The Inside Ring (25 page)

41

DeMarco’s head hurt—in fact, his whole body ached—and the whiny, high-pitched voice of Philip Montgomery’s daughter was an auger piercing his skull. He was sitting with the woman in the kitchen of the late author’s Atlanta estate. Outside the kitchen window was a rose garden where a sprinkler ran, creating small rainbows as the late-afternoon sun struck water-drop prisms.

DeMarco had called Mahoney before flying to Atlanta. He left a brief message, telling his boss that Emma was fine, that Taylor was no longer a problem, and that he had a few things sorted out. He was glad that Mahoney hadn’t been available to speak to him; he’d let the callous bastard stew over the meaning of the message until he got back to Washington.

Janice Montgomery was a disgruntled woman in her thirties dressed in baggy jeans and a black T-shirt. Her short hair was mousy brown, her doughy face devoid of makeup, and her thin lips locked in a line of perpetual disapproval. One of the many things she disapproved of was her father.

“He was a complete bastard,” she said. “He cheated on my mother the whole time they were married. And when my brother committed suicide, the son of a bitch gave the most moving eulogy the world has ever heard. I still see it quoted in magazines. The truth was that he hardly knew his own son and had no idea how depressed Peter always was, living in the great man’s shadow, unable to measure up to his famous name. Philip Montgomery spent more time with his agent than he did with his family.”

This bitter tirade had started when DeMarco told Janice Montgomery how sorry he was about her father’s death and how much he had admired his work. Though he was just trying to be cordial and establish a relationship with Montgomery’s dour daughter, he truly had admired the man’s writing.

Montgomery wrote fiction, but fiction based on harsh reality and obtained by completely immersing himself in his subject. He lived in India for almost a year before writing a nine-hundred-page novel similar to James Clavell’s
Shogun
. He put into historical and social perspective the Indian class system and described a poverty so great that it was beyond the average American’s comprehension.

For another book he spent four months in Cambodia with a group of peasants who had survived the killing fields and were so emotionally traumatized that they were like zombies. From this experience came
Silent Cries
, a novel that even the most apathetic could not read without becoming enraged at the plight of a people the world had abandoned. For a short time after the book was published, charitable donations to that part of the world tripled.

He loved to travel—maybe to get away from his family—and almost everything he had written had been set in a foreign country, lending his novels an exotic touch that would have been absent in more familiar surroundings. Montgomery’s apparent passion for the downtrodden, as much as his literary brilliance, made him one of the most popular writers in the twenty-first century—but clearly his daughter was not a fan.

DeMarco had arrived at Montgomery’s house half an hour earlier and introduced himself as a member of Congress doing a follow-up investigation on the assassination attempt. He had said that as a matter of routine “we” needed to know what Montgomery was working on before his death. His daughter’s first reaction had been to slam the door in his face.

“I’m getting every dime of his royalties from this point on and if I can sell the rights to whatever he was writing before his death, I’ll do that too. I’m not showing you shit.”

DeMarco explained he had no intention of removing anything from the premises, or even of making copies, but she was obdurate. He tried to be gentle with her, thinking she might still be mourning her father, but when he couldn’t move her he abandoned the compassionate approach.

Threatening to serve her with a warrant, then bagging everything in the house as evidence—virtually guaranteeing she wouldn’t be able to sell the rights to Montgomery’s last work for a decade—finally got him through the front door and into the kitchen.

He didn’t know what to say about her feelings toward her father, and frankly with his head hurting the way it did, he didn’t really care.

“I’m sorry to hear he was so, uh, callous toward you, Ms. Montgomery, but do you think I could—”

“And this crap with the President,” she said. “Their famous reunions. Maybe when Daddy’s drinking buddy became President, maybe then they cleaned up their act. But when they were younger they’d tell their wives they were going hunting and spend a week getting shit faced, trying to fuck anything in a skirt. They were just a couple of gray-haired frat rats, both of them. They made me sick.”

“Uh, Ms. Montgomery,” DeMarco said, “do you think I could see your father’s papers now, whatever you have that might give us some idea what he was doing the last few months?” He was so tired of listening to this woman complain.

“There aren’t any papers, not in the sense you probably mean. There’s no rough draft or plot outline. When my father was researching his books, he’d jot down facts in a spiral-bound notebook like the type kids use for school. He had an incredible memory. After he did his research he’d take long walks for a few weeks, mixing everything he’d learned around in his head. Then he’d sit down and just write his books. He was a prick but he was also a genius.”

