EIGHTEEN

I WATCHED AS Hersey Sheehan studied his reflection in the store window. Something in what he saw must have pleased him because he kept looking for it in every flat, glossy surface he passed. This narcissism made Sheehan a difficult subject of surveillance; he was forever slowing down, speeding up and stopping to admire himself or any attractive young woman who happened by. Once I was forced to walk past him, careful not to look him directly in the eyes, when he turned around and briefly followed a woman he’d found particularly fetching.

I had tailed Sheehan’s vehicle from the St. Paul Police Department’s parking lot into downtown Minneapolis, coasting up to a meter across from the redbrick building near the old train depot that housed the presses of The Cities Reporter. Sheehan parked in the Employees Only lot next door, but instead of going into the building, he skipped down Washington Avenue, then up Marquette, stopping at a fast-food joint for a cheeseburger and fries. I passed. The only thing fast food had going for it in the past was that it was both fast and cheap and these days it is neither.

My reasons for following Sheehan were vague at best. On the one hand, Sheehan’s tireless search for smearable dirt could have led him to Amy Lamb, Dennis Thoreau and John Brown, whom he’d mistaken for Joseph Sherman—although why he might want to kill any of them was a mystery to me. On the other hand, if C. C. Monroe and Marion Senske actually were responsible for the deaths, it was doubtful they did the job themselves. More likely they hired someone to do their killing, someone who might have already been in their employ investigating the opposition candidates and passing secrets under the table to Sheehan.

Yes, I admit it was weak. But as it clearly states in Chapter Four of the Universal Private Eye Instruction Manual, Third Edition, and I quote: “When in doubt, follow someone.”

I shadowed Sheehan back to The Cities Reporter and waited. To pass the time, I listened to a jazz station on a portable AM/FM radio I keep in the glove compartment—never use the car radio when the car isn’t running because it drains the battery, especially in cold weather. (And never leave the car running because a car idling for hours at a time is bound to attract attention.) I unrolled my windows to avoid steaming them up. It probably wasn’t necessary. It was cool but not uncomfortable. A van is better, of course. You can stand and stretch in a van. You can fit it with curtains so no one can watch you watching them. You can load it up with a refrigerator, a chemical toilet, a comfy chair, air conditioners, heaters, cameras, binoculars, telescopes, radios and cellular telephones. I really ought to get one one of these days.

I had no idea what time it was and fought the impulse to look at my watch. Time has no meaning when you’re on surveillance except to mark the arrivals and departures of your subject; you’re not going anywhere, there’s nothing you need to do. In fact, there’s nothing you can do while on a stakeout except watch. If you have a partner, you can talk. Considering some of the long, rambling conversations Anne Scalasi and I have had, you’d wonder why we weren’t working for one of those Washington think tanks; why we weren’t regulars on “MacNeil/Lehrer.” When you’re alone you listen to music if possible and try to stay alert. You think—you can’t help but think—about a hundred different subjects. Only you must keep your mind from wandering too far. I once saw a suspect walk directly past a daydreaming investigator—the investigator didn’t even see him.

Between pumping quarters in the parking meter and to keep my mind off Amy Lamb, I drew a portrait parlé of Sheehan, a word picture that described him to the smallest detail:

NAME: Sheehan, Hersey

AGE: 25-30

SEX: Male

HEIGHT Five-ten with shoes on

WEIGHT: 180 with clothes on

BUILD: Medium

POSTURE: Stiff [he reminded me of Jack Webb]

COMPLEXION: Tanned [in Minnesota in mid-October? He probably has his own tanning booth]

COLOR: White

EYES: Brown, squinting, long lashes

HAIR: Brown, short in front, long in back, slight wave, part on the left side

MUSTACHE: Brown, thick

EYEBROWS: Thick, arched

EARS: Yes

NOSE: Large, narrow, straight

FOREHEAD: High

FACE: Narrow

LIPS: Pinched

NECK: Short

CHIN: Pointed

CHEEKS: Full

CHEEKBONES: High

TEETH: Big, white

SHOULDERS: Broad

WAIST: Thin

STOMACH: Flat

FEET: Big

LEGS: Long

HANDS: Big, well kept

FINGERS: Long

WALK: See posture

DRESS: Expensive [I didn’t know what his salary was but I knew where it went]

MARKS AND SCARS: Only his girlfriend knows for sure

SPEECH: Strong [from what I heard at the press conference, he could give Sam Donaldson elocution lessons]

HABITS: Women?

