Nature of the Game (59 page)

“What do you want?” said Jud.

“To walk away safe, but that's something you can't fix.”

“Maybe I—”

“No maybes,” said Nick. “I know this guy. He's not a
maybe
you can control.”

Jud sighed, rubbed his brow.

“Why'd you come here?” said Nick.

“Lorri … She—”

“I know about her … note. You put the razor in her hand, I tipped her it was time to use it. I know I'm probably the last friend you got who would help you and not cut a deal out of your hide. But why else did you come back to D.C.?”

“Aren't you reason enough?”

“For you,” said Nick, “it's always wheels within wheels.”

The clock ticked. Nick felt it like a heartbeat.

“I have to see the man who started it all,” said Jud.

“Your case officer. The head of the team you were on.”

“All those labels fit,” said Jud.

“Why?” asked Nick.

“That's what I have to find out,” said Jud.

“But you already think you know.” Nick's look forced the answer.

“There was a job he wanted me to do,” said Jud. “In '85 or '86—these days, sometimes … I started drinking heavy and …”

“I know,” said Nick. “I understand.”

“I didn't do it,” said Jud. “It sounded like a setup, and I'm
nobody's
sucker.”

Again he laughed. “Or everybody's.”

“What job?” said Nick.

“No,” said Jud. “If I tell you … then you know.”

“Maybe I do already,” said Nick. “Iran-contra.”

“Just because you're in the stands doesn't mean you know the play,” said Jud.

“If they sent someone to get you in L.A., if the job you turned down was a setup … what the hell do you think you'd be walking into now? If they're after you, why walk right in to them?”

“Where else can I go? What else can I do? Besides, they don't know when I'm coming. They don't know
I
know who he is.”

“Who is he?” asked Nick. “What can he give you?”

“I can see him,” was Jud's answer.

“Meet the Marine,” said Nick. “Wes Chandler. He'll do it by your rules. Talk to him. Let him help you—help us.”

“He's one of them,” said Jud. “Even if he's not lying to you, he's one of them. He could be the Erasureman.”

“The what?”

“When they want to clean up a problem, erase it, hit somebody, they have a meeting, a chat with Dr. Gunn, who's the expert. Then they send the Erasureman.” The growl that always chilled Nick's blood came into Jud's voice. “I ought to know.”

“He's not the Erasureman,” whispered Nick. “If he were, he would have sat on me until you showed. He knew you'd come to me. He'd have had people on the house. He'd have … finished by now.”

Jud's hand trembled as he touched the stubble around his dry mouth. He licked his lips. Maybe Nick would give him a drink.

“It's not one big
them
,” said Nick. “I know who your ‘he' is. So does Wes Chandler.”

“What?” Jud's hand rattled the coffee cup and saucer.

“Varon,” said Nick. “General Varon.”

Jud couldn't keep the truth off his face.

“He's not God,” said Nick. “He's not invincible or invisible.”

“Who told you? Who broke security?”

“He did,” said Nick. “When he started serving himself.”

“He knows? The Marine?”

“Yes. And he's finding out more.” Nick leaned across the table and grabbed his friend's arm.

“It's coming apart,” he said, “the whole damn thing. Your only chance is to come in. Chandler's cutting a deal for you with the CIA.”

“Oh,
shit
.”

Jud stood. This octagonal, bay-windowed dining room with its lace curtains and shiny mahogany table, its china cabinet and paintings, this house in a quiet suburban neighborhood: everything whirled around him. He caught his balance, saw the door to the kitchen, the refrigerator, and he was there, finding two bottles of Peruvian beer. He chugged half of one. The cold, tangy shock cleared his eyes. He walked back to the living room, a bottle in each hand.

He leaned against the doorjamb, finished the first bottle in a long swig.

“When is he doing this
deal?
” asked Jud.

“He's there now.”

“Shit.” He tossed the empty bottle into an open trash can in the kitchen.
Two points
, he thought as the beer warmed his stomach, hit his blood.

“With who?” he asked. “The hack the President put in?”

