it. They beat up one of our soldiers. No one in the government would do that." He didn't sound too sure of himself, though.

  "The stakes are pretty high," I pointed out.

  "I wonder why you're so insistent on suggesting that someone in the government is to blame," Cowens said.

  "I'm not insisting on anything. You can believe me if you want. I don't care." This was as bad as I had expected.

  "Well, Bob, I think you should continue to look into who started that file on TSAR," Bolton said. "And you, Sands, should assist in the president's protection when she arrives tomorrow."

  "Now wait a minute, Frank," Cowens said. "I don't want this person underfoot. It's going to be hard enough as it stands protecting her, with all the limitations she's put on us."

  "He won't be underfoot if you utilize him properly," Bolton responded. "She's put limits on you. All right, I understand that. So why not take advantage of what's available to you? Sands here knows the locals. He might recognize one of the men who beat him up, or some radical who might be associated with TSAR. He could be invaluable to us. And because he's from around here, the president won't mind our using him. She'll welcome it, in fact. A fine example of federal-local cooperation. That's what the future is all about."

  Cowens looked unconvinced. In fact, he looked very unhappy. I hoped he would put up more of a battle. But he didn't. "All right," he said, a soldier grudgingly obeying orders.

  "Fine. You two can take care of the details, then. Thanks for coming in, Sands." Bolton picked up some papers and pretended to be busy. He was good at that. Cowens and I were dismissed.

  We walked out of his office. My body was still sore; I noticed that I wasn't walking much better than the old general. "I don't want to work for you any more than you want me working for you," I said.

  His watery blue eyes gazed at me with distaste. "But you are working for me nevertheless," he said. "And you'll obey orders. Report to Major Fenneman at 0:10:100. And don't make any mistakes. Understood?"

  I stared back at him. "Uh-huh," I said.

  The elevator came, and we didn't say anything more to each other.

  * * *

  At home, no one seemed surprised that I was back on the case. Stretch was excited that I was still involved in the great mission of protecting the president.

  After supper, I studied a photograph of President Kramer in the newspaper. I realized that I hadn't really looked at her before. For all that she was supposed to represent the new era, she certainly looked like someone from the old days, with her makeup and jewelry and her professional hairdo. "She's kind of attractive," I said.

  That was probably not a smart thing to say, I understood immediately. "She's ancient," Gwen responded.

  "She's not even forty," Stretch said defensively.

  "That's ancient."

  "Not if you have good medical care."

  "Why does she get good medical care and the rest of us get nothing?"

  "She's the president. She's important."

  "Oh, that's right. I forgot."

  Stretch looked uncertain. He knew that Gwen was often critical of the government, but he hadn't encountered quite this attitude before. He decided to change the subject. "Do you think you'll meet her?" he asked me.

  "Absolutely not," I said, having smartened up. "No chance whatsoever."

  "Oh, I bet you will. She's eager to meet locals."

  "Not me, though. I'm nobody. Cowens isn't going to let me anywhere near the president."

  "You can never tell," Stretch said. "President Kramer doesn't take orders from Cowens, or anybody. She's her own woman. She's not married, you know."

  Swell. "Well, if I meet her, all I'll do is tell her she should have an interview with Gwen."

  "I think that would be a very good idea," Gwen agreed.

  Stretch seemed puzzled by the whole conversation, but luckily he had a meeting to go to, so he didn't have to continue it. Gwen and I remained behind. She played the piano while I listened and worried.

  I have mentioned one problem I have had with my first case: that it was bogus, that without the help of my friends it would scarcely have existed. Here is another problem: I was unfaithful to Gwen in the course of it. This seemed like a good idea at the time. I was a private eye, after all, and that was what private eyes did. Besides, I was in a foreign land, and I was pretty sure I was never going to return to Gwen and the rest of my friends in Boston.

  But here I was, back in Boston, and I had to face the consequences of my actions. I had never exactly admitted my indiscretion—but Gwen had never exactly asked me flat-out, so I had never exactly lied. Gwen knew, though. I was certain of that.

  I would have hoped she'd take such things in stride, knowing me, knowing my dreams. But that, perhaps, was just another one of my dreams: the private eye's girlfriend who understands all, who forgives all. Perhaps Gwen did forgive all, but that didn't seem to keep her from being jealous when she encountered another woman in another case. Even if that woman was the president of the United States. It seemed a little silly to me, but I was not the one to judge her.

  "I don't want any part of this," I said as we went upstairs together.

  "I don't want any part of living after a nuclear war," she responded. "But that doesn't change reality."