“Could I see the notebooks, please?” DeMarco asked.

“Yeah,” she said, heaving herself up from the kitchen chair with a groan you’d expect from a woman twice her age.

As they were walking toward her father’s study, DeMarco asked, “Do you have any idea what he was working on?”

“Me?” she said, followed by a bitter laugh. “My father didn’t confide in me. He just used me like he did my mother. I was his free cook and cleaning lady when he was in town.”

So why the hell did you live with him?
DeMarco wanted to ask but didn’t.

“All I know,” she continued, “is that he was working on something here in the States, which surprised me. He was packing for a trip back in April and when I asked where he was going, he said ‘Out in me own backyard, m’dear’ in this idiotic W. C. Fields accent. He said there was a ‘delicious pile of shit’ just a few miles away, but he didn’t explain what he was talking about. It never occurred to him to involve me in his work; I was just his daughter.”

They entered Philip Montgomery’s den and DeMarco took a moment to take in the photos and plaques of a life of incredible achievement. While he was looking at a picture of Montgomery accepting the Pulitzer Prize, his daughter walked over to an antique rolltop desk and picked up a spiral-bound notebook with a red cover and handed it to him.

“I have to change the water in the garden,” she said. “I’ll be back in a moment. I’m going to take you at your word that you won’t take anything.”

DeMarco nodded, no longer listening to her. Montgomery had doodled on the cover of the red notebook, mostly spirals and stars and geometric figures, but in one corner was a crude picture of a castle and a man wearing a crown. DeMarco took a seat at Montgomery’s desk and flipped open the notebook. The only thing written on the first page, in capital letters and underlined, was THE SWAMP KING. DeMarco was surprised to see only about twenty pages filled with writing, mostly cryptic phrases, names, and numbers. There were no long narrative sections. There was enough there, however, to confirm what Emma had suspected.

Philip Montgomery had somehow gotten wind of the situation in Charlton County. DeMarco could imagine someone living there writing a letter to the author, telling him he didn’t have to go to Asia to uncover a tale of despotism, tragedy, and repression. He could also imagine Montgomery, probably not initially believing it but intrigued by the possibility, eventually journeying to southeast Georgia to investigate. DeMarco couldn’t tell from Montgomery’s notes if he was going to write a nonfiction account or a novel as he usually did. He was guessing a novel. With a novel Montgomery would reach a broader audience and with his talent, truth couched as fiction would be even more effective than straightforward reporting.

If Montgomery’s book had been published, Taylor would have been finished.

DeMarco also concluded that Montgomery was a better researcher than he was. His notes contained things DeMarco had not even suspected. Some of the figures suggested that Montgomery had been able to calculate how much Taylor was making off Charlton County taxes and his illegal use of the Okefenokee Swamp. Compared to most white-collar crimes and Wall Street scandals, the numbers weren’t mind-boggling—only a few hundred thousand a year—but then Max Taylor didn’t need much to maintain his rural lifestyle. There was one note in the book that didn’t make sense to DeMarco. The notation read: $$$$—Guerrero—Dallas?????

Simple phrases told everything else: “feudal lord,” “pocket police force,” “strong-arm enforcement.” One line simply said, “the Honeys, God help ’em.” Estep’s name was mentioned, so was Hattie McCormack’s and a dozen others DeMarco didn’t recognize. Unfortunately there was no mention of Patrick Donnelly, nor was there any indication that Montgomery had figured out the original source of Taylor’s income.

It had never occurred to DeMarco—or anyone else—that the real target of the assassination attempt had been Philip Montgomery. The sequence of shots at Chattooga River had made it seem clear that the intended victim was the President because after killing Montgomery with the first shot, Estep had taken two more shots in an evident attempt to kill the President.

That the President had been wounded, DeMarco now realized, was deliberate. Estep was too good with a rifle to have missed the President three times. The final shot Estep had taken—the shot that passed between Mattis’s legs and hit the agent lying on the President—was the kind of sick, playful thing Estep would do. Estep had shown DeMarco just how playful he could be that night in the swamp.

Taylor must have learned—just the way he had learned about DeMarco—that Montgomery was researching a book about Charlton County and his despotic hold over the region. Taylor would have been afraid of Montgomery. State and federal authorities might ignore complaints from poor county residents, and if they did investigate they could be bribed or frightened, but no one was going to bribe or frighten Philip Montgomery, best-selling author and confidant to the President.

