The President's Henchman (29 page)

“What’s this?” McGill asked, holding up the disc.

“Highlights from his college career, transferred from videotape.”

McGill smiled. “Galia, this is great.”

“I watched some of that disc. He looked pretty good to me.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I remember, too.”

“How good are you?”

“Want to come and see?” McGill asked.

“No, thanks. I can’t remember where I put my pompoms.”

McGill grinned. “You can always yell, ‘Go, team!’”

“You’d better win, that’s all I can say.”

After reading the scouting report and watching the DVD, McGill built a fire in the fireplace and fell asleep on the sofa. He was awakened, but not to the point of opening his eyes, by someone caressing his cheek with well-buffed fingernails.

“Is that you, Edwina?” he murmured.

“I can be Edwina, if you want. Just keep your eyes closed.”

“That’s right, you’re an actor,” McGill said, playing along. “So how come you never won an Oscar?”

Velvety lips made their way around his face.

“I made only four movies, and every time I worked, Meryl did, too.”

“Damned inconsiderate of her.”

Fingers played arpeggios along his ribs.

“I’ve heard she voted for me.”

“We won’t have her deported then.”

Good at spatial relationships, McGill found her face with his hands, never needing to peek, and kissed her deeply.

“There’s one problem with this game,” he said.

“What?”

“I like to look.” He opened his eyes.

In addition to seeing Patti, McGill saw that the fire had been rebuilt, a red fleece blanket had been spread atop the rug, champagne was chilling in an ice bucket, and strawberries and whipped cream nestled in bowls of White House Wedgwood.

“On the floor in front of a fire, with edible goodies, to be consumed in who knows what depraved manner?” McGill asked. “The nation would be scandalized.”

“If only they knew,” Patti said, tugging him off the sofa.

Damon Todd couldn’t remember the last time he’d been back to Gambier. Not consciously. A little self-hypnosis could bring back the precise date, but he applied his techniques to himself for only the most important of matters.

The place seemed so small. A two-palm island in the midst of an agricultural sea. Old haunts had disappeared; the latest crop of retail chain outlets had taken their places. But the roads, what few of them there were, remained the same. He found his way to Chana’s street just as the sun was slipping below the horizon.

From the corner of the block where the Lochlan house stood, he saw the old lady who lived next door just going inside. He remembered her. The neighborhood snoop. Her name was … Harriet Greenlea. He thought she’d have died years ago. He cruised by the Lochlan and Greenlea houses doing just under the 25 mph speed limit.

Lights were on in both dwellings. It seemed reasonable to assume that an elderly woman would turn in for the night before Professor Lochlan did. He’d wait until Mrs. Busybody went to bed before he rang the doorbell at the house where Chana had grown up. It took willpower to defer the completion of his journey, but discipline was his life.

He rationalized that after spending so many hours in a car, he needed a good brisk run, anyway. He’d do a lap or two of the university campus. Maybe he could sneak into the gymnasium and use the exercise equipment. Keep his sweats on so he wouldn’t attract too much attention. Feel strong before he talked to Eamon Lochlan.

Not that he anticipated any trouble.

They were friends. Todd would tell the professor that Chana had contacted him. Asked for his help. He was consulting with her father to make sure his therapeutic approach was correct. Why, the story was at least half-true.

Damon Todd had been born and raised in Gambier. His parents had been pillars of the community. Dad had been a doctor, a general practitioner. Mom had taught elementary school math. Older sister, Darcy, had been a registered nurse. All of them had been wonderful people. All of them had been such appalling underachievers they’d driven him crazy.

They’d sold themselves so short. Dad had done his crossword puzzles orally, calling out one answer after the next; and he tossed off
bon mots
with the wit and quickness of Oscar Wilde. He could have been a great surgeon, a great writer, or both. Instead, he tended to a never-ending procession of kids with runny noses, middle-aged women with female problems, and gray-hairs with hip fractures. Mom was even more gifted, a true math prodigy. She could have taught at her alma mater, MIT. Instead she worked in a public school, sometimes with children so young they hadn’t learned to hold a pencil properly. Darcy was a success at everything she ever tried. She could have become the first female doctor in the family. But no, Darcy became a nurse and, after she married the Reverend Milton Bidwell, a missionary nurse.

