Wag the Dog (48 page)

OK, Taylor said to himself, I'm an officer. I have faced enemy fire. I do not panic. I plan. I adapt. I adjust. He straightened his back. He took out a scratch pad. He made notes. Where was Brody? Uncertain. Check. How? What was known? That Brody had an appointment with Joe Broz at
noon. A known time and location. If we don't know where he is coming from to get there, there is only one choke point, just before the destination.

Now Taylor had a plan. Three things. First, check the apartment. Go up. Knock on the door. No answer—Taylor was certain that there wouldn't be. Break in. Be sure. If he was there, make it look like a robbery and mugging. Either way, call in. Never mind trying to figure out where he was, because they didn't have a clue, a hint, an idea. So forget that. Simultaneously, send someone to intercept Brody at the choke point. He was going to try to get some additional personnel on it. But he knew it wasn't going to happen. There was no one around. Certainly not anyone he could use for a break-in or for strong-arm work, except for Otis, Perkins, and if need be, himself. And he couldn't even get that started until those two called in from the field. Sitting there with his career ticking away as loud and as insistent as a clock with audio dementia while the phone kept failing to ring. And the third thing. The hard thing. Call the client. Tell him what was going down.

Maggie, fresh from her workout, with nothing that she totally, utterly, completely, inescapably
had
to do, found that she
had
to drop in on Joe. There was a kid on the street with a plastic bucket selling lousy single roses for no more than they were worth and bunches of fresh-cut carnations. She bought her lover both and brought them with her.

She loved Joe's office. There had been happy moments in her childhood—not everyone's youth is unremitting hell—and one of the great joys was Playing House. This was exactly like that, a child's game, but call it Playing Hollywood. She loved her home. Now that Joe was in it. Loved sex. Loved country-and-western music. Hell, she loved Joe.

He looked just like a for-real producer in the Fierouggi suit she'd picked out for him—with the Unger & Unger shirt and Partigiano loafers, with those damn white sweat socks, a touch that worked, she had to admit it, to love it—feet up on the desk, script in his hand, scripts already filling the bookshelves. When she came in, he put the script down and looked
at her the way a woman wants to be looked at, daydreams about being looked at, a gaze that smolders and adores on the covers of silly and childish romance novels. She gave him the flowers. He took her in his arms. Life is a movie. They ended up, it just worked out that way, making love on the desk. Someone should've been keeping one mind on the time so they'd be done by noon so they wouldn't be caught with all their pants down when this Brody kid arrived. But they just didn't seem to care.

The printing was done and there was an awkward moment, after Teddy had thanked Sam again, but before he actually left. It was one of those weird things, where synchronicity just wouldn't happen. The spark was there, but when it showed in one's eyes, the other person wasn't looking. Wanting, and because they wanted such a lot, not just a reaming and a pipe cleaning, they had grown awkward with the fear of failure. Then Teddy left. He had everything printed up clean and neat and in spiffy binders.

When Chaz and Bo finally called, Taylor sent Perkins, who was the brighter of the two, to Joe Broz's office. His instructions were: “Make sure that Brody doesn't get in to see Broz. If he has papers with him, get them.” He had Otis do the apartment break-in. After Taylor called the client—he knew he was going to be reamed out; he could only hope that it was a ream of limited duration—he was going to head for Broz's office himself. He was actually closer than Perkins. If Brody arrived before Perkins, Taylor was going to do the intercept himself.

Hartman heard Taylor out. Hartman was not happy. He pointed out that nobody knew what the kid knew or didn't know. Or what his intentions were. If U. Sec. had notified Hartman a day earlier, even two hours earlier—no excuse that he was incommunicado; U. Sec. should have picked up on the situation sooner—then it would have been the simplest thing in the world to offer this kid some other job, somewhere that parked him away safe and sound. Probably all that he wanted was a position from which he could climb a little higher a little
faster. He wasn't out there peddling John Lincoln Beagle's secrets, was he? At least that wasn't what it looked like. Now what were they going to do? A strong-arm thing?

Hartman didn't bother to mention, at that point, what he thought was the real bottom line, which was something like,
Well, as long as it solved the problem and didn't cause more problems, what the hell,
because that would have let the idiot off the hook. And he didn't want to do that.

So he told Taylor what an idiot he was. Which Taylor knew he was going to do. And he made it very clear that Taylor was not to fuck this up any more than it already was. Also pretty standard. On the other hand, the Hollywood asshole apparently had presidential clout. So Taylor jumped in his car and raced toward Joe Broz's office.

If the timing had been a little different, perhaps the subsequent events would have changed. Or maybe not. Maybe, when the forces are set in motion, they find a way. It doesn't matter which channel is open. If one is blocked, they flow to the next. If all are blocked, they flood over the dam. Maybe kismet exists and fate finds a way.

Originally, Otis and Perkins had parked so that they had both the front door of Brody's building and Brody's car in sight. That's why they had been so sure the kid was still inside. Taylor, feeling pressured by the client's anxiety and his own, didn't want to hear explanations, stories, excuses. So he just said,
“Do it.
Do it now. One to the apartment, one to Broz's office. Stop him.”

