“A legit psychic?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think—”
“Just do it, please. Okay? She wants to meet with me and
I’m trying to decide if I should take the time to do it.”
V spun and kept walking. “Maybe you should just ask the psychic,” she quipped.
Jonas headed toward his office, knowing V would have good feedback within the hour. That’s what he loved about the people he worked with. Despite all the different personalities and attitudes, everyone did their work to the best of their ability. Senator Sidams had been in the Senate for over twenty years and he did not believe in rewarding mediocrity. Jonas had seen him fire longtime friends and bring on board political rivals. No one who worked for the Senator took his or her job for granted, not even Jonas, who, as Chief of Staff, would be the hardest to replace.
The Senator paged him the second Jonas’s ass touched his chair. Jonas made a beeline for Sidams’s office.
Robert Sidams looked up from his desk, which was a massive chunk of cherry built around the time Edison was first toying with filaments. The Senator’s white hair was fully intact, despite the stress of two decades in Washington. His lean, clean-shaven face showed the hint of a tan and a scowl, making him look like a Midwest rancher reluctantly dressed up and shipped to D.C. Behind him was a wall of photos, most of the Senator shaking hands with heads of state from both friendly and belligerent nations. Sidams wore the same smile in every photo. It wasn’t fake, but it certainly didn’t tell you the cards he was holding.
“You look like shit,” he said to Jonas. “So I’ve heard.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“I’m trying to reconcile familial issues and my obsessive need for constant approval.”
“Seriously, Jonas. I need to know you are at a level of high functionality.”
Jonas shifted his gaze to the carpet for a second. “My head is still a bit out of whack from the accident. And I...”
I’m remembering things from the service. Things I had completely blocked out. Now I want to know more.
“You what?”
“I’m fine. Ready to roll.”
Sidams assessed Jonas with eyes that had once stared down Kim Jong Il.
“Fair enough. I need to see the Denver brief.”
“Can you give me an hour?”
“Will it be in better shape than it is now?”
“Infinitely.”
“Fine. Have it by then. Make sure to check the wire for anything current. I don’t want to find out Hamas has done something stupid in the last few hours that will screw everything up.”
“Define ‘stupid’.”
“Like kidnap more tourists.”
When Hamas kidnapped a busload of Israeli tourists who were on their way to a weekend of fun in Eilat the previous year, it represented a major shift in tactics for the Palestinian organization. The abduction was done on Israeli soil, not within the Territories. The tourists were blindfolded and whisked away in secret to Gaza, where they were held for six days. Though Israel launched a few rockets in retaliation, no one knew where the hostages were, so open attacks were dangerous. On the sixth day, the hostages were driven back to the open highway and released, unharmed.
Hamas didn’t want to hurt them. Hamas just wanted to show Israel they could have.
The brazen act increased already elevated tensions in the region. Sidams had just proposed his bill at the time and the kidnapping had almost torpedoed it. The Denver Peace Accords were just months away. The President would be there, but Sidams was going to be involved in every meeting. Every conversation. Every handshake. Which meant Jonas would be there as well. It could be a monumental moment in history or just another failure in a long succession of fizzled peace attempts.
“I’ll check,” Jonas said to the Senator. Jonas remained standing in front of Sidams’s desk.
“Something else, Jonas?”
“This...this is stupid. But I wanted to get your opinion.”
“What?”
Jonas told him about Anne Deneuve.
“And she wants to interview you? Officially? In connection with Michael’s murder?”
“There’s nothing official about it. The FBI can’t claim her as a credible source, even though they pay her. But I think they can use her for leads.”
“What do you have to do with the murder?”
“Nothing. But she thinks I have some kind of connection.” Sidams squeezed his jaw. “Why don’t you just tell her no?”
“I’m highly tempted to.”
“Except?”
“Except I’m kind of curious to see what she does.”
The Senator stared at him through long seconds of thick silence.
“And she’s gorgeous,” Jonas added.
“Christ, Jonas. For someone with the mental and physical discipline you possess, you sure do melt at a pretty face.”
“No argument there, sir.”
Sidams waved him off. “Fine. Go see her. Doesn’t hurt to cooperate as long as it’s unofficial. I just don’t want to read anything in the papers about this, you understand me?”
“Yes, sir. Perfectly.”
Jonas was deterred by the smell of over-brewed coffee on the way back to his office. He stopped in the small kitchen and poured the remaining trickle of brown liquid from the pot into a Star Trek mug.
V walked up behind him.
“Did you take the last of the coffee?”
Jonas took a sip. The bitter liquid slithered down his throat. “Trust me, I’m doing you a favor. Can’t we get an espresso machine in here?”
“Some of our constituents might find that elitist.”
“Better tasting coffee is elitist?”
“Better anything is elitist, you know that. Staff meeting in five,” she said.
“Shit.” Jonas looked at his watch. “Short today, okay? Gotta finish the Denver brief.”
“OK, boss. And I have information for you on your lady.”
“Really? That was fast.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Thought you would need longer.”
“I’m good.”
“You are good.”
She stared at him with either fuck me or fuck you eyes. His inability to distinguish the two was one of the many reasons he was often single.
