I didn’t even have a water bottle.
All I could do was push on, taking each step like it was my first…or last.
My heart was pounding, trying to break out of my ribs like a caged wombat. Sweat had erupted from every pore—under my arms, on my forehead. Everywhere but my rump (poor Steve).
The cramp in my side started around the tenth floor, stabbing me in the gut like a butcher knife. Two floors later, the cramping hit my calves, locking them up tight. My knees were rusty hinges that didn’t work right on the best of days; I’d be lucky not to tear an ACL again, like I had a few summers ago. I took three more steps, each one like sinking into quicksand. My legs were weights now, burdens that I was dragging up the staircase like the thin, wobbly, unwieldy things they were. If only I’d trained harder, if only I hadn’t taken so many breaks, if only, if only, if only…
I sat down on the twelfth-floor platform. Catching my breath, I told myself. Just a breather.
The cool metal of the railing dug into my back. The stairwell was unheated. That, combined with the fact that my clothes were soaking wet and bloody to boot, meant that I was colder than a well-digger’s behind.
I peeled off my shoes and tried once again to empty the water. It was useless. Same with my socks, which refused any effort to wring them dry. I hurled one shoe against the wall in frustration. It ricocheted at an angle, and disappeared over the railing.
It landed at the bottom of the staircase with an echoing slap.
Thirteen more floors. Almost halfway there. I could see the stairwell ceiling, hundreds of feet above. Below me, the view was equally dizzying. I still had my phone—I could try Steve again. I already knew that was useless, though. I could try building security and ask them to get ahold of the Secret Service upstairs. Would they believe me? A former vice president who’d lost a shoe?
My breathing was returning to normal, but I was losing precious time. My muscles were still tensed up. As soon as I tried to mount the stairs again, the cramp in my side would return. I’d been a runner long enough to know that once that happened, you were screwed for the rest of the day. Better off trying again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, until your body got used to the workout.
I didn’t have days.
If I was doing this for myself, I wouldn’t have gotten back on my bare feet. But I wasn’t doing it for myself. I was doing it for Barack, to warn him his friend was dangerous, a suspicion now confirmed by Rahm’s fixer. I was doing it for everyone who’d been screwed by a corrupt system, for everyone who couldn’t fight back.
I was doing it for Shaun.
I got up and cracked my neck. I left my socks and other penny loafer behind. I took the stairs one by one, without looking up, oblivious to the pain and the useless muscles, like a marathon runner in the last five-mile stretch, past the point of sweating, pushing myself through the stars firing at the edges of my vision, all the way to the twenty-fifth floor, where I collapsed through the stairwell door and into the reception room in a messy, bloody heap as my vision went black.
45
When I came to, Michelle Obama was kneeling over me. I was on my back in so much pain that I couldn’t pinpoint one place that hurt on my body. It all hurt. Michelle had a concerned look on her face. Then again, that was a look she had a lot of the time when I was around.
“Barack,” I said. I had exerted every bit of energy and then some climbing the stairs, and now I sounded exactly like the frail old man my critics charged me with being. “Where’s…Barack…”
An aide held a plastic cup to my lips. I drank thirstily until water spilled out and ran down my chin.
“Can you sit up?” Michelle asked. “That might help.”
I propped myself up. For the first time, I noticed that my button-down shirt had been unbuttoned—someone must have mistaken the blood for my own. There was no time to explain.
“Where is he?” I asked.
Michelle handed me the cup but didn’t answer my question. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Joe, but you look like a drowned rat.”
I chugged the rest of the water in one massive gulp. “Meanwhile, you look stunning as ever. I’m not just blowing smoke, either.”
She sent her aide off to refill the cup. I appreciated Michelle’s kindness—her motherly instinct, you might say. But I didn’t have the time to thank her.
“I’ll send someone to get you a change of clothes,” she said, looking me up and down.
I started buttoning my shirt. “Is this a black-tie event?”
“You’re going to need more than a tie, Joe. Whose blood is this?”
“The Kool-Aid Man’s.”
“I raised two kids. I know the difference between Kool-Aid and blood.”
I coughed. “There was an accident out front.”
Her eyes grew wide.
“Nobody you know, don’t worry.”
“Is everyone OK? Barack told me what happened to Shaun this morning. I saw a few missed calls from you…”
“This was a hit and run,” I said. “I helped the victim up and he’s on the way to the hospital. That’s what happened to my shirt—no good deed goes unpunished.”
“I’ll say. You gave him your shoes?”
I looked at my pink toes. “He was barefoot. Anyone else would have done the same. If they wore the same size.”
“Bono better watch out—there’s a new Good Samaritan in town.”
“Heh,” I said. I wasn’t sure who Bono was. It was the sort of name you’d give a circus monkey. “I was on my way to crash the reception.”
“You’re on the wrong floor, then.” The doors opened onto a veranda. The Crown foyer. There was no one outside. “We all went down to the lower-level ballroom when it started raining. Took forever to move everyone in the elevators. I assume that’s why you took the stairs?”
All that work…for nothing. Story of my life.
Michelle explained that the Secret Service found me here while clearing the last of the guests. They had called her upstairs to check on me since they couldn’t reach Barack.
