The Undertaker

by William Brown

  “Senator, this is Pete Talbott,” I began. “Good swill at the Willard tonight?”

  “One of the very few places in the District that still serves a decent foie gras,” he said softly. “You must excuse me for not using your name, but I'm sure you understand. Where have you been?” he pressed. “I thought you were going to get back in touch yesterday and I was getting very nervous. This business in Boston…”

  “Boys will be boys, Senator, but you're right. It's time for us to come in. We'll be in your office tonight, I hope before midnight.”

  “And, you're bringing everything with you? The data files and all?”

  “Relax Senator, I have them.”

  “They're important, you know, very important.”

  “By the way, you almost lost another witness today.” There was silence at the other end. “Two hours ago I was standing in a park in lower Manhattan…”

  “Manhattan! I thought you said you were in Tennessee?”

  “I lied. I do a lot of that. It helps me stay alive. Anyway, I was swapping stories with your baldheaded friend, Charles Billingham, when someone tried to take him out with a sniper rifle.” I let that sink in for a second. “Don't worry, he's still very much alive, but he's going to have quite a bruise. The shooter was probably one of Rico Patillo's soldiers.”

  “Rico Patillo!” Hardin almost came through the phone.

  “Yeah. That was his people who tried to kill us in Boston yesterday. Charley thinks Tinkerton is working for him, so it all fits. You watch your back, Senator, you could be on their list too.”

  “Me? I'm a United States Senator, have you lost your mind…”

  “Nope, I'm just beginning to find it. I'll see you at Midnight, in your office in the Russell Building.”

  “It's right next to the Capitol, you can't miss it.”

  “Great, and Sandy says she'll have that fetching blue dress on.”

  “What? Just bring those files, damn it!”

  “Ciao, Senator.” I hung up and stared at the phone for a minute.

  “Tim? The blue dress?” Sandy laughed. “You're getting as bad as me, you know.”

  “It must be catching.”

  “Like I told you, Hardin's cute, but if he stands around too long in the hot sun, he's gonna leave a grease stain big enough to cook McDonalds French fries.”

  We ran back out to the cab. Goutam had been looking at maps and immediately drove away, heading for the tunnel and New Jersey. I reflected back to the phone call with Hardin and remembered what Billingham had told me. There were way too many people way too eager to get their hands on Louie Panozzo's files.

  There was a roll-down shade between the front seat and the back. I winked at Goutam in the rear view mirror. “See you in Philly, Goutam,” I said as I pulled it down.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Washington, DC: the shining city on the hill…

  I rolled up the shade as the cab pulled over to the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia at 8:50, giving Goutam a leisurely ten minutes to spare. It was another of those big, neoclassical edifices from the 1930s that Sandy and I were becoming so expert at negotiating.

  “Thanks, Goutam” I said as I handed him four of the crisp new one-hundred dollar bills I had taken off “Tony Grigs”, the hit man in Boston. Goutam smiled, and I handed him another one. “That's a little extra so that your memory won't be too clear about the people you had in the back seat and what they were doing on the way down here from New York. You see, her husband can get very jealous.” I winked at him.

  “Oh, yes, sir!” he grinned. “And I can see he has ample reason to be.”

  “Where's an INS agent when you really need one,” Sandy muttered as she got out of the cab. “Like, he knew what we were doing back there.”

  “Like, you care if he did?”

  “But this time, we didn't even do anything!” she complained as she jiggled and twisted her skirt and top, trying to get everything back into place. “But how did my clothes get all turned around like this, Talbott?” she asked innocently enough.

  As the cab drove away, she took my arm and we strolled into the terminal. The evening commuter crowd had largely dissipated by then, but there were express trains to both New York and DC every forty-five minutes to an hour, so the station was never empty. One of the trains to DC was leaving in ten minutes and would arrive at Union Station in Washington at 11:00. We bought two seats in the upper deck of the observation car. At night and in the rain, we assumed it would be empty and give us some privacy.

  The ticker agent found that mildly amusing. “Just so you know, we turn the lights out about two minutes after the train clears the station,” he warned without looking up at us.

