Dead Watch

Green took a cell phone out of his coat pocket and began working one of the buttons with his thumb. As he did, he said, “Mr. Winter. I don’t have the package. I know about it. I’ve actually been through it. I’ll probably tell you who has it, but I’ve got to talk to her first. I can’t just have you show up . . . I mean, what if you’re the guy with the gun? I’ve never seen you before. And maybe the best thing would be if she went to the FBI. I’ve gotta have some time. I’ve gotta think.”

Jake looked at his watch. “How much time?”

“I don’t know if I can get her. If she’s out . . . she doesn’t have a cell phone. Anyway, she didn’t the last time I talked to her.”

“So try her,” Jake said.

“Not with you sitting here. We may have to talk . . .”

“I’ll come back in an hour,” Jake said. “Get in touch with her.”

“I’ll tell you right up front that she was hoping to get a little something out of the package,” Green said. “Linc suggested that she could get a decent job, if the package came out at the right time. Maybe I could . . .”

“Our friends get taken care of,” Jake said. “Nothing illegal, or unethical, but they get the attention they deserve. They wind up with decent jobs and benefits and pensions.”

“Okay . . . I’ll try to call her,” Green said. He looked at the cell-phone screen, then laid it on his desk, pulled out another tissue, and patted his scalp again. “Jesus Christ.”

Jake got up, stepped toward the door, said, “See you in an hour.”

Green called after him, “You’ve seen the FBI reports on Linc?”

“I have not—but I talk to the lead investigator every day.”

“There are rumors . . . barbed wire, no head, that sounds like he was tortured,” Green said.

“I wouldn’t want you to pass this around . . .”

“No, no, of course not.”

“We think that was an effort by his friends—your friends—to increase publicity,” Jake said. “I can’t tell you everything behind the supposition, and you might know more about it than I do . . .”

“I do not,” Green protested.

“. . . but he was definitely dead before he was decapitated, and before he was burned. The whole burning scene seems to have been set up to imply that the Watchmen were involved somehow . . . it was set up to resonate with the idea that the Watchmen are Nazis, or Klan, who kill people and burn them as examples.”

“And they don’t? How about the Mexican kid . . . ?”

Jake held up his hands, shutting Green off: “I don’t want to get in a political argument. The Watchmen may be Nazis, for all I know. But the scene itself seems to be a setup, managed by Lincoln Bowe’s friends. That’s what we believe.”

He left Green staring at the cell phone. In the outer office, the secretary ditched the Vanity Fair again and stood up. “All done with the secret talks?”

“Nope. I’ll be back. Could you tell me where I could get a bagel and a book?”

She drew a quick map on a piece of printer paper, pointing Jake toward the campus and the campus bookstore, at the far end of State Street. As she gave him the directions, she patted him on the arm: a toucher, he thought. She was nothing but friendly, smiling as she sent him on his way. If he’d been fifteen years younger, he would have been panting after her.

Might be panting a little anyway.

Of course, there was Madison—the woman, not the town. Madison, who’d once kissed him. And then didn’t. He thought about that as he got oriented with the hand-drawn map, and started toward the campus.

The girl’s map was accurate enough, but didn’t have a scale. He had to walk nearly a mile; flinched at the sight of a big GMC sports-utility vehicle with blacked-out windows, rolling along beside him. Remembered the beating he’d taken. If God gave those guys back to him . . .

He smiled at the thought.

The day was a nice one, the beginning of warmer weather, and the college girls were coming out of their winter cocoons, walking along with their form-fitting jeans and soft breast-clinging tops. Excellent.

Maybe get a novel, Jake thought: he’d just read the first of a series of novels about British fliers during World War I, by Derek Robinson, and was anxious to get another. And, of course, university bookstores were the most likely place to find his own books; like most authors, he always checked.

The store was a good one. He found The Goshawk Squadron and copies of both of his books, though only one of each, in what he thought was an obscure location. When he was sure nobody was looking, he reshelved some outward-facing books so that only their spines showed, and then faced out his own book. The shelf was still too low, but there was nothing he could do about that.

Nevertheless, two copies. With a sense of satisfaction, he walked across the street, got a bagel with cream cheese, and sat on a bench in the sun and started reading about the Goshawks . . .

Madison Bowe stood behind the etched-glass insert in the front door, watching as Howard Barber climbed out of his car, straightened his tie, patted his pockets as though checking for keys, then headed up the walk onto the porch. He was wearing the usual wraparound blades–style sunglasses and dark suit. He was reaching for the