Grass Roots

by Stuart Woods

  Finally, Keane thought, something was starting to come together. He had names and faces, some of them well-known. He didn’t have anything that could put anybody in jail, and he didn’t have Perkerson yet, but at least he finally had something. He pulled out of the parking lot and carefully began to follow the black Cherokee.

  In his excitement, Keane forgot that they had something, too. They had his name and address.

  7

  As the campaign continued, Will descended, physically and mentally, into a soft, fuzzy rut. He was rarely depressed and never exhilarated. He measured the time in terms of his schedule for the day, rarely thinking beyond the night’s sleep, which he relished. Each day, he shook dozens, sometimes hundreds, of hands, and listened to many expressions of good wishes and a few expressions of extremely ill wishes. Each day, he saw a group of people, sometimes a large group, carrying signs questioning his patriotism, his devotion to “family values,” whatever that meant, and his masculinity. At each town meeting, there were hostile and well-prepared questions, which he met with equally hostile and well-prepared answers.

  Finally, midway through October, he arrived at a community hall in Waycross, in the deep southern part of the state, and there were no placards to greet him. Inside, there were serious questions, but none that seemed prepared, and none with the raw hostility that had met him so far.

  “They weren’t there tonight,” he said to Tom.

  “I think it’s over,” Tom said. “Our polling has shown that, in the beginning, the technique had some effect, but we’ve been getting local TV play wherever we’ve been, mostly answering those questions. We haven’t caught up with it in the polling yet, but my guess is, their polls show it’s no longer working.”

  “I am a little disappointed,” Will laughed. “Those questions had become a part of the routine, and I think I had begun to look forward to answering them.”

  “I can live without them,” Tom said. “One thing our polling is showing is that we’re gaining in small towns and rural areas. That’s where the connection with Senator Carr helps most, I think, and I suspect that those people have found the opposition’s picketing unfair. We’re gaining less in the ruburbs, but we’re coming up overall in our polls.

  “I think we’re being helped, too, by Calhoun’s heavy use of staged five-minute TV question-and-answer sessions and very few public appearances that aren’t completely contrived and controlled. What we’re doing is much more spontaneous and, I think, real.

  “My great worry is that we don’t have time to catch Calhoun. I think, the way we’re going, we’re going to peak about a week after the election.”

  “We’ve got to accelerate the process, then,” Will said.

  “The only way we can do that is with TV money, and we don’t have it. Something else that bothers me is that we’ve still got the trial to look forward to. That’s going to bring a halt to daytime campaigning, and we’ll have to spend the evenings near enough to the Greenville courthouse to keep from exhausting you with late-night travel.”

  “I appreciate that. I’ve been refamiliarizing myself with the case, going over the prosecution evidence and Charlene Joiner’s deposition, but I’m afraid it remains fragmented in my mind. There’s just too much else going on. Can you schedule me to have a completely free day at home the Sunday before the trial opens?”

  “Sure we can. It’s not going to do the campaign any good if you do badly at the trial.”

  “I guess not,” Will said ruefully. “The trouble is, it’s not going to do me all that much good if I do well. I mean, if I do a really great job and get Moody off, who am I going to please? ‘Accused Murderer Goes Free’ is not a great headline for us.”

  “Listen, Will, the worst thing you can do for yourself is to start worrying about how the trial is going to affect your chances for the Senate. You just give the case your best effort, and let me worry about what gets said in the press.”

  “Then there’s my debate with Dr. Don. I didn’t do all that well against Mack Dean, you know. How am I going to do against a so-called master of the medium?”

  “You did better than you thought, remember? Anyway, I’ve got some ideas about that,” Tom said. “I think we’ll want to take a different approach in this debate. Let me work on it some more, and we’ll talk about it later.”

  Will laughed. “Later will be soon enough for me.”