It's hard to say that this was a mistake. But if Otis or Perkins had waited, they would have seen—from the vantage point of where they had been parked and watching—Teddy Brody walk down the sidewalk to his own Subaru Justy. Where he stopped and thought about whether or not there was anything upstairs that he needed—if there had been, he would have run smack into Chaz Otis. But then he decided that there wasn't. He got into his car and drove, in a leisurely way, toward Joe's office.

Joe's office had the sweet smell of satisfaction. And it was filled with languorous giggles as well. “I have to look out the window,” Joe said.

“Why?”

“I just have to know how many people could possibly have just watched that.”

“Do you care?”

“That's that many fewer people to buy the video.”

“What video?”

“Jane Fonda has her workout tapes. I thought we could do this.”

“You thought that?”

“I thought that.”

“You did, did you?”

“Yeah.”

“Should I be insulted by that?”

“Oh, no, no, no. It's 'cause you do it so well. Better than anyone.”

“Than anyone in the world?”

“Outside of Southeast Asia.”

“Southeast Asia?”

“Yeah, you should see some of the things I saw in Bangkok.”

“Why, so I can do them for the video?”

“I'll be a sonuvabitch,” Joe said, looking out the window.

“What?”

“Come here.”

Maggie came to the window. Joe pointed. Down at the Buick, parked across the street, to Joe's right, with one tinted window, the driver's, rolled down. Mel Taylor's face visible. “Who's that?”

“That's Mel Taylor. Head of the L.A. office of Universal Security. He's watching our front door, personally.”

“Is that bad?”

“Is it bad? OK, so they see Teddy Brody come here?

What does that tell them? Anything? I don't see why it should? I don't know.”

“So it's not bad?”

“It's not good, but it's hardly fatal.”

“You know what I did today?” Maggie said, looking out over his shoulder. “I got John to call Bambi Ann Sligo.”

“Who?”

“Travolta.”

“To tell her that Scientology cures being queer?”

“Um-hm.”

“That's very nice of you.”

“It's because I love her name. I really do. And because I could just imagine her face when she got a call from John Travolta.”

“And John was willing to do that?” He scanned the street. There weren't too many people on foot.

“Why do you think she wanted to know?”

“Son or husband,” Joe said, “in the closet. And she just peaked in the closet. She wants to clean the closet. Make it all neat, the way it's supposed to be, way she thought it was. Very neat and orderly woman, Bambi Ann.” There was a parking lot, across the street and down the block to Joe's left. Then he saw a guy, rather lanky, short hair, serious attitude, coming from there. The knapsack—which he had over one shoulder, like a shoulder bag, not over two like a hiker—seemed in character for the person he imagined Teddy Brody to be. Then he looked across the street and saw how Taylor looked at the kid. That confirmed it.

Taylor wasn't doing anything. Just watching. It was too late to alter anything.

Maggie leaned against Joe. The wetness beginning to drip out of her. It felt good, a reiteration of eroticism. That was because they were new lovers. In a mature relationship, it feels slightly repulsive—adult humans don't like being wet and sticky—and then, as it dries, crinkly, tightening, and staining, it becomes one of those mildly irritating cleaning problems. Something to be dealt with, though not as bad as red-wine stains.

“That's the kid,” Joe said. Once Brody crossed the street, Joe opened the window to get more angle so he could keep
watching. Maggie adjusted her clothing, covering her breasts. Then, just as Brody got ready to enter his building, Joe saw movement out of the corner of his eye. A car door opening.

Sight goes to movement. He saw Bo Perkins step out onto the sidewalk. Stepping quick, right behind Teddy Brody, following him into the building.

“Stay here,” he said to Maggie. “Don't open up for anyone but me.” He ran out.

Bo was right behind Teddy. He had him pegged for a faggot right away. That made him happy. He liked to hurt faggots. More than regular people. There was something about it that was just—there was no other word—satisfying.

Great, the lobby was empty. Stairs to the left, elevator to the right. A door at the back. Where to do the number on him? Fucking rush job. This was risky. Best shot—do it now, do it fast, get it over with. Why not? He who hesitates is lost. Lots of truth in the old maxims. As Teddy reached for the elevator button, Bo punched him in the kidney. Teddy never touched the button. He turned in agony. He saw Perkins. Partly because he'd pegged Teddy as queer, partly because it gave him a sense of power, Bo yanked Teddy toward him and drove a knee up into the kid's groin, smashing his testicles and his pansy dick. The freak would be walking funny for a long, long time, if he lived. Which—what the hell, he had looked at Perkins, right at him, seen his reasonably memorable face, sometimes shock makes people forget, sometimes agony fixes a memory in place, why take a chance—he was not going to do. Perkins stepped back and very efficiently broke Teddy Brody's neck with a single blow.

It had been real fast. Even running, by the time Joe got there, Perkins was gone. In his car, driving away. He hadn't forgotten the knapsack. Joe checked the body lying on the ground. Dead. He went outside.

Taylor was still there. Across the street. He and Joe looked at each other.