Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel)

by William Lashner

  “For the price of the data disk, sure. Want me to clear the card when I do it?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “And could you deliver the disk on your way home, someplace right in the city?”

  “No, we don’t do that.”

  I opened my bag, pulled out two Franklins, slapped them on the counter. Without saying anything, the kid pocketed the hundreds before pulling out a square envelope big enough to fit a disk and sliding it across the counter. I started writing an address on the envelope.

  “How soon can you do the transfer?” I said.

  “I could do it right now, if you want. Anything you want.”

  “That’s fine.” After I finished filling out the envelope, I wrote a Lancaster address on a slip of paper along with the words “From your pal Mulroney,” signed my name, and put the slip inside. “Make sure you deliver this tonight.”

  “If you want to wait, I could print up all the photographs for you right now. I’ll put you at the head of the queue.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I’m already late for a picket line.”

  Even as my political career crumbled beneath me like a stale banana scone, I could still admire my handiwork. There they were, my little grassroots activists, snarling traffic in front of the Hilton, their hate-filled eyes brilliantly illuminated by the lights of the news crews. They formed a rough line of about thirty or so, all of them shouting and jeering for the cameras, singing paeans to the Second Amendment, brandishing their signs like pitchforks. I CARRY A GUN BECAUSE A COP IS TOO HEAVY. IT’S NOT ABOUT GUNS, IT’S ABOUT CONTROL. HEY TOMMY BETTENHAUSER, I’LL KEEP MY GUNS, YOU KEEP THE CHANGE. And the ever-popular outline of an M16 with the stirring motto COME AND TAKE IT.

  As I walked between the shouting line of demonstrators and the hotel, I spotted among the picketers our man Thompson, shaking his sign and shouting so fervently the tendons in his neck bulged. I gave him the barest of nods. It was in neither of our interests to have me in any way connected to this patriotic demonstration of love for God and country. I elbowed my way through a corridor of police before I headed into the Hilton to see Tommy Bettenhauser blather on about avoiding an environmental holocaust.

  “Our environment is changing, and there are no good answers,” said the candidate in front of a group of the tweedy and the earnest, handwrought silver-and-turquoise jewelry on the men, little black ponytails on the women—or was it the other way around? “But in the midst of these wrenching climate swings, we can’t even stand together on the same street corner and agree on whether the light is red or green.”

  The difference between Congressman DeMathis’s crowd and this crew, listening like eager puppies to every platitude, was the difference between duck confit served with foie gras on a crystal platter and a jicama, beet, and fennel slaw picked up at Whole Foods. The room was the same dreary kind of place in which I had seen the Congressman speak, but the wine I grabbed was sour and cheap, and the hors d’oeuvres laid out on the tables ringing the room were mostly crudités. Is anything cruder than crudités? As Tommy Bettenhauser droned on, I looked around desperately for something hot and butlered, preferably in a puff pastry.

  “And the answer isn’t to just cut the difference,” said the candidate, “call the light yellow, and feel righteous in our moderation. Because an untruth, even a moderate untruth, will still lead us in the wrong direction. We need to look plainly and honestly at the condition of our world, but, sadly, our leaders are often led astray. The problem with our politics is not stupidity, or venality, though heaven knows both are alive and well in the US Congress.” A fervent bout of laughter, as if Bettenhauser had suddenly morphed into Seinfeld. “No,” he continued over the laughter. “The problem with our politics is politics.”

  With that profound thought, as obvious as saying the problem with death is all that dying, I turned to a woman standing next to me in a sweet summer dress, all flowers and pleats, that modestly showed off a sharp little body. She was staring at the candidate with eyes squinted and sincere, eyes that said, I care; I really, really care. No matter how pretty they are, and hers were very, sincere eyes always scare the solemnity out of me.

  “Is there anything to eat other than the wilted vegetables?” I said.

  “They’re organic,” she said.

  “I don’t doubt it, and I’m all for organic. I was just hoping for something organic that mooed or blatted. Goat, maybe. I could go for some organic goat on organically grown skewers.”

  She turned and looked at me, like she was observing some invasive species of fauna, and then I got the smile I’d been mining for. “There were some egg-roll things a bit ago.”

  “I hate it when I miss the good stuff. I’m Victor.”

  “Carrie,” she said. “I’ll elbow you if I see a tray.”

  “That would be so kind. I’m not sure I can take all this pabulum on an empty stomach.”

  “When did everything we see and hear, everything we read and think and shout, get infected with politics?” said the candidate. “Politics has become a screen through which too many of us see the world. The lives we then end up inhabiting are cramped and sour, where everything exists solely to outrage us or give us an opportunity to gloat, where the world is a barren zero-sum game in which every vile act to support our side is not just allowed, but required.”

  “Peace and love,” I said.

  “Are you not a fan of our Mr. Bettenhauser?”

  “Our? What did you do, pull him out of a cereal box?”

  “Something like that, yes,” she said with a smile.

  “I’m no different than the rest of our countrymen when it comes to politicians, interested only in what they can do for me. Right now all your Mr. Bettenhauser can do for me is get me fed. Was there any shrimp? Did I miss the shrimp?”

