Sympathy for the Devil (15 page)

"What's that?" Greene asked.

"I had a fella I know scan this from a college yearbook. Dartmouth, 1978."

"Chesbro's graduating class."

"That's right, smart guy. I wanted a better idea of what he looked like, back then. People can change a lot in thirty-some years."

Mundenar examined both sets of images for the next minute or so, making frequent use of his magnifying glass. Finally he looked up and said, "I was told there was something else, too."

"Yes, there's this." Greene pulled from the envelope the single sheet of gray personal stationary and placed it next to the Polaroids.

Mundenar read the letter twice, taking his time about it.

"How sweet," he said. Then he looked at Greene and lightly slapped the table with his huge right hand. "Okay, it looks like it is what you said it would be. Guess we have a deal."

Mundenar reached into an inside pocket and produced a certified check. He placed it, face up, in front of Greene. "Satisfactory?"

Greene peered at it for a moment, then nodded. "That's the figure I agreed to." His left hand had just touched the green rectangle of paper when Mundenar's paw clamped down on top of it.

"You know, I was just thinking," Mundenar said, with a small, tight smile, "one of these days we ought to do a story on
you
. You're not important enough for the front page, of course - not any more. We usually reserve that for the story on whatever bimbo is fucking some politico this week. But we might find room for something juicy on an inside page, what do you think?"

"I think you ought to let go of my hand," Greene said calmly.

"Sure, sure, just a minute. That story I was thinking about, we could call it, 'The Dirty Tricks King that Nobody Knows,' or something like that. Maybe throw in a photo or two of you as well,
Nessie
. Could be that somebody might provide us with a picture of
you
sucking cock, or doing something else nasty. Wouldn't that be funny?"

"A riot, absolutely," Green said equably. "But be sure you discuss this story idea of yours with McGreevy before you invest a lot of mental energy in it. He might tell you that it's a really
bad
idea. He might even mention that I know where an
awful
lot of bodies are buried - including a few that he might not want to see dug up." Greene finished the sentence with a broad gesture, which brought the hand close to the candle burning in its translucent container. In one smooth movement, he plucked the candle from its glass globe, tilted it, and poured about a tablespoon of hot wax onto the back of Mundenar's big, hairy hand.

Leaving Peabody's a few seconds later, Nestor Greene wondered which was going to give him more pleasure for the rest of the day: the figure inscribed on the check in his pocket, or the memory of his last sight of Al Mundenar's face.

Chapter 14

"Quincey? Can you hear me? Quincey?"

Libby Chastain was tired. The spell she had worked on Morris required a lot of direct contact, not unlike the 'healing touch' that some mystics are reputed to have. Time-consuming it was, and hard on the knees, but the spell had been successful. She had drawn out of Morris's bloodstream most of the alcohol that had caused him to pass out, turning it into vapor which she had then burned away with a snap of her fingers. She then removed the toxins that the liver produces as it digests alcohol. It is the toxins, not the alcohol, that cause a hangover. There was no point in sobering him up if he couldn't talk because his head was pounding out the drum solo from 'In-a-gadda-da-vida.'

"Quincey? Time to come up from the dark now. Come to my voice, Quincey. Follow the sound of my voice."

Morris made a sound that was a mixture of equal parts sigh and groan. His eyelashes fluttered then, blinking rapidly, he opened his eyes.

He turned his head toward Libby Chastain and she saw his pupils dilate in recognition. He stared at her for a few seconds then said, softly, "Ah, shit."

Libby leaned back a little, to escape his breath as much as anything else. "Charmer," she said with a little smile. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

Morris moved his head around, as if checking that it was still attached. "I oughta feel like death, just lightly warmed over," he croaked. "As I recall, I sure as hell earned it."

"Yes, I expect so. But I was able to give you a little help with that. Think you can sit up?"

"Let's find out."

Moving slowly, stiffly, as if unsure what parts of his body still worked properly, Morris brought himself upright.

"Very good." Libby handed him a tall glass full of clear liquid. "Here - drink this. Take your time."

