Troubled Waters (15 page)

I looked up at Ted, willing away memories of his hand grasping mine as we walked through the little park behind the art museum. “First of all, will you please sit down before I get a crick in my neck. And second, who are you working for?”

Ted smiled and walked around the picnic table, settling himself next to Dana. “I'm with the Cleveland
Plain Dealer
. I've been covering the campaign, and this looks like it might have some repercussions. But I'm here on deep background. No quotes, no attributions. Nothing said here will find its way into the paper, believe me.”

“Now that we have all that settled,” Rap said, “let's get back to ‘Tell them, Ted.'” He waved a hand in Ted's direction and said, “Go ahead, tell us, Ted.”

Ted cleared his throat. “I made some inquiries.” He looked at me. “Under the Freedom of Information Act,” he explained. I nodded. I could deal with this. We were talking law now, not dead teenagers.

“And the feds admitted there was an informer?” Dana's voice was sharp with skepticism.

“No, of course not,” Ted replied. “But a lot of the documents were blacked out.”

“Redacted,” I murmured, using the legal term.

“Which means,” Ted went on, “that they have something to hide. And some of the entries don't make any sense unless they were getting information from somewhere.”

“Yeah,” Tarky cut in, moving his unlit cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, “they were getting it from Kenny. He was a sad little twerp who killed himself because we didn't like him anymore. And we didn't like him because he called the cops on us. It's that simple. It's a fucking shame the kid's dead, but it's no mystery.”

“Do you really think the feds would rely on a sixteen-year-old to play undercover cop?” Ron asked.

“But we were working for the government,” I protested. “Why would they spy on us?”

Rap's answering grin was one of pure malicious pleasure. “Maybe we weren't all working for the same government.”

Tarky lifted his bulk from the table and began to pace. “Why,” he asked the maple tree, “do all paranoids think they're the center of the goddamn universe? Every nut who believes in reincarnation thinks she was Cleopatra, and everybody who was remotely on the Left in the sixties thinks the FBI has a file on them.”

Suddenly he wheeled around and thrust his cigar at Jan. “Do you really think we were that important? That a bunch of half-assed kids playing revolutionary posed such a threat to national security that the feds would bother paying somebody to keep an eye on us? Get real, Jan.”

The Jan of twenty-five years ago would have ducked her head, hidden behind a curtain of hair, grabbed a joint and a drink, and dropped the subject. The Jan of today faced Tarky with a small smile, looked him in the eye, and said, “That's exactly the kind of logic I'd expect the informer to use. Because whoever sold us out back then is still part of the group now. So it could be you—or Wes.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Dana muttered. She glared at Jan, who glared back.

“There's one more thing,” Ted said.

“I'm not sure I can take one more thing,” I said under my breath.

“Kenny was keeping a notebook,” Ted said. “He got a steno pad from me and said he was going to write down everything that happened. He was going to show us that he wasn't responsible for all the fuckups that summer.”

“So where's this notebook now?” Rap challenged.

Ted shrugged. “I have no idea. But I think if we found it, we'd be well on the way to knowing whether Jan's right or not.”

“So what if she is?” Tarky asked. “Who the fuck cares if someone informed on us?” He faced Jan squarely, his bulk overshadowing her frailness. “It won't do you a damn bit of good in court, and it'll focus press attention on the sixties and hurt Wes.”

“What about 1982?” Ron replied. “What if the whole reason it all went bad is that the government infiltrated the sanctuary movement?”

“I repeat,” Wes said, his hands spread in a gesture of pleading, “Tarky and I had nothing to do with the sanctuary movement.”

“Look,” Jan said, raising her voice, “there's something about 1982 that you don't know.” Then she looked at each of us, one by one, her gray eyes seeming to stare through us, as if she could x-ray our souls. “Or should I say, there's something all but one of you doesn't know. Something that changes everything. Something I have to tell the judge.”

I looked at Ron. He shook his head, which I interpreted as his telling me that he had no idea what Jan meant. I didn't like the prospect of my client's codefendant exploding a bombshell in court, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I'd just have to wait for the hearing to find out what Jan was talking about. At least the hearing would be closed to public and press; I wasn't going to have to pick up the pieces in the full glare of publicity.

