Very Bad Men (17 page)

“Which one? That maple there, or the elm?”

“I'm not joking.”

Her brown eyes appraised me. “No. But you're worried over nothing. This is my parents' house. I'm safe here.”

“Anyone could get in here. I could've walked in with a gun and no one would have been the wiser.”

“I'm glad you didn't,” she said. “A gun would have ruined the lines of your suit.”

“Have it your way,” I told her. “But if we're staying here, you should let me be the one standing in front of the window.”

She stood silent for a few seconds, rolling the stem of her wineglass between her fingers, and I realized for the first time that she was smaller in person than she appeared on television. I put her height at five-six, and two inches of that came from her heels.

She said, “I was misinformed about you, Mr. Loogan.”

“How so?”

“I was advised to stay away from you—because I had nothing to gain from being associated with you. And now you've practically volunteered to take a bullet for me. Would you excuse me for a moment?”

“Sure.”

She went over to the north end of the room and spoke to a man lingering by the doorway. I hadn't noticed him before. He had a plain face and a strip of bald scalp bordered on either side by hair the color of straw. He looked at least fifty, and wider at the hips than at the shoulders. The suit he wore seemed a decade out of date.

He listened to what she had to say, glanced in my direction, and went out through the doorway. Callie Spencer walked back to me, her heels clicking along the hardwood floor.

“That's Alan Beckett,” she explained. “He used to work as an adviser for the senator and now he does the same for me. He's the one who vets the invitation lists for gatherings like this—and makes sure no one comes who wants to shoot me. I've asked him to send someone to see if anyone's loitering across the street.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Nothing really. I'm sure no one's there. But now we can talk without you fearing for my life. What shall we talk about?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Politics?”

“You don't strike me as a man who takes politics seriously.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you're the only one here wearing one of these.” She tapped the button on my lapel. CALLIE SPENCER, A NEW BEGINNING.

I said, “Maybe it's all the rest of these people who don't take politics seriously.”

She let out an easy, natural laugh. “We pass those buttons out to the true believers,” she said, “to college kids who need something they can pin to their backpacks to show how idealistic they are. I expect to see them at campaign rallies, but not at cocktail parties.”

“Maybe I like the message.”

“Maybe you think it's empty,” she said. “You wouldn't be the only one.”

“No, it's really quite clever,” I said. “It solves a tough problem. How many terms has John Casterbridge served in the Senate—four?”

“Five.”

“Five. And you're running as his succes sor. You want people to think they're voting him another term. But you can't come out and say that. ‘Callie Spencer, More of the Same'—that's not going to inspire anyone. And you can't afford to be seen as criticizing the senator in any way—no matter what changes you plan to make once you're in office. And you'll want to make changes because, just for starters, the auto industry's been bleeding away for years and unemployment is higher in Michigan than anywhere else in the country. ‘A New Beginning' is just vague enough to work. It implies that things are going to get better, without actually admitting that there was anything wrong with them before.”

“You forgot to mention how well it fits on a bumper sticker,” she said dryly. “You're not saying anything I haven't thought myself. ‘A New Beginning' is the least of it. Look at my website sometime. You'll see I'm in favor of greater fairness in the tax code, reasonable spending cuts, sensible gun control, responsible health care reform, and sustainable environmental policies. Sometimes when I'm giving a speech, I worry I might float away on all the lofty generalities.”

“What's the point, then?” I asked her. “Why would you want to run for office?”

She looked around as though she meant to make sure no one was close enough to hear us.

“Someone has to,” she said mildly.

“Is that supposed to be a serious answer?”

“Someone's going to be the next senator from Michigan,” she said. “I think I could do a passable job. There are other people who could do it—but they wouldn't do better than I would, and some of them would do much worse. If I can prevent someone worse from getting into office, that's half the battle. Ask John Casterbridge. If you could get him to talk, he'd tell you that what he's most proud of are the things he's opposed. From the big ideas that sounded good but would have been disastrous in practice, to the small idiocies that never saw the light of day because he quietly blocked them. I don't make any grand promises, but if I'm elected I'll try not to do any harm. And I might manage to do some good. Voters who expect more than that are kidding themselves.”

Her brown eyes were steady on me till the end. Now they waited for my reaction.

“That's not bad,” I said. “You should put that into a speech.”

She graced me with a smile that grew slowly, like the sun rising over water.

“I wouldn't dare,” she said. “And if you repeat it, I'll have to deny I ever said it.” Her manner changed then. She'd been letting me see something real, but now she put it away and locked it down.

She said, “I'm glad you could come tonight. I wish we could talk more, but I have to pay attention to my other guests.” She reached reflexively to touch my shoulder, and before I could say anything she moved on.

When she had gone I looked around and spotted Elizabeth talking to Harlan Spencer. She was in the chair John Casterbridge had occupied only a few minutes before. The senator was nowhere to be seen.

At the bar I picked up two tumblers of club soda. I held on to one and the other went on the low table beside Elizabeth's chair. I lingered for a moment, listening to Harlan Spencer tell a story from his youth in Sault Sainte Marie, then bent down beside Elizabeth and told her I was heading out to get some air.

The sounds of the party faded as I descended to the first floor. I passed one of the caterers in the entryway; she held the door for me as I went out.

Too warm outside for a jacket. I took mine off and folded it over my arm. Strolled along the curve of the horseshoe driveway. The street was quiet. I walked around to the back of the house, past a fenced-in garden. A broad path of flagstones ended in a ramp that led up to a whitewashed gazebo. In the diffused light from the house I saw someone there, leaning against the railing—John Casterbridge.

