by Joseph Flynn
Without asking for the name of Galia’s source, the president said, “Are we talking about the New York tabloids here?”
Galia said, “I’m sure they’ll pick it up, but the English papers will take the lead.”
The Fleet Street press. Scandal Central. Even when they had to fabricate one.
The president sat forward, a hard glint in her eyes.
“Well, then,” she said, “it’s a good thing we have our own little surprise planned. That should blow an imaginary romance right out of the news cycle.”
Galia could only hope. And wonder if the president had been speaking to her old friend, m’sieur le président.
In French.
3
Margaret “Sweetie” Sweeney thought that the Catholic Church, if it had the least bit of smarts these days, would allow its congregants to select their own sabbaths. She almost never missed Mass at St. Al’s on Sunday, but she appreciated it much more on Monday mornings when the gathering of worshipers could have fit into two pews, should they have cared to sit together. They didn’t, of course. They staked out places of their own. It would have been rude for anyone who wasn’t an intimate to encroach upon them.
Such a notion as personal sabbaths, of course, would be pounced on by critics as the most radical example of cafeteria Catholicism yet to come down the pike, but there were those members of the faithful, Sweetie among them, who worried that they would live to see the disappearance of the Roman Catholic Church in America, if the hierarchy didn’t show some signs of flexibility.
Sweetie, from her spot near the rear of the church, could look at the handful of faithful who dotted the pews on Monday mornings and guess with fair accuracy who they were: workers choosing to spend a moment in the presence of the Divine before going to toil for Caesar; retirees, many of them present to pray for a departed spouse or more poignantly a child gone too soon; a few mavericks in faith like herself who preferred a one-to-one dialogue with the Almighty to being a bit player in a cast of thousands.
The moment the service ended with Father Agamah saying, “Go in peace,” someone slipped into the pew directly behind Sweetie. Could have been a newcomer who didn’t know Monday morning etiquette. But that wasn’t the feeling Sweetie got. Her cop radar said the new arrival was there for a purpose: to talk with her.
Margaret Sweeney had been a cop for twenty years in Chicago, and another five in Winnetka, working both shops with Jim McGill. This wasn’t the first time she’d met someone in a church, had someone slip into a pew behind her. Now, as before, her senses of smell and hearing did a scan of whom she was dealing with before she turned to look. A scent of perfume reached her, something subtle, a hint of jasmine. The creak of wood as the person sat was soft, indicating a slight weight. A woman most likely.
Giving off no tingle of hostile intent.
But Sweetie hadn’t heard the woman approach.
Not until she was right there behind her.
Suggesting someone who knew how to move with stealth.
Sweetie sat tight until Father Agamah left the altar and the other communicants departed the church. She took it as a good sign that none of those leaving cast a dubious look at whoever was sitting behind her. Once the two of them were alone, Sweetie gave it a five-count before turning around.
The woman sitting behind her had a Eurasian face, mature but unlined; her clothes were stylish but not overdone for going to church.
“Help you with something?” Sweetie asked.
“Yes, I hope so,” she said. “I am Musette Ky.”
Sweetie knew the name. The woman was Deke Ky’s mother.
She guessed why Ms. Ky had come to talk with her: to find the person who’d shot her son. The perp the Secret Service had been unable to find for the last six months. And counting.
Sweetie said, “I really can’t get involved in an ongoing federal investigation.”
Unperturbed, Musette Ky told her, “My son was not the target of those who shot him.”
“He wasn’t?” Sweetie asked. And how would Ms. Ky know that?
“I was the target,” she said.
4
McGill liked to carry keys, enjoyed the feeling of unlocking a door. Nineteen months of living in the White House had all but deprived him of that pleasure. With the Secret Service and the Marine Corps guarding his place of residence, turning a deadbolt lock was not required. Having a personal driver, there was no need to carry a car key either. He had a single key to his office door, but a solitary key had no heft and didn’t jingle. To feel fully dressed, he felt he should have keys jangling in his hip pocket. So he added the front door key to his house in Evanston and the key to the Honda Pilot he kept back home to his key chain.
As with many things in Washington, symbolism trumped substance.
When he got to work that morning he would meet with Sweetie and go over their accounts, receivable and payable, before he left for Europe. McGill Investigations, Inc. was operating in the black. The success he and Sweetie had had in finding and neutralizing Chana Lochlan’s stalker had paid off. You did right by “the most fabulous face on television,” and other people with the means and the need to hire a private investigator would beat a path to you door.
For the most part their clients’ problems were mundane, an example being the theft of a litigator’s trial briefcase, a family heirloom that had conferred a talismanic confidence to three generations of legal practitioners. The suggested malefactor was the opposing counsel in the case at hand; the actual thief was the victim’s second-chair colleague looking to move up at the firm.
It wasn’t the stuff of song and legend, but it approximated police work and it brought in a steady stream of revenue to McGill and Sweetie, neither of whom was inclined to devolve into a sedentary way of life. Both were determined to stay sharp, mentally and physically.
