by Ed Gorman
I got out of my rental and walked over to the spot, the whipping wind proving a bitter foe determined to fight me. I’d seen one of those paranormal TV shows one beery night in which a female psychic claimed that she could contact a murdered person simply by standing on the place where he or she had been killed. A handy skill. If I possessed it all I’d have to do is call out Waters’ name and he could clue me in about what had really happened.
The back door of headquarters opened and a voice, tattered by the wind, said, ‘I knew you’d show up here tonight.’
‘I’m trying out a paranormal trick I saw on TV. I planted that thought in your mind.’
Kathy laughed. ‘You don’t really believe that stuff, do you?’
I started walking to her. ‘Not really. But you never know.’
When I got inside, she said, ‘I’ve got coffee on upstairs. He’s in his office screaming at people on the phone.’
‘Anybody I know?’
‘First he called Lucy. Now he’s yelling at his father. He blames him for sending you here. He seems to believe that everything was going fine until you showed up.’
She smelled of woman warmth, tender perfume, and faintly of bourbon. I wanted to kidnap her.
‘I may as well get it over with.’
I followed her exquisite shape up the stairs. She steered me into her office where she had one of those four-cup coffee brewers on a table near a stack of paperback novels. ‘Sometimes I just close the door and read. I need the escape. I put headphones on so I can’t hear anything. If something really goes wrong they pound on my door and I hear them.’ She handed me a cup of coffee. It smelled rich and good. ‘I get these beans at a boutique in Washington. I buy a three-month supply at a time.’
The first sip reminded me of why I enjoy coffee. In all the slush you get most of the time you start to forget how good it can be.
I could hear him bellering down the hall. Too far away to pick up the exact words but poor baby did not sound happy, that much was for sure.
‘You going to stick around for a while?’
A girly grin. ‘Where would I go? I have no other life. I’m in politics, remember?’
‘I’ll go talk to him and then we can go have some drinks.’
‘I’d like that. But the mood he’s in, I may have to take you to the ER.’
‘I’ll be fine, Mom.’ Then: ‘All right if I take this?’
‘Sure. Just bring the cup back. I only have four of those.’
By the time I reached Ward’s office there was silence. Easy to imagine Tom just hanging up on him at this hour. Ward was probably trying to figure out who to rag on next.
I knocked with knuckles and walked in before he could say anything.
When he saw me, he didn’t curse or shake his fist at me. He just smirked. ‘Well, well, the Angel of Death.’
‘Yeah, it’s pretty much all my fault, all right. I made you screw all those women in Washington and then hang out in a whorehouse about seventy miles from your hometown. And let’s not forget how I pushed you into screwing your best friend’s wife. That was genius on my part.’
‘Yeah, and what did the son of a bitch do to me? Put me on the spot tonight in front of the whole district. If he had a problem with me, he should’ve been man enough to face me instead of dressing up like a bum and trying to humiliate me.’
‘I see. You’re the victim, not David?’
‘Don’t give me any of that Oprah bullshit. You know damn well what I’m talking about. I’m trying to get re-elected. I’m fighting the good fight, in case you’ve forgotten. And I was doing all right until my old man forced me to work with you. Or haven’t you noticed that? You show up and everything goes to shit. You couldn’t even find out who was selling our secrets to Burkhart.’
I wasn’t about to hand Lucy over. ‘I admit it. I did a bad job with that part of it.’
‘You did a bad job period. Here I am working night and day while you’re messing up everything my old man promised me you’d fix. I’m the only pro here; I’m the only one who knows how to run a campaign.’
Yes, sleeping with your campaign manager’s wife is the mark of a true pro, all right. One thing about megalomaniacs, they rarely have a sense of humor. Or have any perspective about their actions. When I got here, he was running behind and he was being blackmailed. He’d been on a roll, no doubt about it. ‘Yeah, you were in great shape till I showed up.’
At this point he was wearing a black crew neck sweater and jeans. Cool dude. He shoved his hands into his pockets and smirked. ‘I see Kathy favored you with one of her coffee cups. She hates me so I don’t get any. Some staff, huh? David, Kathy, and Lucy all hate me.’
‘Gosh, and you’re so easy to love. Who woulda thunk it?’
But I’d pushed poor baby too far. He extracted his hands from his pockets. He used one of them to slam down on the desk he was standing next to. ‘What the hell’re you doing here? I’m sick of your face, I’m sick of your name, I’m sick of my old man telling me how good you are, and I’m sick of you undermining me.’
I finished the coffee and set the cup on a small table stacked with recent newspapers. I was as sick of him as he was of me. ‘I’m going to make this fast, asshole. So listen carefully. I think you’re going to win this one. It’ll be a squeaker but you’re going to win. Then you’ll go back to Washington and one month after the new House session starts, you’re going to announce that you won’t be running again.’
‘Oh, yeah, right, I’ll be real sure to do that.’
