Target Lancer

CHAPTER 19

Near the freight elevators was a little office area where I used a wall phone. No police sirens cut the air-just those sound trucks, which a glance out a window told me were actually police cars with uniformed cops hanging out rider’s windows with bullhorns to announce the President’s cancelation.

As for the cancelation of those two snipers, no sign that anyone had noticed any part of that episode presented itself. The warehouse area on West Jackson was really just a bunch of empty buildings-IPP working on Saturdays was the exception not the rule around here-and anybody normally in those buildings had probably been down lining the sidewalks waiting for the motorcade. As far as I could tell, no other buildings or even the expressway had a view of that rooftop, where the body of the black-butch sniper was just a vague shape near a rooftop edge, anyway.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to considering just digging out that nine-millimeter slug from the wooden floor, where it had deposited itself after traveling through the blond assassin’s Ray-Bans and brain, and wiping down the M-1 I’d borrowed to eliminate the other assassin, and fuck it, walk away. Wasn’t like that janitor was liable to provide much of a description of me.

But I was law enforcement today, not the free agent I usually was, and I had a responsibility to Bobby Kennedy and even these great United States. Besides, it was odds on that this would be covered up-that neither the Justice Department nor the Secret Service would want word getting out that two assassins were killed while lying in wait for a Presidential parade. Not good press. Not good press at all.

So what to do?

I called the Cook County sheriff’s office and asked for Dick Cain, knowing he’d be out in the field, maybe Soldier Field, still caught up in this presidential trip that wasn’t happening.

“Patch me through,” I said. “Tell him it’s Nate Heller and that it’s important.”

Getting Cain took five minutes that only felt like five hours. The small solace was that in the meantime nobody came running up the stairs with guns to arrest me or kill me or anything. Two dead, and even the janitor hadn’t noticed, which was no surprise.

“Nate,” Dick said, outdoors apparently, maybe using the radio mike in his car, “what is it?”

I told him what had happened.

“First,” he said, “change your story. What went down with the first sniper, don’t change a thing. That’s heroic stuff, my friend. But the second guy? Best say that you looked through the sniper scope, saw that other sniper aiming back at you, and fired in self-defense.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding to myself. I probably would have come up with that myself on the walk back to the Federal Building, but I thanked Dick for the advice and pledged I’d take it.

“Second,” he said, “why the hell are you calling me? I’m with the Cook County Sheriff, in case you forgot.”

“I need these shooting scenes secured before I go back and tell Martineau how I saved the President from getting shot on the trip he didn’t take.”

“Oh. See what you mean. You can’t risk either of those bodies being found and this thing spiraling out of control.”

I was nodding again, like the phone had eyes. “This can’t go public till we know what the official story’s going to be. I could go downstairs and find a cop easy enough-that motorcade’s going on without Kennedy, for some reason, which means there’s still crowd control down there. But I’d have to take potluck.”

“And in Commissioner Wilson’s brave new world, when you call a cop, how do you know what you’re getting? I follow you. You want me to send some of my boys over, or reach out to dependable fellas on the PD?”

“I’ll leave that to you, Dick.”

“Consider it done.”

“So then … I can just walk away?”

“Yeah. You go fill Martineau in. He’s probably back by now-he left O’Hare when the call came from D.C., canceling.”

“Is that where you are, O’Hare?”

“Yeah. We still have Senators Dirksen and Douglas taking the motorcade into town, plus Justice Goldberg, Bob Kennedy’s guy Katzenbach, a few other dimly lit luminaries. Nice to know that even if the President can’t make it, the crowds can go wild getting a load of the comptroller of the currency.”

I laughed at that. “Yeah. And what teenage girl doesn’t go to bed dreaming about Everett Dirksen? Listen, Dick, thanks for this. I knew you were the right guy to call.”

So I took the stairs down, did not encounter the janitor on the way out, and headed back for the Federal Building. Sunny but cool, the walk felt good.

