Try Try Again Page 26

  And her visit to Frankie, and then to WizWhiz – again she’d shown her face. But if WizWhiz had been questioned, they’d say her consultation on cutting snippets out of the show hadn’t had any effect, and in fact she seemed to show no interest at all in what Charley’s face was doing in episode four. Anyway, there was no reason to associate “Stephanie Bloomberg” with Charley Dukes – or with Sybille Haskin.

  But what had Dukes told Saunders? What had he learned that he could tell her? She’d heard he’d written her a letter the day before he was killed. The warden, stupidly enough, hadn’t destroyed it, had in fact handed it over to Olivia Saunders the next day without reading it himself. Some BS about attorney-client. In that letter, had Charley told Saunders about Sebastian George? And what had Charley known about George, anyway? They’d spent two whole days together.

  That was the great unknown. George could be perfectly safe, or he could be on the verge of being arrested for murder. If he were put in a tight spot by the authorities, he might try to bargain.

  Haskin was bothered by unknowns, and she didn’t like to take chances. Sebastian George would have to be deleted.

  Sebastian George was relaxing in the indoor pool of a new, tall, and antiseptic-looking Northern Virginia hotel when he received a note from an old friend, saying an “E.G. Robinson” was in Chicago and needed to meet with him, regarding an “opportunity” to be available there right away. There would be a private jet from National to Midway with one passenger – himself.

  George had hoped for a new job – he was running low on cash. But he’d been worried, especially about Haskin. She might have no further use for him. He envisioned a meeting with her, a dressing down, a 9mm pulled from a drawer, or perhaps a door opening and someone pretty much like himself, a hood for hire, a .22 with that unflattering schnoz of a silencer at the end of its barrel. Yeah, he’d never be heard from again.

  So he was glad to get the Chicago assignment; the perfect excuse for disappearing to a place where Sybille Haskin might never see him again.

  But, cautious by nature, George felt he had to assume this was a setup, and Haskin was taking him out of the picture. He made some discreet inquiries about an E.G. Robinson in Chicago and drew nothing but blank stares, although one contact remembered the name from an old movie. His suspicious aroused, George made some very special plans for a long vacation starting right in Chicago, where his welcoming committee would somehow fail to meet him.

  “Sydney Martin” made an air reservation from O’Hare to San Francisco. He’d lose whoever was supposed to meet him at Midway. Find a different gate, not immediately exit through security. A gate that was filled with waiting passengers. As they were boarding, he’d quietly move to a different gate, and so on.

  To be extra cautious, he’d allow four hours for his reception committee to give up and leave. Then George would take a cab from Midway to O’Hare.

  If spotted at O’Hare, he just hoped whoever might be watching wouldn’t dare a shooting in public, in a place with numerous security guards. They would watch him, with annoyance and disgust, board another plane – to San Francisco – one that had no Sebastian George on its manifest.

  After a cab ride and a three-hour layover on the Peninsula, he’d be on a flight on a different airline, under a different name, from San Jose to LAX, connecting to a flight that, two hops later, would land in Dubai. He didn’t know what he’d do in Dubai, but he’d always wanted to see the place, enjoy some of the luxury, enjoy being treated, if not as well as an Arab, at least a lot better than those poor fucking Paki bastards.

  Perhaps these were the Arabs the mention of which had so discomfited Haskin. But no, Emiratis were well behaved, mostly because they were rich. The movement, or conspirators, or plotters – whatever they were – would have to be from some other Mid-East or North African country.

  His contacts had arranged for passports and visas and major credit cards in the names of the newly christened “Richard Dorr,” “Hershel Sussman,” and “James C. Califano,” that would pass muster, at least until he could arrive in Dubai and then disappear again with yet another passport and an impressive set of visas.

  Where was his ultimate destination? Somewhere rich and corruptible; he’d make a final decision when he had to. He was looking forward to being Jewish, at least for the Sussman leg of his flight, had long envied their legendary acumen, had from time to time wished he’d been born to the tribe, for real. But flying to Dubai it was much better to be a Califano than a Sussman.