Taylor also knew that if he simply killed Montgomery, the police might wonder if the motive wasn’t related to whatever Montgomery was writing about. So Taylor did something incredibly audacious: he made it appear as though Montgomery was killed accidentally during an attempt to assassinate the President. Taylor’s great advantage in pulling off the murder, in addition to Estep’s marksmanship, was Billy Mattis. Taylor could manipulate Billy into giving him the President’s security arrangements, and Billy was someone who could also find a perfect fall guy to blame for the shooting. DeMarco wondered now how much of Taylor’s hold over Billy was the threat to harm his mother and how much was because Taylor was his father.

Now DeMarco knew everything except for the link to Patrick Donnelly.

42

You were right,” DeMarco said into the phone. “Montgomery knew everything Taylor was up to. The man was a helluva researcher.”

“But nothing in his notes connected Taylor to Donnelly?” Emma said.

“No. There was one weird . . . Hang on a second, Em. Emma, they’re calling for my row to board. I gotta go.”

“You started to say something,” Emma said. “About something weird.”

“Oh, yeah,” DeMarco said. “There was a notation in the notebook that didn’t seem to fit. There were a buncha dollar signs, followed by the name Guerrero, followed by Dallas, then a buncha question marks. Anyway, I couldn’t figure out how it tied to what Taylor was doing. Emma, I gotta go. I don’t want to miss this flight.”

“Dallas?” Emma said. There was a pause then she said, “Oh, Christ!”

“What?” DeMarco said, irritated. Goddamnit, if he missed this flight there wasn’t another one to D.C. for three hours.

“Joe, when did Taylor and Donnelly get rich?”

“Early ’64. What’s that have to do with—”

“And what happened the year before? November of 1963, specifically?”

DeMarco thought for a second, then said, “Oh, come on, Emma. Kennedy? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Change your reservation, Joe. Neil and I will meet you in Dallas.”

43

Mahoney had a migraine. The curtains were drawn and the lights were out in his office. There was a light on in the hallway outside his office and it provided enough illumination for DeMarco to see Mahoney’s silhouette but not the expression on his face. He didn’t have to see the expression to know his boss was unhappy.

“So they never were after the President?” the Speaker said.

“No,” DeMarco said.

“But you have no more proof that they killed Montgomery than you did when you were convinced they were trying to kill the President?”

“No, sir,” DeMarco said. “But it all fits—and I found a hell of a motive.”

“Humph,” Mahoney said.

“And everyone involved is dead?” Mahoney said. “Estep, Mattis, Taylor, all of ’em?”

And Harold Edwards and John Palmeri and Morgan and Jillian Mattis. A lot of people had died and DeMarco had killed two of them.

“Yeah,” DeMarco said. “All except Donnelly and I don’t think—”

“And the link between Taylor and Donnelly, you can’t prove that either?”

“No way,” DeMarco said. “Just two reports related to a forty-year-old accident.”

“But if Donnelly and Taylor really did what you think, coverin’ that thing up . . . My God.”

“We don’t have any proof. All we’ve got is the timing and Emma’s gut feeling.”

“And Montgomery’s.”

DeMarco shook his head. “Texas is a dead end, boss.”

“Damn it all,” Mahoney said. He put down the ice bag he’d been holding to his forehead and his hand reached out from the shadows and grasped the bottle on his desk. It never occurred to him that bourbon might contribute to his headaches; if it did occur to him, he would drink anyway.

“I feel bad about Mattis,” DeMarco said as Mahoney poured his drink. “He was a victim in this whole thing from the beginning.”

“Fuck him,” Mahoney said, his voice rumbling. “His job was to protect the President and he didn’t do it.”

Sitting in the dark as Mahoney was, DeMarco felt as if he was talking to a bear in its cave. A wounded bear.

“But the President was never the target,” DeMarco argued. “And he was afraid for his mother. If you’d seen this guy Morgan you would have understood why.”

“Fuck him anyway,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney sat there glumly for a moment then said, “Do you know why I wanted to get him, Joe? Donnelly, I mean.”

DeMarco shrugged. “I assumed he had something on you.”

“Nah. You remember Marge Carter, what happened to her five years ago.”

“Yeah,” DeMarco said.

Margaret Carter had been a Republican representative from Mississippi. Even though she’d been a member of the opposition Mahoney had liked her and found it possible to work with her. Five years ago an article, complete with grainy, long-range photos, had appeared in a tabloid. The photos showed Carter, who was married, in a compromising position with her lover—a gentleman of color. She lost her seat in the House and her marriage. And her husband, who was by all reports a complete bastard, gained custody of their two children.

