Hope Rides Again

by Andrew Shaffer

  “You think Jeni’s is open this late?”

  “Isn’t it a little cold for ice cream?”

  The weather had cooled off some following the storm, true. But “too cold” for ice cream? There was no such thing as bad weather for ice cream. Not even snake weather.

  59

  There was no line for the Centennial Wheel. Navy Pier was closed, but Rahm had made a call and the ride was now lit up and waiting for me and Barack. Just the two of us. We even had our ice cream—off-brand Shamrock Shakes from the only open ice cream shop at this hour, Pee-Wee Penguin’s Ice Cream Igloo. Not my first choice, but, as they say, any fort in a storm.

  The enormous Ferris wheel lurched into action. I waved to the agents as the ride slowly took us up, up, up, until they were nothing more than ants in sunglasses. A seagull flew past the floor-to-ceiling window on our cabin, causing me to shriek.

  Barack laughed. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you, Joe?”

  The fingers of my free hand were dug deep into the armrests. “I had my own airplane, if you don’t remember. Air Force Two.”

  He nodded. We both knew that flying on an airplane was one thing; hitching a ride on a carnival contraption was quite another. For sheer terror, however, it was no match for Funland’s Haunted Mansion.

  I looked out over the lake, which stretched for miles and miles—so far, in fact, that even during the daylight you couldn’t see the other shore. Waves were crashing against the rocks lining the pier as flocks of seagulls scattered and came back together. Bento Box’s body hadn’t been found.

  I slurped the last bit of my shake. “I didn’t know you knew Pig Latin.”

  He laughed. “Did I say something in Pig Latin?”

  “We were tied up at the Alley, and you said ixnay—”

  “Ixnay on our ames-nay.”

  “You know how long it’s been since I’ve heard that? God, it would have to have been back in Scranton.” I shook my head. “It’s the only foreign language I ever learned, you know. They didn’t teach us Spanish back then. I know you can speak Filipino, and Swahili, and all that.”

  “I don’t know a word of Filipino, Joe. Not a word.”

  “No? I could have sworn that’s what Rahm told me.”

  “Blaming it on Rahm, OK. OK, Joe.”

  Our cabin reached the tip-top of the wheel. The skyscraper windows in the Loop twinkled emerald like a hundred thousand jewels.

  “I’m going to have to reschedule my flight,” I told Barack. “Jill’s waiting to hear back from me.”

  “Michelle called her—it’s all good. We’re dropping you off tomorrow afternoon on the way back to DC.”

  “What do you have, a private jet these days?”

  “Actually, we do, Joe.”

  “Must be nice,” I mumbled.

  “Hey, don’t be that way—you could be back up in Air Force One before you know it.” He paused. “If that’s what you want. What is it that you want, exactly?”

  “You know, I wasn’t sure when I came to town. I was exhausted. Beat down by the road. But when I heard Oprah was at the forum, it awoke something in me. Y’know, I’ve watched everyone and their mother jump into the primary race. Hasn’t fazed me. Not one bit. This was different, though. The prospect of coming face-to-face with a potential rival got my competitive juices flowing. I’m not asking you to endorse me during the primaries or anything, I know how tricky it is—”

  “It is.”

  “—but I also know that I’ve still got that fighting spirit. To those whom much is given, much is asked. I can’t right every wrong, but we left things unfinished. There’s still work to do. If there’s somebody better, by God, let’s go toe to toe in the ring and may the best man or woman win. And if there truly is somebody better, then best of luck to them, but they’re going to have to fight me. If I go down, I’m going down swinging.”

  He studied me, seemingly pleased at the fire I was able to muster after all we’d been through in the past seventeen hours. “You know that once you’re president, we can finally talk about Roswell together.”

  “What did you tell that record store guy?”

  “Exactly what you’ll learn after you’re sworn in as president.” He smiled. Not a grin, but an honest-to-God genuine smile. He held a fist out to me. “Good luck, Joe.”

  I jabbed at him, grazing his knuckles.

  “You’re going to have to work on your fist-bumps, Joe.”

  “Can’t we just shake hands?”

  “Spreads germs,” Barack said. “Plus, fist-bumps are cool. Shaking hands isn’t.”

  “You think I could be a cool president.”

  “Joe.”

  I winked at him and he shook his head. We both knew I’d never be a cool president. Heck, I might never be an uncool president—there were nearly nine months between now and Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus. Plenty of time to mull my decision some more. Who knew what the future held for me? As I’d learned long ago, fate has a strange way of intervening. If I did run, however, the first campaign hire would be a decent fist-bump coach.

  60

  Barack looked both ways for traffic and dashed across the street, a new Secret Service agent in tow. Steve had already left to visit his parents. He’d had enough lunacy for one weekend. I almost felt bad he hadn’t stuck around. The little guy was starting to grow on me. Barack and I weren’t on the lam this time—in fact, we’d just finished a late breakfast of green eggs and potato pancakes and were headed to Barack’s old barbershop.