  He boarded the small plane, said a casual hello to the pilot, looked carelessly but carefully around. The pilot was unarmed and there was nothing suspicious in sight.

  As instructed, he moved back through a sturdy privacy door into the passenger compartment. He buckled himself into one of the six passenger seats and daydreamed about tall hotels and warm beaches where the shore was too salty for bugs, about a city where whores were tolerated for foreigners like him, as was whiskey. He touched the small pistol in his pocket and kept an eye on the privacy door.

  He thought about JTJ, how he’d been tempted to call her with an offer of alliance, or perhaps partnership. But, in hiding, he wouldn’t be able do that. Too bad.

  The plane reached cruising speed and elevation. Purring over the ground, his flight passed from one province of air to another, and then another. George dozed off.

  Waking at last, George could see the towers of Chicago out the window to his left. The plane should be turning west toward Midway any minute.

  But the minutes went on, and the plane didn’t turn. George grew worried. Was he being taken somewhere else? The Michigan shore was a faint blur out the right side.

  He rose and opened the door. “Hello?” But the cockpit was empty and the pilot was gone, had obviously bailed out. Shit! Panic, that unaccustomed sensation, gripped George’s heart. So Sybille had been ahead of him all along! He ground his teeth in fury, then regretted performing so expected a cliché.

  But what to do now? He sat down in the pilot’s seat. He’d flown a small plane a few times, always under the watchful eye of a real pilot. What had he learned? How to steer, like those 9-11 people. But not how to land, just like them, too. Up and down and sideways. And not how to reduce airspeed.

  He heard the first stuttering of the fuel tank running dry. He could steer toward the Michigan shore, aim for a farmer’s field. Maybe by that time he could figure out how to slow down. Stall? Well, if he were going low and slow enough he still had a chance to survive, cushioned by an acre or two of some field crop.

  He dropped down to five hundred feet. The shore was hazy but more visible now. Yes, there was a town off to his right, probably Muskegon, but he’d miss it. There, north of the town was a large expanse of nothing but green. A forest? He couldn’t tell. He’d rather land in a cornfield than a forest, but by the time he’d dropped that low it would be too late to choose.

  Finally, after pressing this and moving that, George figured out how to reduce airspeed. Not that he’d land the plane safely – that was never going to happen. But he might, now, survive the crash.

  The fuel tank’s complaints became louder, more frequent. Still several miles from the Michigan shore its complaints stopped.

  Sebastian George’s small plane blundered, like Icarus, into unforgiving water.

  Some days later a few remains of a small plane washed up on shore. Michigan authorities identified it as a flight that had taken off from DCA headed for Midway but never got there. The flight plan listed no one but a single pilot, no passengers. Poor bastard must have drowned, or died on impact. Only a few pieces of human remains were ever found.

  Poor fucking bastard.

  A week after Liv spoke with Brent, he phoned her. “Hey, guess what? We got a hit on “Stephanie Bloomberg.” Liv was astonished; going to Brent had been a desperate hope.

  She began to thank him, but he interrupted her. “Don’t get your hopes up, Liv. Bloomberg – seems to be an alias, as you said – was reco
rded with D.C. connections, and has been suspected of various kinds of spying and a variety of felonies. Her description in the files matches what you told us.”

  “Spying for whom?”

  “Don’t know. Iran was suspected at one time, but that didn’t pan out. She hasn’t actually been accused of any bookable crime, but the FBI and NSA would both be very happy to get hold of her for a few days.”

  “That’s great intel!”

  “Remember ‘don’t get your hopes up?’ She’s never been definitively associated with any specific place or organization, and the latest note in her file dates from more than four years ago. Disappeared until she showed up in L.A., apparently, or she’s been using a different alias. Probably the latter.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “I updated the FBI and a few other places with what you told me. She may surface again, but once every four years is slim pickings. If we had a photo that would help. Maybe security cameras?”

