“But?” Somerfield asked.
“But I really think your dad is a dangerous lunatic and I would walk through a lion’s den in pork-chop panties before I did a thing to help him get near the Oval Office.”
Somerfield stared at me, a little flash of anger shooting across his face. Then he smiled. “Pork-chop panties. That’s good. Okay. We’re cool. I just had to ask.” He started to walk away, then turned around. “I always heard good things about you. Not that you give a shit, I know, but I did.”
“Me? From whom?” He started to say something, then waved his hand and walked off. I looked around, wondering how many reporters had been watching. But this being a party with music and free booze, reporters had better things to do, thank God. Ginny came back over holding two beers. She held one out.
“First Sandra, then Somerfield? Busy night for the boy. You want to share with your press secretary what the hell is going on?”
“You know what I want?” I asked her. “I want for a couple of hours not to be the guy running this campaign. You can give that to me, can’t you?”
My voice must have sounded so desperate that a quick look of pain shot across her face. She leaned up and kissed me quickly on the cheek. “Sure, J.D. Sure.”
For the rest of the evening, we hung out on the edge of the crowd, trying to avoid everyone, drifting in and out of the darkness between the floats. We’d dance for a while in the small spaces between the floats and then Ginny would drift away and reappear with more beer, glowing in a sheen of sweat. She was small and strong and suddenly seemed like the most desirable woman on earth. Once or twice, I saw Sandra Juarez surrounded by other reporters, looking out over the party like an anthropologist at some tribal gathering. I wondered if she had called the number I’d given her yet. I would have been shocked if she hadn’t called within a few minutes of me giving her the tip. That was just Sandra’s way.
I felt a warm arm touch my neck and moved backward into the body. It was Ginny, I assumed, returning as she had off and on all night, but then I felt the curves of the body and realized it couldn’t be her and turned as two hands twisted me around. “You were such a cute kid,” Jessie said. She still had on her oversized sunglasses; she tilted her forehead into mine, sliding her arms around me.
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” I asked, thinking that it seemed perfectly normal to be suddenly dancing with this tall woman. “You’re beautiful,” I said, not thinking before I said it but sure it was the absolutely right thing to say.
“You’ve been drinking, and you’re not a drinker,” she answered.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m a drinker and I know.”
She pulled away and led me by the hand around to the rear of the giant Bacchus float. “The J.D. with magical powers,” she said, and then she kissed me.
“Magical?” I asked, pulling away.
“You escaped. Escaped the pleasure dome.” She kissed me again. “I worshipped your father, you know.”
“No.” I didn’t know this and didn’t really care. “It doesn’t matter,” I said.
She pulled back. “But it does. He was magical too.”
“He was a drunk,” I told her. “And a monumental fuckup. Worse. You have no idea.”
The sudden anger in my voice made her pull away, and she stared at me, surprised. “Well, now…,” she said, softly.
“You know why I escaped,” I continued, knowing I shouldn’t but not really caring. “Because everybody loved my father so much and it was such a joke. And Paul, he was the star. I had to, that’s why.” She pushed up her glasses. Her eyes caught me again, big and clear. They didn’t look like a drinker’s eyes.
“That’s your secret,” I told her. “You wear those glasses so that nobody will know that you never get drunk. You drink but never get drunk. You see everything.”
“Silly boy,” she said, pushing her finger against my lips. “You’re all beat up, aren’t you?” I pulled back but she kept her finger on my lips, sliding her finger inside to touch my tongue. “That Sandra woman, she fucked you up good, didn’t she? You’re angry. I love that. Nobody in New Orleans is angry anymore. Just tired.” She moved her hands around my head and pulled me closer. “Angry boy,” she whispered.
Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, stumbled out from behind the float a few feet away. The girl was wearing a simple black dress that had fallen down around her waist; her breasts glowed, lighter than her tan body. “Jesus,” the girl cried, pulling her dress up.
“Mr. Callahan,” the boy said.