He waited until I set foot on the ramp and then spoke, his voice quiet but commanding.

“Did they send you down to spy on me?”

“No one sent me,” I said.

“Because if that son of mine wants to police my morals, he can damn well come down and do it himself.”

I stepped into the gazebo through an archway of hanging vines.

“I'm just out for a walk,” I said.

“That makes you a sensible man,” said the senator. He looked at the glass I was carrying. “What have you got there?”

“Club soda.”

Distaste turned down the corners of his mouth. “Pour it out. I picked this up from one of the caterers.” He moved aside to reveal a bottle of Jameson whiskey standing on the railing. “We'd better drink it before someone takes it away from us. Do you smoke?”

“I never have.”

“Just as well,” he said, bringing up a cigar he'd been holding discreetly at his side. “I've only got one. I gave up cigarettes thirty years ago, but I never lost the taste for good tobacco.”

I draped my jacket over the railing and pitched the club soda out onto the lawn. The senator filled my tumbler from his bottle. He brought a shotglass out of his pocket and filled that as well.

“Money or connections?” he said.

“Pardon?”

“Usually if you get invited to a shindig like this, it means you've got either money or connections. So which is it?”

“Not money,” I said. “I guess it must be connections—to the Ann Arbor police.”

“You're here with that policewoman. Whaley.”

“Waishkey.”

“To talk to Callie about the lunatic who's running around killing people. How's that for slick?”

“I'm not sure what you mean.”

“My daughter-in-law is a smooth operator,” said John Casterbridge. “She doesn't want to be associated with a murder investigation, but she knows she'll have to talk to the police at some point. So she'll do it now, on the weekend, when no one's paying attention to the news. She'll do it here, rather than at City Hall, where there might be cameras waiting for her. She'll get it over with, and by tomorrow it'll be old news. That's slick, wouldn't you say?”

“Sure.”

“Probably Beckett's idea. But Callie ran with it—she learns fast. She'll do all right for herself. The press likes her.”

He sipped from his shotglass. “You like her,” he said. “I saw you talking to her.”

“We discussed politics. She's an impressive woman.”

“You want to tread carefully there, son. She's taken.”

He delivered the remark gently, almost affectionately, without a hint of anger. I wasn't sure what to make of it. I could read nothing in his eyes.

“I think you've got the wrong idea,” I said.

“It might be good for her to let her hair down and live a little. God knows, we all should live a little. But you need to be careful.”

“I think—”

He raised his glass suddenly to silence me. I heard footsteps on the flagstone path.

“Here comes the vice squad,” he said.

I recognized the outlines of the man coming up the path. Narrow shoulders, broad hips. Alan Beckett.

Casterbridge laid his cigar on the railing between us. I shifted a little to hide the bottle of whiskey. Beckett came up the ramp and into the gazebo, shaking his head wearily from side to side. “Senator, we've talked about this.”

Casterbridge said nothing and took a drink of whiskey.

Beckett reached calmly for the shotglass. The senator let him have it.

“Who gave this to you?” Beckett asked.

“Don't be a bore, Al.”

“Who?”

“I'm capable of getting my own drinks.”

Beckett glanced at me. I swirled the whiskey in my tumbler. He didn't try to take it.

Instead, he offered me a courtly nod. “Mr. Loogan, you'll be pleased to know we've searched up and down the block. We found no one hiding in a bush, or behind a tree. No one with a rifle—or a weapon of any kind. We found an insurance salesman walking a schnauzer, but he had no criminal record, not even a parking ticket. In short, all quiet. Nothing to report.”

I listened to his speech without reacting. He seemed disappointed and turned back to John Casterbridge.

“Senator, I think it's time to call it a night. I'll have your car waiting.”

“I'll be along when I'm ready.”

I thought Beckett might bow, but he only nodded again.

“Of course.”

He poured out the dregs of the senator's shotglass and reached for the cigar on the railing. I snatched it up first.

“This belongs to me,” I said.

He smoothed his palm along his scalp and squinted at me. In the end, he decided to let it go, but the decision cost him. I watched him turn away and retreat along the path in the dark.

I passed the senator his cigar and he settled it between his teeth. He dug in his pocket for a box of matches and fired it up, drawing smoke in a series of short puffs and letting it out in a long stream that twisted in the night air.

“What was that about?” I asked him.

He drew on the cigar again before he answered. “The horses have all run off and Al's in charge of the barn door.”

“I don't follow.”

“Some people think I should live forever.” He shrugged. “What was that guff about searching in the bushes?”

“I expressed a concern for your daughter-in-law's safety. I guess Al didn't like it.”

The senator held his cigar up to admire it. I thought he would say something more to me about treading carefully, but he seemed to have forgotten all that.

He tapped the ash from his cigar and it drifted to the floor of the gazebo.

“Nothing's going to happen to Callie,” he said. “Her father'll see to that. Don't underestimate Harlan Spencer. The man can't walk but he still goes to the shooting range. He's deadly with a Glock, even now. Keeps one in that chair of his, tucked out of sight. No harm's going to come to Callie Spencer in her father's house.”

He took a last draw from the cigar and extinguished the remnant under the sole of his shoe. He came out with another shotglass from somewhere and set it carefully atop the railing. Then he winked at me, reached for the whiskey, and unscrewed the cap.

“Nice work, holding on to the bottle,” he said.

B
y the time I saw the senator to his car, the temperature had fallen a few degrees and the stars were out. His driver was a young guy who moved with military efficiency; he held the door and the senator got in with a smooth, practiced grace. I watched the car travel down the drive and away.