“Jake’s fine.”
“Old Jake.” Brattle shook his head, still beaming in evident appreciation of that old rapscallion Jake Spivey’s many endearing qualities. The head that Brattle shook was handsome in the way that busts of long-dead Roman statesmen are often handsome — but not too handsome. The features are never too regular. The expressions are never too remote. The blank eyes never betray anything. Dill had once spent a long rainy Spanish afternoon studying a roomful of such busts in Merida. He had seen on those long-dead faces what he now saw on the face of Clyde Brattle: worldliness, cool detachment, and utter cynicism. He felt it must have been a useful mind-set back in Roman times, what with the Visigoths on the way down from the east and the north.
Now fifty-five, Brattle could easily have passed for one of those banished Roman consuls who had served too long in some dreary distant province. There were that same faint curl of lip, that same thin haughty nose, and those same illusionless eyes of no particular color unless winter rain has color. The shortish hair finally had gone gray — gray-sky gray — but it was still thick, unparted, and combed with the fingers only, if at all. The voice was still that scratchy overeducated drawl from which any regional trace had long since been excised.
“What would you say to a drink?” Brattle asked.
“I’d say fine.”
“Good.”
Sid, the lean one, rose and silently mixed two vodka-tonics. He set one in front of Brattle and handed the other to Dill. Brattle took a swallow, sighed, and smiled. “I suppose you heard I was back,” he said.
Dill nodded. “They say you crossed at Detroit.”
“It’s rather tedious, as you well know, Ben, being on the dodge like this.” He looked at the man called Sid. “Mr. Dill used to be with Jasper, Sid.”
“No shit,” Sid said. “Who’s Jasper?”
“It’s a what, not a who,” came the voice of the weight lifter from his perch on the stool.
“You’re right, Harley,” Brattle said. “It was a what. The Ford White House set it up shortly after Mr. Nixon’s rather sodden farewell. How much do you think he’d put away that day, Ben? The best part of a fifth?”
“I don’t know,” Dill said. “I don’t know how well he could handle it.”
“So why’d they call whatever it was Jasper?” Sid asked.
“It’s my understanding,” Brattle said, “and Ben can correct me if I’m wrong, that when the negotiations were going on for Mr. Nixon’s pardon, Mr. Ford was shocked to learn that, in his words, ‘Some Jasper’s made off with three million fucking dollars.’ From all that money that was floating around back then. The Committee for the Re-Election of the President. The CREEP money.”
“Sure,” Sid said. “I remember that. I always did wonder who got well off of that deal.”
“So they set up Jasper,” Brattle continued, “and brought some people in, outside people, untainted people, like Ben here, and set them off in pursuit of the missing swag. All extremely sub rosa. Not even Langley knew about it. Or the FBI. In fact, both were rather high up on the list of suspects, right, Ben?”
“Right.”
“So Ben here and a few other patriots spent the years of the Ford administration roaming over Europe looking for the Jaspers who’d made off with the three million fucking dollars. You had nearly a year in London, didn’t you, Ben, and then almost two years in Barcelona?”
“About that.”
“So what happened?” Harley asked from the van’s galley. “I never did hear what happened.”
“Nothing happened. Although you did come close, didn’t you, Ben?”
“Very close.”
“I like to think that Jake and I were of some help.”
“You helped, Clyde.”
“But not quite enough.” Brattle sighed. “They were dead by then — the Jaspers, I mean. There were three of them as I recall.” He looked at Dill for confirmation.
“Three,” Dill agreed.
“Two men and a woman. A messy combination when you think about it. Doomed to failure.”
“So who finally got the money — the three million?” Sid asked.
Dill looked at him. “The people who killed them.”
“Oh,” Sid said with a look of total understanding. “Yeah, well, sure. I can see that.” He nodded as if it all made perfect sense.
“And Ben here had a perfectly splendid three years or so in Europe.” Brattle looked at Dill and smiled. “They were good years, weren’t they, Ben?”
“As you say, Clyde, they were splendid.”
Brattle was wearing a white polo shirt which made his deep tan look even deeper. The shirt had no identifying brand on its pocket. Dill suspected Brattle would gladly have paid bespoke prices for the shirt as long as it bore no trademark. He now reached into the shirt’s pocket, produced a gold Swiss gas lighter, picked up a pack of Gauloises from the table, and offered them to Dill, who refused with a shake of his head. Brattle lit one of the cigarettes, inhaled gratefully, and blew the smoke out. His fifth smoke of the day, Dill thought. Maybe his sixth.
“You’ve been with the subcommittee how long now — three years?” Brattle asked.
“About that.”
“As a consultant.”
“Right.”
“Pay anything?”
“Enough.”
“Spartan habits, simple needs, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“You and young Senator Ramirez have a good working relationship, I presume.”
“Based on warm mutual respect.”
Brattle smiled at Dill’s answer and its edge of sarcasm. “And then there’s the minority counsel, young Mr. Dolan. Timothy, isn’t it?”
“Timothy.”
“Schooled by the Jesuits and the old pols of Boston. Who could wish for a sounder or more practical education? He is a man of some ambition, I suppose — young Tim?”
“He’s a professional Boston Democrat, Clyde.”
“It goes without saying then.” Brattle had another swallow of his drink and another deep drag on his cigarette, which Dill envied him. “As you no doubt suspect, Ben, I have a proposition for the Senator — and young Dolan, too, of course.”
Dill nodded.
“I’m willing to take my medicine, you might say.”
“How much medicine, Clyde?”
“Perhaps two years in one of the more relaxed federal hoosegows and a reasonable fine of, well, not more than two or three hundred thousand.” He smiled. It was a warm smile that spoke of unshakable self-confidence.
“Two years instead of life, right?” Dill said.
“Life is such an indeterminate sentence. Once the prison gates clang shut behind me — they do clang, don’t they? — I could be dead in a week, and think how cheated everyone would feel then.”
“In some joints I know,” Sid said, “you might not even last the week, Clyde, once the boogies get a look at your sweet ass.”
“What does the Senator get?” Dill asked.
“A tidy package. He could go to the Justice people with three, plus me, which equal four, if my arithmetic still serves.”
“Which three are you willing to shop?”
“Dick Glander for one and also Frank Cour. They could drop the net on both of them within twenty-four hours.”
“Glander and Cour and you go back quite a long way, don’t you? Nineteen years, twenty?”
Brattle nodded, a slight sad smile on his lips. “Nineteen.” He shrugged and the slight sad smile went away. “But the time comes in a man’s life when even the oldest friendships must be sacrificed to serve the common good. Fortunately, I have everything on them — good solid stuff — and they have virtually nothing on me. Were the roles reversed, well, I’d expect them both to make the same hard choice I’ve made. In other words, I’d expect them to do me before I did them.” He smiled again, this time with genuine amusement. “My sanctimony isn’t getting to you, is it, Ben?”