Mike now knew he’d been right to do this prep himself, and alone. Willy Nesbit would be top TV talent. His baggy, crumpled surf shirt was styled—though that wasn’t quite the right word—for someone thirty years younger and twenty pounds heavier. Nesbit had filched it from an unattended pile at the laundromat. Mike sniffed Nesbit out as his program teaser. Willy was one of those tall, scrawny sleazebags whose rust-bucket of a truck would sport a peeling bumper sticker like, You think this pick-up is filthy? Just try a night with the driver. Willy’s head was a total razor job, the shave exposing a macabre tattoo: two rats with their thick pink tails slithering down his neck. Perfect for TV.
Good journalism was in the details, Mike knew that, and at last they were coming to him. Like the “Gappy Hooker”. Mike couldn’t believe his luck when Willy blurted out the pet name he’d given thirty years ago to a woman he knew as Maria Rosa, Isabel’s apparently toothless mother.
“It had its benefits,” Willy smirked, digging an elbow into Mike’s ribs.
When Mike was slow to follow, Willy worked his lips into a big O, bulged his eyes cartoon-style and, placing one hand at the back of his neck right on top of the tattooed rats, and a finger of his other hand near his mouth, he bobbed his head up and down so his mouth slid over his finger. But it was Mandrake who gagged: a performance like that, while the tape was running… could he slide it past the network censors? Willy Nesbit was a repulsive toenail-clipping of a man, but Mike Mandrake was pumped.
Luckily, Willy couldn’t recollect Maria Rosa’s surname or the name of her daughter and Mike didn’t enlighten him, worried that if the creep did remember he would hotfoot it over to another network, get plastered again for free and spurt out everything to the competition.
Willy’s story was gold. Maria Rosa had paid him in kind for her trailer’s rent. It was handy not having to stray from his Cactus Flower Trailer Park to “get done”, he said, even if it had to be during the day. “At least the kid was at school. The ma didn’a want her to know nuthin,” he said, “but she had to know somethin’. She was fucken smart, that kid. Won some prize, I ’member… from the, ah, Rotarians. Made some speech to ’em. Maria Rosa got the spoils after the girl scooted. I ’member it cos there weren’t no monkey business goin’ after that an’ she give me the winnings for the rent. After that, Maria Rosa just shut down shop. With her legs closed, she couldn’a pay rent no more, so’s what could I do? A man’s gotta eat, right? So’s I kicked her out.”
“Why did her daughter leave home?” asked Mike before taking a sip of the drink the bartender had just slid in front of him.
“Was bad, man,” Willy said, doing likewise. “One of Maria Rosa’s boyfriends… she liked callin’ all us regulars her ‘boyfriends’… he did her, you know what I mean?”
“Ah, not really.”
“He fucken did the kid.”
That Isabel had been the victim of a serious assault was well-known, but this…
“He’d been round a couple weeks, Mr Mandrake. I even sorta liked him. But not by the end. There was fucken blood everywhere, man. I had to hose out the fucken trailer after the cops left. He fucken slit her throat ’n all.”
“Her throat!” Mike pictured Isabel with her fabled scar. So she didn’t get it in a mugging. That was the story the public had swallowed, but Isabel had always refused to confirm or deny it, and the media had let up on it as private. Until now.
“The kid was lucky. But fucken ran away from the hospital after’n she got fixed up. Never even brought her sorry butt over to say adios to her lovin’ mami,” Willy said snarling, his lips pulled back over his teeth, revealing Maria Rosa wasn’t the only one to have lost a few. “Broke Maria Rosa’s heart, Mike. Broke her fucken heart.”
“Where’d she go?” asked Mandrake, meaning the mother. His stomach clenched for the answer.
“Don’ fucken know, don’ fucken care. What she did to her bewdiful ma, man… first class fucken A-grade bitch, pardon the French. I loved her ma, Mike. Really loved her.”
“I mean the mother. Where did she go?”
“How the fuck would I know? Had to turn her out, like I said. It was hard on me to do that, man. I loved her.”
“You must have some idea.”