  “Sorry. I checked and the cams at Dickstein’s office and at WizWhiz both recycle after thirty days. No one was certain she was caught by a camera in either place anyway.”

  Liv and Brent exchanged a few clichéd expressions of gratitude and farewell and hung up.

  The month passed. Most of the country saw record snowfall; even Pensacola got an inch. Only in L.A. did sunshine prevail, although rain clouds would have been more welcome. In various parts of America, the Agonauts were busy:

  .. Jill continued on at Dill-Tech in order to train her replacement, she said, but after interviewing eleven candidates, all of whom she rejected on flimsy grounds, she realized she would rather work than be a member of the idle rich – not that the Agonists’ adventures had left her that much. So she stayed on, reviewing contracts and occasionally composing them.

  .. Liv continued on with Fogle Harsh Weaver, CPAs, as their in-house counsel. She spent most of her time examining FHW’s agreements with their clients. Once she traveled to Washington for a business meeting and had lunch with Jill. Later that day, it occurred to her that their two jobs were oddly similar.

  .. Hub was offered the chance to produce a new webV show, not just direct it. Advertisers were lined up. Make My Day hired writers and conceptuality specialists and viewer temperature-takers and gurus. Hub encountered Frankie Dickstein at a party once, and ignored him. Occasionally, Hub thought about how alike Liv and Jill were, despite their ages and superficially different behavior. He looked forward to seeing them again at the Stirrup in D.C.

  .. Season three of TTA was in final preparation. Surveys indicated that there would be fewer viewers this time, and it was rumored that season four would be the show’s last.

  As Liv and Jill were comparing notes over lunch that day in D.C., Sybille Haskin paid a rare visit to the President. This was risky, as she knew; but none of the databases routinely checked by the Secret Service contained any negative information on her under any of her names, and very little information of any kind. She was shown into the Oval Office.

  Casually, while discussing efforts of ConDyne to succeed in the aerospace defense contracting business with President Conning, Haskin mentioned certain potential policy changes in the Mideast, where ConDyne had major contracts. She phrased these changes as of concern to ConDyne, but Conning took the hint. He began to study up on the region, and mention his concerns once again in press conferences, as he had done prior to his election.

  What the hell, he wondered, did she have in mind this time?

  Chapter 25: Two Years and Three Months After the Assassination

  Wednesday was slow, as usual, in the Stirrup Bar and Grill, even slower because of the forecast of snow. Liv had been looking forward to being there as a kind of homecoming, looking forward to getting the same kind of “hero” reception she’d had before.

  But tonight, she didn’t recognize anyone but the bartender. Well, she thought, it’s really the wrong evening. But if we’d scheduled the Agonists’ meeting for Friday or Saturday, we wouldn’t have found a table and wouldn’t be able to have a confidential conversation anyway.

  Liv spent twenty minutes staring down the few men who looked her way. Most of them seemed relieved, as if they’d made the required gesture and that was all they had to do as male human beings, and now they could get back to their drinks.

  Hub walked in, looked around with distaste and then more appreciatively, as if the place could be reproduced in plastic for a webV set, or simply used as is. Briefly, he considered shooting an episode of Make My Day there.

  He saw Liv at a corner table and sat down across from her. “Heard from Jill?” he asked.

  “She’s local, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” Liv said. “No, I haven’t heard from her lately. We had lunch once when I was in town on business.”

  Just then the outer door opened again and Jill entered. Being younger than Liv and appearing rather frightened by being there, she was greeted with calls and winks and one or two whistles. Ignoring them as much as possible, she joined Liv and Hub. Hub ordered a beer, Liv a bourbon and Coke. Jill shook her head.

  After the drinks arrived, each of the three looked at the other two, wondering what to say. Finally, Hub offered “Well, good to see you two again. I’ve got a flight, so let’s get down to business.” The women nodded. “Jill?”

