O’Hara jerked a thumb at the screen.
“This is all for show,” he said, “for inflating Raychell’s ratings to hopefully get the station out of last place and get her to the next step of her career. Little Pete’s is clean. I had it quietly checked. Clean enough, anyway. The city inspectors found a few things. But every restaurant fails some part of the inspection. There’re eight violations each year for the average Philly eat-in restaurant. My bet is some wise-guy city inspector got told to go fuck himself after he thought he could shake down Pete’s by threatening a bad inspection-one violation was ‘mouse droppings’-and then made sure she got her hands on it.”
O’Hara made a face and shook his head.
“So there’s your investigative mouse-shit journalism,” he said.
Payne raised his eyebrows.
“Okay,” Payne said, “but I’m not making the connection. I need more dots.”
“Who did POTUS just propose to make his next AG of the United States of America?”
“Jesus H. Christ. .!” Payne blurted.
“No, not even He is forgiving enough to work for this POTUS,” O’Hara quipped.
Payne finished: “. . The previous attorney general of Missouri! You simply said the AG.”
O’Hara smirked.
“I said you’d have to work for it.”
“And now Daniel Patrick O’Connor is here. . and headed for Washington.”
“Final clue: as soon as Five-Eff gets O’Connor’s wife a job there.”
O’Hara looked up at the buxom brunette Action News! anchor.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Payne said again, this time his tone disgusted. He looked back across the bar. “Raychell Meadow is O’Connor’s wife?”
O’Hara made a false smile, then drained his drink.
“On the face of it,” Payne said, “it stinks that a high-ranking political operative in a powerful state is married to a talking head of a TV news team in the fourth-largest media market. Even if that station’s dead last in ratings. It’s a whole other stink that they’re both owned by Five-Eff.”
Payne drained his Macallan and waved to the bartender for two refills.
“Of course,” Payne said, dripping sarcasm, “I would never expect that either would violate any ethics by discussing confidential work-or worse-over the dinner table.”
“You mean such as going easy on covering certain politicians, and harder on others?” O’Hara said. “Or getting court-sealed documents on the opposition leaked to the station? Why, now that just would not be proper.”
Payne looked at him.
“Like that health inspection on Little Pete’s. You got a copy ‘leaked’ to you, too, didn’t you?”
“Matty, I get all kinds of possible scoops secretly fed to me. Hell, I’ve gotten tips from you and others in the department. But, like with Little Pete’s, I verify them independently and then only report them if there is no legal or moral obstacle. But the vast majority of ‘scoops’-with the notable exception of that from present company-are tainted. They’re trying to play me, just as they’re using Raychell. The difference is, as our Texas Ranger friend likes to say, ‘This ain’t my first rodeo.’”
After a moment Payne added, “How do you reconcile that in your mind, Mick? I mean, knowing you’re ultimately working for Five-Eff?”
O’Hara watched as the bartender placed two fresh Macallan single malts before them. He then picked up his and held it toward Payne in a sort of toast.
“Matty, I thought you knew: My heart is made of gold, my intentions pure. I’m simply not for sale. I devoutly believe I’m the lone noble knight on his white steed fighting the good fight.”
Payne met his eyes and nodded slowly.
“One who embraces,” O’Hara added, gesturing with his drink, “what Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War: ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’”
Payne, putting his drink back on the bar, saw that the bartender had left on the bar, next to a stack of cocktail napkins and short plastic straws, the TV remote control. He reached for it, then thumbed keys to change the channel to Philly News Now. Then he slipped the remote in the pocket inside his dinner jacket.
“There,” he said, smiling broadly. “That’s better.”
He saw, almost immediately, Daniel Patrick O’Connor’s head jerk as he looked toward the TV. O’Connor made a face, then began motioning for the bartender’s attention.
–
As Payne and Harris approached the yellow crime scene tape, Raychell Meadow came clomping up in her high heels toward them.
“Sergeant Payne!” she called out, holding on to the brim of her Action News! ball cap. “It’s good to see you again! Can I have a moment of your time?”
Again? We’ve never met, Payne thought.
She held out the microphone, sticking its black foam tip to just beneath his chin. Her video cameraman came in close with his lens, framing Payne with the smoldering stage in the background.
“What is your comment,” Raychell Meadow said, “on being declared Public Enemy Number One by Reverend Josiah Cross, who now appears to have been shot after publicly demanding your resignation from the police department?”
Payne looked her in the eyes, made a thin smile, then turned to Tony.
“Detective Harris, feel free to speak with the lady. Or not. .”
Payne then smoothly ducked under the yellow police line tape and began marching purposefully toward the red door of the ministry, where some of his small crowd of undercover officers stood. He saw, on the smoldering stage, the lectern with his burned poster.
“Sergeant Payne!” Raychell Meadow called.
Payne, without turning or breaking stride, held his right hand up to shoulder height, fingers spread wide.
Harris thought: Is he about to fold everything but his middle finger. . on camera?
Payne waved once, then put his arm back down to his side.
Raychell Meadow looked at Harris.
“Detective?” she said. “What do you-”
“No comment.”
And then he ducked under the yellow tape and moved with purpose to catch up with Payne.
IX
[ONE]
Queens Club Resort
George Town, Grand Cayman Islands
Saturday, December 15, 6:35 P.M.
“I’m going to kill him!” H. Rapp Badde Jr. shouted right after snapping closed his Go To Hell flip phone and then almost throwing it out into the shimmering Caribbean Sea.
The sun hung low in the western sky, an enormous sphere slowly sinking toward the horizon. Its rays, bathing everything in golden hues, cast long shadows across the five-star resort.
Guests of Queens Club, most carrying drinks, were gathering up and down the sugar-white sand beach to await what promised to be yet another glorious tropical sunset.
Kicking at the beach sand in frustration, Badde shouted, “Goddammit!”
His voice caused heads to turn-just in time to witness him make a fist with his free hand and punch the thick trunk of a tall palm tree.
“Damn it, that hurt!” Badde blurted, frantically waving the hand.
A young mother, holding the hands of children as they walked nearby, said, “Come on, kids, hurry this way!”
She tugged them toward the beach as the children stared wide-eyed over their shoulders at the madman who had hit a tree after yelling into his phone.
Badde, a half hour earlier, watching large yachts moving off in the distance, had already been imagining himself counting his soon-to-be new wealth on his own luxury vessel.
Now I can forget that-I’m on a sinking Titanic.
It’s about to all go to hell. .
–
They had all gathered near the resort’s seaside tiki bar in one of the twenty private cabanas. Each cabana had a frame fashioned of rough-hewn palm tree trunk, a roof of fronds, and walls of heavy white cotton duck fabric that undulated with the breeze.