Eleven quarters later, Sheehan left the redbrick building and walked to his car. Nuts, I missed on his height (it was closer to six feet) and his hair (the part was on the right side). His chin seemed a little weak, too. Oh well. Practice makes perfect.

Tailing a car by yourself in heavy city traffic is arduous at best. Fortunately, Sheehan didn’t stay in the city. He grabbed the I-35 on-ramp and drove south, past the city limits, past the suburbs into farm country. I drifted along behind him, five hundred yards back and in the other lane. It was a pleasant enough drive: gently rolling hills, stands of trees, farms, cows, horses. I remembered counting farm animals when I was a kid driving with my parents, inflating my totals to better my brother’s count. I wasn’t too worried about being spotted as long as we stayed on the interstate. A lot of cars travel the entire distance between towns and cities; it’s not unusual to see the same vehicle behind you for a hundred miles—which was just about the distance we’d traveled, taking the Albert Lea exit about fifteen miles north of the Iowa border. Sheehan pulled into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn just off the main drag. I drove past, flipped a U and parked at the truck stop across the street. A sign outside the motel read WELCOME GOVERNOR.

I gave Sheehan a good head start and then crossed the street. The weather had turned colder, but I didn’t mind. I prefer fall to summer. I burn in the summer. I cover my body with all kinds of toxic chemicals, yet it makes no difference. I burn. Then I peel. Then I burn again.

I walked through the lobby like I had a room with a view of the pool, following three men and a woman, all in shiny suits. They led me to a hospitality room where a dozen or more reporters had gathered around an empty podium and about four, five dozen supporters had gathered around them. A man looked me over when I entered the room and I flashed him my best don’t-worry-about-me-I’m-no-threat-no-sirree smile. After that I went unnoticed, hovering near a table loaded with beer, wine, soft drinks and assorted munchies on the far side of the room. I filled my pockets with pretzels—I hadn’t eaten all day.

Just before six, making sure he would make the local TV newscasts, the governor appeared to a smattering of applause. He shook hands with a few followers, greeted a few more and smiled as he went behind the microphones mounted on the podium. Despite the smile he looked like a man who was being marched before a firing squad. And, mama, did the reporters let him have it: What about this? What about that? How damaging was the debate? Have you reconsidered withdrawing from the election? Has the attorney general filed charges? Volley after volley. Through it all the man kept smiling, actually joked with the reporters, who joked back. John Dillinger and Melvin Purvis had a similar relationship.

Hersey Sheehan did not ask a single question, caustic or otherwise. Instead, he stood near the front of the pack of reporters, notebook in his pocket, arms folded across his chest, being seen and not heard. He seemed to enjoy the governor’s attempts to avoid looking at him.

The press conference broke up after about an hour and the governor consented to interviews by each of the TV crews in turn. Sheehan moved to the exit but was detained by a small knot of the governor’s supporters. I threaded past him and loitered in the corridor. Loud voices filtered out of the room. I could only make out two words: Fuck you. They came from Sheehan as he tramped past me, through the lobby and out the door. He was smiling.

Sheehan wasted no time getting back on I-35, this time heading north. I listened to the Timberwolves on the radio as we drove. By the time we reached Owatonna, they had built a thirteen-point lead over the Magic in Orlando. By the North-field exit, the lead was stretched to twenty-one. But by Lakeville, the Magic, led by Shaquille O’Neal, were trailing by only seven points. The game was tied when we reached the Cities.

I was disturbed when Sheehan pulled into the parking lot across from my office building. Real good, Taylor. You’ve been burned, I told myself. Only I wasn’t. Sheehan walked past my building to a tavern in the middle of the next block that I hadn’t been inside since the UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP sign had gone up. Well, there was no time like the present. I went inside.

