Power Blind (31 page)
Authors: Steven Gore
T
ansy Amaro was weeping when she appeared at Gage's office door, shoulders shuddering, face buried in her hands. He walked around his desk and put his arm around her.
“Is it Moki?” he asked.
She shook her head and pointed at the television next to the corner safe. He walked over to his desk, picked up the remote, and punched the on button. It was already tuned to CNN.
News anchor Warren Jennings stared into the camera.
The screen-in-screen showed a satellite image of Mount Shasta in Northern California.
“As you just heard, Oregon senator Edward Lightfoot's twin engine Cessna crashed into California's Mount Shasta at about ten-fifteen this morning, just forty minutes ago.”
The satellite image was replaced by a close-up of the snow-covered crash scene. The word “Live” was pasted across the top of the screen in red letters.
“Mount Shasta is part of the Cascade Range and rises 14,162 feet above sea level. It's a dormant volcano, having last erupted two hundred years ago.”
Jennings pointed at the image.
“The specific area of the crash is called Avalanche Gulch at about 8,000 feetâwe're now receiving a feed from a KORE television helicopter above the crash scene. Let's listen in.”
Gage returned to stand next to Tansy as an urgent female voice emerged from the stuttering roar of the helicopter.
“There's no way anyone could've survived.”
The camera scanned the mountainside.
“Debris is scattered for a half a mile.”
The camera drew back. Antlike figures dressed in yellow and orange parkas picked their way across the snowfield toward the broken fuselage.
“A search and rescue team has just been lowered to the crash site.”
Jennings spoke again.
“On the telephone from Klamath Falls, Oregon, is Republican Congressman Doyle Ludlow. Thank you for speaking to us at this difficult time.”
Jennings didn't wait for a response.
“Do you know what Senator Lightfoot was doing in Northern California?”
“I can only tell you that during congressional recesses he would return to Oregon and fly major financial supporters around. One of his favorite trips was to follow the Hells Corner Gorge down into California and circle Mount Shasta. It's a spectacular sight. Sometimesâ”
“Sorry to cut you off, Congressman. If you'll stand by a moment.”
Jennings pressed his fingers to his earbud.
“We've just learned from the FAA that Senator Lightfoot filed a flight plan in Klamath Falls for exactly that.”
Jennings looked into the camera as a photograph of the congressman appeared on the screen behind him.
“You were saying, Congressman?”
“Even though Senator Lightfoot's parents moved from the Klamath Indian Reservation before he was born, he'd often fly into local airports and pick up Native American kids and follow the same route.”
“Do you know whether any children were on this flight?”
“I have no way of knowing. But I do know Senator Lightfoot was a hero to them.”
“For our audience who don't know Senator Lightfoot's background, could you give us a thumbnail?”
“He played football at the University of Washington, got an MBA, and then went into real estate. He was elected to the Klamath Falls City Council, then the state assembly and later to the congressional seat I now occupy. He was the first and last Democrat to hold the seat since 1940. He actually encouraged me to run to take his place when he decided to try for the Senate.”
“But you're a Republican.”
“Edward Lightfoot didn't believe public service should only be performed by Democrats. After the election, and even though he fought tooth and nail for my opponent, he let me stay with him in his D.C. townhouse until I found a place of my own.”
Ludlow paused, then chuckled.
“Not many people outside of Oregon know this, but the senator's nickname in the late 1960s was El Camino.”
“El Camino? Like the car?”
“For two years he traveled the country living in the back of his Chevy trying to unite the various Indian tribes into what later developed into the American Indian Movement. He started in the Northwest with the Klamath and Modoc and worked his way south to the Apache and Yaqui, then headed east. When I was a little kid, everybody, even the Indians, wanted to be cowboys when we played cowboys and Indians. By the time he was done, all the kids wanted to be the Indians.”
Ludlow chuckled again.
“It became damn hard to find a willing cowboy . . . People . . . people whoâ”
Ludlow's voice cracked. He caught his breath.
“Sorry . . .”
Ludlow cleared this throat.
“People who didn't know him will never understand what a gem he was.”
His voice cracked again, now on the verge of tears.
“Man, I'm going to miss that guy . . . I . . . I need to hang up.”