Damon just didn’t understand it, how everyone in his family could set their sights so low. And whenever he remonstrated with them, they would only chuckle and pat him on the head.
Little Damon, so small but with such big plans.

They’d gotten that second part right, anyway.

Trouble was, none of them had lived long enough to see him graduate from college. He was still in high school when his father had his fatal stroke. They’d all been sitting in the living room of their home, reading and listening to a Mozart concerto on the turntable, when they heard Dad make a gagging noise. Everybody looked up and saw Dad with a look of utter surprise on his face. Through a constricted throat, he managed to gasp, “I … I’m sorry.” And then he fell out of his chair, never explaining for what or to whom he was penitent. They’d all been grief-stricken, but Mom, as the new head of the family, had been determined to carry on, and for two years she had. Until she’d been on beat-the-bell duty, hurrying kids from the curb into school, and the brakes on a late-arriving big yellow bus had failed. She shoved three kids out of the way but didn’t get clear herself. The final blow had come when Damon had been an undergrad at Lehigh University, and the dean of students had called him out of an American history class to inform him that Darcy had perished in Africa: ebola.

Darcy’s death was the one that sent him over the edge. No sooner had he grasped the idea that his sister had died than he felt as if he’d entered a whirlpool. He was slipping, falling, spinning away. He reached up for someone to pull him out, but there was no one left to save him. His whole family was gone.

He woke up in a hospital. He knew his name. But the pieces of his life lay scattered about him like a broken pane of glass. He wasn’t sure how to put them together again. Or if he even wanted to. For an unknown number of days all he wanted to do was sleep. Eating and drinking weren’t important. Bladder and bowel release could be done right there in bed.

Life was unimportant.

Then his therapist arrived. He probably would have ignored her … except she reminded him of his mother. No, she made him think of what his mother could have been — a professional woman of significance — had she cared to exert even a small fraction of her potential. Damon came to look on the therapist’s visits with great anticipation. Truly, he came to love her.

Until she betrayed him by saying, “We’ll get you back to where you belong.”

Where he belonged?
Another underachieving Todd. He’d
never
settle for that. As long as he was making the immense effort to reclaim his life, he was going to make it a
superior life.
One that would achieve both critical and popular acclaim. Because not only would he do great things, he’d help others to achieve success as well.

He’d craft his life and theirs so that victory was inevitable.

Todd was able to get in both the run and the workout he’d wanted. He was still pumped when he pushed the doorbell at the Lochlan house. Every muscle and vein in his neck and face stood out. A light sheen of perspiration still covered him.

A woman he’d never seen before answered the door, switching on the porch light as she did. She jumped backward when she saw him. Her response angered Todd, but he remained outwardly calm.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he said. “I’m looking for some old friends. I’m pretty sure I have the right address, but maybe they’ve moved. By any chance, would you know Professor Eamon Lochlan?”

His civil tone let the woman relax. She was closing in on sixty, Todd estimated, but was still attractive and trim enough to wear a Cleveland Indians jersey and blue jeans without looking foolish. Her smile, when it came, made her look a good five years younger.

“Why, yes, I know Eamon. In fact, I’m his fiancée.”

The dynamic change Todd had been expecting. The upset in Chana’s life. One of them, anyway. Maybe he’d discover more.

The woman extended her hand to him. “Imogene Lyle.”

He took her hand, careful to be gentle.

“Dr. Damon Todd. I treated Chana many years ago. I happened to be in town for the first time since then, and I thought I’d drop in on the professor. See how things are going.”

Her face dropped. “I’m sorry, Eamon’s not here. He left this morning to go to Washington.”

Todd’s eyebrows rose.

“That’s where Chana lives these days,” Imogene explained. “She’s a television person, you know.”

“I believe I heard something about that,” he answered.

“Well, that’s more than I knew before I met Eamon. I don’t watch much TV.” She paused a moment to study him. “When you say you treated Chana, do you mean for her …”

The woman couldn’t bring herself to say it, so Todd did.

“For her breakdown, yes.”

She looked at him again. Closely. “Eamon has a picture of you, but you look quite different.”

“I was in an automobile accident. Lots of physical therapy afterward. I liked the strength I gained and …” He shrugged. “I just kept going.”