When I got to the ninth-floor offices of the Secret Service, the bullpen was about half full, guys pulled back in from duty that no longer mattered. Martineau’s office blinds were down, but he proved to be home.

I stuck my head in. “Marty, got a few minutes?”

He looked none the worse for wear, after this frantic, stressful morning, working at his desk in his suit coat. Those wiggle-worm eyebrows made his frown look unfriendly, but that was more concern than anything.

“Nate, where the hell have you been?”

I shut the door behind me, went over and sat across from him, feeling very much like a juvie reporting to the high-school principal. I kept the report short and factual, except for the self-defense aspect Dick Cain had suggested, and as dry and humorless as if I’d been a Secret Service agent all my career. Easy to play it straight when the cordite is still clinging inside your nostrils.

Throughout, the broad-shouldered chief was rocking gently in his big swivel chair, his hands tented before him. His expression remained blank but for eyes that were moving in thought. When I’d finished my report, I didn’t prompt him for a reaction. He would give it to me in due time.

Finally Martineau leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk and clasping his hands, as if we were about to say grace. I hoped I wasn’t the meal.

“Chief Cain has secured the scene?”

“If not, he soon will have. Either with his own SIU guys or with reliable PD.”

His sigh damn near ruffled papers on his desk. “Nate, you did the right thing. You may have saved the President’s life … yes, I know he canceled, but having two armed, trained assassins floating around out there, with Lancer as their target, would be unacceptable. We might prefer them in custody…”

Interesting choice: might prefer to have them in custody.

“… but we certainly like having them out of the game. You did well calling Chief Cain. I didn’t realize you were aware of his special status.”

“What special status is that?”

Martineau shrugged. “I don’t entirely know, I was just told to work with him on this Presidential visit. He apparently is a government asset. I would assume of the Company. Both the Cook County Sheriff’s Department and the Chicago PD have a strong working relationship with the CIA, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

That seemed to faintly amuse him. “In this day and age, Nate? Local police in big cities routinely take specialized counterintelligence training with the spooks. Anyway, Cain will help us make this go away.”

I’d been right. This would be covered up.

Martineau sighed again, not so big this time. “The President has a number of scheduled trips on the docket, and I’ve already spoken to your boss-Robert Kennedy, I mean-and he wants no publicity on this assassination plot.”

That didn’t surprise me.

“What about Vallee?” I asked. “Is he still loose out there?”

Martineau’s head snapped back a little and he grinned. “No, didn’t anyone tell you? He’s in Interview One, right now. Lieutenant Gross and Sergeant Shoppa brought him in about fifteen minutes ago. We haven’t even had time to question him.”

“You mean, he’s not a priority anymore?”

“Not really. Just another crank. We’ve had other fish to fry-actually, we’ve already had an agents’ meeting about the general situation.”

I hadn’t been able to attend, busy managing the scenes of two shootings. Of mine. Still, it must have been a short meeting.

“What did I miss, Marty?”

“Well, you’re aware we’ve been operating on a non-documentary basis-strictly oral reports. On Monday, every agent involved in this investigation of potential motorcade assassins will spend time with Charlotte dictating oral reports.”

Charlotte was the top secretary around here.

“From these typed reports,” he said, “I will write an overview that will remain top secret-with our COS designation-which I will send by special courier to Chief Rowley.”

“COS?”

“Central Office Secret. You can see how this benefits your situation.”

I did. I had just killed two suspects and would not have to answer any detailed questions, no hearings, no shooting board, no nothing.

“And the two Cubans?”

Martineau shrugged. “They’ll be released shortly.”

“What the hell?”

“Nate, we don’t have an iota of evidence on them. Checks we’ve run bring up no outstanding warrants, and only back up their cover story. The sole indication that they’re dangerous comes from the FBI, who don’t want any part of this. What else can we do?”

“I saw them with those white pricks!”

“What white pricks?”

He had a point.

“And Vallee?”

“We’ll be turning him over to the Chicago police this afternoon.”

“On what charge?”

