The Nomination (10 page)

“I'm sorry,” said Jill. “It's not from . . .”

Simone nodded. “I guess not.”

“What about a nice hot cup of tea, then?”

“Thank you, dear,” said Simone. “Tea would be lovely.”

After Jill left the room, Simone opened the envelope and withdrew a single folded sheet of white stationery and a handful of photographs. She put aside the photos and unfolded the note.

She glanced first at the signature at the bottom.

“Bunny.”

Bunny Brubaker was the only “Bunny” Simone knew, but that had been over thirty years ago.

“Dear Li An,” Bunny's note began.

Li An! An avalanche of memories washed over her.

Simone quickly read the note. “It's been a long time,” Bunny had written. “I've been trying to live the quiet life in Key Largo. I've thought of you often, followed your career. I read the gossip, of course. I didn't believe a bit of it.

“I figured it would be best if I did not try to get in touch with you. It would only remind us of back then, and I figured it was better for both of us to leave all that behind us. What happened is ancient history, and I never saw any reason to dredge it up. Best if you and I just went our separate ways.

“However, I wanted you to have these photos. Something happened recently that inspired me to dig them out.

“Now, I think, we need to talk. Here's a number where I'm staying. I'll wait to hear from you. In the meantime, please keep the photos in a safe place. They're all we have left of those days.”

Simone placed Bunny's letter on her lap and absentmindedly smoothed it flat. She gazed up at the ceiling for a moment, then picked up the handful of photos and thumbed through them. Her tremors were bad today—or maybe it was the photos, not the disease, that caused the trembling—and she quickly put the photos down.

Her eyes blurred. The memories were still vivid, the pain still palpable.

How young they had been. How innocent. How desperate. How frightened.

How utterly corrupt.

Thomas Larrigan. Bunny Brubaker. Eddie Moran. All of that had been thousands of miles and one long lifetime ago. So far from this quiet place that had become her sanctuary.

She picked up one of the photos and looked at it again. It showed Thomas and Eddie and Bunny. And Simone herself. Li An, back then. So young, Simone thought. I was a mere child among these adults.

Thomas was holding little May—she couldn't have been more than a month old—cradled in one arm. His other arm held Li An close to his side. They were all smiling.

Simone touched this photo lightly with her fingertip, tracing the outline of the sleeping baby's tiny face.

A tear fell onto the photograph, and Simone realized that she had been silently weeping. Such a maelstrom of emotions she was feeling. Sadness, loss, anger, yes, but those almost-forgotten moments of love and joy had come storming back, too. All the emotions that she'd succeeded in repressing for all these years. They had never really left. They'd been waiting for release.

Her chest ached with an awful foreboding. First it was seeing May's picture—Carol Ann Chang, which Simone knew was not her real name, but it was, she felt certain, her face—in the newspaper.

Now this.

She picked up Bunny's note and reread it. “I think we need to talk,” she had written.

No, no
, thought Simone.
I do not want to talk. I do not want to think about any of that. I cannot bear feeling it all over again.

But she knew she had to do it. Fate had taken the decision out of her hands. Two pictures of May within a week of each other. First May the grown woman, strong and beautiful. Then May the infant, small and helpless.

Simone did not believe in coincidence. There was a purpose to everything. It was time to confront her destiny, while she still could. She understood now that she could no longer escape it.

She picked up her cell phone and pecked out the number Bunny had written.

A female voice, unmistakably southern, answered. “Motel. How may I help you?”

“May I speak with Bunny Brubaker, please?” said Simone.

“Is she a guest here, ma'am?”

“Yes, I believe so,” said Simone.

“Y'all have a room number?”

“Sorry, I do not. Is there a Ms. Brubaker registered there?”

“I'll check. Just hold on for a minute, please.”

A moment later the woman returned. “I'm sorry, ma'am. No Brubaker registered here.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes'm.”

“Well, thank you.”

Simone disconnected. She looked again at the postmark on the envelope. Four days earlier. Bunny had said she'd be there, waiting for her call. For some reason, she had changed her mind.

Simone let out a long breath. She realized she was vastly relieved. She didn't want to talk to Bunny Brubaker. She didn't want to think about those times.

She looked again at the one photograph that showed all of them. She laid it on her lap. Then she slid Bunny's note and all the other photographs back into the big envelope.
I should probably burn all of it
, she thought.
No good can ever come of it
.

Then she thought,
No, I will save them so I can show them to May
.

When Jill came back with two mugs of steaming herbal tea, she said, “Are you all right?”

Simone handed her the envelope. “Put these away for me, please, dear.”

She watched as Jill went to the rolltop desk against the inside wall of the sunporch, opened the bottom right-hand drawer, and placed Bunny's envelope in there along with the other documents—the contracts, the citizenship papers, the birth certificate, the marriage certificate—and the handgun wrapped in its oily cloth, and the box of bullets.

Simone noticed how Jill hesitated whenever she saw the gun. Jill hated guns, said it was dangerous to have one in the house, and Simone supposed she was right.