It was a lie, but a plausible one. Still, he could see she was about to call an end to their conversation, before Todd could learn if there was anything else he should know.

So he asked, “Is Chana doing well these days?”

Imogene poked her head out the door and looked at Harriet Greenlea’s house. The curtains over there were drawn, but Imogene’s expression said they might be parted at any time.

“Why don’t you step inside for a moment, Dr. Todd? We’ll talk privately.”

He did and within the first five minutes he learned of Eamon Lochlan’s and Imogene Lyle’s plans. Knowledge of which would be of great use in treating Chana. Hearing that Chana’s father would soon be distancing himself from her, however, made Todd rethink his own plans.

He didn’t see any way he could abandon Chana, too.

He could have left quickly and returned to Washington overnight. But he didn’t want to leave Imogene with any memory of his visit. So he accepted her offer of coffee, and after an innocuous distraction spiked her cup with the dose of Special K that he’d intended to use on her betrothed. After that, the hypnosis session went smoothly.

In deference to her courtesy to him, and her status as a prospective bride, he didn’t take advantage of her sexually. He simply tucked the memory of their meeting away in a corner of her mind she’d been instructed never to visit again.

McGill, Sweetie, and Deke showed up at Political Muscle at 6:30 a.m., thirty minutes before Senator Roger Michaelson’s scheduled arrival. The high-end fitness club was members only, but as at its sister gym, Corporate Muscle, the manager was overjoyed to have the president’s henchman make an appearance. Engaging in a bit of duplicity, McGill asked if he might purchase guest passes to see how he liked the facility. The manager offered a complimentary visit for McGill and Sweetie.

He told the manager it would look better if he paid for his passes — just in case he was ever called before a Senate committee and asked about taking special favors. Having things his way cost McGill $100, but he paid without flinching.

There was no charge for Deke who, after all, was on duty.

Sweetie was shown to the women’s locker room, and McGill was escorted to the men’s changing quarters. Many of the lockers in the men’s area were reserved, the names of those renting them indicated on small brass plaques. McGill spotted Michaelson’s directly opposite the massage room. Nothing like a vigorous rubdown following a hard workout.

The club provided McGill with the use of a basketball, which everyone agreed not even Congress at its most picayune could find fault with, most likely. He bounced the ball off the locker room floor three times. Any gym rat in the world would recognize the sound.

After Deke had made sure the locker room was safe, the Secret Service agent stepped outside with instructions not to let Michaelson spot him. McGill quickly changed into his gym clothes: DePaul T-shirt and shorts, sneakers, and a jock. He draped a towel over his head like a prizefighter, picked up the basketball, and enclosed himself in a toilet stall.

He’d no sooner seated himself than he thought he should have brought a newspaper to read. He didn’t have to wait long, though, before he heard Michaelson’s voice nearby, talking to a guy who had to be his trainer. They were discussing that day’s workout: upper body. The trainer said he thought the senator could get 250 on his bench press if he really went for it.

Galia’s background information hadn’t included how much weight Michaelson was pushing these days. But if he could do 250, he was pretty strong. McGill did only 225, and that was on a machine. Free weights were harder. But then he hadn’t heard that Michaelson was doing free weights either. If he was, McGill could only hope that the trainer was giving Michaelson more than a little help with his lift.

McGill flushed the toilet, pulled up his jock and shorts, picked up the basketball, and exited the stall. He washed his hands at a nearby sink to keep up his cover of having used the toilet. He grabbed a paper towel to dry his hands, crumpled it, and carried it with him a good ten feet. Then he turned and neatly flipped the ball of paper into a wastebasket.

Keeping his head down and his face shadowed inside the towel, he began to dribble the basketball. Even if Michaelson hadn’t been paying attention earlier, McGill would bet the sound of the bouncing ball drew his attention. As would the Blue Demon logo on his T-shirt. The only Chicago area university ever to win an NCAA basketball championship was Loyola, but DePaul, back in the heyday of Ray Meyer, Terry Cummings, and Mark Aguirre, had made it to the Final Four.

Which was farther than Michaelson’s school, Northwestern, had ever gone.