Willie looked hard at the four fifty-dollar notes Mike had slipped out of his wallet and placed under Willie’s Wild Turkey. “Went back to Bolivia,” he said, taking another swig of his drink and pocketing the cash. “Prob’ly had a few boyfriends back there… Lucky fellers, if y’ask me,” he said, breaking into a sneer and again poking the cracked grey skin of his elbow into Mike’s blue cashmere sweater, this time catching a thread. But Mike didn’t care.
9
THE REPEATED LATE nights were getting to Ed Loane. He jerked open his closet drawer and picked out one of the small foil-wrapped Clip’n’Drip cylinders, this one an antibiotic. He peeled back the foil and after marvelling at the sharp, cone-shaped pellet spiking out of the cylinder, he ripped open an antiseptic swab. With the four good fingers of his left hand, he yanked the front of his shirt out of his pants and swabbed a few inches from his navel. Bunching up the little skin he could—even at his age Ed didn’t carry much flab—he placed the cone point over the sterile area, jabbed it in and pulled the spike back out clean, implanting the biodegradable dose-release pellet.
Debbie Branson took a breath as she turned the handle on the door to Ed’s office. She’d been his personal assistant for years, yet it always felt like she was creaking open the gate on a lion’s cage. She’d open it only a crack and he’d already be roaring his instructions at her, with her dodging to avoid the claws tearing at his many bugbears.
Despite knowing he’d pulled his third all-nighter in a row, today was one of the rare quiet times, though the churn in her stomach suggested it was just temporary. She saw Ed tucking his shirt back in, but discreetly kept her eyes cast down at the files he must have flung over the floor last night.
“I can’t afford to get the flu,” he volunteered.
Her raised eyebrow suggested he said it with a touch too much guilt. Of all people, she fretted, the chief executive shouldn’t be breaking the law. But she said nothing. Ed could react like a switchblade: whichever way he flicked, someone got sliced.
He plucked another tissue from the box, wiped his eyes and blew his nose. A ruse, she assumed, though he really did have a sniffle the last couple of days and was looking pretty run down. The last few weeks had been exhausting, even for her, and she didn’t keep anything like his hours.
Ignoring her—or perhaps because of her, Debbie couldn’t be sure—Ed tipped his head back, sprayed some drops into each nostril and sniffed them in.
Debbie knew that Ed’s personal trialling of their big new drug implant product was for the company’s benefit, but she would never take that risk herself. One of those things would never get jabbed under her skin until it got the all-clear from the Department of Health’s Food & Drug Administration. Not if her life depended on it... though, given her husband’s history, maybe she would in a case like that.
Over the last twelve months she had sent hundreds of letters for Ed: to the FDA, the World Health Organisation, senators, congressmen, committee chairmen. She knew the corporate spin by rote: “Our Clip’n’Drip dose-release pellet is so minute and non-intrusive, so reliable that once implanted, patients can simply forget about it and enjoy a normal life again with confidence. The automatic releases of life-saving drugs in pre-programmed doses last up to one year per implant. Great for children scared of needles, a boon for forgetful seniors, and perfect for the unreliable, such as addicts. We also have radio-activated Clip’n’Drips for when there’s worry about an epidemic, but authorities only want the drug administered if the peril actually eventuates. This homegrown American invention can save millions of lives. You sir (or madam), should be championing it…”
Ed was glaring at her. Suddenly recalling why she’d come in, she straightened her tartan flannel skirt. “President Clinton�
�s office is on the line,” she said, avoiding Ed’s eye. “They’re asking for a meeting… for later this afternoon.” She assumed it was about Clinton’s foundation. Debbie still had a soft spot for the former President and suspected he wanted to press Ed to donate some of the company’s wonder drugs to Africa.
“Fuck that,” Ed muttered, not meaning for Debbie to hear, though she had. “And why,” he said, “does that sleazeball still get to call himself President?”
She said nothing, though her eyes couldn’t help scanning the plaque on Ed’s desk:
GENERAL EDWIN (Ed) D. LOANE
United States Army (Retired)
Chairman and CEO
“Why the hell should I want to see him?” he said as he picked up the framed photo of his son, Davey. “Tell them I’ve got a subsequent engagement. Ah… ring Davey’s school. Yeah, I’m taking him to the zoo… this afternoon.”
