Authors: Steven Gore
A
n hour after he'd left the president, Landon Meyer was still light-headed with a kind of breathlessness he hadn't felt since his college rugby days when the world condensed into exhilarating, time-freezing moments. His hands vibrated as he raised the highball glass of bourbon from his desk to his lips.
H
e'd steeled himself as he was escorted into the Oval Office. President William Duncan sat in an elbowed mahogany armchair. Chief of staff Stuart Sheridan stood by a window facing the Rose Garden. Duncan only stood long enough to shake Landon's hand and to direct him to the couch.
It had never struck Landon more clearly than at that moment that if Brandon was his Machiavelli, then Sheridan was the president's. Except Duncan and Sheridan could have been twins separated at birth. Duncan had been raised in a coal-mining town and wore the weathered face of struggle, while Sheridan had summered in the Hamptons, a childhood of ease. Both were in their late sixties, hair dusted with gray, faces keen and self-satisfied despite the historic reversal of roles in the Su-preme Court nomination process that was moments away.
“I think we should skip the niceties,” President Duncan said, “and start at the bottom line.” He offered a thin smile. “We can make nice later, if necessary.”
“I've given this a great deal of consideration, Mr. Presidentâ”
Duncan raised his palm. “Skip that part.”
Landon felt himself redden as if he was receiving a dressing-down in front of his classmates.
“Mr. Presidentâ”
“The names, man. Just the names.”
Landon gave him the names.
Duncan and Sheridan glanced at each other, then both grinned at Landon.
The president spoke first. “Let's just call them Starsky and Hutch until we're ready to release it to the press.”
Landon leaned forward in his chair.
“That's it? No argument about you not wanting to waste political capital pushing through these nominations? Looking for a middle ground with the Democrats so you won't get pilloried like last time? A black? A woman? An Hispanic?”
Duncan shook his head. “Lame ducks don't need a middle groundâand this is about my legacy.” He rose. “I'm not blaming you personally, but for almost seven years Congress has been an evenly divided logjam. My so-called legislative agenda was stillborn. I could've spent my presidency fishing or clearing brush on a Texas ranch and it wouldn't have made much difference. Other than a tiny bit of tort reform and a few defense spending bills, I've accomplished nothing.” He spread his arms wide. “Nothing on abortion. Nothing on debt. Nothing on Social Security. Nothing on Alaska drilling. Nothing on nuclear power.”
“I'm not sure that's true,” Landon said. “What about economicâ”
“Diddly-squat. Extending NAFTA was diddly-squat, even less than diddly-squatâand the jury is still out about whether it helped us or hurt us.”
Sheridan approached them and then sat down and interjected himself into the conversation.
“The lesson since the days of Earl Warren,” Sheridan said, “is that if you can't win in Congress, drive your agenda through the Court.” He clenched his fist. “Just when the Democrats think they've won, we'll crush them.”
Duncan grabbed the conversation back.
“I'm willing to let my presidency rise and fall on whether weâyouâcan push Starsky and Hutch through the Senate. Let
Newsweek
call mine a failed presidency. I want to give history something different to write about: how my domination of the Court controlled the country for a hundred years after I was dead.”
Landon glanced over at Sheridan, expecting a
Sieg heil
salute.
“Starsky and Hutch are young enough to serve forty years each.” Duncan smiled again and threw up his hands. “Shoot, man, that's almost half a century right there, and it'll take another half century for anyone to undo what they accomplish.”
“But they're only two. I'm not sure you'll get another opportunity to make an appointment, so we'll only have a majority forâ”
“Twenty years is long enough to cast the die. Think of what Earl Warren did. The country still hasn't recovered from that disaster. We'll have a super majority: Starsky, Hutch, Robins, Ardino, Thompson, and Sunseri. Even if one gets weak-kneed, the rest can deliverâand nothing is off-limits.”
“Getting these nominees through the Senate will require a lot of money and a lot of horse trading, Mr. President. More than I think youâ”
“Damn right it will.” Duncan's face hardened. His voice pounded. “Trade them everything else. Let them turn all of Montana into a giant national park, let them double capital gains taxes, let them table the abortion bill until the year 3000, let them hand out condoms to sixth-gradersâI don't give a damn . . . but get . . . their . . . votes.”
Duncan walked to his desk and picked up a photograph of Ronald Reagan.