  8

  For three days, Mickey Keane followed Willingham. He was there when the man got up in the morning; he put the man to bed at night. He pulled his car into the trees in the wooded area that surrounded Willingham’s house and found a good place up a rise, where he could see the black Cherokee come and go. Keane wanted badly to tap the man’s phone, but he was afraid he might not be good enough to avoid a security device, and a sticker on the colonel’s mailbox said he had one installed.

  Willingham’s rounds were disappointing. He went, twice, to meetings at the Holy Hill Church, and he did some light shopping here and there, but mostly, he stayed home. Nobody came to see him, and nobody called at the house except Sears Carpet Cleaners and Federal Express. Keane began to think again about trying to tap the phone.

  On the third night, Willingham went to bed early. All the lights in the house were out by ten-thirty, and Keane called it a day. He stopped on the way home, as he often did, at Manny Pearl’s office for a chat.

  “You think Willingham’s behind all this?” Manny Pearl asked him.

  “Who knows? I certainly can’t prove it. I can’t prove anything—that Perkerson got his face reshuffled at Dr. Allgood’s, that the nurse, Adams, recognized the photograph, that Willingham’s arrival at Allgood’s office was connected with my visit. But it all kind of comes together, you know? I just hope that eventually Willingham will lead me to Perkerson.”

  “What about the doctor or the nurse?” Manny asked. “Maybe you should follow one of them.”

  “I think Perkerson’s finished with them. He got his ear job and split, that’s what I think. Give me a week on Willingham, and if I don’t get anything, I’ll try the doctor.” Keane talked a little more with Manny, then went home.

  As he walked into his apartment, the phone was ringing, the number that had been advertised in the search for Perkerson. It had been a while since it had rung, and, on impulse, Mickey picked it up before the answering machine kicked in.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello,” a woman’s voice said. Low, husky—familiar, somehow. “Is this Michael Keane?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “You want Harold Perkerson, I’ll give him to you,” the woman said. “I want the reward,” she added.

  “I want him, and if you give him to me, you’ll get the reward,” Keane replied. “Now, let’s start with your name. I’ll have to know who to give the reward to, won’t I?”

  “Call me Jill,” the woman said. “If my information’s good, that will be our code word, okay?”

  “Okay, Jill it is. Now, where’s Perkerson?”

  “We’ll have to meet and talk about this. I’m going to need protection.”

  “When I find Perkerson, he’ll never breathe free air again. You won’t have to worry about him.”

  “You don’t think he’s alone in all this, do you?” she said.

  “Alone in what?” Keane asked.

  “There’s more than the dirty bookstore, you know.”

  “Tell me,” Keane said. “Show me you know something.”

  “There’s the abortion mill and Winslow,” she said.

  Hair stood up on the back of Keane’s neck. This woman might have guessed about the clinic—that had been all over TV and the papers—but there hadn’t been a word said about the possibility of Winslow’s death being anything but a heart attack. “Where can we meet?” Keane asked, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  “Take 85 North,” she said, “get off at the Lenox Road exit, turn left on Lenox. After a couple of miles there’s a restaurant called Houston�
��s, right across from the Lenox Square shopping mall. I’m there now. Fifteen minutes?”

  “Okay, fifteen minutes. What do you look like?”

  “I’ll find you. Don’t be late, or I’ll leave.” She hung up.

  This didn’t sound like a setup, not in such a public place. Keane knew Houston’s; it attracted everybody—families, yuppies—and it was always packed. He ran for his car; using the expressway at this time of night, it would take him just the fifteen minutes she had given him.

  Eight minutes later, he was on 85 North, doing seventy. There was almost no traffic. He got off at the Buford Highway exit, onto a spur that had once been the old interstate. The Lenox Road exit branched off to the left from the spur. He had just taken the left fork for the exit and was about to pass under a bridge when he looked in the rearview mirror and noticed the van, moving up fast behind him, a lone driver.

