Mark Costello - Big If

Gretchen took a deep breath. She punched a number in L.A.

A woman’s voice: “’lo—?”

Soft as a kitten’s, Gretchen thought. She stiffened. “Is this Bambi?”

“This is Brandy. Who is this?”

“This is Lead Agent Williams of the U.S. Secret Service. Is Carlton there?”

“He’s sleeping.”

“Is he sleeping there?”

“Yes but—”

“Wake his slick ass up, girlfriend. Tell him Gretchen’s on the line.”

There was fumbling and whispering in California. Brandy’s voice said, “Carl, Carl, Carl —” Gretchen heard what sounded like a drinking glass knocked over and a mattress being bounced on.

“Gretchen,” Carlton Imbry said.

Same old midnight DJ voice. He said her name a certain way, made it musical, a breathy sort of Gre , you barely heard the tch . It was as if no time had passed. Ten years had passed.

“I’ve been meaning to call you, Gretchen — damn, wow, how you been? Kind of early to be calling the West Coast, but, hey, it’s really great to hear your voice. You been good? You sound good. Tevon — well, I’m sure you know that we’ve been talking. He’s a great kid, Gretchen. He knows all about my cases. I really get a kick out of talking to him. Of course, the phone bills are a little steep, but it’s worth it, and Tev says you have a real cheap calling plan, so it’s not a big deal. You know, I think it’s time for you and me to sit down together, discuss a couple things, don’t you? I’ll be out east in a few weeks. I’m retired now. Over Christmas. We had a nice affair at Spago’s, the mayor came and everything. I’ve got a couple jobs lined up, reality consulting, Law & Order , and this new show, Black Dragnet for BET, which is based on me, on some of my big cases over the years. Anyway, you don’t want to hear all this. I’ll be in New York, let’s see, the week of the twenty-third. I thought I might bop down to Washington on the twenty-fifth. No, wait — I’m looking at my book — I’ve got dinner that night. What about breakfast, the twenty-sixth? My treat, you pick the place. What’s the best and most expensive place for breakfast in D.C.?”

“You’re a failure,” Gretchen said.

Carlton Imbry sighed. “This is about Tevon. Let’s try and think about what’s best for Tevon. He wants to come out here in the summer, spend some time, and I’d like to get your input. I mean it’s fine with me, it’s great, depending on some shoots we’re looking at for Dragnet , July and maybe August. How’s breakfast on the twenty-sixth look for you?”

Gretchen said, “I don’t want to eat with you. I don’t want to be sitting in a restaurant and say ‘Pass the salt’ and have you pass the salt. I don’t want a normal minute in your presence. ’Cause I’m past that now. Tevon can go to California in the summer if he wants. But I’m warning you, Carlton: if you hurt or disappoint that boy in any way, if you are for one lousy second anything less than the hero he’s created for himself, I swear to God I’ll come out there and burn your house down.”

It felt good, pressing END.

They were ready to start jogging on the river road, waiting only for the second press bus, which had missed a turn. Gretchen sent a cruiser for the bus as the comm techs in van four went operational, activating jammers to disrupt nonauthorized signals, including point-to-point voice communication, radio-controlled bombs, radio-controlled toys, cell and cordless phones, broadcast television, TV clickers, and automatic garage doors for a radius of about two thousand yards. The press bus appeared without the cruiser. Reporters piled out, cursing at the driver, who cursed back at them.

Two motorcycles led the way, crawling down the river road, followed by two cruisers, dome lights flashing. Van one, behind the cruisers, had the rugged look of a war wagon but inside the blacked-out windows it was empty except for a driver and a sideman looking out. Van two, next in line, held a driver, a sideman, backup troopers, and the SWATs. One SWAT was crouched low, pointing a.50-caliber machine gun out the side door at the woods. The other SWATs were kneeling on the last bench, pointing their machine guns out the back doors, keeping a visual on the bodies jogging in their exhaust. Herc and Bobbie were flanking the VP, who wheezed. Vi was at the VP’s heels, keeping to his awkward pace, not quite running, not quite walking, fending off photographers and cameramen who danced around the party, shouting “Over here!” and “Look this way!” and “Can I get a wave?” A few reporters followed too, shouting questions, holding their tape recorders in the air. Van three, behind the joggers, carried the extraction team for this event, Gretchen, O’Teen, and the troopers, Tashmo and Elias standing on the bumper, gripping the luggage rack. Behind the comm techs in van four was an ambulance followed by a cruiser and two motorcycles.

They came up on the first quarter mile. People watched from driveways, sidewalks, porches, lawns. They watched from upstairs windows, from carports and garages. They stood there holding mugs, folded newspapers, car keys, crullers, muffins, and the garbage. They stood alone, amazed, unsure of what to do. Some heard the muffled wud-wud-wud and looked for the gunship overhead. Others went in and got their families, spouses, kids, excited dogs, and the families stood together, watching. Motorcycle cops were parked along the road every hundred feet. They twisted in their saddles, watching too.

One curve fed into the next. Two paperboys on mountain bikes kept pace with the joggers, jumping curbs, tossing papers at the houses, yelling to each other, slaloming the street. Gretchen saw the paperboys and spoke into her fist. Tashmo and Elias, hanging from the van, touched their ears and stepped off to the street. They tried to shoo the paperboys. The boys evaded them with ease, laughing, pedaling ahead.

The leading cruiser had almost disappeared around the second bend when the press bus came around the first, and for a moment the whole slow strobing spectacle was visible, complete. Somewhere in the center was a jogging man, hips rolling, feet shuffling. He wore a ball cap from a local high school hockey team. He waved the cap at the families in their yards as the paperboys popped wheelies up the hill.

The rain predicted for that morning started falling, stray drops, then a downpour for an hour. The VP finished his jog just before the heavens opened. He motorcaded to West Portsmouth for a breakfast drop-in at McDonald’s.

Half the press corps covered breakfast. The rest, bored with photo ops and mindful of the rain, had stayed at the inn, calling sources from their rooms or mobbing the lobby coffee shop. The press hall, off the lobby, was a trading pit of tips and inside dope, journalists from twenty nations running, shouting, hunt-and-pecking at their laptops. Three assistant innkeepers were at the front desk in gold blazers. Six New Hampshire troopers were lounging among ferns. In the hotel’s business center, the VP’s volunteers were getting a pep talk from their leader, Tim the lawyer, field director for the region.

Tim was speaking to a circled group of fifty people, local and imported, one of whom was Peta Boyle. She was dressed for work (corporate pearls, Italian pumps, a houndstooth suit showing off her knees), and she had a business-woman’s day ahead of her. She had no time to volunteer, but she had made the time. She was here because her father, Philip Boyle, mortician of C.E., was a figure of some tonnage in the county party structure, and Peta had inherited his talent for the practical. It wasn’t lost on Peta that Moss Properties did a fair amount of business with the city — vacant lots auctioned off, little whispers about zoning — and it never hurt to hold a chit or two, or many chits, with the mayor’s office. When the county chair, a man named Thomas Monahan (criminal attorney and a family friend), asked Peta to work for the VP, she was glad to be a name he could circle on his list. She had a deep, near-glandular belief in the concept of a party as a tribe, of we pick a guy and back a guy and get him into power — otherwise, what are we doing, thumbs stuck up our asses, while rival tribes get power. The VP, as the choice of the machine, was entitled to support; it wasn’t complicated. Plus, she liked the guy. From what she saw on TV, there was nothing major to dislike.