Jeezus, what had happened to the place? I wondered. Instead of a quiet, intimate saloon with a TV set above the bar, it had been transformed into a haven for yuppie sports fans. The booths had been replaced by dozens of small, two- and four-person tables, some of them pushed together into larger groups. Sports paraphernalia filled the walls. Big- screen televisions were everywhere, all tuned to the Timberwolves game. As for the waitresses, gone were the comfortable knit shirts and jeans, replaced by tank tops and hot-orange microskirts; the waitresses dipped when they served drinks to avoid giving the boys behind them a show. And the prices! I’m sorry, I think four fifty for a tap beer is excessive. I ordered a Summit Pale Ale and nursed it as I searched the place for Sheehan from my perch on a leather stool near the door. I found him in the back, near the restrooms, sitting at a small table. He was talking to a black man whose face I could not see. As much as it pained me, I signaled the bartender for another, then went to the restroom, purposely looking away from Sheehan as I passed. After I finished my business I grabbed a quick look at the black man as I casually sauntered back to my stool. Only I didn’t feel casual. I felt like diving under a table.

Freddie was a grave robber; he’d dig up anything for a buck. And he was mean. Pit bull mean. He was very loose with his hands and he took pleasure in carrying his gun so everyone could see it.

I always figured his churlishness was the result of the merciless teasing he had suffered as a child. Seems his Ma saw Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field in ’63 and wanted her boy to grow up just like him. She even gave him the actor’s name: Sidney Poitier Fredricks. She dragged Freddie to dance classes and acting classes and forbade him to play football because she didn’t want his face damaged. Whenever Freddie would get in a fight, which was often, Ma would check his baby face, pleading with him to be a good boy, trying to make him understand that his face was his fortune. Finally, Freddie won a small part in a community theater production of Raisin in the Sun, he even earned a good review, three lines in the community weekly. Ma was so happy, she finally allowed Freddie to go out for the high school team, persuaded, no doubt, by Freddie’s list of black actors who had gained success on the football field: Woody Strode, Bernie Casey, Jim Brown, Lou Gossett Jr. (as far as Freddie knew Gossett had never played ball, but he had won an Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman and Freddie figured every little bit helped).

Things went well, too. He made second-string All State his junior year. Then a linebacker blindsided him, busting his jaw, cracking two teeth and twisting his lip into a perpetual snarl. Ma was devastated. Freddie insisted he could still act, but Ma said never; the way Freddie looked now he could only get parts playing drug dealers and pimps and there was enough niggers doing that crap already—that’s what she said. So Freddie took a scholarship to play Division III football. By his sophomore year, he was declared academically ineligible and had dropped out of college to join the Air Force. He became an AP stationed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. For two years his job was to protect the hurricane-wire fence that enclosed the entire base. He would zoom around in a Jeep, his faithful German shepherd at his side. One day he caught three thieves climbing the wire; over their shoulders were sacks of warm beer heisted from the NCO club. Freddie shot them down. Then he turned the dog loose. To pacify an outraged Filipino government, Freddie was quickly court-martialed, found guilty, sentenced to life and shackled to a seat on the next flight home.

By the time he reached San Francisco, the guilty verdict had been overturned. Freddie was granted an early, honorable discharge and the AP lieutenant accompanying him had sprung for a case of Freddie’s favorite beverage, Colt .45 Malt Liquor. Rumor had it the Air Force even fiddled with his service record, giving him enough investigative hours to qualify for a PI license. He would later boast, “Cappin’ those three slopes was the best career move I ever made.”

In short, Freddie was an embarrassment to our profession and the fact that Hersey Sheehan was conversing so pleasantly with him convinced me Kerry Beamon was correct: Sheehan was a sleaze. Call it guilt by association.

I drained the beer and ordered a third without thinking about it. I was out of pretzels, so I asked the bartender for a menu. Six-fifty for buffalo wings? With prices like these, the menu should be leather bound and come with a gold tassel. I slid it away.

“Unbelievable,” the guy next to me said.

“What?”

“The prices,” he answered, nodding toward the menu.