  I was still exhausted. All night long, I’d replayed the day’s events in my head, from beginning to end, wondering what I could have done differently. If there was more I could have done for Shaun. At the butt-crack of dawn, I’d hopped a cab to the hospital. He’d made it through surgery. His aunt was there by his side, holding his hand. They were both asleep. Shaun had been wrong when he’d told me no one would walk two blocks for him. His aunt—whatever problems she had—had come through for him. Caruso had come through for him. Shaun had more family than he realized. I’d handed the receptionist my Ray-Bans. She promised to give them to the kid when he woke up.

  Barack held the barbershop door open as I caught up to him. SMITTY‘S, a neon sign in the window announced. There was an old-fashioned red, white, and blue striped pole out front that was cracked down the side.

  “If you’re gonna come in, come in,” a booming baritone shouted from inside. “Hot air ain’t free.”

  It was in the forties outside, but inside the barbershop it was sweltering. There was even a fan running. The walls were decorated with framed Bears and White Sox posters. I spotted a Muhammad Ali poster identical to the one Barack had had in the West Wing.

  Six pairs of dark eyes stared at me like I’d stepped out of a spaceship. They were all men my age or older seated along a wall in folding chairs. Not getting haircuts, just hanging out.

  “Barry Obama,” an older black man in a barber’s jacket said. His beard was as gray as the hair on Barack’s head. “I’ll be damned.”

  Barack embraced him in a tight hug. “It’s been too long, Smitty.”

  The barber ran his fingers through Barack’s buzzed locks. “You been cutting this yourself?”

  “Got me a guy in DC.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “You don’t know him.”

  Smitty narrowed his eyes.

  “Jerry,” Barack said. “Jerry Feinstein.”

  “Take a seat.”

  Barack nodded in my direction. “Think you could do my friend, too? Shave and a haircut.”

  Smitty looked over at the burly Service agent standing by the door, and then looked me up and down. “Two bodyguards? I’ll be damned.”

  I was about to go on a good ol’-fashioned rant, but Barack slapped the back of a maroon barber’s chair. “He’s just messing with you, Joe,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  We took seats next to each other, facing the mirrors along the wall. Smitty pinned a
paper bib around each of our necks and disappeared into the back room for his clippers.

  “So what’s going to happen now?” I whispered to Barack. “Are our chairs going to whisk us through the floor and into an underground tunnel? What are we really here for?”

  “What’s going to happen,” he said, “is we’re going to get our hair cut. We’ve been through some real-life shit these past twenty-four hours, Joe. You want to go home to Jill looking like you closed down the bars with me last night?”

  I ran a hand over the scruff on my chin.

  “I used to write stories in this place,” Barack said. He tapped the side of his head. “Up here, when I was getting my hair cut. Smitty doesn’t do much talking. Not while he’s working.”

  That was a relief. My vocal cords needed the rest.

  In the mirror, I watched as a Crown Victoria pulled up across the street. The same make and model that had tailed us on the Dan Ryan the previous day. The driver hopped out to feed the meter. He was wearing a green newsboy cap and jacket.

  The leprechaun.

  I leaped up and ran out the door, bib flapping over my shoulder like a cape. The leprechaun saw me coming and spilled his change. There was no time to get back into his car, so he took off down the sidewalk.

  I ran into traffic, dodging cars as they whipped around me. “Hold up!” I screamed at the wee man, who was holding onto his hat to keep it from sailing off his head. There was no way I was letting him get away this time.

  He ducked into an alley. By the time I rounded the corner, there was no sign of him. His trail had gone cold. The alley was too long for him to have run the whole thing—a good city block—in the second or two it’d taken me to reach him. He had to be…there. A dumpster, its lid closed. A decent hiding place, except for one thing: dumpsters don’t pray.

  “Mother Mary, who art in heaven…”

  I lifted the lid. The guy was huddling amongst the trash bags, shaking and saying prayers to St. Mary and anyone else he could think of.

  “Come on out,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He looked up at me. I backed off to give him space, and—perhaps because he believed me, or perhaps because he knew he’d been caught and there was nowhere to hide—he climbed out.

  Up close, he wasn’t as short as I’d thought, and the bright green jacket was actually more of a forest color. Likewise, his red beard was more strawberry blond, with flecks of gray.

  “Start talking, pal. And no blarney.”

  He sheepishly handed me a business card. “Michael O’Rearden, freelance reporter,” I read out loud. “So, what, you’ve been following me around town looking for a scoop, is that it?”

  He looked up, into the clouds breaking up the blue sky. “I’ve got one helluva scoop. Picture this: Joe Biden—amateur detective. Racing around the city in a Trans Am with his pal Barack Obama, trying to solve a crime that the police have given up on.”

  “Sounds far-fetched.”

  “We’ll see what the Sun-Times says. Or maybe the Washington Post? Look out, Woodward and Bum-stein—I’m coming for your Pulitzers.”