  “And...? Sandy asked, puzzled.

  “And you'll want to be in your seats by then, lady,” he looked up, straight-faced. “The late run back to DC is popular for all those tired, Washington staffers returning home from a hard day “bureaucrating” in the Philly field office. So if I were you, I'd find an empty seat, I wouldn't go gawking or stumbling around up there in the dark.”

  We looked at each other, puzzled by his comments. By the time we got on board and climbed the stairs to the upper deck, there were already a dozen couples huddled together on both sides of the aisle, especially toward the back of the car. From the looks and the blankets, it was obvious they were waiting for the lights to go out too.

  “Why did I bother to straighten my skirt?” Sandy whispered as we took two seats in the second row. She snuggled up against me and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “But what a great place to hide.”

  “Think of all the money we wasted on a sleeping compartment?” I said. Her head shot up and I got those narrow, threatening eyes. “Uh, that isn't what I meant. No, no, it was a lovely sleeping compartment with you lying there next to me.”

  “And under you… over you… and yeah, I guess next to you too.” She kissed me on the cheek. “But tonight you're safe, I just want to cuddle.”

  The train started up and I looked down at her, concerned. “Are you okay?”

  “What? Just because I'm not pulling your pants off like everybody else in here? You think I'm sick or something? Men. Maybe I'm all loved-out for the day. Did you ever think of that?”

  “You? My bullshit meter just went off the chart. “What's wrong?”

  She put her chin on my chest and looked up at me. “It's almost midnight, Talbott. In three hours, I'll be back in my shack with the pumpkin and the singing mice and you'll be long gone, remember?”

  “Sandy, you're crazy.” I couldn't see her very well, but I ran a finger across her cheek and felt the tears. “I'm not leaving you.”

  “You won't have a choice; they won't give you one. This has been a wonderful ride, Peter, but it's almost over and we both know it.”

  “Trust me, that's not going to happen.”

  She put her head back down and stopped arguing, but I knew she was a long, long way from being convinced.

  The rain that buffeted New England the previous two days had blown on through DC and sucked the humidity out to sea with them. By the time our train rolled into Union Station at 11:10 we were greeted by a clear, cool early summer evening. DC was a 9-5 “company town,” and the streets were nearly deserted after dark. And Hardin was right. His building wasn't hard to find. Two large office buildings stood between the train station and the big, floodlit Capitol dome stood down the street, less than a half-mile away. The sign on the first one read “Dirksen and Hart.” The sign on the other read “Russell.”

  Inside the small front lobby, two bored rent-a-cops sat on stools next to a large, airport-sized metal detector, reading newspapers and watching a game show on a tiny TV. One of the guards went through the motions of pawing through Sandy's shoulder bag. The other one never moved.

  “Can you tell us where Senator Hardin's office is?” I asked as the guard opened her camera case and looked through the lens as if he had never seen one before.

  “Hardin? Oh
, he's up in the “high rent district,” one of the guards snickered. “Ya'll go up to the second floor and take the hall to the right. His office is all the way back on the Capitol side. You can't miss it.”

  “High rent?” I asked.

  “Yeah. He's got “the view,” the second one cackled.

  “And the back door,” the first one added and they both had a good laugh. “Best not forget he's near the back door.”

  “Is that so they can sneak stuff in or sneak stuff out?” Sandy asked.

  “All depends on what she look like.” The second one laughed even harder.

  “Over the years, lots of “stuff” went in and out that back door.”

  We walked away shaking our heads, our footsteps echoing down the high, plastered ceilings and broad marble floors of the long corridor. A broad staircase led us up to the dimly-lit second floor. The lights were out in most of the offices. The only light in the corridor came from the art deco ceiling fixtures that ran down the center of the hall. This late at night, with only a handful of bulbs lit, the old building appeared even spookier. The only office that appeared in use was Hardin's. Up ahead, we could see his door standing wide open so the dim light fell out and illuminated a small circle around the doorway, like an island in a black sea. There was a US flag in a polished brass stand on one side, a State of Illinois flag on the other, and a round State Seal with big, gold letters on the open door that said TIMOTHY A. HARDIN, ILLINOIS.

