“It didn’t seem like one before?” Barack said.
“No, it definitely did. How sure are you guys that this is the right thing to do? My job is on the line. If something happens…”
Barack shrugged. “There’s a chance we’re wrong. There’s a chance we’re right.”
“How sure are you that you’re right?”
“You want a number? I’d say…seventy percent. With a three percent margin of error.”
Steve snorted. “You’ve had your pollsters working on this.”
“I let all my pollsters go,” Barack said. The engine started and the air filled with the sweet smell of burning gasoline.
“Enough numbers,” I said. I’d been advocating for Barack to trust his instincts for years. All that badgering seemed to have finally taken root. “Have you seen what’s happened to baseball? You have to be a statistician to understand half these new stats. OPS? What in halitosis does that even mean?”
“On-base Plus Slugging,” Barack said.
I rolled my eyes. “Like I said, I have no idea what any of that means. I was a solid C student. I did what I had to do to get by. Sometimes, you have to throw everything you know out the window and trust your gut.”
We had no real plan of which to speak. All I knew was that it was time to put up or shut up.
The Bidens had never bowed down to bullies. Never. Ma Biden raised us to give as good as we got. Trouble was, the world had changed since I was a kid. Disagreements weren’t settled by fisticuffs in the Senate. You couldn’t even joke about taking someone out under the bleachers and teaching them a lesson without folks getting their tighty-whities in a bunch.
But Barack and I weren’t in Washington right now. We were in Chicago. The rules of engagement were different. It was time to go punch the bully in the mouth.
That’s Chicago, baby.
49
We cut through the harbor lock into Lake Michigan, joining dozens of boats on the open water. Gonzalez had already pinpointed Caruso a half mile offshore. His boat wasn’t hard to miss. It was the hundred-and-thirty-foot black luxury yacht with the red pinstripe.
The rain had died down. The storm, however, continued, as lightning flashed across the sky in brilliant arcs. Every muscle in my legs ached, and would for a while. What I needed was a nice, long, warm bath. Candles weren’t necessary, but I wouldn’t say no to a lavender bath bomb.
Barack emerged from the cabin and unlocked a storage floorboard. “Looks like some trouble ahead. Joe, you and I are going below deck until the coast is clear.” He turned to Steve. “Gonzalez wants to speak with you.”
I craned my neck to see into the murky pit. “Below deck? Through that hole?”
“Not through the hole,” Barack said. “In the hole.”
Two human beings in there—let alone one—seemed an impossibility, like packing a king-size comforter and bedding set into a single washer.
Barack read the skeptical look on my face. “Gonzalez once had six guys down there. Big guys, too—well fed.”
All I could think was, Why?
Steve looked unsure about it all, but he kept his mouth shut as he closed the hatch on me and Barack.
Everything went dark as the depths of the lake. Barack and I huddled together, arms and legs twisted like a couple of pretzels. We’d been in close quarters before and survived.
“What kind of trouble was the captain talking about?” I asked in a whisper.
“There’s a small boat headed our way. Probably nothing, but it could be the police.”
“We’re not doing anything illegal.”
“You remember what your friend Polaski said.”
We sat in darkness for a beat. All you could hear was the sound of us breathing, and the splash of the surf on the underside of the boat.
“Listen, Joe, there’s something we need to talk about.”
“About what happened with the pastor…I’m sorry. I—”
“Hold up a sec,” he said. “What I have to say is important, and I want you to listen. I was going to tell you this earlier, at the speakeasy, but we were interrupted. Just wait until I’m finished before you say anything. Got it?”
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve been through a lot together, you and I. Two long, grueling campaigns for the White House. Two terms in office, fighting Congress every step of the way. It was always going to be an uphill climb, but I didn’t know the Senate and House would be rolling boulders down that hill, trying to knock us back.”
I could have told him that was going to happen, but would he have listened? Experience is the best teacher. Painful, but effective.