  “It sounds a lot like that novel that just came out.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Novel? What novel?”

  “Check out your local independent bookstore before you go any further with your ‘story.’ And next time, come up with something original, kid.”

  “But I saw—” He paused, flustered, then patted his jacket. “Where is it? I had the evidence right here…My phone. Where’s my phone?”

  “Joe!” a muffled voice shouted.

  Barack rounded the corner, his bib still attached around his neck. I realized mine was, too—we must have looked like a couple of fools. I began to laugh, partly out of the lunacy of the situation, and partly due to exhaustion.

  “What are you doing, Joe? Dumpster diving?” Barack asked. His agent jogged to meet us. Steve would have never been that far behind.

  “I caught him. I finally caught him.”

  “Caught who?”

  “The leprechaun,” I said. “Well, he’s not really a leprechaun, because there’s no such thing, but…” I swiveled around and saw that the guy had disappeared again. Impossible. Had he climbed through a window somewhere, or scaled one of the brick two-story buildings like a squirrel?

  Barack peered into the dumpster. “A leprechaun, eh? Looks like he led you straight to his treasure, Joe.”

  Were leprechauns real? Had I been bamboozled? Grandpappy had sworn he’d seen them all the time back in Ireland. Of course, he was only three when his family had immigrated to the United States. Three-year-olds were, historically, full of malarkey.

  Barack pulled a phone out of the trash. “Some treasure, huh?”

  His BlackBerry.

  Or, rather, the reporter’s.

  We’d already found Barack’s phone—Caruso had turned it in to the Lost and Found at the Tribune Tower last night, just prior to heading upstairs to the reception. A change of shift meant building security hadn’t realized whose phone it was. That’s where it sat until the Secret Service discovered it this morning.

  “What is it about BlackBerries and Chicagoans?” I said, snatching the reporter’s phone from Barack’s hands. “And you say I’m the one with an old phone.”

  “It’s the security,” Barack said. “Even law enforcement can’t crack them.”

  I glared at him. “Maybe if everyone quit doing shady stuff up in here, you could all use normal phones.”

  I still had the leprechaun’s business card. I’d drop the phone in the mail, along with a note asking him to spend his time on something more newsworthy than Joe Biden. Something like the five hundred murders a year in his city, most of which went unsolved. Somebody needed to tell their stories. I wouldn’t erase any of his photos—not that I could if I’d wanted to, if what Barack was saying was true. That didn’t mean I was sending it Priority.

  “You got anything going on tonight that you have to be in DC for?” I asked Barack. “Because if you don’t, there’s going to be a little get-together at my place.”

  “Sunday dinner with the Bidens? I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Joe.” He slapped me on the back. “You want to invite Oprah?”

  I scowled at him. Playfully, but also not. I wasn’t worried about her running for president any longer. But I also knew that if we were spotted together, the speculation would begin that I was casting around for a potential running mate. It was a little early in the game for that kind of talk.

  I rang Jill and told her the good news. “Mama, I’m coming home.”

  “What are you bringing me? It’d better be something good.”

  Barack had been right—leave your wife for a couple of weeks, you’d better bring home a souvenir. Luckily for me, I had just the thing. I fished the baseball-bat pen out of my pocket. I’d forgotten to hand it back to the undercover cop after I signed his book.

  “You’ll never guess what it is,” I said.

  “It’s not some cheap souvenir you picked up at the airport, is it?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “About that surprise party this evening, you mind if I bring along a couple of friends?”

  Before she could respond, I corrected myself.

  “Sorry, not friends.” I glanced at Barack. “I meant family.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my editor at Quirk Books, Jhanteigh Kupihea; the Quirk Books team in Philadelphia, including Brett Cohen, Nicole De Jackmo, Moneka Hewlett, Rebecca Gyllenhaal, Jane Morley, Mary Ellen Wilson, Ivy Weir, Christina Schillaci, Kelsey Hoffman, cover designer Andie Reid, and (R.I.P.) Mr. Pringles; cover illustrator Jeremy Enecio; Brandi Bowles and Mary Pender at UTA; Richie Kern, Michael Nardullo, and Peter McGuigan at Foundry Literary + Media; Joe Barrett and Audible Studios; the independent bookstores, public libraries, and literary festivals and conferences who hosted events and signings for Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery; Mala Bhattacharjee; Tiffany (the cutest wife ever), Hone
ytoast (the cutest kitty ever), and Buckley (a flipping jerk); and, of course, the Obamas and Bidens.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Andrew Shaffer is the New York Times best-selling author of Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery. He is a two-time Goodreads Choice Awards nominee and a finalist in the Humor category. Shaffer studied comedy writing at the Second City, Chicago’s famed improv school. He lives with his wife, the novelist Tiffany Reisz, in Louisville, Kentucky. He offers his sincerest apologies to the rest of the nation for Mitch McConnell.

  www.andrewshaffer.com

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