“If Reagan had been a Democrat, conservatives would have condemned him as one of the worst presidents in history. At the time, the highest deficits in U.S. history, tax rates through the roof, nothing on abortion, nothing on prayer in schools, drug war a complete failure, a balance of trade that left us drowning, welfare programs never bigger, Castro more powerful than ever. He can't even take credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union. It did itself in. Nobody in his administration had a clue about what was going on over there.”
Duncan stared at the photo. “But what he did was to articulate a unity of vision about what America was.” He opened a side drawer of his hand-carved mahogany desk and slid the photo inside. “All that morning-in-America stuff.” He turned back toward Landon. “The difference between Reagan and me is that I finally have a way to make the country actually match mine.”
T
he bourbon glass rattled as Landon set it down on the silver coaster on his deceased father's Georgian walnut desk. He could still see the dent where the old man had smashed the telephone handset when he learned Nixon had resignedâan act his father thereafter called the most sickening example of presidential cowardice in U.S. history. He even threatened to quit the Republican National Committee and devote the tens of millions of dollars he raised every year to creating a third party.
Landon rested his elbows on the blotter, then pressed his splayed fingers together. He stared through them into nothingness, thinking about the New Hampshire primary five months away, and about Duncan's last words:
“Get this done, Landon, and you'll own the primaries. I'll do whatever it takes to get you the nomination.” Then the self-deprecating smile that once charmed the nation, but now only made him look weak. “You can even hold the goddamn sword while I fall on it.”
Landon took in a long breath and exhaled. He'd been so swept up in the moment, in the grand images Duncan had painted, he'd failed to notice Duncan hadn't a clue why he'd chosen these particular nominees.
He smiled to himself as he imagined the president's fury when he finally realized he'd picked them to ensure not Duncan's legacyâbut his own.
V
iz drove them in silence from the cemetery south of San Francisco past the granite and marble City Hall and up the south side of Russian Hill. Gage's wife, Faith, and Socorro sat in the backseat, once best friends now reunited by the death of the man who'd kept them apart; a husband's fear of exposure having imposed a life of isolation on his wife.
From the front passenger seat, Gage watched the cacophony of architecture passing byâItalianate, Spanish Mission, Beaux Arts. It struck him that they had nothing in common but the arbitrary whims of a long-dead Barbary Coast elite made wealthy by gold and gambling, prostitution and corruption, each family attempting to impose its architectural will on an untamed city. Observing them now, Gage wondered whether that was the reason Charlie had insisted on buying the mansion in which they lived: an instance of glory-by-proxy, just as with his Hollywood clients.
Viz pulled his Yukon to the curb and shut off the engine. Gage reached for the door handle while gazing up at the Palmers' four-story Victorian, now restored to a perfect balance of yellow and blue, with accents in red; the colors stark and brutal in an afternoon sun that also shone down on a freshly turned grave.
A blur of motion and then a flash of blue against green caught Gage's eye. He jabbed a finger toward the bushes at the side of the house.
“A guy just went over the fence.” Gage swung open his door. “Black hair. Levi's. About five-ten. Heading north.”
Gage looked back at his wife and Socorro, then at the trailing car containing Socorro's son and daughter.
“Don't let anyone go inside,” Gage said. He then realized there might be confidential client files in Charlie's home office. “And don't call the police yet.” He turned to Viz. “You circle around. I'll try to cut through the block.”
Viz sprinted up the steep street while Gage ran down a neighbor's driveway and into the backyard. He spotted vertical scrape marks on the weathered wood fence, then called Viz on his cell.
“Looks like he's trying to get out to Union Street.”
Gage pulled himself over. A bullmastiff crouched at the opposite gate, barking at the memory of the burglar. The dog's eyes followed his ears around toward the crunch of Gage's dress shoes hitting the rock garden, mouth foaming, licking its lips. Gage slipped off his suit coat and wrapped it around his forearm, knowing a trained dog would go for his arm, while an untrained one would follow its instincts toward his throat. He knew he'd have to sacrifice the arm in either case.
A raspy female voice yelled from his left, “Get the hell out of my yard.”
Gage kept his eyes fixed on the dog, now poised for the attack, snarling, seeming to be begging for her command.
“A burglar just ran through here,” Gage said. He then glanced toward the open kitchen window and caught a glimpse of a tree stump of a woman with a bleached-blond flattop. “How about you control your dog so I can get after him?”