I thought I might have seen him before, maybe one of our endless waves of interns.
Jessie had turned and she was looking at the two frightened teenagers.
“What’s wrong?” Jessie asked. “What is it?” She squeezed my arm. Her voice was strong and clear. It was her reporter’s voice and made her sound like a different person.
“There’s something…,” the girls said.
“Maybe…”
“It’s there.”
“What?” I asked, walking toward them.
They motioned and we followed them to the end of the float. The young man pointed into the dark space between the floats and I saw it: a large bundle. I looked more closely and realized it was pieces of pipe held together.
“Goddamn it,” I mumbled.
“I’ll be damned. It’s a fucking bomb,” Jessie said, and it was hard not to believe that she sounded almost pleased.
—
They moved everybody outside the fence with amazing ease, given what a horror show it had been getting everyone inside. Jessie made a big stink trying to remain inside, flashing her press credentials, and had it been up to just the NOPD, they probably would have let her. They knew her and liked her, which wasn’t true for those other national reporter clowns, whom they viewed with the instinctive distrust of outsiders that comes naturally to all New Orleanians. But with the Secret Service and the FBI running the show, the NOPD had the least important badges around. I saw Sandra start to complain but even she quickly gave it up. She knew enough not to fight a battle she’d lose in front of all her colleagues.
Joey Francis arrived in a helicopter, which seemed a bit much, but he looked very pleased with himself. He moved inside the fence, surrounded by a scrum of FBI agents. I watched Jessie to see if she recognized him but she didn’t seem to, though maybe it was just that she was too busy talking on her phone to an editor.
“Jessie Fenestra, cub reporter,” I joked.
“I called in a news story,” she said with some amazement, covering the phone. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.” And then she said into the phone, “Oh, fuck you, Peter. I know what I’m doing. Quit laughing.”
That was when, more or less, the world seemed to explode.
Parked off by itself, a bus was burning. Later the forensic pros would figure out that the bomber had entered the parked bus—the driver was enjoying the free barbecue at the party—and driven it a calculated distance. Not close enough to kill anyone but plenty close to scare the hell out of everyone.
They let the bus burn, not wanting to risk damaging evidence by dousing it with water or chemicals. More helicopters started landing within minutes of the explosion. First there were medical helicopters, but then some kind of Special Forces–looking group landed and set up a perimeter, as if expecting a full frontal assault. They looked like Martians with their night-vision goggles. I had no idea who they were or who had summoned them. These days there were all sorts of strange military units. Whoever they were, Joey Francis didn’t look very happy to see them. We watched him march up and confront the man who seemed to be in charge. Anybody who arrived on a bomb scene with helicopters and guys in black jumps with exotic weapons was clearly going to outrank a humble FBI field agent, even if that guy did know a lot about bombs and had been waiting for this moment all his life.
Jessie wanted to call in another story but wasn’t able to get a signal. One of the law enforcem
ent brigades was jamming all cell signals in case the bomber tried to set off another blast with a cell phone. Somebody started yelling over a loudspeaker that everyone should leave the site, and the troops were forming columns of dazed, crying people to walk over the bridge back into town. The crowd that had looked like any other drunken New Orleans party crowd now resembled refugees from a war zone. Which is pretty much what we were.
I saw Ginny talking to a huddle of cops. She came over and hugged me. “You write nasty stuff,” she said to Jessie. “If you hurt my boss I’ll kill you.”
“I like him,” Jessie said.
Ginny looked her over but let it go. “Nobody on the staff seems to be hurt.” She shrugged. “But I can’t tell you it didn’t scare some of our delegates into getting on the first plane tomorrow.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jessie gasped, “delegates? You’re thinking about delegates?”
Ginny stared at her. “All I think about is delegates.” On some twisted level, I was proud that Ginny had been able to shock the woman who prided herself on being beyond shockable. We started to join the crowd walking back over the river—nobody seemed eager to get inside any kind of motorized vehicle—when Francis spotted us. He strutted over.