Even Ed’s distaste for Clinton couldn’t stop him returning his eight-year-old’s smile beaming from the photo. He remembered exactly when Davey had taken the photo, only a few months ago, by pointing Ed’s camera at himself into a mirror. “And see if Isabel can squeeze in to fly back to join us. It’ll be hot for the evening news.”
Debbie checked the notepad she always brought in with her. She and Isabel’s campaign manager swapped their bosses’ diaries every day so they could keep tabs just for times like this. “Ms Diaz is meeting with Congressman Prentice in DC and then has a...”
Ed set down the photo and banged his fist on his open closet door so it slammed back against the wall. “Spencer Fucking Prentice! What is this? Be-Nice-to-Democrats Day?”
To Ed, Spencer Prentice wasn’t just a Democrat, he was far worse: not only had he once been one of those investment banker scum who’d almost ruined the global financial system, but also Isabel had an affection for him.
Ed knew that Spencer returned his scorn. The last time he’d been over for dinner—yes, she invited the liberal bastard into their fine Republican home—he’d overheard a snippet of their conversation when he returned to the dining room after taking a phone call.
“Isabel, Ed’s… using you.”
Ed saw her give Spencer a twisted smile, “What makes you think I’m not using him?”
It was a disquieting question. One neither Spencer, nor Ed, had ever entertained before.
DEBBIE knew this would be a bad day. An hour later, the FDA’s latest rejection of the Clip’n’Drip technology came in. She had tiptoed the letter into Ed herself. And to make matters worse, the Karim Ahmed affair had reared its head in Isabel’s campaign yet again. Debbie had never heard so many “fucks” in one day, not since she stayed at that Nantucket hotel with the paper-thin walls on her honeymoon thirty years ago.
Even with Ed’s heavy office door closed, she could feel the expletives pound into it from the other side. So no way was she going to disturb him to take a call from some sweet-talking Close-up TV researcher.
Ed was a man people admired when it was opportune and loathed when it wasn’t, but those people only knew the rigid, unyielding Ed, the it’s my way, or the highway Ed. Yet, as Debbie knew, if anyone demonstrated commitment and loyalty to him, he returned it and multiplied it, whether they were the men and women from his service past or even the lowliest worker in his sprawling corporate empire.
Debbie had been with Ed only eight months when her husband Angus was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Debbie, a professional, imagined she’d left her troubles at home but by the second day Ed had sensed something was amiss and pressed her. He dropped everything, made calls, got Angus moved into a more comfortable room at the hospital till his battery of tests was completed, arranged for the best oncologists to be swung onto his case, including the now-eminent son of one of Ed’s combat troops, and insisted on taking care of any expenses not covered by health insurance. Despite Ed’s doggedness, they had to wait nine long days of Angus’s life before they got the prognosis… he had six weeks left.
“What’s that?” Debbie asked when Ed placed the thick envelope on her desk. She opened it slowly. Two tickets to Edinburgh, Angus’s birthplace. Pre-paid hotel vouchers. Thirty thousand dollars in cash.
Ed could be as tough and gristly as a five-dollar steak, but if you looked after him, he looked after you.
THOUGH Debbie didn’t know it, Ed’s mood that morning had also been also cranked up by last night’s Nightline, which he’d seen on his office TV and replayed twice. The interviewer had hit Isabel with a crack Ed had heard several times before, though until then it had never been dignified with the gravitas of a major TV current affairs program.
It’s Inauguration Day… America’s first female president has her hand poised over the Bible ready to swear the oath, and her mother’s down in the front row. ‘Hey,’ her mom says proudly, nudging the dignitary beside her. ‘That woman up there… Her husband’s a general!’ A reaction, Ms Diaz?
Isabel was clearly her own woman—few others had ever turned such hardship into a fortune anywhere near as big—yet there she was locking horns with yet another pundit over who’d really be wearing the pants in her White House. Ed, and everyone watching, knew the journalist’s biased intent: to pitch Isabel as a floppy female glove-puppet who’d dance to the finger-touch of an unelected military, outfitted in the regalia of him, her husband.
