The Nominee

Twenty-One

Thursday, April 26

THE FIRST SENSATION WAS that of light, then of an unimaginable softness. I opened my eyes to see morning sunshine dappled across a vibrant white comforter in a bed fit for a sultan and his entire harem — a sharp contrast to my tomblike cabin with the worn wool blanket aboardThe Emancipation. I had just finished what may have been the soundest sleep I’ve ever had.

Where was I?

I don’t know, but it was too nice a place to inspire any worry. This wasn’t exactly the kind of environment where hostages were kept. I sat up and looked around at the tall windows and the crystal lamps and the foxhunting prints on the walls trying to answer that question, but my mind began drifting back to the recent past and immediate future.

I thought of Nathan, kindly old Nathan, dead at the hands of someone whose driving goal in life was to kill me. I thought of the meeting I had scheduled for that morning with Terry Campbell, who could well be behind all this. I thought of my appearance that afternoon before the executive committee of theRecord ’s board of directors in an effort to take control of the paper, or at least make sure Brent Cutter didn’t have it.

Then I thought of Elizabeth, her almost abnormally large eyes and the look of trauma and worry they carried last night as she walked across the lot, the way she had her hair pulled back in a ponytail as if she was twenty-three, not thirty-five, her tone of voice as she came rushing over to me.

And Travers, all cocky in that way of his, his arm draped over her shoulders as if he alone could make everything alright, as if he was meant to protect her from the dangers of the world that he knew so well.

Did she sleep with him last night? After I left in a pique of aggravation, did he return to her side like the opportunistic asshole I knew he was and remain there until she gradually gave in to the impulse that was so obviously present between them? Had they maintained a relationship for the past many months? Was she so drawn to him that she couldn’t help it? Was she with him right now?

I tore the comforter off my body and looked at the digits of an unfamiliar alarm clock sitting on an elegant nightstand that I had never seen before. 6:34, I assumedA.M.

“Rescue me?”

She was so sincere when she asked me this at Café Louis, her eyes at once playful and serious, wanting me to take the bait and lead the night from there.

“It’s my favorite car in the world.”

She was so familiar when she said this, so normal, so much herself. The oceans that stood between us seemed to drain, the walls began to crumble down, the almost unthinkable agony took a slot in the spectrum of human emotions, ready to give way to something else, like joy, understanding, comprehension, and perhaps even forgiveness.

“Maybe I better just take it to your place now.”

And she did. Would she have done that if she were head over heels for Travers? Would she even have been on a blind date with someone so famous as a professional baseball player?

All this is a long way of saying that I’m glad as hell I have a dog. He has more fidelity than Peter Lynch, his affections and loyalties never causing a doubt in the world. Speaking of whom, for safekeeping, he was now staying with friends in the nearby town of Weymouth, swimming at the beach and playing on their sprawling suburban lawn — meaning Baker, not Lynch, though I suspect old Peter’s lawn is nothing that Baker would sneeze at.

A firm rap on the door stirred me from my musings and forced me to figure out where the hell I was, which was the Four Seasons Hotel, according to the guide to hotel services on the desk, though don’t ask me my room number. Then I remembered. The police wanted to searchThe Emancipation for explosives, so rather than wait up until they were done, I decided to bill theRecord for a night in a decent hotel where I could catch a few solid hours of sleep and the cops would have an easier time offering protection. And as an added bonus, maybe I would commune with John Cutter.

I got a clean bill from an emergency room doctor, though I didn’t discuss with him the most obvious threat to my good health, that being the masked man who seemed hell-bent on my destruction.

By the way, a word about good hotels: love. Two more: unbridled joy. Even inside this place, which I associate with John Cutter’s death, I love the soothing, light colors. I love the same-day laundry. I love the elegant moldings and the painted armoire that tactfully hides the twenty-inch television with on-call movies that I had never seen in the theater, because I haven’t gone since Elizabeth and I parted ways. I love the free overnight shoeshine. I love the room service waiters who wheel your steak frites and homemade crème brulée into the room and lift the silver dome as if they were introducing the first act of a Broadway play.

