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Toby picked up the photo again. “I think this is the same guy who was in here, but I’m not sure.” He rocked his head side to side. “Maybe I’m just remembering the other photo.”

“Assuming it was him, was he alone?”

“Assuming it was him, no. I was thinking about it a while back. I have a really vague recollection Mr. Comb-Over was with him. A white guy, early sixties, gray hair-what there was of it.”

“Has he been here more than once?”

“Yeah. You don’t forget a hair felony like that.” Toby rested his palm on top of his head, then waved his fingers. “The kind that flaps in the wind.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Last week. That’s what got me thinking. I’m off Tuesday and Wednesday, so it must’ve been Thursday or Friday… I think Friday.”

“Driving or walking?”

Toby turned and squinted toward the front window. “Driving. He needed change for the meter. An early eighties Toyota Corona.”

“You know your Toyotas. They haven’t imported that model for over two decades.”

“My dad owned one for like twenty years. I’ll never forget it.” Toby grinned. “It was the first place I got laid. Except Dad’s was white. Comb-Over’s was brown.”

“Anything distinctive?”

“Just what you’d expect with a car that old. Faded.” Toby closed his eyes. “No hubcaps.” He opened them again. “At least on the passenger side.”

“What about the plate? Regular or personalized?”

“Don’t know.” Toby pointed at a parking space directly in front of the store window. “He had that spot. All I could see was the side of the car.”

“Can you get it for me if he comes by?”

“I’ll call you right when he walks in the door. But…” Apprehension clouded Toby’s face. “But he’s not the shooter is he? I don’t want-”

“No, he’s just the beginning of the trail.”

Toby held up Gage’s business card. “You want me to tell him to call you if he comes in?”

Gage shook his head. “I think I’d rather he doesn’t know I’m working on this. It’ll give me a chance to deal with him fresh.”

Chapter 14

Landon Meyer found himself pacing as he read over the updated FBI background reports on his nominees, Starsky and Hutch. They both had told the truth when he’d grilled them in August. They’d remained as clean as they were at the time of their appeals court confirmation hearings less than a year earlier. And both had done as they were instructed. Neither had made any public statements except from the bench. Each had avoided sarcasm and hyperbole in their usually dissenting opinions. Landon had read each one himself before they were filed to make sure. No verb stronger than “disagree,” no adverb more rabid than “respectfully,” no adjective more extreme than “learned,” and no noun more pejorative than “colleague.”

Landon recalled fuming all through the Ardino confirmation. Not only had Ardino left fifty typhoonlike speeches in his wake, but his fifteen years of opinions had blown the door open to the Democrats’ exploration of nearly every major constitutional issue facing the Court: presidential power, the death penalty, torture, the role of international law, and the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. It also hurt that Ardino’s forced and ominous smile engendered queasiness even among his supporters. The good news was he knew how to play the political game that was at the heart of confirmation hearings. The bad news was he appeared to be playing. His weeping wife fleeing the hearing room even seemed to Landon to be a stunt.

Not this time. Not with Landon as Judiciary Committee chairman.

Starsky and Hutch were going to play it straight and their wives were going sit behind them as poised and gracious as Laura Bush. If they didn’t, they’d be doing a whole lot of crying for real, in private, in his office.

Landon walked to his desk and picked up the telephone. Committee staff lawyer Norvil Whithers answered on the first ring and arrived a few minutes later. He brought with him the list of lawyers appointed by the White House to Starsky and Hutch’s murder boards. These teams of experts would question and requestion the nominees on every subject of potential interest to the senators on the committee until they had perfected sufficiently vague and mind-numbing answers that would cause the opposition to surrender, wearied of combat and defeated by obfuscation.

Landon directed Whithers to a seat in front of his desk, but kept pacing as he read the thirty-name roster: current deputies in the Justice Department, others who’d gone back to their national law firms, members of the White House staff, attorneys for the Republican National Committee, a general counsel to an oil company, two staffers from conservative think tanks.

“This is good,” Landon said, coming to a stop behind his desk, “but I think we need a broader focus. Having smooth answers to hard questions won’t be enough.”

Whithers pointed at the list. “It seems pretty comprehensive to me.”

Landon dropped into his chair, then drummed his pen on the edge of his desk.

“Let me ask you something,” Landon said. “What are the first polls going to say when the president announces the names?”

Whithers shrugged.

“I’ll tell you. The president gets the benefit of the doubt. Fifty-five percent in favor. Thirty against. And fifteen undecided”-Landon smiled-“because they don’t have a clue what the Supreme Court really does.”

“Sounds about right.”

“But after the Democrats scare the hell out of the public and the media beats up the nominees a little?”

“It’ll probably flop the other way.” It was Whithers’s turn to smile. “With fewer undecided because more people will realize how these nine little dictators control their lives.”

Landon glanced at a photo on his bookshelf showing him standing before a group of reporters, digital recorders and microphones extended toward him.

“Liberals make fun of FOX News,” Landon said, “but there isn’t one of their regular viewers who can’t name at least five members of the Court and six members of the Cabinet and who don’t know what an oil depletion allowance is-and none of them will be among the undecided.”

He looked back at Whithers.

“There’s no question the Democrats will want to filibuster the nominations,” Landon said. “Starsky and Hutch will have to use the hearings to reach out to the public through the television screen like they were George Clooney and Brad Pitt, and flip the numbers back by the time they reach the full Senate. Make a filibuster seem like treason.”

“But these guys are judges,” Whithers said, “not actors.”

Landon smiled again. “They will be when I’m done with them.”

L andon picked up his telephone as the door closed behind Whithers.

“Brandon?… We need to go Hollywood with Starsky and Hutch

… I don’t know how much altogether… Let’s start with fifty thousand for acting coaches and a million for media to go after the opposition and see how far that gets us.”

Chapter 15

"He’s here,” the late morning caller whispered. “He’s here.”

“Who’s he?” Gage asked, leaning forward in his desk chair.

“Mr. Comb-Over. At the table by the front window.”

“Hold on.”

Gage pressed the conference call button on his landline, then punched in a cell phone number.

“Viz, start driving to the thirty-two hundred block of Geary Street.”

“Toby?” Gage asked.

“Still here.”

“I’ve got a guy named Viz on the line. Was Comb-Over walking or driving?”

“Driving,” Toby said. “At least there’s a brown Corona that looks like his parked across the street.”

“What’s he wearing?”

“Dark green sweater, baggy gray pants. A San Francisco Giants cap

… I mean the cap is on the table.”

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s waiting for me to bring over his coffee.”

“Viz, how far away are you?”

“Fifteen, twenty blocks… Asshole.” Gage heard tires skidding. “Not you, boss, some guy cut me off.”