“He’s not here?” I asked, visions of kidnapping flashing through my mind. My wrists still chafed from the rope earlier in the evening.
“Barack went out boating with Caruso.” She rolled her eyes. “You know how it is. Boys and their toys.”
46
Barack Obama was in trouble. How much remained to be seen. I gave Michelle some babble about the rain and wind, how I wouldn’t have gone out on a boat in weather like this. My flight had been canceled, after all. Just to be on the safe side, she had one of her Service agents call Steve, who had accompanied Barack onto Lake Michigan.
“No answer,” the agent reported back. “The storm must be interfering with the cell tower servicing the lake. The weather is almost past. I’m sure Steve checked out the lake conditions before they went out—he would have stopped Renegade if it was unsafe.”
While Steve got on my last nerve at times, he was a capable agent, as he’d demonstrated time and again. He could be tough on us, but it was for our own safety. He reminded me of my old babysitter in Scranton, and how she’d let us Bidens have an extra scoop of ice cream—but only if we cleared the veggies off our plates.
Michelle, satisfied that her husband wasn’t in imminent danger, turned to me. “You need someplace to stay tonight?”
“I’m a little too old to crash on the couch.”
“We have a guest room, you know.”
“I assumed Le Château de Obamas would be booked solid, what with the Secret Service, and the house sitter, and the cook, and the yoga instructor, and…”
She led me to the elevator. Some of my strength had returned. “The agents stay in hotels, unless they’re on duty. Where do yours stay?”
I looked away.
She slapped her forehead. “Of course. I’m sorry. I forgot you only got that six-month detail and then…”
“I appreciate the offer, Michelle. I’ll have to see if my travel a
gent has booked me a hotel first. Then I might grab a little late-night snack and see what kind of trouble I can get into before swinging by.”
The elevator opened. Her aide stepped out with a black garment bag. Inside was a pair of dress shoes and one of President Obama’s skinny-cut navy suits. It was a shade darker than mine, and cost more than my monthly mortgages and car leases combined.
Michelle measured it against me. “I had my staff pick this up so that he could change out of that hideous tan get-up. But he’s not here, and you are. You can change in the men’s room down the hall. Feel free to come downstairs and grab a bite to eat in the ballroom if you want—the party’s going to keep going as long as we can afford the DJ.”
“What’s a DJ cost, a hundred bucks an hour?”
“This is Questlove. He doesn’t get out of bed for under ten grand.”
“Must be nice,” I said. I took the garment bag from Michelle. The suit would fit—Barack and I were close in height and weight, even though he had more lean muscle mass.
“Oh, and Joe,” she said on her way out. “Next time, take the elevator.”
And with that, I was alone again.
I washed up in the men’s room before changing. Paper towels and a sink. What we used to call a “hobo bath.” I busied my mind with ways to get to Caruso’s yacht. Would I charter a helicopter? Rent a boat? Could you do either one of those this late on a Saturday night? I hadn’t wanted to alarm Michelle that her husband was in trouble because doubt had started to creep into my mind. What if Caruso simply wanted to take an evening boat ride? The more I thought about it, the more I realized he had no way to know I was on to him. He didn’t know that Bento Box had given him up to me. There was no need to panic.
The button-down shirtsleeves on Barack’s dress shirt were about an inch too long—and I couldn’t button the jacket around my midsection—but Barack’s suit fit better than expected. I didn’t look half bad when I did a pose-off in front of the full-length mirror next to the hand dryers.
I slipped on my Ray-Bans and made two finger-guns in the mirror. So this is what a million bucks felt like. Not bad. Not bad at all.
I mustered up a semi-serious frown and addressed the man in the mirror: “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.” I imagined the cheering throngs of voters, clamoring for hope and change. “There’s not a Black America and White America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.”
I smiled from cheek to cheek and waved, thanking the imaginary crowd for their support. “Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you.”
It was so real, I could hear the clapping. It took me longer than it should have to realize the clapping wasn’t in my head…it was coming from the doorway, where Barack Obama was leaning against the tiled wall, clapping slowly and thunderously, a plodding beat that grew ever louder, echoing through the restroom like a drumbeat for the damned.
47
I busied myself by stuffing my bloody clothes into the trash. How long had he been standing there? I was glad Barack was alive and well, but I had ostrich egg on my face and he knew it.
Scratch that—he was enjoying it.
“What happened to your excursion on the lake?” I asked.
“Same thing that happened to your flight. There was a little…delay.”
“A delay? You guys are still going? It’s getting late, isn’t it?”
“I know why you’re here, Joe.”
“I’m here to do a little schmoozing. Can’t let Oprah bag all the big donors.”
He frowned at me. “You’re worried about her running as for president. As a Democrat. Sorry to break this to you, but she was here to see Michelle. I think they were discussing doing more events together when Becoming is out in paperback. And, just so you know, the reception downstairs is packed with economics professors and grad students. Not exactly bigtime donors.”
I soaped up my hands. “So she’s not running.”
“What do you think?”
“I believed her when she told the media she wasn’t. Now…”
“You should believe her, Joe. She’s easy to see through when she’s not being honest. Kind of reminds me of somebody else I know.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes.
