Dead Watch

“Want me to jack up Patterson?”

Danzig rubbed his face, suddenly looking old and tired. “Wait overnight. Let me sleep on it,” he said.

“Okay.”

Danzig leaned forward. “The problem is this: the RNC may be feeding you this rumor, knowing it will get to me. I talk to the president, we ask around. Even if we keep it secret, the RNC feeds it through the back door to some conservative sheet or cable station. The L.A. Times, maybe. Tells them that we know about it. Then we’re in trouble, whether or not it’s true. We can’t even deny that we asked around. Landers gets investigated all summer, into the campaign.”

Jake nodded. That’s what would happen.

“If we have to dump Landers, we’ve got to do it before summer,” Danzig said. He was talking to himself as much as to Jake. “We can’t carry him into the convention. But if the accusation is bullshit, then Landers pees on us.”

“We need some specifics,” Jake said.

“Just like with Bowe,” Danzig said. “If we could only get the specifics, we could move. Without them, we could be screwed no matter what we do.”

“But if we don’t look into it . . . we could get into pretty deep trouble ourselves,” Jake said. “I mean us, personally. Obstruction of justice and all that.”

Danzig nodded: “Of course. But everybody would give us a day or two. Working through the bureaucracy.”

Jake stood up: “I’ll be on the phone. Call anytime.”

“What about Schmidt?”

“Nothing new. Can’t find him,” Jake said.

“But we’re looking.”

“Novatny’s tearing up the countryside. He’s pretty competent.”

Danzig picked up a pencil, drummed it, stuck it behind an ear, rubbed his face with both hands. Tired. Finally he said, “Best thing that could happen is, we find Schmidt and pin the killing on him. Or on the Watchmen,” Danzig said. “Then we find the package and get rid of Landers, and never let anybody even hint that there might have been a connection.”

“Gonna be tough,” Jake said. “The media’s running around like a herd of weasels, putting every rumor they can find on the air. Looking for somebody to hang, somebody to blame.”

“When the going gets tough, the tough blame the CIA,” Danzig said. He paused, then said, “But I don’t think that applies here.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Jake said.

“Goddamnit. Goddamnit.” Danzig flipped a desk calendar: “Four months to the convention.” He stared at the calendar, then said, “Listen: I’m going to talk to the president. We’ll want you to see Patterson in the morning. Get some sleep. I’ll call you early, one way or the other.”

9 

Jake left the White House, tapping along in the night with his cane, looking for a cab. Lots of traffic, not many taxis. He’d walked three blocks before he finally spotted a ride, flagged it. “Daily News, in Georgetown.”

The driver grunted, and they drove wordlessly down M across the bridge, six blocks down. The driver grunted again, Jake passed him a couple of bills, and got out. The Daily News was a surf-and-turf joint, with enough light to read by, and an Amsterdam-style newsstand in the front entry, like a brown bar. He chose a battered copy of New York, ordered the mangrove snapper and the house white, and settled into a quiet booth to read some gossip and enjoy the fish.

Was nagged by the thought that he should have told Danzig about Bowe being gay. The issue was one of loyalty: he was taking Danzig’s money, and he even generally agreed with the president’s program, versus that pushed by the Republicans. Bringing up the gay issue would advance the cause. Yet . . . whether or not Madison Bowe knew it, she’d be trashed. And she’d blame him, and he didn’t want that. Actually, he thought, he wanted Madison Bowe: honor versus testicles. The thought made him smile at his own foolishness . . .

He had a second glass of wine at the end of the meal, something with an edge to cut the sweetness from a creme brulee, then gathered his case and stick and went outside. Nice night. He decided to walk, a little more than a mile. He ate at the Daily News twice a week, and the walk was just right for his leg.

The light was dying as he strolled along the uneven sidewalks, puzzling out the problem of what to do. He took twenty-five minutes to get home.

The front walkway to the house was still torn up, so he automatically continued around to the back, to the alley entry.

He heard the car doors open. Paid no attention to it until he got his key in the gate lock, realized that he hadn’t heard them close again. Not that it was odd, exactly . . . then he saw the man coming, too fast, way too fast, too close, something raised above his head. And a second man, coming in a rush, a step behind the first. They were big, rangy, fast, one black and one white, he thought, and then they were on him . . .

Somebody shouted and Jake raised his cane and flinched away from a movement and took the first stroke of what might have been an axe handle—or maybe just a stick, but he had axe handle in his mind’s eye—on the side of his cane and his arm, and he shouted, heard himself shout, more like a scream, then the second man swung at him, another ax handle or stick and Jake caught the blow with a push of the flat of his left hand, and then the first man caught him on the back of the neck, then on the head, and dazed, he went down, flailing, rolling, rolling, rolling, trying to make them miss, trying to get back in the fight, off the defensive. The two men were flailing at him, one of them saying, “Git him, git that mother, git him,” a kind of chant, and he tried to stay faceup so he could see the blows coming, fending with his cane and hands, and he heard a man scream, Hey you sonsofbitches and he was hit again and again and then there was a powerful, shattering blast and a flash of light and the man closest to him froze for just an instant and Jake slashed his knee with the steel handle of his cane and felt it crunch home, saw the man stagger, then a woman was screaming and another flash of light and