  "What do you want me to do?" I asked her.

  "I want you to hold me," she said. "I want you to make the world disappear."

  "Will you take one out of
two?"

  She stopped and gazed at me as we entered our bedroom. "I'll take whatever you give me, Walter."

  We got into bed then, and I held her until she fell asleep. Then I wandered upstairs to read and ponder and await the dawn.

  Chapter 9

  In the morning I walked back to Government Center. The sky was overcast after a week of sunshine. The red white and blue bunting looked a little bedraggled, the "See Your President Speak Thursday" posters looked a little pathetic. Who would bother obeying such a command in such lousy weather?

  A guard at the entrance to the JFK Federal Building was dubious about my appointment with Major Fenneman, but a phone call confirmed how important I was. I was escorted to some sort of command center, where I sat and waited while soldiers rushed in and out and phones rang and people shouted orders at one another. It was almost noon before I was finally summoned.

  I entered a small, cramped, windowless office dominated by a beefy soldier with short gray hair and a Cowens-like cold stare. He looked me over for a moment before he spoke. I had a feeling that, like his boss, he didn't approve of what he saw. "You're the guy the governor stuck us with, right?" he asked.

  "Uh-huh." I knew by now that this was not an officer's favorite response, but I couldn't seem to help myself.

  His small eyes seemed to get even smaller. "This is no time for games," he warned me. It wasn't exactly clear to me what he was referring to.

  "Look," I said. "I've been hired to help you guys. Just tell me how you want me to help."

  "I want you to stay out of the way," Fenneman said. He unlocked a drawer, took out a yellow clip-on badge, and tossed it to me. "Wear this," he said. "Hitch a ride to Logan with one of the escort cars. They're leaving about now. Make sure Governor Bolton sees you. That's all you do. Clear?"

  "What if I notice something suspicious? Who do I talk to?"

  "Talk to one of your reporter friends. Just don't bother my people while they're trying to do their job."

  Cowens had obviously told Fenneman I had leaked the story about TSAR to the Globe. And that didn't endear me to him. I put on the badge and stood up. "I'll do my best," I promised the major.

  Fenneman ignored me.

  I walked back to the command center and found out from a helpful secretary where the escort cars were. I followed his directions to the garage, where my yellow badge got me a seat in a comfortable old full-size Chevrolet next to a couple of security people, who decided after a brief exchange that I was not worth talking to. We left the garage before very long, and I stared out the windows at the drizzly cityscape as the driver made his way to the airport.

  Logan Airport is another one of those places that hit you over the head with the contrast between the old days and the new. Where once, I have heard, there were so many flights that people worried about mid-air collisions and all-day traffic jams and no parking spaces, now there were empty runways and deserted terminals and crumbling garages, with just the occasional flight to keep the place's pulse beating. For many people, that feeble pulse was the only symbol of hope they could find. There was a world beyond this dismal one they inhabited, and it was possible—just possible—to reach it.

  I was one of the lucky ones who had reached it. And yet I had come back. So the airport for me was not a symbol of hope but of confusion. The confusion between dreams and reality, perhaps—between what you think you want and what you find out really matters. There was joy here, and there was regret, and it was impossible to determine which was stronger.

  The airport looked different from the way I remembered it. There had been no brass bands for me, no floral arrangements and American flags. No soldiers, no dignitaries, no reporters. Gwen hadn't been waiting for me in the terminal, wearing a red badge and a green raincoat and looking a little bored. I walked up to her. "My badge is better than your badge," I said.

  She smiled. "It won't matter what kind of badge you have if the weather gets any worse. They won't try to land in a storm."

  "Wouldn't that be nice?"

  "But they'd just get here tomorrow," she said.

  "Maybe it'll keep raining until after the referendum."

  "And maybe the world will disappear," she murmured. She wandered off to interview the governor finally, and I stood by myself, nose pressed against the glass, looking out at the runway.

  The plane arrived an hour and a half late, by which time the band was tired and the dignitaries were worried, and the soldiers and reporters were very bored. There were no suspicious characters that I could see, except maybe for me; the president would be safe here.

  Bolton and Cowens and a few others went out with their umbrellas to greet her. A stairway was rolled up to the plane. The door opened and a couple of aides hurried down, and then President Kramer came into view, breathing the fresh wet air of Boston for the first time.

  She waved and descended. She smiled and shook hands. She chatted briefly with Cowens and Bolton, and then everyone headed inside the terminal. The band started to play. The soldiers stood at attention. The reporters scribbled.