McGill dribbled the ball easily, not showboating, just moving it back and forth, right hand to left, left hand to right, as he crossed to the locker-room door. But when he pulled the door open, never stopping his dribble, he went back and forth between his legs.

To show Michaelson here was a DePaul guy who could handle the ball. To set the hook.

The door closed behind McGill, Michaelson never getting a good look at him.

McGill had the gym to himself for five minutes. The club manager had told him the floor was of regulation NBA dimensions. The backboards were Plexiglas, just like the pros used. The rims were bright orange. The lighting was almost overpowering.

Keeping his towel over his head, McGill took shots at the baskets at both ends of the court. He looked for dead spots in the floor where the ball wouldn’t get a true bounce. He didn’t find any. But the rims were tight. Forget about getting a shooter’s bounce in this gym. You swished your shot, banked it cleanly, or you didn’t make it.

McGill used free throws to establish his depth perception. His eye was naturally good for being on line. Once he got the feel for how far from the basket he was, he’d be okay. Not that he planned to use his outside game much, but you never could —

“Hey there,” Roger Michaelson called, entering the court. “You’re new around here, aren’t you? A Chicago guy. Care to play a little one-on-one?”

McGill looked at the senator. Pushed the towel back from his face.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Michaelson might have been a political enemy, but he was no fool. He knew the moment he recognized McGill that he’d been led down the garden path. Of course, he could have turned around and walked right out. But he’d brought his trainer with him. No doubt to enjoy the spectacle of watching the senator thrash the DePaul guy.

Besides that, Sweetie had just entered the gym.

And Deke was visible through the windows of the gym doors as he took up his position to guarantee that no evildoer or anyone else interrupted the game.

So there were three independent witnesses who could testify that Roger Michaelson had wimped out, should he turn on his heel and leave. That was three times as many witnesses as necessary for the word to be spread all over Washington that the number-one jock in the Senate was all talk and no action.

Even that might not have been enough to influence Michaelson to act against his better judgment. But then McGill calmly swished a shot from the top of the key and grinned.

“I know you were a big college star, but I think I might stay with you.”

A direct challenge. If Michaelson walked away from that, he was never going to intimidate any of his colleagues in the Senate again. Wouldn’t sound too forceful should he ever try to stand up to the Grant administration, either.

“What’s your game?” Michaelson asked flatly.

The senator was speaking in the most literal sense.

“Twenty-one by ones,” McGill answered. “Make it, take it. Have to win by a deuce.”

“You got it.”

“Need a minute or two to warm up?” McGill asked.

“No.”

Michaelson picked up the ball, dribbled slowly to half-court, making his game plan. He turned to face the basket at which McGill had made his shot from the top of the key, a distance of twenty feet, compared to the forty-seven feet where the senator was standing.

“I make it, I get the ball first. I don’t, you get it.”

McGill nodded.

Michaelson drained his shot … the ball returning to him on the backspin.

Roger Michaelson made his move the second the ball touched his hands. He faked right and broke left. McGill was ready and cut him off. He’d seen Michaelson’s move on the scouting DVD Galia had provided him. More important, he knew Michaelson wouldn’t wait for him to get set before he started to play. Surprised that his path was blocked, Michaelson pulled back. He was even more surprised when McGill attacked his retreat.

Poked the ball right out of the senator’s hand. Out of bounds.

Michaelson retrieved the ball and picked up his dribble on the far side of the out-of-bounds line. He approached slowly, looking to see if McGill was leaning one way or the other. As he reached midcourt, he burst to his right, intending to drive past McGill and take the ball straight to the hole.

McGill was with him from the first stride. Seeing there was no way he’d get to the rim without McGill cutting him off, Michaelson stopped on a dime and went up for a fifteen-foot jump shot. Money in the bank for him. His form was perfect — but the ball didn’t rise with him. McGill stripped it at waist height.

By the time Michaelson came down, McGill had taken the ball behind the free throw line and put up a soft jumper of his own — 1–0.

“Take the ball behind the free throw line on change of possession, okay?” he said. “And check the ball after a basket.”

An implied rebuke at Michaelson’s trying to sneak in the first point.

McGill bounced the ball to Michaelson for the check; the senator fired it back.

