“How do you know . . . that name . . . ?” he managed, bile in the back of his throat.
The Coach didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
Just as suddenly, the woman reverted back to genial grandmother mode. She lifted her glass and tipped it in Leuchten’s direction.
“No better way to understand a man than to see how he talks about himself, in his own words. How he tells his own story. Whathe puts in, and what he leaves out. Now, from this . . .”
She skated the manicured index finger of her free hand—nails painted bright blue, he noticed—across the cover of Leuchten’sautobiography.
“. . . it’s pretty clear to see that you feel you’ve been tapped to use the skills God’s seen fit to give you to guide theworld into a better future. You can see things other people can’t—consequences, opportunities. Would you say that’s true?”
Leuchten didn’t answer. He hadn’t put any of that in the book—but that didn’t mean the woman was wrong.
“I’d even go so far as to say that the way you handled that situation with Ms. Bridger was the point where you realized thatyou didn’t have to let events carry you along. You could make the world into what you wanted it to be. You could take control.”
The Coach set her glass down on the paperback, right over the smiling portrait of Leuchten that graced its cover.
“You know, my original sales pitch was going to be to President Green, but I’ve learned to roll with the punches in my career.Honestly, it might even be better that it’s you, Tony.”
She settled back in her chair, eyes sparkling.
“You believe you’re a man of destiny, Mr. Leuchten. Literally. You think you’re the one steering the world, keeping it safefrom disorder. The lone torchbearer bringing the American dream into the twenty-first century. The puppet master. And so,you must hate that things are getting so out of control. Those poor people killed in the Oracle riots, the Site, all thosebillionaires buying predictions they won’t share with you and yours.”
Leuchten shot a glance at Franklin, mentally adding treason to the list of reasons he was planning to have a new FBI directorcome Monday morning.
Franklin just shrugged and looked back at the Coach, who was still talking.
“In fact, all this Oracle business . . . it’s such a stick in your eye that it’s almost hard to think that wily old prophetisn’t doing it to you on purpose, like a big fuck-you aimed right at your face.”
The Coach looked down at her hand. She languidly extended a single middle finger, examined it, then retracted it back downinto her fist, just as slowly.
“After all, Tony, you’re the one who’s supposed to be able to predict the future, right? That’s how you win elections forpeople. You see what’s coming down the pipe and pivot in whatever direction you need to.”
Leuchten searched his mind for any way he could regain control of the conversation. The woman was just some nobody. If she were somebody, he’d have heard of her. He thought of all the people he’d beaten over the years—Supreme Court justices,senators, journalists, canny rat bastards of all description—and pulled himself together.
“The Oracle?” Leuchten asked. “Why did you bring him up?”
The Coach folded her hands around her glass. Her lips thinned into a smile.
“Oh, please. The Oracle’s the biggest game in town. Who he is, what he is, why he’s doing what he’s doing. Everyone wantsto know, and everyone has an opinion. Except”—she pointed at Leuchten—“for your guy. Almost nothing at all from the presidentof the United States. That tells me that either the Oracle is one of yours, or you have no idea who he is and you don’t wantto risk alienating him by taking a position one way or another.”
Ouch, Leuchten thought, keeping his face neutral.
“But I don’t think he’s yours,” the Coach continued, “because if he was, you’d have some story out there, something you’dprepared ahead of time. The silence says that you don’t know who this guy is any more than anyone else. And Jim here”—shenodded at Franklin—“wouldn’t have gotten in touch with me, considering what that would mean for him, unless you guys had aproblem, a big problem. One the U. S. of A. couldn’t solve.
“Put it all together, and it’s clear as day—you can’t find this guy, and you want me to take a crack at it.”
Leuchten took a long sip of his drink, buying time. The good scotch was doing its work. He was beginning to feel a bit likehimself again.
He looked at the Coach, meeting the woman’s eyes. She stared back, unfazed.
“Let’s say you’re right, and we want the Oracle,” he said. “Director Franklin seems to think that you can find him for us.Tell me your plan.”
“Plan? I don’t have a plan. I mean, you haven’t hired me yet. Why should I do the work before I have the job? That would becrazy,” the Coach said.
Leuchten frowned.
“Fair enough,” Leuchten said. “What I need to hear, though, is what makes you so damn effective. Give me your sales pitch.Tell me why you think you can do better than the entire U.S. government. So far, I haven’t seen anything particularly impressive.”
The Coach shrugged. “I bet that’s what Annie Bridger said,” she responded.
Leuchten leaned back in his chair, his mouth pressed into a tight line.
The Coach grinned.
“Where will you be, Tony, if your boy loses that election? He’d be just another guy. And you . . . well, you’d just be outthere. Unprotected. Guy like you, lots of enemies, am I right?”
The woman lifted her drink and took a swallow. She very deliberately replaced the glass, not back on the book, and not onthe coaster she’d been given, but about three inches to the right, on the polished surface of Leuchten’s twelve-thousand-dollarBaker table.
“I am so damned effective, sir, because I know people. I remember people. I have one hell of