Most especially, I loved the fact that I wasn’t on that goddamned boat with all the creaky noises and the constant rocking and the smell of mustiness every way you turned your nose.

The knock sounded again.

I threw on a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans from an overnight bag that sat unzipped on the floor and opened the door. An unfamiliar uniformed cop standing with his back to me turned around, startled.

“You knocked?” I asked.

“Not me,” he replied, looking at me suspiciously.

“Someone did.”

He drew his gun. Now let’s everyone just calm down here. For all I knew, it was one of those aforementioned room service waiters who was about to be felled before he could get me a buttermilk waffle with warm maple syrup and a sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar — a surprise from the nice management.

As we stood in my doorway, the knocking sounded yet again, from inside, harder and longer.

“Stay here,” the patrolman said as he pushed past me into the room. The officer stood in front of the door to the adjoining room, flipped the latch, and opened it.

In walked Hank Sweeney. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that he came with me last night, another beneficiary of theRecord ’s unknowing and newfound largesse. It was the least I could do for a guy who leaped into a freezing harbor to try to protect me from an unknown killer and well-known sub-zero elements.

Sweeney and the cop exchanged casual greetings like they knew each other, then he turned to me and said, “You get your needed shut-eye?”

I walked back into my room as the patrolman walked out. My hair was matted in some spots and no doubt sticking straight up in others. My eyes felt caked in sleep, and my arms and legs were still heavy from the aqua exploits of the prior night.

I didn’t answer, instead asking, “Christ, how early do you get up?”

“For good, or to go to the bathroom, because I do that every hour or so.” He laughed, then said, “Oh, I’ve been up for about an hour now. I went down to the lobby for breakfast. A couple of eggs with some sausage and hash browns and coffee costs thirty-two dollars. It’s six dollars for a glass of OJ. Six bucks! The waitress said I could just charge my room. I hope you’re not going to get fired.”

I said, “I might, but not because you had the lumberjack special.”

“Oh, I brought up the papers.” He walked into the open door to his adjoining room, then came back and tossed theRecord, theTraveler and theNew York Times on the bed with a pleasant-sounding thud.

“You mind if I make a long-distance call?”

I shook my head as I glanced at the papers. TheRecord played its story on the cover of the second section, the City page, its headline reading, “Mariner Killed in Harborside Cottage.” Many graphs into our account, it noted a chase by sea and helicopter, but it said that details were still sketchy. I purposely played no role reporting or writing the story whatsoever, and felt bad about that, but not so bad that I was ready to correct the record, so to speak — not, at least, until I got a handle on what the hell was going on here. Overall, nothing particularly, or even remotely, revelatory.

TheTraveler had a front-page headline saying, “Old Salt is peppered.” Obnoxious as hell, but you have to give them credit for creativity. ANew York Post reporter once explained to me that the four best words any tabloid editor can put in their front page headline are cops, dogs, tots, and hero. He said his dream headline would be, “Hero Cop Saves Dog and Tots.” Someday.

Scanning down, it was the drop head — the smaller headline right beneath it — that caused me to jump: “Link toRecord slaying probed.”

The second name in the double-truck byline was none other than Elizabeth Riggs, former girlfriend, ace reporter, ruthless bitch. I’m sorry, did I just say that?

The story went on to say that victim Nathan Bowe was murdered just a hundred feet or so from the yacht in which “noted”Record reporter Jack Flynn lived. All I’ve done in this business, and the competition begrudgingly describes me as “noted.” Maybe I would have been better off following my father’s path into the pressroom. Sure, the hours are awful, but no one’s taking potshots at me all over the place.

Anyway, the story also detailed how Flynn — that’s me — was currently being protected by two city police officers, who were working as bodyguards, following an attempt on his life earlier in the week, according to police sources familiar with the case. As I was reading the story, I thought that whoever wanted me dead might have it easy, because my head was ready to explode right there and then. Either Elizabeth took what I told her and stuck it in print, or Luke Travers gave her basically the same information, and she assumed carte blanche about using it without violating my trust.

