'There was no license plate. They peeled out as soon as I-'
'Stop it! Just-stop. I can find a way to live with… your mistake, and with Frank's dying, but I will not live in this house one more day with this toxic paranoia.' Sobbing, she darted to the front door, threw back the dead bolts. She shoved the kitchen windows open, smashed at the alarm pad with her fist, then sagged against the counter, holding her hand. 'Not one more day,' she said hoarsely. 'Do you understand?'
'Frank was scared of something, Callie. And we both know he didn't scare easily.' I couldn't shake the flurry of images-Frank fingering aside the curtain, wanding down his truck, that grainy flash by JFK's head. 'He couldn't get backup either. So either the Service is involved or this is something too big for them.'
She was yelling, now, to match my tone. 'Too big for the Secret Service? Do you hear yourself?'
'You don't see them digging into this. One of their agents was murdered. And they don't want to touch it. You really think some crackhead could've wrestled Frank's gun away from him? The Service is rolling over for some bullshit story. And so are you.'
She came at me, leering, her face twisted with loathing. 'You fucked up, Nicky. You did. You got Frank killed so you could screw some slut on a pitcher's mound. So don't go making this about conspiracy theories and cover- ups.'
I swallowed dryly. My flesh tingled, wanting to be numb. It felt anything but.
She sobbed for a while and then looked around as if she'd just realized where she was. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Right now, I just… I just…' She took a deep breath, held it, and after she let it out, she sounded wearier than I'd ever heard her. 'Kathy's coming to pick me up. Italian. You oughta come eat with us.'
I couldn't answer, because I was afraid if I talked, I'd start crying. So I shook my head and walked away. In my room I plugged Tetris in to the Nintendo and watched those puzzle pieces fall. I made no move to play, to align them; I just let them pile up until they reached the top of the screen and blinked defeat. All those broken shapes, all those parts of an elusive whole. I watched them tumble and tumble until I no longer felt overwhelmed, until I felt only a glazed sort of surrender. A half hour later, I heard a honk, and she called through the door that she was leaving. The first time she'd gone out since Frank's death.
I came back out after she left and walked around, closing the windows, relocking the dead bolts. I paused by that front window I'd watched Frank stand at so many times. Mimicking his position, I slid two fingers through the gap in the curtains. I knew what would be waiting out there as I knew the next twist of a recurring nightmare. My hand shaking, I drew back the curtain.
A dark sedan was parked up the street at the curb.
My skin tightened as if against the cold. The phone rang, startling the hell out of me. Walking backward to keep an eye on the front door, I reached the phone and picked up.
A gruff voice said, 'Your mother was just seated at a corner table at Giammarco's.' He breathed for a moment on the car phone, letting the implications sink in. Then he said, calmly, 'Come outside.'
I held the phone in a sweaty hand until it bleated in my ear. Then I set it down. I waited for my mind to kick into gear, but it wouldn't. There was just terror, superimposed across the blankness that was everything else. But I already knew what I had to do. I'd placed Frank at risk. I couldn't do the same with my mom. On trembling legs I walked outside.
I wouldn't see that house or my mom again for nearly nine years.
Chapter 9
It was my first time riding in a limousine, and I was still adjusting to how uncomfortable it was. I was seated on a curved section of leather bench, my knees wedged against an acrylic bar. Somehow Alan managed to work two cell phones without breaking the cadence of either conversation. He finally finished the calls and rubbed his eyes with boyish indulgence. 'Sorry. As you can probably guess, it's a critical time.'
'He hammered Bilton in the debate last night,' I said. 'November's gonna be a landslide.'
'Debates don't always matter. We have a seven-point lead, but Bilton's just starting to dig into that war chest, and we're waiting for the October surprises.'
I kept an eye on our route to make sure we were heading where he'd said we were. 'Yeah, but you have to admit. It feels like this is Caruthers's time.'
'I agree. I just think it'll be tighter than everyone's predicting. Jasper Caruthers is threatening to a lot of people. Institutions. Corporations. The Pentagon. There are a lot of voter blocks with a vested interest in seeing him lose.'
Alan tapped the divider and pointed left, and the limo slowed and signaled. Cops shoved sawhorses back against a dense press corps, and we pulled in to the turnaround under the famous cursive sign-
The Beverly Hills Hotel We stepped out into a dry heat, palm trees nodding overhead, and a woman scurried forward and handed me an impressive-looking laminated pass bearing my DMV photo and a security seal. Before I could acknowledge her, Alan was prodding me through the second security perimeter, magnetometer wands and agents scrutinizing us as an air-conditioned current blew past.
We moved through a number of well-appointed halls, Alan nodding at post-standers as I robotically raised my pass on its lanyard, and then we were through a back door and out at the edge of the dais with a huddle of campaign workers, Caruthers no more than ten yards away, addressing a ballroom filled with rapt listeners. Five agents composed the inner security perimeter, positioned back from the podium and down in front of the dais. Though they were at only a five-foot standoff, you'd barely register them if you weren't looking.
After years of trying to blend in, I felt completely exposed up there before all those eyes and lenses. I took a half step back behind the curtain.
Caruthers turned, noticing me, and winked without breaking cadence. 'I made a promise a year ago when I announced my intention to seek the presidency that I would run a transparent campaign. That I would do my best to bring voters inside the process'-he spread his arms to quell the applause-'because I assume that you're as fed up with smoke-blowing as I am. We've come through a period of unprecedented irresponsibility in the White House. We can't torture to stop violence. We can't disregard our Constitution to promote democracy. We cannot cede long- term environmental strategy for shortsighted gain. It's been said a thousand times, but that makes it no less true: The ends do not-cannot-justify the means. We've seen it over and over again-and nowhere as clearly as in our woeful foreign policy of the past decade-a single decision made for the wrong reasons coming back to bite us in the ass. A single bad decision can open a world of lamentable consequences.'
People rose in bunches to clap. I wondered if any of them, like me, were thinking of choices they'd made and aftermath they'd lived with.
'We need to question these decisions. We need to question our leaders. The next debate, up the road here at UCLA, will give students and citizens an opportunity to address their concerns directly to the candidates. Please take advantage of it. Ask tough questions. Call us to answer.'
He bent his head reflectively. 'My favorite reminder of my years as vice president is my passport. A lot of people don't know this, but the president and vice president of the United States, just like everyone else, have to turn over their passports to immigration control before entering a country. As you can imagine, mine is filled with stamps. They remind me of the privilege of the post. But more important, they remind me that no man is above the law. Every American, no matter his post, no matter his privilege, can be faced down, called to answer. We must call this president to answer for the blunders he has made. And you can do that most powerfully with your vote.'
The dais literally shook with the standing ovation, and Caruthers waved and grinned, then moved toward me, agents rotating around him like electrons. The focus of the entire ballroom seemed to follow him as he strode over, and then he clasped my hand in both of his, his amused eyes snagging on my shirt, which he seemed to sense wasn't my fault, and said, 'Nick, thank you for coming. I promised June I'd hurry back to the condo-will you please join me?'
At first I wasn't certain I'd heard him correctly over the noise, but I nodded anyway. He waved again, camera flashes dotting the sea of faces, and then he was gone through the back door.
I was frisked and wanded twice between the lobby and the door to Caruthers's apartment. The limo had dropped Alan and me off before the tallest building along the Wilshire Corridor, L.A.'s stretch of pseudo-high-rise condos where retirees intermingled with pining Manhattanites and Angelenos too rich to live on ground level. I