“No. With General Cochran, the number two. The pro.”

“
Shit
.” This third time the expletive was a drawl, not a whine. “Billy C. When he was at NSA and the Chiefs …”Jud shook his head. “A deal: Billy C. knows how to deal.”

“My phones are hot,” said Nick. “Varon's people. But we don't think he has many. When Wes makes the deal, he'll call and—”

“I'll be gone.”

“You can't run forever!”

“I'm done running,” said Jud.

“Come with me,” said Nick. “To Wes.”

“I'm done with deals, too.”

“You put me in this,” said Nick. “You owe it to me.”

The last one
, thought Jud.
Nick's the last one left
.

“Okay,” he said. “I owe you. I'll see your Marine. After Varon.”

“That's not—”

“That's the only way!” snapped Jud. “I don't give a damn about any
deal
with the CIA! What can they give me? Can they sew Lorri's wrists back up? Make Nora alive again? Give me back everything I fucked up and heal every fucking I've gotten?

“Don't you get it? If I don't do it myself, face him
myself
, it's all their game, and I'm a waste, all for nothing.”

“You do that, he'll … You can't …”

Jud shrugged. “Besides, if he's still got some sanction and I go around him, I'm the traitor.”

“You know he's not legit.”

“None of us were ever
legit
.”

“Don't,” said Nick.

Jud smiled. “I love you like a brother.”

“Then treat me like one and trust me.”

“You, I trust. But this isn't about you.” Jud winked. “Don't worry: he can't beat me.”

“He can kill you.”

“No, he can't,” said Jud.

The doorbell rang.

The dog barked.

Sylvia's footsteps sounded on the stairs; Saul's laughter came closer.

The dog charged the front door.

The doorknob turned….

Nick and Jud raced to the front hall. Nick snatched his backpack off the floor, clawed at its straps as he saw Sylvia coming down the stairs, Saul in her arms, as the door swung open….

“
Hola!
” called Juanita, hurrying in from the rain. “
Sylvia! Soy …

“Me,” she said, slipping into English as she saw Nick. The dog licked her hand. Nick waved Jud back.

“My cousin told me you called,” said Juanita, the worry clear on her face.

“Take Saul,” said his mother, pulling a yellow rain poncho over the baby's head, pulling the hood's drawstrings tight, kissing his forehead. “
Por la noche
.”

“Sylvia,” whispered Nick, “what are you …”

“What I have to,” she said.

Juanita saw Jud's shadowed hulk backing into the dining room, whispered, “
Señora, tu quieres la policía?
”

“No,” said Nick.

“
Gracias, no
,” said Sylvia.

Juanita looked at her friends, the parents of her
amorcito
. She hugged Sylvia. More shyly, she hugged Nick.

The parents knelt, kissed their perplexed child, held him, and made their good-byes gentle. Juanita shouldered a diaper bag.

“It's okay,” said the Mommy, “you're going to be fine, baby baby boy. Mommy and Daddy love you. We'll see you soon.”

Saul grinned: he liked going in the car.

Sylvia cried as Juanita led the yellow-slickered child into the rain.

“He's never been away from us at night,” whispered Nick. “He'll be so scared.”

The look Sylvia gave her husband could have frozen the rain. “My baby isn't going to be in this!”

Nick put his hand on her shoulder; she was tense, but she didn't shy away. They closed the door.

Wandered back into a living room that seemed empty and bitter. Jud waited for them by the mantel with its pictures of Saul in swaddling clothes, Saul taking his first step, Saul getting licked by the dog.

“What are you going to do?” Sylvia asked them.

“I've got to go see a man,” said Jud. “Then there's somebody Nick wants me to meet.”

Outside, the rain fell.

“How are you going to get there?” asked Sylvia.

“I'm driving him,” said Nick.

“
What?
” Sylvia and Jud said together.

“Yes,” said Nick.

“No,” said Sylvia.

“I can borrow your money, get a cab or—”

“If you vanish,” said Nick, “I'm who's left for them.”

The couple glared at each other.

