Dream of a Falling Eagle

from little snits of self-righteousness. I'd told myself that what Garth and I were doing was good for the country. I still believed that, but I hadn't been working out of a sense of patriotism; for months I'd been running on a full head of adrenaline primed by hatred. It hadn't been good for me, and only now, with the peace and calm I was experiencing in the aftermath of this other, very minor storm, did I realize that. Helping Moby Dickens had been a truly righteous act, and I felt pleased with myself. I was ready to return to our report in a more relaxed frame of mind, and I was now confident we would finish it with time to spare. Tracking down a plagiarist had proved purgative.

Chapter 7

It was a good thing that I was enjoying a personal buzz from the quick and successful completion of the poetry business, because it looked, at least from my point of view, as if the electorate was going to get a lot more than it had bargained for in the last election, and the country was going to sink even deeper into a right-wing malaise that could last for decades.

Three days after I'd returned from Huntsville, CNN reported that the Honorable Mabel Roscowicz, the only remaining liberal on the Supreme Court after the death of Richard Weiner, had died in her sleep, apparently the victim of a heart attack. Now the next president would have two Supreme Court vacancies to fill, which meant the Court was going to swing even further past the center, all the way over to the hard right. The ultra-conservatives currently in power, and the very conservative president likely to be elected, were going to leave behind quite a legacy, even if, at some time in the future, the voters began to have second thoughts about their stewardship. Depressing. And it was almost enough to make me forget Garth's little tutorial on the things that were important. Francisco's interruption didn't help.

'Sir?'

'What is it, Francisco?' I asked irritably, glancing up from my computer.

'I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but there's somebody here who insists on seeing you. He doesn't have an appointment.'

'Again? I must be living in sin.'

'I told him you're very busy, but he won't take no for an answer. He claims it's extremely urgent.'

'Fuck him,' I said, turning back to my keyboard. 'Let him sit out there as long as he wants. If he keeps disturbing you, have one of Veil's security people throw him out.'

'It's Taylor Mackintosh, sir.'

I typed in a line, stopped again, leaned back in my chair, and frowned at Francisco. 'The Taylor Mackintosh?'

'Yes, sir. That Taylor Mackintosh.'

'I thought he was dead.'

'He looks alive to me, sir. He's waiting in the outer office.'

'What the hell does he want?'

'He won't say, sir. He demands to talk to you.'

I grunted, turned off the computer. 'All right, send him in.'

The old man who walked into my office was about five feet nine or ten, but he had always loomed larger on the screen-shot from low angles, or mounted on a horse, or with female leads who were always shorter than he was-in the movies I remembered from childhood and which still occasionally showed up on cable TV. Taylor Mackintosh had to be pushing eighty-five, but he was still obviously pretty spry. I'd heard rumors that he suffered from Alzheimer's disease, but his very pale blue eyes seemed clear and in focus as he glared at me from across the room. He was impeccably, if somewhat oddly, dressed in a gray, three-piece Armani suit with snakeskin cowboy boots. He wore a shirt that matched his eyes, and a black bolo tie with a turquoise clip. He looked and carried himself like, well-an old movie star. The only jarring note in his appearance was a cheap, impossibly ill-fitting and badly dyed toupee that made it look like he had a dead or sleeping muskrat on top of his head. A two-thousand- dollar suit and a muskrat toupee made me think that maybe the rumors about his diminished mental capacity were true. Either that, or he needed to hire himself a new dresser.

Taylor Mackintosh had to consider Charlton Heston, a younger man, his bete noire. Mackintosh had been the star of choice for virtually every biblical epic made-until Heston had come along. Mackintosh had played God on any number of occasions, but never Moses-and he was still known to harbor deep resentment over the fact that Heston had been chosen for that part. The irony was that Mackintosh, unlike Heston, was no friend of the arts. Dismissing his own career, he had, in his dotage, announced that the arts were for 'lesbians and fairies,' and did not ever deserve to be supported with a cent of taxpayers' money. Mackintosh also had a raging passion for guns, any gun, all guns of any size, shape, caliber, or color. He would dearly love to have been chosen as spokesman for the NRA, but again, Charlton Heston had gotten there first. He had comforted himself by agreeing to become TV-and-print spokesman for a tiny but very vocal band of gun lunatics that had thrown religion into the mix and which called themselves Guns for God and Jesus-or 'Gingivitis,' as they had affectionately been dubbed by certain members of the ultra-liberal media who didn't share their conviction that it was the God-given right of every man, woman, and child in America to own an Uzi and armor-piercing ammunition. Gingivitis was too nutty even for the NRA, which had been known to deny that the group even existed. I had no idea what Mackintosh could want with me.

'Good afternoon, sir,' I said, rising and extending my hand. Age has its privileges, and Mackintosh's movies had given me hours of pleasure and much-needed escape from the pain and loneliness of my childhood in the single, shabby movie theater that still stood in my hometown in Peru County, Nebraska.

He marched across the office, stopped in front of my desk. Ignoring my outstretched hand, he reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and drew out a gold-plated fountain pen. 'I'd just as soon skip the formalities, Frederickson,' he said in a voice that had once been deep and resonant but was now raspy with age. 'I'll give you my autograph, but I'm here to talk turkey.'

I sat back down and motioned for him to pull up a chair. 'I'll pass on the autograph, Mr. Mackintosh, but I'll be happy to listen to you gobble-as long as it doesn't take too long.'

He didn't much like that, but it was hard for me to tell if he knew why he didn't like it. 'I understand you're in possession of certain items that could prove damaging to a very good friend of mine.'

I stared up into the angry, watery blue eyes and vaguely wondered if he was referring to the investigation of the CIA, or their Haiti connection. 'I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Mackintosh,' I replied at last.

'You've got some so-called poems by some so-called Thomas Dickens.'

Now there was a surprise. Mackintosh had not sat down, but was instead leaning on my desk and glowering down at me, so close I could smell his age and aftershave lotion. I stared back into the famous face for a few moments, then shook my head in disbelief and said, 'Kranes told you about this?'

'What do you plan to do with these so-called poems?'

'Well, I hadn't planned-'

'Forget whatever you were about to say, because it would only be a lie. I know what you're planning to do, and I'm here to head you off at the pass. Nobody will believe you, but you could prove to be a nuisance. So I'm going to give you and your partner some nuisance money. Every man has his price, and I figure I have a pretty good idea what this business should be worth to you. So I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse. It's better than you're going to get anywhere else, because the tabloids won't pay for a story about some stupid poems. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's for the two of you.'

It was the second time in three days I had gaped at somebody in awe and wonder, but this time my reaction wasn't feigned. The old man spoke gibberish in a patois of lines from old movie scripts. It suddenly struck me that Taylor Mackintosh was, indeed, quite insane, and I found myself feeling sorry for him. 'Let's back up and waddle around the barnyard a little more slowly, Mr. Mackintosh,' I said evenly. 'You have to be very specific about what you think is a problem, and what you plan to do about it. I am not going to discuss any client's case with you. You have just this one second chance to get it right, because my time is limited. Now, take a deep breath and tell me why you're here.'

He flushed, straightened up. 'Bill Kranes is a good friend of mine. He's also one of the best men this country