Flight 847 June 27
She smells too damn good.
As the 767 fought against the jet stream, Holly Rudd slept, her head resting on Addis’s shoulder. Whenever she was a passenger in a moving vehicle she lost consciousness. Train, bus, car, airplane—give her a humming, mechanical drone and swaying motion, and she could not resist. Yet in bed at night, she had tossed, she had pushed, she had kicked. In the old days, after they made love, Addis would roll to the far side of the bed to avoid the writhing to come.
On the crowded airplane, as she dozed peacefully, he went over their dinner the night before. She had arrived at Havana Village, had kissed him quickly on the cheek—a glancing kiss—and had sat down at the table. She looked good. Her brown, almost black wavy hair, shoulder-length, was longer than he had ever seen it. Her eyelashes so fine, her dark eyes like dots on a round, smooth face. From what he could tell, she was still muscular and trim.
“How are—”
“Fine,” he said.
“It’s so—”
“I know.”
He asked about her job and her family. She supplied the basics about the firm and her parents and sister.
Four years, how do you cover four years?
The waiter, one of the owner’s sons, brought them beer and took their orders.
“What can I do for you, Nick?” she asked. “You said you needed something.”
The prelims are over, he thought. He sipped his beer and hesitated in replying.
“You said you need a favor.”
Was that reluctance in her voice, or was the whole damn thing too strange? Shit, here goes.
Addis told her that he had to travel to New Orleans on confidential business. He did not want to have to explain his travel to any curious parties—in the press or elsewhere.
“A trip with an old friend—”
“An old girlfriend,” she interrupted.
“Would not provoke too many questions.”
“Not those sort of questions,” she said. “But others.”
“Sounds silly, I know,” he said. “But I’m in a jam. It’s asking a lot, but can you give me a few days?”
“It’s connected to the … ?” she asked.
“Not really,” he replied.
“Does it have something to do with the race? Is it true what the papers are saying, that Margaret’s going to—”
“I can’t get into it. Not now. If you have to know, then let’s forget about it.”
“Okay, okay,” she said. “I did offer. I just don’t want you to think that …”
“To think what?” he asked. But he knew what she meant.
Do you think I’m trying to use this tragedy? Damnit, am I looking to find something, someone, to fix myself to?
“Maybe I should tell you—”
“You’re seeing someone.” He had heard: a lobbyist for an environmental group. She nodded.
“It’s serious,” she said.
You had to throw that in, didn’t you?
“Would it be a problem,” he asked, “for you—and him—if you …”
“He’s in Rio for a conference this week,” Rudd said.
“If we travel together, you know what people will say, what will happen?”
“I remember: the news photographers, the gossip columns. Is this really the only way—”
“All I can come up with.”
“You’re really pushing it, Nick.”
“I know. One last push for old times?”
“One last push?” She smiled for a moment. “But I can only be gone two days.”
“Thanks, I just need a friend to help.”
He wondered if this were true.
How do you know when you’re pulling off a really good job of self-deception?
He had booked a suite with two rooms, he told her. She would only have to accompany him to a few meals, perhaps a show.
“Maybe Jeff will see something in the Rio paper,” she said.
“We can tell everyone, ‘just friends.’ Can he read Portuguese?”
“No. But he can read a picture.”
“I can call him, if you like.”
She laughed in reply.
“No, I’ll deal with it. It will be fine. He’s too damn secure, anyway.”
Why is she agreeing? Does she want there to be a problem with Jeff? Shit, stop thinking this way. It’s just a pity-fuck.
“Besides,” she added. “Maybe we’ll have—”
“Here you go,” said the waiter, who had arrived with their food. He looked at Addis with sad eyes. “I just want to say that I feel—”
The waiter was embarrassed; he did not know how to finish the sentence.
“I know,” Addis said with sympathy. “I know.”
“Yes, yes.” The waiter placed the plates in front of them and backed away.
“Must be hard to be consoling everyone else,” Rudd said.
“Comes with the territory.”
But what were you going to say?
The conversation drifted back to small talk. She picked at the food and mentioned that she had been in Alaska. On a vacation with Jeff? She didn’t say. She passed on dessert and coffee. Outside the restaurant, they went over the travel arrangements and she flagged a cab. She touched his hand as she said good-bye. But it was a tentative gesture, hard to read. She entered the cab.
“Thank you,” he said through the window. “I know this is weird, but—”
A bus rumbled past, smothering her reply, and the taxi left the curb. Had she said, “Life is weird”?
Rolando, the owner, was smoking a cigar outside the restaurant.
“A good meal, my friend?” he asked Addis.
“Delicious,” Addis said.
“And your friend, did she—”
“How’s business tonight?”
“Good, good. But the dumbwaiter is not working as it should. So Johnny and Esteban had to use the stairs. I think their knees are not so good.” Rolando laughed and held out a cigar to Addis.
“Not tonight,” Addis said.
A pocket of turbulence knocked the aircraft, and Addis stopped replaying the previous evening. Rudd stirred but did not awaken. Her hair fell
across his jacket. He wanted to touch the hair. But he knew that he shouldn’t, that if he did she would choose that moment to end her sleep.
There was something he wanted to tell her. Not about the land deal, the supposed point of this trip. That would bore her, it would seem trivial, another political sideshow supplanting substance. He remembered her rants. Why couldn’t politics just focus on what policies are best for the nation? How could he put up with all the bullshit? Why was the nation constantly being distracted by negative ads, personal attacks, and irrelevant questions about the private lives of candidates? For the same reason, he had replied more than once, that television networks broadcast crap, that lawyers encourage clients to sue when they don’t have a chance, that the Pentagon demands weapons for which there are no true targets, that the Chinese want Disney stores, that investment bankers care more about the on-paper value of a firm than what it produces.
