“Can I talk to your guy?”
“Sure. I think he’s down in the parking structure, if you want to wait in the bar...”
—
LUCAS GOT A DIET COKE,and Schneider and his guy showed up five minutes later. The second security man was named Jeff Toomes, white-haired with a ruddy face, in a gray suit—an ex-cop, Lucas thought.
“There wasn’t any reason to stop him, at first,” Toomes told Lucas. “What happened was, I was doing my checks, and I came out of the stairwell and started toward the hallway that goes to the rooms. I heard a door close as I turned the corner and there was a guy walking toward me. I’d say six feet, maybe a half inch either way, close-cut brown hair, brown eyes. Looked to be in very good shape. Clean-shaven, decent pale blue summer suit, polished lace-up shoes. If he was carrying a gun, it would have been in the small of his back—no gun sag on the sides, and the suit wasn’t cut for a shoulder rig. I suppose he could have had an ankle wrap, but who has those?”
“And he was by my room,” Lucas said.
“That’s what I realized as I was walking by. I think he had to come out of your hallway. There’s only two rooms down there, and when I checked later I found out there’s nobody checked into the other one.”
Lucas said, “You heard the door actually close.”
“Yes. Another thing... you’re on four, and I realized that I didn’t hear the elevator bell, the one that rings when the doors open. I went back: I was going to see what room he was in or who he was visiting, but he was gone. He had to have taken the stairs. That’d be unusual, unless you were in a hurry. I called Steve, but nobody saw him again. He would have gotten lost in the lobby.”
“He’d have been in a hurry because he’d been surprised by a guy he recognized as security.”
“The thought crossed our minds,” Schneider said.
Lucas said, “Well, hell.”
—
SCHNEIDER CAME UPto the room with him. Lucas popped the door, and they both eased inside. Lucas looked at his luggage and briefcase, but nothing seemed out of place, missing, or added. Schneider tipped his head toward the door, and Lucas followed him into the hall.
“I know a guy who could sweep it for you,” Schneider said. “Or, better, I could move you across the hall but leave you registered in this room.”
“Let’s do that,” Lucas said. “Then if somebody else shows up, I’ll actually be behind them. I might even hear them going in.”
“If you shoot somebody, try not to hit any guests,” Schneider said. “Unless it’s an old lady with a mink hat carrying a rat.”
“A rat?”
“Okay, a Chihuahua. That’d be Mrs. Julia Benson, grass widow. She lives here. Eighteen thousand a month, and she doesn’t care—she likes servants. I’m apparently one of them. Biggest pain in the ass in the building. I wouldn’t want you to kill her, but wounding her a little would get you some free drinks.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lucas said.
7
Lucas settled into his new room, across the hallway from his previous one and without the view of the Potomac. He struggled briefly with a spasm of paranoia: did guys in nice suits break into hotel rooms occupied by U.S. Marshals? In Washington, D.C., in a place called Watergate? Really?
When that moment had passed, he called Smalls, who blurted, “Can’t talk at this exact minute, call me back in... four minutes.”
Lucas called back in four minutes, and asked, “You were with somebody inconvenient?”
Smalls said, “No, I was standing at a urinal. I’m at a luncheon. Try not to call when I’m taking a leak.”
“All right.” He told Smalls about the possible illegal entry, and asked, “Have you told people that I’m looking at the accident?”
“I had to tell a couple of people at the office. I trust them, and I told them not to talk to anyone else. I took my wife to lunch and I didn’t even tell her.”
“There’s a leak somewhere, Senator, and it’s probably Grant. You might think about that,” Lucas said. “Now I’ll be working out in the open, I guess. If this was an entry and not a mistake by the security guy... If it’s not a mistake... I mean, they knew where my room was.”
“I think a mistake’s most likely—though given the shot they took at me, the attack, you can’t know for sure, can you?”
—
