The head wrote itself-“Presidential Spokesman Fired”-and he had already composed the obvious lead: “In an exclusive interview with this reporter, former presidential spokesman John David Parker told. .”
It was almost sure to make Page One above the fold.
The Lincoln Town Car, with Edgar Delchamps at the wheel, was parked very close to the entrance of the garage in a slot that a neatly lettered sign announced was RESERVED FOR ASSISTANT DEPUTY DIRECTOR NUSSBAUM.
Roscoe ushered Parker into the backseat of the car and slid in beside him.
“Get us out of here,” Roscoe ordered.
“What the hell happened in there?” Delchamps asked. “We watched it on the Brick.”
“My pal is about to tell us. John, say hello to Edgar and Two-Gun.”
“I thought you looked familiar, Mr. Parker,” Two-Gun said, turning in the seat to offer his hand.
“So the President said, ‘When I get back to the White House, I will announce that I have accepted your resignation. Now get off my goddamn helicopter,’ and I did,” Parker finished.
“And when you went back in the building, they wouldn’t let you in the auditorium?” David Yung asked.
“They even took my ID badge,” Parker said.
“I don’t suppose anyone cares what I think,” Delchamps said, “but just off the top of my head, Roscoe, I think your pal was set up.”
“Otherwise, the security guys wouldn’t have been waiting for you to take your ID badge.”
“So what do I do now?” Parker asked, and then answered his own question. “Go back to my apartment and lick my wounds, I guess.”
“If you go back to your apartment, the press will be there for your version of what happened,” Roscoe said. “And until we figure this out, no matter what you tell them, you’re going to look like an incompetent who got fired for cause, or a disgruntled former employee saying unkind-and frankly hard to believe-things about our beloved President. Or both. Probably both.”
“So what do I do?” Parker asked again.
“When in doubt, find a hole and hunker down until things calm down,” Delchamps said.
“Go to a hotel or something?” Parker asked.
“Or something. Roscoe, is Brother Parker really a pal of yours?”
“He’s a pal of mine,” Roscoe declared.
“Problem solved,” Delchamps announced.
“Meaning what?” Roscoe asked.
“You’ll see.”
TWO
7200 West Boulevard Drive Alexandria, Virginia 1255 12 April 2007
The house, which was large and could be described as a “Colonial mansion,” sat on an acre of manicured lawn well off West Boulevard Drive. The landscaping on a grass-covered rise-a berm-in the lawn prevented anyone driving by from getting a good look at the front door of the house.
There was a neat cast-bronze sign just inside the first of two fences:
Lorimer Manor
Assisted Living
No Soliciting
The first fence was made of five-foot-high white pickets. Hidden on the pickets were small cameras, and both audio and motion sensors.
The second fence, closer to the house, was of cast iron, eight feet tall, and also held surveillance cameras and motion sensors. Every twenty feet there were floodlights.
As Edgar Delchamps steered the Town Car up the drive, a herd of canines-if “herd” is the proper term to describe a collection of six enormous, jet-black Bouviers des Flandres-came charging around the side of the house.
They waited patiently for the substantial gate to open, then when the Lincoln rolled past, they followed it, gamboling happily like so many outsize black lambs.
“What’s with the dogs?” Porky Parker asked.
“Clinical studies have shown that having access to dogs provides a number of benefits to elderly people, so we use them in our geriatric services program,” Two-Gun Yung replied. “That makes them deductible. You have no idea how much it costs to feed those big bastards.”
“They also serve to deter the curious,” Edgar Delchamps added.
He stopped the Lincoln before a four-door garage, pulling it alongside one of the two black GMC Yukons parked there.
Everyone got out of the Town Car as one of the garage doors rolled upward.
A grandmotherly type in her early fifties appeared at a door in the rear of the garage. Her name was Dianne Sanders, and she was listed on the payroll of Lorimer Manor, Inc., as resident housekeeper.
The herd of Bouviers des Flandres gamboled on toward her. She put her fingers to her lips and whistled shrilly. The dogs stopped as if they had encountered a glass wall.
“Go chase a cat,” Mrs. Sanders ordered sternly, pointing out the garage door.
Reluctantly but obediently the herd slowly walked out of the garage.
She looked at Delchamps and said: “Am I supposed to pretend I don’t know who your friends are? In addition to inside plumbing, Lorimer Manor offers television.”
“Think of that one,” Delchamps said, pointing at Parker, “as a lonely stranger desperately needing the hospitality of friends. And also some lunch, if that’s possible. I thought you knew Roscoe.”
“Only by reputation,” she said.
“You know he’s one of us,” Yung said.
“I heard.”
“And now that you know that, Mr. Parker,” Yung said, “we’ll have to kill you.”
“May I ask what’s going on here?” Parker asked. “What is this place?”
“Of course you can ask, but as Two-Gun just said, what you know can get you killed,” Delchamps said. He smiled, then added: “Well, let’s go get some lunch.”
In the house, Parker looked around. Plate-glass windows across the back wall offered a view of an enormous grassy area. There was a croquet field and a cabana with a grill beside an enormous in-ground swimming pool. Two of the Bouviers, their red tongues hanging and their stub tails wagging, were looking in through one of the plate- glass windows; the rest of the herd was chasing birds on the grass.
And Parker noted the residents: First he saw four elderly men, two in wheelchairs, three of whom looking roughly as old as Edgar Delchamps. There also was a very large-six-foot-two, 220-pound- and very black man wearing aviator sunglasses who appeared to be in his late thirties, and a woman who looked about sixty. She had a
