52

Bethesda, Maryland November 3

In the night darkness, Addis walked carefully along the stone steps that led to the front of the tree-surrounded colonial. He rang the bell, and Alma Dunne came to the door.

“Oh, I forgot to turn on the outside lights,” she apologized. “I keep forgetting.”

“That’s okay.”

She took his hand and pulled him into the house. “What have you been doing with yourself?” she asked, a touch of hesitation in her voice.

“Reading Dante,” he replied.

“Oh,” she said, not knowing how she should respond.

Why be a shit?

“Actually, I was out of town. At a wedding.”

“That must have been nice.”

No, it was painful. But not as bad as I thought it would be. Holly looked great. But she’s gone and that’s okay. You don’t get over things. You learn to live with them.

“Yes, it was lovely.”

Especially when a law professor said he had written a law review article on the trial of Donny Lee Mondreau and asked if he could send it to me. I said, no. Not right now.

“Clarence has been looking forward to seeing you. He’s in the den.” She guided Addis to the room.

Dunne sat in a pale-green easy chair. Addis noticed a folded-up wheelchair in the corner. The television was on.

“Come on in,” Dunne said. His voice was raspy. His mouth drooped. When Addis took Dunne’s hand, Dunne squeezed hard and held the grip.

“Not too bad,” Dunne said.

“Not at all,” Addis said.

Alma excused herself.

“How are you?” Addis asked. He tried not to look at the television.

“Better than some,” Dunne said. He swallowed hard after finishing the sentence. “Still scarred,” he explained. “The cords.”

Addis waited as he swallowed again.

“But moaning don’t help … . Working hard. Phys-i-cal ther-a-py. Vocal ther-a-py.” He pronounced the words mockingly.

“No men-tal ther-a-py?” Addis asked.

Dunne started to laugh. Then phlegm caught in his throat. He grimaced as he cleared it and spit the saliva into a tissue.

“Don’t make me laugh,” Dunne said. He dropped the Kleenex into a wastebasket.

“Promise,” Addis said.

Dunne pointed to the rocking chair next to him and Addis sat down. Senator Hugh Palmer was on the television screen. Family, friends, and aides huddled behind him, as he addressed a crowd.

“Want to hear?” Dunne asked.

“It’s history, right?”

Dunne pushed a button on the remote.

“ … It was a long, a hard, and an uphill fight. Not for a moment will I regret returning to the Senate. And we will be back. Our values have not been spurned. We shall continue to serve them and rebuild for the future. We are loyal to our cause: a just, productive America, where prosperity, tolerance, and opportunity reign for all. Where the political system is not ruled by those who exploit it to selfishly advance their own advantage. Where a child can grow up knowing his future is determined by what is in his heart and his head, not the surroundings into which he—or she—is born. Where our nation is as strong as it is diverse. Come another day, we will triumph.”

The audience applauded and yelled his name. People held signs bearing the year of the next presidential election.

“We will!” Palmer shouted. “We will!”

“There you have it,” an anchor said, “an early concession speech that was no surprise. On an election day that broke records for low voter turnout—”

Dunne silenced the television.

“Been getting on?” Dunne asked.

“Shit, Clarence, how can I complain when you’re—” Addis caught himself. “I’m sorry, I’m really—”

Dunne waved a hand at him: “Stop it.”

“I suppose I’m doing alright. But sometimes I feel there’s not much left of me, after the hearings, the grand juries, you know.”

On the screen, the network was recapping the previous months. There was the front page with Hynes-Pierce’s story and footage of the press conference where the reporter had displayed the documents supporting his scoop.

Addis looked away from the set. In his mind, he saw the reporter in the bar. It was days after Hynes-Pierce had broken the story, the chaos of the Chicago convention was done. In the afternoon. No other customers were present. They exchanged greetings, and Hynes-Pierce quickly got to the point: “And your question, it is?”

“Who first put you on the Blue Ridge story?”

“That would be revealing a source.”

“Yes, I know.”

“And you know that’s against the rules.”

“And I know you’re going to tell me.”

Addis waited for him.

“I doubt you will believe me.”

“I think I will.”

Hynes-Pierce ordered a gin and tonic.

