Red White and Black and Blue

Timmy and I exchanged glances, and I said to Dunphy,

"It's true this is a job I don't think I need to be embarrassed about. Not so far. But you know, one thing you might be able to help me out with, Tom, is this: Who besides you and Shy McCloskey knew that I agreed just yesterday morning to take this Louderbush thing on? And who besides you knew I was meeting Jackman and Insinger yesterday afternoon? It seems 54

Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson odd that anybody working for Louderbush-if that's who we're looking at here-would have learned so quickly of my plans and of my whereabouts. I keep trying to figure that out. It's puzzling."

Timmy and I both looked at Dunphy. He had been sitting with his elegantly shod feet on the metal footrests of his wheelchair, and now he shifted and placed both feet on the floor. "You're right. How did these guys know?"

"It's disturbing."

"Yeah."

"Either Jackman or Insinger could have let something slip.

Although, I set up my appointments with them only a few hours before I met them. There wasn't much time for either of them to mention me to anybody casually and innocently.

Either of them, of course, could have done it intentionally set me up for whatever weird unknown malign reason. But when I met them, both struck me as sincere in their strong disapproval of Kenyon Louderbush and his actions, and highly unlikely to be reporting secretly to him or his staff or his Serbian militia."

"You're right."

"It's baffling."

"All I can say, Don, is that I certainly have not discussed your working for us with anybody except Shy. And he was unaware of the specifics of your meetings yesterday until after they took place and you landed in here."

"What about your staff? Beryl and her crew out there?"

"They don't even know who the fuck you are. You're just some security guy."

"Right."

"What about Myron Lipschutz?" Dunphy asked. "Timothy, your boss."

"He knows Don is working for you, but not that it's about Louderbush. And Myron certainly didn't know Don was meeting yesterday with Jackman and Insinger."

I said, "And you're sure your phone lines are clean? And your office? What about your computers?"

"Absolutely. The computers are checked for hackers, and the rooms and phone lines are swept every morning just before Beryl gets in."

"By Clean-Tech?"

"Yes."

"And they're trustworthy? The company isn't owned by Diebold Incorporated. or Karl Rove's brother-in-law in Florida?"

Dunphy screwed up his pink face. "Jesus, you're making me nervous, Don. If you can't trust the firms you pay the big bucks to secure your information, who can you trust?"

"You don't by chance record telephone conversations yourself, do you, Tom?"

"Me? Why would I?"

Chapter Six

My head hurt. The doctors said I wasn't concussed-no unsteadiness, no disorientation, nothing untoward on the MRI-but every beat of my heart was like a sledgehammer against my cranium.

"Now I know what a circus tent stake feels like when those apelike guys take turns pounding it into the ground," I told Timmy.

"Funny, I think of tent stakes as insensate. But maybe it's because they don't have mouths that we never hear their pitiful cries."

"When was my last Tylenol?"

"Six thirty. You'd better wait another little while. I guess a beer wouldn't help at this point. Or a medicinal bit of weed."

"Nah."

I was in bed at our house on Crow Street. When I'd gotten home just after five, Timmy had warmed up some tam yam gai he'd picked up at the Thai place on Lark Street and I sat at the kitchen table and ate it. Such an improvement over the hospital boiled-chicken-in-mucus. I went up to lie down then and make some calls on my cell, but at first the throbbing was just too disconcerting. Looking at TV was out of the question-MSNBC is not the answer to a headache-so I tried some Art Tatum. That was too busy for the state of my tender brain, and Timmy put on a Bach partita, but that was even busier.

I tried silence for a while, thinking I might drift off to sleep, but then I kept wondering who it was who had set me up, and my mind was so busy chewing over that question that soon I was wide awake.

While Timmy filled in the answers to the Times crossword puzzle with a military-pace hut-two-three-four, I made myself place two calls and each time concentrate hard on what I was saying and what was being said to me.

"You're at home, Janie?"

"Yeah, I just got in."

"All's well?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm like scared shitless. But other than that."

"You're being looked after, Tom Dunphy said."

"Some guy Anthony. He's actually kind of cute."

"So you know what happened after I left you yesterday.

You must have just pulled out of the Outback. I was in the parking lot on the phone."

"I know. That is so creepy."

"I'm trying to figure out how these guys knew I was meeting with you. Did you happen to mention our four o'clock appointment to anybody yesterday?"

A silence. "I'm trying to think."

"Take your time."

After a moment she said, "Just Kev. Kev called during my break-he knows I have twelve minutes rest period from two-fifteen to two-twenty-seven-and I told him I was gonna see you at Outback and talk to you about you-know-what. But Kev wouldn't mention any of that to anybody. He respects my privacy, and he knows how I am."

"Kev is your boyfriend?"

"Yeah, Kevin LeBow. He's an installer at Verizon."

"And he supports your decision to expose Kenyon Louderbush?"

"Oh sure. Kev hates crap like that as much as I do, and also his union can't stand Louderbush."

"And there's nobody else you might have mentioned our meeting to ahead of time? What about your supervisor?"

"Oh God, no. Alma would put a letter in my file. She'd friggin' call Arkansas."

"If you were meeting with a private investigator?"

"Walmart is suspicious. But I think, like, what they don't know won't hurt them."

I thought, Kev LeBow. Could he have been recruited by the Louderbush people to ingratiate himself with Insinger and seduce her and report back on her contacts with the McCloskey campaign and its agents? Not likely. They'd been a pair for quite a while. Was I just practicing due diligence, or was I becoming as paranoid as Insinger's employer?

I told Insinger I thought she should do whatever Anthony the security guy suggested, and to be watchful otherwise, and that I'd be in touch.

I got Virgil Jackman on his cell at Jock World. He said he couldn't talk but that he had an eleven-minute break coming up and he'd call me back in ten minutes.

Timmy said, "What's a five-letter word meaning ancient stringed instrument? First letter R, third letter B?"

"Robot?"

"Come on."

"Rhubarb."

"The second letter might be E."

"Rebar."

"Not exactly a musical instrument."

"It could be. Percussion."

"Keep trying."

"I'm doing my best."

"I hope not."

Soon, Jackman called back. I asked him first how things were going with the security Tom Dunphy was providing.

"I don't really need it, but this guy Damien is okay to hang with. He follows me around in this Hummer he has. He's even bigger than I am. I'm glad he's on our side."

"It's good," I said, "that these guys went after me and not you and Janie. It means that their employer has some sense.

Going after you two could generate serious backlash if you went public right away and linked Louderbush to the attacks.

But by beating on me they send the message to the McCloskey campaign that they are prepared to play rough and McCloskey should have second thoughts about pursuing any exposure of Louderbush's vile behavior. Anyway, Tom Dunphy is prepared to press on, if you are. So am I."