Troy didn't seem to understand even that, which I sensed was part of a pattern with him. He said nothing and turned back to his computer, me to my books, and that was that.
'Well,' I said to Gus, who had settled into the orange vinyl-backed chair beside my hospital bed, 'tell me, what on God's good earth is going on here?'
'What's going on here is that, through the luck of the skilled, you've just placed yourself at the center of the biggest story in America.
There's nothing bigger. You're the witness to an assassination attempt on the president of the United States. From what I read today, you're his journalistic equivalent of a confidant. In my own humble view, this story is going to get a lot bigger before it fades away. The presidential campaign is in turmoil, and because of the militia? I mean, come on. The militia taking a crack at our president?'
'Doesn't get much bigger, does it?' I said. I was getting tired just thinking about it, the layers that would be involved, the assassination investigation, the impact on the race, the stories about American culture, reports from the hinterland on the antigovernment movement spreading across the country. And the reach for the explanation on how it came to this: the attempted murder of the president.
Gus said, 'I want you to be careful. This little room is like a cocoon, but that's all over soon. You are going home tomorrow.'
Jesus, I thought, the voice on the telephone was right. Gus continued:
'Everyone's going to want a piece of you. The FBI is going to want a piece of you. The TV cameras are going to want a piece of you. Even the president is going to want a piece of you. You should enjoy it, but do your job. You're the best reporter I've ever met, and granted, I'm a bit biased. But do your job, and everything else will take care of itself.'
These were the reassuring words I wanted to hear, and, lying in bed, I said quietly, 'Thanks.'
We made small talk about golf with the president and the FBI agent who had been in the room and the likely impact of this shooting on the campaign. After a while, Gus stood up from his chair to leave, and hesitated a moment at my bedside. He looked down at his feet as if he was not quite sure what to say. 'You going to be all right at home?'
he asked shyly.
Truth is, I wasn't sure. I hadn't spent more than three straight nights in that house in the last year. Suddenly I thought of my dog, alone there over the past twenty-four hours, and a wave of panic washed over me. 'Jesus Christ,' I said. 'Do you know if Baker is all right?'
'The dog is fine. Your dog sitter came over and picked him up yesterday afternoon when she saw your picture on television. She said she'll bring him back when you get home.'
I paused, basking in the relief. 'I'll be fine,' I said.
'I'll get the doctor. And I have to get back to Boston. The publisher was nice enough to pay my freight down here, but I have to get back to work tonight.' And with that, a proud smile came over Gus's face. He gave my hand a long, affectionate squeeze, whispered, 'Jack, do your job,' then limped out of the room.
Cops and reporters are like oil and water. They share a like goal: to gather information for an ultimate presentation in the public domain.
Police prepare for court cases. Reporters compile information for the pages of their newspaper. But how they go about it is vastly different. Police detectives prefer the privacy of an interrogation room, sitting at a spare table with graffiti marks dug into the top, surrounded by bare slab walls, illuminated by a single lamp, with some suspect or witness looking around at the sober surroundings and wondering what has become of his life and how he can quickly and drastically change it. Detectives can take the most theatrical, most sensational case and break it down into the dull sum of its scientific parts-semen and blood samples, fingerprints and fibers. They move with a painstaking methodology gleaned from the pages of the police training manual they memorized when they ascended to the position so many years before. God forbid, publicity. That causes witnesses to be tainted, politicians to speak out, police chiefs to demand hasty action, and ultimately, protocol and common sense to be violated.
Reporters, meanwhile, like to interview people in action, capturing color and a sense of place. A good reporter can take the most mundane murder, inject it with a heavy dose of human emotion, massage it with a rapid-fire series of verbs, and end up with what the average reader might be convinced is the crime of the century, at least until the next day's paper. Reporters are constantly looking at the whole at the expense of some of its parts, glossing over this angle or that aspect to play upon what editors call 'the big picture.' Good reporters move at breakneck speed, well aware of the competition from other newspapers or television stations. Best to have an incomplete story first than the entire tale last. And virtually everything, they believe, is appropriate in the public realm, allowing readers to decide what is right or wrong, whether the grammar school principal is really a child molester or if the accusations of decade-old misdeeds are a piece of sad whimsy on the part of a psychologically unfit former student.
So it is all the more fruitful and delicious when a reporter is able to strike up a relationship with a police detective, and I take no small amount of pride in saying that much of the success I've had in my career-and, since you're wondering, I've had my share-has been due to my ability to get along with cops. My grandfather was a Boston police sergeant. One of my uncles was a Boston police detective. I know how to communicate with them in a way that Troy Ellis, for instance, never would-when to cuss, when to talk big, when to be respectful, how to engage them in some back and forth and involve them in my needs.
None of this, though, seemed to have any direct bearing on my new relationship with Samantha Stevens.
She didn't spend a lot of time on niceties when she strode into my hospital room, just a moment after the doctor had left. 'Why don't we start with the basics?' she said. 'What is it you were doing playing golf with the president of the United States?'
Her partner, who briefly introduced himself as an assistant director of the FBI, no less, stood impassively against the wall.
'He invited me,' I said, taken aback, but trying to maintain composure.
'Why's that?' she asked, aloof, almost clinical.
I didn't like where this was going, mostly because I wasn't particularly keen on word getting out already about this offer to be press secretary.
'Why don't you ask him?' I said, and I watched as her very becoming face flushed red.
'Why don't I decide how to conduct the investigation?' she replied, just as aloof, just as clinical.
This wasn't quite unpleasant, but it wasn't far from it. I expected a nice, collegial little discussion, maybe share a can of orange juice and rhapsodize about what had become of a society where a collection of country bumpkins would think it's meaningful, even laudable, to kill the president of the United States and overthrow our democratic form of government. Instead, I was being treated like a suspect in a purse snatching.
Stevens was standing a few feet from my bed. I was sitting up on some pillows. Not that she gave me any encouragement to think about such things, but she looked even better than the day before, her straight black hair cascading across her shoulders and over the top part of a smart navy blue work suit. She had tiny little bags under her blazing blue eyes, and little crow's feet beside them, betraying the only signs of her age. She gave no indication whether she was pleased or displeased with how our little chat was proceeding.
'We are conducting the most important investigation in the bureau right now, Mr. Flynn,' she said. 'Forgive my manner, if you are for some reason offended by it. But I have to dedicate myself to getting to the bottom of this case as quickly as humanly possible. And such a mission doesn't accord me much time for excessive civility.'
'Apparently not,' I said. 'If it would help,' I added, knowing what I was about to suggest would do anything but, 'I could call my lawyer and have him come down and sit in.'
That seemed to take Stevens by surprise, not to mention her colleague Drinker, who I caught furrowing his brow. Me, too, actually. What the hell was I thinking?
'That would be a mistake for all of us,' she said.
She paused, standing there with her arms crossed, then added, 'Look, we didn't get off on the very best foot here. I just want you to understand the gravity of this investigation. We have vastly different interests, and I didn't necessarily appreciate reading your eyewitness account in the newspaper before we had a chance to talk. This is first and foremost an FBI investigation of an assassination attempt on the president, not simply some sensational
