Riders on the Storm
- Автор: Горман Эд
- Серия: Sam McCain #10
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Pegasus
- ISBN: 978-1-60598-625-8
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «Riders on the Storm». Краткое содержание книги:
“Are you really that pissed off at me?”
But he said nothing. Just pressed the button for the elevator.
When the doors opened he stepped aboard.
The doors closed.
Senator O’Shay, even though he might hopefully be on his way out, still had undeniable power.
He had managed to commandeer the city council, the police department, and one of our high schools to make certain that his cynical parade came off.
I had all sorts of principled reasons not to go have a look — I’m rarely happier than when I feel principled — but I walked over four blocks to the large Presbyterian church that the parade was just now passing by.
Marching band music has always embarrassed me for some reason. It’s so damned big. But along with the embarrassment is a thrill I hate admitting to.
Heat and clamor and mothers hanging on to their little ones so they wouldn’t burst into the street and dads with kids’ legs wrapped around their shoulders and young couples wooing to the enormous tinny music as if it was a love song.
I looked at the faces. The faces of war. Just about everybody was in this war, either by participating directly or having a family member, near or distant, over there. You could tell the people who had soldiers over there, especially the women. Some of them cried and some of them held up their children as if to be blessed by all the people in the parade. They needed to be bound up in the swaddling clothes of what devious politicians called patriotism. Patriotism could calm your anxiety sometimes; patriotism could rock you to sleep at night; and most importantly, patriotism could quell your doubts about the worthiness of this war. My kind of patriotism — the patriotism of my generation — probably didn’t count because we had as many questions as we had answers.
There weren’t any floats. There hadn’t been time for that. But there was a band in bright yellow uniforms, the drumline, the pomp or pomposity (your choice) of the plumed drum major. And there were convertibles, new and shiny ones on loan from the most important local dealers, and there was the mayor riding on the back of one of them followed by two uniformed soldiers on the back of another, and then a flatbed truck with a few soldiers in wheelchairs and a few more missing arms or legs. Seeing them paraded this way infuriated me and then when I saw the maroon Caddy convertible with O’Shay on the back of it I thought of what those men on the flatbed had suffered at the hands of this man and I had that fleeting Lee Harvey Oswald thought that was so much in the air these days — bang bang bang and no more O’Shay. But there were thousands and thousands more of him in our government. Ike called it the military-industrial complex but nobody had paid him much attention. And I was just a three-beer fantasy killer anyway. There were millions of us these days. With the murder of JFK, assassination was a popular game with many political daydreamers.
And then I saw him. Directly across the street.
Teddy Byrnes.
If he saw me he didn’t let on. The crowd was alive as one, this great joyous animal seduced by the white-haired wizard who waved at them with papal authority.
The only satisfaction I could take was that O’Shay must have known that he was going to lose; that he would have to suffer what was for men like him a disgrace. A slender hope on my part.
And when I looked again Teddy Byrnes was gone.
I wondered if Foster was right. I wondered if Byrnes really had meant to kill Gordon Niven.
13
I sat alone in the office and called zoom and talked to Tim Duffy. He said he’d been discreetly asking questions of the gang that Teddy Byrnes was part of but they didn’t seem to have any news about him.
I called Lindsey Shepard and lucked out. I got an answering machine for the psych clinic but when I started to leave a message she picked up herself.
“I was talking to Chief Foster this morning and he said that Will seems to be somewhat responsive now.”
“That’s what Dr. Rattigan told me, too. I talked to him late last night. I called this morning and was told that the chief hopes to talk with Will later this afternoon. I’m sure he wants me to tell him that it’s all right but I have my doubts and so does my husband. In fact we were discussing it when you called.”
“Can you stop him from interrogating Will?”
“No. I can tell him that I think this could be very harmful. If it’s too intense it could send Will right back inside and then we wouldn’t be able to reach him again. I’m going to call him — and Randall’s going to be on an extension phone in case the chief thinks I’m just a nervous female — and give him our opinion and hope he takes it.”
I heard another phone come on the line. “Maybe you could back us up on this. Give him a call yourself. Tell him you’ve talked with us and you hope he’ll take us seriously. You seem to have a strong relationship with him.”
“So do you and Lindsey.”
Lindsey said, “But a call from you wouldn’t hurt.”
“I’m afraid right now he wouldn’t be very happy to hear from me. We’ve had a disagreement about something and he’s not too happy.”
“Oh,” Randall said, “that’s too bad. Well, after we hang up here, we’re going to call him ourselves.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me posted.”
“We certainly will,” Randall said.
On impulse I next called Mary.
“The Lindstrom residence. Nicole speaking.”
“Hi, Nicole. You do a great job of answering the phone.”
“Mom trained me.” I noticed Mary was “Mom” to her while to Kate she was “Mommy.”
“Is your mom handy, honey?”
“I’ll go get her for you, Sam. Are you coming over tonight?”
“I hope so. If I don’t get too busy.”
“On Saturday night Mom always makes tacos.”
“I’ll bet they’re good.”
“Thanks, honey.” Mary was on the line now from the kitchen.
“I told Sam that if he came over tonight he could have tacos.”
Laughing, Mary said, “I believe the legal term for that is bribery.”
“I’m going to finish my book now. It’s due at the library today. Bye, Sam.”
“Bye, sweetie.”
“It’s official now. They both like you.”
“And they say they’ll give me tacos.”
We spent several minutes talking about last night and then I asked her if I’d gotten any calls.
“Just one. Whoever you talked to at the hospital gave you a courtesy call back saying that Will’s doctor would like you to call him.”
I wrote the number down and read it back to her to be sure.
“So do I make extra tacos tonight for a certain visitor?”
“Muy tacos. Muy.”
“I was in your Spanish class, remember? I’m trying to think — which one of us got the A and which one got the C?”
“Yeah, I felt sorry for you when we saw our report cards. And you’d studied so hard.”
“Uh-huh.”
That was when Kevin Maines walked in. His uniform today was short sleeves and walking shorts, necessary when you’re dragging your ass through high eighties, high humidity as a U.S. mailman. He also wore the postal service’s version of the pith helmet.
“I’ll call you later, Mary.”
Usually on Saturdays Kevin just shoves the mail underneath the door. Today he set three number-ten envelopes and a small manila envelope on my desk.
His light blue shirt was soaked darker blue under his pits. “Anything new on that Donovan thing?”
“Nothing that I know of.”
“I know two people who used to work for Donovan. One said he was a great guy and one said he was a giant asshole.”