  Sandy and I peered around the doorframe. Most of the lights were out in his outer office, but we could see it was jammed with too many desks, mismatched, metal and wooden file cabinets, old computers, dirty coffee cups, pizza boxes, overflowing waste baskets, cubicle walls, tall stacks of paper, and government reports. But, there was no one there: no receptionist, no busy clerks or Senate aides, and no anxious petitioners, nothing but a loud voice and laugh coming from the rear office on the left.

  “I think that's him,” Sandy whispered.

  “If you aren't sure, I can have him stick his tongue in your ear.”

  “Are all the bruises healed yet, Talbott? Because you'll regret that one.” She took me by the arm and wheeled me through the door into Hardin's inner office.

  The Senator was sitting behind a huge mahogany desk in a tall, tilt-back leather chair. It was Hardin all right; I recognized him from TV. He was talking on the telephone, but he was one of those men who always looked 6:00 News sound-bite ready, smiling and posing, even when he was alone and on the telephone. Practice makes perfect, and his image was obviously something the Senator took great pains to cultivate, thanks to capped teeth, a tanning bed, and the occasional Botox shot.

  He had his back to the window and we could see what the guards meant by ‘the view.’ His office looked out on the floodlit U. S. Capitol. That scenic backdrop made a nice touch when the Chamber of Commerce boys from back home came calling. He could bask in its reflected power and glory while acting as if none of that stuff really mattered to a “regular” guy like him. It only took one look for me to know I hated him and the white horse he rode in on, but I had to be fair. Hardin was exactly what this place attracted and he was probably no better or worse than the rest of them. I glanced over at Sandy. She looked like she was eating it up, which made me detest this Bozo even more. In fact, I would bet the farm he got most of his votes from women. If this Senate “thing” didn't work out for him, he could always try the soaps or host one of those late-afternoon TV talk shows where the biker moms have a meaningful dialogue with their lesbian daughters and the audience gets to pick sides and guess who the real father was of the six possibilities.

  But Hardin was beautiful. Without missing a beat, he motioned for us to take the two chairs opposite him, as if we were more important than the person on the phone, and he would be with us the second he got rid of the jerk on the other end. We sat down as he droned on, “I know, John, I know,” he reassured the guy. “Of course it's important to Dade County, just like that new court house is important to Peoria... Chicago? Oh, fuck Chicago.” He winked at us. “They're just a bunch of Democrats anyway... That's right, you want a little, you gotta to give a little... Hey, some constituents came in and I gotta go. I'll call you in the morning, after you've had a chance to think it over again... Oh, I'm certain you will.”

  Finally, Hardin hung up and sat forward as he looked across the desk at us. “Sandy! My God, it's good to see you again, girl,” he said, still trying to place her. “You worked in the Chicago office last year, right? Hey, we really missed you after the election. And this must be Pete, right -– may I call you Pete? Great!” He rose to his feet and extended a firm, meaty hand in my direction, but he never took his eyes off her.

  “So, Sandy...” He seemed to be undressing her from head to foot until I thought he might drool on his desk. “What is it? You look... different?” he asked, cocking his head to the right. “The hair? Is that it? The makeup? Help me out here, girl. It's a little more... How do I say this? Quiet?”

  That was one way of putting it, I thought, but Sandy was more diplomatic. “Yeah, well, we've had to make a few adjustments the past few days, Tim.”

  “I'll bet you have.” His head nodded up and down like a bobble head on a dashboard. “My aides got me the stories and I finally caught up.” He patted a small stack of newspaper clippings in the center of his desk. “My God, I know you Sandy, it all sounds so incredible.”

  “You haven't heard the half of it,” I interrupted.

  Finally, he remembered I was there and took his eyes off her. “Pete, Pete, so you were there when they shot at Billingham, huh? Incredible! And you did bring those computer files with you? I am absolutely dying to hear the whole story, but where are they? We need to lock them up or something.”