“This isn’t about her or what happens in the next two years,” Barack said.
“No, it’s not. You’re right.” I finally looked at him. “It’s about your friend.”
“Caruso,” he said. “He and I left the reception early. He told me he wanted to talk about Shaun. Had something to show me. That’s when he got a call on his phone. Same Blackberry model as mine. I realized what I should have seen earlier if only I hadn’t been so blind: Caruso was the one who’d picked up my phone. By accident.”
“What happened next was no accident,” I said.
“Wish I could say you were wrong.”
“So he was at the freight yard. Did he pull the trigger?”
“Did Charles Manson kill anyone with his own hands?” Barack said. “Did Bin Laden?”
“Have you talked to the police?”
He shook his head. “Caruso has deep pockets. You can buy anything in Chicago, including, as we’ve seen, protection.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t report him,” I said. I told him about my run-in with Bento Box. We were between a rock and a hard place (probably another rock, let’s be honest). “Did Caruso head back to his penthouse apartment high atop the city?”
“He’s not a super-villain, Joe. He lives in the suburbs.” Barack snorted. “Naperville. Although he’s—”
I aired my hands out under the dryer, which was loud enough to drown out the rest of what Barack was saying.
“Sorry,” I shouted. “This damn thing—”
He raised his voice: “I said he’s on the lake. When I bowed out, he said he was going out alone. Only I don’t think he’s alone. I think he has Shaun.”
The air dryer went silent.
“There was supposed to be security,” I said.
“Frisking for weapons. Stopping someone from trying to finish the job. But not stopping Shaun from leaving.”
“Shaun left on his own?”
Barack shook his head. “He was still sedated. Not alert. Somebody took him for a ride in a stolen wheelchair, straight out a service entrance. Security cameras had been cut, so we think whoever did this had inside help. The receptionist remembers seeing a ‘big man’ on the floor. Sound like anyone you know?”
Caruso was six and a half feet tall. If he’d orchestrated the initial hit this morning, it made sense for him to spring Shaun so he could tie up the loose end. We were still missing a motive. It had something to do with that stolen shipment of firearms. The blanks would fill themselves in once we showed him the jig was up.
“What makes you think he has Shaun on his boat?” I said.
“The stolen wheelchair is pinging GPS on Lake Michigan.”
“They can track wheelchairs now?”
“Wheelchairs aren’t cheap, Joe. Makes sense to do some inventory control.”
“Damn.” I shook my head. “You know Caruso best. You think he’s capable of something like this?”
“If you go by the lyrics on his early albums, he’s capable of this and a whole lot more. Rap isn’t real life, though. He was in a gang, sure. He dealt heroin. Did he ever kill anyone? He says he came close, and that was a turning point in his life. He’s all about being a positive role model now. His record sales took a nosedive, but he’s a changed man. He’s bigger than his music. He’s been talking about running for mayor. But now…”
“If somebody can change for the better,” I said, “what’s to say they can’t also change for the worse?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Barack said. “Straighten your tie.”
Mobilizing a Secret Service assault team wasn’t an option. This wasn’t their fight. Plus, we both knew
we had to play the situation delicately. If there was any chance that Shaun was still alive on that boat, we couldn’t show up in force. As soon as Caruso heard sirens, he would know it was the endgame. We needed to take him by surprise or not take him at all. The last thing he would expect would be for President Obama and Vice President Biden to come knocking on his door, alone and unarmed.
48
Barack found us a boat nearby, docked on the riverbank. It was a massive single-story vessel used for river and lake tours during the day. It was also a wreck. The boat was older than Methuselah, judging by the rusted metal and rotted wood holding it together. But it would have to do.
The tour boat captain was a Cuban American woman wearing a T-shirt that read I‘VE GOT CRABS. We’d met up with her across the street from the Tribune Tower in an underground tavern, which was at the bottom of a grimy staircase. Over cheeseburgers, Barack and the woman—Gonzalez—had hashed out details of their plan. At one point, the captain nodded in my direction and asked, in a hushed tone, “He cool?”
“Am I cool?” I’d said. I couldn’t help raising my voice. “I’m so cool they call me Joe Cool.”
“They call Snoopy ‘Joe Cool,’” Gonzalez said.
“Where do you think Chuck Schulz got the name?”
As Gonzalez was untying the boat from the dock, Barack and I sat down on one of the dozen onboard metal bleachers meant for tourists.
“You didn’t back me up there at the tavern,” I whispered.
“Back you up?”
I shifted on the cold metal. “The Joe Cool thing.”
“I’ve never heard anyone call you that. That’s the truth. Now, I’ve heard other names: Amtrak Joe, the Uncle-in-Chief…”
“The Uncle-in-Chief?”
“Don’t think too hard about it.”
That was easy for Barack Obama to say. Try as he might to earn my sympathy for his “plight” as “the cool president,” he was the coolest guy I knew. He was the coolest guy anyone knew.
“This is beginning to seem like a bad idea,” Steve said, standing alert next to the president. He looked like he was ready to throw up.
Hope Rides Again Page 16