“The FBI denies using psychic criminologists as an official source,” V said, “which is what Ms. Deneuve is. Not a medium. Regardless, my person there tells me Ms. Deneuve is bonafide.”
“Your person knows her?”
“Knows of her. I guess she’s a pretty big deal. The Post even did a profile of her about a year ago.” V handed him a printout from the Post’s website. The article was titled “The Art of Science.” He scanned the first paragraph.
“She worked that Anderson kid killing a few years ago. Remember—in Orlando?”
“Yeah, I remember. Big story. The mom did it, right?”
“But they couldn’t try her without a body, and then the
Feds found the boy out of nowhere.”
“That was Deneuve’s work?”
“That’s the story. Again, off the record.”
“Got it. Thanks. Good work, V.”
“That’s what I do. Have fun on your date with her.”
“It’s not a date.”
“Is she cute?”
“Cute isn’t the right word.”
“What’s the right word?” Jonas thought about it. “Intriguing.”
V smiled. “You know, Jonas, something tells me you won’t need a psychic to be able to read your mind.” With that, V walked away, quickly disappearing amid a small flurry of anxious-looking aides carrying stacks of papers.
Jonas stopped by his desk for a quick check of his e-mail before going to his staff meeting. He reached for his mouse and only then did he notice the envelope on his desk.
Jonas’s name was on the front. Unsealed.
Jonas op
ened the flap and pulled out the shiny pamphlet from inside.
It was proselytising literature, the kind you might be handed by an Evangelical on the Vegas strip immediately after being handed a flyer showcasing local hookers.
There was no note. Only the four-page pamphlet. On the cover was a 1950’s-style drawing of a man covering his face and screaming as flames leapt up and scorched his skin.
The typeface was bold and large.
“Confess your sins...or else!!!”
14
RUDIGER ACHES for a smoke. He thinks of cigarettes as his one vice. Goes against the discipline he commands over his body in every other way. But he loves the feeling of smoke snaking through him, like a rush of warm air over chilled skin. He’s mindful not to smoke too much. No more than three cigarettes a day. He’s only had one so far. The night will make him soon yearn for more.
So Rudiger waits. Waits and thinks.
The Preacherman’s voice scratches against his brain.
Kinda stupid, dontcha think? Goin’ to all that trouble to place a fuckin’ pamphlet in his office? Not to mention calling his private cell phone. You got somethin’ to prove, boy?
Rudiger concedes the ghost his point. It hadn’t been easy to accomplish both those tasks, after all. Not easy by any stretch. Rudiger answers out loud to no one: “Has to be open-minded,” he says. “Jonas has to see me comin’. I don’t know why, but it’s important.”
He ain’t the One.
“I know. That’s why it’s important.”
You ain’t makin’ sense.
Rudiger brings his fingers up to his mouth for a moment and then lowers them, smoking a cigarette that doesn’t exist. He lowers the window next to him. The rumble of his idling car grows louder. This part of Washington D.C. is dirty, but Rudiger likes its energy, so he has stopped here, waiting. Filthy streets washed clean by the nightfall. Housing projects only silhouettes of the desperation they shine in the morning light.
“He’s connected to me,” Rudiger says. “And because we’re connected, he might direct me to the One. Maybe Jonas is the final clue. If so, I need him thinking about me.”
The silence in his head is almost dizzying. Then:
Well, I think you’re jes goddamn showboating.
Rudiger turns his head and watches a young black man approach his car. Hands shoved deeply in the pockets of a thick red coat. Black wool cap.
Rudiger stares straight ahead. “Help you?”
Rudiger exhales more invisible smoke. “No.”
The man sniffs. “You looking for a little somethin’? Got what you need. Got it all.”
“No.” Rudiger puts his hands in his coat pockets. The man is silent for a moment.
“Who the fuck were you talkin’ to in the car?”
“Talking to?”
“I heard you. You were talkin’ to someone.”
“No one you know.”
The man’s eyes widen a bit. “You a cop?”
“No.”
“Then maybe you should get the fuck out of here. Not exactly your kind of place, ‘stand me?”
Rudiger feels the gun in his coat. Unnecessary. His other hand fingers a folded 3.5-inch tactical Buck knife, its anodized aluminum handle cold and assuring against his fingertips. Also unnecessary. It would be so easy to kill this man, but it would be a mistake.
He knows what the Preacherman would say. Would say the nigger should die, as should all of them. Preacherman’s whore would’ve laughed and agreed, repeating her man’s racial diatribe through alcohol-strained wheezes. Preacherman had very specific ideas about who should live and who should die. Funny thing is, Preacherman was the one who ended up with a knife stuck in him. Same knife that nearly took off Rudiger’s ear. Rudiger didn’t know if that was irony or not, but it sure made some kinda sense.
“OK,” he says to the man. Rudiger pulls his car into drive and eases away from the curb. He leaves the depressed neighborhood and heads toward the Capitol. The streets grow familiar as he gets closer. He’s been driving them all day.
He finds the place.
Rudiger circles around the block and waits until his target leaves the parking garage.
