by Derek Haas
“Levine knows you’re coming?”
“I mentioned it to him a couple weeks ago. He said he’d work it in ’cause it was me.”
Despite the fact that I had told him he would live through this if he just played his part to the end, the last sound Ponts ever heard was the door clicking open. He had served his purpose, and I didn’t want to put off shooting him.
THE whole thing took eight minutes. I pulled the trigger on Ponts and kicked the door back at the same time, smashing it into the first guard who was coming to frisk me. As he fell backwards, I shot him in the head, sending the back of his skull into a potted begonia in the foyer. The silencer attached to the pistol’s muzzle kept the report from sounding like anything more than a small cough.
I didn’t care about the dining room to the right, so I stepped left and shot the two guards seated around the kitchen table before they could even get their guns up. Two chest shots, and their blood poured into their blue starched shirts, a pair of purple ovals where their front pockets used to be.
Without breaking stride, I moved up the back stairwell, my legs like pistons as I attacked each step, moving quickly now, reloading my pistols as I went. First, I shot the guard sitting sleepy-eyed on a stool at the top of the staircase reading his USA Today, a face shot, so that all of his features became an indistinguishable red mask. Another guard emerged from a bathroom, a fat guy, an extra guy, the one Ponts hadn’t told me about. I figured there would be some sort of play Ponts would try to make, a last piece of information he would hold for himself, so he could wait and use it when I would be surprised, vulnerable. But Ponts was dead and this poor player had the misfortune of taking his end-of-shift shit right as I was coming up the stairs. He didn’t have time to exhale before I shot him in the heart.
The last guy left was Richard Levine, the one-time numbers runner and current bookmaking heavy of Boston, Massachusetts. And I hated him. Not because of his operation, or his business, or the evil I could imagine he must have harnessed to rise to the level he had.
No, I hated him because of what this assignment meant, what it uncovered, what it cost me. Vespucci was right all along. I couldn’t go back to Jake, not now, not ever again. If I couldn’t account for her whereabouts at all times, if I couldn’t keep her behind locked doors, if I couldn’t protect her from my world, then she would always be in play, always be a factor, always be involved in a race she didn’t know she was running. And for all that, I loathed Richard Levine with every living cell in my body.
When I entered his bedroom, he was seated on a back patio, drinking orange juice and reading the Daily Racing Form. He turned his head and his eyes met mine and he instantly knew my purpose, why I was there, what I was going to do with the weapon in my hand. For a moment, just a moment, his eyes dropped, like he was resigned this day would come, the race he was running had reached the finish line. And then as quickly as it was there, it was gone again, replaced by the steel and spit and resolve that had driven him the last twenty years. He leapt for the nearest chair cushion, knocking the table up and out of the way, sending his breakfast dishes flying in what he hoped was the distraction he needed to reach the gun tucked underneath the nearest wicker chair.
My first bullet caught him just below his arm, breaking his ribs and sapping the fight out of him the way a strong body blow can shut down even the toughest of heavyweights. It spun him, so that he wheeled into the overturned table and dropped into the mess of food and juice and shattered glass on the floor. The chair he was trying to reach spilled over in his fall, and the gun it harbored tumbled out just a few feet from where his body came to rest. He looked at the gun the way a covetous man looks at his neighbor’s wife, so close, yet a mile away. I’m sure he was thinking, “If only I’d been a little faster.”
My second bullet stopped him from thinking, permanently.
CHAPTER 8
I am watching Abe Mann at a rally in downtown Indianapolis. He is standing on a podium, with a hundred fidgeting children on risers behind him, talking about building a foundation of learning in this country, talking about accountability and responsibility and private school credits and tax breaks for working families. Empty words told by rote with little feeling, like he’s starting to sag under the weight of a hundred campaign speeches to a hundred sleepy-eyed crowds, with no end in sight.