“The one Shoppa and Gross hauled him in on-concealed weapons. He was making an illegal left-hand turn; they pulled him over, and saw a hunting knife on the rider’s seat. When his trunk was searched, cartons of ammunition, an M-1 and a.22 revolver were found.”

“Who’s interrogating him?”

“Nobody. What about, at this point? We yanked him off the street to keep a lid on him while the President was in town. And the President isn’t coming. Anyway, Vallee’s just another nut. The team of four were the main attraction.”

“Mind if I have a chat with Vallee?”

“Be my guest.”

I got up and was halfway out when Martineau said, “We do appreciate everything you’ve done. That was a dangerous situation this morning, at that printer’s. I think you handled it well.”

“I appreciate that, Marty.”

“I can’t imagine how chilling it must have been, looking through that sniper scope and seeing another rifle aiming back at you.” He seemed to actually shiver. “That you had the presence of mind to just … take him out, before he could do the same to you? Well, it’s something not just anybody could do.”

I nodded at him. That wasn’t close to what really happened, but what could I say? On the other hand, the way I really handled it wasn’t something just anybody could do, either.

Shoppa and Gross were standing outside Interview One. The two Pickpocket Detail cops were in street clothes, per good surveillance technique, stocky Shoppa in a who-shot-the-couch blue-and-white-speckled sport coat over a white open-neck shirt, horsey Gross in a baggy brown suit and a yellow shirt with no tie. They looked happy but beat, having logged plenty of hours babysitting Vallee. Shoppa was smoking a cigar, Gross a cigarette.

“So you nailed him on a left-hand turn, huh?” I said with a grin. “Nothing like good, solid police work.”

“Some of the best goddamn arrests,” Shoppa said, mildly defensive, “grow out of traffic violations.”

“How’d it go down, exactly?”

Gross said, “We’d been tailing Vallee since around eight. We figured he was headed in to work, but then he was just, I don’t know, driving. We didn’t know what the hell he was up to. I’ll be seeing the ass end of that piece of shit white Ford in my sleep.”

Shoppa shrugged. “He was turning west onto Wilson from Damen, heading toward the expressway. Figured he was finally going to that printing plant.”

“They were closed today,” I said.

“Yeah,” Shoppa said, and exhaled cheap cigar smoke. “We didn’t hear about that till we hauled his ass in.”

“When was that?”

Shoppa shrugged. “Must’ve been ten after nine.” He looked at his partner. “Nine-fifteen?”

Gross shrugged, nodded. “He didn’t have any firearms on his person, but his trunk was a friggin’ arsenal. Seven hundred fifty rounds for that rifle of his.” He grinned and looked even more like a horse. “Think we’ll get a thank-you note from JFK?”

“Maybe not,” I said.

“Fuck it,” Shoppa said, and blew a smoke ring. “I was a Nixon man anyway.”

I gestured toward the interview room. “Martineau said I could take a crack at him.”

Shoppa farted with his lips. “Move in with him and pick out furniture, for all I care. I don’t wanna waste my time with that screwball.”

When I went in, the sight of Vallee gave me a little start-seated military straight on his side of the scarred table, wearing a white T-shirt with a blue and black plaid shirt over it, damn near identical to the ensemble worn by that blond assassin I’d shot right in the Ray-Bans. Identical, too, was the military-style butch haircut, and the hair color and general Nordic cast of the features.

Vallee was smaller than the late blond, whose face had been narrower; but the resemblance did shake me some.

Settling in opposite him, I said, “Good morning, Tommy. Remember me?”

He frowned, and the big blue eyes under the slightly Neanderthal shelf of forehead narrowed but didn’t blink. “We spoke at the Eat Rite. Were you undercover?”

“Guess you could say that. I was checking you out on a tip from a cop who heard you making threatening remarks about the President.”

A tiny sneer on the pinched little mouth accompanied a grunt of a laugh. “I’ve never made a secret of how I feel about Kennedy. We’ll be in serious trouble unless Goldwater is elected, you know. But I never really threatened him.”