Morris looked at her. "More magic?'

"Sure. A magical potion combining hydrogen and oxygen, in a ratio of two-to-one."

Morris's brow furrowed. Clearly, he wasn't tracking well, yet.

"It's water, Quincey. Just water. You've got to be dehydrated."

As he drank, Libby took another look around the shambles of a room.

"Seems like it was quite a party," she said. "Everything but a trained monkey and bunch of hookers."

Morris moved a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels aside and put his empty glass on the coffee table.

"The trained monkey was already booked," he said, looking at the floor. "The hookers, they left - what's today, Tuesday?"

"Wednesday."

"They left Sunday, sometime. I think."

Libby snorted. "I'm surprised I can't smell the stale perfume, or... whatever."

"That's because all of our business transactions were carried out upstairs." He still wouldn't look at her.

"Prostitutes, Quincey?" She kept her voice mild. "Cheap hookers?"

"Uh-uh. They weren't cheap, I can tell you that much. I'd say they were two of the most expensive working girls in this town, which is saying something. Don't forget, Austin's the state capitol - got the governor and the whole administration, plus the State Lege, and all those lobbyists, too. Makes for a high-class clientele, which requires high-class service. Hell, one of the ladies, if I can use that expression, said she was second year at the law school - and I believed her. I said that she ought to be real good at practicing law, because she was already knew how to screw her clients, and she told me -"

"
Quincey
." Libby's voice had some snap behind it. His words had been coming faster and faster, and she had sensed the incipient hysteria behind them.

Morris stopped talking. He took in a big breath and let it out slowly. "Sorry."

Libby put a gentle hand on his arm. "It's all right." She squeezed the arm for a moment before letting it go. "I'm not judging you, Quincey. I'm the last person in the world to do that. But, high-class or not, I hope you and those working girls practiced safe sex."

Morris nodded. "Condoms every time. They insisted, whether I gave a damn or not."

Libby just stared at him. "Whether you
gave a damn
? Are you fucking
serious
?" She grasped his arm again, and this time the grip was not so gentle. "You ever hear of AIDS, Quincey? It was in all the
papers
."

Morris said nothing. After a moment, she let his arm go.

"I mean, they've got some wonderful drugs these days," she said, "and maybe a cure is on the horizon, but right now, that disease is still a death sentence."

"I'm aware of that."

"Well, then?"

"The only thing wrong with it as a death sentence," Morris said bleakly, "is that it would take too fucking long."

Libby's stare lasted longer this time. When she spoke, her voice was soft. "I think you'd better tell me. I know something happened, and I know that it must have been horrible, to lead you into a state like this. But I want to help you, Quincey - and I can't help unless I know."

"I don't know if anybody stocks the kind of help that I need - even you, Libby," Morris said. "But if you'll fetch me another cold glass of this hydrogen and oxygen mixture, I'll tell you. That'll explain my little" - he waved a tired hand around the room - "orgy of self indulgence here, even if it doesn't excuse it."

Libby Chastain was almost to the kitchen when she heard him say, "It'll also explain why I'm getting out of the ghostbuster business. For good."

Iowa in January is about half as charming as Hell with the fires out. That, at least, was the opinion of Hugh 'Bat' Masterson, and since he had already spent the last three days amid the snow and ice of the Hawkeye State, he figured he was entitled to it.

Masterson slid the Glock 9 into his belt holster and then slipped on his jacket. A quick glance in the motel room's mirror told him that no telltale bulges were visible.

Not that if fucking matters. We're supposed to be armed, and everybody knows it. Who cares if some fucking farmer sees the outline of the piece underneath my coat?

Masterson was in a bad mood, and had been ever since getting word that he was assigned to the Stark protection detail. In the Service, the person you were assigned to protect was a good (if unofficial) indication of your place in the agent pecking order. The most highly regarded agents were assigned to the President, or POTUS ('Eagle' in the current radio code, although who all that cryptic stuff was supposed to fool was something Masterson had never figured out).