“Stallone! Sit.”
Stallone sat, still blocking the gate.
Gage's cell phone rang.
“I'm out . . . on Union.” Viz's breathing was explosive. “I missed him . . . Jumped into a new Lexus SUV . . . and took off.”
“You get the plate?”
“Too far away . . . didn't even get a good look . . . at the guy . . . Where are you?”
“In the backyard of the house just northeast of your sister's. A dog got in my way.”
“Need help?”
“The owner is coming out. I'll meet you on the front steps of Socorro's. Let's search the place before anyone else goes in and then check with the neighbors.”
G
age and Viz found Socorro setting a steamer of tamales on the cooktop when they walked into the kitchen after their fruitless neighborhood canvass. She was tall and slim; the pale brown skin of her mother combined with the gentle Irish features of her father.
“Anything missing?” Viz asked her.
“Not that I could see.” Socorro covered the pot and set her hot pads on the counter. “I'm not sure the burglar even made it past the living room.” She turned toward Gage. “Charlie once told me about criminals who read the obituaries and do break-ins during funerals.” She shrugged. “I guess that's what it was. I'm glad we got back in time so he didn't get anything.”
Gage pointed upward. “Did you check Charlie's office?”
“It's always a mess. I'm not sure you'll be able to tell anything. Faith and I glanced in. His computers are still there.”
“Mind if we look?”
“Of course not. But why his office? We keep the valuables in a safe in the bedroom. I already looked. It's untouched.”
Gage didn't want to worry her with his suspicion it was Charlie's work, not their personal possessions, that had been the target, so he said, “Just to be thorough.”
Gage and Viz walked down the hallway to the front staircase, passing Faith sitting with the Palmer children in the living room. They climbed three flights to reach Charlie's attic office. A month-and-a-half-old newspaper lying open on his desk told them the room had remained as Charlie had left it hours before he was shot. The shredder bin was overflowing. The bookcases were stacked with files and books both lined up and piled sideways.
“What was the guy searching for?” Viz asked as they surveyed the room.
Gage didn't have an answer.
“You think it has something to do with what Charlie wanted from you?”
“Has Socorro told you what it was?”
“She hasn't wanted to talk about it yet.”
Gage sat down at Charlie's desk, then jiggled the computer mouse, waking up the monitor. In a few clicks Gage found the list of recently accessed documents.
“Looks like the guy wasn't your everyday burglar,” Gage said. “He was opening files starting about an hour ago.”
“And your everyday burglar doesn't drive a new Lexus SUV.”
Gage's gaze shifted back and forth between the laptop and desktop computers, and asked, “Why didn't he just grab them and run?” But then he answered his own question. “He'd have to turn them off and he was afraid he couldn't get back in because he wouldn't know the passwords.”
Viz pointed downward. “And a lot of the files are stored on a server Charlie has hidden behind a wall in the basement. It would've taken the burglar hours to find it.”
Gage felt a moment of unease, almost of dread, for Socorro and her children. The ghosts of Charlie's past had not died with him, but had instead mutated into flesh and blood and had invaded their lives, and would again, unlessâ
He pointed at the computers.
“Let's copy everything onto one of our laptops so we can access the files later, then pack them up, along with the server, and take them to the office. And we better make a show of it so if the crook didn't get what he was searching for, he won't be coming back thinking there's something left to find.”
Viz locked his hands on his hips. Mouth tight. “It pisses me off. How could he do this to his family? They've got to live in fear for who knows how long because of the shit he pulled.”
Gage glanced at a twenty-five-year-old photo on the bookshelf of Charlie in his SFPD uniform. Even as a rookie, he had the dead eyes of a snake and a predator's grin.
“Your sister should've divorced him years ago,” Gage said. “At some point the illusion of first impressions must've worn thin enough to see through.”
“Even if it didâwhich I doubtâshe'd never divorce him,” Viz said. “She's too damn Catholic for her own good.”
Gage rose from the chair. “How come you're not?”
“By the time I was twelve, I was bigger than any two priests in the parish put together. They couldn't scare me anymore.”
Gage expected Viz to smile, but he didn't.
“I even coined my own two-word catechism. It came in real handy in Afghanistan.”
“What's that?”
“Fuck eternity.”