“I’ve seen worse,” I told him.

The guy was dressed in a dirty white T-shirt, jeans torn at the knees and Topsiders. I estimated his beard at three days. He took a long pull on a Marlboro and told me how he’d just been laid off by his advertising agency because some asshole in another department lost a big account and his entire group got the bounce even though they didn’t work on the account while the asshole was still with the agency—all before he exhaled.

“Politics, it’s all politics,” he said. “Nobody cares about the people who do the work. Do you know how many awards I’ve won for these guys?”

I excused myself and got the hell out of there.

I hid in the shadows of an alley across the street from the tavern and waited for Sheehan. It was a mistake. My first clue was when the muzzle of a handgun was rammed into my spine. The second was when Freddie said, “How you doin’, Holly?”

I hated that name. “I’ve been better, Sidney,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “How ’bout you?”

“Can’t complain,” he replied, jabbing me a little harder. “You tailin’ me?”

“No.”

“Then you’re tailin’ my man; I take the back door and circle around to learn why.”

“Ahh. So, how did the Wolves do?”

“Shaq beat ’em at the buzzer.”

“Give it to him, the guy’s a player.”

“So, why you tailin’ my man?”

“I didn’t know he was your man.”

“You seen us talkin’.”

“I figured he was writing a story on race relations.”

“There’s somethin’ you should know, Taylor.”

“What’s that, Freddie?”

“I never liked you.”

Freddie grabbed the collars of my jacket and shirt, jolted me deeper into the alley, swung me around and bounced me off the building. I pulled free and went into a cat stance, ninety percent of my weight on the back foot, my front foot high on the ball, both shoulders facing front, my hands in a guard position—an excellent posture for close encounters. Freddie pointed his gun at my face and thumbed back the hammer.

“Don’t even think of tryin’ that gook shit with me, man. I’ll kill ya.”

I dropped my hands to my side and straightened up.

“Put your hands in your pants pockets,” Freddie said. His eyes were confident, invulnerable. I did what he told me.

“Now kneel.”

I knelt.

Freddie stepped away from me, deactivated the gun and exhaled.

“You looked taller in them pictures in the newspapers,” he told me. “You don’t look so fuckin’ tall now. You kinda look puny to me.”

“I’ve lost weight. Hospital food does that to you.”

“How long were you in there?”

“Couple of weeks.”

“Got a lot of ink for that one.”

“I’m a hero, the papers said so.”

“Fuck them papers, you always in the fuckin’ papers.”

“Only twice.”

“That’s twice more than me.”

“What are you talking about? Didn’t the Sun call you the next James Earl Jones a while back?”

Freddie grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled. He waved his gun in front of my face like he was going to hit me with it. I got a good look. It was a Colt Commander. A nine.

“Don’t be doggin’ me, man,” he warned.

“Are you threatening me?” I asked, real calm.

He grinned and shook his head, utterly amazed. Of course I’m threatening you, his eyes told me. Whaddya think? C’mon, get with the program.

“I kick your ass anytime I want,” he announced, releasing my hair. “What you gonna do? Run to the cops? Run to your fancy-ass friends? What that guy pay you for stoppin’ that takeover thing?”

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“Fuck that!”

“God’s truth, Freddie. He wanted to give me the hand of his eldest daughter in marriage, too, but …”

Freddie pushed the Colt back into my face.

“You best watch your mouth, Taylor. You think you’re tough shit gettin’ in the papers, but I don’t see no reporters now.”

He had a point.

“All that press,” he said, contemptuously. “You ain’t nothin’. I’m better ’n you. Better ’n you any day.”

“That just might be,” I told him. “You got the governor. I couldn’t have done that.”

“Yeah, man. That’s right, I got the governor. And I didn’t use no damn computer, neither.”

“That was something, getting the goods on a governor. How did you do that, man?”

Freddie grinned.

“Tell me about it.”