“Sure you did.”

“Negative. That was all just figures of speech. Hyper boly.” He meant “hyperbole.”

“Okay.” I had photos of the Cubans and the two white snipers in my inside jacket pocket. I got them out and pushed them across to Vallee. “Know any of these fellas?”

“Negative.”

“Not either one of these white fellas? In the service, maybe?”

“No, sir.”

I tapped the photos of Gonzales and Rodriguez. “These other two are Cuban. And you trained Cuban exiles near Levittown, right? Maybe you met them there. Look again. Maybe you met just one of ’em.”

He looked. He did look. Shook his head. “Negative.”

“Where was it you served in Korea, Tom?”

“Mostly I was stationed in Japan.”

“Whereabouts in Japan?”

“Camp Otsu.”

That meant nothing to me.

I asked, “What did you do there?”

“That’s classified, sir.”

“Weren’t you just a private? With no special skills? Why would what you did in Japan be classified?”

“Well … Camp Otsu was a U-2 base, sir. Back in those days, that was top secret stuff.”

Goose bumps danced on my neck. Ruby’s friend Lee had bragged to me about service at a U-2 base in Japan.

I said, “U-2-wasn’t that program the CIA’s baby?”

“Affirmative.”

“Tommy … were you working for the CIA over there?”

“I’m sorry, but I was told that was classified.”

“Well, since you got out of the Marines … have you worked with the CIA?”

“That’s classified, too.” His eyebrows scrunched. “Were you really a Marine?”

“I was.”

“And your name really is Heller?”

“It is.”

“So not everything was lies when we talked.”

“Not at all.”

“Are you with the Company, too, Mr. Heller? Are you debriefing me?”

Christ. I didn’t like where this was heading. For example, if he’d been training Cuban exiles on Long Island, that likely made him some small part, at least, of Operation Mongoose.

“You could call it that, Tommy. Were you on your way to work when those Chicago cops stopped you today?”

“Negative. We were closed today.”

“Were you heading there, anyway? To IPP? Or maybe to some other building on West Jackson?”

“Negative.”

“Okay. What were you doing with all that ammunition and those guns in your trunk?”

“Could I see your ID?”

I showed him the Justice Department credentials. He frowned as he examined them-they weren’t Central Intelligence Agency, but they were official, all right. And not Secret Service.

He sat and mulled that for a good thirty seconds. Then he swallowed. He’d decided what he wanted to say.

“I wasn’t planning to shoot the President. I think somebody thinks I was. Because I work on West Jackson. And the motorcade would go right by, and getting off a shot wouldn’t be hard. But that was never my intention. I think … I think I’m being framed for this.”

“Really.”

He nodded. “I got a call from someone I trust. I don’t want to say more. I can’t say more. But it was an opportunity for me to make some money this morning.”

I was ahead of him. “When the cops stopped you, you were on your way somewhere to sell guns and ammunition. You had a buyer.”

He nodded. “The deal was to go down at a parking lot in the Loop. I was supposed to wait there. An unspecified time. As long as it took. But I never made it-around nine-fifteen, those cops pulled me over.” The big eyes grew wider. “Is he all right?”

“Is who all right?”

He seemed very earnest. Like he might cry. “The President. Did someone shoot him?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I think somebody knew about how I felt toward him. Somebody with special knowledge about me and my background and my beliefs. But I’m a good American and a former Marine and wouldn’t do that. I speak my dissatisfied mind under the Freedom of Speech. But I didn’t do it, Mr. Heller. I was framed.”

I raised a calming palm. “Nobody did anything, Tommy. The President canceled his trip.”

He blinked. Sat back. “Nobody told me.”

I rose. “You relax. I don’t think you’ll get anything out of this arrest except maybe a fine. Maybe an overnight stay in lockup. Okay?”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I went out and found Shoppa and Gross sitting at a vacant desk they’d commandeered, having coffee. Shoppa was lighting his latest noxious cigar.