“Who the hell are the ninja warriors?” Jessie asked, gesturing to the shock troops.
“Just some of my men,” Francis said. “And nice to see you too, Jessie.”
“Your men?” Jessie scoffed. “Every FBI agent I ever saw always had FBI in big letters across their field jackets or jumpsuits.”
“It’s a new world out there,” Francis shot back. “You saw the bomb,” he said flatly. “A kid and his girl told us you saw it.”
“A bomb,” I said. “Not the one that went off.”
Francis nodded in a way that made me feel stupid. Of course we hadn’t seen the bomb that went off. “Would help if you could tell us about it.” He looked around. “Not here.” He started to walk off toward an FBI car, then looked over his shoulder at us. “You coming?”
“Joey?” Jessie asked. He stopped and turned. “Why are you being nice?”
“He”—he pointed to me—“is an arrogant shit. But you, Jessie. I like you.”
Jessie smiled. “That works.”
I asked Ginny if she wanted to ride back to the Windsor Court with Francis. “I’ll stay here and make sure all our people get back.” She motioned me closer and whispered in my ear. “Be careful with that girl, J.D. Don’t forget. She’s a fucking reporter.”
I nodded. “Call me when you know more.”
—
Francis took us back to the Windsor Court, to the same command center where he and I had first met. He made us go through every minute of seeing the bomb, anything else. When he had finally had enough, it was four in the morning. I took Jessie upstairs to our floor, which was now crawling with armed Secret Service shock troops. These were the black jumpsuit guys in body armor, dripping weapons, not the regular agents in suits who looked more like very fit stockbrokers than killers. It felt like all of New Orleans was being taken over by heavily armed men in jumpsuits. For Hilda Smith, this was the worst possible scenario. She was preaching reconciliation and forgiveness and hope in a battle zone. Another bombing or two and even a Gandhi do-gooder like Lisa Henderson would be rooting for Armstrong George.
The agents wouldn’t let Jessie on the floor, even with me vouching for her. She hadn’t been cleared, they said, exactly what they would have said if we had been trying to enter the White House. We had never had that level of threat protection while traveling on the campaign. I’d had a Secret Service hard pin since the first day I went to work for Hilda, back in New Hampshire. Mostly it was for the benefit of the random police forces that always backed up the Service’s efforts, since the Service regulars knew everyone who was hard pinned. It was always assumed that a hard pin could bring anyone they wanted with them into a secured area, but now the agents weren’t letting anyone in who hadn’t been cleared. Eddie Basha saw me standing by the elevator talking to the agents. Then he saw Jessie. He shook his head and sort of shuddered.
“Can she stay here by the elevator while I just talk to Eddie?” I asked the agent. He hesitated, and then nodded.
“I’m harmless. Mostly,” Jessie said, and smiled. “I’m just going to lean up against this wall and fall asleep.”
“What the hell is going on?” Eddie whispered to me as soon as we were down the hall from the elevator. “What are you doing with that reporter bitch?” Eddie called any female reporter who hadn’t proven herself to be totally on our side “reporter bitch.” Male reporters he called “whore dogs,” as in, “What does that whore dog reporter want?”
“I was with her when the bomb went off.”
Eddie nodded dismissively. The idea that anyone might have been hurt seemed not to have crossed his mind. All he was thinking about was the campaign and how the bomb affected us and what we should do. I admired this, actually. “So get rid of her. Lisa has already briefed the veep. All hell is going to break loose now on that convention floor in a few hours.”
“I still like our plan for tomorrow,” I said. It was an instinctive response, just to get away from Eddie, which suddenly I wanted to do in the worst way. But I also thought it was the right answer.
Eddie shrugged. “It probably won’t work, but I can’t think of a better one. Who the hell is doing this? This is really fucking everything up. Jesus Christ.” He suddenly quivered with rage. “We had this thing going. We were going to pull this off. Who is fucking with us?”