“No big thing,” he said, a picture of modesty. “Simple surveillance is all, just like when I was with the APs. You think this guy is like the president? You think he’s got security, Secret Service guys followin’ him around and shit? Man, you could pop a governor a hundred times a day. And that car he drives—big fuckin’ black Buick—it’s like dog shit on snow, you know what I’m saying? So, I sit on ’im a while, see what the man does when he ain’t kissin’ no babies. You know the governor’s mansion on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, it has the long driveway up front? What most people don’t know, it’s got a rear entrance, too. One night that big black Buick pulls out of the alley and the man’s drivin’, just him and no one else, and I follow him—how tough can it be?—and the dumb fuck leads me to this house in Edina and before he even gits to the door, a woman opens it. A white woman, not bad, neither. She’s wearin’ this, whaddya call it, this chemise thing and nothing else and she comes out and she slips him the tongue right there in the front yard for everyone to see like they was fuckin’ bulletproof or somethin’. They go in and I sneak up to get the address, you know? And I peek under the window shade and they’re doin’ it right there on the living room floor, no shit. So I git my camera. I use a Pentax—I don’t need no fancy-ass Nikon or shit, just a simple Pentax—and I figure to get some shots through the shade, maybe sell ’em off to Playboy, you know, do a spread: Governors of the Midwest. Only, shit, man, the guy’s leavin’ already. He’s humped the bitch for only like fifteen minutes and he’s all done, so the best I can do is snap a few shots of him comin’ through the door.

“Now I see what I need to see, I don’t need to see no more, so I motor outta there. Next day, what I do, I call the Hennepin County tax people and I asks, who owns the property at the address and they give me a name of this woman. So I think about it and I figure, hey, maybe this woman works for the government so I look her up in the state of Minnesota telephone directory, you know, the government directory. Only she wasn’t in there. So I check this directory for lobbyists, the Member Directory of the Minnesota Governmental Relations Council, they call it. There she be, Council of General Contractors; nice photograph, too.”

“Beautiful, man. Just beautiful,” I said, feeding Freddie’s ego. He was positively beaming and I wanted him to tell me more before he caught on to what I was doing.

“How’d you do the mayor?” I asked.

“He was easy, too,” Freddie said. “What I did, I got this guy what works for a credit union; I slip him a workin’ bee and he gives me the mayor’s personal bank account. Turns out the asshole’s been payin’ six bills a month to this bitch, been doin’ it for years. I get her address out of the book and I go over there, pretend I’m doin’ a Gallup, and guess what? The bitch, she ain’t got no old man but she’s got this five-year-old kid. So I go to the birth records and take a look at the kid’s birth certificate. Know what it says? ‘Father unknown.’ Fuck. Now, I’m pissed at this guy. You got a kid you gotta take care of ‘im, man, you don’t ignore ‘im, pretend he don’t exist. That bites, man. Anyway, I figure I need somethin’ more so I go back to my guy at the credit union and I give ’im another fifty-dollar bill and he works on the woman, gets her employment history. You ready for this? The bitch worked in the mayor’s office until she got pregnant; then she leaves and gets this cake job workin’ for the Family Planning Department over to the City Health Center. Unreal.”

“What’s this crap about tax returns, then?”

“I don’t know, man, that’s Sheehan’s shit. I don’t know why …” And then he stopped, his eyes widening.

I pressed him. “Does Sheehan know that C. C. Monroe is paying for it?”

“I don’t know any C. C. Monroe,” Freddie said defensively.

“Marion Senske, then.”

Freddie didn’t answer.

“Marion and I have a business arrangement, too,” I assured him. “She pays in cash, hundred-dollar bills. Nothing on paper. I don’t know her, she don’t know me. How about you?”

Freddie didn’t speak, but I could hear his breath coming harder and faster.

“She hired me two days ago,” I told him.

“You jerkin’ me, man. She don’t need no fuckin’ newspaper private eye. She got me, she don’t need you.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with your job, Freddie.”

“Fuckin’ bitch, she don’t need you.”

“Listen, Freddie,” I told him. But he had heard enough. He swung the Colt in a high arc and laid the barrel against the side of my head. The blow seemed worthy of quiet contemplation; I found myself conducting a clinical review of the damage it caused as I sank slowly into darkness, completely detached, like a rookie cop listening to a lecture on forensic medicine.