“Those photos in that scandal rag were taken by agents working for Donnelly. I know that for a fact. He was pissed at Marge because she cut some of his budget in committee. That little bastard ruined a woman because he was mad about a budget mark, and he used his agency to do it.”

And all this time DeMarco had thought the Speaker’s animus against Donnelly had been personal. The man continued to surprise him.

“We can still go to the media with this,” DeMarco said. “I’ve got more than enough to feed
60 Minutes
, and by the time they’re done the FBI would be forced to investigate Donnelly.”

DeMarco saw Mahoney shake his head.

“Going public now would be bad for the country,” Mahoney said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You go to
60 Minutes
with this and Mike Wallace or Morley, one of those guys, they’d make Donnelly look guilty as hell but—”

“He is guilty. Maybe he wasn’t directly involved in the assassination attempt but he did everything he could to obstruct the investigation.”

“I know, but there isn’t enough to send him to jail, so after
60 Minutes
gets done with him Congress’d be forced to hold a buncha damn hearings. We’d be holdin’ fuckin’ hearings for the next two years. And the Secret Service and the FBI and Homeland Security, they’d all get black eyes. They’d—”

“They deserve black eyes.”

“No they don’t, Joe. Not the career civil servants, not the agents, not the men and women who really do the work. Clucks like Donnelly and Simon Wall and Kevin Collier, they deserve it but the agents don’t.”

Mahoney, champion of the little guy. DeMarco could not believe him sometimes.

“Yeah,” Mahoney said, “if all this went public, this whole incredible fuckup—Secret Service agents helpin’ assassins, Donnelly trying to cover it up, the FBI pinning it on the wrong guy . . . I mean . . . Hell, Joe, Donnelly would lose his job, sure, but then we’d waste more time running the Secret Service up the flagpole than it would ever be worth. Nah, no media. If I can’t put Donnelly in jail then I just want his ass fired. So that’s what I’m gonna tell the President to do.”

“You think he will?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll explain it to him. I’ll talk slow. And anyway, the President won’t want this to go public either.”

“Why the hell not? They killed his best friend.”

Trying to follow the workings of John Mahoney’s mind was like driving a winding road at night with the headlights off.

“Joe, think about it,” Mahoney said. “That lad in the White House has gotten a lotta mileage outta this thing. For a guy who dodged the draft, getting shot the way he did is as good as a combat wound. Hell, the man’s still wearing a damn sling and his doctor told me all he needs now is a bandage! No, the President doesn’t want it known he wasn’t the intended victim. He’s up twenty points in the polls.”

Mahoney rubbed his hands together—a fat white-haired spider spinning its web.

“Yeah, the President will fire Donnelly and that’s when his troubles are really gonna start.”

“Oh?”

“Without his position to hide behind, without access to the government’s lawyers, Lil’ Pat’s gonna start havin’ all kinds of legal problems. Old ladies are gonna slip on his sidewalk. He’s gonna rear-end a family with spinal cords as brittle as eggshells. Ex-agents are gonna sue him for discrimination and sexual harassment and any other damn thing I can think of. The motherfucker’s gonna spend the rest of his life in a courtroom and every damn dime he has to his name.”

John Mahoney was not a man you wanted for an enemy.

“But none of that will be as bad for him as getting fired. Without his job, that little fuck is nothing. His job defines him; it’s his whole life. That’s why he’s never retired, no matter how much money he has. He loves walking around with his agents, meeting with the President, having the local cops kiss his ass whenever he comes to their town. And since 9/11, he’s had a new lease on life, investigating every poor bastard in the country with an Arabic name. Yeah, if he loses his job he’ll be just another short old guy waitin’ in line at the pharmacy window.

“Who knows,” Mahoney said, ever the optimist, “maybe he’ll commit suicide.”

Mahoney turned on the light on his desk. He looked terrible. He looked his age.

“So you go see him today, Joe. Tell him everything you’ve got on him. Embellish as much as you want. Just make sure he understands he’s in shit up to his eyeballs.”

“Maybe he’ll resign after I talk to him.”

“No, he won’t do that. But after you soften him up, when he gets the call from the President, he’ll go without a fuss.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“He’s a weak man, Joe. He proved that in Texas in ’63. And his actions before and after the assassination attempt prove it. You lay it out for him and he’ll stew on it—and when he gets the call, he’ll go.”

Mahoney opened a drawer in his desk and rooted around inside it with a thick hand.

“Damn, I’m outta cigars. No wonder my head hurts the way it does.”