The Gun Runner's Daughter (14 page)

4.

The clearest thought she could bring to mind was that this man was going to disappear in a minute, as Dee had just done, and like Dee—her stomach plummeted at the
thought—he could be hard to get back. For a moment she was torn between getting rid of him and keeping him here. While he was here, this little man could get sloppy drunk and tell all. She
could confront him with a direct question about his interest in Ocean View. She could seduce him. That thought, as crazy as it was, sent a movement of excitement through her.

Then she turned to Nicky’s briefcase at her feet, and her heart, already quickened, began to pound.

What had he meant by that Bank Leumi comment? This was, perhaps, her only chance ever to find out. Casually, she picked it up and carried it down the length of the bar to the women’s room.
It was occupied, and for a couple of endless minutes she experienced severe anxiety. Then, from within, the toilet flushed and the door pushed open.

Inside, the door locked, she sat on the closed toilet and opened the case on her knees. There was an empty pint bottle of Jim Beam, a couple of floppy disks in a plastic case, a roll of film,
and a number of green files pertaining to various subjects: Greg Eastbrook, Jennifer Harbury, a union dispute in southern California. Under this, there was a single manila file marked
“Diamond.”

The name was familiar. She opened the thin file and found, inside a Xeroxed map of South Beach from Long Point to Ocean View. Under this was another, broader map, and under that two pictures:
one from a newspaper in the ’80s, showing herself, her father, and Pauly on the steps of the Capitol Building coming from the Iran-contra hearings; the other a grainy print showing herself
sitting on the porch of the Up Island General Store.

She paused now, breathing through an open mouth. Next in the file were some newspaper clippings about her father, both then and now; then a document that proved to be a lease for one of the
Ocean View Estate rentals signed by a Stanley Diamond. Briefly, dizziness passed over her mind, and she closed the file.

She remembered Diamond now. His had been one of the checks she’d deposited when she had first arrived onisland, in mid August.

But there was no time to panic: Nicky could be back a ny time. She replaced the file, then quickly completed her search of the briefcase: underneath was a book,
The Wild Colonial Boy,
a
novel. She lifted it out, and a piece of Corrasable typing paper, folded in four, fluttered to the floor. She retrieved it, unfolded it, and received her second shock.

“Mother.” The word escaped her mouth before she could stop it. It was a poem, her own, written after Pauly died and typed on the old Olivetti at Ocean View.

That was how he knew about the Bank Leumi checks.

This man had not just photographed Ocean View, he had been in her house. And searched it.

In the brief instant before she became scared, looking up, she wondered what he had been looking for.

Whatever it was, however, she knew that he would not have searched her house without good reason to believe she had it.

Which was one of the things that now made fear come.

Hands shaking, she repacked the briefcase and closed it, wondering with a feeling of horror if this was the only copy of her poem. She opened the bathroom door, looked out to see that he had not
yet returned, then hurried back to her bar seat and dropped the briefcase again on the floor.

Mother. She said the word again, to herself, and added this time the qualification: “Fucker.”

And then Nicky was back.

5.

Funny, she managed to think, as she watched him coming in, how well dressed this guy was for a self-proclaimed radical. He wore, over jeans, a splendid gabardine jacket, and a
silk shirt that must have cost, a lone, more than most journalists made in a week—and alternative media writers, like himself, in a year. Something about that reassured her.

Taking his seat at the bar, he told her he was on the eight o’clock ferry, and she nodded with something like pleasure. Then there was a silence, which he filled by downing his shot of
bourbon, and then she spoke.

“Want to dance?”

“Pardon me?”

“I asked you if you want to dance. I mean, you don’t care about my father’s crime. And I’m not going to tell you anything. But you’re not going away. So you want to
dance?”

He watched her without answering, and she spoke again.

“Oh all right. Listen, the truth is, Clinton authorized the shipment during a Whitewater shredding party with my dad, during which he groped me. Now let me ask you a question.”

