Ed Gorman
Flashpoint
To the Charter Members of the Lunchtime Hall of Fame
Deb and Dale Jones
Melissa Sodeman and Ricky Sprague
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Multiple Myeloma Foundation whose support keeps all of us with this incurable cancer alive as long as possible. I would also like to thank my longtime partner in crime (and first editor) Linda Siebels for her contributions and friendship.
Part One
At any other time this trip to Northern Illinois would be a pleasant break from the chaos of my office in Chicago. Dev Conrad and Associates is involved with five different candidates in this election cycle and now, in mid-October, each campaign is only three weeks from the finish. And in this election cycle nothing can be taken for granted.
So leaving my office for the day, jumping into my Jeep for a fast drive upstate, for an even faster drive through heavily forested land that showed the gleaming golds and burnished browns and elegant reds of autumn, should be an enviable twenty-four-hour vacation.
But I am still hearing Senator Robert Logan say: ‘We both know this phone may be bugged, Dev. You know where my cabin is. I need you up here now.’ And after that he hangs up.
Neither the sweet, piney breeze nor the sight of a mother deer helping her awkward fawn across the asphalt road can quell my sense of dread. Logan spent two terms in the House and is now running for his second term as a senator. He is a professional politician. He is one of those inherited-wealth men who votes generally to help those less fortunate.
He has the rangy looks of a small-town Midwesterner; the way he talks and walks and handles himself suggests a quiet self-confidence that is offset by his easy self-deprecating humor. He can afford this humility because he’s both handsome and bright. Third in his law school class at Princeton. He worked for eleven years in Chicago as a defense attorney, a soldier for the machine we have. He enjoys the brawl and the bravado of big-time elected office. Face it. There are few clubs more privileged than the United States Senate. People of every race, color and creed stand in line to kiss your star-spangled ass.
So what the hell is going on? He’s at his cabin and he’s obviously in some kind of desperate trouble. I start to think of all the possibilities, then I force myself to stop. Borrowing trouble, as my father said — he was a political consultant too, a very successful one — is a waste of time because your clients will just bring it to you free of charge.
Suddenly, through a sparse line of jack pines, I see the sparkling lake. I’ve spent a few weekends up here with the senator and his staffers. We fished and hiked the hills then settled in for a night of eating and drinking and working on the campaign. The lake lent everything we did a rich blue backdrop. And it was just as beautiful at night; I’d sit on the dock with a couple cans of beer and watch the stars as their lights were vaguely detailed in the water. My ex-wife still says that my years as an investigator for army intelligence made it impossible for me to relax, that as soon as we finished making love my mind went back to churning through the case I was working on. I always wished that she could have been with me on this big-ass dock at midnight.
I needed GPS because I hadn’t been here in some time and I had to reach my destination as quickly as I could. To the east was a deep forest. I recognized an ancient rusted CAMEL CIGARETTES sign on a field gate from my trips here. Turning right would take me down a twisting road that would switch back on itself and end a few hundred yards from the cabin.
I speed up now.
When the road ends you turn and drive on sandy soil to reach the back of a large A-frame house that by agreement everybody calls a cabin. It was big enough for a family of five and stocked with all the furnishings appropriate for life in the suburbs. ‘I’ll leave the roughing-it to Teddy Roosevelt,’ the senator once joked to a reporter.
I pull the Jeep up next to the cabin. As I get out I can smell the lake; fresh and chill. No sound from inside, no TV or music. Robert is a big fan of eighties music. I think he still wants to be Simon Le Bon when he grows up.
Then I hear the front door of the place opening, followed by footsteps on the roofed porch that spans the width of the house. ‘Dev?’
Even before I get around the corner and see him I can tell from the timbre of his usually deep voice that he is even more tense than he was on the phone. He speaks now a full octave higher.
Blue chambray work shirt, Levi’s, dark hair mussed and brown eyes those of a man barely in control of himself.
‘What the hell took you so long?’ he snapped.
‘I couldn’t get my jet pack to work so I had to take a regular plane.’
I think his smile surprised him as much as it did me. He shook his head then ran big, wide hands through his mess of hair. A splash of dark red caught my eye on the left sleeve of his shirt. ‘I don’t sound too crazy, do I?’ Then, ‘Thanks for coming, Dev. This...’ He waved his hand. And stopped talking.
I walk up on the porch as he just stands there staring out at the lake. A red speedboat is bouncing roaring sounds off the high cliffs on the far side of the water. Since he isn’t paying any attention to me I pause at the framed window next to the door and look in. Hardwood floors, an enormous fireplace, leather couches and chairs, a plasma TV screen that even an upscale sports bar would envy and a kitchen a Gold Coast chef gave him tips about building and stocking.
Out of sight are the two Murphy-like beds that can be pulled down near the back of the place. This is not to mention the shower downstairs and the two bedrooms upstairs. Oh, and the additional shower as well.
Something like a sob catches in his throat. His back is to me and now I see how stooped his shoulders are. I see again the inch-long trail of red darkness on his sleeve. My stomach clenches automatically. A few of my cases as an army intelligence investigator involved violence. What the hell is going on here?
‘Robert.’ Still not turning around.
‘What?’
‘You need to talk to me.’
‘Somebody set me up, Dev.’
His remark is close to the one uttered by the infamous Washington, DC, politician Marion Barry when one of his many mistresses cooperated with the feds in busting him for drugs.
But I know that Robert isn’t thinking about any such ironies now. He is lost in panic and helplessness. In some respects he has ceased to function.
‘I can’t help you unless you tell me what happened.’
His head hangs even lower. He won’t be looking out at the lake now. If his eyes are open he’ll be staring at the ground. ‘The back porch.’ Even speaking these three words seems to exhaust him. The head drops lower.
There is nothing to say. I can’t clap him manfully on the shoulder and say, ‘It’ll be all right, Senator, just let me handle it.’ That’s what they all want to hear, that’s what they all think they’re paying you for. Sometimes you can help them. The help may not be quite legal or even honorable, but as any operative will tell you that is the game and if you are unwilling to play the game then you’re quickly dealt out. In our silence birds cry out and somewhere in the forest I can hear a dog bark.