“Give me the details. In one minute.” She got off the couch and went into her office and came back with a legal pad. “Okay. I want to make sure I get this right.”
“Investigators from the Marshals Service found four logs with paint on them that match the paint from Senator Smalls’s Cadillac. That’s now being confirmed in a crime scene lab...”
He gave her the name of the sheriff and the deputy who foundthe logs, and Forte’s name and phone number. He added, “Marshals Service investigators have reported to their superiors that they have a lead on the truck, based on video taken the day before the murder and assassination attempt.”
“When should I feed it to them?”
“Depends on who you’re going to give it to,” Lucas said.
“Depends on when you want it out. I can give it to a friend at WJZ and have it on the air tomorrow night, or to a woman at thePost, who’d put it up the next morning... or both.”
“Let’s go with both,” Lucas said. “We don’t want them to miss it. Make sure you’re totally off the record.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to look for reaction... We’re gonna hope for one.”
—
THE NEXT DAYwasn’t quite a waste. Ritter’s truck remained parked at his apartment, with the empty space next to it. Lucas did see Ritter, arriving back at his apartment at five-fifteen in the afternoon, driving a sporty red Mazda Miata. He left again at seven o’clock and drove a mile or so to a cocktail lounge called the Wily Rat, with Lucas following behind, and with Bob, who’d been about to take over the watch from Lucas, trailing in the Tahoe.
Ritter parked and walked toward the nightclub’s entrance. Before he got there, a short, slender woman came out, looked both ways down the sidewalk, and spotted Ritter walking toward her. She trotted over to him, put her hands on his shoulders, jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. Ritter kissed her, and they spoke for a minute. Then she jumped down, and they walked into the club.
Bob followed them inside a few minutes later, got a beer, watched for a while, walked back outside, and told Lucas, who was waiting in the parking lot, “They’re getting burgers and beers. Met some people in there, look like military folks. Yakking it up.”
“Not much, then.”
“Not yet. My turn to watch them. Do you want me to follow them home?”
“Be nice to know who the woman is,” Lucas said.
“I’ll see if I can spot her car, get her plates.”
“Okay.” Lucas yawned. “I’m going back to the hotel. Kitten said there’ll be something on TV tonight about the assassination attempt, so... you might see something from Ritter. If anything happens, call. Gonna get up early. We should see something in the papers tomorrow, for sure, and all over TV.”
11
Taryn Grant didn’t see the original broadcast about the assassination attempt on Porter Smalls, but her chief of staff picked up an echo on CNN. Mabel Tate was at first bemused with the report, which was more than a little vague. Then, recalling the controversy surrounding her boss’s initial election, and with the news reports’ reminder that a woman had been killed, bemusement shifted to concern, and she called Grant at home.
Grant did not like to be called at home with anything less than end-of-the-world problems. She had a date that night with an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Legislative Affairs), who was on temporary career-building loan to the Treasury from JPMorgan Chase. She hoped to impress him with the plight of hapless billionaires facing unfair tax burdens.
He was a sleaze, she knew, the kind of government official who owned a specialized high-riding electric razor that kept him in permanent three-day-beard mode, and who wore custom silk dress shirts open at the throat to show off the mat of chest hair beneath, but...
He had his uses.
Grant definitely favored men who had uses.
—
WHEN HER PHONE RANG,she picked it up, saw “Tate” on the screen, and asked, “What?”
“Have you been watching the news?” Tate asked.
“Are we bombing somebody?”
“I wouldn’t call you for that,” Tate said. “This might be worse.”
Grant knew Tate wouldn’t call for anything trivial. She had a dressing stool in the bathroom, and she sat, and said, “Tell me.”