“Shoot.”

“You’ve been chasing my father, or people like my father, your whole career. Now you’ve closed him down. Why don’t you take a break?”

“Oh, I haven’t gotten what I want from your father yet.” He was not watching her now, as if the conversation had degenerated into real animosity.

“Why? What are you, the self-appointed protector of the Constitution?”

“Nah, the Constitution’s a crock.”

Surprised, Alley laughed, and Nicky looked up. Then he leaned back, and laughed too.

“I mean, what a malign, mistrustful little document. Talk about lowest common denominator, man.”

Both laughed now, for a long time, and Allison registered that she, too, was drunk. Certainly she couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so much. When she could speak, she
repeated her question.

“So? What is it then?”

He turned, watching himself in the bar mirror while he thought for a moment. Then he turned back.

“You see, arms are like roaches in a restaurant. Everyone has them, but most restaurants, they stay hidden till the customers are gone and the lights are off. If you see them during
business, you’ll never see just one, and that’s because you don’t see them at all unless there’s a serious infestation. You with me?”

“Um-hmm.”

“Good.” For a moment, he marshaled his thoughts. Then he went on.

“Now, a guy like your father, if you’re smart, you don’t just whack him with a newspaper the second you see him on the counter. What you do is, you try to let him lead you back
to the nest.”

“Very funny. That still doesn’t answer my question.”

“Which is?”

“Why you care?”

“I’ll tell you. Then you let me ask you a question. Deal?”

“Deal.”

He paused now, thinking. Then he answered her, speaking carefully and holding his eyes, wide open, on hers.

“There’s nothing surprising about me caring, Ms. Rosenthal. What’s surprising is that you even ask. You think you come from some rarefied world of insider knowledge. Bullshit.
Your cynicism, your worldliness, that’s nothing new. If you had some historical perspective, you’d know that you’re a product of the seventies’ commercialization of the
counterculture—you’re co-opted; and of eighties Reaganism—you’re cynical. That’s how they got Watergate and Iran-contra by you, for one thing. I care because I
didn’t let them do that to me.”

As if having taken a blow to her body, Allison pulled together a counterpunch.

“I’m cynical? You mean you’re an idealist.”

“Not at all. I accept entirely your father’s profession. I’m interested in the people who tell him what to do. That’s all.”

Allison had recovered herself now. “Is that all? Thanks for the mission statement. Now, let me tell you one thing I know about you, Mr. Dymitryck.”

“Go ahead.”

“You’re doing what you’re doing because of your father.”

That surprised him. “What do you know about my father?”

“Oh, I don’t need to know anything about him. Either he’s on the right and you’re rebelling, or he’s on the left and you’re following. My point is that
you’re a product of your environment just as much as I am.”

He nodded, and perhaps his answer was all the more aggressive for how deeply she had hit him where it hurt. “I follow you. And it’s not just that you’re wrong. It’s that
the way you’re wrong is so revealing.”

She shrugged. “Prove it.”

“Oh, I can prove it. But I’d have to tell you my life’s story. And I have a boat to catch.”

“I see.” Allison was not too drunk to know that it was time to end the conversation, and that she had best be the one to do it. “Well, maybe another time, Mr.
Dymitryck.”

“Nicky. I hope so, Allison. Now my turn?”

“Go ahead.”

“The guy I’m interested in, you know who that is?”

“No. I don’t care, either.”

“His name’s Greg Eastbrook. He’s the Republican candidate for the Senate in California this November. He’s also a guy who’s worked with your dad since they met in
Vientiane in, like, the Summer of Love. I’ll bet you know him.”

She did not respond, and for a moment they watched each other. Then he smiled and spoke with the intonation of a kindergarten teacher.

“And that’s really what this is all about, Allison. It’s that you know a bunch about Greg Eastbrook. In fact, I believe that you know a very great deal about Eastbrook indeed.
And that’s why I want to offer you a deal.”

“No thanks.”