I said, “Did you fellas know the President’s trip had been canceled when you pulled Vallee over?”

They looked blankly at me, and then the same way at each other, and then Shoppa shrugged and waved out his match and said, “Yeah, it came over the radio right around nine.”

Official word hadn’t gone out till around 9:15. Those cops in squad cars with bullhorns had been at maybe 9:20 or 9:25. But law enforcement involved in motorcade security would have been told first. At nine.

I asked perhaps too casually, “Why did you wait till after the trip had been canceled to pull Vallee off the street?”

Shoppa’s expression darkened. “We didn’t pull him over till he made that wrong turn! We couldn’t nab him for no fuckin’ reason, Heller!”

Like that had ever stopped the Chicago police.

Shoppa’s cigar jutted from a corner of his mouth. “What the hell are you implying?”

“Nothing. Just that you were asked to pull Vallee off the street because he’s a danger to the President, and it’s interesting you didn’t get around to that till the President wasn’t in danger anymore.”

Shoppa and Gross just laughed and waved me off, like I was a gnat too tiny to warrant swatting. Then, as if I had vanished in a cloud of pixie dust, they returned to their coffee and conversation, and one of the Secret Service crew cuts tapped me on the shoulder.

“Chief Cain of the SIU is in your office, Nate.” He pointed, as if I might have forgotten the way. “Waiting to talk to you.”

“Thanks.”

I wanted to talk to him, too.

CHAPTER 20

I shut myself in my office with Dick Cain, who was already settled in the visitor’s chair, his feet up on my desk, drinking a bottle of Coke he had wangled from somewhere. The reddish-brown-haired detective was in an olive Ivy League suit and his socks were dark green with black brogans.

“Make yourself at home, why don’t you?” I said, sitting across from him.

He removed his feet, grinned at me, set the Coke on a scrap of paper, then settled back in the chair. His green-eyed gaze behind the black-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses would have been reassuring had it not been for that milky left eye.

“Everything is copasetic,” he said, and gestured with two open palms. “You never shot anybody. Those two white kids never existed. You want the details?”

“Hell no.” I leaned back. “But I would like to know what the fuck is really going on.”

Dick just grinned at me. “What do you mean, what the fuck is really going on?”

“Like-what’s this about you being a Company guy?”

He shrugged. “I’m not a Company guy. You mean CIA? That’s bullshit.”

“Utter bullshit? Complete bullshit? Or just plain bullshit?”

He smirked and batted the air dismissively. “I did some electronic jobs for them when I had my office down in Mexico-during that little hiatus between my Chicago PD time and this sheriff’s office gig. So what? Lots of Chicago cops have done business with those spooks. Taken training, traded favors.”

“Cops like Shoppa and Gross out there?”

“Yeah. Sure. What of it?”

I was shaking my head. “I don’t know, Dick. I don’t know. But some things are starting to make sense to me. A kind of a theory is forming.”

He reached for the Coke, swigged it. “This oughta be good.”

“That kid Thomas Arthur Vallee, sitting in Interview One right now? What if he was supposed to be the patsy today? Put in position to take the fall for the real shooters-the ones that disappeared? Remember them?”

He snorted a laugh. “My understanding is that kid is a screwball. A fag screwball at that.”

“Right. And he’d have been the fag screwball ex-Marine who popped the President, all on his own. Crazy collage in his apartment, lots of big talk about killing JFK, ties to the John Birch Society, perfect.”

“Nate. Really. Stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“Why, is it an accident Vallee and the real printing-plant shooter wore the same fucking shirt today? Is it just a coincidence that the two Chicago cops assigned to bring in the nut who threatened Kennedy waited till the President’s trip got canceled before doing it? I’m supposed to believe your handpicked dicks didn’t intend to follow Vallee to that parking lot, where he was heading to a nonexistent gun sale?”

“And do what?”

“What do you think? Wait for word that JFK had been shot, after which they would bring the schmuck in to fit some early suspect description. Or maybe just force or stage a shoot-out. Didn’t you leave the force ’cause they thought you’d staged a shoot-out, Dick?”

