The Silent Places (9 page)

“Travis Bickle? That’s not a real guy. That’s from a movie, isn’tit?”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, Joe. Don’t you remember? ‘You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?’”

Klosterman pointed a finger at him and said, “Dustin Hoffman.”

“Robert De Niro.”

“James Caan.”

“No. It was De Niro,” Hastings said, then realized that Klosterman knew it all along.

Joe Klosterman rolled his shoulders, acting out the rest of the scene. “‘I don’t see no one else here. Who the fuck you talking to?’”

“Okay,” Hastings said, hoping that would shut it down.

But then he was doing Scorsese’s lines from the film, saying, “‘Have you ever seen what a forty-four Magnum would do to a woman’s face? Fucking destroy it. Have you ever seen what a forty-four Magnum would do to a woman’s—’”

“Enough,” Hastings said.

“Okay,” Klosterman said. “Yeah, I guess it would be pretty boring. Better pay, though. Say, do you think Amy Carter still has Secret Service agents protecting her?”

“I have no fucking idea.”

Hastings made a left turn onto Kingshighway Boulevard, crossed over I-64, then made a right turn onto Oakland Avenue.

Klosterman said, “Preston’s a Republican, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. But he seemed a bit Carteresque to me today.” Hastings shrugged. Screw it. He hadn’t gone into police work to get the Alan Prestons of the world to like him. It was too much work, to begin with.

Klosterman said, “Did you vote for him?”

“I did once,” Hastings said. “Not the second time.”

“How come?”

“The war in Iraq, mostly. Which he supports, even now. I thought it was a good idea at first. Later I realized I was wrong.”

“I told you,” Klosterman said. Klosterman had said invading Iraq was a mistake from the beginning.

“Yeah,” Hastings said. “You told me.”

Hastings pulled the Jag into the parking lot of Imo’s Pizza. He got out of the car and dialed Howard Rhodes’s number.

“George?” Rhodes said.

“Hi, Howard. Joe and I will be there in about thirty minutes. We’re picking up a pizza at Imo’s. You guys want anything?”

“Hold on,” Rhodes said. “Murph, you want anything from Imo’s?”

A moment later, Rhodes said, “Yeah, he wants a medium pepperoni and sausage. He’ll take it home with him.”

“All right,” Hastings said. “Anything happen?”

Rhodes said, “Not a damn thing.”

They were given access to the house across the street. It wasn’t for sale, but it was empty. The house was a three-story English Tudor with arched windows on the top floor. In the backyard, there was a crumbling, empty fish pond and fountain, along with a rusted swing set no one had bothered to remove. The house had been purchased by a man who made a fortune in auto parts. He died in the nineties and left his entire estate, worth around six million dollars, to his adult son, who spent the next few years snorting it away. Now the son owned the house but couldn’t afford to furnish it or even have it fixed up so that it could be put on the market. The son, now in his forties, was on probation for possession of controlled substances. Accordingly, he was amenable to Captain Anthony’s request to use the house for official police purposes.

From the top floor, the police officers had a good view of Senator Preston’s house. There were no furnishings, so they had to bring cots and a couple of lawn chairs. They had a television but no cable. Murph had brought a rectangular boom box he had owned for fifteen years. When the television wasn’t on, he liked to listen to classic rock on KSHE 95.

When Hastings and Klosterman came to relieve them, it was apparent that Murph and Rhodes were getting on each other’s nerves. Murph was listening to a promo for a radio talk-show, the host saying that Miley Cyrus’s dad was a jack off. Murph laughing at it, Rhodes saying, “It’s not funny. I don’t know why you think it’s funny.”

“Evening, ladies,” Klosterman said as they came up the stairs.

Rhodes’s shoulders sagged in relief. Grateful he would be getting out of there but depressingly aware he would have to come back in twelve hours.

Murph said, “Got a man here who doesn’t like Howard Stern.”

“He’s not funny,” Rhodes said as he set the binoculars on a table and moved across the room to get his jacket and coat.