  It was obvious that Hardin wanted the flash drives, not our story, but Sandy leaned forward and kept talking anyway, telling him all about it for the next twenty minutes. The Senator sat there nodding, looking like he was listening intently, but you could never tell with a guy like that. He would frown and sometimes look curious or troubled, sometimes bored or shocked, throwing in a random question now and then, but for the most part, he let her talk, probably hoping she'd talk herself out. She told him about Chicago, Tinkerton, the witness Protection Program, Columbus, the obituaries, Boston, and the people who kept disappearing and managed to get most of the important stuff in.

  “That is absolutely incredible.” Hardin leaned back, wide-eyed, staring at me. “And you say there's a conspiracy inside Justice and this fellow Tinkerton is running some kind of a rogue operation killing off our own government witnesses? With doctors, a funeral home, and even a county sheriff? Unbelievable!”

  “You do believe us?” Sandy asked.

  “Of course I believe you, Sandy,” Hardin leaned forward, empathizing with us all the way. “But you gotta know, in this town, with the kind of people you're dealing with, it isn't a matter of believing, it's a matter of proving.”

  Sandy dug to the bottom of her purse. “We have the newspaper clippings, the obituaries, all of it,” she said as her hand came back out with a thick sheaf of papers, talking nervously, non-stop as she laid it all in front of him. “Here's the stuff on my ex, Eddie. And in Columbus, they buried a man named Louis Panozzo and his wife using Peter's name and his wife's.”

  “Panozzo testified in front of my committee, for Chris sake! He was their accountant,” Hardin said, looking at me. “And you have those data disks with you, Pete?”

  “That's what started the whole thing.” Sandy kept on, digging deeper into her purse. “I have photographs, lots of them on a memory chip. I've got shots in Chicago of Tinkerton chasing us around, and some from Boston, before he broke my camera.”

  “That's okay, Sandy,” Hardin held up his hands in mock surrender. “I believe you, I really do. What a mess. The mob. Hired killers. And now, this rogue agent Tinkerton. It's a miracle you two are still alive.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You did the right thing coming here
. The absolute right thing. We need to get all that stuff locked up — especially those disks — and we need to find you two a place where you'll be safe.”

  “And where would that be, Senator?” I asked. “In the Federal Witness Protection Program?”

  “No, God, no! Of course not, Pete, but that's a real good question, isn't it? I guess “safe” doesn't mean what “safe” used to, does it? No, there is a top-secret staff section of the FBI that works directly with my Committee. They're top notch and they have nothing to do with the WP or with this guy Tinkerton.”

  “The FBI?” I asked, still not sure.

  “They're part of the Organized Crime Strike Force and I have them on standby. They have a safe house out near Winchester, Virginia, and I can have you on the way out there in minutes. Okay?”

  I frowned as I thought it over for a few moments. The FBI? Sooner or later, I knew it was going to come down to something like this. FBI? City cops? State cops? Maybe the damned CIA? I didn't like it, but eventually we had to trust somebody, even if it was this greasy U. S. Senator with his lacquered hair.

  “All right,” I nodded to him. “Call them. But it's both of us, Senator. Both or none. We've been on the run long enough, and I don't want to see Sandy get hurt.”

  “I wouldn't have it any other way, Pete. It's a smart move, real smart,” Hardin winked at me as he picked up his desk phone and began dialing.

  I got out of the chair and walked slowly over to the window. With the flood lights on, the Capitol looked clean and white set against the black, night sky. It reminded me that the government of the United States really did have lot more integrity than Ralph Tinkerton and his ilk. That was when I realized how tired I was, more tired than I had been in years. Hopefully, we were on the home stretch now, and I was damned glad all of this would soon be over. Each of the past six days and nights had taken their toll like a long series of body punches. The first ones didn't seem that bad, but like a long heavyweight fight, each successive blow took its toll. Punch after punch left me slumped in the corner, bruised and battered. All I wanted to do now was to curl up somewhere with Sandy and tune it all out.