  “I’m afraid my report is going to be pretty brief,” said Jill, looking worried. “I did find Darlene, although the manager at that 7-11 wasn’t inclined to be cooperative at first.”

  “Had anyone else been asking about her?” Liv said.

  “I don’t think so. In fact, I asked Darlene’s contact about that and he said no. I guess he was just protecting Darlene’s privacy. So I had to make something up about knowing her from high school, which was chancy because I didn’t know how old Darlene was – ‘classmate’ might not have been plausible.”

  “But you found her?” urged Hub, trying to move the conversation along.

  “Yes,” Jill said, “I did. It was like something out of Lolita, you know, as we said before, being telepathic and all that.” Jill smiled at her own attempt at humor. Hub and Liv did not. “At the end where she’s living in a trailer park and has a baby?” Jill said, trying to cover her embarrassment, “And living in all that squalor?”

  “And then?” prompted Hub.

  “Well, we talked for quite a while. She wanted to know all about her father – she never knew his name, y’know, just someone calling himself “your dad” sent her money every so often, every few months or even longer.

  “I had to tell her he was dead, and she wouldn’t be getting any more money. I made up a story about Charley, admitted he’d been in trouble with the law and that’s why he couldn’t come out in the open and try to visit her…”

  “That’s true,” said Liv.

  “But I didn’t say anything about the murder. Mainly, I was trying to find out if anyone she didn’t know had been hanging around about two years ago, or a little farther back, and she said no.”

  “So that idea Charley had about Darlene’s being under surveillance was phony.”

  “Looks that way,” said Jill. “George apparently knew there was a Darlene and she lived in Roanoke because he’d traced Charley’s money there. He apparently checked her out, but never made contact or sent anyone there.”

  “Didn’t have to. The threat was enough,” said Hub.

  “She never got any kind words from Charley, she told me, just money.”

  Liv looked up from her drink. “Kind of sad.”

  “But it kept her safe, looks like. Ah – I gave her some money,” Jill said hesitantly. “In honor of Charley.”

  “Honor?” Hub asked.

  “Charley loved his daughter,” Jill said. “That’s honor enough.”

  She paused. “And then, for that other task, I met with three of Ezra Barnes’ former staff, one of them still working in the seventeenth CD office. Thanks to Liv’s asking a favor from Brent Nielsen, they took the time to see me.
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  “They all agreed Barnes thought then-Senator Conning had been up to some mischief. Staff had checked out a few possibilities, such as selling his vote, but had come up dry. Nonetheless, they were convinced Barnes knew something, because of some vague remarks he dropped.”

  “That’s pretty much what they said when I was there two years ago,” said Liv. “Looks like nothing new has come to light. And so, Barnes’ death may have had nothing to do with his race for the Senate, but perhaps because he knew about some corruption in Conning’s camp would be a threat whether or not he was running for Conning’s seat in the Senate.”

  “Something he never shared with his staff,” said Jill.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “So now we’re going to investigate the President?” Hub asked incredulously.

  “No,” said Jill, “I’m not suggesting that. We don’t have any idea what Conning’s misdeeds, if any, involved. There’s nowhere to begin, even if we wanted to. And likely, if he did anything wrong it’s just some money here and there for ‘constituent service,’ like any other politician, or some under-the-table funding. Hardly a matter of national security.

  “So,” she concluded, “another dead end. How about you, Liv?”

  “Well, my turn” said Liv, “unless you’d like to go next, Hub.” Taking silence for “no,” she continued. “I spoke with Brent and told him what we needed. His assistant placed a call to the Hill and got names and locations of three of Ezra Barnes’ former staff, and I turned that information over to Jill, as she just said.”

  Jill nodded.

  “And I asked Brent to get the FBI to look up a ‘Stephanie Bloomberg’, who might be involved in organized crime or terrorists or a fringe group or something. I wasn’t expecting any hits, but Brent got one – a four year old record that a Stephanie Bloomberg was suspected of being some kind of foreign agent, but nothing solid.