But his face, hardening suddenly, showed he was not to be stopped.

“No, please, it’s my pleasure. All you have to do is agree to talk to me about Greg Eastbrook. And if you do, I’ll consider not letting the Massachusetts state attorney’s
office know that you just made nearly two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of fraudulent deposits from renting property soon to be under federal seizure to unsuspecting tenants. And I’ll
also not tell my very strong suspicions that the endorsements on those deposits were forged by you.”

Wordless, now, she watched him stand, shrug on his jacket, and then suddenly face her and smile, a wide smile that was as much in his eyes as in the wry pose of his lips.

“See, Ms. Rosenthal. I told you I wasn’t like one of your little friends.”

6.

Ever after, those two late-summer days, September 4th and 5th, 1994, would be, in Allison’s memory, one long day.

After Nicky had left, she stayed in the bar for a long time, until closing.

She sat and drank, alone, as the boozy jukebox played through smoky air to an audience of five islanders, one asleep with his head on the bar. And as she drank, she marveled at how quickly, how
efficiently, the world had closed around her. First her father. Then Dee. Now this.

When the bar closed she drove, dead drunk, through the empty night to the terror of home.

Unwilling even to process what she now faced.

September 5th, she woke supine on the living room couch under a throw, unable to remember falling asleep. Against the windows, a windy rain pounded the glass; through the water
running on its surface she saw a leaden sky leaking a slight, ominous light. After a moment she raised her wrist to her eyes and saw, dreamily, that the time was nearly twelve. Then, with a small
shock, she realized that it was day. That meant it was not midnight but noon.

Surprised, she sat up, and as she did so from her chest a plastic orange medicine bottle, open, rolled onto the floor. She lifted it, feeling her head pound, and made out on the label the word
diazepam.
That scared her, suddenly, and she rose.

As she made coffee, her fright subsided. She had slept through the morning on Valium and booze, but she had survived, and strangely, it had been therapeutic. What had she been doing before? The
memory of the night, dim, stayed at bay, and then her mind turned to remembering that she had missed the press conference that morning. By now, Dee had recused himself from her father’s
prosecution. That should have been a relief. Only now, she knew without detailing them, she had a new set of problems to face.

But she didn’t care. A deep relaxation was through her, a sense not that anything was all right, but that everything was so entirely wrong that she no longer really cared. And she was
hungry: that was a good sign. In the cupboard was a can of soup, which she heated and ate, hungrily, watching the now quiescent ocean from the kitchen window. Finished, she went back to the living
room and booted her computer. She launched Netscape, then logged in to the on-line
New York Times.
While the front page loaded she sipped coffee, watching the headline come clear:
“U.S. Attorney Announces Rosenthal Prosecution Team.”

There was no headline reference to Dee, she saw. Was that good? Impatient, she clicked through to the article and, heart sinking, saw a straight reporting of the press conference, conducted by
Dee, announcing the prosecution’s team. There could be no confusion: Dee was quoted directly, and he referred to himself as the third member of a team of three.

Finished, she hit the
back
button and returned to the front page. There was a short analytic piece about the trial by Labaton, but that was all. What could that mean?

For a long time she stared at the screen, unable to understand. Then, as if a voice calling insistently from far away, another headline caught her eye. It read: “Reporter Victim of
Stabbing.” She clicked through to this article, and read about a crime at Logan Airport the night before. Some guy had been beaten, then stabbed in a bathroom and left for dead. The airport
was practically deserted—the victim was booked on the first flight the next morning to Washington—and even though he’d managed to crawl along the floor, and out onto the
concourse, he had bled to death by the time he’d been found.

Only then did Allison Rosenthal, all hint of relaxation fleeing every corner, every interstice of her body, her mind suddenly acute, again, to the world of pain that had been waiting while she
slept, absorb why the murder warranted such a big headline.

The dead man was the chief investigative reporter and associate editor of
North American Review
in Los Angeles.

Nicholson Jefferson Dymitryck.