  Inside, the president shook some more hands, and I got my first close-up look at her. If anything, her photographs in the Globe hadn't done her justice. Her hair was a richer shade of auburn than I had ever seen before—dyed, I supposed, but that didn't seem to matter. She wore a lot of makeup as well, but it accentuated her assets rather than hid any deficiencies. She had deep brown eyes and high cheekbones and a wide mouth that seemed to break easily into a toothy smile. She was tall—taller than Bolton, who stuck close by her side—and she wore gold bracelets that clanked on her arm as she shook hands. Everything about her seemed a bit much, a bit larger than life—at least, a bit larger than the life I was used to. I was impressed.

  When the band stopped playing, Bolton stood on a platform and made a brief welcoming speech. Perhaps a little too brief? He said all the right things, but still managed to convey a lack of enthusiasm. Everyone applauded, at any rate, and then President Kramer replaced him on the platform.

  "Thank you for that gracious introduction, Governor Bolton," she began. "The weather may not be ideal, but it hasn't dampened my excitement at coming here. It really is wonderful to finally be in Boston—a city that has done so much to help build and sustain our great nation. All of you should be very proud to be part of Boston and New England, with their great traditions—just as I hope you are proud to be part of America. America has suffered much, but at long last it is starting to recover. I am here to ask for your help in speeding that recovery. I am here to see if we can't join together and overcome the tragedies that have befallen all of us.

  "The referendum we have put before you asks a very simple question, but your answer to it is vitally important to the future of our nation. If we continue to be a house divided, if we continue to bicker about petty issues, the tragedies we have suffered will diminish the lives of our children and our children's children. But if we can come together, future generations may look back at this moment as the turning point—when despair turned to hope, when anger turned to understanding, when hatred turned to love. While I'm here, I intend to do my best to help make this such a turning point. Thank you very much."

  Loud applause, and then shouted questions from reporters. But President Kramer wasn't answering questions just yet. Everything was behind schedule, Bolton explained; the president had to get downtown; the press would have its chance later. The band played another number, and we all headed back to our cars.

  The president's words replayed themselves in my mind as the old Chevy joined the motorcade back to Government Center. Her voice had been surprisingly soft, so that you had to strain to hear what she had to say. But the effect was that her words insinuated themselves into your consciousness much more completely than those of an orator like Bolton. She hadn't said anything I hadn't already heard, and upon reflection I thought her remarks were a bit too pat, too balanced, too speech-like; but still the words were there in my mind, and I had been affected in spite of
myself.

  I wondered what Gwen thought.

  The president rode ahead of us in the largest, shiniest car I had ever seen. Not many people were lining the streets to see it, however. I wondered how many would show up for the speech tomorrow. Of course the Feds would dragoon whomever they could, so that at least the space would be filled up; but what mattered was whether people would show up on their own, out of curiosity or loyalty or hope or nostalgia. Would they ride their horses in from the farms? Would they make the trek down from New Hampshire and up from Connecticut? Kramer couldn't get them to support her unless she could first get them to listen.

  When we reached Government Center, I thought about going home. Bolton had seen me at the airport; that was all Fenneman had required of me. But I decided instead to hang around a while longer. I was intrigued.

  The present's first stop was City Hall, across the plaza from the JFK Building. She was going to preach to the converted, at an indoor rally for Federal employees. My yellow badge got me backstage, into a crowded meeting room where everyone seemed to be talking at the same time as they tried to thrash out a revised schedule. President Kramer seemed unconcerned. She chatted with everyone and smiled her wide smile and looked as if she was enjoying this chaos. I noticed a couple of large men near her whom I took to be bodyguards or Secret Service men or whatever such people were called nowadays. Their eyes swept the room and occasionally gazed at me. I stayed in a corner and tried to be invisible.

  I failed. Eventually President Kramer made her way over to me, her bracelets jangling. "Hello," she said. "I'm Ann Kramer. You're Walter Sands, aren't you?"

  I shook her hand. It was cool and soft: the hand of a ruler , not a worker. I inhaled her perfume. I had never smelled anything so rich in my life. Her eyes gazed at me as if no one was more important in this world. Her personality seemed to envelop me, like a fog. "Um, that's right," I replied. But how in the world had she known?

  She smiled, noticing my puzzlement. "General Cowens told me on the way in from the airport that a local fellow had been hired to help protect me. I approve, although you certainly don't look like a security person." She gestured at the two hulking guys behind her, who appeared to have been born for their roles.