  It was odd that the van was speeding up, just at the moment it should have been slowing for the traffic light ahead. The van pulled around him to pass. “You nut,” Keane said to himself. “Can’t you see the light is red?” The van came even with his car, and he looked toward the driver. All he saw was dark glasses and a mustache before the van smashed into the left side of his car.

  Keane screamed at the van and slammed on his brakes, trying to stay in the road. The brakes held for an instant, then the pedal went almost to the floor, practically useless; the power brakes had gone, and the mechanical brakes that were left weren’t doing much. Keane hauled hard on the steering wheel, trying to keep to the left, to stay on the road, but the car’s progress to the right was inexorable. The van probably weighed a half a ton more than his car. Then Keane saw the bridge abutment coming at him.

  “Goddamn you, Perkerson, you son of a bitch!!!” Keane screamed, then the car struck the sheer face of the mountain of concrete, and all the lights went out.

  9

  Mickey Keane woke to the sound of groaning machinery and tearing metal.

  “For Christ’s sake, take it easy with that thing, or you’ll tear him wide open!” somebody yelled.

  That was the moment when Keane knew he was not in hell, or even purgatory; they wouldn’t be so worried about him in either place. There was not much pain, but he seemed to be having some trouble taking a deep breath.

  “It’s going to be like taking a sardine out of a bent can, getting him out of there,” a voice said. “We don’t know what internal injuries he’s got, so we’ve got to move him an inch at a time, okay? And let me get a collar on him first.”

  Keane felt something firm go around his neck, then an arm went around his waist.

  “Watch it!” somebody yelled.

  “I don’t know how else to do this,” another voice said. “It’s hard to tell where he ends and the metal starts.”

  Keane felt the arm tugging at him, and there was movement. Then there was pain—sharp, penetrating, complete pain. He screamed, and that hurt, too.

  “Oh, shit,” the voice said. “His foot is jammed in there. Somebody get the man with the torch over here.”

  “No,” Keane said weakly.

  “What? Jesus, he’s awake,” the voice said.

  “Oh, shit,” somebody replied. “What did he say?”

  “No torch,” Keane said. He could smell the gasoline.

  “He’s got a point, Eddie,” one of the voices said. “You’ll fry us all with the torch. Use the can opener instead.”

  A sardine, Keane thought, trying to fill his mind with something besides the pain. Then they moved him again, and he passed out.

  *

  The lights were very bright when Keane woke again, and the pain was everywhere. People were all around, tugging at him, pulling at things. He could hear clothing tearing.

  “Morphine!” somebody said, and Keane felt a needle in his arm.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, but too late. He wanted to tell them something, but the pleasant warmth came over him and made him forget.

  *

  The next time he woke, he knew it was for real. He wasn’t going to pass out again. He was alone in a hospital room, and there was sunlight peeping through the drawn Venetian blinds. He moved his left hand to his face to scratch an itch, and pain shot through his chest. He lay still and let it itch until he couldn’t stand it anymore; then he moved the hand the rest of the way and let it hurt. The door opened and a nurse came in.

  “Oh, you’re back with the living, huh?” she said.

  “Am I?” Keane said, and that hurt, too. “I can’t tell for sure.”

  “Let’s get you a little elevation,” she said, cranking a handle at the bottom of the bed. The upper half of Keane’s body rose a few inches, and he could see Manny Pearl standing at the end of the bed.

  “You’re gonna be okay,” Manny said. “Not to worry.”

  “You’re not gonna be okay,” the nurse said, “you are okay. You’re the luckiest man in the ward, maybe in the hospital.”

  Keane could remember the crash now, or at least the part of it right before the car hit the bridge abutment. “What’s broken?” he asked.

  “Your ankle and your lower leg,” she said, rapping on a plaster cast that suddenly seemed to be attached to his leg, up to the knee. “Good thing you were wearing a seat belt, or everything else would be broken.”

  “What else?” he asked.

