The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 (91 page)

Kerrigan got up and stretched, leonine, before sauntering across to him.

“Mr. Crawford,” he said, a low Southern drawl.

“Jack.”

The air was heady with dope smoke; Crawford noticed a large glass bong on the table.

“How’s our boy doing?”

“He’s doing good.”

“Good enough to get it done?”

“He’ll win,” Crawford said. “Provided we keep him on the right track.”

“That’s all that matters.”

Crawford nodded at that, then scowled a little; he had forgotten the headache he had developed the last time they had dragged him out here. It was the dope, the droning music, the dull grind of the necessity of making sure the dumbfuck rednecks stayed on the right path.

“Wanna beer?”

“No, thanks.”

He nodded at the bong. “Smoke?”

“What do you think?”

“Nah, not your scene. All business today, then. I can work with that. What’s up?”

“We’ve got a problem.”

“If you mean the girls—I told you, you need to stop worrying.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“I have a little update on that, something that’ll make you feel better.” He stooped to a fridge and took out a bottle of beer. He offered it to Crawford. “You sure?”

“No,” he said impatiently. “What update?”

Jack popped the top with an opener fixed to his keychain and took a long swig.

“What is it, Jack?”

“Got someone who knows someone in the police. Friend of our persuasion, you know what I mean. Fellow soldier. This guy says that they have no clue. Those girls have been out there a long time—all that salty air, the animals, all that shit—there’s nothing left of them except bones.”

“Clothes?”

“Sure, but there’s nothing that would give them any idea who they were.”

“I wish I shared your confidence, Jack. What about the others?”

“You know, I can’t rightly recall how many there were, and I ain’t kidding about that.”

“
Four
.”

“It’ll be the same. You might not believe it, but we were careful.”

“They’re all in the same place.”

“Give or take.”

“You think that’s careful?”

“The way I see it, the way we left them girls, all in that spot and all done up the same way, police are gonna put two and two together and say that there’s one of them serial killers around and about, doing his business.”

“I heard that on the TV already,” one of the other men, Jesse, chimed in. “They had experts on, pontificating types. They said they was sure. Serial killer. They was saying Zodiac’s come back.”

“Son of Zodiac,” Jack corrected.

Crawford sighed.

“They’re gonna say it’s some john from the city, someone the girls all knew.”

“The Headlands Lookout Killer. That’s what they’re saying.”

“Exactly,” Jack said with evident satisfaction. “And that’s what we want them to think.” He took a cigarette from a pack on the table and lit it. “It’s unfortunate about our boy’s habits, but if there’s one thing we got lucky on, it’s who they all were. What they did. In my experience, most hookers don’t have anyone waiting for them at home to report them missing. They’re in the shadows. Chances are, whoever those girls were, no one’s even noticed that they’re gone. How are the police going to identify people that they don’t know is missing? They ain’t. No way on earth. And if they can’t identify them, how the hell they gonna tie ’em all back to our boy?”

“I don’t know,” he said impatiently.

“I do—I do know. They ain’t.” Jack said it with a sly leer. “Make you feel any better?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, making no effort to hide his sarcasm. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I would’ve felt even better if you’d done what I asked you to and made them all
disappear
.”

“What happened to them, Mr. Crawford, it’s the same thing. They are disappeared. You’ve got to relax, man. You’re gonna give yourself a coronary you keep worrying about stuff that don’t warrant no worrying about.”

“Someone has to.”

“Fine.” He took another long pull of his beer. “You worry about it as much as you want, but I’m telling you, there ain’t no need for it.” He finished the beer and tossed it into an open bin. “Now then—you didn’t come here to bitch and moan at us. What can we do for you?”

“There’s another problem.”

“Same kind of problem as before?”

“The exact same kind.”

He shook his head. “Seriously? Number five? You want to get our boy to keep his little man in his trousers.”

“You think I haven’t tried? It’s not as easy as you think.”

“Who is it? Another hooker?”

“No, not this time. Worse. She’s on staff. He’s been schtupping her for a month, and now she’s trying to shake us down. We either pay up, or she goes public. One or the other. It couldn’t be any more damaging.”

“And paying her wouldn’t work?”

“What do you think?”

His greasy hair flicked as he shook his head. “Nah—that ain’t the best outcome. She might get a taste for it. You want her gone?”

There it was, the power of life and death in the palm of his hand. It still gave him chills. And what choice did he have? Joseph Jack Robinson II, for all his faults, was still the medicine that America needed. He was the best chance of correcting the god-almighty mess that the country had become, and if that meant that they had to clean up his messes to keep him aimed in the right direction, then that was what they would have to do. It was distasteful, but it was for the greater good. The needs of the many against the needs of the few.

“Sort it,” he said.

“Same as before. No problem.”

“No, Jack.
Not
the same as before. Make it so she disappears. Properly disappears. This stuff on the news—”

“I’m telling you, that was just bad luck is what that was.”

“No, Jack, it’s fucking amateur hour,
that’s
what it was. I never want to hear about her again. Not next week. Not next month. Not when some mutt puts its snout into a bush on the beach next fucking year. You get me? Never.”

“Sure I do.” Jack fixed him with gimlet eyes, and Crawford remembered what the man was capable of; the man was a snake—venomous, lethal—and like a snake, he needed careful handling. “You got her details? We’ll get looking into it right away.”

