“A piece of the wall is about the best you get in a newsroom.”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know much about this stuff. When’d you quit the Post?”
“Two years before the last time I saw you.”
“Oh. Right. Shit, man, I can’t remember nothing anymore.”
“You never could. What’s up?”
“I got trouble, Matt.”
Stark waited for him to go on, but Weaze was gnawing his thin, yellow-purple lower lip, and he’d crossed one foot over the other. Except when he was behind his M-60, he always had an excess of useless, unfocused energy. Stark had often wondered where Otis Raymond would be today if he’d been able to channel that energy.
“You gonna help?” Weaze asked.
“Maybe. What kind of trouble are you in?”
“Not me this time. Ryder.”
It wasn’t a name Stark wanted or expected to hear, but he kept his face from showing it. “What’s Ryder got to do with you?”
“I owe him. He tried to set me up after ’Nam, give me a hand, remember? I fucked up, made him look bad.”
“He survived. The Sam Ryders of the world always do. You don’t owe him a damn thing, Weaze. If anything, he owes you. Whatever trouble Ryder’s got, let him handle it.”
Weasel gave a honking snort, and Stark recalled that in the last ten years Otis always seemed to have a runny nose. “Shit, man, I thought I could count on you.”
“You can. Ryder can’t.”
“He’s in deep shit, Stark, and you know what a goddamn asshole he is, he’ll never learn, and if we don’t pull him out, he’ll go down. Man, I mean it. This time he’s in it.”
“That’s his problem.”
“May be a story in it for you.”
“Too much history between me and Sam Ryder, Weaze. No objectivity.”
“Then a book, maybe.”
Weasel somehow sounded both hopeful and smug, as if he’d struck the right note, the one that would make Matthew Stark do what his old buddy wanted him to do. “Forget it, Weaze,” Matthew said. “That part of my life is over.”
“Oh, come on-for old times’ sake, then?” Otis Raymond laughed hoarsely, coughing. “’Member the good ol’ days, huh, Matt?”
The good ol’days. Jesus. “You never change, Weaze. Go ahead, tell me what you’ve got. I’ll listen.”
Otis started chewing on the knuckle of his index finger, as if he’d gotten further than he’d expected and now didn’t know what to say.
“I can’t help,” Matthew said, “If you don’t level with me.”
“Hey, I’m doing the best I can.”
The Weaze had his own rhythms, and Stark knew better than to push. “What’re you doing in D.C.?”
“How do you know I haven’t been here all along?”
Weasel’s look was filled with challenge, saying he was just as good as Matthew Stark and anybody who didn’t believe it could go to hell. Getting a straight answer out of Otis Raymond had always been one big pain in the ass, Stark remembered. He managed a smile. “You wouldn’t stay anywhere the temperature falls below freezing.”
“Yeah, right.” Weaze laughed, one of his high-pitched, slightly hysterical laughs that always gave people goose bumps. It ended in a fit of coughing and then an ugly grin. “Fuck winter. I been to see Sam, that’s what I’m doing here. Had coffee together, me and Sam. Bought me breakfast. He’s doing good, you know? Man, I wouldn’t be surprised to see his ass in the White House. I’d vote for him, yeah, shit, why not?”
“No, forget it, I know you never liked him, but, you know, he means well.”
“I know too many good men who are dead because of Golden Boy Sammy Ryder and his good intentions. So do you, Weaze. No point in you being one of them.”
“Don’t make no difference to me if I am.”
Stark said nothing, knowing there was nothing he could say that would make any difference. He didn’t give a damn what kind of mess U.S. Senator Samuel Ryder, Jr., had gotten himself into, but Otis Raymond, crop-picker at fourteen, Huey door gunner at nineteen, was another matter. He was a loner and a survivor, and he considered the greatest accomplishment of his life not getting killed in Vietnam-and coming between Sam Ryder and a rush of AK-47 bullets. Since then, he hadn’t been able to slip quietly back into the daily routines of his old life. What Otis Raymond was and what he had been no longer mattered. The bond was there. Stark couldn’t abandon him.
“Sam wouldn’t like it if he knew I was here,” Otis said. “You make him nervous, you know.”
“Good.”
Weasel laughed a little. “Christ, you two. He’s got some plan, Ryder does, to get money to get himself out of the mess he’s in. He wouldn’t give me all the details, but it sounds nuts, really crazy, Matt. Says he’s going after a diamond, goddamn biggest uncut diamond in the fucking world. You believe it? Jesus, what a stupid asshole.”
Coming from Weasel, that was almost a compliment: it meant Ryder needed him.
“He’s meeting a guy tomorrow night at some concert at Lincoln Center-a Dutchman. Name’s Hendrik de Geer.”
“Know him?”
Weasel shrugged his bony shoulders and pulled out his pack of cigarettes, tapping one out unconsciously and sticking it on his dried, cracked lower lip. “Sort of. He’s nobody you can’t handle, Matt. I thought maybe you could show up tomorrow night and look into this thing.”
“Look into what?”
“The de Geer connection, what Sam’s got cooking with this diamond thing.”
“And begin where?”
“How the fuck do I know? You’re the reporter.”
“All right,” Matthew said. Sometimes he forgot what a cocky little shit Otis Raymond could be. “What about you? You want to hang out at my place until we figure this thing out?”
Weasel shook his head, lighting his cigarette. “Naw, can’t.” He grinned, showing crooked, badly yellowed teeth. “I gotta be heading back.”
“Where to?”
“Some place warmer, that’s for damn sure.”
“Weaze-”
“Buddy, don’t ask me questions I can’t answer. You do your thing, I’ll do mine.”
“He’s not worth it,” Stark said in a low voice.
“Man, who is? You gonna help or not?”
“Yeah. I’ll see what I can do-for your sake, not for Sam Ryder’s.”
The Weaze sniffled and coughed, his breathing rapid and noisy, and he laughed, a hollow, wheezing sound that Stark found utterly desolate, the sound of a wasted life. “You do remember,” he said in his raspy voice. “Man, I knew you would. I did good back in ’Nam, huh? I was okay there.”
Matthew felt his mouth suddenly go dry. Behind his stoicism and quiet air of competence, he’d always felt helpless where Otis Raymond was concerned. “You were the best, buddy.”
Dragging on his cigarette, Weasel headed out. He gave Feldie a grin that was almost a come-on, and Matthew had to laugh. He could hear his buddy’s out-of-tune whistle as he disappeared down the corridor. The stupid shit thought he’d won. That Matt Stark was on the story and all was well.
Stark stood up, feeling the sorrow and anger he always felt after he saw Otis Raymond, but he kept the mask in place, the one that said he was always in control, always at a distance. He picked up his coffee and went over to Feldie’s desk. She’d finally sat down, but he’d been aware of her looks in his direction-suspicious looks tinged with concern. Feldie was a stickler for facts-give people the facts, she said, and let them arrive at their own truths-and a damn fine editor, but she also cared. Trying to reform him gave her something to do besides going after facts and pleasing the big guns upstairs. But she’d never admit as much, and although Matthew admired her for it, what the hell. He’d had his fifteen minutes of fame. He still led a pretty good life, and as much as Feldie carped, he did get his assignments in, more or less on time. Maybe a few years ago he’d had the drive and ambition to do more-to make a difference. But that was a few years ago.