Jud coughed. “Look, I don't have any fresh clothes, but—”

“Wait a minute,” said Sylvia.

After she scurried upstairs, Nick told Jud, “Don't give me any argument.”

“Okay,” he said, “but I'm in charge.”

“Bullshit,” said Nick.

Sylvia came back. “There's towels and a toothbrush in the first bathroom. Nick's pants won't fit you, but one of his aunts sent him a shirt for his fortieth birthday that might. There's clean socks, underpants a friend of ours left who's …”

“Big,” said Jud.

“Soap and shampoo,” she said, her eyes on Nick.

“Don't do this to us,” she told her husband when Jud closed the upstairs bathroom door.

“I'm doing it
for
us,” said Nick.

“And what do
we
get out of it? Widows and orphans?”

“I fixed that,” said Nick. “Now isn't the time to explain—”

“He's in the shower!”

“If I get polygraphed, I don't want to flunk questions about who knows what.”

“I'm your wife. The lawyer. Polygraphs are always voluntary. Who are you going to be talking to?”

“Nobody, I hope. This time tomorrow—”

“Today!” She choked down a sob. Fear overcame anger, and she slid into his arms, crying. “My baby's gone and you're doing something stupid you won't tell me about, and I can't—”

“
Shh
” he whispered. “
Shh
. It'll be all right.”

“Says who?”

“I'm just giving him a ride, then turning him over to a guy I know. An official who—”

“Who better get rid of him for us!”

Nick turned her face up to his. “Who'll do the right thing. And then we're out of it. Clean. I promise you.”

“That's what you mean. You can't always be right.”

“This time I am,” he said.

A thousand thoughts swirled through her, but she could only hold him close, sob, and tell him she loved him.

Jud coughed before he walked down the stairs. A snapbuttoned, cowboy printed shirt strained across his chest and belly.

“My blue Gore-Tex mountaineering coat should fit you,” said Nick. He found that coat in the closet, switched his sports jacket for a dark red nylon windbreaker.

“We might not be back until tomorrow morning,” Nick told his wife, certain that he'd be home by midnight but not wanting to terrify her if he wasn't.

“No problem,” said Jud.

“For you,” snapped Sylvia, then instantly regretted it.

“The phones,” said Nick, and he remembered he had to call his homicide cop, clear the Union Station meeting alert and set him up for this move. “Don't say anything on them.”

Sylvia's red-streaked face paled.

“What is this?” she whispered.

“Just a road trip,” said Nick. “A couple of guys.”

Jud emptied the blue Gore-Tex raincoat's pockets of all pieces of paper, all traces of the coat's owner.

“Where are you going?” said Sylvia.

“Better you don't know,” said Jud.

“Damn you both,” she whispered.

“We could use a map,” said Jud.

“There's one in the study,” said Nick, leading the way up the stairs, around the corner; leaving Sylvia in the hall.

She waited until they were out of sight, then quickly tiptoed up the stairs. Pressed against the wall, she heard their voices murmur.

Jud: “… there once. Off Route Fifty by Annapolis …”

Nick: “… dozen exits.”

Jud: “Multiple … remember multiple … Four Twenty-four. Highway Four Twenty-Four.”

She heard the map being folded.

Sylvia raced down the stairs, made it to the couch in the living room in time for them to see her rise from it.
As if I'd been sitting there, waiting
, she thought.

Jud looked at her, shook his head. “Guess the best thing you can hear from me is good-bye.”

He walked out into the rain.

Nick's arms held her tight. “I love you. I'll be back.”

And then he left, too.

Rush hour in the rain. By the time they got to the Beltway, the cars were bumper to bumper at thirty miles per hour, a chain of yellow headlights crawling over a mirrored highway. They'd taken Nick's four-door family Jeep. Their windows were open to keep the windshield unfogged. The wipers beat a quick-march cadence.

“You've never met Varon?” said Nick.

“No. Made sense. Security, need to know. Deniability.”

“There's some documents in my knapsack,” said Nick.

Jud found the revolver, stared at his writer friend.