“How’d he look?” Spivey said.
“Confident.”
“He always looks like that. Where’d you see him?”
“In the hotel basement. In a van.”
There was another lengthy pause and then Spivey said, “Well, thanks for calling, Pick. I appreciate it.”
That’s not the right reaction, Dill thought. Where’s the panic, the fear, the voice that quavers? He’s thanking me for telling him where I last saw his lost dog. “That it?” Dill asked.
“I can’t think of anything else.”
“Clyde sounded awfully sure of himself, Jake.”
“That’s the business he’s in — the trust-me business.”
“He sounded more sure of himself than usual.”
“Look, he wants a deal, that’s all. You say he’s willing to do two years to get it. Well, I want a deal, too, but I’m not doing any fucking two years. I want immunity. Now I suggest you go talk to that kid Senator of yours and find out who he and Justice would rather nail — me or Brattle. I got the feeling he’s going to say Brattle. Well, I can give him Brattle on a platter. Tell him that. See what he says. If he agrees that he’d rather nail Brattle than me, then that’s when I’m gonna have to start worrying about old Clyde because that’s when Clyde’ll try and — well, do something.”
“I have to call the FBI first and tell them where I saw Brattle.”
“Yeah,” Spivey said, his tone completely uninterested. “You do that.” He chuckled. “You mean you haven’t called them yet?”
“No.”
Spivey chuckled again. “You know what you are, Pick? You’re all mush.”
“Could be.”
“Lemme know what the Senator says.”
“All right.”
“And we can still count on you for Sunday.”
“Sure, Jake,” Dill said. “You can count on me.”
After he hung up, Dill felt as if he had spent the past hour or so wandering through a vast and largely uncharted land with one of those ancient maps that read: Here There Be Monsters. Dill knew the map was right. He had come this way before. Yet, you still don’t believe they really exist — the monsters. No, that’s wrong. You believe they exist all right, but after fifteen years of watching them, writing about them, and even tracking them down, you still think they’re normal, harmless and domesticated. Even housebroken.
But what if they, after all, are the norm and you are indeed the aberration? The thought enchanted Dill. Its simplicity was compelling, its implicit offer of absolution irresistible. He was so pleased with the whisky-inspired notion that he poured the last of the Old Smuggler into a glass and drank it down. He then reversed the previous order he so carefully had decided on (goodbye, cold logic) and called all three telephone numbers at which Senator Ramirez might be reached in New Mexico.
Later, some were to claim that if Senator Ramirez had been where he said he would be, at any one of the three numbers, he might have prevented it from happening — or prevented at least some of it. But those who claimed this were mostly professional partisans and the Senator’s political foes. Tim Dolan always argued that it didn’t really matter who Dill called that morning because nobody could have stopped what eventually happened from happening. Dill himself never claimed anything at all, and it was he who made the three calls to New Mexico and reached the three different answering machines that said, in two languages, that the Senator was not available, but would return all calls if only the caller would leave both name and number after the tone. Dill left his name and number three times and then woke Tim Dolan up in Washington.
After Dill reported on his conversations with both Jake Spivey and Clyde Brattle, he stopped talking and waited for Dolan’s reaction. It didn’t take long for that political mind to reach the conclusion Dill knew it would reach.
“They both want to slice each other up, don’t they — Spivey and Brattle?” Dolan said in a pleased tone from which all sleepiness had fled.
“So it would seem.”
“Then we’ve got ’em both.”
“Tim,” Dill said, “I’m not sure you really understand these guys.”
“What’s to understand? We’ll let them slice each other up and then we’ll serve ’em on toast to Justice. The Senator will get ninety seconds on the network news, and be a hero back home for three days, maybe even a week.”
“I think you’ll have to settle for one or the other,” Dill said.
“Not both, huh?”
“No.”
“Okay,” Dolan said. “Which one?”
“That’s not my choice to make.”
“You’re weaseling, Ben.”
“I know.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll toss it to the Senator and let him decide. What d’you say?”
“Fine,” Dill said.
“That’s settled then. He and I’ll be down there late Monday or Tuesday morning.”
“The hearing still on?”
“Not exactly,” Dolan said. “We decided we don’t want to go public too soon. What the Senator wants to do is meet privately with Spivey. Can you fix that?”
“Yes.”
“What about Brattle?”
“I have the feeling he’ll be in touch,” Dill said.
“With you?”
“With me.”
“See if you can fix up a session for him and the Senator.”
“What about the FBI?”
“What about them?”
“Somebody has to call them. About Brattle.”
“Let me do it here,” Dolan said. “I know a couple of guys over there who’re halfway reasonable.”
“You’ll take care of it then?” Dill said.
“I’ll take care of it,” Dolan promised. “You better get some sleep. You sound bushed.”
Afterward, no one but Dill ever had a very good answer for the question that puzzled members of the federal grand jury asked most frequently: “Why didn’t you guys just call the FBI or something?”
“I thought somebody did,” Dill always replied.
Chapter 19
The limousine the police department sent for the somewhat hungover Benjamin Dill at 9:15 that Saturday morning was a black 1977 Cadillac, which its driver said had 163,000 miles on it and formerly belonged to the mayor.
“It didn’t really belong to him, you understand,” explained the middle-aged police sergeant in dress suntans who said his name was Mock, “but it was assigned to him, and then when they bought him his new one, this one went back into the pool. You say you wanta pick somebody up?”
“A Miss Singe over on Twenty-second and Van Buren.”
“The Old Folks Home, right?” Sergeant Mock said, holding the rear door open for Dill, who climbed into the air-conditioned car and sank into its soft cushions. “That’s what they used to call it — the Van Buren Towers, I mean,” Mock added as he got behind the wheel. “I don’t know why they called it that, but they did.”
The sergeant pulled the large car away from the curb in front of the Hawkins Hotel and drove north up Broadway. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Dill, who sat slumped in the right-hand corner, staring out at the light Saturday-morning traffic.
“I’m sorry about your sister, Mr. Dill,” Sergeant Mock said. “She was one real nice little old gal — although I reckon Felicity wasn’t so little at that — five-nine or ten, around in there.”
“Five-ten,” Dill said.
“Tall for a woman.”
“Yes.”
“You might want me to shut up?”
“It might help.”
“A little hung?”
“A little.”
“Look in that compartment right in front of you — you gotta slide it open. I put three cans of cold Bud in there, just in case.”
“You’re a saint,” Dill said, opening the cabinet and removing one of the still frosty cans. He opened it and drank gratefully.
The sergeant grinned into the rearview mirror. “I always do that on funeral details,” he said. “First thing I do when I get up in the morning is head for the kitchen and pop three or four cans in the freezer — you know, get ’em good and cold. Lotsa people need a little something when they go to a funeral. Sad things, funerals.” He paused. “Well, I’ll shut up now.”
“Thank you,” Dill said.