“We didn’t get off on the right foot,” he continued. “We didn’t always see eye to eye. But we were always honest with each other. Remember what you said—that if something big ever came between us that we couldn’t hash out, if you had some moral objection to the road we were going down, you would let me know.”
“And I’d resign,” I said. “We’d tell the press I had prostate cancer. So that you could save face.”
“Would you have done it?”
At the time I’d proposed the scheme, I’d been dead certain I could do it—as a thought exercise, it didn’t require any effort. The public had a right to know what was happening behind closed doors in Washington, but their right to know had limits. Especially when it came to family. And Barack Obama was nothing if not family.
“I’d have done something,” I said, finally. “I’d have come up with some story. I wouldn’t have left you swinging your wedding tackle in the wind.”
“Is that a Delaware saying?”
“It’s something Ted Kennedy used to say.”
“Fascinating. What I’m getting at here, Joe, is that we don’t keep stuff from each other—even if we know we’re going to upset the other person. Even if what we’re going to say may offend the other person, and even if it’s going to come between us. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
I swallowed hard. “I think so.”
“What I’m trying to say is, don’t take this the wrong way…but if you let out one more of them old man Bloomin’ Onion seam-splitters in here, I’m going to feed you to the catfish.”
I clenched my butt cheeks tight as a snare drum. I hadn’t even been aware that my air whistle was letting off steam. “It’s not me,” I said. “You’ve got the wrong man.”
“Joe.”
“I’m being serious,” I said.
“Yeah? Then tell me: where’d you eat last night?”
Outback Steakhouse.
He had me dead to rights, and he knew it. Son of a gumshoe.
“You’re mad,” he said. “I’m not.”
“I don’t understand why you get mad about this stuff, Joe. Everybody farts.”
“Everybody Farts. Is that one of the books you’re writing on your new contract?”
“I wrote one picture book. That was enough—”
A voice amplified by a megaphone interrupted us, and we both went quiet. We couldn’t make out what was being said, but it sounded authoritative. Gonzalez barked something back, and then more megaphone. This went back and forth for a few minutes while we held our breath.
Footsteps overhead. We’d been boarded.
There were hushed voices, and then somebody shouted. More shouting. Things were getting heated. Maybe I could de-escalate the situation. I’d helped bridge the partisan divide in the Senate on many occasions. Plus, I had to cut one something fierce and didn’t want to do so in close quarters with Barack.
“I’m going up,” I whispered, untangling my body from his.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Your friend is putting her life on the line for us. If there’s trouble, we need to take care of it before it gets out of hand.”
“She’s somebody who owes me a favor. Not a friend, but she’s discreet and comes highly recommended. I’m sure she can talk her way out of it. She’s a tour guide, after all.”
“I thought s
he was a captain?”
“She’s the captain of a tour boat, Joe. That makes her a tour guide.”
“Well, I’m going to do her a favor, and then she’ll owe me,” I said, pushing up the floorboard. “Cover me.”
“Cover you?” Barack shouted after me, but it was too late. I was out. We’d been under deck for five minutes. It was long enough that I’d almost forgotten what the outside world looked like. I hadn’t been down there so long, however, that I’d forgotten what staring down the barrel of a gun looked like.
A pale twentysomething was pointing a semi-automatic AR-style rifle in my face. He smiled, showing off two rows of gold teeth. A speedboat was docked off to the side, and the two boats were roped together. The speedboat was flying a black flag with a silver skull and crossbones. The same stylized symbol tattooed on Caruso. Only now I could see the crossbones weren’t bones at all. They were handguns.
50
The first time I had a gun pointed at me was when I’d made a trip to Afghanistan with a couple of fellow senators a decade and a half ago. Our helicopter had gone down in hostile territory, leading to a tense encounter between our group of American politicians and Taliban-aligned forces. The full details had never made the news rounds, but suffice to say we’d all made it out alive thanks to some fast-acting Marines.
There wouldn’t be any Marines to save us now.
