“Exactly what was it I did that was so damned impressive?”
“You didn’t do anything, Jack. There you are, handed one of the really ugly secrets of our time, and you didn’t do a damned thing. You stayed calm and unruffled, and eventually you came to?ou are, hame, which is exactly what you should have done.”
“Then I wonder why I’m really not all that proud of myself right now?”
“I need you with me, Jack,” Billy pressed.
“What would you have done if I’d gone public?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t have to come to you. I could have gone straight to the Senate Intelligence Committee. They would probably have been pretty interested. Held big public hearings. That kind of thing.”
Billy gave a little half-shrug. “We would have blown you right out of the water.”
“You mean you would have had me killed.”
I didn’t make a question out of it.
“Well…” Billy looked as if he was thinking about it. “Not unless we really had to.”
After that he snorted in a way he apparently thought amounted to an ironic laugh.
“I’m joking, Jack.”
“No,” I said, “you’re not.”
“Yeah, I am…mostly.”
After that we slipped off into a silence in which we avoided looking at each other. When it became obvious Billy was prepared to wait me out all night if he had to, I took a deep breath and slugged back the rest of my whiskey. Then I leaned forward and folded my arms on the table.
“You’re going to have to convince me all this was really okay, Billy. You really are going to have to convince me, or…”
“Or what?” he asked when I hesitated.
“I don’t know, Billy. I can’t tell you yet.”
Billy nodded slowly at that. He lifted his martini glass, but when he realized it was empty he put it down again. Then he leaned forward and folded his own arms on the table.
“Regardless of what Plato Karsarkis may have told you, Jack, and in spite of what you may think you’ve guessed on your own, there’s a lot more going here than you know about.”
“Guys like you always say things like that, Billy, but-”
He waved me impatiently into silence.
“It’s smelly shit. Stuff you would never believe. The only way anything is
I said nothing.
“But to pull that off,” he went on, “I’ve got to have somebody I can trust to do a little business for me from time to time.” He squinted slightly, then reversed his hand and reached out and jabbed me in the chest with his forefinger. “That would be you.”
I pushed away his extended finger and folded my arms again.
“You’re a paper shuffler, Billy, just like I am. What do you think you’re going to do? Throw your laptop at the villains? Besides, you’ve got to find them first.”
“I can do that.”
“How?”
“It’s called reconnaissance by fire, my friend. You shoot at the tr?='1ees. If somebody shoots back, they’re there.”
“Look, Billy, I don’t-”
“And there’s one other thing you need to know.”
I waited.
“Two weeks from tomorrow, the president is going to announce a little reshuffle in the White House staff.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Hardly.”
I watched Billy carefully. I could have sworn I saw him sit up a little straighter.
“The president is going to announce my appointment as his new National Security Advisor,” he said. Then he leaned back and cut me a major wink. “I’m going to be running the NSC.”
For a moment I was too flabbergasted to say anything, but Billy was plainly expecting me to so I did my best.
“Well, congratulations…” I fumbled.
“Thank you, Jack.”
“I mean…well, that’s great…but, Billy, after what I’ve told you tonight, how in the world could you even think about-”
“Just shut the fuck up, Jack. Let’s order some red meat and a lot of booze and you can hear me out. Then if you want to tell me to stick my offer straight up my ass, go ahead. But listen to me first. You owe your old roommate that much at least.”
Dinner went on for over an hour after that. Billy did all of the talking. I chewed at my food without tasting it, and I nodded and said uh-huh a lot, but looking back, I can’t remember what I ate or even very much about what Billy Redwine said to me.
When we exchanged goodnights on Fifteenth Street just outside the Old Ebbit Grill, Billy insisted I meet him at his office the following afternoon at four. At first I refused. I was tried and a little angry, and I hadn’t decided what I was going to do next, or if I was going to do anything at all. But I knew Billy wasn’t going to take no for an answer so eventually I gave up arguing with him and just nodded.
After that I stood for a long time on the sidewalk and watched as Billy and his minders crossed Fifteenth Street and walked back toward the White House. I followed them with my eyes until they were lost to sight behind the line of marble columns marking the north portico of the Treasury Building.
I have no idea at all why I did.
FIFTY THREE
I didn’t leave a wake-up call so the next morning I slept late.
When I finally got up I ordered coffee and toast from room service, then pulled on a hotel bathrobe and retrieved the
I went to the bathroom and was coming out again when I heard Billy Redwine’s name mentioned. The main news had just begun and I sat down on the couch and watched while a smooth-skinned black woman with short hair and round glasses read the lead story.
“-according to Vernon Jackson, the Park Service patrol officer who discovered the body just after seven this morning. Ft. Macy Park is a little-visited civil war monument on the Potomac Rive? Par in Northern Virginia and the presence of Redwine’s Mercedes in the parking lot just off the George Washington Parkway at such an early hour had attracted the attention of the patrol officer. Upon investigation, he found Redwine’s body on a grassy slope about two hundred yards into the park. At this hour details remain sketchy, but sources tell CNN the cause of death appears to have been a single gunshot wound to the head. Redwine’s death is being investigated as a suicide. There has not yet been any comment from the White House although the President is expected to issue a full statement this morning. In other news at this hour-”
I pushed the mute button on the remote and sat without moving for a long while as I watched the woman’s lips flap silently. Once she reached up and pushed her glasses back against the bridge of her nose with her forefinger, but the gesture was quick and absent-minded and I imagined she did all the time without really noticing