G
age wondered how long it would take before Jennings felt that Lightfoot was dead long enough to talk about the impact on the Supreme Court nominations. Gage's guess wasn't off by much. Eleven minutes later, the screen-in-screen showed CNN's chief Washington correspondent.
“What effect will this have on the nominations, Jane?”
“Absolutely none. You have a Democratic governor who'll simply replace Senator Lightfoot with another Democrat, maybe even the senator's wife. She's very popular in Oregon.”
A tally sheet of expected votes for the nomination appeared on the screen.
Gage's cell phone rang. It was Alex Z. “Are you watching the news?”
“Tansy just came in.”
“They've got it all wrong.”
“Who are they?”
“Jennings and his crew. I know. I checked the Oregon state Web site. The governor of Oregon can't appoint anyone to fill Lightfoot's seat.”
“You mean it has to be done by election?”
“Exactly. And there isn't time between now and the confirmation votes.”
“So the president doesn't need the vice president's vote any more to break a tie.”
“And that pulls the nuclear option off the table,” Alex Z said. “The Democrats' filibuster pitch was wholly based on a kind of separation of powers argument, that the vice president as part of the executive branch shouldn't be playing a due role in a matter like this. Now they don't have toâsounds to me like the Democrats should've made a different argument.”
“I guess they didn't know Lightfoot's plane was going to crash,” Gage said, then felt his hand tighten around his phone, fearing that there were those who did.
C
ongratulations, Landon,” President Duncan's voice was cheerful, gloating.
Landon Meyer turned off the sound from the FOX News broadcast in his Manchester, New Hampshire, hotel room and pushed himself to his feet.
“But Mr. President, Ed Lightfoot wasâ”
“Serves him right. You know what he called me last week?”
“No. I've been campaigning.”
“A buffoon. He called me a buffoon.”
Landon felt anger surge.
You
are
a buffoon.
“He once called me a fascist on the Senate floor. It's no reason to celebrate his death.”
Maybe what the public thinks about politicians like me is right
, Landon thought.
He felt himself cringe.
Silliness
.
Why did I use the word “silliness” in talking to Gage in Iowa? Four dead refinery workers and I called it silliness.
Damn, what Gage must think of me now.
“He sure as hell would've celebrated mine,” Duncan said.
“I don't think so Mr. President.”
You son of a bitch.
“In fact, I'm sure he wouldn't have.”
“Doesn't make a difference. The nomination fight is over. It's just a matter of counting down the last forty-eight hours.”
L
andon sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the now silent cell phone. A wrenching, nightmarish image of Ed Lightfoot's mangled body invaded his mind: hands that no longer reached out, a face that no longer smiled, a heart now motionless in his chest. Landon tried to fight off the image, but felt himself well up, then his whole body shook with grief, with anger, and with self-reproach.
Silliness.
What kind of devil have I become?
Y
ou sure this isn't going to make things worse?” Viz was parked three blocks from City Hall on the route Brandon Meyer had walked on the night of his scuffle with John Porzolkiewski. “And isn't this going to turn you into a Charlie Palmer?”
“Charlie Palmer would've gone public just with the condom.”
“I don't know boss, this is pretty close to blackmail.”
“You want to bail out?”
Viz laughed. “No way. Finding that asshole buck naked on top of some hooker will be the highlight of my career.”
J
udge Brandon Meyer emerged from the north door of the Federal Building at six-fifteen, jaywalked across the street, turned right up the sidewalk, then headed into the Tenderloin. He'd changed from his suit into a knit shirt and slacks. Out of his robes and in a San Francisco Giants jacket and cap, none of the drug dealers and hookers on the street would recognize him.
“I still don't get why he'd choose the Tenderloin.” Viz said.
“Think about it. There's not a person on the street who's not watching for police surveillance 24â7. They don't always spot it, but they start yelling when they do. And he sure isn't going to bump into a fellow member of the Opera Guild or the Yale Club up here at night.”
Gage watched Brandon glance at a middle-aged, dark-skinned woman wearing a grimy overcoat pushing a grocery cart filled with cans and bottles. Brandon turned north on Larkin and fell in behind an obese hooker, his eyes fixated on her thong-cinched butt extending below a silver miniskirt.