  “No shrimp,” she said.

  “These low-rent campaigns give me the shingles. If you’re going to buy my vote, at least buy it with meat.”

  “A prime rib would do it?”

  “A prime rib would get all three of my votes.”

  “We’ll have to get you a slab of beef, then, posthaste.”

  “Carrie, are you asking me out?”

  “No.”

  “I can tell you that this type of politics is not a prescription for perfecting our democracy or healing our world,” said Bettenhauser, continuing on with his speech as if all the yobs in the room really cared. And surprisingly, glancing around, it looked like they did, including pretty little Carrie. I thought of maybe actually listening to what he was saying, but thankfully that deranged idea fled and I searched around for something other than the sour wine to drink.

  “It is, instead, pure poison. And that’s why I am here asking for your vote. Not because I have the solution to all our problems—trust me when I say I don’t—but because I pledge to bring a new perspective to Washington, where up is up, down is down, and facts are treated with reverence, not disdain.”

  “Well, that’s original,” I said. “Everything good as long as you elect me and not the other guy.”

  “Quite the cynic, aren’t you, Victor?” said Carrie.

  “Trust me when I tell you it is well earned.”

  “I have found the worst cynics are actually secret idealists. Cynicism is merely a defense of a bruised heart.”

  “Or an empty stomach,” I said.

  “Isn’t your cynicism heavy, Victor? Don’t you just want to put it down sometime like an overstuffed backpack and take a breath?”

  “Then what would I have?”

  “I don’t know. Find out.”

  “Would I have to eat quinoa with my tempeh?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “There’s not enough ketchup in the world.”

  “I don’t know if we can heal the damage we’ve already done to our earth,” said Tommy Bettenhauser, “or
if we can prevent further erosion of our environment. But I do promise to bring a fresh perspective to climate change, and every other problem facing our country and our world, a perspective where myths hold no sway just because we want to believe them, where clear evidence is accepted as the starting point, and where solutions are reached based on sound science, sound policy, and what’s good not just for our own political party, but for the country as a whole.”

  “Now he’s going to talk about changing the world,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yes, they love that. It so inspires the young to empty their meager little wallets.”

  “Together,” said Bettenhauser, “have no doubt that we will change the world.”

  “Good call,” she said.

  “It didn’t take Einstein.”

  “How fortunate for you.”

  “We will change the world,” said Bettenhauser, “because we have no choice. That is every generation’s fate. But I believe that it will take a new kind of political vision to change our world for the better, and that’s what I promise to bring to Washington.”

  “Hear, hear,” I said, clapping with the rest after he finished the speech.

  “So you were actually moved,” said Carrie, looking at me searchingly.

  “No, I’m calling out to the waiters with the trays. Here, here, bring them here.”

  “Would you like to meet him, Victor? The candidate, I mean.”

  “Yes, please, that would be jimmy.”

  “Come then,” she said, taking hold of my hand. Her touch was warm and dry, and I felt a frisson full of possibility. “I’ll take you to him.”

  After Carrie led me to the scrum surrounding Bettenhauser, she left it up to me to patiently wait for an opportunity to introduce myself. When I saw an opening, I called out his name. He turned and grabbed my hand and bathed me like a babe in the impersonal warmth of his version of the political stare.

  And then he recognized me and recoiled as if I were syphilis.

  It should have been a sobering moment, to make another man recoil like that, but I had to admit I liked it. Recoil, you son of a bitch, I thought. Let the whole damn world recoil when it sees me coming, just like I recoil every morning when I shave.

  “It is nice to meet you, Mr. Bettenhauser,” I said, in my sweetest tone. “I’m Victor Carl.”

  “Of course you are,” he said, eyeing the big brown diplomatic bag I had brought with me. “I recognize you from that scene at the Governor’s Ball and then your photo in the newspaper. You work for DeMathis.”

  “I work for myself, mostly. I enjoyed your speech. ‘The problem with our politics is politics.’ And all along here I was thinking it was the politicians that were screwing things up.”

  “Yes, well, we’re out to change that. But thank you, Victor, for your support. We’ll take it from any quarter we can get it.”

  “That’s good, because a quarter is about all I’ve got to give. But do you perhaps have a few moments to talk?”

  “I’m awfully busy. Why don’t you call the campaign office and we can—”

  “It would be worth your while to talk to me tonight, Mr. Bettenhauser,” I said in a voice as flat as slate. Sometimes you take all the humanity out of your tone, and the point is made.

  “Yes,” he said. “Of course. Let me finish up here and I’ll make some time before we leave. While you wait, why don’t you grab something to eat.”

  “Where?” I said.

  CHAPTER 40

  PARTY CRASHER

  It didn’t go as I had planned with Bettenhauser. Nothing in politics had gone as I had planned. You would have thought life would have taught me long ago that plans are written with vanishing ink on tissue paper swirling down a toilet, but about some things I am dim as dusk.

