crew so our star reporter can afford to travel in this kind of style?'
'It's a free upgrade,' I said.
We settled in, he on the couch, me on a soft chair. The walls on the room were painted a regal yellow, the carpeting was a deep shade of red. The fireplace was marble, the window a bay, the art on the wall portraits of people who I had some vague idea I probably should have known, but didn't.
Gus said, 'So you, my friend, are hitting home runs every day of the week. You're knocking this story out of the park. You have any idea how proud I am? You know how proud your father would have been?'
'Oh, c'mon. Thanks. But the more I find out, the less it is I seem to know. The story is just so-' I paused, looking for the right word.
My mood was completely colored by the recent, confusing revelation of Paul Stemple. I was getting that feeling of exhaustion again.
'Elusive. I just can't piece the damned thing together. There's always another part we don't know.'
'From the looks of it, young man, you're on a run. You're finding out things that other reporters aren't getting. Look at you. You've had a couple of interviews with the president over this thing, right? Why are you being so hard on yourself? You're the most important reporter in the country on the most important story of the moment.'
Maybe Gus was right. Maybe not. I wanted to feel good about what he was saying, but all I really felt was tired. The trip to Boston hadn't proven particularly fertile. Markowitz had provided little help, if any at all. Rodriguez had given me even less.
I said, 'Thanks, Gus. I'm really grateful for that. Maybe I'm just too much in the thick of it to step back and appreciate what's going on.'
Another knock at the door. I let the room service waiter in, and he left the tray on the coffee table. Gus declined my offer to split the hamburger-a welcome act of gastronomic altruism so markedly different from my recent experiences back in Washington.
As I ate, he asked, 'So what is it, Jack? Why all this frustration on your part?'
I chewed on the burger while I pondered the question. 'Because,' I said when my mouth was empty, 'it feels like I should know a lot more.
Every time I learn something, it usually means there are three other things that don't make sense. Everything seems so within reach, but so far out of my reach at the same time.'
He looked at me sympathetically. 'You have to take it one step at a time. You can only do what you can do. And you have to be careful.'
That sounded strange to me. 'What do you mean, be careful?' I asked as I salted my pile of French fries.
'Just what I said,' he replied, meeting my gaze. 'This can be a dangerous business. You know that.'
'Don't I,' I said, softly, as much to myself as to him.
'You're tired, Jack,' Gus said. 'You're tired and you're frustrated.
You've done great work. You're about to do even better work. Get some rest. Some good things are going to happen to you.'
He stood up, motioning for me to stay down. I got up anyway. As he walked toward the door, me trailing behind, he asked, 'You ever wish you could just completely change your identity and become an entirely different person?'
It struck me as an odd question at an odd time, but interesting nonetheless. 'Right now I do, yeah,' I answered.
'You shouldn't,' he said. 'You have a great life, young man. You have an even better life in front of you.' With that, he squeezed my arm and walked out the door.
I finished my hamburger in the silence of the suite. Curtis Black and Paul Stemple. What did this bizarre connection mean to the story?
Curtis Black and Paul Stemple. They are cohorts in a failed armored car heist some two decades ago. They are both charged in the death of a guard. Over twenty years later, the president of the United States is shot.
I'm told that Curtis Black is somehow key to the shooting, though I have no idea how or why. Mobsters won't talk about him. Neither will federal prosecutors. I am warned not to-what did Rodriguez so unartfully say? — 'muck around in this.' I can't find Black. He's apparently not in prison. And Stemple, he is for some reason pardoned by this president just before the assassination is attempted. And there is no apparent reason for this pardon. Nothing is overtly explained.
So what is the connection? Could Black have masterminded the assassination attempt? Could he have been angry over the Stemple pardon and sought revenge in some way? Could he be acting on behalf of another one of the armored car robbers still in jail, someone who was denied a pardon?
All these questions made my head hurt. I turned to see the light shining from my laptop computer off in a dark corner of the room. I leaned my head against the back of the chair to give my mind a rest.
A new identity. It was an interesting concept Gus had raised. Perhaps I'd become a mutual fund manager, make a filthy fortune traveling the world, analyzing businesses, picking stocks in a market in which it didn't seem like you could easily miss. Maybe I'd become a professional golfer, the now obvious dangers of the course aside.
Spend every day practicing nine-iron shots with my personal pro, then heading to the putting green to work out the kinks in my stroke.
A new identity. Someone else had raised that same point today, or something like it, no? Who was it, and why?
Yes, Diego Rodriguez, in his office, at the end of our meeting.
'Sometimes people change,' he said. I specifically remember that funny look he gave me, the way his eyes locked on mine. It was a non sequitur. It made no sense. And he said something else. He said that when people change, it's tough to keep up with them. Tough to keep up with them.
And then there was Markowitz. I had asked him if Black was in jail, and he said no. I asked him why, and he said I should ask the feds about that. Ask the feds why Black isn't in jail.
It was as if all these pieces of a puzzle started zipping into place, forming a picture that still wasn't clear-but a picture nonetheless.
You know how I work. I confirm, but I don't provide.
I grabbed my coat, my computer, and my overnight bag, which I still hadn't unpacked. I deftly sidestepped the coffee table and bolted out the door. Finally, knowledge-or at least the best substitute I had, which was educated guesswork.
Water dripped from my hair as I stood over the booth of Sammy Markowitz, who looked up at me, bovine, a pencil in his hand and a financial ledger spread out before him.
The forgiving hues of night did little to improve the aesthetics of the Pigpen. Actually, they did nothing at all. The smoke was thicker than it was that morning. The jukebox was every bit as tinny. The crowd was larger, more of the same, and thus more unpleasant. This place made my old fraternity lounge at Wesleyan seem like Le Cirque.
'So soon?' Markowitz asked, not really surprised, not really anything.
I had neither the time nor the will for the bullshit small talk. 'Tell me this,' I said, determinedly. 'Tell me if I'm right. Curtis Black turned state's witness, entered the witness protection program, and changed his identity. That's why he's not in jail. That's why the feds would know more about him than you do.' Pause, then, 'Sammy, you've got to tell me now.'
My voice rolled out of my mouth as pointed as barbed wire, but it seemed to have little discernible impact. Markowitz continued to look up at me, completely unimpressed. Here I was with what may well have been the most important revelation of my life, aside from that time over a bottle of gin and the better part of a lime that I decided I had to get married, but that's not really the point here.
'Sammy, you'll confirm, but you won't provide. Those have always been the rules.'
He replied, 'I don't have to go by rules, kid.' He let that hang out there, defiantly.