  “Nothing else,” she said. “You’ve been CAT-scanned from head to toe. Nobody can believe it.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Keane said. “I hurt enough for everything to be broken.”

  “You’re just sore,” she said. “There’s a detective outside who’s been waiting to talk to you. You feel up to it?”

  “Why not?” Keane said. “Can I have something to drink?”

  She stuck a glass straw into his mouth and he sucked water, sloshing it around his mouth and letting it trickle over his whole throat. The nurse left the room.

  “What happened?” Manny Pearl asked.

  “Hang on a minute,” Keane said. “Let’s see who this cop is.”

  Shortly, Dave Haynes came into the room. “Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “You had a nice night’s sleep while everybody stood around waiting.”

  “I didn’t know you cared, Dave,” Keane said.

  “I don’t, I’m just curious,” Haynes replied. “Listen, the traffic boys are going to be in here in a minute. I want to know what happened.”

  “Me, too,” Manny Pearl said.

  “Dave, this is my boss, Manny Pearl,” Keane said.

  The two men shook hands perfunctorily. “So?” Haynes asked.

  “It was him,” Keane said.

  “Shit, I knew you were going to say that,” Haynes said. “Now life gets complicated.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Keane replied. “You’re out of it. I’m just satisfying your curiosity.”

  “That’s stupid,” Haynes said. “If it was really him, give me what you’ve got, and I’ll get on it.”

  “Nope,” Keane said.

  “You want him yourself.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah, and I know how to get him.”

  “Let me help,” Haynes said. “The captain doesn’t have to know.”

  “Nah, Dave. You’ve got less than a year to go, right? Stick around and collect your pension.”

  “Isn’t there something I can do?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Has the press got anything on this yet?”

  “A TV crew got lots of shots of you in the car when they were trying to get you out. They don’t know who you are.”

  “What hospital am I in?”

  “Northside. It was the nearest trauma center.”

  “You know anybody here?”

  “A couple people.”

  “Make me dead.”

  “I don’t think they’ll do that, Mickey. You know how nervous hospitals are these days.”

  “Nearly dead?”

  “I’ll see what I can do. If you really think he’s going to tr
y something else, I’ll get some people over here.”

  “Brain-dead should do it,” Keane said. “And keep those traffic people away from me.”

  10

  “Why are we meeting him here?” Will asked, looking around him. It was just after three in the afternoon, and the restaurant was nearly empty. At the other end of the room, a woman was mopping the floor.

  Tom Black sighed. “Because I have some things to tell you, and I didn’t want to do it in front of your dad and Kitty and Moss.”

  Will did not feel well. He was catching a cold, and he was tired, and now, he was scared. “All right,” he said.

  “Our latest poll shows Calhoun with forty-eight percent and you with forty-four—with a four-percent error margin. We’ve picked up, and he’s dropped, but—well, it’s what I told you a while back: we’re going to peak a week after the election. That’s pulling out all the stops, using every dime of the money we have or expect to get before election day, and I’m including all our matching funds—everything.”

  “So, what do we do?” Will knew what was coming.

  “I’ll put this as bluntly as I can,” Tom said. “We spend four hundred thousand dollars on television the last two weeks in the campaign, or we lose the election.”

  “If we could just get some sort of break,” Will said.

  “It’s true, we haven’t had any breaks since Mack Dean got it caught in his zipper,” Tom said. “You’d think we were due for something, but it hasn’t happened. Oh, I suppose Dr. Don might be found in the pastor’s study with a Boy Scout, but I don’t think we can count on it.”

  Will had avoided thinking about this moment for a long time, but, he admitted to himself, he should have known it was coming. “Does this happen to every candidate?” he asked.

  “Just about,” Tom said. “Every one in a close race, anyway. Nobody ever has enough money but Republicans.” Tom poked at the ice in his tea. “I’ve got holds on the TV buys. I have to place orders with cashier’s checks by the close of business tomorrow, or we lose the buys.”