Cain’s expression darkened and he sat forward and clunked the now-empty Coke bottle hard on my desk. “Are you serious about this?”

“I always get serious after I kill a couple of nameless assholes. I’m sensitive that way. Were those soldier boys Company, too, Dick? How about the Cubans? Are they assets? Like Vallee is an asset, only smarter, and up a level or two?”

“You really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Has the CIA finally had it up to here with those skirt-chasing Kennedy boys? Or is this just rogue elements, still sulking over the Bay of Pigs? Gung ho to get rid of JFK, and set up some schmuck like the Vallee kid to take the fall?”

Now he laughed, or pretended to. He got out his pack of Dunhills-moving carefully, I noted-and lit one up. Sucked smoke in. Let it out.

“Quite a yarn, Nate. Why don’t you go next door and try peddling it to Martineau? Wait … I know! It’s because it’s a pile of unbelievable crap. Why are you telling me all this? You think I’m part of it, this James Bond coup you concocted? I didn’t know you smoked the same cigarettes as your musician pals.”

“I have no idea who the mastermind is,” I admitted. “Hoffa? Marcello? Giancana? Maybe Trafficante, or maybe take one from column A, two from column B. Probably not Johnny Rosselli. Certainly not you. You were a kind of point man, weren’t you?”

He seemed about to rise. “If you’re gonna keep this up, I’ve got better things to do.…”

“You know me, and you know me well. When I turned up as a bodyguard for Tom Ellison, at that money drop, that meant Ellison wasn’t following orders. In fact, he’d pulled in Nate Heller of all people, a guy already connected to some of the players and a snoop to boot. You figured it wise to do something about it. About Ellison, anyway, who was the kind of civilian who could prove to be a problem. Me, an insider with my own dirty laundry, different story. You stayed close to me, showing up at the hotel crime scene, to see if I could be handled, or at least sent off in the wrong direction.”

“I was there, Nate, because the victim had your card in his damn billfold.”

“No he didn’t. I never gave Ellison my card.”

He was leaning far forward now, a vein throbbing in his forehead. “You think I killed Tom Ellison?”

“Well, Mad Sam probably killed Tom. Ice pick. Right height, too. I’d almost pay to see Sam in a bellboy outfit, though, if that’s how he swung it. No, you ordered the hit, or Rosselli, or you two came to the mutual conclusion that Ellison was a loose end. What made him important enough a loose end to tie off, I still can’t figure. But in a plot to kill the President-”

“You really think I orchestrated a plot to kill the president?”

“You’re part of it. But it failed, didn’t it? It fucking failed.”

He flopped back in the chair and he was grinning, but it was forced. He did have a gun under his left shoulder-his tailor wasn’t as good as mine.

“Nate-you’re kidding, right? This is your idea of a Second City skit or some shit.”

“No, Dick, I think I’m right on the money. Not that there’s anything I can do about it. I could warn Bobby, but I don’t exactly think you’re gonna try again. Not with the scheme exposed. You fucked up. You failed. It’s over.”

He got to his feet, stubbed out the Dunhill in an ashtray on my desk. He was smiling, and it wasn’t pretty, not with that milky-eyed stare a part of it. “I’m not saying there’s anything to this, Nate. But keep a couple of things in mind. You shot two men today, and I covered it up for you. And do I have to whisper those two little words? The ones that guarantee you can’t go public?”

Operation Mongoose.

I said, “Why kill Ellison over Jack Ruby getting passed ten measly grand?”

Suddenly Dick’s expression carried a remarkable lack of human emotion, and it came to me that his Dana Andrews-ish features had probably never worn any actual human emotion. He was one of those guys missing a small but vital part of the machinery we call humanity-an alien from Planet X who could only imitate human feeling.