“THANK YOU SO MUCH. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you all. I can’t tell you how wonderful that makes me feel. It happens everywhere I go, but it’s still special here.” The crowd laughed. “If you all will indulge me, I just learned that Fox, God love them, is televising this speech on the Fox News Channel, which means, ladies and gentlemen, that this is the first time that I’ve ever addressed the nation.” Loud applause. “Now, seriously, I want to tell you who we all are in this room. We’ve not done a good enough job of just laying out who we are because we make the mistake of assuming people know. But they don’t. What they know is based on the way we are portrayed in pop culture, in the media and by our opponents. And that’s wrong. Let me tell you who we are: we love people.” Applause.

“When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don’t see groups. We don’t see victims. We don’t see people we want to exploit. We see potential. We look out across the country and see the average American, the person who makes this great country work. We do not look down on that person. We don’t think that person doesn’t have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path. You know the things I mean: onerous taxes and regulations. Too much government. We look at some of the things that are happening today—like those poor girls who have been found up on the headland north of the city—and we know that although our culture is sick, it can be healed. We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.” Applause.

“We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life.” Applause. “Liberty, Freedom.” Applause. “And the pursuit of happiness.” Applause. “Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. I’ll tell you: it’s because we think all three are under assault. And I promise to you, I guarantee, that if I am nominated for the office of president, then I will defend those great principles with my dying breath. Thank you for coming, thank you for your support, God bless you and God bless America!”

Robinson took the applause, raising his arm above his head and waving broadly, shining his high-beam smile out over the adoring crowd. He walked across to the right-hand side of the stage, paused to bask in the acclaim—occasionally pointing out people in the crowd who he recognised, or those who he wanted to give the impression that he recognised—and then came back to the left, repeating the trick.

Milton was almost entirely apolitical, a personal choice he had made so that he was able to carry out his orders dispassionately and without regard to the colour of the government that he was serving, but even he could feel the electricity in the air. The woman next to him was glassy-eyed and a little unsteady on her feet. The man at her side was booming out the three syllables of Robinson’s name with no regard to what the others around him might think (not that it mattered; they were just as fervent as he was). The air thrummed with excitement. It was close to mania.

Robinson came down the steps. A path had been arranged right down the centre of the hall, maintained on either side by metal railings that slotted together to form a barrier. There were photographers there, their cameras ready to take a thousand snaps of the governor in the midst of his people.

Milton knew he would only have one chance to get at him, and he had to move fast. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd, muscling through the throng until he was pressed up against the barrier. Robinson was ten feet away, the crowd swelling until Milton was squeezed even tighter against the metal. He thrust his elbow back to free his right arm and extended it out, over the guardrail, bending his usually inexpressive face into a smile. “Great speech, Governor.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Robinson bathed him in that brilliant smile and took his hand, emphasising the gesture by placing his left on top of Milton’s right. A nearby camera flashed, white streaks blasting across his eyes.

Milton maintained his own smile.

He tightened his grip.

He leant in even closer.

“I need to speak to you, Governor.”

A flicker of concern. “I’m afraid I’m a little busy.”

Milton didn’t release his hand.

“And you need to talk to me. It’s very important.”

Robinson tried to pull his hand away, but Milton just tightened his grip, taking the strain easily.

Robinson took his left hand away and tugged again with his right. “Let go.”

Milton did not. The governor’s expression mutated; the fixed grin and the sparkle in his eyes were both washed away by a sudden flush of fear. The security man in the suit, less than five paces away, had noticed what was happening. He started to close in. Milton guessed he had a couple of seconds.

“I know about you and Madison Clarke.”

The fear in Robinson’s eyes was subtly altered. It graduated from an immediate fear, a response to the physical threat of the smiling man with the cold eyes who wouldn’t let go of his hand, to a deeper fear, more primal, more fundamental, one that required calculation to properly assess.

Milton could see him begin to make that calculation.

“Let go of the governor’s hand,” the man in the suit said.

Milton held on.

His mouth was inches from Robinson’s ear.

“I know about you both, Governor. You need to talk to me. Your campaign is going to end tomorrow if you don’t.”

ARLEN CRAWFORD followed the governor into the back of the building. He was worried. He had seen the man to whom Robinson had been speaking. It could only have been a short conversation, a handful of words, but whatever had been said had spooked Robinson badly. Normally, after a speech that had been as well received as that one had been, the governor would have been exhilarated, anxiously seeking the redundant confirmation from Crawford that it had gone as well as it had appeared. He would have soaked up the acclaim. This was different; his eyes were haunted, there was a sheen of light sweat across his brow, and the tic in his cheek that was only noticeable when he was nervous had started to twitch uncontrollably.

Crawford hurried to catch up. “What did he say?”

“Something about me and Madison.”

“What about her?”

“That he knows, Arlen. He knows about me and her. He said I needed to talk to him, and if I don’t, he’ll end the campaign.”

Crawford’s stomach immediately felt empty. “Let me handle it.”

“No. Not this time.”

Robinson walked quickly through a service corridor. Crawford had trouble keeping up with him.

“He’s a crank. We’ve had them before, and there’ll be more and more of them the better we’re doing. Please, sir—let me speak to him first. If it’s anything we need to worry about, I’ll let you know. You speaking to him now is just asking for trouble.”

“No, Arlen.”

“We don’t even know who he is!”

“We’ll do it in private, out back. I want to hear what he has to say. I don’t want you reporting it back to me, pulling your punches—you do that all the time.”

Crawford trailed after him. “I don’t understand. Why are you so worried about him?”

“I told you before—I still don’t know what happened with me and Madison.”

“It was nothing.”

“No, Arlen, it was. She just stopped taking my calls. One day, it was great; the next, nothing. It was out of character. I never got an explanation.”

“We spoke about that. It was for the best. If it came out… you and her… a prostitute… Jesus, J.J., that would sink us for good. There’s no coming back from a story like that.”