McGill wasn’t about to sit around the White House all day eating bonbons. But before he could leave the Executive Mansion that morning, the president’s personal secretary, Edwina Byington, called him.
“The president would like to know if you can spare her a moment before you go to work this morning, Mr. McGill.”
McGill said, “That might put me behind schedule, Edwina. May I borrow the president’s helicopter to make up lost time?”
“I can’t speak for the president or the Marine Corps, sir, but I’ll be happy to give you a ride on the back of my Vespa.”
McGill laughed.
Edwina was pushing seventy, but she did indeed ride a motor scooter to work when the weather permitted. Claimed she got better than 100 mpg. Her fuel economy would suffer if she had to lug McGill around with her.
“Maybe I’ll just push my schedule back a little,” he said. “How much of my time does the president require?”
“I have you penciled in for ten minutes, but I’ll have to juggle things if you don’t hurry.”
“I’ll be right down.”
“You’re a prince, Mr. McGill.”
5
The prince, his wife told him in the Oval Office, would need formal wear for the Queen’s soirée at Buckingham Palace. The president inquired if she had remembered to inform her husband of that necessity.
“You mean I have to wear a monkeysuit?” McGill asked.
“The invitation says white tie.”
“The kind without a hand-painted hula dancer on it?”
“That’s correct.”
“I don’t believe I have such an ensemble.”
The president informed him, “We have your measurements, Mr. McGill.”
“The CIA told you?” McGill asked.
“Hart Schaffner Marx,” the president replied.
The company was going through reorganization, might not even survive, but they were the ones who had made the suit McGill had worn to his wedding with Patricia Darden Grant.
“Any changes in vital statistics, Mr. McGill?” the president asked.
“Not a millimeter,” he said, patting a flat stomach.
“Very well. All you have to do then is commit and powerful forces will be set in motion.”
“Gnomes working around the clock?”
“Fine American tailors.”
McGill still had a few minutes of his allotted time left so he took a moment to examine his present circumstances.
“Our dinner with British royalty is going to be a fancy affair, you say.”
“It’s not asking too much of you, is it?”
He shook his head. “What I’m thinking is, these lordly people are hardly known for being spontaneous.”
“Not in most circumstances, no.”
“So something big must have happened. Perhaps something having an effect on our ‘special relationship’ with the Brits.”
“The thought does occur.”
McGill made a point of not intruding on presidential business, but if it required him to get dressed up and be in attendance, he couldn’t help but be curious.
“Is there anything you’d care to share?” he’d asked.
“I think we’d better browse the etiquette book for dining with royalty.”
Patti was playing coy again, McGill thought. First the Dark Alley, now this.
“Okay,” McGill said. Finding out was half the fun.
“So you’ll get dressed up and be my escort?” the president asked.
“I’ll be there,” McGill said.
Arlington, VA
6
“Ricky” Lanh Huu sat in his office, at the back of a storefront insurance agency in a small strip mall in Arlington, Virginia. It was a Monday and the first day of the month and Ricky was collecting money. He liked that the month was beginning on the first day of the workweek. Thought every month should start on a Monday. Be easier for him to keep track of things.
A girlfriend with a greater understanding of the calendar had once heard him express the idea and said it would require every month to be twenty-eight days long, which would also mean either adding a thirteenth month to the calendar with one day left over or keeping twelve months and having twenty-nine days left over at the end of the year.
Ricky thought twenty-nine days sounded like the right amount of vacation time for everyone to have. You could call it Happy Time. People could go crazy, just chill, or come up with new plans for making their fortunes. But nobody would have to do shit if they didn’t want to.
“You think the bosses would go for that?” Ricky’s girlfriend asked.
That’d be a problem, all right. Fuckin’ bosses. Always grinding on everyone.
Ricky’s personal taskmaster was Horatio Bao, Esquire. Bao had his law offices on 14th Street, a mile from where Ricky sat. Bao didn’t have any big name clients, but he had his thumb in most of the legitimate pies of the Viet Kieu — the Vietnamese diaspora — community in Northern Virginia. And he took a cut of every crooked game run by his ethnic kinsmen.
Ricky was Bao’s bagman, his enforcer, and his recruiter for any new Viet Kieu business that opened in Bao’s fiefdom. Sooner rather than later every small storefront enterprise joined the Homeland Benevolent Association. The HBA helped merchants with their bookkeeping: so much for themselves, a bit less for the association, and a plausible minimum for the taxman. The HBA also helped with insurance: business, life, health, and security. Security insurance came with a window sticker: Protected by HBA. No member of the Viet Kieu underworld would dare steal from an HBA-protected business. On the other hand, any proprietor foolish enough to resist Ricky’s pitch was soon faced with a relentless onslaught of burglaries and stickups. If the recalcitrant fool survived commercially — or physically—he quickly came to see the light.
But HBA security extended beyond mere ethnocentric depredation. If outsiders—Italians, blacks or Latins — tried to lean on protected merchants, they were quickly set upon and sent away. If a rival thug persisted, he was sliced, diced, and served with rice to those who had sent him. Premium service for fair price was Horatio Bao’s hallmark.