“Your friend Sal Conditt, chief of staff to your other friend, Senator Hugh Palmer.”

Addis tried to hide his surprise.

“Why?”

“At first, I couldn’t really say. Nor could I fathom why he would have any information on said transaction. But you don’t look at what’s behind a leak now, do you? Not in this town. If we did, all us hacks would be on the dole.”

“But …”

“Then Mr. Conditt shared the phone numbers of calls you had made to Louisiana, and I concluded that he was fronting for colleagues of yours at Casa Blanca and that Senor Kelly was conducting this orchestra. Mumfries may well have have been in a position of familiarity with certain secrets of Margaret’s clan. And is there anything Mumfries knows that is not shared with his very own Sancho Panza?”

Hynes-Pierce paused, as if to permit Addis to absorb the information.

“Now, with Governor Pratt the likely but unelectable opponent, the Mumfries band could take a cut at President Hanover and not have to worry about losing the White House. Merely hobble him. After all, would a decade-old land matter mean so much? As you know, it’s a tradition in this town: Presidents leak disparaging information on their seconds so as to seem grander in comparison; the number twos do the same to their masters to cause their own value to be enhanced. But the leaks, of course, are supposed to be pinpricks, not on-the-nose punches. In this case, I would wager that operation occurred at what you call the staff level—between Mr. Kelly and Mr. Conditt, with their respective barons out of the proverbial loop.”

Hynes-Pierce sipped his gin and tonic. A drop ran down the side of his mouth toward his chin. He caught it with his tongue.

“Did you know that the two once resided together in a group house? Indeed. Out of curiosity, I did poke about. This was when they were both young, enthusiastic, fresh-faced Capitol Hill interns. In any event, credit Mr. Kelly for possessing the good sense to find an unlikely pathway for the information. If he had dangled it before me himself I might have chosen to write about internal White House plotting against the President. And why would Mr. Conditt play along? For old times’ sake, perhaps, as a favor to his friend. To stick you? It’s a possibility. One should never underestimate the psychological motive in this repressed Southern town. You might be interested to know that a colleague of mine informed me that he had heard that Conditt, prior to the tragedy, had been under consideration for a senior position within Vice President Mumfries’ office. In any event, I long ago ceased attempting to discern motives in this city. What counts is what counts … . Sorry, truly, if all this adds one more disappointment to your stock.”

The reporter paid for the drink and left. Addis remained in the bar and traced another chain. Because Kelly and Conditt had introduced the story to Hynes-Pierce, Addis had been placed on the Blue Ridge trail; because he had investigated, he had pieced together the bizarre story that brought down …

The network was now airing video from the Chicago convention: Margaret’s arrival. Mumfries’s initial refusal to answer questions about Hynes-Pierce’s story. Margaret’s teary-eyed withdrawal. Ken Byrd passing out a written statement—on the Fourth of July—announcing that Mumfries would no longer seek the nomination. Then film from the extra day that was added to the convention, when shocked, confused, and exhausted delegates eventually selected Palmer as the party’s presidential nominee.

A young black woman holding a swaddled-up infant entered the room. Twayne Starrell followed. Addis stood and said hello.

“My wife Tamika and my daughter,” Starrell said.

“Congratulations,” Addis replied.

“They’re staying with us a while,” Dunne said. “Gives Alma something to do other than fret over me.”

The couple sat on the couch. Starrell took the sleeping baby in his arms. Addis returned to the rocker.

“What’s her name?” he asked.

“Vanessa,” Timmons said. “After my grammie. Her middle name’s Clarissa.”

Addis looked at Dunne, who grinned.

The network played footage from the congressional hearings: Representative Wynn Gravitt, the chair of the special joint committee, lecturing Brewster McGreer. Jake Grayton arriving at the Capitol, accompanied by a lawyer, pleading the Fifth before the panel. Hamilton Kelly being yelled at by a senator, who accused him of scheming with Grayton and forging the memo on White House security to discredit Dunne. Members of Grayton’s interagency SWAT team wearing hoods to conceal their identities and testifying that Grayton had placed an outsider in charge of their group and then used the unit to follow and monitor Dunne, Lancette, and Addis.