“Why tell us?” Tarky demanded. “Why not just go into court and do whatever it is you think you have to do?”

Jan bit her lip, then drew a deep breath and said, “Because I'm trying to be fair. I'm trying to work the Ninth Step, to make amends. There was a lot of shit going down in '82, but the only thing I care about is what the informer did. I won't talk about the rest unless I have to.”

“Oh, right,” Rap cut in, his restless hands punctuating his words, “all you have to do is ask nicely and somebody will step up to the plate and admit they sold us out and killed Kenny and did whatever the hell you think got done in '82. Get real, Jan. In the first place, all of this is crazy shit. In the second place—”

We never got to second place. “We've got to run,” Tarky said after a quick consultation with his Rolex. “Let's move it, John Wesley. We don't want to miss the fruit cup.”

The candidate stood up from the picnic table, gave us all a wide, meaningless campaign smile, and strode across the lawn in the wake of his campaign manager.

The group broke up shortly after that. There was nothing more to say, no small talk that could follow accusations of betrayal and murder. Zack and Ron and I drove back downtown in the van, the setting sun a huge orange ball that filled the windshield.

At the hotel, I said I was tired and went to my room alone. I flipped on the TV and switched it to CNN, then took off my clothes and lay on the bed. I'd planned to read through the court papers, but instead I fell asleep with a story about the Middle East ringing in my ears.

The phone woke me. I reached for it, still groggy and displaced. I knew I wasn't in Brooklyn, but I couldn't have said for sure where I was.

“Hello?” I said, my voice rusty with sleep.

“Is this Cassandra Jameson?” a male voice asked.

I nodded, then realized that wouldn't help. “Yes,” I said. I glanced at the clock on the bed table: 3:14.

“Do you know a Janice Gebhardt?” the voice asked.

“Yes. What is this about?”

“She was just airlifted to Toledo Hospital. We'd like you and Mr. Ronald Jameson to meet us there.”

“Who is this?”

“Trooper Houghton of the Ohio State Police, ma'am,” the man replied. “Ms. Gebhardt was the victim of an assault.”

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

July 16, 1982

“They didn't hurt you?” Jan asked, for what Ron decided was the fourth time.

He shook his head. “It wasn't fun, but they didn't hurt me.” He recalled, also for the fourth time, his urine bag overflowing on the floor of the cell. Nothing he could do about it, so he'd thought he was way past feeling shame. But he'd blushed when the guards went for the mop, blushed like a kid wetting himself in first grade. No, Jan didn't need to know that part.

“I was okay,” he repeated, careful to keep the edge out of his voice. At least his attendant had cleaned him up before Jan was released. His bowel evacuation was also overdue, so Andrew had a few choice things to say when he did the rubber glove thing, but Jan didn't have to know about that either.

Jan leaned over and touched his cheek. “You shaved,” she said softly. Ron inclined his head, accepting her euphemistic use of the active voice. When her bony fingers reached his lips, he pursed them into a light butterfly kiss that brought a smile to Jan's wan face.

They sat at a window table in Posner's Deli, a courthouse hangout in downtown Toledo, conveniently located across the street from Harve Sobel's law office. Ron had a half-eaten bagel in front of him, and a cup of coffee with a straw stuck into it.

“God, it's so good to see you again,” Jan said. “I'm glad you're here.” Then her face darkened. “What a stupid thing to say. We've been fucking arrested, and here I am—”

“Stop it, Jan,” Ron said. In the old days, he'd have lifted his hand to her mouth, stopped her words with a light touch. Now his tone of voice had to do all the work. “Don't blame yourself. I offered my van. I went along. I'm as sorry as you are that Miguel died, but it wasn't our fault.”

“It was somebody's fault,” Jan said. “Somebody tipped off Walt Koeppler. Somebody told him exactly where we'd be and when.” Jan's face, devoid of makeup, radiated an intense conviction that struck Ron as just this side of madness.

“What makes you say that?” He kept his tone neutral.