They were different, the two of them. Howard Rhodes was tall and broad across the shoulders. Handsome, refined, and smooth. Many people at the department, including Hastings, thought he would rise quickly. Unfortunately, many would also credit such a rise to affirmative action, as Rhodes was an African-American. But the people who worked closely with Howard knew he was very capable, hardworking, and conscientious and that he would deserve a promotion in time, irrespective of appearances. Howard Rhodes had been a detective for only a few years, most of them under the supervision of Hastings. Like many homicide detectives, Rhodes was a bit of an elitist. There was an aristocratic air about him. This was natural, not feigned. He was not an overconfident man, but he was confident.

Tim “Murph” Murphy, in contrast, was not physically big. He had the size and build of a bantamweight fighter. He wore knit ties and short-sleeve shirts and tweed jackets. After a heavy lunch, he might weigh 150 pounds. But there was a wild-eyed fearsomeness to Murph, an Irish cop air of menace and intimidation that could, as Klosterman said, make a perp piss down both legs. When Murph and Rhodes did the good cop/bad cop act (which is effective even when the suspect knows it is being done), it was usually Rhodes who played the good cop. It’s difficult for a pit bull to act nice.

They were like brothers, in a way—bickering and fighting but confiding and sharing, too. Murph was what some would call a typical South St. Louis “hoosier.” An uncultivated yokel. And to all outward appearances, that was indeed what he looked like and, to a degree, took pride in. He was a snob, too, in his way. Yet a career in law enforcement had made him tribal, uncomfortable around people who weren’t police officers. The same thing had happened to Rhodes, who could now count on one hand the number of good friends he had who were black.

Murph had once told Hastings he had grown up in a household where the word
nigger
was used frequently by both his parents. When he matured and made his own decisions about life, he said this was not something he could write his parents off for. They were, in his mind, otherwise decent people. He told Hastings that was how people talked in that time and in that place. Certainly, as a child, Murph had never imagined that one of his closest friends would be black. Indeed, after working with Howard for a while, Murph sort of
forgot
that Howard was black. Or rather, he forgot and he didn’t forget. The two of them could have the most candid discussions about race one could imagine. Perhaps this was because Murph felt little, if any, of the discomfort or guilt that whites often feel around black people. Or perhaps it was because both Murph and Rhodes thought of themselves as more blue than black or white.

Now Murph gestured to the police-issue Ithaca pump shotgun propped up in the corner. He said to Hastings, “I’m going to leave that here, if it’s all right.”

“Yeah,” Hastings said. He had the same model shotgun in the trunk of his car.

Hastings handed Murph his pizza.

“Smells great,” Murph said. “You want a slice, Howard?”

“No.”

Howard Rhodes descended the stairs, Murph calling out “Okay” to him, patronizing him.

Murph said, “He’s not enjoying this detail.”

“At least he got the day shift,” Klosterman said.

Murph said, “Well, there’s a game on the NFL network tonight, if you get bored. But then, there’s no cable here. Well, enjoy yourself, boys.”

Murph went down the stairs. Klosterman picked up the binoculars and moved to the window.

A minute or so later, he said, “Did you say the senator’s wife is good-looking?”

“I might have,” Hastings said.

“I wonder if she leaves her shades up.”

“I hope not,” Hastings said. Then he dialed Carol’s number on his cell phone. Four rings and then he got her voice mail. Hastings left a message and clicked off the phone. He wondered if she was with someone else. Then he felt ashamed for wondering.

A few minutes later, his cell phone rang. He picked it up but saw a number that was not Carol’s.

“Hastings.”

“Lieutenant? Martin Keough. The senator’s expecting a guest in about fifteen minutes. So don’t get all alarmed when you see a car at the gate.”

Hastings took a breath, thought, Asshole. “I won’t,” he said. “Who’s the guest?”

“A friend of the senator,” Keough said, and hung up.

A maid asked if Crittenden would like some tea or a drink. Crittenden said, no but that some ice water would be nice. The servant walked out of the room and Crittenden was left alone in the living room with Senator Preston and Keough.

Crittenden said, “So you’re interested in running for president?”

Preston said, “I’m exploring the idea, yes. I wanted to see what you thought.”

“Why?”

Preston said, “To be frank, I think you wouldn’t sign on with a candidate unless you thought he could win. Am I correct?”

Crittenden smiled. “Perhaps,” he said.