Dunne squeezed the arms of the chair. I led them to Gillian Silva, he thought—for the thousandth time. Grayton was watching me from the first. He realized that anyone investigating on their own posed a threat.

The masked figures on television were explaining that they had identified and located Raymond DeNoefri after breaking into his office and collecting fingerprints samples. They acknowledged that they had raided the apartment and killed Dawkins and Lopez, after being informed by their new commander that intelligence proved the pair had been part of the conspiracy to assassinate Hanover. It had been the commander who found the white supremacist material beneath the bed.

The image switched to M. T. O’Connor at the witness table, denying she had told Jordan to murder Harris Griffith. Next, a gaunt, pale Flip Whalen—his wife Amelia had died three weeks earlier—claiming he knew none of the secret details of the Blue Ridge deal. Secretary of the Treasury Louis Alter appearing irritated, as legislators questioned him. Why hadn’t Alter taken Dunne’s suspicions more seriously? Had Grayton informed him of the problem at hand, that Dunne’s probing could undermine the entire administration? Alter dismissing the speculation with indignation.

There was CIA Director Timothy Wenner announcing his resignation, maintaining he had been misled by Grayton and claiming he had been unaware that Grayton had intervened with the Agency’s director of administration to suppress Charlie Walters’s original ICEMAN report. Walters’s attorney announcing a $35 million suit against the U.S. government, charging that the CIA’s Office of Security, at Grayton’s behest, had sent him off to Africa and then had set him up.

The montage segued to Ken Byrd, the former press secretary, crying during an interview. A shot of Mike Finn, the former political director, in a luxurious office overlooking the Potomac, his cane lying on the desk. This was the cover of his just-published, bestselling memoirs, Blind Luck, which he secretly had been writing throughout his time at the White House.

A mug shot of Matthew Levon Morrison, the Marine washout transformed into a government killer as a political favor. A picture of his mother: Helen “Happy” Morrison. Footage from the bombing in Tangiers. A tourist’s snapshot of a dead man in a hotel lobby. And an autopsy photograph showing a tattoo on the man’s chest: an M with a dagger.

T. L., Dunne thought. Team Leader. The last survivor of the secret hit team Grayton had organized several years ago, with the knowledge of Mumfries, who then was chairing the Senate intelligence committee. The outsider whom Grayton had placed in charge of his more recent creation, the interagency SWAT unit. The man who had shot Dunne and killed Gillian Silva, Raymond DeNoefri, and Julia Lancette. All to prevent one truth of the assassination—that it had resulted in part from the excesses of the national security crowd—from becoming known.

There was video of Nick Addis taking one of the many sips of water he swallowed during three days of testifying. Next came footage of Clarence Dunne walking with Bob Hanover in the Rose Garden. Hanover had his hand on Dunne’s shoulder, and Dunne was laughing.

The four adults in the room stared at the old Dunne on the screen. Dunne broke the silence: “I remember the joke. He was telling one on himself. It went something—”

Dunne coughed hard and continued speaking through the pain: “They—he and Margaret—were back in Louisiana. They passed through this small town where she, when she was a girl, had spent a summer, and they pulled over at a filling station. Turns out the owner and she had a thing that summer.” Dunne spit out a gob of phlegm. “So when they leave the station, he says to her: ‘Honey, if you’d stayed with that fellow today you’d be the wife of a mechanic.’ She says, ‘No, dear, if I’d stayed with him, today, he’d be President of the United States’ … He liked that one. A lot.”

Commercials had replaced the footage of Dunne and Hanover.

“What are you doing now?” Addis asked Starrell.

“Helping out my unc at the building, looking for a real job.”

“I told him he should join the force, go to the academy,” Dunne said.

“Police?” Addis asked.

“Ain’t happening,” Timmons said. “Too many get capped.”

“Then what?” Addis asked.

“Don’t know,” Starrell said. “I kinda liked what I was doing with all this. Finding things, figuring things out.”

“I know,” Dunne said. “You and I can open up a private investigation firm. Be like something on TV. An old cripple and a young buck from the streets.”

