“Give me a one-minute version.”
Jake shrugged: “Madison Bowe, thirty-four years old, married money in the shape of former U.S. Senator Lincoln Bowe, forty-six. Tells the networks that Lincoln Bowe gave a quote moderately hot-tempered speech to a group of Republican law students at the University of Virginia.”
Danzig made a farting noise with his lips; Jake paused, then continued.
“Afterward, she said, he was seen getting into a car with three men in suits, and disappeared. Witnesses told her that the men seemed to be law-enforcement personnel, complete with short haircuts and ear-bugs. Mrs. Bowe says she was told by a highly placed source that the Watchmen picked him up. She fears for his life, since they would never be able to admit afterward that they actually did that.”
“That’s true,” Danzig said.
“She also says that she was being watched on her farm near Lexington, and had been threatened by Watchmen. She has a videotape to prove it. The intimidation part. If the tape isn’t a complete fake, I’d say she had reason to be frightened. The guy, the Watchman, acted like he was in the SS or something . . . and that’s about it. I mean, there are more details . . .”
“Fucking media,” Danzig said. He picked up a yellow pencil and began drumming it on his desktop. “Fucking little right-wing Virginia Law assholes, fucking horse-farm owners. This is the biggest circus since Bill Clinton’s blow job.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s good-looking, too. Madison Bowe. Blond. Good tits, great ass. The media like that.”
Jake said, “Yes, sir, I’ve seen her on TV.”
“Lincoln Bowe did not give a quote moderately hot-tempered speech,” Danzig said. He paused, watching Jake’s face from under his hooded eyes. “If you actually heard it, it was borderline nuts. He sounded like he might be drunk. He essentially said that the president and the Senate minority leader are criminals. It was completely out of control.”
“Yes, sir.”
Danzig flashed a thin-lipped fat-lizard’s smile: “I should ask, Jake—have any questions occurred to you?”
“The obvious one. Did the Watchmen take him?”
Danzig spun in his leather chair, a complete turn, caught himself before going around a second time: “That’s the question. And the answer is We don’t know. It’s possible, I suppose. God only knows what Goodman is cooking up down there.”
“So what’s our problem?” Jake asked.
“Embarrassment. Goodman is one of us, we can’t deny it. We loved that whole Watchman idea, the idea of volunteering for America—it was like the Peace Corps, but for us. Like something John Kennedy might have thought of. Best of all, it didn’t cost anything. Now people are starting to say that they’re a bunch of Nazis. We wanted to get rid of Lincoln Bowe, we wanted to get him out of the Senate, and we gave Goodman everything he needed to do the job. Then Bowe disappears, and it all comes back to bite us in the ass.”
Jake nodded. There wasn’t much to say. The Democrats, with the president leading the way, had poured seventy million dollars into the Virginia election, had used Goodman as their point man.
“So. Find out what happened to Bowe,” Danzig said. “Legal as you can. Use the FBI for the technicalities. But find him and give me updates through Gina.”
Jake said, “What’s the FBI doing? I’m not sure I could help.”
Danzig was irritated: “The FBI—they’re doing a tap dance, is what they’re doing. They know a dead skunk when they see one. They’re out looking around, but I’ve been talking to the director, and I know goddamned well that they don’t have their hearts in it. They’re saying that there’s no evidence of a kidnapping, no evidence of force, no evidence of anything. They just stand around and cluck.”
“So, what do I do?”
“Kick some ass. Turn over some rocks. Go threaten somebody,” Danzig said. “Do what you do. We need to get this thing out of the way. We can’t carry this through the summer, into the election, for Christ’s sake.”
“How much time?”
Danzig shook his head. “No way to tell. It’s already a mess. Right now, we’re sitting tight, going back-door to all the media, talking about how it’s a Virginia problem, not a White House problem. They’ve bought it so far. But you know how that works: one thing changes, and they’ll turn on you like a pack of rats.”
“What’s my authority?” Jake asked. Sometimes Danzig didn’t want anyone to know who was interested.
“I am,” Danzig said. “You can use my name. Gina will back you up.”
“Okay.” Jake slapped his thighs. “I’ll move on it.”
As he got up and turned to go, Danzig asked, “Kill any turkeys?”
“Nope. Interrupted by a phone call.”
“Life in the big city, son,” Danzig grunted, already flipping through the paper in front of him. “Maybe you can squeeze a little blood out of this job.”
Out of Danzig’s office, Jake walked with an escort to the working door, then into the sunshine through the security fences to the street, where he caught a cab home. The magnolias were in full bloom, pink and white, beds of daffodils jumped up like yellow exclamation marks. Early Apriclass="underline" the cherry trees would be gorgeous this week down at the Tidal Basin, if you could get to them through the tourists. He made a mental note to stroll by, if he found the time.
Several days of rain had washed the city clean. The Washington Monument needled into the sky, telling the world exactly who the studhorse was. The streets were lined with flowers, busy with bureaucrats with white ID tags strung around their necks, fat brown briefcases dangling from their hands. Good day in Washington when even the bureaucrats looked happy.
Jake lived in Burleith, north of Georgetown, in a brick-and-stone town house that might have been built in the early twentieth century, but was actually a careful replica only fifteen years old.
At the moment, his street was torn up. The owner of a town house three down from his, a stockbroker, had convinced the other residents to rip out the old concrete sidewalks and replace them with brick walkways. Bricks would enhance the value of the neighborhood, the broker said, and would increase the resale value of their houses by making the neighborhood more like Georgetown. Jake was indifferent to the idea, but went along because everybody else agreed to do it. Besides, the noisome little asshole was probably right.
Because of the street work, he had the cabbie drop him at the entrance to the alley at the back of the house, carded through the fence lock, and climbed the stoop to the back door.
He ran a bachelor house: a functional kitchen, a compact dining room, a living room with a wide-screen television, a den used as a library and office, and a half-bath; and on the second floor, a master bedroom suite, a guest bedroom, and a third bedroom where he hid all his junk—obsolete golf clubs, a never-used rowing machine, old computer terminals that were not good enough to use, but too good to throw away, three heavily used backpacks and two newer ones—he was a bag junkie. He also had a gun safe, a bow locker, and a pile of luggage.
The furnace, a washer and dryer, the telephone and electric service panels, and the master box for the alarm system were all tucked away in a small basement. A two-car garage had been added to the back of the house and occupied most of the backyard.
He kept the place neat with two hours of cleaning a week, usually done on Saturday morning. He wasn’t a freak about it, simply logical. Two hours a week was better than two straight days once a quarter.
By the time he got home, the workday was over. He went online with the Virginia State website, found a name for the governor’s chief of staff—Ralph Goines—and tracked him down through the FBI telephone database, then called him on his unlisted home phone. He identified himself and said, “I need to see Governor Goodman. Tomorrow if possible.”