I am one of those sleepy-eyed crowd members, though my half-closed lids are an act, a mask, a shield I can hide behind while my eyes seek out and record every detail of the event. There are four teachers on either side of the risers, wearing green and gold James A. Garfield Elementary School T-shirts, two black women and two white males. The men are so obviously members of the Secret Service their presence is more warning than undercover work; they are dressed that way so the pictures in tomorrow’s Indianapolis Star will not project a leader who needs constant protection.
A row of photographers stands at the front of the crowd in a small section marked by steel dividers. There are several goateed men, most with ponytails, and only a few women, snapping pictures between yawns, just doing their jobs. Any one of them could kill Abe Mann rather easily and at close range, but getting away would pose a problem. The kill is only half of the assignment; disappearing after the body drops is how an assassin earns his fee.
I would guess the crowd stands about five hundred strong, and I am dressed like most of the young men here: gray business suit, dark tie, black shoes, and black belt. Normally, I would have worn sunglasses, but the sky is overcast, and I do not want to draw any unnecessary attention my way. As I’ve said, there is a way of standing, of dressing, of combing your hair, of holding a blank expression on your face, of folding your hands, of yawning when someone looks your way that renders you all but invisible in a crowd, a room, even tight quarters, like a hallway.
I count eight Secret Service men mingling in the audience, conspicuous by the slight bulges under their arms that shoulder holsters make in clothing, and by the number of times they look around the crowd instead of keeping their eyes on the speaker. I can guess their ranks will swell as we move further west and closer to the convention. How many of them I will eventually have to negotiate is still to be discovered.
I wait until the speech is over and the audience disperses en masse. Although dozens of supporters trickled away before the event reached its conclusion, I find I can be more inconspicuous if I remain a sheep in the flock instead of a straggler. I catch one last glimpse of candidate Mann as he clasps hands with various attendees while leaving the podium. His face is fatigued, and although he is grinning, there is melancholy in his eyes.
FROM Indianapolis, the Mann tour heads to Little Rock, Oklahoma City, and Santa Fe. I follow, but I do not attend another rally, nor do I check into the same hotel as Mann and his entourage. But I do stand in front of the television and parrot the words of his speeches over and over until I have the lines memorized. I begin to understand how little of a political stump speech is improvised. He’ll add a joke with local flavor to the beginning of each speech, something to let the crowd know he’s interested in their city, their state, their problems. Then he’ll transition into the same lines he’s already used a thousand times. I understand his ennui. It is damn near impossible to bring passion to weightless words.
When I reach Santa Fe, I head for the La Fonda, a pueblo-style Spanish hotel on the plaza. A sign above the door indicates it is the “Inn at the End of the Trail,” but that is a lie. The trail isn’t anywhere near its end, not for me. I check in and wait for a knock on my door.
Pooley arrives three hours later. I have taken the opportunity to work in a light nap, and I feel refreshed when he steps into the room. He is holding a thick manila envelope. His expression is sober.
“What’d you find out?” I say once we ask after each other’s health.
“One piece of the puzzle. They definitely hired two other assassins for this job besides you. Shooter number two is a Spanish contract killer named Miguel Cortega. He worked a l
ittle out of New York and Chicago before he made his way to D.C. Who knows what he did before crossing the Atlantic.”
“You familiar with him?”
Pooley shakes his head. “I went through some back channels to pull the name, called in a chit I had with William Ryan out of Vegas. He made some calls and gave up Cortega.”
Ryan was a high-level West Coast fence who repped both sides: acquirers and killers. Pooley and I had worked with him once before and were both impressed with his professionalism.
“Had Ryan used him before?”
“Twice. Both long-range sniper shots and both confirmed kills.”
“A drop man.”
Pooley nods. “Looks like it.”
“Does Cortega know he’s been tripled, or is he in the dark like I was?”
“I told Ryan to tread lightly. He can’t be sure, but he thinks he’s running blind right now.”