“Should just get on with the TV idea,” Timmons said. “Hell, Anjean’s doing a book. And he can’t write.” The baby was stirring; she took her daughter from Starrell. “Got some white guy, no offense to you”—Addis nodded—“doing all the damn work. You know the name they got for it? Street Hero. That’s a joke. And they’re going to be putting his picture on it. Sent him up to New York—on a plane—for a guy to take his picture.”

She stroked her daughter’s neck, and the baby went back to sleep.

“I ain’t complaining or nothing, but all he got was one lucky shot. And Twayne had to tell him what to do.”

“Leave it, Tamika,” Starrell said.

“And they were going to give you all that money—over a million, right?—and you don’t want to do it,” she said to Addis. “Why’s that?”

“Tamika, hush,” Starrell said.

There was a photograph of Julia Lancette on the television. It had been taken during a rafting trip. Her hair was wet. She held a paddle over her head in a triumphant pose.

Dead or alive, reputations do matter … . In the end, that’s all one has, isn’t it? Addis could hear Grayton saying those words. Addis had his, but …

In the photograph, she was smiling. You never found the ICEMAN report, he said to her silently. And it never turned up. But just by looking for it, you—

The network switched to a shot of Lem Jordan being led into a New Orleans police station in handcuffs. Addis thought about the autopsy report on Griffith: severe head trauma was the cause of death. Jordan had not confessed, but Addis guessed—he hoped—that a scuffle between Jordan and Griffith inadvertently had turned lethal and that a panicked Jordan then tried to make it seem a suicide. That was how Addis liked to think about it.

Next, the recap showed the house outside Baton Rouge—the gated and fenced estate where Chasie Mason had resided—where Margaret was now living with Jack in reclusion. A long-distance shot, compressed because it had been taken with a telephoto lens, with Margaret pushing Jack in his wheelchair toward the high hedges of the garden.

The image faded, and Dan Carey was on the newscast set, sitting next to the anchor. As Carey spoke, he looked confident, authoritative. He cut the air with short, deliberate strokes of his hand. A legend on the screen labeled him a “special political analyst” for the network.

“Just didn’t feel like it,” Addis said to Timmons. “Pretty stupid, I guess.”

“Up to you,” she said.

Alma returned to the room and handed her husband a glass of water. She gave Addis a Coke. A chart on the screen showed that control of the Senate had changed. Palmer, Addis thought, would no longer be majority leader.

Shit, put the truth out, and now they had all of Congress and …

Wesley Pratt gazed out at the crowd. His eyes were full of wonder. His wife held her hands over her mouth. He pumped a fist into the air and red, white, and blue balloons fell from the ceiling. His silver hair shimmered, reflecting the television lights.

Dunne turned on the sound. A band was playing, “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” The camera pulled back and showed the stage was set in front of the State Capitol in Tallahassee. A full moon was shining behind the dome. People in the crowd jumped up and down and wildly waved flags. Others held signs: “Pratt: For God and Country.” Two people raised a banner that read, “John 3:16.” The band slid into a country tune. The crowd roared. It was one of the hits of Pratt’s recording career.

Pratt held out his hands to quiet the crowd. The cheering lessened. Then he kissed his wife on the cheek, and the din resumed.

“Sure you want to watch?” Dunne asked Addis.

“Hate to spoil all your fun.”

“God-damn cracker,” Timmons said.

Alma looked at her disapprovingly.

“Thank you, thank you,” Pratt shouted. He introduced his wife. He hugged his children. He looked toward each side of the stage. “Where is he?” he asked. “Where is he?”

Representative Wynn Gravitt bounced on the stage, pulling his wife along. “Ladies, gentlemen,” Pratt said in a booming voice, “the next Vice President of the United States, Representative Wynn Gravitt!”

The crowd kept on cheering. Gravitt waved; his wife looked terrified. Pratt threw an arm around Gravitt, and the audience shouted, “Pratt and Gravitt!” Pratt again tried to calm his supporters. The band stopped. The cheering tapered off.

“My fellow Americans,” he spoke slowly, overemphasizing each syllable. The crowd roared. “My fellow Americans,” he repeated. Another roar.

“Boy, I sure do love the sound of those three words. My fellow Americans, we did it. We did it. For us, our families, our children … and for Him.”