“Take her, take her,” Viz pleaded into his cell phone. “I want that picture.”
The cart lady stopped to search the garbage can, then continued up the street.
“What about the one with the grocery cart?” Gage asked.
Viz laughed. “I know for sure she's not his type.”
Gage started up his truck.
“I'll swing around and try to get a couple of blocks up the hill above him.”
He skirted Larkin until he got into position, then Viz came on:
“He just turned left on Geary.”
Brandon had disappeared by the time Gage found a place to park on the crowded street. He punched a number into his cell phone as he watched the cart lady slip into a recessed doorway. She answered on the second ring.
“Where'd he go?”
“The McCall Hotel,” Tansy answered in an excited whisper. “This is a kick. Why haven't you let me do this kind of thing before? It's like being invisible.” She laughed. “Except for the smell.”
“Did he meet anyone?”
“No. He didn't even stop at the desk. He just walked right past and to the elevator.”
“Good work. Why don't you go back to the office and get cleaned up.”
“You sure you don't want me to hangâ”
“No. Viz and I'll take it from here.”
T
he thirty-something clerk behind the bulletproof reception window of the residential hotel glanced up at the sound of Gage's knocking. He leaned forward in his chair and put down a worn paperback on the desk. Gage saw it was Jean Paul Sartre's
Being and Nothingness
. Only in San Francisco, Gage thought, do hotel clerks read French philosophy.
The clerk reached for a registration card.
“You don't need that,” Gage said. “I'm looking for someone.”
The clerk offered a bucktooth grin.
“Everybody's looking for somebody, pal, but I can't help you, unless you got a warrant or something.”
“We're not cops.”
“Tough break.”
Gage heard the hotel door swing open fifteen feet away, then stayed silent as a skinny sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl in pink hooker shorts walked behind them and toward the elevator. Two men sitting on soiled couches along the opposite wall tracked her like homeless men watching a ladle of mashed potatoes heading toward their plates at the Salvation Army dining room.
Gage looked back at the clerk. “How much for her?”
The clerk shook his head. “She's taken.” He pointed toward the rooms above. “Got a regular. Maybe you can catch her on the way out.”
Gage shook his head. “Looks like jailbait to me.”
“I wouldn't know. We don't check IDs.”
“What about the ID of the guy in the Giants jacket who came by here a little while ago?”
The clerk's face hardened. “What about him?”
“You know who he is?”
“Yeah, asshole. His name is John-Doe-who-pays-his-rent-on-time.”
“Hey, man,” Gage said. “Don't get your back up. This isn't about you.”
Gage reached into the inside pocket of his windbreaker, then made a show of looking at the clerk's paperback. He pulled out two hundred dollars and held it against his chest so the men behind him couldn't see it.
“You ever read Sartre's
Transcendence of the Ego
?” Gage asked, then set the bills in the tray at the bottom of the window. “You should buy a copy.”
The clerk grinned and reached for the cash.
“Room 923.”
Viz took his phone out of his pocket as they rode the elevator and set it to take video. He cupped it in his hand when they stepped out on the ninth floor. Television shows and muffled arguments reverberated down the hallway as they walked along the stained and cigarette-burned carpet. Gage put his ear to the door when they arrived at 923, but couldn't make out any sounds. He wondered whether they were a few minutes too early for the heavy breathing.
“Can you pop the door without kicking it?” Gage whispered. “Too noisy.”
Viz braced his shoulder against it. He gave it a push, but it didn't budge. He straightened up. “It's too solid.”
Gage nodded. Viz took a step back and then kicked the door just above the handle. The frame exploded and the door flew open. Viz rushed in, phone ready to take video.
Gage remained in the hallway, scanning up and down. He pointed at every face that appeared, then toward the inside of the resident's room. Each in turn ducked back inside.
Only then did Gage step into the room. A condemned man strapped to a gurney in a gas chamber couldn't have looked more terrified than Brandon Meyer.
Viz stood over him.
Gage reached for his cell phone.
“Joe, I'm at the McCall Hotel. You need to come over here.”
“Is it about Meyer?”
“Yeah.”
“I can't. The U.S. Attorney told meâ”
“Forget what he told you. It isn't his career on the line.”