Either way, I had been completely used, and I was made to look like an absolute fool. Close followers of Boston’s legendary newspaper competition might note that theRecord had not yet had word one about the threat on my life, and today’s editions carried no reference to any possible link. I know one true thing in life, and that’s this: I don’t like to lose.

I came to a full boil, then tried to bring myself back to a rapid simmer. On the other side of the room Sweeney talked into the telephone to what sounded like an answering machine, with a slightly softer voice than normal. “Hey there, Mother. I’m in Boston. Weather’s great, a lot cooler than what we’re used to. Jack and I have already talked quite a bit, and I’m going to hang around here for a day or two and see if I can’t help him out. I’ll give you another call soon.”

By now, Sweeney had hung up the phone and was staring at me staring at nothing.

“You okay?” he asked, concerned. I shook my head.

“What is it?”

I shook my head again. No one who’s never worked in a newsroom understands the nature of the competition, the intensity of it all, the humiliation of such public defeat. Everyone just thinks news is news, and if one paper, one network, has something that no one else does, then that’s just fine because everyone else is just going to put it into print or on the air the next day, right?

Wrong, but that’s another story, and one I didn’t feel like telling right there and then to Hank Sweeney, wonderful a guy as he is.

So I pushed it to the back of my mind and considered my new reality, which seemed to be a life on the precipice of death, if one bungling assassin had his way. Physically, I felt a little weak but generally fine, which is to say, I don’t think I was ready to take a dip at Carson Beach with the L Street Brownies, but I was certainly ready to do just about anything else, first and foremost being rescue the family-owned newspaper that isThe Boston Record.

I asked Sweeney, apropos of nothing, “Why’d you jump in the water last night?”

He fidgeted a bit in a boyish kind of way and said, “I don’t know. You were wet. I was dry. You were in the harbor. I was on land. Seemed like the right thing to do.”

I smiled at him and said, “Well, thank you.”

He nodded, modestly. “It’s my job.”

He’s retired, but I didn’t have the heart to point that out to him. Instead, I smiled again and said, “You were a big help.”

“Screw you.”

With that declaration, he stood up straight, slapped his hands on his thighs and said, “Well, I have a Kleenex to find, or at least a report about same.”

I gave him my cell phone number and asked him to call me with whatever he found, whenever he found it.

“Guy in my complex had one of those. All I have to do is dial it directly and the call goes right to you, right? It’s not like a pager where you call me back and all that?”

“That’s right.”

“Amazing.”

It is. A guy who can put people away for life based on the most advanced, scientific mitochondrial DNA testing is wowed by a cellular telephone.

I looked around the room at all these new creature comforts and the stunning view of the sun-splashed park outside the massive windows, and said to him, “If you don’t mind, plan on staying here again tonight. We’re a little exposed on that boat.” I caught myself and added, “Assuming you’re able to stay again tonight.”

He nodded. “Mother’s going to love it when I show up at home with all these fancy soaps and shampoos.”

As soon as he left, I snapped up the bedside phone and called one Vinny Mongillo, who was no doubt sweating buckets on the treadmill at his luxury gymnasium. Not quite sevenA.M., and he picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Mongillo here.”

“Flynn here.”

“Jesus Christ, Jack, I had a cat growing up who didn’t have as many lives as you do.”

“Yeah, but he was probably better with a litter box.”

All right, weak, I know, but note the aforementioned time.

“I got skunked by theTraveler today, by Elizabeth. Come hell or high water, we’re getting that Randolph story in tomorrow’s paper. We’re coming back at them with a vengeance.”

By the way, this is worth noting. When you lose on a story, the only possible antidote is to kick the living hell out of the competition the very next day, to kick them so hard they lose their ability to even come back at you. It’s not often I lose to begin with, but when I do, watch out. Someone pays. In this particular case, it would be Randolph. In war — and that’s what newspaper competition often feels like — I believe this is called collateral damage.