  Yet Bettenhauser had unwittingly clarified the precariousness of my position and forced me to count the betrayals like a banker counting his coin. I knew it wouldn’t be long before all that treachery came to a head, and I had immediately taken precautions. Still, when I opened the door to my apartment and walked into a wall of smoke, I was startled that betrayal had breached the barricades so quickly. Within the shadows I saw his unmistakable silhouette, sitting solidly in a chair amidst the scattered ruin of my things, his hat still on, a cigarette glowing like the tip of Satan’s nose.

  “Late night, Road Dog?”

  I felt a flash of danger in the calm of his voice, but I tried not to show it. This was Stony, my good pal Stony, and I didn’t want him yet to know all that I knew. When I was sufficiently calmed, I switched on the light and looked around at the mess; I hadn’t cleaned the apartment yet from Ossana’s ransacking.

  “If I had known you’d be coming,” I said, “I would have tidied up the place.”

  “Oh, no need to clean on my account. I have lived in hovels that make this look like the Royal Suite at the Four Seasons. Where were you all this time?”

  “Meeting with Bettenhauser,” I said.

  “Ah, sleeping with the enemy.”

  “Not quite, but almost with the enemy’s wife. I didn’t know Mrs. Bettenhauser was so attractive. I was hitting on her during the whole of her husband’s insipid speech without realizing who she was.”

  “Now that would have been a scandal worth having; that could have swung the election all by itself. You don’t mind me barging, do you?”

  “Not at all. Friends, right?”

  “Friends indeed.”

  “In fact,” I said, “I was going to give you a call to tell you what I learned tonight. I didn’t give the Bettenhauser photographs to Sloane, because I had some questions, and Bettenhauser gave me the answers. It turns out that the woman he was hugging was not an illicit lover but someone he helped off the streets and who is now running one of the charities he sponsors.”

  “Maybe true, but that doesn’t mean he’s not giving her his charitable best, daily, over and again, if you catch my drift.”

  “Yes, except it turns out that the specific woman in the photograph would be more interested in Mrs. Bettenhauser than Mr. Betten–hauser, if you catch my drift. And it was Mrs. Bettenhauser who clued me in after her husband called her in to the meeting. I’ll check it out, but Mrs. Bettenhauser’s eyes were so full of sincerity that I believe her. Which means the photographs wouldn’t have damaged, but instead bolstered, Bettenhauser’s campaign. It’s a good thing I didn’t give the photos to the press.”

  “In that case,” said Stony, “a very good thing.”

  “But you knew all this already.”

  “There are so few surprises in our game.”

  “And yet for some reason you wanted me to give the photographs to Sloane, even brought him in to meet with me at Rosen’s. Who are you working for, Stony?”

  “Don’t be forgetting your rules, now. Rule One: a bagman works only for himself.”

  “Yes, the rules, your daddy’s precious rules. Here’s the thing that surprised me. I liked Tommy Bettenhauser more than I thought I would. He is as sickeningly sincere as his wife. Sincerity is nothing you want in a lay, but an interesting trait in a public servant. After our talk he went out and spoke with the pro-gun demonstrators who were picketing his speech, a little protest I had set up. He didn’t turn them around, but he spoke civilly and they spoke civilly back. It was a revelation, a glimpse of what we as people could be. It turns out that Tommy Bettenhauser is a conviction politician.”

  “You’re being played, Road Dog. The only difference between a conviction politician and a convicted politician is evidence. The memory card from my camera is missing. You wouldn’t know where it might be? I would have tossed the place to look for it, but someone beat me to it.”

  “Ossana DeMathis.”

  “A redheaded demon, that one. Remember the story of Odysseus being lashed to the mast so he can’t succumb to the
Sirens’ call? Only a fool goes to bed with a demon.”

  “Is that another one of Briggs’s Rules?”

  “That’s just sheer common sense, which you seem to have misplaced lately. Where is my memory card?”

  “Not here, not on me.”

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a gun, laid it on his thigh. It wasn’t a flagrant gesture, just a simple restatement of things.

  “Maybe I should frisk you just to be sure,” he said.

  “It wouldn’t do you any good.”

  “So where might it be? And no blustering.”

  “I left it at a camera store so they could print up the pictures.”

  “Hand over the receipt.”

  “It’s just pictures of a little girl,” I said. But I knew it was more than just pictures of a little girl. It was the thread that would unravel everything, a red thread, coppery and bright, like the hair on that little girl, who looked so much like Ossana DeMathis they could have been clones. Once I saw her spinning around that tree in Lancaster, I knew Ossana would be coming after me like she had come after Jessica Barnes and Amanda Duddleman. I just didn’t know how or how soon. Stony, with his gun, was a pretty good answer.

  “I’ve been told to clean it up,” said Stony. “All of it.”

  “And that includes me.”

  “Rule Seven.”

  “A bagman never reveals his secrets,” I said. “What would your father say if he saw you here with a gun?”

  “He would understand. You know what a bagman’s pension is? Information. I decided to cash in my pension before it disappeared, which it will, sooner than you could ever imagine.” He waved his gun languidly. “The receipt, Road Dog, and don’t make me ask again.”

  I took out my wallet. My fingers felt like sausages as I fumbled about while trying to fish out the receipt.

  “I’ll just have it all,” he said.

  “You’re going to steal it from me?”

  “Rule Six.”