Luckily my second instinct was to turn away to prevent myself from vomiting. In the photo, someone-I'm assuming the coroner-must have cleaned some of the wounds. Still, entire chunks of the man's face had been torn out. What remained was black and blue, almost beyond recognition as a human head. Oddly enough, and frightening beyond words, one eye remained in place, and that eye was open for the photo shoot.
"Pretty gross, huh?" Havlicek asked. "Sorry about this. But do you have any idea what I had to do to get this photo slipped to me?"
I was stunned into silence, trying to regain my composure. I wondered if I could trade that hamburger in for a little bowl of fruit salad.
Havlicek continued. "Take a look at that eye-"
"I don't want to look at anything in that picture again," I interrupted.
"No, really, this is work," he replied, straight as an arrow. He could overcome any queasiness in the name of a story. This was the hunt, he was the hunter. "Take a look. What color does that look like?"
I couldn't believe I was doing this, but I found myself looking closer at it, bending my head toward the photograph, which sat on the table because I didn't want to touch it. I said, "Looks to be brown."
"Bing-fucking-o," he said. "Now take another look at the Home Depot ID
photo. What do you see?"
"Blue eyes," I said. I paused. Dawn breaks on Mar8,4. I added, "Holy shit."
The waiter returned with the food. Great. Across the table, Havlicek merrily spread some condiments on his burger and bit into it like a ravenous dog. I opted to let mine sit for a while, waiting to see if my stomach might settle.
I said, "But we can't jump to conclusions. One, this eye is barely an eye, and the color might be off in the photo, or if it isn't, he might be wearing tinted contacts."
Havlicek began talking with his mouth so packed with food that I was surprised that words could even get out.
"Right on all counts," he said. "Which is why I got my hands on this beauty."
He wiped his fingers on a napkin, then slid a folder marked
"Confidential" across to me. I opened it up to see an autopsy report and thought to myself that this dinner conversation just kept getting better and better.
"Scan halfway down," he said, "to eye color."
I did, and there it was: brown. I smiled up at Havlicek as we locked eyes, his brown, mine an ocean blue. "So you have yourself an issue."
"What we have," he said, "is pretty good proof that the man they shot at Congressional Country Club isn't the man they say is Tony Clawson, a California drifter with antigovernment tendencies."
Indeed, in the past couple of days, the FBI had been selectively leaking bits and pieces about the life and times of Tony Clawson. They put out word that Clawson had been to a couple of loose militia meetings in Nevada and possibly Wyoming. They said he had been brought to the attention of the FBI within the last eighteen months as a potential domestic terrorist because of his views and his criminal record, which included numerous instances of violence. Never, though, in all the stories questioning the FBI, in all the two-bit profiles of Clawson, was there any sort of new photograph of him. And all the while, in the name of national security, the FBI said it couldn't provide any more information, even anonymously.
"It's a different guy," Havlicek said. "I'd like to put that fact in the newspaper."
I took a bite out of my hamburger, and it felt like cotton-covered lead in my mouth. I forced it down, then pushed the plate to the side.
"Carlos," I said to the waiter as he whisked by, "any chance you could just bring me some vanilla frozen yogurt?"
"You not going to eat that?" Havlicek asked, visibly concerned. I was trying to think of something to say that wouldn't make him feel bad.
Instead, he reached for my plate and asked, "You mind?"
I let him take the hamburger, and pushed my chair back from the table to make myself comfortable. "What's it all mean?" I asked. "What the fuck does it all really mean?"
Havlicek said, his mouth packed with food again, "I don't have a clue.
I just know what we have. If we know it, I suspect the feds do as well. We don't have a corner on curiosity, deductive skills, and intelligence."
"I've got two new developments on my front," I said.
"Go ahead," he replied.
"Second thing first. I heard from my anonymous source again."
"Jesus Christ," Havlicek said. "Talk about burying the fricking lead."
"Check this out. He gave me this."
I handed him the single sheet of paper with the handwritten note.
Havlicek wiped his fingers again, put his half-glasses back on, and read through it, slowly. He looked up over his glasses and said, "Holy shit. We're really onto something, and now he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. He's for fucking real.
"But wait a minute," he added. He looked at the envelope and saw there was no postmark or mailing address written out. "How'd you get this?
You meet him? You see him?"
I said, "On the goddamned airplane. He-or I should say, someone-left it on my seat when I went into the bathroom. It was just sitting there when I got out."
"Holy fuck. He was on the airplane," he said, partly a question, partly a statement.
"Could have been delivered by a messenger. I don't know. I asked the stewardess if she saw who dropped it there. She didn't. A bunch of people got food sickness up in first class, and it was chaotic. I walked up and down the aisle holding it, staring at people who looked suspicious, but got no reaction."
Havlicek said, "Let me just ask you two quick questions. Who in God's name is this guy, and what the frick else does he have?"
"I don't know," I said, my face pained and purposeful, on purpose. "I just don't know. But for all I know, he could be in this room right now."
"Jesus, you think he's a member here? That's a pretty high-flying anonymous source," Havlicek said.
"Point two," I said. "I think there's something strange going on between the FBI and this militia leader I know."
"Go ahead."
I told him the story. I told him of the interview with Daniel Nathaniel, the visit to the bar, the fight with this kid Bo, and of course, Bo's accusations and rantings about the fed named Drinker.
When I was done, Havlicek looked me up and down with laughing eyes and said in a tone spilling over with amusement, "You punched him in the kidneys and you broke his nose while he was down on the ground?" He made a shuddering motion with his shoulders. "Remind me never to cross you anytime soon."
"Not the kidneys," I said, indignant. "The stomach." I paused and asked, "You think the FBI could be working in some fashion with the head of the Idaho militia?"
Rather than answer, Havlicek asked, "So you pulled the plug on your story?"
"I didn't think I had any choice. You think otherwise?"
He was becoming serious again. "No. You did the right thing, the brave thing. But you should know about this."
He shuffled through more of his papers. God knows what he might be showing me now. He slid a computer printout toward me of an Associated Press story that began, "The Boston Record first published, then later deleted a story from its editions today asserting that a newly formed Wyoming-based militia group had sponsored last Thursday's assassination attempt against President Clayton Hutchins at Congressional Country Club. The story was pulled without explanation, in an apparent belief that the paper had published either wrong or unsupportable information.
Record officials and editors could not be reached for comment today."
I bet those Record officials and editors were getting a real kick out of all this. Martin was obviously running interference for me, and that would also explain his multiple telephone messages to me throughout the day, which I had yet to answer.