'Yes, si-' I caught myself. 'Mr. President.'
'That's good. I respect that. Lord knows there are enough types willing to air their dirty laundry for a chance to swap Kleenex with Barbara Walters. Do you have any dirty laundry, Nick?'
I swallowed just to get some moisture to my throat. 'I think we all do, Mr. President.'
'Yes,' he mused. 'Some more than others. As I was saying, I'm pleased that you're not a glory hound. I'm proud of the contribution you made at San Onofre. You'll find, Nick, that some people will want to meet with you, to exploit your role for the sake of their cause or campaign, to pry around in what is clearly a matter of national security. You wouldn't want to meet with someone like that, Nick. Certainly not twice.'
Information moved quickly between the camps, it seeemed, through the common link of the Secret Service. But who was reporting back to whom?
Bilton continued, 'If you mess around on certain stages, the spotlight finds you eventually. And that spotlight is hotter than a desert sun and illuminates twice as much. So again, I'm pleased that you've decided to take the high road on this.'
My heart was racing. On the one hand, it seemed like standard political bullying from Bilton: Don't help my rival in his campaign to defeat me, don't contradict the fabricated version of events at San Onofre that is helping us in the polls, or I will make you pay. But there seemed a more menacing lining as well. Would I be made to pay like Charlie?
While I was trying to figure out how to reply, he said, 'Good-bye, Nick,' and hung up.
As I handed back the phone, Sever seemed amused by my expression. 'The Man likes to do that. The off- guard thing. Apologies, but, you know, following orders and all that.' His hand disappeared beneath his jacket and came out with a fat envelope, which he offered to me. 'This is so you can get some new furniture and the like.'
I tilted the envelope, took note of the hundreds crammed inside. The sight brought me back to the oiled leather smell of that sedan, where I'd clutched a similar envelope filled with traveler's checks. The one thing I'd carried into my new life.
I tried to read Sever's eyes. What was really being offered? Hush money? Payment for me to stay away from Caruthers, to abstain from giving him any information that might help his campaign? Was the cash for me to disappear again? Considering the context, it would seem that Sever was playing bagman for Bilton. But I had put in my sarcastic request for a new front door to Alan, a member of Caruthers's camp. And here a door was, with a cash offer behind it. Yet that seemed too straightforward. Was Sever really testing the waters, or was this a smart misdirection?
I handed the envelope back. He raised his eyebrows inquisitively.
One wrong turn, I thought, to get off course.
He shrugged and returned the envelope to his pocket. 'We'll hold on to this for you. In case you change your mind, want a new couch.' Passing me, he grinned a strained grin, handing me the keys. I wondered if Wydell knew about this little field trip. 'You need anything else, give a call.' He tapped his fist on the jamb and nodded farewell.
I took a minute to regain my composure, then called in Homer, locking the door behind us as he trudged to the bathroom. The minute I heard the shower running, I checked the dishwasher. The paper clip was still there, resting on the top right edge of the door. The bundled hundreds remained inside, untouched beneath the rack of dirty dishes.
On my disposable cell phone, I called Raz and asked him to come change out my locks. 'I be there in two hour, bro. I give you good price.'
I had no sandwich meat, but I found a box of mac and cheese in the pantry, so I started boiling water. After I'd stirred in the fluorescent orange powder, Homer emerged from the bathroom, shrugging into his massive coat. His cheeks and forehead were flesh-colored again, but already his hands bore streaks of dirt from his clothes. Beads of water stood out in his matted beard.
He trudged over and stared at the pot and the glass of water, disappointed. 'You don't even have a soda?' he asked.
'Why don't you dip into your 401(k) and go buy a Pepsi?'
He sighed resignedly. 'Fair enough. But mac and cheese?'
'Hey,' I said, 'it's been a long couple days.'
'Something to do with why that guy's been hanging around?' He registered my surprise. 'Oh, yeah. Up the street. Sitting in his car, talking to himself-earpiece, you know.'
'The guy who was just here? How often?'
'I seen him once or twice the past couple days. And now up here. Why's he so interested in you?'
'Mistaken identity.'
'Don't think so,' Homer said firmly. His beard shifted as he chewed, then he noticed I was looking at him and said defensively, 'You notice things in my profession.'
'Profession?'
'Homeless drunk.'
'What kinds of things do you notice?'
'People on the run. People with something to hide.' He lifted the spoon from the pot and ticked it at me, and I noticed how much he resembled
Liffman while looking nothing like him at the same time. 'What are you hiding?'
'A hundred eighty grand in the dishwasher.'
His smile held little amusement. 'You like to avoid questions.'
'What are you, the homeless shrink? Eat your fucking food.'
'You call this food?' But he lowered his face and ate in silence.
After a while I said, 'Sorry.'
'You should be. That's no way to talk to a guest.'
'Don't push it.'
He finished scraping cheese goo off the bottom of the pot and handed it back. I set it steeping in hot water. Later it would need a good scouring, as would the bathroom, which generally looked as if two street dogs had fought in there by the time he got through with it.
His assessment of me continued to chafe. 'How can you tell that about someone?' I asked.
He gestured around the condo. 'Look at this. Look at you. A perfectly all-right-looking guy. Reasonably smart. Everything's there for you. But it's like you left something behind somewhere along the way.'
My face grew hot. 'Left something behind?'
'Some people dig in and fight. Some of us run. You're a runner. Like me.'
I knew better than to ask what he was running from. We'd covered that ground, and he skirted his past almost as well as I did mine. 'Maybe once,' I answered, a little too sharply.
'People don't change.' He lifted a snowy eyebrow at me, observing the impact of his words. 'Truth hurts?' he asked, not unkindly.
'C'mon,' I said tersely. 'I'll walk you out.'
'Of course.'
We headed down and out onto the street, and Homer started trudging off. I stared after him. Was I a runner like him? In light of Bilton's not-so-indirect threats, did I dare to keep digging? Could I stop?
I called after him, and he turned back. I asked, 'You're buddies with the homeless guys who live around the VA, right?' The VA was a big operation with federal funding, so I didn't have any contacts over there.
''Buddies' might be a stretch, but we have common interests.'
'Such as?'
He frowned thoughtfully. 'Abandoned shopping carts, empty soda cans, Night Train.'
'A lot of Vietnam vets around there?'
'Ya think?'
'Can you ask the administration if they have a system for keeping tabs on soldiers from specific infantries? I'm trying to find anyone who served in Company C of the First Battalion, Eighth Infantry. I need to get a name of one of the guys they served with.'
'Half those guys are prob'ly dead or on the street, and I doubt the government gives a shit where the other half lives, but it can't hurt asking. Sir.' He snapped off a salute and a smirk and kept walking.