15
JONAS LEFT the garage just after seven, earlier than usual. The Capitol shone brilliantly against a starless sky. It took years for Jonas to stop being impressed by the view, but it finally happened. Damn shame, he thought.
He missed his Audi. The poor thing was towed to the junkyard after the accident and Jonas had settled for a rental while he waited for the insurance check to arrive. He arrived at Anne’s house four miles and twenty minutes later, about par for D.C. traffic. She lived in a modest row home, probably built sometime before WWII.
“Thanks for coming,” Anne said. She was still in professional attire, her black suit pants blemished only by an errant pet hair. Cat, Jonas guessed. He heard jazz bleeding from inside as she opened the door for him.
“My office is back here.” She led him through a living room that was well appointed but sparse, as if Anne and clutter didn’t much care for each other. “You want some wine? I normally don’t offer it during professional visits, but I’m guessing it might help in your case.”
Jonas followed and scanned the room for any photos. Nothing. “What case is that?”
“A reluctant interviewee.”
“And getting me drunk will help?”
“Immensely.”
“In that case, I’d love some. Red, if you have it.”
“Sangiovese?”
“Perfect.”
Her office was like her living room. Modern. Comfortable. Devoid of much personality. There were few personal touches providing insight about who Anne was or what she was all about. Maybe that’s how she wants it, Jonas thought. Maybe that makes it easier for her to do what she does.
He sat on a stiff black leather couch while she poured the wine.
“You keep the alcohol in here?”
“It’s where I spend most of my time. Makes it convenient.”
“I figured you were out in the field most of the time. On location.”
“Do you even know what I do?”
“Not really. But my ignorance pictures you brushing your hand over a piece of dirt and telling some wide-eyed cop,
‘This is where he was taken.’”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re quite the wiseass.” He shrugged.
She handed him a glass. “I have something called
Receptive ESP. There are a few different types of this. Mine is clairvoyance.”
“You can see the future?”
“Not at all. It just means psychic seeing. Clairaudience is psychic hearing. Clairaroma is psychic smelling.”
Jonas thought clairaroma sounded like a very disappointing psychic power. “How does your...ability work?”
“It’s usually tactile. Usually I need to touch something that belonged to the victim, and sometimes I get a trace of where that object has been. Flashes. Sensations. Sometimes I just need to be near something that resonates for me to get a sense.”
“You can see the perp?”
She shook her head. “Rarely. Think of it this way. We all have limited degrees of psychic abilities. One common ability is déjà vu. An overwhelming sensation of familiarity with a place. You can’t explain it, but it’s real when it happens. The sense is tangible. My clairvoyance is like that, but I sense where the object I touch has been, not where I’ve been.”
“I gotta say, it sounds cool, but it still seems like bullshit.” Anne smiled. “A lot of it is. Most self-called psychics are frauds.” She sat on the couch next to him and sipped her wine. “In the 80’s, a serial killer was killing young black men in Atlanta.”
“Wayne Williams.”
“That’s right. The police received over 19,000 letters and 2,000 sketches from psychics. Not a single one said the killer was black, which he was. It’s for reasons like that any testimony from psychic criminologists isn’t allowed into evid
ence at a court proceeding.”
“But the FBI likes you.”
“Because I’m right more than I’m wrong. But a lot of times I don’t even make a guess, because I don’t see anything at all. They like me because I don’t bullshit. I don’t waste time.”
Jonas wondered if all this was exactly that.
“So you want to hypnotize me. How does that play into your ability?”
“Because a person in a hypnotic state often channels my clairvoyance much more purely than someone who is throwing off all sorts of defenses.”
“Like quippy remarks and round-about answers?”
“Exactly.”
He let a few drips of wine linger on his tongue.
“Why don’t you just ask me what you want to know?”
“Because I think you don’t even know what you know.”
“That makes me sound like a genius.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“It’s what I do best.”
She shook her head. “Now you’re being borderline annoying.”
He set down his wineglass. “First of all, I’m doing you a favor by being here. I’ve got enough work to keep five of me working until midnight, but the Senator asked that I cooperate as long as it’s unofficial business, which, by the way, I assume this is.”
“It is. I won’t reveal you as a source unless you give me permission.”
“Good. Second of all, there’s no way in hell you’re hypnotizing me. So why don’t you ask me what you want to ask me.”
She nodded in the way someone does who is used to being confronted. Calm. Patient. “Very well, Jonas. I do appreciate you coming tonight, so we’ll do this any way you want.”
Jonas was immediately placated, which annoyed him. “Let me tell you what I think,” she said. She reached over and grabbed his hand. Jonas knew she didn’t do it out of affection, but rather to try to voodoo herself into his psyche. Still, the warmth of her skin was not unwelcome. “I get a sense from you, a sense of connection to the Calloway murder. It might just be that you had met with the victim before. Trust me, many if not most of my...intuitions...wind up amounting to nothing. But I have to try, don’t I? And I get something from you that’s stronger than just a casual connection. There’s something about Michael Calloway’s death that connects you to it. Tell me something, Jonas.” She seemed to search for her words, but maybe she was just trying to control the pace of the conversation. “What did you think when you heard about the second crucifixion?”
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