He also highly prized innovation.
When the danh tu — white Americans—grew angry at the never-ending wave of illegal immigrants flooding the country, Bao sensed it was time for new measures. He’d long been involved in smuggling his countrymen into the United States, but now it was important that the people he brought in had legitimate standing. Proper documentation. But how best to get the right papers? He consulted with his most prized adviser.
The sage, for an enormous consideration, came up with just the right answer: political persecution. That was always the ticket for legitimate admission to the United States. But how could such a claim be irrefutably proven? With a letter of condemnation and an arrest warrant issued by the Public Security Department in Hanoi, Bao’s adviser told him.
The apparatchiks who maintained the Communist’s grip on power in the Homeland would understandably be loath to cooperate. Issuing false documents would place their jobs and even their lives at risk. Fortunately, Bao’s adviser knew those among them whose greed would overwhelm their better judgment, and a plan was devised whereby all parties prospered.
Bao was pleased with his immigration scam, assured once again there were always new ways to make money. Cash money. Disguised and dispersed around the world.
After Ricky collected Bao’s local haul, his most important job was to discreetly channel the HBA money to Bao’s daughter, Calanthe. She was the travel agent for her father’s money, sending it on its way around the globe to foreign numbered accounts. Ricky had been at his job for five years. Underpaid, in his view, for five years. But he’d never been tempted to filch a single dollar. Bao had told him what would happen to him should he ever prove untrustworthy. Ricky wasn’t afraid of much, but what Bao had said would be done to him had kept thoughts of pilferage far from his mind.
Until six months ago.
Until he’d failed to make that hit for his boss.
Of late, he’d come to feel his career had plateaued.
It might even be necessary to make a run for it soon.
Which would be a lot easier with a pile of cash to call his own.
Georgetown
7
Leo Levy drove McGill to his office on P Street just above the Rock Creek Parkway. Per the president’s explicit order, Leo got out of the armored, supercharged Chevy first, took a good look around, a hand under his suit coat and on the Beretta he carried.
The building’s owner, McGill’s landlord, Dikki Missirian, was out front sweeping the sidewalk. He saw Leo and said, “Good morning, my friend.”
“Mornin’, Dikki,” Leo said in his native North Carolina twang. “Any ne’er-do-wells lurkin’ in the shrubbery?”
“Not that I noticed.”
The near side rear window on the Chevy slid down.
“Can I come out and play now?” McGill asked.
The president hadn’t given him any orders, but she knew other means of persuasion. McGill was well aware there were crazies in the world who might enjoy doing him harm. What he doubted was that on any given day many of them would work up the energy to take a crack at him.
Then, again, it only took one.
Look at what had happened to poor Andy Grant, the president’s late first husband. He’d been threatened and later killed by extremists in a vain attempt to coerce Patti to cast a vote—as a then-Member of the House of Representatives—for a piece of legislation they wanted passed.
At that time, as the chief of police in Winnetka, McGill had been the one urging caution. He would look pretty damn foolish now if he got zapped by being careless. Patti had told him she didn’t want to bury another husband. His kids needed a father, too. So he waited for the all clear. Wishing Deke were back.
“Looks good, boss,” Leo said.
“You do have someone waiting for you,” Dikki told McGill as he exited the car. “A young lady. I gave her coffee in my office.”
“She tell you her name?” McGill asked.
“Emilie LaBelle.”
8
> “Pardon the cliché,” McGill said, “but haven’t we met?”
Emilie LaBelle sat in a guest chair in McGill’s office. On the way in, he’d seen that Sweetie hadn’t arrived, and she was usually early to work. Sweetie was also someone who won perfect attendance awards. Something was up.
Question was what? But with a possible client on hand the question was tabled.
Emilie LaBelle looked to be in her mid-twenties, a slender young woman with dark hair cut short, brown eyes, a pert nose, and full lips that framed a smile any orthodontist would love to claim as his handiwork. But McGill seemed to remember her at a more tender age with longer hair … and eyeglasses.
“Ten years ago,” Emilie said, “at the wake for Tom Willets and Ozzie Kent.”
There was no way McGill would ever forget that night. Two Chicago cops, Willets and Kent, had been ambushed by gangbangers outside a public housing high-rise. They were acting on a tip passed to Officer Kent that a drug dealer, a fugitive wanted on a homicide warrant, was hiding out in the building.
Officer Kent had been shot and killed as he attempted to enter the building. Officer Willets had still been in his patrol unit calling for backup when Kent was shot. Hearing the gunfire and seeing his partner fall, Officer Willets ran to his aid but was cut down before he covered half the distance to the building.
The drug dealer and four other gangbangers were later killed in a shootout with the police. The dealer’s girlfriend told authorities the criminal was trying to turn the tables on the police. Cops were always playing tricks to sucker fugitives into their traps, saying the chumps had won tickets to a big football game or something. So the drug dealer figured if he set up stings on the cops a few times, took down four or five of them, they wouldn’t be in such a hurry to come after him.
“Dint work out like that at all,” the girlfriend said with a shrug.