‘I’m told there’s a young guy in this district who has a lot of promise. A primary challenge would be messy and hurt his chances in the election. But when you make your announcement, he’ll have the time to start raising money and meet the people.’
No smirk; just scorn. ‘You’re out of your mind.’
‘If you don’t do this, I leak the DVD and you’ll be done anyway.’
He started around the desk but I was ready for him. When he came at me he was off balance so all I had to do was give him a shove. He landed in one of the comfortable chairs facing the desk, but he was anything but comfortable himself. He started cursing me with such fury that he didn’t take the time to make his curses coherent. Finally he snapped, ‘You’re blackmailing me, you son of a bitch.’
‘Right. And I’m getting the same message to Burkhart. If he runs again, the DVD gets fed to every TV station in the district. He’s CEO of a very big corporation. He couldn’t stand the heat.’
He began to rise from the chair. He looked surprised that I didn’t shove him back down. ‘You’ll never get away with this.’
‘Sure I will.’
‘Not after I tell my old man what you’re up to.’
‘When I tell him everything he’ll be on my side. He did something similar to this to one of his own clients years ago. He knows the turf.’
I walked back to the table and picked up my coffee cup. ‘It’s over, Ward. You’ve got one term left. Do it with a little class. You and your wife can still live in Washington and hang out in Georgetown or wherever’s hot at the moment. You can keep on screwing all the women you want and the press won’t care anymore. All you’ll have to worry about is pissed-off husbands.’
‘Listen to me, Conrad. Think this through. Burkhart can’t release the DVD because I’ll do the same to him. We’re in a stalemate. I’m protected. As long as you keep your mouth shut.’
‘No, we’re not protected, Ward. You’re the one who’s not thinking it through. Nobody knows how many copies of these DVDs are floating around out there. David and Mrs Burkhart hired a private detective to get the video. They didn’t know much about him. By now they could be all over the place. That’s how these things always work. You think you’re safe and suddenly some TV station has them on the six o’clock news. The party can’t risk that. You’re done.’ I looked straight at him. ‘And like I said, if you don’t announce that you won’t be running again, I feed the DVD to the press while our n
ew candidate still has time to mount a good campaign.’
He was flustered now, shaking his head as if trying to escape a nightmare, hands fluttering around his head. ‘This is insane. The party needs this seat.’
‘The other side’ll have a fresh candidate after Burkhart loses and we need one, too. You’re damaged goods, Ward. Your little affair with Bryn’ll come out and then you’ll be toast. So get ahead of it all and announce that you won’t run again. It’ll be better for everybody.’
I walked to the door. Opened it. I looked back and said, ‘Nice knowing you.’
I was six or seven steps down the hall when I heard him run to the door where he shouted, ‘You’re crazy if you think I’ll go along with this!’ He slammed the door with enough force to make the floor tremble.
Kathy had her coat on when I replaced the coffee cup on the silver tray in her office. ‘It sounds like you guys are better friends than ever.’
‘Almost blood brothers. But he wouldn’t let me cut his wrists for him.’
She giggled and kissed me on the cheek. ‘God, I’ll be glad when I don’t have to work for him anymore.’ Then: ‘Let’s go get drunk.’
I was leaning over and packing my bag when Kathy came out of the bathroom, all showered and fresh. In her white hotel bathrobe, she made it tempting to take a later plane.
She walked over and slid her arms around me as I finished my packing. She smelled clean and cool and wonderful. ‘I hope I didn’t ruin the night by crying there just before we went to sleep.’
‘It’s sad, Kathy. It deserves some tears. Waters is dead and a lot of people got hurt.’
I turned around and took her in my arms. The feel of her flesh made me tremble. We got into one of those kissing matches that more often than not end up with both people dropping to the floor and writhing around like crazed animals. It had been a while for me before last night and now I wanted more. My lust was like a lovely ache. But then I had no choice but to pull away. I managed to say, ‘Airport.’
She favored me with her great grin while she pretended to fan herself. ‘Wow. I should sue you for alienation of affection. You really had me going there.’
‘Maybe you can visit me in Chicago for a day or two after the election’s over. Then we can get a little crazy again.’
‘I’d like that, Dev. I felt very comfortable last night and it’s been a long time since I felt that way with anybody.’
‘Me, too, Kathy. But now I’ve really got to go.’
This kiss, this hug, were ones that my third-grade nun would have approved of. ‘There’ll be a cab downstairs to take me to the airport in five minutes. I already checked out while you were showering.’
She took my arm and squeezed it. ‘I hope everything goes all right. I hope they get everything with Erin and I hope you and she have that long talk you’ve been needing all these years. And if you want to talk while you’re there, you have my cell number.’
At the door I said, ‘You’ll hear from me. Probably more than you want to.’
One hour and twenty-five minutes later I was sitting in my United seat. Right then all I could think about was Erin — how much I’d loved her and how much I feared for her now. Then the plane was lifting and we were heading back to the past.
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