But she felt better, knowing that the gun was handy.

Jill came back and sat down beside the wheelchair. “Dr. Mattes will be here tomorrow afternoon.”

Simone nodded. “Good. He is a nice man.”

Jill pointed at the photograph on Simone's lap. “What's that?”

Simone handed it to Jill. “It is from a very long time ago.”

Jill looked at it. “I recognize you. Who are the other people?”

Simone waved her hand. “Just some people I knew. Would you mind putting it on the table beside my bed?”

Jill took the photograph into Simone's bedroom. When she came back, she said, “What can I do to make you comfortable?”

“Oh, I am comfortable enough.” Simone smiled. “Come, dear. Sit with me and tell me if you think spring is really going to come this year.”

T
homas Larrigan found Eddie Moran right where he said he'd be, leaning his back against the railing of the footbridge that crossed the Charles River near the Esplanade. Moran was smoking a cigarette and watching the joggers and the inline skaters go by as if he didn't have anything better to do on a sunny Friday afternoon in early May.

Larrigan walked onto the bridge. “So,” he said. “Did you get them?”

“The photos?”

“What the hell do you think? Yes. The damn photos.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“No means no,” said Moran. “I didn't get the fucking photographs. She didn't have 'em.”

“Bunny?”

Moran nodded.

“You searched her house, and you—?”

“Don't ask,” said Moran. “Bunny Brubaker ain't going to bother you anymore, leave it at that. But the photos weren't where they were, and she didn't have them, and I don't know where the fuck they are.”

“You killed her?”

Moran shrugged.

Larrigan shook his head. “Jesus.”

Moran flicked his cigarette butt into the river.

“Okay,” said Larrigan. “But we've still got to get those photos.”

Moran watched a blonde jogger with a cocker spaniel on a leash cross the bridge. “I've been thinking about this whole thing,” he said. “Maybe we ought to reconsider before it's too late. Maybe you oughta just tell the president to withdraw your name from consideration.”

“What do you mean, too late?”

Moran shrugged. “What I've been doing. You know what I mean?”

“What you did to Bunny?”

“For example.”

“Had to be done, didn't it?”

“My point exactly,” said Moran. “It had to be done. And more things'll have to be done. No end to it. You could quit now. It'd be over with.”

Larrigan rolled his eyes. “And what do you think would happen then?”

“He'd nominate somebody else.” Moran shrugged. “You'd get your life back.”

Larrigan rolled his eyes.

“You don't think so?” said Moran.

“If I were to pull out now,” said Larrigan, “the media would be all over my ass. I could make up any excuse I wanted, wouldn't matter. They'd smell something, and they wouldn't let it go 'til they found it. We've got to finish what we started. You've gotta hang in there, Eddie. Don't crap out on me now. We can do it. It's gonna be worth it.”

Moran looked at him. “You think so?”

Larrigan grinned. “Sure.”

“Okay, then,” said Moran. “You're the boss.”

“So how are we going to get those photos?” Larrigan said.

“Well,” said Moran, “does the name Seymour mean anything to you?”

“Seymour who?”

“I don't know. Just that name. Seymour. Or something like that.”

Larrigan frowned for a minute. “One of the clerks on the civil side is named Seymour. Robert, I think.”

“Yeah,” said Moran. “Probably not him.”

“So what's with this Seymour?”

“Something Bunny said.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking,” said Moran, “that maybe Bunny had a friend named Seymour, and maybe he's holding the photos.”

“Okay,” said Larrigan, “I guess you better figure out who this Seymour guy is, huh? Do what you need to do.”

Moran nodded. “Just wanted to be sure we're on the same page.”

BLACKHOLE SAT ON a bench on the Cambridge side of the river with one leg crossed over the other, reading the sports page of the
Herald
and watching Thomas Larrigan and Eddie Moran talking on the footbridge. He couldn't hear what they were saying, of course, and using a camera with a long lens to record their meeting would've been too risky.

But Blackhole could read body language. Larrigan's spoke volumes. He was the boss. In charge. He was cool, relaxed, determined.

The judge was wearing sunglasses to hide his eye patch. Trying to be anonymous. Blackhole smiled. What he actually looked like was a guy with a black eye patch whose picture had been in the papers, wearing sunglasses and trying to look anonymous.

The other guy, the one Blackhole had identified as Edward Moran, he was the shaky one, which was a little surprising. As Blackhole had suspected, Moran had been career Special Forces—Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Africa. Whatever he was up to now should be a game of patty-cake compared to what had gone down in those places.

Larrigan had been in Southeast Asia at the same time as Moran. That was the connection. So far, that was all Blackhole had been able to get.

As Blackhole watched from behind his newspaper, Moran shrugged and nodded, and Larrigan gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder. Then Larrigan headed back to the Boston side of the river. Moran waited for a minute, then turned and came Blackhole's way, toward Memorial Drive on the Cambridge side.