He said, “I thought you had everything figured out, Nate. But you don’t, because there is nothing to figure out. You’re a paranoid seeing spooks in a big dark old house. You don’t have any evidence, not a shred. You’re just a guy who has had a very tough week who is walkin’ around delirious on his damn feet. You go around spewing crazy ideas like these, you might have problems, even though there’s nothing to it.”

Cain was right. And I was on dangerous ground.

“Not from me,” he said with a grin. A practiced grin, it now seemed. “But these wild accusations, about those kind of people-Rosselli, Hoffa, and on up that ladder you mentioned-a guy can wake up dead.”

I thought about killing him right there. It might be the only way to protect myself, and-more important-my son. But alone on some deserted warehouse floor of a printing plant was one thing. Next door to the Chicago chief of the Secret Service was another.

“You’re right,” I said. Sighed, shook my head, and gave him a grin as phony but I hoped believable as the one he’d just flashed me. “I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s the Mexican food I had last night. Maybe I should get a good night’s sleep for a change.”

Actually I’d slept long and well last night.

Cain seemed relieved. Whether he really was or not, who could say?

And now he summoned compassion, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. “Look, old friend-you killed a couple guys this morning. That’s enough to sit anybody back on their ass. Enough to get the nuttiest thoughts going. You’ll keep all this craziness to yourself?”

I grunted a laugh. “Keep what to myself? Sorry, Dick. It just all sort of seemed to fit. You’re right-I sound screwier than that Vallee kid. Forget I said any of it.”

“Sure.” He rose and ambled to the door, then paused there, a hand on the knob. “You forget all of it, too.”

“Sure.”

He gave me an unfiltered smile that would have made the devil jump. “Or do you actually believe that load of horseshit, Nate? You wouldn’t be harboring any ideas of settling up with me, would you?”

“No.”

Not today.

I said, “I just want to get the hell out of this government job and back into the private sector. But enough of that horseshit just might be true, Dick, that I don’t think I ever want to see you again.”

“Nate…”

“Stay away from me and the people I care about, amigo, and I will cut you a wide swath. We were friends long enough that I owe you that much.”

Like hell.

“All right, Nate.” He gave up an easygoing shrug. “You and I, we’ll keep our distance. For now, anyway. But here’s what I would say to you, if that fever dream you shared happened to have any truth in it-stay on the sidelines, and I give you my word, no reprisals. You’ve never been a political animal, and there are changes coming that are way out of your league. Nothing you can understand, or do anything about. If a guy wants to die, that can always be arranged. If a guy just wants to be ignored, that can be arranged, too.”

Then he was gone, and I settled back in my chair and I was shaking.

Fucking shaking.

We had been friends for many years, we had done each other favors, and I had relished his loose way with the rules, always a plus in a friend in law enforcement, but now I realized, not too late I hoped, that I was Abel in this relationship and that bastard was Cain.

When I felt like myself again, I looked around this office I’d inhabited since Tuesday and realized it bore no traces of my presence whatsoever. Nothing to pack. Nothing of me in here at all.

This time Martineau’s door was closed. I knocked, got permission to enter and did.

“Marty,” I said from the doorway, “consider this my resignation from the Secret Service.”

He smiled. “I’m glad the AG assigned you here for this case. And I appreciate everything you did for us.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Would you do me a small favor? Use your influence to make your pals in the Service keep a very damn sharp eye out on these upcoming presidential trips.”

“Nate, we always do.”

“I know, I know. But this isn’t just the messed-up likes of Vallee anymore. Four gunmen, Marty, that’s a full-blown conspiracy. And you’ll be cutting two of the players loose this afternoon.”

“I hear you.”

“Good.”

“Listen, Nate, you’ll still need to come in on Monday to sit down with Charlotte and dictate your report. You know, for me to include in the overview I’ll be doing for Chief Rowley.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t make it.”

“You need to try. I’m sure, after almost a week away, you have matters at the A-1 that needed tending to … but we need to wrap this up, officially.”

“Marty, I won’t be in,” I said. “I’m sorry, but it really doesn’t matter.”

“Why is that, Nate?”

“Marty, don’t you know? I was never here.”