Final Stroke (46 page)

The truck continued past him down the narrow access road to
ward the main lot. Steve watched it in his side mirror. It said, “Christ Health Care Supplies” on its back doors and as he stared at the reced
ing truck, strange thoughts went through his mind. When he was young, his mother had wanted him to become a priest. He wasn’t sure if he actually remembered this or if he was simply recalling what he’d been told by Jan following the stroke. His mother had wanted him to become more Christ-like. But this also seemed strange because in his mind now was an intense feeling that Christ was evil. No, not Christ, not Jesus Christ himself. A friend of Jesus Christ. Yes, a friend of Jesus Christ would come along next time to warn him about his inter
est in how Marjorie slipped and fell in the hallway near the janitors’ closet where he was first warned by—what was his name?—Tyrone! Yes, Tyrone had warned him in the janitors’ closet, and very recently— was it last night?—Tyrone had warned him again. And within that warning had been the threat that a friend of Christ himself would come next time.

He cranked the steering wheel around and floored the Lincoln, spinning the tires on the lawn and squealing them on the access road as he chased after the Christ Health Care truck. Probably because the truck slowed down in the lot so as not to attract the attention of the cops next to Jan’s car, he caught up to it on the main road just beyond the traffic signal at the Hell in the Woods entrance.

The truck had double rear wheels and he knew it was not the vehi
cle with the single set of rain tires. Also, it was not one of the vehicles on his list. But the fact the truck was here now, with Jan missing and someone worried about what she knew and what he knew, along with the fact the driver of the truck seemed in a hurry … all of this was enough to make him follow.

Maybe he’d been wrong all along in thinking Marjorie’s death had something to do with her family, or with some conspiracy. Maybe the aide named Tyrone really did have something to do with her death. And if he did, then maybe Tyrone, and whoever was driving the Christ truck, knew where Jan was.

As the truck moved farther away from Hell in the Woods, the driver eased off, not seeming so much in a hurry. And in the traffic, Steve was able to tuck in close behind, out of sight of the side mirrors, and imagine that maybe Jan was in the back of the truck. Or, if not, maybe the truck had been sent after him and, having failed to find him in his room on the third floor, was returning to wherever Jan was being held. Maybe the leather jacket guy from the television lounge, having discovered that he was missing from his room, was also inside the Christ Health Care truck.

Details. A reason for everything. A reason for living. The engine of the Lincoln responding to his left foot as he tailgates the truck on which the word “Christ” is stenciled. The word “Christ” drawing him forward toward salvation.

Toward Jan.

As Valdez exited east on Interstate 290, he saw a sign announcing the
y
were on the Eisenhower Expressway and he thought, yet another ex

pressway named after a dead President. On the Eisenhower, traffic slowed and became sluggish, making Valdez think of sluggish econ
omies and inflation and recessions of the past. Spray lifting from the wet pavement coated the windshield of the rental car. The wiper blades, obviously in need of changing, left phlegmy streaks that re
flected red taillights and yellowish overhead lights. Beside him, Han-ley cleared his throat as if about to say something, but was silent.

Their last conversation had been about Jimmy Carter’s defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and about an unnecessary con
spiracy to guarantee the election’s outcome. Valdez wondered if Jimmy Carter would ever have expressways named after him. Perhaps he al
ready did in Georgia, but Valdez had not traveled to Atlanta in a while and was not sure. The Jimmy Carter Expressway simply sounded like something that should be on evening traffic reports in Atlanta.

Valdez thought back to his phone conversation with Skinner on the secure line as he was about to eat his dinner back in his Miami apartment. Although the phone call had been earlier in the day, it seemed like several days had gone by. He should have known when he became part of Operation Maturity that it would some day come to this. Clever name, Skinner had insisted in the beginning. OM as in Old Man, from his and Skinner’s amateur radio days, but in this case it really meant Old Men because there were several still alive who knew of the various election games played in recent decades.

Although one side of the political spectrum played a little rougher, both sides had played these games. And, Valdez knew, both sides and the entire political fabric of the nation would be severely damaged if any of the games were revealed. The media and the public were ex cited by contests. They cheered and jeered the contestants as if they were sports figures, but in the end they would abandon the game if they knew what had gone on behind the scenes. In a way the nation
would have a stroke, a final stroke in which the stroke victims forget everything handed down by the forefathers.

When traffic slowed to a crawl, Valdez was able to turn off the windshield wipers. He glanced toward the passenger seat. Although it was dark out, the overhead expressway lights allowed him to see Han-ley had closed his eyes.

“Looks like it will be a while before we arrive at the rehabilitation facility,” he said.

“So it does,” said Hanley, opening his eyes.

“You don’t seem anxious about it.”

Hanley cleared his throat. “I’m not. Our contact will wait for us. Whatever happens happens.”

“That’s not like you,” said Valdez.

“It’s the weather this evening,” said Hanley. “Did you ever notice that when the weather is like this, the years seem to catch up?”

