But when Ball got to the table, he saw that his tag was coded for access to the external areas only.
“Hey, you made a mistake here,” said Ball, pointing at the badge. “I’m with the senator.”
“You have to take that up with Lucinda.”
“I’m not moving until I get the right badge. This is my job you’re talking about. My neck.”
“Look—”
“Hey, I’m with the senator’s staff, all right? Now come on. I know you guys are in charge, but let’s be realistic.” Lucinda Silvestri, in charge of the house team, appeared in one of the doorways.
“What seems to be your problem, Mr. Stevens?”
“My problem is, you guys don’t want me to do my job.” Silvestri walked over to the table and bent close to the agent who was handling the passes. Ball leaned closer to listen.
“Excuse us, please,” snapped Silvestri.
“Maybe I should call the senator.”
“You can call the President for all I care,” said Silvestri.
Ball clamped his mouth shut, though he continued to seethe. He could accomplish what he wanted to accomplish outside, but that wasn’t the point — the senator’s security was supposed to be inside the room when the senator arrived.
Not protesting would be extremely suspicious.
But Ball didn’t want to call the campaign if he didn’t have to. He’d already checked in with the coordinator O’Rourke normally reported to, who had been in the middle of a million things and seemed to barely hear him when he asked where O’Rourke was. The person he’d have to talk to to get anything done was Jimmy Fingers — and he feared the weasel would recognize his voice.
The agent who’d been talking to him about Rockland County earlier was standing near the stove, going over a map of the exterior grounds. Ball walked over to him, reintroduced himself, and asked if he could plead his case.
“It’s my job, you know?” said Ball. “And you’ve seen for yourself, I’m not getting in the Ser vice’s way. You guys are running the show, but I’m here. I have to do my job.” The agent shrugged but then went over to Silvestri.
“At least he’s an upgrade over O’Rourke,” Ball heard him say.
“All right. We’ll give you the proper tag,” said Silvestri finally. “Stay awake, though.”
“With the coffee you guys brew, I’ll be awake for the next ten years,” answered Ball.
139
The McSweeney campaign made a bus available for the reporters covering the senator during his appearances. The bus tooled along at the end of a pro cession of vehicles that included the senator and his aides in a pair of Ford sedans, bodyguards in a Chevy SUV, and various hangers-on in a Chrysler minivan. While strictly speaking there were no assigned seats in the bus, a caste system generally dictated who sat where. The best seats were in the back, where the big dailies and newsmagazine people sat; smaller papers and freelancers got the middle; and newcomers got everything else. Karr found this out by accident, plopping down next to Theresa Seelbach, the
“It’s like junior high,” she told him.
Karr had skipped much of junior high, but he started to get up anyway.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “Sit down. You’re kind of cute, and so big I don’t think anyone will ask you to move.” Karr smiled, though he felt himself blushing.
“Got anything useful for your story yet?”
“Not much,” said Karr. “We don’t actually see McSweeney too much, do we?”
“Not really. Ten minutes here, five minutes there.”
“Maybe I can write about the food. Breakfast was OK.”
“God, I couldn’t stomach anything,” said Seelbach. “Going to be another boring day today. A million stops. We’ll hear the same speech and step over the same drunks.”
“Maybe somebody will take a shot at him again,” said the reporter sitting behind them.
“You think?” said Karr.
The others nearby laughed, but the reporter who had said it turned serious. “Gallows humor, son.”
“Who do you think shot at him?”
“One of his campaign people, I’d bet,” said Seelbach.
“Why do you think he started listening to them?” The others started making similar jokes. It was clear that the reporters had no serious theories, or at least weren’t sharing them.
“What about the Vietnamese thing?” asked Karr as the jokes petered out.
“Oh, that’s a crock,” said Seelbach. “The Secret Service and the FBI say there’s no evidence. McSweeney probably made the whole thing up to draw attention to the fact that he served there. He never does or says anything without an agenda.”
“Whoever did it, it was great for his campaign,” said the reporter behind Karr. “He was fading before then. Look at him now. He’s on top of the world. If I were him, I’d put that sniper on the payroll.”
“As long as he continues to miss,” said Karr.
This time, the others laughed with him, rather than at him.
140
Discovering Amanda Rauci’s body in Chief Ball’s freezer changed everything. Ball was now formally a murder suspect, and obtaining warrants to gather information about him would be child’s play.
Which bummed Gallo big-time. He would have much more enjoyed hacking into the different databases and taking what he needed, rather than having to deal with the bureaucracy.
Still, there was something to be said for the bureaucracy.
A search of FAA flight records showed that a C. Ball had purchased tickets in Cleveland for Chicago and Houston, in Chicago for LA and New York, and in LA for Pittsburgh and Miami. The car that Amanda Rauci’s credit card had been used to rent was found at the Cleveland airport after the plane manifests were checked, so it was a pretty good bet that C. Ball was the police chief.
The question was where was he now?
“These are only the lists of the people who bought tickets,” Gallo told Johnny Bib. “We’re still working on the final lists, the people who actually showed up. Those come from the airlines themselves. My bet is on Pittsburgh,” he added.
“It’s the smallest city — doesn’t really go with the others.”
“Ha!” said Johnny Bib. His voice was shrill enough to echo off the noise-dampening ceiling of the computer lab.
“Ha?” asked Gallo.
“Ha!” repeated Johnny Bib.
“Each time he lands, he buys two tickets,” said Gallo.
“When he reaches his final destination, he doesn’t buy any.
Both the Miami and the Pittsburgh plane landed yesterday afternoon. So he’s in one of those cities — Pittsburgh, I think.”
“Why does he buy two tickets?” Johnny Bib asked. He sounded like a philosophy professor lecturing a freshman class on Plato and the Socratic method.
“He doesn’t want us to know where he’s going,” said Gallo.
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