MaxAllan Collins - Quarry's vote

Freed said this gently, and Neely seemed to take it well, smiling a little, though the smile was tight at its corners.

The candidate continued, in his mellifluous baritone: “Last night-as Larry can tell you first hand-Jack ran a little test on my security team here at the house. We came up a little short, didn’t we, Larry?”

“Yes, Mr. Freed.”

“We’re going to be making some changes. Adding some staff. Changing some procedures. But that’s not why Mr. Ryan is here today. Jack, would you like to take over?”

Freed sat and I stood.

“As the candidate probably has told you,” I said, “we have reason to believe an assassination attempt may be made at the press conference Tuesday morning.”

Blake-or was it Simmons? — chimed in. “With all due respect, Mr. Ryan,” he said in a gravelly voice (maybe he’d been a tackle), “we got that covered.” He opened his coat and revealed the holstered revolver there.

“Ah, a. 38,” I said.

He nodded.

“Must help you remember your I.Q.”

Simmons-or was it Blake? — glowered at me, but I got over it.

“First suggestion,” I said, looking at Freed, “is you change the site of the press conference. But don’t announce the change till the last minute.”

“That’s impossible,” Neely said, shaking his head. “It would be a logistical nightmare, and make for very bad relations with the media.”

I looked at Simmons and Blake. “Have you people scoped out the Bix Beiderbecke Room?” I looked at Freed. “Appropriately named, ’cause you could die before your time there.”

Freed was watching me intently. “Why do you say that, Jack?”

“If I were doing this thing,” I said, “I could shoot you and be on my way, in my car, moving, in under thirty seconds.”

Simmons and Blake smirked at each other, eyes rolling.

But Freed said, “Explain.”

“An assassin staying in the hotel could take the elevator from his room down to the parking garage entry area, walk down the steps to the Bix Beiderbecke Room, block the meeting room door at left-with a table or whatever-open the door at right, getting a direct shot at the speaker at the podium, take that shot, quickly block that door, run up the steps, walk to his car-either in the garage or on the street-and be gone before anybody’s figured out whether the candidate’s dead or not.”

Neely said, “It would be difficult to change locations. Not impossible perhaps, but…”

Freed said, “The location stays. What can we do to secure that location, Jack?”

I sighed. “Well. Post several men outside the conference room. They need detailed descriptions of the man we believe will be attempting the hit-which I’ll provide-but they just generally will need to play heads-up ball. For what’s at stake, our man could easily shoot more people than just the candidate. How big is your security force?”

Blake-or was it Simmons? — said, “Half a dozen.”

“Armed, of course,” the other one said.

“Add a couple men,” I said. “You have the advantage of knowing that he’s coming.”

“Are you convinced of that now?” Freed said.

“After seeing the set-up for the press conference,” I said, “I tend to be. Anybody wanting a crack at you would be crazy not to take advantage of this. Will there be any cops on hand?”

Neely said, “We requested police support, but were denied. We’re not popular at City Hall.”

Freed said, “Should I wear a bullet-proof vest?”

“Soft body armor might be worth the trouble,” I said, “but, frankly, he’s going to go for a head shot.”

“And he could do it from the doorway, there?”

“At that range, he could throw a glass ashtray and get the job done.”

Simmons and Blake, no longer rolling their eyes or smirking, seemed to be convinced. Larry didn’t like me, but I could tell he was taking me seriously, too. Neely looked ashen, sick. The thought of his campaign starting off with this kind of bang didn’t seem to agree with him.

“And for God’s sake,” I said, “tighten up security at the hotel itself. I went to the desk and told the guy I was with the Freed campaign and without even asking my name, let alone to see credentials, he went along with everything I asked him and pointed to where the press conference was going to be held and you name it. Put a lid on this thing, boys. You’ve got a controversial candidate with a lot of enemies. Get on the defensive.”

Simmons and Blake swallowed, glanced at each other embarrassedly. Neely remained ashen, and Freed looked glazed. Larry was picking his nose.

“Now, gentleman,” I said, “if you’ll excuse me, I need to use the facilities. Talk this over amongst yourselves, and we’ll get into some of the specifics of revising your security plan when I get back. And I’ll give you a detailed description of the man we believe will be the assassin.”

“Let’s make that would-be assassin,” Freed said, with a nervous smile.

“That’s up to your friends here,” I said pleasantly, and left the room.

I walked out through the adjacent secretarial room and out where the waterfall gurgled by the winding staircase. I went up those stairs, and crossed the circular bar to the door that opened onto the hallway that led to Freed’s bedroom.

About half-way down that hallway, at my left, was a closed door. A closet door, one might assume. I hadn’t paid it much notice the night before, when the glow at the end of the hall had beckoned. But right now I was more interested in what was behind this door, to which I put my ear-and heard nothing. Gently, I tried the knob; locked.

But not very locked: a credit card opened it. This was a fairly quiet operation, though not a silent one, so I paused and listened for the sounds of anybody else who might be up here-a bodyguard in that room across the bar, for example-but heard nothing.

I opened the door and entered a room that wasn’t a closet, though it wasn’t much bigger than one. At right was a window; a video camera on a tripod was aimed at the window, and on a table nearby a big bulky video tape machine squatted, not a home VCR, but an industrial model. I glanced out the window and saw Freed’s bedroom. The camera was pointed directly at the waterbed with its elaborate western headboard and its black silk sheets. I didn’t remember a mirror on the wall, but there must’ve been one. The mirrors overhead must’ve been strictly for fun, not two-way video windows.

Otherwise the rumor that Angela Jordan had heard would seem to be no rumor.

Because at my left was a library of video tapes, shelves of the black plastic boxes; on the spine of each black box was a woman’s name written in bold white letters: Sheila, Jane, Sally, Heather, Clarice, thirty-some women in all.

And one tape box had the name “Angela” on its spine.

I removed it from the shelf, took the tape from the box, and put the empty box back on the shelf. Then I went to the video tape machine near the camera and pressed the eject button. I removed the tape; on the counter nearby was what I presumed was the tape’s black plastic box, which had the name “Becky” on the spine, and Becky was (if memory served) the name of the eager staffer I’d encountered at Freed campaign HQ and whose butt I’d electrically prodded last night.

I slipped the “Angela” tape in one of my suitcoat pockets, and the “Becky” tape in the other. I was surprised that Angela had actually made it onto a tape-she’d said several times that Freed had come on to her but that she’d rebuffed him-but it was an understandable lie. I don’t always tell the truth myself.

The tapes, somewhat larger than the home-machine variety, were bulky in my pockets, so I went to the kitchen where I’d left my brown leather overcoat and transferred the tapes to those deeper pockets.