“Does he know if Cortega has a kill date, or is he going to make a move upon opportunity?”
“The assignment is to drop the candidate the week of the convention, same as you.”
I let out a deep breath. “Well, that’s good at least. He’s a pro, so he won’t jump the gate early. Which means I still have some time to set the table.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Go on.”
“Shooter number three. I don’t have a name, but I know who his fence is.”
“Who?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Who is it, Pooley? Jesus.”
“Vespucci.”
I looked at my friend long and hard as that name engulfed me like a poisonous cloud. I hadn’t heard it out loud in so long, I had sometimes wondered if that dark Italian was still in the game. I guess he is, and some strange part of me feels . . . what is it . . . pride? Pride that I have a chance to prove myself to that old bastard again? Pride that I will take out one of his men and complete the assignment out from under him? Pride that he will have to face the fact I am still alive? Or am I confused and the emotion I feel, for the first time in a long time, is fear?
Pooley coughs into his hand. “I know his name brings yet another personal connection into this mission, but I think it’s better you have all the cards in front of you.”
“Of course it is.” I snap out of my reverie and meet Pooley’s eyes to let him know I’m back, focused. “But you don’t know who he put on the job?”
“I tried to get the information but I met a brick wall. I don’t know what power that old Italian wields, but he has a lot of tongues afraid to wag.”
“Okay, good work, Pooley.”
He smiles. “This assignment sure is stirring up some echoes.”
“Yeah.”
“There’re plenty of other jobs out there. You can drop off and we wouldn’t miss a beat.”
I shake my head. “This one’s mine, Pooley. And there’s a reason it’s mine, even if that reason is a little gray right now.”
“You’re getting philosophical on me.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to your ramblings then,” he says with a smirk.
“Can you do a couple of things for me before you head back to Boston?”
“Anything.”
“I want a new car, an SUV, something bigger.”
“Done.”
“And I want you to stop by Mann’s local headquarters. Tell ’em you’re a contractor, you handle special events all over the country. See what kind of process they have for securing bids on Mann events. See if they use a local or a national company. Someone puts up the risers, someone coordinates the kids and the construction workers and the cops and the soldiers to stand behind him. I want to know who and how they get the job.”
“You got it. It’ll probably be late tomorrow, Friday at the latest.”
“Do what you got to do. Take the spare key on the dresser. I’ll stay here until I see you again.”
He starts to leave, then stops, and turns to face me, holding up that envelope. “I almost forgot. Here.”
“What’s this?”
“Some more research I pulled. Don’t ask me how. It’s a . . . what’s the word . . . addendum to the initial material. I think it’ll help you focus.”
“Why do you say I need focus?”
“It’s in your eyes, Columbus.”
I am sitting in a booth in McDonald’s, the most American of fast-food restaurants. I read recently that Abe Mann likes to eat quarter-pounders here, a page he stole from Bill Clinton’s playbook. By eating greasy burgers at a popular fast-food chain, he can give off the impression he is “one of us,” a true “man of the people,” not some stuffy aristocrat who sits for five-hundred-dollar haircuts and windsurfs on the waves outside his mansion in Nantucket. His handlers are playing their cards deftly; Mann’s numbers continue to rise in the polls and his press has been favorable. He is on auto-pilot, careful not to make a mistake this close to the convention, not with his nomination at stake, and so his campaign is as lifeless as the burger on the tray in front of me. We are both on missions, headed for the same spot on the map.
A brown dog is loitering in the parking lot outside the window. He doesn’t appear to belong to anyone, at least not anymore, and he is skittish, like he’s taken too many kicks to the ribs and isn’t going to let it happen again. He is sniffing by the Dumpsters across the lot, but whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it.
