“I thought you could use something to keep you busy during your convalescence. So I brought you a little gift.”
Otter got up and went to the living room. He lifted a plant in a terra-cotta pot and held it up for Bo to see.
“It’s a dieffenbachia,” Otter said. “A real one. I know you like the artificial things because they don’t require your attention, but they don’t give you anything either. Now this dieffenbachia, you take care of it, water it, talk to it, it’ll give you something in return, Spider-Man. It’ll grow for you.”
Otter put the plant back in the sunlight.
Bo went into the bedroom, set his overnight case down, and laid his garment bag on the bed. He walked to the closet, cleared his shoes from the floor, and pulled back a flap of carpet. There was a safe built into the floor underneath. Bo worked the combination, lifted the door, and pulled out his Sig Sauer. He took the holster from where it lay on the closet shelf, snugged the weapon into place, and clipped it to his belt. When Bo returned to the living room, Otter took a look at the weapon on his hip and whistled.
“Big gun, Spider-Man.”
“I’m beginning to think not big enough. Look, Otter, I’ve got to run.”
“That’s okay.”
“You sticking around for a while?”
“Just long enough to water your plant.”
“Lock up when you leave.”
It was late afternoon when Bo headed to the St. Croix Regional Medical Center for his second visit with Tom Jorgenson. He never made it to Jorgenson’s room. A Secret Service agent, one of the new ones, stopped him as soon as he stepped off the elevator.
“Sorry, Thorsen. You’re not allowed up here now. Orders.”
“Ishimaru?”
“These came from Assistant Director Malone himself.”
Bo was only yards from the room, but he knew he’d get no closer now. It was useless to argue. He went down to the lobby and used a pay phone.
“St. Croix Regional Medical Center.”
“Would you connect me with room four-twenty-two B, please?”
“Just one moment.”
More than a moment passed. Bo didn’t recognize the voice that came on the line.
“Yes?”
“I’m trying to reach Tom Jorgenson.”
“Your name?”
“How about yours first?”
“This is Special Agent Pederman, Secret Service.”
“My name’s Gaines,” Bo said, figuring it was a name Jorgenson would respond to. “Hamilton Gaines.”
“Just a moment, Mr. Gaines.” Bo waited another moment that wasn’t. “I’m sorry, you’re not on the list of authorized callers.”
Bo hung up without the courtesy of a good-bye.
He stood at the pay phone, trying to get a handle on the situation. Was this really about the incident at Wildwood? Or was the ubiquitous hand of NOMan behind the stone wall he’d encountered? His head ached, and he realized he hadn’t eaten all day and he was hungry. He decided he could think better with a little food in his stomach. He left the hospital and headed for St. Paul.
The sun was setting as Bo parked in the lot of O’Gara’s, a popular Irish bar on Snelling Avenue. The place was crowded, but he found an empty booth in the back and sat down. He had to wait a few minutes before a waitress spotted him, then he ordered a Leinie’s and a Reuben. The beer came, and he settled back. While he waited for his sandwich, he tried to put together in a coherent way the pieces of information that he had.
It was clear his worst suspicions about NOMan were correct. Tom Jorgenson had confirmed the dark turn the organization had taken, but Bo had no solid proof of its current nature, nor of a conspiracy to murder Robert Lee. The testimony of a man like Tom Jorgenson might be enough to generate a full, formal investigation, but who knew how deep the darkness of NOMan ran or how broad the shadow it cast?
He needed a way to get back to Jorgenson. Every avenue so far had been blocked. But what if the contact came from someone else, someone of higher authority than Bo, from the White House itself? It was time to call Lorna Channing and brief her. He’d had no contact with her since before he left D.C. She didn’t even know he was in Minnesota. He took out his cell phone and from his wallet pulled out the slip of paper on which she’d written her number.
“Excuse me.”
Bo folded the paper and slid it into his shirt pocket, then he looked up.
Two men stood at his table. They wore jeans and sleeveless T-shirts, a little dirty, and work boots. They both held beer mugs in their hands. They looked like construction workers drinking after a day on the job.
“Me and my buddy here have a bet,” one of the men said. His hair was long and sandy colored, and he had a scraggly mustache of the same color. “I say you’re that Secret Service guy who saved the First Lady’s ass. My buddy bets I’m wrong.”
“Your buddy wins,” Bo said. He put the cell phone in the inside pocket of his sport coat.
“Told you,” the other man said. “Come on, Lester.”
“Now wait a minute. I seen your face on the cover of theNational Enquirer, and I never forget a face. It’s… Thorsen, right?”
“Leave him be, Lester.”
“That must’ve been something out there. I mean, taking a bullet for the First Lady.”
“It was a knife,” Bo said.
“There, see. See, I told you it was him. Your glass is almost empty, man. Let me buy you a drink.”
The other guy offered Bo a look of sympathy. “Better do it. He’ll pester you till you do.”
“What’ll it be?” Lester asked.
“Leinie’s.”
“Leinie’s it is. Curtis, get this man a beer.”
Curtis headed off toward the bar. Lester sat down in the booth across from Bo.
“So. What was it like?”
“Look, Lester, your drink I’ll take. Your company I’d rather forgo at the moment.”
“Drinking alone? Bet it’s the pressure of the job does that. Seems to me I heard the rate of alcoholism and suicide is pretty high with you guys.”
“That’s dentists,” Bo said.
Curtis returned. “Here you go,” he said. He set the beer in front of Bo.
“To a real hero,” Lester said and lifted his glass in a toast.
Bo drank with them, from the beer they’d bought him.
“Come on, Lester,” Curtis said.
Lester slid a napkin toward Bo. “Say, could I get your autograph?”
Curtis grabbed his buddy by the shirtsleeve and pulled him away.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” he said to Bo.
Bo was grateful to be alone again. His Reuben arrived immediately, and the smell brought home to him just how hungry he was. He still had to make the call to Channing. He got his cell phone out again, but before punched in the number, he realized that the noise in the bar would make a coherent conversation almost impossible. He decided to wait until he was in the quiet outside O’Gara’s.
He hadn’t eaten all day, still hadn’t touched his sandwich, and the beer was beginning to affect him. He was feeling light-headed. He took a bite of the Reuben. The food didn’t seem to help. He was dizzy and getting sick to his stomach. He pulled out his wallet, dropped a few bills on the table. Hoping the fresh air might help, he made his way outside.
As he leaned against the side of the building, the sky above him flashed and thunder followed almost