“Think about it!” Jan's bony fist struck the table. “The feds let Rap get away with the boat. You'd think Walt Koeppler would have done anything to get the
Layla
. Without the boat, we're dead in the water, but instead of grabbing Rap and Dana, he screws around with us and gets Miguel killed. And Rap sails the hell out of there. It doesn't make sense, unless—”

“Maybe he was going to grab the boat, but when the shooting went down—”

Jan's voice overrode his, its stridency causing heads to turn three tables away. “Unless Rap or Dana made a deal with the feds.”

“Why would they do that?” It wasn't the right question, but all Ron really wanted was to lower Jan's decibel level.

“I think Rap packs cocaine into the hull,” she whispered, leaning over the table. “Runs it to Canada along with the refugees.”

“How do you know?” Again, Ron had the feeling this wasn't the best question. But he'd spent his time behind bars worrying about her, not dreaming up conspiracy theories.

Jan's lips twisted into a cynical parody of a smile. “You forget, I was the Julia Child of drugs. I knew exactly what to take for the perfect high, knew just what you needed for a soft landing. Where do you think I got the stuff I used to hand out to my friends like chewing gum?”

Rap. Of course. Why deal with a stranger when you can find an old friend who'll help you commit suicide the slow way?

Ron bit down on the remark he wanted to make. He'd smoked his share of dope before 'Nam, then gotten really wasted over there, where joints as fat as Havana cigars were made in Saigon factories and sold under brand names. Where cigarettes laced with heroin cost less than a carton of regular smokes. Back in the world, sitting in the chair, he'd graduated to harder stuff—though it wasn't easy being an addict who depended on a hospital orderly to get the stuff into his veins. He'd kicked the hard way, not wanting to admit to anyone who didn't have to know that he'd become the sorriest of statistics, the burned-out vet with a hole in his arm. So who was he to judge Jan? Who was he to wish she'd been able to say no when Rap waved his goodies under her nose?

“So you think Rap sold us out in return for the feds leaving him alone on the drug stuff? Would they do that?”

“Would they let a world-class drug dealer go free so they could nab a political refugee who never hurt anyone in his life?” Jan twisted a hank of hair around her finger. “Yeah, Ron, they would. After all,” she went on, her eyes filled with the passion he remembered from the summer of '69, “it's U.S. policy in Central America that creates refugees. The government doesn't want a lot of people from El Salvador and Guatemala up here talking about what's really going on.”

“I'm not a fan of the Reagan Administration either,” Ron began, “but isn't this just a little too—”

“That's not all,” Jan cut in. Her intense whisper was hoarse; the veins in her neck bulged. “I overheard Rap and Dana arguing at the church last week. They were talking about a factory.”

“A drug factory? Packaging heroin? Making amphetamines?” Ron frowned as he considered the implications. Smuggling drugs across the border was bad enough, but if Rap was actually making the stuff, then he and Jan had to put a great deal of distance between themselves and their old comrade.

“I don't know,” Jan replied, “but I'm going to find out.”

“What do you mean, you're going to find out?” Ron worked at keeping his voice calm. It wasn't as if he had the right to tell Jan what to do—but he didn't like the idea of her going up against Rap.

Jan gave a slight, unconvincing shrug. “I'll just ask Dana a few questions, maybe see where she and Rap disappear to when they think I'm not around.”

“Could be dangerous” was all Ron said, but his face must have said more. Jan hastened to qualify her remarks. “I won't do anything stupid.”

Twelve years in the chair had taught Ron not to envy others for what they could do and he could not. Twelve years had taught him a brutal lesson in patience. But he hated the idea that he could only sit and wait while Jan risked her life. He wanted to beg her not to go out there, to leave everything to Harve, to—

He gave her his broadest smile. “Be careful, Jan,” he said. “Don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

Her bad-girl grin answered him. “How the hell should I know what you wouldn't do?”

In a temporary campaign headquarters in the same Spitzer Building that housed Harve Sobel's law office, the Democratic candidate and his campaign manager took a rare moment of rest to assess the situation. Posters of the highly photogenic incumbent congressman adorned the walls, while a dartboard in the corner featured a photograph of the smiling actor-president with several darts protruding from his forehead. Piles of flyers photocopied on pastel paper littered the desks. Boxes of political buttons were stacked against the wall; on the campaign manager's desk lay a glossy, full-color catalog from a company named Votes Unlimited, from which more political paraphernalia would be ordered.