“We’re hurting pretty bad here,” Jake said. “We need a way to break something out.”
“Jake, there’ll be alarms . . .”
“It’s all in the timing,” Jake said. Thought about the package. “Everything’s in the timing.”
“Well,” she said, “whatever happens, it’ll be a heck of a rush.”
Westboro’s was a low red-brick building four blocks from the capitol, with an old-fashioned lightbulb marquee out front, and under that, a red neon script that said, THE CAPITAL’S BEST STEAKS, CHOPS, SEAFOOD. The parking structure was an ugly poured-concrete lump fifty yards farther down the block. Jake looked at his watch: almost eleven.
He took the car into the garage, saw the entrance, but no gate. “How do you pay?” he asked.
“Parking meters inside. The meter guy enforces the meters.”
“Excellent.”
He turned into the ramp. As Cathy Ann Dorn had said, it was dark inside. He could see no cameras. The ramps were two-way; you went out the same way you went in. The first upward-slanting ramp was full;the next, around the corner, was only half full. A man walked past them, down the ramp, and out. Jake went onto the next four ramps, then turned around and started down again. On both the back and front walls of the ramps, there were staircases going down.
He pulled into a parking space, let the engine run, stepped into one of the back staircases, walked down two floors and out. The door opened on a sidewalk along another street, less busy than the front, but still with cars moving along it.
Jake went back up, got in the car, and they drove back out. Madison asked, “What?”
“We could do it,” he said.
“If we get caught, Goodman’ll put us in jail,” she said. “If the cop hasn’t shot you.”
“I might be able to blackmail my way out of it. If the cop hasn’t shot me.”
“Tell me . . .”
He outlined his idea, and she said, “If anyone sees you going in, they’ll tell the police that it was a man with a limp. They’ll know who it is.”
“If I walk on a left tiptoe, I don’t limp. I can’t do it for long, but I can do it for a few hundred yards.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” she asked. “Wait at Mom’s house until I find out whether you’re dead?”
“That would be the pessimistic version of it,” Jake said.
“Bullshit. I’ll drive.”
He smiled at her: “I was hoping you’d offer.”
He got a ball-peen hammer at a Home Depot on Broad Street and a pair of cotton work gloves. They drove back to Westboro’s and parked a block away, where they could see the front of the parking garage.
“There’ll be a lot of traffic, starting just before noon,” Madison said. “People grabbing the good seats that aren’t reserved.”
Jake looked at his watch and yawned nervously. She picked it up and yawned back. “We could neck for a while,” he said.
“I’m too scared.”
“You don’t have to drive . . .”
“No-no. I’ve been talking big,” she said. “I’ll do it. But I’m still scared.”
“Good. Scared is realistic. Just don’t freeze and leave me on the street.”
Now she nodded: “Maybe you’ll learn to trust me.”
Tried to make conversation as they watched politicians and hustlers streaming into Westboro’s: “Was Howard Barber the guy who had me beaten up?”
“I hope not,” she said.
“I’m not asking what you hope,” Jake said. “I’m asking what you think. At that point, Goodman had no reason to go after me. You guys did.”
“Kind of narrows the range, doesn’t it.” She pursed her lips, looking out the windows, and then said, “I asked him. He didn’t say ‘yes,’ but he never said ‘no.’ He avoided the question. And he definitely knows people who’d do it. You scared him. He wanted to slow you down.”
“I’d like to get his people alone. One at a time. With my stick.”
“I’d like you to stay over tonight,” Jake said. He yawned again, and she yawned back. Both nervous. The hands on the car clock seemed to be plowing through glue. “You know, mostly because . . . I’d like you to stay over.”
“We could talk about the role of NATO in the new Europe,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah . . . but tomorrow, I want you to go home. Carry on as usual, don’t do anything cute, don’t play to the bug, if there is one. Just carry on. There’s gonna be a lot to talk about anyway. The shit is already headed for the fan.”
“Where are you going to be?”
“Running around,” he said.
“You’re not going to get hurt?”
“Certainly hope not.”
“Maybe I ought to run with you.”
“That won’t be . . . uh—here’s a Mercury.”
Cathy Ann Dorn would have made a good spy, Jake thought. The Mercury was right on time, six minutes after twelve. The car disappeared into the parking garage, and four minutes later, Arlo Goodman walked out, trailed by a big man in a dark suit and sunglasses. Both were empty-handed.
“The bottom of my stomach just dropped out,” Madison said. She started the car.
“Don’t leave me on the street.”
“You do it, and get out in a hurry,” she said. “What . . . what if there’s some kind of booby trap?”
“There’s not even a booby trap in the president’s car,” Jake said.
“What if there’s a camera or something?”
“There won’t be a camera . . .” But he reached into the backseat and found the Atlanta Braves hat he’d bought in Atlanta. He put it on and popped the door.
She said, “Wait. Wait for five minutes, so we know Goodman hasn’t sent the cop back to get something.”
They sat for three minutes, then Jake popped the door again. “Gotta go. Don’t take any phone calls.”
“Wait.” She was digging in her purse, pulled out a silk scarf, said, “Put this over your face. Like a bandanna. In case there’s a camera.”
“Jesus.” But he took the scarf. “My biggest worry is that a car’ll turn in . . .”
“There haven’t been too many . . . ,” she said anxiously.
“I’m going.”
This time he went, walking on one tiptoe. He was ten yards from the garage when another car pulled in. “Shoot.” He stopped and walked back down the block, past Madison, forty yards, fifty yards, then headed back toward the garage. Two men walked out into the sunshine, turned away from him, toward Westboro’s. He closed into the garage, was twenty yards away, his tiptoe foot getting tired, when they went into the restaurant.
A minute later he was inside, walking up the ramp, feeling the hammer heavy in his pocket. Watching behind for another car. Hurrying now. Up the first ramp, around the corner. He thought about the scarf, thought fuck it, then got it out anyway, did a quick wrap around his lower face. Pulled on the gloves. Between that and the hat, nothing would be visible but his eyes. And it was dark.
He got the cell phone out, pushed the button, heard it start to ring. Madison would be moving.
He took a deep breath, listened for a car, heard nothing, started counting, “One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two . . .” stepped quickly over to the Mercury, pulled the hammer out of his pocket and hit the back window with it. The glass exploded inward, and the car alarm went. He knocked out the rest of the glass with the hammerhead, reached through the window into the screaming wail of the alarm, pulled open the back door, spotted the briefcase on the floor, grabbed it, and ran.
Down to the back door. Nothing coming up the ramp at him. Down the stairs and around, counting, “One-thousand-nine, one-thousand-ten . . .”