“I’m with you.”

“I’m going to have to lean hard on you to put it together. I’ve done a lot of the work over the last couple of weeks, but I’ll meet you in the newsroom later today to go over it.”

The phone wasn’t down but five seconds when it rang and I stared at it for a long moment, wondering who the hell knew I was here. Twenty minutes ago, I didn’t even know I was here.

I picked it up. It was 6:55, according to the alarm clock next to the phone.

“Jack, it’s Elizabeth. We have to talk.”

“Damn right we do. You screwed me, big-time. That why you came over the other night, to pump me for information? That why you wanted to leave the restaurant with me last night? Are you that desperate for a scrap of news that you trade on our former—” emphasis placed here on the word “former”—“relationship?”

“Jack, first off, the other reporter got the bodyguard info independently. Once we had that, the editors were doing a story with me or without me. I added the stuff on the possible link because I couldn’t imagine that you wouldn’t use it. I wasn’t looking to beat you on your own attempted murder. I just couldn’t let theTraveler fall behind.”

The word bullshit comes to mind, but I had to give her one point: I should have used the material myself. I was spread too thin, I was running so hard, that I was losing some of my judgment.

She said, “We need to meet. I want to go over something with you.”

“No way, not today. You’re the competition, which became painfully obvious in this morning’s paper. After this is over.”

“Then it may be too late.”

She was good at piquing my curiosity. She was also an excellent reporter, among other things. But I resisted.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I said. “Today’s just not going to work.”

She began arguing, but the other line rang, the noise jolting me upward as I sat on the edge of the sun-splashed bed. What, did everyone but Mr. Magoo know exactly where I was supposed to be, quote/unquote, hiding?

“Hold on.” I pressed the hold button, then the button for the other phone line, and announced, “Jack Flynn here.”

“You fucking prick. Let me tell you something, you fuck. When you least expect it, you’re going to turn around and feel the cold barrel of my gun pressed up against your forehead.”

The voice, that of a seething, irrationally angry man, was too familiar, as, unfortunately, was his message. “Who is this?” I asked. Dumb question, I know. I wondered if anyone has ever answered it honestly and thoughtfully.

Not yet sevenA.M., and I had my ex-girlfriend on Line 1 and my would-be killer on Line 2. I didn’t know which one could do me more harm.

“I’m the guy who’s going to kill you. I’m the last guy you’re ever going to see alive. I’m the guy you’re going to beg and plead and cry in front of, and when you’re done, I’m going to stick three bullets in your stupid fucking brain and watch you die, just like I did with your publisher. Then I’m going to spit on your bloody fucking face.”

He certainly had a way with words, my intended assassin. By now, I recognized his voice as the one I heard a few nights before—“Fucking dog,” he said in that same contemptuous way — on the basketball court.

I quickly reached into the top drawer of the nightstand, pulled out the Holy Bible, and flung it across the room at the door, hoping it might deliver yet another miracle. Sure enough, there was a knock, a cop yelling, “You all right,” and then a key in the hole.

When the officer walked in the room, I pointed at the phone and mouthed the words, “Killer on Line 2.” Hey, it’s a life, albeit a threatened one.

I said into the phone, “Why don’t we meet someplace and talk this thing through?”

“We’ll meet,” he said. “We’ll fucking meet. We’ll meet exactly when I want us to meet, and it will be the last thing you ever do.”

Across the room, the cop whispered into his portable radio. In front of me, the light for Line 1 continued to flash.

“Look, let’s just talk about this for a damned minute.”

He laughed into the phone, a sinister, wheezy laugh, and said, “Fuck yourself.”

He hung up just as three plainclothes officers rushed into the room.

I immediately pressed Line 1 and said, “I’m going to have to call you back.” And I hung up, Elizabeth’s voice leaking from the receiver as I thrust it down.