“Come on out of there,” the man with the gold teeth said. “Hands in the air. Don’t try anything funny.”
I did as instructed, letting the floorboard fall behind me.
It landed on Goldie’s foot.
“Hold on,” he said, kicking it back up. “Your friend, too.”
Barack crawled out of the hold and joined me. The city, lit up green for the holiday, glittered in the distance. The other yachts and tour boats on the lake were too far away to hear our screams. Too far to hear gunshots.
Goldie wasn’t alone. He had a friend with hoop earrings and an eyepatch. The friend was armed with two semi-automatic rifles, as if he could even fire both at the same time without accidentally shooting up half the Midwest.
Gonzalez was slumped over against one of the posts supporting the boat’s upper deck. Blood trickled from one of her ears.
I didn’t see Steve.
“Mr. Obama,” Goldie said. “Welcome home.”
“I believe you have mistaken me for someone else,” Barack said.
Goldie got right up in Barack’s face. He tugged on one of his ears. “No, I believe it is you. El presidente de los Estados Unidos.”
Barack didn’t flinch.
“And you must be his friend,” Goldie said, motioning toward me with the barrel of his gun. “The Uncle-in-Chief.”
“I’ll tell you who I am,” I said. “I’m Joe Biden. And I want to be the first to welcome you to our vessel. We have no quarrel with lake pirates—”
“Pirates?” One-Eyed Willie said. “You think because I have an eyepatch that we’re pirates? Do you see Johnny Depp anywhere around here?”
“We don’t have any money on us,” Barack said.
“I have a few bucks,” I said, patting my wallet.
Barack stared holes into me.
“You think this is about money?” Goldie said.
“We don’t have drugs, either,” I said. “Some vitamins in a pillbox that my wife gave me for my birthday last year. I have low Vitamin D levels, and I need the calcium to ward off osteoporosis—”
“There’s the two of you?” he asked. “No more?”
I glanced around. Steve was still MIA. Had they already done away with him?
“You’re free to inspect the boat,” I said. Gonzalez didn’t interrupt, as she was unconscious. “We chartered this boat—”
“We know where you’re going,” One-Eyed Willie said. “And we’re here to escort you.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
He laughed. “You’re a little late for the party, guys, but there’s plenty of room…at the bottom of the lake.” He motioned his gun toward us. “Turn around.”
His friend patted us down. They weren’t pirates, of course. They were Crooks. They didn’t have any intention of taking us back to their boss’s yacht. Not if they could take care of us here. The one with the eyepatch hadn’t meant that crack about the bottom of the lake as a joke.
There was no way they would use their weapons on us, though. They meant to drown us and sink our boat. Make it look like an accident. If we washed up onshore riddled with bullets, the crackdown on crime around town would be so swift and severe that Caruso’s operations would be crippled.
I dropped my hands.
“Did I say you could put your hands down?” Goldie said.
“This isn’t Simon Says.” I could see Barack out of the side of my eye, his arms still up. His eyes were wide as saucers.
Goldie patted his rifle. “This is Simon. And Simon says, ‘Put your hands in the air before I punch holes in that fancy suit of yours.’”
I should have been afraid, but a calm had come over me. The guns were just for show, to scare us into getting in the water.
“I’m giving you to the count of three to drop your weapons and get on your knees, hands behind your head,” I said, holding my ground.
One-Eyed Willie laughed. “And if we don’t?”
I cracked my knuckles. “I’m going to beat you like a couple of government mules.”
“Joe,” Barack hissed.
“One,” I said. My eyes were fixed on the shocked Crooks, who were exchanging worried looks. The old man is crazy! What do we do?
“Two.”
They raised all three rifles at me. I stood my ground, but doubt had crept into my mind. Maybe they were trying to call my bluff. What if their boss wasn’t a micromanager? What if he’d left the decision of how best to deal with us up to them?