Using that logic, you might assume that the Vice President's security detail should be the Number Two most prestigious job, but you'd be wrong. Although the role of the Vice President had improved since John Nance Garner had declared his job to be 'Not worth a bucket of warm piss,' the VOTUS (more code) assignment was a long way from being the second most important job in Washington. That fell to the Secretary of State, followed (in most administrations) by Secretary of Defense.

At the bottom of this artificial hierarchy were the wannabe presidential candidates every four years. Most of the men (and, occasionally, women) who tried for the brass ring in primary season were second rate pols, who often stayed in cheap hotels, ate cheap food, and felt free to disregard the security protocols.

And even within this motley crew there was a hierarchy. The two or three candidates believed to have a realistic chance at their party's nomination got the best of the available agents, while the others got whoever was left.

Which is how Masterson, after nine years in the U.S. Secret Service, found himself assigned to Senator Howard Stark, the darkest of this season's dark horses.

Unlike most of the agents assigned to this Ninth Circle of Secret Service Hell, Masterson wasn't a fuck-up. He wasn't lazy, sloppy, careless, or a drinker. He never blabbed to the press (or to anybody else) about any protectee's life, either personal or political.

All he had done to get himself in the shit was to politely decline a drunken sexual proposition from a President's teenage daughter, late one night at Camp David, just over three years ago.

The next morning the young lady, who in Masterson's opinion was mean and petty even when she
wasn't
hung over, had told Daddy that Masterson had propositioned
her
. Questioned by his boss, Masterson had told the truth. Since there'd been no witnesses, that made it one of those 'he said, she said' situations. But you can imagine that 'she' was believed in places where it counted. Since the White House wanted to avoid any whiff of scandal, Masterson had not been fired. As a civil servant, he'd have the right to a formal hearing if they tried to kick him out, and who knows what might get put into a transcript somewhere?

So instead of being discharged, Masterson was pulled from the White House detail and given the crappiest jobs available within the Executive Protection Service, in the hope that he would quit in disgust. But he had stubbornly refused to give them the satisfaction. So here he was in the boonies, for the famed Iowa Caucuses - the first formal test of the presidential candidates' popularity, even if only a handful of delegates were at stake - helping to protect Senator Howard Stark, in the unlikely event that someone thought him important enough to assassinate.

Stark's entourage was small (in Masterson's view, a reflection of the guy's slim chances for going all the way), which at least meant there were fewer people to keep track of. Fernando Garrett had signed on as campaign manager, probably attracted more by the depths of Stark's pockets than any realistic expectations of his success. Garrett had been a big wheel in John McCain's campaign a few years back, but had quietly bailed after spending fifteen minutes with McCain's hastily-chosen running mate. Masterson figured Garrett would also abandon Stark's ship once it was clearly sinking, a condition that would probably develop the morning after Super Tuesday - the day in February when twelve state primary elections were scheduled.

Martin Kane had signed on as Stark's domestic policy advisor. Kane, a thin guy who wore bow ties and seemed perpetually constipated, was supposed to be a big deal in the Poli Sci department at Ohio State. Masterson figured the professor was planning to get a book out of his campaign experience, however long it might last.

And Stark had managed to lure Gwen Galindo as foreign policy advisor. She was a hard right-winger who'd been U.S. representative at the U.N. three administrations ago, and never let anyone forget it. It was Masterson's conviction that she could not get out three consecutive sentences without one of them beginning "When I was at the U.N..." She was brilliant, hard-working, and had the personal charm of a rabid pit bull. It was a running joke among the Secret Service detail that Dr. Galindo (as she insisted on being called) would be incapable of ordering lunch at Burger King without finding a way to piss somebody off.

Before leaving his room, Masterson pressed a small button and spoke into the radio clipped to his lapel.

"This is Bat. Is Kingfish still in his room?" Masterson had suggested the Senator's code name to the rest of the detail. Several of the other agents had read
All the King's Men
in college, and agreed that the designation was appropriate, so it stuck.