The pure hate in his voice made one of the Secret Service agents look over at us, like a bird dog getting a scent. Jessie, slouched against the wall near the elevator, waved. She had her sunglasses back on. “I don’t know. But if he keeps it up, he’s going to kill somebody. Maybe a lot of people.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll cry after we win this thing.”
I started to say something encouraging, but I was just too tired. Anyway, I wanted somebody to cheer me up. I didn’t want to be the one who had to go around making everybody else feel good.
“Let me deal with this woman,” I said, nodding abstractly in the direction of the elevators, where I assumed Jessie was waiting.
“What are you doing with her anyway?” Eddie asked.
“We went to high school together,” I explained.
“Don’t fuck another reporter, you understand me?” Eddie demanded. “Just don’t do it.”
I let it drop. “I’ll be back,” I said.
Jessie seemed to have reached a silent truce with the lead agent, who nodded toward her as we finally got on the elevator. When we came out of the Windsor Court, the sun was starting to come up. The Secret Service was building a perimeter around the hotel with huge city garbage trucks and there were Humvees stationed around the hotel. It was the “America Under Siege” that Armstrong George depicted as inevitable if he was not elected president.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Jessie sighed, looking around.
“I hate this city,” I said. “Nothing good has ever happened to me in this goddamn town.”
“I’ll make you breakfast,” Jessie said. “Then it will be one thing.”
We walked back uptown, through the Warehouse District and the Garden District to Jessie’s house. She lived on the bottom floor of a shotgun house with fourteen-foot-high ceilings and Hunter fans that looked a hundred years old. We sat in the front room, a clean, sparse space. She got us drinks and I had half of mine down before I asked her what it was.
“It’s a South Dallas Martini,” she said.
“A South Dallas Martini—which is?”
“Gin, silly. Straight gin.”
I drank the rest and felt, almost instantly, drunk. Jessie looked at me and giggled. We were both filthy, covered in soot and dirt. She reached out and took the empty French jelly glass from my hand and I followed her to the bedroom.
Without ceremony, she took off her clothes. The bed was large and canopied and une
xpectedly girlish. Her body was shocking: large-breasted and strong. “I lift,” she said. “But don’t tell anyone. It would ruin my image.” She paused. “Are you going to just stare or take off your clothes?”
“Can I take a shower?”
“You’re nervous. That’s cute.”
“I’m something, anyway.”
“Go take a shower. I’ll wait.”
—
We woke up to a loud banging. Jessie bolted up, and when I turned around in the bed she was on her feet, nude, holding the largest handgun I’d ever seen. She held it with both hands, like on a pistol course. I started laughing.
“What the hell?” she said.
“Do you know how you look?”
“Do you know how many assholes have tried to break in here?”
“A lot, I’m sure. But not twice.”
“You go to the door,” she said.
“Me?”
“You be the man of the house,” she mocked, waving her gun.
I pulled on pants and a shirt and stumbled to the door. Jessie had wrapped a robe around herself and stood off to the side, still holding the gun in both hands. “Christ, Jessie,” I muttered.
“Police!” A large, deep voice sounded on the other side of the door.
“Bullshit,” Jessie hissed, waving the gun.
“No.” I sighed, recognizing the voice. “It is.”
I opened the door. Walter Robinson was standing there with a sleepy-looking Paul Callahan. Walter glared at me and stepped inside. “Holy shit,” he said, flinching when he saw Jessie standing there pointing the large handgun in his direction. “Don’t point that thing at me!” His hand rose to his holster.
“Don’t touch that damn gun!” Jessie yelled.
“For Christ’s sake,” Paul muttered. “Will you two calm down. Goddamn Dodge City.”
Walter didn’t take his eyes off the gun. “I do not like this. I hate guns.”
“You’re a cop, Walter. Get a life,” Paul said.
“Jessie, please,” I pleaded. “I am getting a serious headache—banging on the damn door, guns…”
The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear Page 16