“Two and a half,” I said. My pulse was up now. My feet were quaking in Barack’s shoes. They were a size too big, so there was plenty of room to quake in them.
Before I could get to two and three-quarters, the Crook with the golden teeth dropped to his knees. The gun slipped from his hands. He faceplanted right on top of it, skull and metal colliding with a sickening THUMP. One-Eyed Willie watched his friend fall, and then he toppled, unconscious, into a pile of guns and flesh.
Steve was standing tall behind the downed men, dripping wet like he’d just crawled out of Lake Michigan. In fact, he had just crawled out of Lake Michigan. He was breathing heavy.
“Steve! How long were you in the water?” I asked.
“A few seconds. I swam around from the back of the boat.”
“You learn to swim like that when you were in the well?”
Steve ignored my question. “Are you OK, Mr. President?”
“Fine,” Barack said.
“Me too,” I added. “I’m also fine.”
Steve used some rope he found lying around to tie the Crooks to a railing, winding it around their torsos.
“What kind of knot are you using there?” I asked. I knew a few different seaman’s knots. My uncle, who claimed to be the basis for the old man in The Old Man and the Sea, had taught me the art of knot tying one summer. It wasn’t until years later that I read the novel and discovered that my uncle—in his late thirties that summer, an ancient man to me at the time—wasn’t nearly old enough to be the protagonist of Hemingway’s book.
“What kind of knot?” Steve said. “One that will hold them.”
Barack helped Gonzalez into a sitting position. The captain was awake, but woozy. She confessed, through slurred speech, that she’d sold us out. She was damned sorry for it, but she had family to think of, and didn’t we know who we were up against?
“We’re beginning to get an idea,” I said. Gonzalez’s head tipped forward. When I leaned her back, her eyes were slack.
“We need to get her to a hospital,” I said. I held up my phone, trying to get bars. Nothing.
“My phone’s at the bottom of t
he lake,” Steve said, climbing down the ladder. “I checked the radio. They smashed it. We might have to wait until the cell towers are working again and try yours, Joe, or—”
Barack fished the tour boat’s keys out of Gonzalez’s pocket. He tossed them to Steve. “Head for the city lights. You can’t miss it.”
“You guys untie the speedboat,” Steve said. “Let it loose. I’ll pull up anchor.”
I hated to see a good speedboat go to waste, but we hadn’t found the keys in either of the Crooks’ pockets. It was deadweight to us.
Steve returned to the cabin. The water around us bubbled as the engine started. Caruso’s yacht sat in the distance like a floating fortress. It was a good quarter-mile away, anchored in place. Waiting for the speedboat to return.
“What’s going to happen to Shaun?” I said.
Barack pulled the speedboat close. “I want to believe Caruso will come to his senses. Maybe the Crooks have something on him, and they’re forcing him to do this.”
I worked on one of the knots. It was tighter than Grandma Biden’s girdle. “Believe what you want, but Shaun is in danger either way.”
He followed my eyes to the luxury yacht. “We need to get Gonzalez medical attention ASAP. They cracked her on the skull—she could have bleeding in her brain. Without relieving the pressure, she’s as good as dead. We can either keep on course or we can return to shore. We already lost the element of surprise, so my vote is on the latter.”
“Gonzalez betrayed us.”
“That doesn’t make her life worth any less. She may have betrayed us, but she’s still a human being.”
I knew it. I didn’t like it, but I knew it. We weren’t in a position to judge. Perhaps no man is, when it comes to the life of another. That’s God’s domain, not ours.
One rope was all that tethered the speedboat to ours. Suddenly, something gleamed in the moonlight. A small, silvery glimmer of hope.
“What if we don’t have to make a choice?”
Barack narrowed his eyes.
“What if,” I continued, “Steve takes Gonzalez back to shore, and you and I take the speedboat over to Caruso’s yacht. If we take the speedboat instead of the tour boat, we’d have the element of surprise back in our favor.”
Hope Rides Again Page 17