ghost of LBJ is a party to. Just for the moment, let's be cool-whatever that might turn out to mean in practical terms.'
'But that's just it,' Maynard said. 'What do I do with what I know? I guess I'll have to do something. I told that woman from the Names Project that Jim Suter is alive, and then his panel was vandalized. So she might give the cops my name.'
We pondered this dilemma. After a moment, Timmy said, 'Why don't you call the Names Project woman- what's her name?'
'I left it in the car,' Maynard said.
'And find out if she told the cops about you, and if she didn't, ask her not to.
Tell her you have your own reasons for not wanting to get involved at this point, which is true. Ask her if she'd mind keeping your name out of it, at least for now, and then get in touch with her when you have a clearer idea of what this.. this conspiracy is about, and how far it extends, and exactly what the dangers are to Jim and to you. I have to use the word conspiracy, based on the situation Jim described in his letter. In English, there just isn't any better word for it.'
'Timothy,' I said, 'maybe it wasn't the nuns. Maybe it's all the years you've spent as an employee of the New York State legislature, an institution that makes a Medici court look like a Quaker meeting. Whatever the reason, your overstimulated sense of melodrama is getting the best of you-as I suspect Jim Suter's might be getting the best of him. Maynard, has Suter spent a lot of time in Mexico? Living among the cops there could certainly leave a man with a powerful sense that somebody might be out to get him.'
'Jim's been taking vacations in the Yucatan for years,' Maynard said, 'and I think he has friends there. As for the Mexican police, they're an ugly fact of life down there that people have learned to live with when they must and avoid when they can, like the bacteria in the water supply. I doubt that Jim has been unhinged by them. He's a worldly guy. You know, I think I will call the woman from the Names Project and at least find out what she told the cops. Just so I'll know what to expect.'
Timmy said, 'I think you should.'
Maynard crossed his living room full of primitive and modern art and artifacts paintings, carved-wood fertility totems, village-life-narrative wall hangings in brilliant primary colors- and walked out the front door.
'I wonder,' Timmy said, 'whether Maynard should tell the quilt official that the pages ripped off Jim Suter's quilt panel were from Jim's Krumfutz campaign biography and that he saw the actual Betty Krumfutz down on her hands and knees at the quilt this afternoon. I really don't see, Don, how you can sneer at the possibility of a conspiracy when-'
From outside the open front door came three loud pops. Then we heard the revving engine of a car speeding away down E Street, followed by silence.
Seconds later, when we reached Maynard-sprawled on the brick sidewalk next to his car, his blood pumping out of his body-he was still breathing, but only faintly. Timmy knelt by Maynard and began to speak softly to him as he searched for the correct pressure points to push against, and I raced back into the house.
Chapter 3
The George Washington University Hospital trauma center was where the Secret Service had rushed Ronald Reagan after John Hinckley Jr. shot him, along with James Brady, a Secret Service agent, and a D.C. policeman on the sidewalk alongside the Washington Hilton in 1981. Nancy Reagan later told reporters that as the Gipper was wheeled into the emergency room, he had cheerfully quoted W. C. Fields to the effect that, given a choice, he'd rather be in Philadelphia. But in fact, Reagan was lucky he had been shot in the District of Columbia, just blocks from GW. This hospital's emergency staff specialized in treating the thousands of gruesome gunshot wounds arriving each year from various points, mainly in the Northeast section, of one of the world's bloodiest capitals outside the Balkans.
Maynard was not jocular on his arrival at GW, he was unconscious. Timmy had been allowed to ride with him in the ambulance, and I followed soon in a cab.
Maynard's wounds, one abdominal and one to the head, were so serious that he was quickly evaluated and moved directly to an operating room.
Timmy and I settled into a lounge outside the recovery unit where Maynard would end up if he lived. 'He's in tough shape' was all we'd been told by an ER resident, and we both understood what that meant.
'It's just too ironic,' Timmy said miserably. Even though we were both charged and alert from having drunk too much Ethiopian coffee, Timmy looked exhausted, haunted, suddenly older. It was an indication of how wounded he was that he seemed only dimly aware that his shirt and khakis were stained-caked in some places-with Maynard's blood. I had held Timmy's hand for some minutes but automatically let go when two elderly black women entered the waiting room and seated themselves.
'What's ironic?' I asked.
'You know.'
'That Maynard survived Africa and Asia, but he might not survive Washington?'
Timmy grunted. Mounted on the wall across from us was a television set tuned to what looked like a self- esteem-industry in-fomercial. A muscular man rapturous with self-confidence was pumping up an audience whose faces were full of yearning for an end to self-doubt. The man's tapes, they wanted to believe, would bring clarity into their lives, and perhaps belief. The pitchman had a good thing going and he looked as if he knew it.
I said, 'Maybe Maynard will make it. It's not over yet. You've been telling me for years how resilient he is.'
Timmy sat slumped to one side of his chair, slating into space, his Irish eyes vacant and ringed, his ordinarily silky blond wave-he was the only man I knew with a kind of naturally art deco hairstyle-wet with sweat against his skull. He grunted again and shook his head hopelessly.
A gaunt, hollow-eyed man with both eyes and hair the color of lead and a sport coat of nearly the same shade entered the room and peered around. The two DC Metropolitan PD patrolmen who had responded to my 911 call had not asked many questions about the shooting, and something told me that this was the detective assigned to the case tracking us down. He walked over to Timmy and me.
'Are you the two that came in with Maynard T. Sudbury?' the man asked tonelessly.
'Yes,' Timmy said. 'How is he?'
'That I couldn't tell you.' He continued to gaze at us with eyes that were cold and unrevealing.
'Are you a police officer?' I said.
The man produced his wallet, flipped it open and shut, put it back in his jacket pocket, and said, 'Ray Craig, Detective Lieutenant, MPD.' He looked at me, then at Timmy, then back at me. He made no move to extend his hand, and unsure of how to react to Craig's chilliness, or just rudeness, neither of us offered ours.
Timmy said, 'We're really worried about Maynard. The resident said he was in tough shape. 'Tough shape' were the words he used.'
Ray Craig did not reply. He studied Timmy and me for a moment longer. Then he turned and dragged a molded-plastic chair up to us, its metal legs snagging bits of carpet as it moved, and seated himself in front of us, his knees nearly touching ours. He leaned forward, and now I was within range of his powerful odor, stale nicotine and tar. Had I once smelled like this? I knew I had.
'Which one of you is Callahan?' Craig said dully.
Timmy said, 'I am.'
Then Craig looked over at me and said, 'You're Starch?'
'Starch? No.'
Craig got out a small notepad and read, 'S-T-A-R-C-H, Donald.'
'It's Strachey. S-T-R-A-C-H-E-Y. As in Lytton.'
'Lyndon?'
'Lytton. L-Y-T-T-O-N. Lytton Strachey, the brilliant English biographer and fey eccentric. There was a so-so flick about him and his sort-of wife last year called Carrington. Maybe you caught it.'
I felt Timmy tense up beside me, but Craig just colored a little, which suited him.
