Mike Lawson - The Inside Ring

The faded gilt lettering on the frosted glass of DeMarco’s office door read COUNSEL PRO TEM FOR LIAISON AFFAIRS, J. DEMARCO. The title was Mahoney’s invention and completely meaningless. DeMarco entered his office, took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and checked the thermostat to make sure it was set on low. Adjusting the thermostat was something he did from force of habit, for his psychological well-being; he knew from experience that twisting the little knurled knob had absolutely no effect on the temperature in the room. He could call his neighbors, the janitors, to complain but knew he would rank low on their priority list. Who was he kidding? A guy with an office in the subbasement didn’t make the list.

In his office squatted an ancient wooden desk from the Carter era and two mismatched chairs, one behind his desk and one in front of it for his rare visitor. A metal file cabinet stood against one wall, the cabinet empty except for phone books and an emergency bottle of Hennessy. DeMarco didn’t believe in keeping written, subpoenable records. On his desk was an imitation Tiffany lamp – a redundant appliance as strips of harsh, fluorescent lights provided all the illumination needed – and on the black-and-white tile floor was a small Oriental rug, the predominant colors being maroon and green. On the wall opposite his desk were two Degas prints of dancing ballerinas. His ex-wife had given him the faux-Tiffany lamp, the rug, and the ballerinas – a futile effort on her part to ‘warm the place up.’ Only an arsonist, DeMarco had concluded long ago, could give his office any warmth.

DeMarco took to the chair behind his desk. He put his feet up, laced his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. What to do about Billy Ray? He doubted the agent was guilty of anything. It was just as Emma had said: Mahoney was playing a long shot and using DeMarco’s career for chips. He was hoping DeMarco would get lucky and find out Billy Mattis was dirty, in which case Donnelly’s failure to properly investigate the warning letter could be used to nail his slippery hide to the wall. DeMarco didn’t know why the Speaker disliked Patrick Donnelly but it was obvious he did. The bear wanted to gobble him up.

So since the bear wanted his snack, DeMarco was stuck. He couldn’t disobey a direct order from Mahoney yet he could do nothing that would come to the attention of the Secret Service or the FBI. If they discovered he was mucking about in their business they’d stomp him to death with their wing-tipped shoes – and when the stomping began the Speaker would pretend he’d never heard the name Joe DeMarco. So he would investigate Billy Ray as ordered, but carefully. Invisibly. Discreetly. And investigating Billy meant making a gigantic leap of logic: he had to assume Mattis was guilty. To think otherwise left him nothing to do.

DeMarco’s investigation began with the warning note. He took the index card Banks had given him and reread the words. The signature was interesting: ‘An agent in the wrong place.’ It sounded as if the author was being coerced or had knowledge he didn’t wish to have. It was a … reluctant signature. So if the note was legitimate and if the Secret Service was somehow involved in the assassination attempt, maybe Billy Mattis was the one who sent the note. He knew the assassination was going to take place, didn’t want any part of it, but could do nothing to stop it.

A second possibility was that the note referred to Mattis and he had intentionally dropped his sunglasses to give the shooter a clear shot at the President. A third and more likely possibility was that the note was a prank and Mattis was innocent. Possibilities and could bes and ifs. He was skipping down a yellow brick road of nonsense in a political land of Oz.

Banks had also given DeMarco a copy of Mattis’s personnel file, so he put aside the index card to shine the bright light of his intellect on that thin document. He would learn all there was to know about his quarry; he would study the jackal’s past.

According to the file, the jackal was as American as grits and moonshine. He was born in Uptonville, Georgia, wherever the hell that was, and had lived there until he enlisted in the army at age eighteen. He spent fourteen uneventful months in South Korea and after the service joined the Army Reserve and spent a couple of years at a community college. Following college, the Secret Service hired him and he’d been with the agency for six years.

There were two noteworthy incidents in Billy Ray’s file. Billy’s Army Reserve unit had been activated for eight months in the get-Saddam war and he had performed some unspecified act of heroism worthy of a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. The second incident had occurred two years earlier and closer to home.

While Billy was standing on a street corner in Gary, Indiana, waiting for the President’s motorcade to pass, a bank robber decided the President’s visit would provide perfect cover for a robbery. It never occurred to the robber, who had the IQ of a rabbit, that the President’s route was saturated with both uniformed and undercover cops. As the robber exited the bank, alarms sounded. A nearby cop turned toward the noise, drew his weapon, and the robber shot at the cop. The crowd scattered, screaming civilians running in every direction like chickens from a hawk, and at that moment the President’s limousine turned the corner. Billy, the closest agent to the robber, was afraid to fire his weapon for fear he would hit the civilians, yet at the same time he had to make sure the robber didn’t shoot bullets in the President’s direction. Billy charged the robber. His body armor deflected the robber’s first shot; he caught the second with his left bicep before he tackled the robber and disarmed him.

Billy Mattis may not have been the brightest guy on the block but he was a brave man. He had been scarred twice in the service of his country. He was a Secret Service agent and a decorated veteran. He had willingly put himself in harm’s way at Chattooga River. Could there possibly be an individual less likely to attempt to kill a president?

One thing DeMarco did notice while reviewing Mattis’s personnel file was that until two and a half months ago Mattis had never had any of the glamour jobs. He was often a perimeter guard at the White House or Camp David, and frequently one of the anonymous agents standing on the street whenever the President graced Middle America with his presence, but he had never been a personal bodyguard to the President or the President’s family. DeMarco couldn’t tell from the file if Billy had been assigned to the praetorian guard on May 15th because of his previous heroism or if he just had enough seniority in the Service to automatically get the detail. He needed someone with the inside skinny on the Secret Service to tell him more about Billy’s promotion. The fact that he’d recently been assigned to the President’s security detail struck DeMarco as intriguing – well, intriguing if you liked conspiracy theories.

DeMarco put Billy’s file and the index card in the top drawer of his desk and locked the drawer. Leaving his office, he walked down the hall to the maintenance shop. He knocked, waited patiently until he heard a deep voice say ‘Yo,’ and opened the door. Three black men dressed in dark-blue coveralls were seated at a table playing pinochle. A fourth man, also black, also wearing coveralls, was working on an air-conditioning unit on the shop bench. When the cardplayers saw DeMarco he was greeted by the now expected chorus: ‘It’s the I-talian stallion.’ ‘The wop who don’t stop.’ ‘The guinea wit da skinny.’

‘Jesus,’ DeMarco said, ‘do we have to go through this every damn time?’

‘Yeah,’ the man at the workbench said. ‘We have to go through this every damn time because they’re idiots and because you look like Sonny fuckin’ Corleone.’ Then the man wiped his right hand on the leg of his coveralls, walked over, and shook hands with DeMarco.