McGill caught the ball as if taking a pass from a teammate and immediately drove left. His first step was quicker than Michaelson’s, and he got to the basket untouched for a layup, even though the senator tried to trip him as he went past — 2–0.

The attempted dirty play was okay with McGill. In fact, he was counting on more of the same. Michaelson doubled the room he gave McGill the next time he checked the ball to him. McGill took advantage of the open space and went up for another jumper. It looked good when it left his hand, but it caught just a little of the back of the rim and shot out like a cork leaving a champagne bottle.

Michaelson grabbed the rebound. The desire to put the ball back right back in was clear on his face. But McGill had established the rule. He had to take it out past the free throw line. Trying to change that now, while the ball was in play, was something only a … well, a politician would attempt. Or a guy who was already worried.

Michaelson brought the ball out as quickly as he could, hoping to get back to the basket before McGill could cut him off, but as he pivoted, he saw that his opponent already had defensive position on him. Anger flashed in Michaelson’s eyes. He went up for another jump shot, but this time he fumbled the ball away all on his own.

As McGill grabbed it, Michaelson, in midjump, kicked out with his right leg, catching McGill solidly on his left thigh. The senator yelled, “Foul!”

McGill held the ball, his face expressionless.

“Hit you on the foot with my leg?”

“You ran into me while I was shooting.”

McGill let the ball bounce toward half court.

As the senator went to retrieve it, McGill said, “You actually call fouls out there in Oregon, huh?”

Michaelson picked up the ball and turned around, knowing that his masculinity as well as his home state had just been impugned.

“We don’t have to call anything if you don’t want to.”

“Let’s not,” McGill said. “Just slows down the game.”

Michaelson came at McGill every way he knew how. With his right hand, with his left. He attempted crossover dribbles, trying to get McGill to lean one way while he rushed past the other. But he just couldn’t do it. McGill’s hands were too quick. He took the ball away every time. Made two layups and one out of three jump shots. Went up 5–0, though Michaelson did catch McGill on the left shoulder with a hard elbow the last time he stole the ball.

Finally, Michaelson got on the board with a reverse 360-spin jumper from eighteen feet out on the left side of the basket. Swished it so cleanly the net barely moved. The shot was unlike anything on the scouting video and one hell of an athletic move for a guy in his late forties — 5–1.

But Michaelson was panting when McGill checked the ball back to him. He might have another move or two like that left in him for the game. After that, if he tried anything fancy, he’d screw himself right into the ground. The senator knew it, too.

He decided it was time to back his way to the basket, interposing his body between the ball and McGill’s quick hands. He’d use his two-inch height advantage and his strength to get in close. He’d bulldoze McGill and put up a little two-foot jumper or a baby hook shot.

Possibly, this strategy was inspired by the senator’s trainer, who yelled, “Muscle him, muscle the sonofa —”

The trainer’s exhortation ended in an abrupt squeak; Sweetie didn’t approve of profanity in general, and especially not directed at those people close to her heart.

Vulgarity aside, Michaelson got deeply involved in his new tactic. He led with his backside, slamming it hard into McGill’s midsection. Knocked him back a step. Checking his spot on the court, Michaelson flexed his knees more deeply. He battered McGill again, going for the groin. Forced his opponent back another step. Two more hard bangs, and he’d be in position to flip a little hook off the board and into the basket.

Michaelson was having fun now. But the next time he thrust his ass out, McGill met it with a knee. A bolt of lightning shot up the senator’s anus and traveled the length of his spine to his brain. He fell face forward, getting his hands up to break the fall only at the last second. Saving him from breaking his nose. Not sparing his forehead from hitting the floor with a bang.

Dazed, he looked up in time to see McGill calmly hit a shot from the free throw line — 6–1. This time the ball came back to McGill on the backspin. He dropped it in front of the senator.

“Check ball,” McGill said.

His forehead bleeding, Michaelson got to his feet to continue the game.

From that point on the two men played full-contact basketball. Pat Riley’s old New York Knicks teams would have admired the fight. Getting the ball into the basket was only incidental to the exchange of forearms, elbows, shoulders, knees, and kicks. Which was exactly what McGill had wanted. He’d taken Michaelson out of his game, basketball, and gotten him into McGill’s game, Dark Alley.