can find one for the day before yesterday, originating in Chicago or anywhere in Illinois or Wisconsin.”
“Hold on. I’ll queue them up.”
Barnes was back in four minutes: “There’s one from Chicago at eight A.M., very short. There’s another from Madison, Wisconsin, at two o’clock, even shorter.”
“They did it,” Madison said. “You think his brother . . . ?”
“Yeah. Darrell.”
“Is that who we’re going to murder?”
“Let me tell you about my idea for a play,” Jake said. “For a pageant . . .”
“You mentioned that, but you didn’t tell me what you were talking about.”
“That’s before I hired you as a wheelman,” Jake said.
He told her about it, about the drama that he was planning for her living room. “If you do this, and I’m not telling you not to, you have to think it out like a chess game,” Madison said. “Right down to the last little move. You have to have a backup story in case anything goes wrong . . .”
“But you’re not saying ‘no,’ ” Jake said. “You’re not arguing against it.”
“No, I’m not,” she said. “Sometimes, justice isn’t enough. You need revenge.”
“So. You’ll do it.”
“Yes.”
They stared at each other for a moment, then Jake said, “Call Johnson Black, have him come here to pick you up. You stand on your porch, make a brief statement about the gay stories. You go inside and talk to Black about whatever. When the TV people are gone, probably after the evening news, you call me. I’ll come over and we’ll do the drama.”
She nodded. “Now I’m scared again. That’s twice in a day.”
“We’re all in trouble here, Maddy,” Jake said. “This whole thing has been so complicated. But if there’s a bug —and there’s gotta be a bug, I’d bet on it now—Goodman knows that you know what Barber did to your husband. If he can find a way to make the tape public, you could go to prison. Maybe for a long time. You know what judges do to celebrities, just to prove that they’re not above the law . . . And if I don’t get that package to the FBI, I’m in trouble for the Madison shootings, myself. The drama might settle it.”
“But we’re going to kill somebody. We’re premeditating.”
“Yeah.” Again, they stared at each other for a bit, then Jake said, “Look. We’ve got a huge problem: we’ve got a psycho on our asses—or on yours, anyway. I might still skate. Sooner or later, though, they’ll have to do something about you. The new vice president can’t have any vocal opposition that alleges any kind of scandal, any kind of problem. If they’re thinking about Goodman, and you’re out here screaming that Goodman is a killer and a Nazi . . . it’s easy enough to choose somebody else. Arlo Goodman needs for you to go away, or to be discredited, or humiliated. And they’ve got a psychotic killer willing to do the heavy work.”
“But there’s a hole in your idea. The way you set it out.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. What are you going to do with the other car?”
Jake blinked. Then, “God. I’m a moron.”
“You’re not a moron. You just need somebody to go with you. You need a wheelman, again.”
He blinked again. “Oh, no. No, no, no . . .”
“Oh, yes. It’s the only way.”
They argued, went around and around, and finally she said, “I’m going, and that’s it; I’m going, or you’re not.” Then she called Johnson Black. Black arrived an hour later, took her away.
Ten minutes later, Jake watched CNN as Madison made her statement from the front porch. She said that there had been an assumption that sexuality was private, but that the FBI were apprised of the situation with Lincoln Bowe, and that it was part of their investigation. That she was distressed that people were pounding on her door, hounding her, and that one certain way of NOT getting any information was to pound on her door.
She would refuse to answer anyone who came to the door, and the thrill-seeking reporters should be ashamed of themselves. More information would be made public at an early date.
With a bunch of reporters yelling “When?” at her, she went inside. Then a ranking D.C. cop took the microphone and said that anyone who stepped on Mrs. Bowe’s yard or any of the other yards down the block, without permission, would be arrested for trespassing. That all the TV trucks were a hazard in case of emergency, and they would have to leave the street. That anyone not leaving would be ticketed and the trucks would be towed, and the bill would have to be paid before the trucks were released. That towing a big truck would cost upward of $2,000. He added that once the tow truck was there, as in all police tows, there would be no last-minute decision to leave—if the tow truck showed up, the TV trucks would be towed.
After a flurry of cell-phone calls, the trucks began leaving. An hour after the porch statement, a reporter from the
An hour after that, the sidewalk was empty.
18
