Try Try Again Page 29

  Hub said, “Lean on him, Malcolm.”

  “Already did,” said Malcolm. “And anticipating your authorization, I floated the idea of a tail. Portney agreed to set up a kind of sting so they could ID their client, or at least grab a photo. They’d tell her that too bad she’d cancelled their agreement because just then vital new information had come to light. She needed to meet Portney on a certain Washington street corner at a certain time, very urgent, new info, too risky to say anything on the phone, very hush-hush national security and assorted other bullshit.”

  “And?”

  “Tomorrow, one p.m. their time. Portney won’t show his face, of course, but he’ll have someone across the street from the meeting place with a camera. If the client shows, he’ll get some pix and then so will we, and he’ll tail her, too. If she doesn’t show, well, we just blew some more money.”

  Hub was glad, at that moment, that Jill hadn’t been on the call.

  At 10:37 L.A. time, Hub’s phone hummed, and displayed “Malcolm.” “Hi, Malcolm,” Hub said. “Any news.”

  “Hey, Hub, this is a real Hollywood cliché, but are you sitting down?”

  Hub, annoyed, didn’t respond. Hollywood clichés? How about Washington D.C. clichés? That’s where people ought to sit down more often.

  After a second, Malcolm continued. “I just got a call from Portney. Their ex-client showed, right on time. She was standing on that damn corner for a good ten minutes, looking around constantly.”

  “She wouldn’t make a very good spook,” Hub said.

  “You’re telling me,” said Malcolm. “Anyway, Portney’s guy got a few sneak photos.”

  “And tailed her when she left?”

  “Nope,” said Malcolm. “No need to. Dark glasses, a hood for the late spring chill, not much face showing, but what our guy was pretty sure of at the time turned out to be true. Looking at all our photos, the client was clearly Marie Conning.”

  “The President’s wife?”

  “You bet.”

  “Didn’t she have an army of Secret Service around?”

  “A couple. Oh they were there, standing a little back and trying not to look like who they were. But in any case, after ten minutes she and the agents left.”

  “Wow,” said Hub.

  “Sitting now?” asked Malcolm.

  That night, Jill and Liv and Hub had a long conference call. Hub caught them up with the news.

  “So where are we now and what do we do?” asked Jill.

  “Marie Conning obviously suspects our ‘Stephanie Bloomberg’ of something,” said Hub, “and the only reason she’d care enough to hire a PI instead of just informing the Feds or the local cops is if that ‘something’ directly affected the President, or her relationship with him.”

  “An affair?”

  “That may be the First Lady’s concern; but given what we know or suspect about what Bloomberg was up to here in L.A., I doubt if sex was the main event. And I doubt Bloomberg’s been screwing Conning anyway – too big a risk to her real plan, whatever it was, and a danger for the President.”

  “Bloomberg, or Netherton, or whoever she is, knows something.”

  “Obviously. More likely, she’s done something herself.”

  There was a moment of quiet.

  Liv said, “Are you thinking of…”

  “Yeah,” said Hub. “Here’s what I think: Bloomberg was behind the murder of Ezra Barnes, using ‘George’ as her point man, who in turn used Charley Dukes. She had Barnes killed so Thomas Conning would be sure to be re-elected to the Senate, and be in position to win the White House two years later.”

  Jill said, “Why would she.,,”

  “It has to be something very big, considering all that time and effort and risk and cost, and especially all the planning and years-long patience,” Hub said.

  “Who?” Liv asked.

  Hub thought for a moment. “A chancy two-year plot before it even begins to pay off that could blow up and ruin everybody? Doesn’t sound like Wall Street, or a defense contractor, or the U.S. military, or any military for that matter. Perhaps a foreign government. Russia, for example, or China. I can’t think who else it could be. At least the Chinese would have the patience to pull something like this off.”

  Jill said, “What do you suppose they were hoping to get out of it? And what kind of pressure could they put on Conning?”

  “A,” said Hub, “I don’t know; and B, I don’t know that either.”

  “We have to do something!” Jill blurted.

  “Why?” Hub asked. “Look, we’ve pretty much solved the mystery, and my show is safe for as many or as few more seasons it runs. Jill has money – some left, anyway, right, Jill?”

  “I’m going spend my days at Dill-Tech,” said Jill, sounding none too happy.

  “And Liv – well, I don’t know what you got out of this Agonist adventure.”

  “Frustration,” she said. “Knowing there’s probably some monstrous crime going on and we can’t do anything about it – we don’t even know what it is.”

  “We could go to the media,” said Jill.

  “Not solid enough,” Hub said. “Maybe about Netherton, whom the media wouldn’t give a damn about anyway, but certainly not about the President or who may be behind this scheme, if he isn’t.”

  “There’s Brent Nielsen,” Liv said, “but as a freshman in Congress he has no clout at all. And knowing Brent, I’m sure he’d refuse to get involved in this, even if we believed in the President’s guilt and could convince him of it.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jill, “are you assuming Conning knew what Netherton was up to? That he approved or ordered Barnes’ killing?”

