Dead Watch (44 page)

Jake got on his cell phone, called Gina in Danzig’s office.

“I need to talk to the man.”

“Things are intense right now,” Gina said. “Let me see if I can find him. I’ll call you back.”

“Tell him it’s critical. He has a real need to know this.”

“I’ll tell him,” she said. Her voice was absolutely neutral.

Fifty-fifty, Jake thought when she’d hung up. Fifty-fifty that they’d call. If they didn’t, he’d really been cut loose.

But Danzig got back in five minutes. “What’s going on?”

“Things are moving. There may soon be a settlement in the FBI/Madison Bowe/guy-thrown-out-the-window situation. My guy Novatny says he’s not interested in procedural matters. Only in substance.”

“You think that’ll hold?”

Jake nodded at his phone. “I do. It’s in everybody’s interest.” The Rule:
Who benefits?

“You better get over here. I’ll have Gina put you on the log.”

Gina was five degrees on the warm side of neutral when Jake got to Danzig’s office. She shipped him straight through: “He’s tired. Take it easy.”

Danzig was wary: “There are rumors that you’ve gotten close to Madison Bowe.”

“They’re true,” Jake said. “But I’m still working for you—my loyalty runs to you. You don’t want to know everything that’s happened, but I think we’re in a place where everybody can be accommodated.”

Danzig nodded, and waited. He wasn’t giving anything away.

Jake said, “We need to get the package to the FBI. To Novatny, specifically. Novatny is willing to argue a particular view: that they should stick to the substance of the package, and not nitpick the procedure that got the package to them. So the question is, Where are you with the vice president?”

Danzig exhaled, relief showing on his face. “If they’ll do that . . .”

“We’re in a position to insist on it. I’ve already had a preliminary talk with Novatny, and he agreed; he said he was talking for Mavis Sanders, his boss. They have no idea of what’s coming and we’re delivering it to them. We had an absolutely solid reason for holding it for a few days, to check and make sure that it wasn’t a complete election-year fraud. When we realized it wasn’t, we acted as swiftly as anyone could expect . . . as long as we get it to them soon.”

Danzig nodded. “The vice president will resign tomorrow night. At one o’clock tomorrow afternoon, he’s going to call a press conference for seven o’clock, and he’ll announce that he’s leaving immediately. He wanted time to consult with his brother, which he’s done. If you were in a . . . condition . . . to take the package to the FBI, we thought you should do it, accompanied by the president’s counselor.”

“When?”

“Well, I think before the one-o’clock announcement. Word will start leaking about that time.”

Jake nodded. “I’ll need the originals.”

Using Danzig’s telephone, Jake called Madison on her cell phone. “Are you still talking to Novatny?”

“He’s here. We’re just finishing. And we’re not talking. We’ve offered to talk to a grand jury, if there is one, if we get immunity.”

“Are they going to go for it?”

“Nobody knows yet,” she said. She was crisp, controlled.

“Let me talk to him.”

He could hear Novatny fumble the phone: “Yeah?”

“Tell Mavis that we have a hot political package coming to you tomorrow, just after noon. She should alert the director, but don’t let it outside that circle. That’s absolutely critical. I’ll be at your office at noon, and you should have a lawyer with you to receive the package.”

“Is this the thing we were talking about?”

“It is—and Chuck, this is going to be the biggest deal since Bill Clinton’s blow job. You’ve got to be ready. You’ve got to be ready to brief the director, you’ve got to be ready for a media blitz.”

“I’ll move. I’m sending Mrs. Bowe home now.”

“Let me talk to her.” Madison came on and Jake said, “There’ll be about a million reporters at your house. I think it’s better to face the music now, rather than hide out.”

“I can handle it,” she said.

“I’m going to come by—I’d like to watch. From a distance.”

Late evening, Jake dealt the cards.

They were at Jake’s house, in the living room, the shades drawn. Somebody had tipped the media, or part of it, anyway, and three media trucks were parked in the street at the side of the house. “I’d have a hard time in prison,” Madison said. She picked up her hand, looked at it, picked three cards and tossed them in the discard pile, and added, “Give me three.”

“You’re not going to prison,” Jake said. He dropped three cards in the discard pile, dealt three to Madison, took three for himself.

“That’s really comforting.” She showed her hand to Jake: “Two sevens.”

Jake said, “Two jacks.”

Madison said, “Damnit, I can’t win with these cards.” She stood up, blew a hank of hair out of her face, and took off her blouse. “The TV people probably think we’re in here plotting strategy.”

“I am plotting strategy,” Jake said.

He collected the cards and shuffled. He hadn’t lost a hand yet. Madison watched him shuffle and her eyes narrowed: “Hey, are you cheating?”

“Would I cheat?” He shuffled a second time, glanced at her. She was watching his hands, and he thought how solemnly she was doing it. She was solemnly playing strip poker. He’d seen her laugh, frown, cry, groan—had seen any number of expressions, including a really nice snarl—but he’d never seen her smile with simple pleasure.

Late morning. One of Johnson Black’s assistants brought over two sacks of groceries, mostly vegetables, and Madison began making veggie chili, which she told Jake that he’d love. At noon, dressed in a blue suit with a green tie—not an intuitive match, Madison said, but it looked terrific—he got in the car and headed for the White House. The moment he backed into the alley, he was surrounded by shouting reporters. He eased through them and headed east.

Danzig, Gina, and the president’s counselor, a sober middle-aged woman from Indianapolis named Ellen Woods, were waiting in Danzig’s office. Woods had the package in a black leather portfolio. She was dressed in a blue power suit; her eyes were like black flint. “We want you to inventory the items before we go over,” she said, glancing at her watch.

Jake went through it quickly: it was intact. “It’s all here.”

“Then let’s do it,” she said.

They went in a presidential limo. Danzig called twice while they were en route, though the trip took only five minutes. “Just wondering if we were there yet,” Woods said dryly.