It was unreal to expect the political system to be more noble an institution than any other. Those who wanted to do good within the system—those who wanted to better the odds for people not represented by well-tailored corporate lobbyists and deep-pocketed political action committees—had to tote plenty of garbage. If you couldn’t stand the stench and opted out, then you were making room for those who had no sense of smell. He had tried to convince her of this—perhaps tried too hard.
Let old bones rest in peace, he thought. And turn to powder.
No, what he wanted to tell her at this moment would be important to her. She would be held enrapt. She would feel vindicated and enraged. She might be disappointed by him even more.
About a month ago—ages before the assassination—Flip Whalen, the Hanovers’ unofficial ambassador to back-home, had called from New Orleans. McGreer was traveling with President Hanover in Asia, so Whalen asked for Addis, who was recovering from a sinus infection and unable to fly.
“Want to give you all a heads-up,” Whalen told him.
An itinerant laborer had been arrested in Opelousas. He had come home drunk and hacked his wife to death with a machete. He then sliced their nine-month-old daughter nearly in half and tossed the child’s body out the window of their second-floor apartment. When the police arrived at his apartment he was sitting in front of a stove with the gas running. All the windows were now closed. In one hand was an unlit match. He was poised to strike it. The police officers held their fire, fearing a misaimed shot might spark an explosion. They tried to talk to him but he was mumbling gibberish. Then he moved to light the match.
It did not ignite. The matchbook cover was wet with blood and sweat. The man was apprehended.
As he had listened, Addis wondered why Whalen considered this a White House concern.
At the police station, Whalen continued, the fellow confessed—not only to the murder of the woman and the child, but also to three other murders in the past ten years. A drunk in a bar. A fellow day laborer who had chiseled him out of thirty-five dollars. An owner of a convenience store outside New Roads, shot dead during a botched robbery attempt.
“Flip, so what?” Addis asked.
“That’s the same fellow Donny Lee Mondreau killed.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit, double-shit, and triple-shit.”
Mondreau had been executed for this murder. The case against Mondreau was mostly circumstantial. A trucker had testified that he saw Mondreau running from the store at the time of the killing. Mondreau, whose mental abilities were diminished, had told the police different stories pertaining to his whereabouts. A jury found him guilty; an appeals court validated the sentence rendered. Hanover had flown to Baton Rouge to sign the execution order. And a far-off consequence was a fight between Addis and Rudd in a New Orleans hotel room.
“So what do we know for sure?” Addis had asked Whalen. He reached for a pad and a pen. Then he caught himself and pushed both away.
“Not much. He’s a doper. A lot of mumbo jumbo so far. But they’ve got to check it out.”
“Any indication he knew that someone had been arrested for the New Roads killing?”
“Don’t know,” Whalen replied.
“Does his story match the details of the killing?”
“Don’t know yet, either.”
“Can we get some answers?”
“Yeah, I’m on it. The sheriff is a cousin of the parish chairman. He’s a good man.”
Good in what way?
“And who else knows?”
“Just the cops, as far as I know—and the sheriff’s cousin.”
“Keep me posted, Flip. I want to know.”
I really fucking want to know.
Whalen did not call back for two days. In that time, Addis wondered how Hanover would respond if it turned out an innocent man had been executed on his watch. Would Wesley Pratt try to exploit this during the campaign? The polls showed Pratt was sunk. He was an amiable fellow, but he could not help referring to Jesus whenever he appeared in public. This habit had won him the support of a devoted following, enough to triumph in the primaries. But, according to the polls, it had alienated most
people likely to vote in the November election. One mistaken conviction could not change the calculus of this election, and Addis could envision a contrite Hanover pledging to push for criminal justice reforms—not the abolition of the death penalty—to ensure such a tragedy was never repeated. He would be sincere, all sincerity. Most of the public would forgive the President. Still, a man would be dead.
When Whalen finally rang back, Addis cut short a conversation with a network anchor to accept the call.
“No more problem,” Whalen reported.
“Why not?” Addis asked.
“The great humanitarian in question decided that he himself did not deserve to live.”
“And?”
“Last night he took his sheets and … was found this morning. Long gone. That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“Sheriff says his other stories didn’t match with known cases. So that’s it. Case closed.”
“Flip, did they check the New Roads—”
“Nick, the sheriff says the case is closed. It was a false alarm. You want to go second-guessing local law enforcement?”
“But what if they … ?” He did not want to say what he suspected.
“C’mon, Nick. There’s no reason to believe it’s anything other than what they say it is. And I don’t see any reason to discuss it further. Do you?”
“Guess not.”
“You don’t go chasing after bears when they’re showing you tail, do you?”
After he finished with Whalen, Addis sat at his desk and stared at his hands. He let the phone ring. About forty-five minutes later, an aide rushed in, holding a memo written by a Cabinet member that decried the administration’s budget figures. At least three reporters already had a copy. Addis left his desk and headed toward the Situation Room to send a high-priority message about the memo to McGreer on Air Force One. The phone calls from Whalen? Didn’t one cancel out the other? But he knew: He was spinning himself.
That was four weeks ago. That was before … .
The pilot announced that the aircraft had begun the descent into New Orleans. Rudd awoke and lifted her head from Addis’s shoulder. She showed no sign of self-consciousness.
“Almost there?” she asked.
“Close,” Addis said.
She picked up a newspaper and read. On the front page of the metro
section, Addis saw a photograph of a smiling Gillian Silva. He recalled the photo she had showed him yesterday. Plump breasts. Sleek legs. Pouty lips. Now cold flesh.
Rudd saw that he was looking at the story about Silva.
“Imagine being her parents,” she said.
“I couldn’t,” Addis said.