  “Dunno,” said Hub. “OK, no. He’s probably innocent of all this, and he’s just being played. – I think we should assume that.”

  “I guess I’ll have to stop being so trusting of the people in power,” said Jill, “not asking any questions or anything. And as I asked some time ago now, where are we and what do we do?”

  No one answered her.

  The following Tuesday, President Conning announced a new Mid-East peace initiative. “That part of the world has not known peace for the past hundred years and more,” he said, “since the European powers divided up the region arbitrarily, dividing peoples and families and religions.

  “Today I am sending a package of bills to Congress that will promote stability in that region. We will encourage, support, and rely on our friends in the area, from Morocco to Pakistan, but we will not ourselves send troops or major infusions of materiel. We will of course continue foreign aid at our current level or perhaps more, although not necessarily targeted to the same beneficiaries.

  “I will continue to regard the independence and safety of Israel as our primary goal in this part of the world. And I believe greater coordination among the Muslim states of that region will contribute to Israel’s safety. It will certainly reduce the number of states to be negotiated with or dealt with in other ways.”

  The press waited eagerly for details.

  As the months went by, the implications of the Conning Mideast Peace Policy became clear. Many members of Congress were alarmed. The Russian government complained that the U.S. seemed to be supporting unrest in the North Caucasus. The Chinese complained that the U.S. policy was interfering with its plans in Xinjiang and farther west.

  On the ground, Al-Ma‘raka, a previously unknown force in the Islamic world, had swallowed up Al-Qaeda and ISIL and several similar organizations. Its affiliates were on the verge of taking over the governments of Libya and Oman. Still the President did not alter his policy. He frequently pointed out, no Americans had been harmed, and the oil was still flowing.

  There were rumors of impeachment. Leaders of both parties met secretly with the President and urged him to reverse his Mid-East policy, as the few friendly governments in the region were submerged in the new, fast-growing, and nuclear-armed Islamic Caliphate. He refused.

  Meetings of imp
ortant people with the Vice President increased in number and frequency. One of his guests was a tall, severe-looking woman dressed in black.

  “Are you ready to pick up with our initiative where we left off?” she asked.

  The Vice President told her he was ready. He had no choice.

  Chapter 27: Seven Years After the Assassination

  It was now seven years since the assassination, four since the Agonauts disbanded. Hub Landon was now producing his third webV series, hiring his own directors. His second series had won several awards but had not become popular. His first had achieved some level of fame, however, and he was much sought after in the business. He liked to be called “Mr. Landon,” now, or “sir,” not “Hub.” He grew a beard and started acting as he thought a producer should act – like Frankie Dickstein, that is. He built an even bigger tub and invited his special friends to join him there, one or more at a time. A few of them wished Hub were younger.

  Judge Harriet DuCasse was passed over for the State Supreme Court bench and became old and bitter.

  JTJ finally got her big break and went to work for a webV network station in New York, even though it was only for the weather segment. She became very good at weather, and highly popular; so popular in that role that she was never given a chance to do any real news reporting. The NFL tried again to hire her as an on-field commentator; she told them to stuff it up their tight ends.

  Sybille Haskin went on to other intrigues, on behalf of other clients. Usually, she was richly rewarded. One final time, she died.

  Olivia Saunders became a partner at Fogle Harsh Weaver, but not a named partner, which disappointed her. She began to get over memories of what had happened fourteen years before, with her father. A year after the Agonauts broke up, she had thrown a bottle of whiskey through her bedroom window, slightly injuring a pedestrian on the sidewalk below. She never bought another bottle.

  Brent Nielsen joined the Congressional opposition to President Conning’s Mid-East policy. But that policy was confirmed and then expanded by President Milton Vandivere, the former Vice President, who succeeded Conning in office after Conning’s first term. Conning hadn’t run for re-election.

  Jillian Hall got back with Roger for a few months, but then threw him out one final time. She used the last of her fortune, and borrowed much more, to buy out Horace Dillman and become Chairman, President, and principal owner of Dill-Tech, which she renamed Jill-Tech. Ellie Mason came over to Jill’s for dinner occasionally. Together they had watched the final episode of the final season of “Try Try Again.”

  END

  End Notes

  1. This novel is dedicated to the real Frank Dickstein, the author’s late father in law, who would have enjoyed it.

  2. In honor of George Romero’s Pennsylvania, this book includes two hard-to-miss references to his films. The first ten readers who identify both will win an autographed copy of Try Try Again.

  3. Grantwood, Pennsylvania is a fictional place. There is a location in Pennsylvania that can be found by retracing the route Liv Saunders drives home from Washington, D.C. one evening, but there’s nothing much there but pasture and a few trees. Pimmit Hills, Virginia, however, is real, rumors to the contrary notwithstanding. Google Maps for Windows knows where it is and will help you get there, if you need to.

  4. The full epigraph quotation from Stanisław Lem is: “We do not imitate the mechanics of bird flight even if we do fly ourselves. It is not imitation that is at stake here but understanding.” (Summa Technologiae, University of Minnesota Press, 2013, page 19 - original publication in Polish, 2010).

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