Having to deal with this was never part of the plan.
Because if he’d carried out the plan he wouldn’t be here. If he’d shot the senator, they’d have shot him.
No question about it.
Right between the eyes.
So what happens now?
He turns at the next corner, onto Fifty-fifth Street, and speeds up. About halfway along the block he spins around suddenly and comes charging back, straight into the guy who was standing at the window of the camera store on Third, young guy, maybe late twenties, startled-looking, but -
You make a calculation.
He grabs the guy by the lapels of his jacket, steers him to the left and rams him up against the window of a Chinese restaurant.
He ignores anyone passing by and they ignore him.
It’s ten thirty in the morning and the Chinese restaurant is closed.
But make this quick.
‘You fuckin’ following me?’
Stupid question, and when he looks into the guy’s eyes one thing he knows straight off. He isn’t Gideon.
‘Yes,’ the guy says, swallowing. ‘I am, was, following you.’
And that’s not the answer Szymanski expected either. He loosens his grip slightly.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m a journalist. I heard what you said back there.’
Szymanski hesitates, screws his eyes up. ‘What are you, British?’
‘Irish.’
Another moment of hesitation and then Szymanski releases him. He stands back, catches his breath, glances up and down the street.
The guy straightens his jacket and rubs his shoulder.
‘OK, Irish,’ Szymanski says, staring at him now, ‘what the fuck do you want?’
Inside the ballroom of the Blackwood Hotel, sitting at tables and standing at the back, several hundred people listen attentively as J.J. thumps out what Rundle considers to be a pretty good speech. He knows it’s a good speech because he’s read it, not because he’s listening to it right now.
That’s something he can’t do.
Listen, focus.
And given what happened outside, he doesn’t know how J.J. can do it either – focus on the speech, let alone deliver the damned thing.
From his front-row table, Rundle looks up, cell phone in hand.
‘… so, friends, in the light of this long, unbroken tradition of public service, it has always been my impulse to get out there and get my hands dirty, to get into the community and get involved, to do the right thing.’
Not only deliver it, shit, but do so with such obvious conviction.
It’s impressive.
‘And for that very same reason, I am now running for president, because I want to get involved, because I want to go on doing the right thing…’
The crowd bursts into spontaneous applause.
Rundle glances at his phone. He has texted Ribcoff three times and is still waiting for a reply.
Where the fuck is he? And where is Vaughan?
He looks up again, left and right, around the ballroom.
Unable to focus, because… Buenke.
That man out there said Buenke.
‘But I know I’m not alone in feeling such an impulse. I know that in your own way you feel it too. And it’s not hard to understand why. There’s no mystery about it.’
But who was he? Who is he? Certainly not the young journalist from Dublin Ribcoff spoke about the other day – not looking like that, he couldn’t be.
So who?
‘It’s because, quite simply, we are each of us shareholders in this great democracy, we are each of us the bearers of a sacred trust. And so today, in New York City, I ask you to help me protect that sacred trust. I ask you to support the notions of integrity and accountability.’
Rundle’s phone vibrates. He looks at it.
‘I ask you to vote for truth, for equality, for justice. I ask you to join me in the greatest journey of our lives. I ask you to be right there by my side as we march on Washington.’
Need to speak, v. urgent, am in reception.
‘I ask you to embrace your destiny. I ask you, when the time comes, to vote for John Rundle. Thank you and God bless America.’
Putting his phone away, Rundle rises with the cheering crowd but immediately slips off to the side, head down, and makes for the back of the room, and the exit.
When he gets out to reception, leaving the rapturous applause behind, he spots Ribcoff straightaway. The two men move towards each other at speed, converging by a gigantic potted palm plant in the centre of the lobby.
‘The fuck, Don.’
Ribcoff looks furious, barely able to speak.
‘He’s Gideon. Motherfucker.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
‘He’s one of ours, that guy out on the street.’ Pointing. ‘He was there, in Buenke, when it happened. He helped save your brother’s life for Christ’s sake.’
‘I don’t -’
‘He seemed really stressed by it at the time, by the whole thing, I don’t know. They figured he might be unstable. So they put him on leave.’
‘Leave.’
‘But we’re not talking regular army leave, where you come back after a month.’
Rundle can’t believe this. ‘You fired him?’
‘More or less.’
‘Jesus. And now what? This is some kind of blowback?’
Ribcoff shakes his head, unable even to make eye contact. ‘We’d have taken him out already, except…’
Rundle waits. ‘Except?’
‘Except apparently right now he’s down on Fifty-fifth Street talking to Jimmy fucking Gilroy.’
13
‘SO YOU’RE WHAT, some kind of a journalist?’
Jimmy nods, seeing himself intermittently reflected in the guy’s mirror shades, and finding this disconcerting to say the least. They’re both standing at the kerb now, next to a fire hydrant. Every couple of seconds the guy flicks his head left, then right, checking out either end of the street. He’s agitated, and seems dangerous. It’s not just the buzz cut and the shades, he’s brawny and muscular and looks as if he could uproot this fire hydrant with one hand and smash it over someone’s head.
Jimmy’s, for instance.
But for all that, and the sense they both clearly have that they’re being watched, Jimmy feels strangely calm. There’s something here, he knows it, and he’s not going to let it go.
‘That’s right,’ he says, adopting a tone he hopes he’ll be able to maintain. ‘Investigative journalist. I’m working on a book about a helicopter crash that happened a few years ago in Ireland and which I believe,’ looking left and right himself now, ‘was perpetrated by some of our friends up the street here.’
The guy looks at him. ‘I don’t have any fucking friends here.’
Jimmy swallows. ‘Figure of speech. I’m talking about BRX, and Gideon Global.’
‘Oh really?’ the guy says and laughs sourly. ‘BRX and Gideon?’ He scans the street again, east, west, but when he looks back at Jimmy, he pauses, holding his gaze for a moment, as though weighing something up. ‘I could tell you some fucking stories about them.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’d like to hear them.’ Beat. ‘What’s your name?’
The guy hesitates, weighing this up, too. Then, ‘Tom.’ He shrugs. ‘Whatever. That’ll do for the moment.’
‘Tom. OK.’ Jimmy feels a spasm of excitement, giddiness almost, and can’t believe what he’s about to say next. ‘Do me a favour, Tom, will you, and take those fucking shades off?’
This would be the moment for Tom to uproot the fire hydrant, but to Jimmy’s surprise and relief he doesn’t. He takes off his shades and clips them to his shirt pocket.