Landon glanced over at Sheridan, expecting a Sieg heil salute.
“Starsky and Hutch are young enough to serve forty years each.” Duncan smiled again and threw up his hands. “Shoot, man, that’s almost half a century right there, and it’ll take another half century for anyone to undo what they accomplish.”
“But they’re only two. I’m not sure you’ll get another opportunity to make an appointment, so we’ll only have a majority for-”
“Twenty years is long enough to cast the die. Think of what Earl Warren did. The country still hasn’t recovered from that disaster. We’ll have a super majority: Starsky, Hutch, Robins, Ardino, Thompson, and Sunseri. Even if one gets weak-kneed, the rest can deliver-and nothing is off-limits.”
“Getting these nominees through the Senate will require a lot of money and a lot of horse trading, Mr. President. More than I think you-”
“Damn right it will.” Duncan’s face hardened. His voice pounded. “Trade them everything else. Let them turn all of Montana into a giant national park, let them double capital gains taxes, let them table the abortion bill until the year 3000, let them hand out condoms to sixth-graders-I don’t give a damn… but get… their… votes.”
Duncan walked to his desk and picked up a photograph of Ronald Reagan.
“If Reagan had been a Democrat, conservatives would have condemned him as one of the worst presidents in history. At the time, the highest deficits in U.S. history, tax rates through the roof, nothing on abortion, nothing on prayer in schools, drug war a complete failure, a balance of trade that left us drowning, welfare programs never bigger, Castro more powerful than ever. He can’t even take credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union. It did itself in. Nobody in his administration had a clue about what was going on over there.”
Duncan stared at the photo. “But what he did was to articulate a unity of vision about what America was.” He opened a side drawer of his hand-carved mahogany desk and slid the photo inside. “All that morning-in-America stuff.” He turned back toward Landon. “The difference between Reagan and me is that I finally have a way to make the country actually match mine.”
T he bourbon glass rattled as Landon set it down on the silver coaster on his deceased father’s Georgian walnut desk. He could still see the dent where the old man had smashed the telephone handset when he learned Nixon had resigned-an act his father thereafter called the most sickening example of presidential cowardice in U.S. history. He even threatened to quit the Republican National Committee and devote the tens of millions of dollars he raised every year to creating a third party.
Landon rested his elbows on the blotter, then pressed his splayed fingers together. He stared through them into nothingness, thinking about the New Hampshire primary five months away, and about Duncan’s last words:
“Get this done, Landon, and you’ll own the primaries. I’ll do whatever it takes to get you the nomination.” Then the self-deprecating smile that once charmed the nation, but now only made him look weak. “You can even hold the goddamn sword while I fall on it.”
Landon took in a long breath and exhaled. He’d been so swept up in the moment, in the grand images Duncan had painted, he’d failed to notice Duncan hadn’t a clue why he’d chosen these particular nominees.
He smiled to himself as he imagined the president’s fury when he finally realized he’d picked them to ensure not Duncan’s legacy-but his own.
Chapter 5
Viz drove them in silence from the cemetery south of San Francisco past the granite and marble City Hall and up the south side of Russian Hill. Gage’s wife, Faith, and Socorro sat in the backseat, once best friends now reunited by the death of the man who’d kept them apart; a husband’s fear of exposure having imposed a life of isolation on his wife.
From the front passenger seat, Gage watched the cacophony of architecture passing by-Italianate, Spanish Mission, Beaux Arts. It struck him that they had nothing in common but the arbitrary whims of a long-dead Barbary Coast elite made wealthy by gold and gambling, prostitution and corruption, each family attempting to impose its architectural will on an untamed city. Observing them now, Gage wondered whether that was the reason Charlie had insisted on buying the mansion in which they lived: an instance of glory-by-proxy, just as with his Hollywood clients.
Viz pulled his Yukon to the curb and shut off the engine. Gage reached for the door handle while gazing up at the Palmers’ four-story Victorian, now restored to a perfect balance of yellow and blue, with accents in red; the colors stark and brutal in an afternoon sun that also shone down on a freshly turned grave.
A blur of motion and then a flash of blue against green caught Gage’s eye. He jabbed a finger toward the bushes at the side of the house.
“A guy just went over the fence.” Gage swung open his door. “Black hair. Levi’s. About five-ten. Heading north.”
Gage looked back at his wife and Socorro, then at the trailing car containing Socorro’s son and daughter.
“Don’t let anyone go inside,” Gage said. He then realized there might be confidential client files in Charlie’s home office. “And don’t call the police yet.” He turned to Viz. “You circle around. I’ll try to cut through the block.”
Viz sprinted up the steep street while Gage ran down a neighbor’s driveway and into the backyard. He spotted vertical scrape marks on the weathered wood fence, then called Viz on his cell.
“Looks like he’s trying to get out to Union Street.”
Gage pulled himself over. A bullmastiff crouched at the opposite gate, barking at the memory of the burglar. The dog’s eyes followed his ears around toward the crunch of Gage’s dress shoes hitting the rock garden, mouth foaming, licking its lips. Gage slipped off his suit coat and wrapped it around his forearm, knowing a trained dog would go for his arm, while an untrained one would follow its instincts toward his throat. He knew he’d have to sacrifice the arm in either case.
A raspy female voice yelled from his left, “Get the hell out of my yard.”
Gage kept his eyes fixed on the dog, now poised for the attack, snarling, seeming to be begging for her command.
“A burglar just ran through here,” Gage said. He then glanced toward the open kitchen window and caught a glimpse of a tree stump of a woman with a bleached-blond flattop. “How about you control your dog so I can get after him?”
“Stallone! Sit.”
Stallone sat, still blocking the gate.
Gage’s cell phone rang.
“I’m out… on Union.” Viz’s breathing was explosive. “I missed him… Jumped into a new Lexus SUV… and took off.”
“You get the plate?”
“Too far away… didn’t even get a good look… at the guy
… Where are you?”
“In the backyard of the house just northeast of your sister’s. A dog got in my way.”
“Need help?”
“The owner is coming out. I’ll meet you on the front steps of Socorro’s. Let’s search the place before anyone else goes in and then check with the neighbors.”
G age and Viz found Socorro setting a steamer of tamales on the cooktop when they walked into the kitchen after their fruitless neighborhood canvass. She was tall and slim; the pale brown skin of her mother combined with the gentle Irish features of her father.
“Anything missing?” Viz asked her.
“Not that I could see.” Socorro covered the pot and set her hot pads on the counter. “I’m not sure the burglar even made it past the living room.” She turned toward Gage. “Charlie once told me about criminals who read the obituaries and do break-ins during funerals.” She shrugged. “I guess that’s what it was. I’m glad we got back in time so he didn’t get anything.”