Blackhole gave Moran three minutes. Then he folded his newspaper, tucked it under his arm, stood up, and headed back to his vehicle, which he'd parked half a block behind Eddie Moran's Explorer.

OLD HABITS FROM her undercover days. Looking over her shoulder. Keeping an eye on her rearview mirror. Parking her car in a different place every night. Sticking a hair in the door latch. Studying every face, making eye contact, interpreting the reaction.

Now the old habits had paid off.

Jessie Church spotted him Friday evening after her fifth day on the Moreno stakeout. He was parked directly across the street from her apartment in a white late-model Ford Focus with California plates. The numbers and letters on the plates told Jessie that it was a rental from the airport.

It was possible that a man alone in a parked rental car—this guy was in his thirties, with thinning sandy hair and wraparound sunglasses—was a tourist, sitting there at seven o'clock on a Friday evening waiting for his wife to finish shopping. There were lots of great shops and boutiques on 24th Street in Noe Valley.

But Jessie doubted that's what he was doing.

She drove past him, and he didn't even look at her. She kept going, watching in her rearview mirror. The white Focus didn't pull out and follow.

She figured he knew what she looked like and where she lived, and he was waiting for her to appear at her front door, unlock it, and go inside. That's how he would identify her. He wasn't paying attention to the cars on the street or the shoppers and dog-walkers on the sidewalks.

She drove around for a while until she was positive he wasn't following her. Then she stopped at a mini-mart, bought a bottle of water and two bananas, and exited through the side door. The Focus had not pulled in, nor was it parked outside.

An hour later she returned to her neighborhood in Noe Valley, turned onto 24th Street, and once again drove past her apartment.

The Focus had moved down the street half a block. Same guy in the driver's seat, still wearing his sunglasses even though the streetlights had come on, watching the front door to Jessie's building through the car's rearview mirror.

Jessie kept going. She drove aimlessly around the city, ate the bananas, sipped from the bottle of water, and thought about it. Del knew some San Francisco cops. He could convince them to roust the guy in the Focus, bring him in, sweat him.

But he'd have a story that would check out, and they'd have to let him go, and the next guy Howie Cohen sent around would respect Jessie's professionalism more than this one.

She could hole up in some cheesy motel for a few days, then go back and see if the guy in the Focus was still there.

But even if he wasn't, even if Cohen's man gave up and went back to Baltimore—or Chicago or New York or L.A., he could live anywhere, Cohen had associates, men who owed him favors, all over the world—she knew that wouldn't be the end of it. A man serving twenty-five to life in a federal penitentiary in Maryland had all the time in the world.

They'd started the easy way. They'd recognized her picture in the paper. They wouldn't be surprised or deterred by the fact that she was using a phony name. They'd found her address, and staked it out, and if she hadn't been paranoid, expecting them, looking for them, and if she wasn't a professional trained in observation, that would have been good enough.

Next time there might be two or three of them, a team, and they would be more proficient at their job, and if Jessie sniffed them out, too, others would follow.

If Cohen had his way, there would never be an end to it until Jessie Church was dead.

She'd have to find a way to deal with that.

For now, though, she had the immediate problem of the guy in the Ford Focus.

She needed to buy herself some time.

She pulled over to the side of the road, fished her cell phone from her purse, and hit Del's number on the speed dial.

When his voicemail answered, she said, “Sorry if this is a problem, but I need a break. You've got to get someone else for the Moreno stakeout tomorrow. I'll be good for Sunday. Get back to me if there's a problem.”

She sat there for about five minutes with her phone in her lap before it rang.

“What the hell's going on?” Del said when she answered.

“Nothing,” said Jessie. “I've been sitting in front of that guy's house for five straight hot boring days, that's all. I need a day off.”

“Something's going on,” said Del.

“I just want to spend my Saturday at the beach. Don't try to make something out of nothing.”

“I know you, Jess,” he said.

“No, you don't,” she said. “I'll be back on the job bright and early Sunday morning. See ya.” And she disconnected before he tricked her into admitting anything. The last thing she wanted was to get Del involved in this.

She drove back to her neighborhood, found a place on the street, and walked the two blocks to her apartment on 24th Street. The Focus was back where it had first been parked, directly across from her building.

She acted nonchalant, even though every nerve in her body was zinging. She strolled up the street, pretty sure the guy had finally spotted her, fumbled in her purse for her key, unlocked the front door, and went inside.

Her apartment was on the second floor. The hair in the door latch was still there. Even so, she took her little automatic .32 purse pistol out of her bag before she went inside.

She turned on the lights, because that's what he'd expect her to do, and if she didn't, it wouldn't take half a brain for him to figure out that she'd made him. She went to the front window and peeked down through the blinds. By the light of the streetlight, she could see that the guy in the Focus was talking on his cell phone.

A minute later, the headlights went on and the Focus pulled out of its slot and drove away.

He wouldn't try it here, tonight, in her apartment. There were cleaner, easier ways.