He then tied a rope around the front bumper of the pickup and lowered that into the shaft. He got a reel of coated wire from the tool chest behind the truck cab, and unwound a hundred feet or so and lowered that down the shaft. Finally, he put a flashlight, four sticks of dynamite, and a blasting cap into his pocket, took a last look around, and, using the rope, lowered himself down the shaft.
He worked quickly. He dragged the body fifty feet down one of the two drifts that led off from the bottom, then brought the suitcase and put it beside the body. He left the wallet and candy wrapper.
The dynamite he wedged between the rock wall and a six-by-six oak timber that helped hold up a weak place in the roof. He stripped the insulation from the wire he had lowered into the shaft and twisted the raw wire to the blasting cap, which he then inserted into one of the dynamite sticks. With the dynamite packed into place with dirt and small rocks, he took a last look around with the flashlight.
Had he forgotten anything?
The keys to the rental car. They were in his pocket. Okay.
Charon was not even breathing hard when he got to the surface. He pulled the rope out of the hole.
He had a little wind-up detonator in his toolbox. He attached the wire to the terminals, wound it up, and let it go. A dull thud that he could feel with his feet followed. Using his flashlight, he looked down into the shaft. It was all dust, impossible to see the bottom.
He got back into the pickup and started the engine. He turned the heater up. The visibility had deteriorated to less than a hundred feet. About four inches or so of snow on the ground.
Tassone was going to be missed, of course, but Charon thought that whoever wanted George Bush killed ten million dollars worth was not going to miss his messenger boy very much. And Charon would try to get as many of the other people on the list as he could. Of course, Tassone wasn’t around to deliver additional money, and Charon didn’t know who to go to to get paid, but so be it. Somebody was going to get his money’s worth and that would be all that mattered.
And ten million was enough. More than enough. It was more money than Henry Charon could spend in two lifetimes.
Fifteen minutes later Charon tried to pull the wire up out of the shaft. It wouldn’t come. Probably a rock lying on it. He dropped the rope back into the shaft and went back down. The dust had almost completely settled. The flashlight’s beam revealed that the drift tunnel was blocked, with a huge slab pinning the detonator wire. Charon cut the wire, then came back up the rope hand over hand.
He coiled the rope and wire and stowed everything. Going down the mountain the pickup truck slid once, but he got it stopped in time. It took most of an hour to get back to the house. Only an inch of snow on the ground there.
Inside the cabin he threw another log in the stove and washed the cup Tassone had used and put it back in the cabinet. Henry Charon made a fresh pot of coffee. After it had dripped through, he poured some into his cup and stretched out in the easy chair.
“Your ten o’clock appointment is here, Mr. Brody.”
The lawyer reached for the intercom button. “Send him in.”
T. Jefferson Brody walked over to the door and met Freeman McNally coming through. Brody carefully closed the door and shook Freeman’s hand, then pointed to the red leather client’s chair. “Good to see you.”
“Yeah, Tee. Howzit goin’?”
“Pretty good.” Brody went around his desk and arranged himself in his eighteen-hundred-dollar custom-made swivel chair. “How’s business?”
“Oh, you know,” McNally said and made a vague gesture. “Always problems. Nothing ever goes right.”
“That’s true.”
“You been watching the TV the last couple days?”
“You mean that car-bus crash? Yeah, I heard about that.”
“One of my drivers. Some of our guards tried to rip off his load. He was lucky he wasn’t killed.”
“A lot of heat,” Brody said, referring to the President’s press conference and the announced government initiatives. The papers were full of it.
“Yeah. That’s why I came to see you. Some of those things The Man wants to do are going to hurt. I think it’s time we called in some of those markers for donations we been making to those senators and congressmen.”
“I was wondering when you might want to do that.”
“Now is when. Putting the DEA and FBI together is not going to help us businessmen. Yeah, like they say on TV, it’ll take ’em forever to decide to do anything, but someday they’ll know too much. I mean, it’ll all go into the same paper mill and eventually something will pop out that’s damn bad for me.”
“What else?”
“Well, this new money proposal. Now that will hurt. I got about ten million in cash on hand to run my business on a day-to-day basis.”
“I understand.”
“Seems to me this whole thing is sorta antiblack, y’know? The black people don’t use whitey’s banks and they’re the ones who’ll lose the most. Shit, all the white guys got theirs in checking and investments and all that. It’s the black women and poor families who keep theirs in cookie jars and stuffed in mattresses. Damn banks charge big fees these days for checking accounts unless you got a white man’s balance.”
“That’s a good argument. I’ll use that.”
“Yeah. And this bail reform business. That’s antiblack too. Whites got houses and expensive cars and all to post as bail. Black man’s gotta go buy a bail bond. That takes cash.”
Freeman had two or three other points to make, then Brody asked, “Who tried to rip you off the other night?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think Willie Teal’s behind it. He’s been getting his stuff through Cuba and that’s dried up on him. So I think he put the word out he’d pay top dollar for supplies, and that sorta tempted my guys. No way to know for sure, though, as the three dips that tried to rip me all got killed.”
“Saved you some trouble,” Brody noted and smiled.
“It wouldn’t have been no trouble. You gotta make folks want to be honest or you’re outta business. That’s part of it.”
The buzzing of the intercom caused T. Jefferson Brody to raise a finger at his client. “Yes.”
“Senator Cherry’s on the phone, sir.”
Brody looked at Freeman. “You’ll get a kick out of this.” He punched buttons for the speaker phone. “Yes.”
“Bob Cherry. How’s it going, Jefferson?” The sound was quite good, although a little tinny.
“Just fine, Senator. And you?”
“Well, I’ve been going over my reelection finances with my campaign chairman — you know I’m up for reelection in two years?”
“Yessir. I thought that was the date.”
“Anyway, those PACs that you represent have been so generous in the past, I was hoping that one or two of them might make a contribution to my reelection campaign.”
“Sir, I’ll have to talk to my clients, but I’m optimistic. They’ve always believed that someone must pay for good government.” Brody winked broadly at Freeman McNally, who grinned.
“I wish more people felt that way. Talk to you soon.”
When the phone was back on the cradle, Brody smiled at Freeman McNally and explained. McNally threw back his head and laughed. “They just call you up and ask for money?”
“You got it.”
“If I could do that, I could retire from business. You know, hire a few people to work the phones and generally take life easy.”
“Well, you’re not in Congress.”
“Yeah. My business is a little more direct. Tell me, is Willie Teal one of your clients?” All trace of humor was gone from his face now.
“No.”