If it had been him being interviewed, he thought at the time, he would have stared the liberal bitch down, but Isabel declined the dignified silence route and shrugged it off. After a few theatrically demure blinks from her green eyes, she flicked her black bob behind her ear and said, “Molly, Ed Loane is my husband, not my ventriloquist. If the people elect me, they’ll get me.”
He doubted the answer would finally park the topic. With the frequency it had been coming up in one offensive form or another, Ed knew it was no trivial issue for many people.
Soon enough, when America would be forced to confront it seriously, it would be no joke either.
10
EVEN WITH WILLY Nesbit’s interview in the can, Mandrake needed his crack LA researcher to burn a bit more midnight oil. He’d seen that Elia Cacoz got results. She had spine too, so maybe, he thought, he’d consider letting her screw him. Being on TV had to have some side-benefits.
A simple internet search of “Isabel Diaz’s mother” got you Maria Rosa Diaz in a millisecond. But where was Maria Rosa now? That was Mandrake’s question. Nesbit had speculated she had returned to Bolivia. Mandrake already knew from one slammed down phone that she wasn’t the Argentinean senator of the same name. One down, a thousand or more Maria Rosas to go.
Locating Isabel’s mother, even just discovering whether she was still alive… that was Mandrake’s mission. Voters needed to know what really triggered the fifteen-year-old Isabel to run away. If Nesbit was to be believed, it was rape… and an especially horrific one. It gave more colour to the scar. Mandrake was already convincing himself that this was the dark secret that drove the candidate.
He’d already got Willy Nesbit on camera drooling the snippet that Maria Rosa had been loose with her morals, if not a whore, and was relishing how the Republican National Committee might choke over that morsel on prime-time. But that was only an appetiser, nowhere near enough for the splash he wanted to make… needed to make. Nesbit’s memory of the rape was too vague to pin his story on. He needed more.
Another key, he was convinced, was Isabel’s father, Hernandes Diaz, but so far he’d drawn a blank there too, despite it being a name that was as common in many South American phone books as a Kennedy was in Cape Cod.
Virtually every Isabel Diaz feature ever written painted Señor Diaz as a successful Bolivian industrialist whose life ended when he was kidnapped and killed in La Paz, sentencing his pregnant wife—who he’d had the foresight to send to the US shortly before—to penury. Mandrake might have read it a hundred times, but he wanted proof. Mandrake always wanted proof.
According to Elia, such murders were commonplace in Bolivia back the
n but official information from that era of Bolivia’s past no longer existed. The Presidential Palace in La Paz, Elia told him, was called Palacio Quemado, the Burnt Palace, for good reason.
“NO find no empresario Hernandes Diaz, Señor Mike… no, er, businessman. But…”
“But, nothing…,” Elia heard Mike yelling into the phone as if it would motivate the La Paz gumshoe she herself had spent hours tracking down and hiring. As well as being a part-time investigator, Carlos was also a cocalero, a coca trafficker, which she guessed might be a synergistic vocation.
“…but I find ’nother Diaz,” Carlos continued, ignoring the interruption. He knew he’d have Mike’s attention even if the gringo at the other end of the line seemed incapable of understanding him. He spoke slowly and loudly, the same way gringos often spoke down to him. “Name of other hombre has letter ‘z’, not ‘s’. So is H-e-r-n-a-n-d-e-Z. He is no businessman too.”
Carlos’s slow measured pace only riled Mike more, “Then you’ve got the wrong guy,” Mike screamed. “Wrong spelling and wrong job.”
This wasn’t an attitude the two-hundred-pound Bolivian was used to. “You hear me, Señor Mike…”
“You hear me, Carlos. Find my Hernandes, not some other Hernandez.” Mike was about to slam down the phone on him.
“Señor Mike! I am find him. You fucking hear?”
Mike was silent.
“I find you fucking Hernandez, okay? He diplomático muy importante, but he no businessman. And he from Chile not Bolivia, but he live in Bolivia. He vanish exact year you say. His wife… she from Bolivia; a paceños family… indigenous, you say. I got wedding announcement from friend in Santiago. Chile have good records. This diplomático Hernandez with ‘z’… he has one wedding party in La Paz and ’nother grande one in Chile. Later, un periódico… a newspaper in Chile say there is trouble in Bolivia and he send his pregnant wife away, maybe to America. Then he vanish...”
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