Mike Lawson - The Inside Ring

‘Hell, I have to get on with this,’ he said. ‘I have too much on my plate as it is and I can’t take the time to find someone else. And Hastings did recommend you. Hastings was in the corp, you know.’

Semper fi, DeMarco almost said, but controlled his wit. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he said instead and shifted again in the chair. It felt like the damn thing didn’t have a seat cushion, just a thin layer of cloth stretched over the hardest wood on the planet. Or maybe it wasn’t wood, maybe it was metal or that stuff that rhino horns are made of.

‘Okay,’ Banks said, ‘but you have to promise me something. You have to promise that you’ll keep everything I’m about to tell you completely to yourself, that you won’t tell another living soul. You promise?’

‘I do,’ DeMarco said. He considered raising his right hand when he responded but decided that would be a bit much.

Banks studied DeMarco’s face, looking for twitchy-eyed indicators of falsehood, but DeMarco, journeyman liar that he was, gave up nothing. And DeMarco was lying.

‘You better be tellin’ the truth, bud, or I’ll rip off your head and shit down your neck.’

DeMarco looked at his watch. He suspected Banks’s problem was a family thing: one of his kids was in trouble or his wife was having an affair with someone human.

‘Okay,’ Banks said again, and he took in a lungful of air through his big nose as if preparing to dive into deep waters. ‘I want you to investigate a Secret Service agent named Billy Ray Mattis.’

‘An agent?’

‘Yeah.’

The name rang a bell.

‘Investigate how?’ DeMarco said.

‘I want you to …’ Banks stopped.

‘Yes,’ DeMarco said. It was like trying to get a virgin’s knickers off, getting this guy to say whatever was on his mind. Finally the dam broke.

‘I want you to see if Mattis was an accomplice in the assassination attempt on the President.’

‘Whoa!’ DeMarco said, half rising out of his chair. ‘Stop right there. Do not say another word.’ DeMarco shook his head in disbelief at what he had just heard. ‘And anyway,’ he said, ‘I thought the guy who shot the President acted alone.’

‘Yeah,’ Banks said, ‘he probably did.’

This was ridiculous, DeMarco was thinking. ‘Look, General,’ he said, ‘you wanted to know about my background. Well, I’ll tell you. I’m a lawyer who does odd jobs for Congress. That’s it. If a constituent turns into a stalker, I make him go sit in a corner. If a congressman thinks his kid is doing drugs, I find out before the kid becomes a liability. If a politician thinks his wife is cheating on him, I make sure she’s not screwing a journalist. That’s the kind of stuff I do, sir. Little stuff. Small stuff. Assassinations are out of my league. Way out of my league. So if you really believe this agent was involved in the assassination attempt, you need to talk to the FBI.’

‘I don’t want to do that,’ Banks said. ‘At least not yet.’

‘But why not?’

Banks didn’t answer him. He just stood there looking simultaneously guilty, stubborn, and annoyed.

In the four days since the assassination attempt Banks and Patrick Donnelly, head of the Secret Service, had been interviewed by the FBI. The press had camped out on their doorsteps screaming questions at them, and Congress, in a rare and rapid bipartisan gesture, had slapped together a nosy panel that had grilled both men for hours on how the President’s security had been so disastrously penetrated. Banks had had multiple opportunities to tell people he suspected a Secret Service agent of involvement in the assassination attempt – yet here he was, telling DeMarco he couldn’t.

DeMarco knew he should leave. Just get his ass out of this fuckin’ chair, walk out, and never look back. He also knew if he left before finding out what was going on, Mahoney would flay him.

Before DeMarco could decide one way or the other, Banks picked up an index card lying on the blotter in the center of his desk. He held it gingerly, by one corner, as if it was coated with anthrax, and handed it to DeMarco.

‘This is what started it all,’ Banks said. ‘That’s not the original but that’s what it said, verbatim. I sent the original to … Never mind. Just read it.’

DeMarco read: ‘Eagle One is in danger. Cancel Chattooga River. The inside ring has been compromised. This is not a joke.’ The note was signed: ‘An agent in the wrong place.’

The Speaker had recently taken to walking at lunchtime in a futile attempt to prevent the heart attack that was certain to kill him. He had told DeMarco to meet him at the Taft Memorial at noon. DeMarco had arrived at twelve fifteen and it was now twelve thirty.

At the Taft Memorial stands a ten-foot bronze statue of Senator Robert A. Taft and behind his statue is a carillon made from white Tennessee marble that rises one hundred feet into the air. The twenty-seven bells in the carillon were cast in Annecy, France, and the largest bell weighed seven tons. What Senator Taft had done to deserve such tribute had faded from memory – at least from DeMarco’s memory – but he was grateful that the memorial was located in a pleasant urban park close to the Capitol. It was a good place to wait for his boss.

DeMarco took a seat on a wooden bench facing the memorial. He closed his eyes to nap and enjoy the sun on his face but he was soon denied this simple pleasure by two noisy squirrels. One animal was frantically chasing the other across the lawn, around bushes, up and down tree trunks. Whenever the chaser would finally corner the chasee, the trapped one would back up, feign desperation, then escape with a death-defying leap to a thin limb which seemed out of reach and incapable of bearing its weight. DeMarco didn’t know if the chase was a mating ritual or just plain fun, but there was no end to it. He wished one of the critters would miss when it jumped but the vivid image of a bushy-tailed little body, spread-eagle on the ground, a ribbon of blood oozing from its bucktoothed mouth made him change his mind.

DeMarco was so busy fantasizing the demise of tree-dwelling rodents that he was startled when Mahoney sat down heavily on the park bench. He was even more startled by the sight of Mahoney in athletic togs: size XXX-large blue sweatshirt, blue sweatpants with white trim, and squeaky new Nikes the size of canoes.

‘I saw General Banks this morning,’ DeMarco said.

‘And?’ Mahoney said, still trying to catch his breath.

‘Well, sir,’ DeMarco said, ‘Banks wants me to investigate the recent assassination attempt on the President.’

‘You?’ Mahoney said.

Mahoney’s reaction may have been appropriate but DeMarco was mildly offended.

‘Yes, sir. The General is concerned that a Secret Service agent may have had some part in the assassination attempt.’

‘Ah, that’s horseshit,’ Mahoney said and looked at his watch, bored already by Banks’s silliness. ‘And anyway, if he’s really worried he oughta be talkin’ to the Bureau.’

‘I agree and that’s what I told him,’ DeMarco said, ‘but the part I thought you might find interesting is that both Banks and Patrick Donnelly are withholding evidence from the FBI, and—’

‘Donnelly?’ the Speaker said, turning his magnificent head to look at DeMarco for the first time.

‘Yes,’ DeMarco said.

‘Donnelly,’ the Speaker said again, then he grinned, his teeth yellow and strong, and DeMarco was reminded of a large rumpled bear, one that has just spotted its lunch walking toward him.

Oh God, DeMarco prayed, please don’t let this happen.

‘Tell me what Banks said, Joe,’ Mahoney said. ‘Don’t leave out a thing.’