Certainly not since.
And he doesn’t want them being tampered with now, or reinterpreted, or rewritten in any way, or decon-fucking-structed because of some stupid, bloody thing he had shag-all to do with in the first place. But that’s exactly what he’s afraid is going to happen.
It’s what has been eating him alive, from the inside out, for the last week and a half.
‘So,’ he says eventually, a slight tremor in his voice. ‘Where does that leave us?’
Conway shrugs. ‘I don’t know. You said it yourself, there hasn’t been any further mention of it in the papers. Maybe there’s no cause for concern.’
‘Yes, but it’s bound to resurface at some point, isn’t it? At an inquest or whatever. Details. Probing. Jesus Christ.’
Bolger can’t stand himself right now. If Dave is being aloof and somewhat enigmatic here, he’s being whiny and insecure.
But he can’t help it.
‘Listen,’ Conway is saying, leaning forward again, ‘do you want to know why we’ve got nothing to worry about? And this is totally apart from the fact that there’s probably, I don’t know, dozens of bodies buried up in the Wicklow hills.’ He pauses. ‘It’s because none of us had anything to do with it. With what happened. It’s that simple. So there’s no traceability. There can’t be.’ He pauses again. ‘Are you with me?’
Bolger nods along. ‘Yeah, I know, I get it,’ he says, ‘no traceability, and I like that, I do, but we’re not fucking rogue pig farmers here, Dave, are we? I mean are we? There’s always traceability, there’s always someone… some…’
He trails off, his fist clenched.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Conway says, looking around as well now, ‘take it easy.’ He draws back a little and screws his eyes up, as though to focus better. ‘Are you OK, Larry?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine.’
But he isn’t, and it’s in that very moment, as the waiter approaches – silver tray held aloft, aroma of coffee wafting through the air – that Bolger realises something. As soon as he can get rid of Dave Conway here he’s going to head straight back upstairs to the apartment. He’s going to shut the door behind him. He’s going to walk over to the drinks cabinet in the corner. He’s going to take out a bottle of whiskey. He’s going to pour himself a large measure. He’s going to fucking drink it.
The voices come, a dizzying swirl of them, hectoring and ceaseless… it’s the incomprehensible babble, he suspects, of Irishmen and Chinamen building the transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad…
He suspects?
Rundle opens his eyes.
Yes, he -
The voices -
But where he is? For a moment he’s not sure.
Then… Manhattan. Of course. The Celestial.
He struggles up and looks at the clock on the bedside table.
4:18.
Shit.
He throws back the covers and climbs out of bed. He goes to the door and stands for a moment in the dense nighttime stillness.
With Daisy gone to college it didn’t take long for the place to start feeling lonely, but now with Eve gone, too – even if only for a couple of weeks – it’s positively desolate.
He should have called Nora, told her to come over, to drop whatever she was doing, whoever she was with.
That he was in a platinum-rates frame of mind.
She would have understood. Nora always understands.
He walks along the corridor and goes into the living room.
He didn’t get in until after midnight – stuck there at the Orpheus with Jimmy Vaughan and Don Ribcoff, trying to piece together what had happened, trying to come up with a strategy for dealing with it.
Frantic about consequences, about fallout.
Rundle especially frantic about J.J.
He wanders over to the window and stands there, gazing out – the city below, coruscating busily. It may never sleep, but he wishes to fuck he could, even occasionally – wishes he could get a decent night’s shut-eye, and one without these stupid, scrappy dreams he keeps having. The Union Pacific Railroad? Irishmen and Chinamen?
For Christ’s sake.
He turns around and checks the time on one of the room’s displays.
4:39.
What’d that be in Paris? A quarter to eleven almost, morning-time in full swing, coffee and croissants.
Cigarettes.
Where’d he leave his phone?
He’s not going to wait any longer.
Because he should have heard from J.J. by now, even a quick reply to that text he sent last night.
He finds his cell phone next to his keys on a counter in the kitchen and tries J.J.’s number. It rings. There’s no answer. It goes into message.
Then he tries a number he has for Herb Felder, J.J.’s director of communications. It rings twice.
‘Yep?’
‘Herb. Clark Rundle.’
‘Oh. Mr Rundle. Hi.’
‘How is he?’
‘Er, he’s fine, he’s fine. A little shaken. He’s going to need some surgery on his hand, but all things considered he’s fine. He’s actually sleeping right now.’
Rundle nods. There’s nothing new in this, nothing different from what Don Ribcoff was able to tell him last night, but still, he’s relieved to have it confirmed first-hand.
‘You’re in the American Hospital?’
‘Yeah.’
OK.
So, next stage.
‘Tell me, Herb, have you thought about how to handle this?’
‘Er… I’ve thought about it, sure, Mr Rundle, but I’m at something of a disadvantage here.’ He pauses. ‘In that I’m not exactly in possession of all the facts. The Senator goes AWOL for a couple of days and then turns up with a serious injury? No real explanation? I’ve been dealt better hands in my time.’
Rundle clicks his tongue.
‘Right.’ He turns around and leans back against the marble counter. ‘What have the doctors said? Is he going to need a plaster cast? A brace of some kind? How’s it going to look?’
Herb Felder sighs, probably frustrated at not having his concerns addressed. When he replies his tone is more clipped than before. ‘He’ll have a brace. There won’t be any way of hiding it.’
Now Rundle sighs.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘Here’s what we do. I’m going to talk to Don Ribcoff. He’s got people on the ground over there -’
‘But I thought Gideon -’
‘PR people, it’s an affiliate company. They do strategic communications. The Jordan Group.’
‘Oh.’
Oh? Rundle makes a face. What the fuck? The guy’s feelings are hurt? ‘Look,’ he says, ‘it’s better if they take care of this. Better if you stay out of it, in fact.’
‘Why?’
‘In case it comes back and bites you in the ass, that’s why. The Jordan people will feed something into the news cycle and you just run with it. The less you know about how it got there the better.’
‘Mr Rundle, with respect, I know how this works.’
Rundle rolls his eyes. ‘Well then, I shouldn’t have to tell you how important maintaining distance and deniability is, should I?’
He pictures Herb Felder rolling his eyes.
‘No, Mr Rundle, I suppose not.’
Herb’s a smart guy and will probably go all the way with J.J., but he’s a wonk, his strong suit is policy, explaining it, packaging it.
This is a little different.
Some of the other aides around J.J. – the campaign veterans, the oppo men – would be more up to speed, more au fait with the techniques here, with the philosophy, but Herb’s the one he got through to.