Jeff Crittenden was a nationally known political consultant and strategist. In the past ten years, he had built a formidable reputation managing campaigns for Republican candidates. He was considered one of the top three political strategists in the country. Though he lacked the charisma and flamboyance of a James Carville, he was just as effective, perhaps more so. He preferred to remain out of the limelight as much as possible. Indeed, there were times he denied having the influence he actually had. Surely, he would suggest, a mere Texas Tech dropout was incapable of being Machiavellian.

People presumed Jeff Crittenden was a religious man. This was because he encouraged almost all of his candidates to appeal to religious conviction in their campaigns. Even the Democrats were doing that these days. But Crittenden was actually an atheist. This fact, he kept to himself. Despite his lack of faith, he did have a certain admiration for the Old Testament’s Joseph, counselor to the pharaohs.

What he wanted to do was create a president.

Crittenden said to Preston, “You don’t wish to persuade me?”

“I’m not going to persuade you,” Preston said. “You either believe in the viability of my campaign or you don’t.”

“Suppose I don’t?”

“We shake hands and say good-bye. And maybe I’ll find another consultant.”

“Of course.”

Keough said, “There are others.”

Preston gave Keough a disapproving look. Then he said to Crittenden, “Yes, there are others. But frankly, I think you’re the best. I’d prefer to have you on board. So.”

“So what?” Crittenden said.

“So do you think I can win?”

The maid returned with a glass of ice water on a tray. Crittenden took the water, sipped it, and sat back. The maid left the room.

Crittenden said, “I think so.”

He left it out there. The men grew uncomfortable with the shortness of the answer and Keough said, “You
think
so? That’s it, you think so?”

“I’m an adviser,” Crittenden said, “not a seer. There are variables that we can’t predict.” Crittenden looked at the senator. He said, “You’re good-looking, you speak well, and you’re even-keeled. You’re still married to your first wife. Am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“No early marriages we’re unaware of?”

“No.”

“No girlfriends we’re unaware of?”

Crittenden did not like using words like
prostitute
or
mistress
. They seemed dated to him and a little too French.

“No,” Preston said. “That’s not my style.”

Crittenden raised a conciliatory hand. “I don’t judge, Senator. But I don’t like being surprised, either. You understand that a senator has certain freedoms a president or presidential candidate does not have. The freedom to drink, carouse, lose his temper, perhaps even have reactionary views about race. You declare your candidacy for president, it all vanishes.”

“You don’t think I’ve considered that already?”

“You
say
you have. But have you? Have you really? Your wife, your daughter … they lose their privacy, too. Everything will be inspected, opened up. Everything. Past and present.”

“I know that, too.”

“And you’ve discussed it with them? You’ve discussed this with your wife and daughter?”

“Yes.”

“What do they say?”

“They’re all for it,” Preston said. “I suppose you have some concerns?”

“Pardon?”

“Perhaps you have some concerns yourself,” Preston said.

Crittenden shrugged. Despite his soft appearance, he was not easily intimidated.

Preston said, “Perhaps you’re worried that you’ll devote time and effort and, perhaps most importantly, your reputation to my campaign, only to find out that I’m washed out in New Hampshire.”

Crittenden said, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” Preston said. “I’m not the self-destructing type.”

Keough said, “We’ve taken some polls—”

“I know,” Crittenden said.

There was a momentary silence.

Then Keough said, “You know? How could you know?”

Another gesture. Crittenden said, “The initial numbers are impressive, I agree. But, at this stage, polls are essentially meaningless. Gary Hart polled well. So did same guy named Lamar Alexander.”

Keough said, “So you’re not interested?”

“I didn’t say that,” Crittenden said. “Let us say I’m intrigued. If you are indeed serious, would you be amenable to hiring a private detective agency?”

Preston said, “To investigate whom?”

“You.”

Another silence.

Keough said, “Are you making this a precondition? Because if you are—”

Preston raised his hand again. “Martin,” he said. “You misunderstand our friend here. He is a serious man. And he wants to win.” Preston smiled. “We do, too. The answer, Mr. Crittenden, is yes. I would gladly hire a private detective agency to investigate me. I’ll even pay for it. I’m confident they would find nothing.”