It’s an overdramatic speech-especially with the glance at the iron bars-and exactly the one I thought he’d give. “I still know about the two Culper Rings,” I say. “I know about your Plumbers. And for you especially… I know your personal stake in this.”
He knows I mean Minnie.
“Beecher, I think we all have a personal stake in this. Right, son?” he asks, putting all the emphasis on the word son.
I know he means my father.
It’s an empty threat. If he wanted to trade, he would’ve already offered it. But he’s done debating.
“Go tell the world, Beecher. And you find me one person who wouldn’t protect their sister in the exact same way if they saw her in trouble. If you think my poll numbers are good now, just wait until you turn me into a hero.”
“Maybe,” I say.
“Not maybe,” he says as if he’s already seen the future. He leans into the desk, his fingers still crossed in prayer. This man takes on entire countries. And wins. “The press’ll dig for a little while into what the doctor was up to, but they’ll move on to the next well-especially when they don’t strike oil. The President’s doctor is very different than the President.”
“But we all know this isn’t about the President. Even for you, it’s never been about you. It’s about her, isn’t it, sir? Forget the press… the public… forget everyone. We wouldn’t still be talking if you weren’t worried about something. And to me, that only thing you’re worried about is-if I start doing the cable show rounds and say your sister’s accident was actually an attempted suicide out of guilt for what she did to Eightball-”
“Beecher, I will only say this once. Don’t threaten me. You have no idea what happened that night.”
“The barber told me. He told me about the vacuum hose-and the tailpipe of the Honda Civic.”
“You have no idea what happened that night.”
“I know it took you four hours before you found her. I know how it still haunts you that you couldn’t stop it.”
“You’re not hearing me, Beecher,” he says, lowering his voice so that I listen to every syllable. “I was there-I’m the one who found her. You. Have. No. Idea. What. Happened. That. Night.”
His burning intensity knocks me back in my seat. I look at the President.
He doesn’t look away. His baggy eyes narrow.
I replay the events… The barber… Laurent said it took four hours before they found Minnie that night. That Palmiotti was the one who pulled her from the car. But now… if Wallace says he’s the one who found her first…
You have no idea what happened that night.
My skin goes cold. I replay it again. Wallace was there first… he was the first one to see her unconscious in the car… But if Palmiotti is the one who eventually pulled her out… Both things can be true. Unless…
Unless Wallace got there first, saw Minnie unconscious, and decided that the best action…
… was not to take any action at all.
You have no idea what happened that night.
“When you saw her lying there… you didn’t pull her out of the car, did you…?” I blurt.
The President doesn’t answer.
The bitter taste of bile bursts in my throat as I glance back at the silver picture frame. The family photo.
The one with two kids in the family.
Not three.
“You tried to leave her in that smoke-filled car. You tried to let your own sister die,” I say.
“Everyone knows I love my sister.”
“But in that moment, after all the heartache she caused… If Palmiotti hadn’t come in, you would’ve stood there and watched her suffocate.”
Wallace juts out his lower lip and huffs a puff of air up his own nose. But he doesn’t answer. He’ll never answer. Not for what they did to Eightball. Not for hiding him all these years. Not for any of this.
I was wrong before.
All this time, I thought I was fighting men.
I’m fighting monsters.
“That’s how you knew you could trust Palmiotti with anything, including the Plumbers. He was there for your lowest moment-and the truly sick part is, he decided to stay even though he knew you would’ve let your sister die,” I say. “You belong together. You ditched your souls for each other.”
There’s a flash on the digital screen that lists the First Family’s location. In a blink, Minnie’s status goes from:
MINNIE: Traveling
to
MINNIE: Second Floor Residence
Now she’s upstairs.
“No place like home,” Wallace says, never once raising his voice. He turns directly at me, finally undoing the prayer grip of his hands. “So. We’re done now, yes?”
“We’re not.”
“We are. We very much are.”
“I can still find proof.”
“You can try. But we’re done, Beecher. And y’know why we’re done? Because when it comes to conspiracy theories-think of the best ones out there-think of the ones that even have some semblance of proof… like JFK. For over fifty years now, after all the Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald stories… after all the witnesses who came forward, and the books, and the speculation, and the Oliver Stones, and the annual conventions that still happen to this very day, you know what the number one theory most people believe? The Warren Commission,” he says dryly. “That’s who the public believes-the commission authored by the U.S. government. We make a great bad guy, and they all say they hate us. But at the end of every day, people want to trust us. Because we’re their government. And people trust their government.”
“I bet you practiced that monologue.”
“Just remember where you are: This is a prizefight, Beecher. And when you’re in a prizefight for a long time-take my word on this-you keep swinging that hard and you’re only gonna knock yourself out.”
“Actually, the knockout already happened.”
“Pardon?”
“Just remember where you are, Mr. President. Look around. By the end of the week, this office will be empty. The photo in the silver frame will be, I’m guessing, slipped inside Palmiotti’s coffin. Your doctor’s gone, sir. So’s your barber. Your Plumbers are finished. Goodbye. All your work did was get two loyal men killed. So you can try to pretend you’ve got everything exactly where you want it, but I’m the one who gets to go home for the rest of my week-while you’re the one at the funerals, delivering the eulogies.”
“You have nothing. You have less than nothing.”
“You may be right. But then I keep thinking… the whole purpose of the Plumbers was to take people you trust and use them to build a wall around you. That wall protected you and insulated you. And now that wall is gone,” I say. “So what’re you gonna do now, sir?” Standing from my seat and heading for the door, I add, “You have a good night, Mr. President.”
116
St. Elizabeths Hospital
Third floor
Nico didn’t like card games.
It didn’t matter.
Every few months, the doctors would still have a new pack of playing cards delivered to his room. Usually, they were cards from defunct airlines-both TWA and Piedmont Air apparently gave out a lot of free playing cards back in the day. But Nico didn’t know what the doctors’ therapeutic goal was. He didn’t much care.
To Nico, a card game-especially one like solitaire-could never be enjoyable. Not when it left so much to chance. No, in Nico’s world, the universe was far more organized. Gravity… temperature… even the repetition of history… Those were part of God’s rules. The universe definitely had rules. It had to have rules. And purpose.