“Yes,” said Valdez. “I was just having nostalgic thoughts. Ex
pressways named after Presidents who were in power when we were young men.”

“I know they’ve got an Eisenhower and a Kennedy Expressway in Chicago,” said Hanley. “What others do they have?”

“The others are named after local dead politicians,” said Valdez. “Except the Stevenson. From Illinois, but a national figure. Remem
ber Stevenson at the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis?”

“I do,” said Hanley. Then in an oratorical voice, “Mr. Ambassa
dor, I’m prepared to wait until Hell freezes over for your answer.”

Valdez chuckled, “Now we really sound like two old goats.”

“But not old enough to know about those elections,” said Hanley.

“What about them?” asked Valdez.

“I was simply wondering if tricks had been played during the Eisenhower-Stevenson or Kennedy-Nixon campaigns. I guess enough
time has passed. By the time someone decides to look into those elec tions in more detail, any heads that might have rolled will be six feet under.”

“I know what you mean,” said Valdez, as he signaled to move into the right lane.

“Is our exit coming up?” asked Hanley. “I didn’t hear the GPS lady.”

“Not yet,” said Valdez. “But I can see by the arrow on the display that our exit will be on the right and I don’t want to be held hostage in this lane.”

“That’s a telling comment,” said Hanley.

“What is?”

“Being held hostage,” said Hanley. “You’ve obviously been con
templating what I said earlier.”

“What’s that?” asked Valdez.

“Come now,” said Hanley, turning part way toward him in his seat. “You know what this is all about.”

“How could I?”

“Skinner’s spoken to you, too, hasn’t he?”

“He has,” said Valdez.

Hanley turned back to the windshield and looked ahead. “Yes, he told me you knew some of it. And I can only assume you’ve guessed the rest.” Hanley smiled at the windshield. “Mentioning hostages like that.”

“All right,” said Valdez. “Maybe I guessed the hostages were pur
posely held until Reagan was inaugurated. But many pundits and bloggers have also pondered this.”

“It’s not so much the timing of the release,” said Hanley. “More important are the maneuverings that took place in order to return Iran’s eight billion in frozen assets. Part of the maneuvering that oc curred can be linked directly to the situation we’ve been assigned to
address. In short, if someone manages to follow the money—all of the money—they might find out that a portion of the frozen assets, albeit a tiny portion, was liquidated by a long-gone idiot who funneled funds to Illinois.”

The GPS lady interrupted, saying to prepare to exit on the right in two miles. Traffic still crawled, so despite the GPS lady’s forewarning, it would be a distant two miles.

Valdez turned to glance at Hanley, then looked back out at the tail
lights of the car ahead. “There can’t be many who know about this.”

“Let’s hope not,” said Hanley.

Hanley turned in his seat again, this time to reach into the back seat. He retrieved one of the briefcases they had picked up at the com
pany warehouse, placed the briefcase on his lap, and stared back out the windshield at the traffic.

Steve pulled alongside the truck at a stoplight to take a look at the driver. Because of the height of the truck, he had to lean to the side toward the passenger window in order to look up at the driver. Nor
mally this would not have been a problem. But he was a stroker, his brain thinking the right foot would take care of things as the left foot slipped off the brake allowing the Lincoln to roll forward into the intersection. A car speeding across the intersection swerved and sounded its horn as Steve sat back behind the wheel and slammed the brake back on.

He glanced into the mirror to make sure no one was behind him, then put the Lincoln in reverse and backed up. After he reached over with his left hand and put the transmission into Park, he leaned over again to have a look. Inside the truck, a man with dark hair held
something white to his face. When the man removed the white thing, holding it in front of him and looking at it in the glow from the street light above, Steve saw what looked like a handkerchief.

The man’s nose was bleeding. A flat nose. A flat nose and some
thing familiar in the man’s eyes when he suddenly glanced down at Steve. The man’s eyes opened wide for a second before he faced for
ward and the truck’s engine roared and the letters “C-h-r-i-s-t” flashed past as the truck sped away.

As Steve chased the truck, weaving in and out of traffic, his left foot back and forth between gas and brake, his left hand dancing on the wheel like that of a mad puppeteer, memories of where he’d seen the man with the flat nose emerged from the traffic jam in his head.

Hell in the Woods. Someone on staff. No, with someone. Tyrone. The man with the flat nose had been with Tyrone in a small dimly lit place that smells of cleaning fluids and the sweat of angry men. The janitors’ closet.

The truck turned west, then north, then east, trying to lose him on dark narrow side streets. When the truck sideswiped a double-parked car, Steve knew the chase was on. When he sideswiped the same car, the jolt sent spasms of pain through his right side. He thought he heard himself shouting in pain, but his voice came to him from a dis
tance. There was no time for pain. Not here, not now. He glanced in his mirror and realized the shouting in the distance came from a man running down the middle of the street.