I open the envelope Pooley handed me and slide out a stack of papers. It’s another jigsaw puzzle, only this one is already put together, all the pieces lined up and fitted in place. Newspaper clippings and hotel receipts and bank statements and official testimony and diary entries, all presented succinctly and chronologically to tell a complete story. How Pooley put this together, or, more likely, who gave it to him, are questions for which I’m not sure I want the answers. It turns out my mother, LaWanda Dickerson, isn’t the only woman Abe Mann removed permanently from his life.
HER name was Nichelle Spellman. She was a senior vice-president of regional planning for Captain-McGuire-Magness, a worldwide agriculture processor headquartered in Topeka, Kansas. She met Abe Mann for the first time when she spoke in front of a congressional committee formed to explore allegations of price-fixing amongst the farming conglomerates. Over an eight-year period, they met frequently, and secretly, at various functions all over the world.
Nichelle Spellman had a husband of eleven years and a seven-year-old daughter. She was moderately pretty, a little plump, with dark eyes and dark hair. She was a bit Midwestern plain, but had an Ivy League education and a gift for making people feel comfortable. In her capacity as a senior VP for CMM, she also had a boatload of bribery money.
She had started off with small purchases, pushing the envelope on what congressmen could take as “gifts”: tickets to Vegas shows, celebrity golf Pro-Ams, items that drew raised eyebrows from the ethics committee but no inquiries. Mann grew adept at hiding money, using middlemen, opening accounts all over the world. For years, the relationship grew until the amount of money exchanging hands became staggering. In return, Congress stayed out of CMM’s affairs. Special committees dissolved. Allegations dropped. Price-fixing in agriculture didn’t have the same sizzle as steroids in Major League baseball or obscenities in Hollywood, and so it wasn’t difficult to turn a blind eye. A blind eye that came with a seven-figure price tag.
The relationship ended abruptly when the FBI snatched up Nichelle Spellman in a bribery sting. Mann was not aware of the Bureau’s actions until after the fact. He tried to contact her on eleven separate occasions, but his calls went unanswered, unreturned. He needed her to remain silent. He needed to know she would take the fall, his name wouldn’t come up, not when he had just been elected Speaker of the House. The FBI continued to build their case and there was talk of a Grand Jury, of testimony, of things being said “on the record.”
On May 16 of that year, a week before the Grand Jury would hear Ms. Spellman’s testimo
ny, Nichelle’s daughter Sadie was abducted directly out of her classroom. A man entered the school, telling the teacher he was from Nichelle’s husband’s office and Sadie needed to come with him right away. There was an emergency. The man seemed confident, articulate, and unthreatening, and the teacher complied without hesitation. A week later, Nichelle pleaded the Fifth to every question the Grand Jury asked her. She was distraught but resolute; she was asked if she needed more time in light of her family’s personal tragedy and she said no, this was her testimony, this was what she wanted on the record. The Grand Jury was stymied. Abe Mann’s name never passed her lips.
One month later, an undercover Kansas police officer, along with Nichelle, her husband, and her daughter, were all found dead in a snowy ditch near an abandoned airfield, shot at close range multiple times. The newspapers described it as a botched kidnapping hand-off, a sorry ending to a sad affair. The daughter’s body had shown signs of assault. No suspect was ever arrested.
I put down the papers, turning the new information over in my mind.
It seems Abe Mann has grown comfortable ordering the deaths of people. Nichelle hadn’t even talked, hadn’t given him up, and he still wanted the loose ends tied, wanted the coffin lids closed so no one would have a change of heart or a wandering tongue at a later date.
How many times had he ordered executions besides the two I know of? How many bodies are buried deep in his congressional closet? Does he take pleasure from it, acting as God, acting as one who decides between life and death?
It seems I am more like my father than I thought.
AT a table a few feet away, a man is eating by himself, obviously waiting on someone. His feet tap the floor nervously, and his eyes flit to the door every few seconds. Eventually, a harried woman comes in, two small boys in tow. I keep my head buried in the file, chewing methodically on my quarter-pounder, trying not to look up, even as the couple barks at each other.
