The Plan

Chapter 20.

RYAN AND RELLICA HAD FOUND AN EDIT BAY AT DES Moines University in the journalism school. The monitor flickered as they set to work editing Prairie Fire.

"Look at this asshole," she said as a shot of Haze appeared on her monitor.

"Stop bitching and help me cut this together, will ya? We have to have it by morning." Both knew he had won the debate. Both felt they were on the wrong side, helping a man with no moral convictions. The thought caused the atmosphere in the cluttered room to be thick and cold.

"Doesn't it bother you that this guy is just reading lines A. J. stuffs in him?"

"Fuck yes, it bothers me," he snapped. "But I'm a TV producer, not a political scientist."

"Last night I was sleeping in the back of the van and this piece of sour shit jumped on Susan Winter's bones in the barn. There they were grabbing each other's buns, pants down around their knees, huffing and woofing. And I kept saying to myself, 'This guy could be my next President.' " She turned and focused a withering gaze at him. "You know what really pisses me off, Ryan?"

He waited, knowing there was no way to stop her.

"What really pisses me off is I'm helping this asshole." He felt the same way but he was trapped.

They looked at each other in the very small room on the second floor of the J. Building. A winter wind was blowing outside and the bare branches of a deciduous tree tapped softly on the window, disrupting the heavy silence between them.

She shut off the editing machine.

"I'm outta here," she said softly. "You don't have to pay me because I didn't finish the job. Matter of fact, I don't want to be paid. I wouldn't be able to spend the money with a clear conscience." She picked up her purse. "Lemme ask you a question… If Haze Richards doesn't do his own thinking, doesn't have any courage, and is morally corrupt, how can you make this documentary, how can you get up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror?"

He had no answer for her.

"You're a good guy, Ryan, but if you stay on his campaign, you're going to regret it," she said, giving words to his exact thoughts. Then she walked out of the edit bay.

Ryan stood there thinking about what she said.

He had gone through his life with emotional blinders on. He had been a golden boy to whom everything had come easy athletic fame, career success. He had never looked directly at any hard reality, choosing instead to avoid the conflict. And now, at age thirty-five, with his son dead, his marriage and career shattered, it was all bubbling up, the molten residue of all of the ugliness in his life that he'd refused to deal with. He felt surrounded by his life's mistakes, picking up and examining each charred piece. What was this? Oh, yes, Christmas Eve. I realized I didn't love my wife but never dealt with it for five years. What was this? Oh, yes, that was my boyhood pal, Terry, floating at the bottom of the pool. And this… Mau was taken from me because I didn't deserve him. And this… this piece of emotional poison… Ryan Bolt is not about anything.

Ryan Bolt is not about anything. Ryan Bolt is about what other people think. And Mickey Alo, my old friend from prep school, is probably a Mafia hood. Ryan had always suspected it… He had even read an article in Newsweek on organized crime in which Joseph Alo had been mentioned. He'd brought it up to Mickey, when they were just out of college. Mickey had flown into a rage.

"My father owns restaurants. His family is from Sicily. Sometimes, mob guys eat in his places. That's not a crime. He's never been indicted. It's bullshit."

Ryan had let it drop. It was easier not to push it. What did it matter to him? But now he couldn't avoid it. Mickey got him this job. A. J. had been on the phone in Mickey's den talking about money from the Bahamas. Offshore cash. It didn't take a genius to figure out where it came from or where it was going. If organized crime was behind Haze Richards, if he was their handpicked puppet, then the implications could be devastating.

He sat down on the edit bay desk and listened to the gusting wind outside that brushed the tree limb against the window. Tap-tap-tap. He glanced out at the empty branches swaying in the wind and wondered if he could face these old emotional grenades-wondered if he could deal with his new suspicions-wondered if he was strong enough to try.

The bony-finger twig at the end of the branch hit the window, trying to get his attention. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-taptap.