Another swelling of noise. The network cut to two white-haired women hugging each other, crying with joy.

“We have triumphed, with His help, support, and love. And we will take this nation back. Back to traditional values of right and wrong. Faith and love. Family and responsibility. We will restore the moral foundation of a nation that has been blessed from above. We will revive the spirit of America. We will protect and take to our breasts the most innocent among us. We will make sure our children live and thrive in a culture free of dangerous and malicious content. We will take our government back and limit its ability to interfere with our families and our right to prayer. We will have church and neighborhood charity instead of bureaucratic government programs, low taxes and freedom instead of regulations that smother business. We will live in one nation under God.”

The crowd shouted its approval. The band struck up another Pratt hit. Above the dome, fireworks exploded. Red and green tracers descended from the sky. The camera zoomed in on Pratt. Tears were in his eyes. Supporters in the audience were dancing.

“Some show,” Dunne said.

“Crackers,” Timmons sneered.

The fireworks ended. The band finished. “There, there,” Pratt said. He was again trying to quiet the crowd.

“There, there, my friends. This is a time for thanks. For all of us, a time of thanks. First and foremost”—the crowd began cheering—“and you know who is at the top of our list, let me thank God.”

The audience clapped and yelled. The network showed a young, cleancut man on his knees praying.

“He’s first on a long list.”

He didn’t say “Jesus.”

Addis remembered the news report about a confidential memo sent by Gravitt’s chief political consultant to Pratt. Don’t use the “J-word,” it had advised. Polls showed people were more comfortable with “God.”

“Then there’s my wife, Ellen, and our six beautiful, little miracles: Cara, Susan, Rachel, Todd, Sarah, and Emily. My parents who are smiling at us tonight from the eternal kingdom. The tens of thousands of you who gave me your time and faith. And, of course, my running mate and partner, Congressman—oh excuse this country boy’s mistake—that is, Vice President-elect Wynn Gravitt.”

The audience shouted, “Wynn! Wynn! Wynn!”

“This is a great night,” Pratt yelled over the crowd. “A great night. I look forward to working closely with Wynn Gravitt, a statesman and a visionary. No one will play a more important role in my administration.”

Gravitt raised his index finger in the air. The crowd cheered him.

I do hope someone’s up there.

“We have control of both houses of Congress,” Pratt said. Another roar erupted. “From the Capitol to the White House—we will put into action our campaign of decency. And to those who have not supported us, let me say: You might disagree with our views. But I promise you—as God is my witness—we will implement those views honestly and fairly. Our administration will be clean and open. Free of dishonest entanglements and backroom dealings. No one need ever be ashamed of our government.”

Gravitt shot a thumbs-up at someone he recognized in the crowd. He was not listening to Pratt.

“Not one brother or sister up there,” Timmons said. “These oh-sodecent white folks gonna give it to us.”

Maybe it won’t be so bad. How far can they go? There’ll be congressional elections in two years. Or … Damn, it’s hard to stop spinning.

“So to all of you, I say, thank you,” Pratt continued. “And good night. Get some rest. We got work to do.”

Pratt, his family, Gravitt, and his wife grabbed hands and formed a line.

“Pratt didn’t thank you,” Dunne said to Addis.

“An oversight, I’m sure,” Addis replied.

And he didn’t thank Julia.

“Guess you kinda feel responsible,” Timmons said.

Starrell nudged her in the side.

“Well, don’t he?” she said. She was facing her husband, but her eyes looked toward Addis.

The more perfect someone is, the more he sees the good and the bad.

After returning from Rudd’s wedding, Addis had checked the Dante quotation that Lancette once had recited for him. He discovered that she had mangled the passage. So much so that he had difficulty finding it. But he did locate the lines she had memorized when she was in college: “The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and likewise pain.” Over time, the quote had changed for her. Her version had a different meaning than the original. And he preferred hers. Unintentionally she had improved on the truth as seen by a fourteenth-century poet. Perhaps, he thought, memories become what we want them to be.

“Don’t he?” Timmons asked again.

“That’s enough of this,” Dunne said and shut off the television.

“Yes,” Addis muttered, “yes.” He tasted the Coke, closed his eyes, and saw a face. She looked as though she understood.