When they were halfway to Gatty International Airport, Dill asked a question whose answer he thought he already knew. It was the first of a series of questions whose answers might decide who lived, who died, and who wound up in jail.
Dill made the first question as casual as he could. “When’d you say you saw Brattle last?”
“About a year and a half ago — in Kansas City.”
“You said you went up there just to sign some papers.”
“Well,” Spivey said, drawing the word out, “it might’ve been just a little more’n that, Pick.”
“How?”
“Clyde was pretty pissed off at me. He thought I owed him — owed him enough to lie for him to the Feds. I had to tell him I didn’t owe anybody that much. Well, we’d had a few drinks and he started rantin’ and ravin’ about how if I wouldn’t testify for him, I sure as hell wouldn’t ever testify against him. So I told him to take his best shot. And he told me I could count on it. So I popped him one, and he popped me back, and about that time Sid and Harley rushed in and broke it up before we both had heart attacks. And then old Clyde looked at Harley and Sid and pointed at me and said, ‘See him?’ And they said, yeah, they saw me all right. Then Clyde gets all dramatic and says, ‘Well, take a good look at him because he’s a dead man, you understand what I’m saying?’ Then it was either Harley or Sid, I don’t remember which now, who said something like Sure, Clyde, we understand all right. I guess it must’ve been Harley who said it. Well, our business was all done, the papers all signed, so I got out of there and flew back home and hired me a mess of Mexicans.”
“Has Brattle ever tried anything?” Dill asked.
“I’m not sure. About a year or so after I hired my Mexicans, I also hired a guy called Clay Corcoran — the one who got killed out at Felicity’s funeral?”
Dill nodded. “Hired him to do what?”
“See if he could get past my Mexicans.”
“Could he?”
“He said he couldn’t, but that he’d like to take it one more step and hire another guy who was supposed to be tops at tapping phones and planting bugs and shit like that. So I said go ahead. Well, about a month or so before he got killed, Corcoran called and told me this guy he’d hired said it was impossible to get near my place. Now that made me feel some better, but then Corcoran got killed and I stopped feeling that way.”
“Did Corcoran ever mention the name of the guy he hired?”
“He didn’t mention it and I didn’t ask. Why?”
“It’s not important,” Dill said. “Who picked Kansas City to meet in — you or Brattle?”
“Brattle.”
“Why?”
“Why? Hell, Pick, Clyde was born there. It’s his briarpatch, his hometown.”
“I didn’t know that,” Dill lied. “Or if I did, I must’ve forgot.”
Chapter 33
The subcommittee’s minority counsel, Tim Dolan, and Jake Spivey had never met. When they shook hands in front of the bronze statue of William Gatty, Dill was struck by the pair’s resemblance. Their clothes helped. Both wore creased and wrinkled seersucker suits (one blue and the other gray) with shirts open at the neck from which loosened ties dangled like afterthoughts. Both were fifteen to twenty pounds overweight and most of it had gone to their bellies. Both were sweating heavily despite the air-conditioning. Both looked thirsty.
Yet the resemblance was more than physical. As they shook hands, Dill sensed that each recognized in the other a kindred spirit with a commonness of attitude, approach, and flexibility. Instinct seemed to tell them that here a deal could be cut, an accommodation reached, a sensible compromise negotiated. Here, both seemed to think, is somebody you can do business with.
The banalities had to be got through first. When Spivey asked if Dolan had had a good flight, Dolan said he wasn’t quite sure because he had slept all the way from Herndon, Virginia. When Dolan asked Spivey if the weather down here was always like this, Spivey said it was, as a matter of fact, just a touch cool for August, but it’d probably hot up some toward the end of the month. Each chuckled as he recognized a long-standing fellow member of Bullshitters, International.
Dolan then turned to Dill and, after inquiring about his wellbeing, informed him the Senator’s flight would be twenty or twenty-five minutes late. He suggested that they all repair to the airport bar for something cold and wet. Dill said fine, and Spivey said he thought it sounded like a hell of an idea. At no time did Dolan display the slightest surprise at Spivey’s unexpected presence.
They sat in a round corner booth and ordered three bottles of Budweiser. Jake Spivey paid. Nobody objected. They all raised their glasses, said cheers or something equally meaningless, drank deeply, and then talked baseball, or rather Spivey and Dolan talked baseball as Dill pretended to listen. Dolan seemed impressed by Spivey’s acute analysis of how the Red Sox just might make it into the playoffs. Still thirsty, they ordered another round of beer and just as they finished that, the Senator’s plane was announced. It was then that Dill made his second move.
He turned to Spivey and said, “Jake, I’ve got a couple of things I need to talk over with Tim here and I wonder if you’d mind meeting the Senator when he comes off the plane?”
Spivey hesitated for only a moment. “Sure,” he said. “Be glad to. I’ve never met him, you understand, but I’ve seen his picture in the paper and on TV, so I reckon I’ll spot him okay.”
“Just look for the youngest kid off the plane,” Dolan said.
Spivey chuckled, said he’d do that, and left. Dolan turned to Dill and let the surprise creep into his tone, if not into his expression. “What the fuck was all that about?”
“Tell me about you and the FBI first. What kind of deal did you make with them?”
“No deal, Ben.”
“None?”
“None.”
“Why in hell not?”
Dolan frowned thoughtfully, perhaps even judiciously. Comes now the Boston dissembler, Dill thought. Dolan said, “Two reasons. One, leaks.”
“From the FBI?”
“Like a wet brown bag.”
“What’s two?”
“Two. Well, two is political leverage. If the kid brings this off all by himself, he’ll be in deep clover.”
“And if he doesn’t,” Dill said, “he’ll be in deep shit — and you with him.”
“We discussed it,” Dolan said. “We both agreed the risk is acceptable.”
“Hear me, Tim. For the record I think you both made a mistake. A bad one. I think you should’ve called in the FBI — for the record.”
Dolan shrugged. “Okay. You’re on record. Now tell me why you sent Spivey to meet the kid.”
“You notice how willingly he went?”
Dolan nodded.
“That means he’s not worried about passing through the metal detector.”
This time both surprise and shock spread across Dolan’s plump handsome Irish face. And fear, too, Dill thought. Just a trace. “Jesus,” Dolan said. “You mean it’s gonna be like that down here?”
“Exactly like that,” Dill said.
The Senator and Jake Spivey seemed to be chatting amiably as they rode the passenger conveyor belt down the long corridor to where Dill and Dolan waited. Spivey was carrying the Senator’s garment bag; the Senator carried his own briefcase.
After the Senator greeted Dill and Dolan, Spivey turned the garment bag over to Dill and went to fetch the car. The three men waited for it just inside the airport’s main entrance. “Looks hot out there,” Senator Ramirez said.
“It is,” Dill said.
Ramirez turned to Dolan. “Well?”
“Ben’s put himself on record. He thinks we should’ve gone with the FBI.”
The Senator nodded as though Dill’s attitude was expected, if not altogether reasonable. “No gain without risk, Ben,” he said, and turned to survey the less-than-two-year-old airport. “Who was Gatty anyway?” he asked.