The Inside Ring. Mike Lawson

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       7

      DeMarco passed under the Capitol’s Grand Rotunda without an upward glance. To reach the stairway leading to his office he had to excuse his way through a cluster of tourists, their sunburned necks straining skyward as they gazed reverently at the painted ceiling above them. The tourists irritated him. He was in a bad mood already because of this nonsense with Banks, but it bugged him, every day when he went to work, these rubberneckers in their baggy shorts blocking the way.

      He descended two flights of stairs. Marble floors changed to linoleum. Art on the ceiling was replaced by water stains on acoustic tile. The working folk dwelled on DeMarco’s floor. Here clattered the machines of the congressional printing office and directly across from his office was the emergency diesel generator room. The diesels would periodically roar to life when they tested them, scaring the bejesus out of DeMarco every time they did. And just down the hall from him were shops occupied by the Capitol’s maintenance personnel. Considering what DeMarco did some days, being located near the janitors seemed appropriate.

      The faded gilt lettering on the frosted glass of DeMarco’s office door read COUNSEL PRO TEM FOR LIAISON AFFAIRS, J. DEMARCO. The title was Mahoney’s invention and completely meaningless. DeMarco entered his office, took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and checked the thermostat to make sure it was set on low. Adjusting the thermostat was something he did from force of habit, for his psychological well-being; he knew from experience that twisting the little knurled knob had absolutely no effect on the temperature in the room. He could call his neighbors, the janitors, to complain but knew he would rank low on their priority list. Who was he kidding? A guy with an office in the subbasement didn’t make the list.

      In his office squatted an ancient wooden desk from the Carter era and two mismatched chairs, one behind his desk and one in front of it for his rare visitor. A metal file cabinet stood against one wall, the cabinet empty except for phone books and an emergency bottle of Hennessy. DeMarco didn’t believe in keeping written, subpoenable records. On his desk was an imitation Tiffany lamp – a redundant appliance as strips of harsh, fluorescent lights provided all the illumination needed – and on the black-and-white tile floor was a small Oriental rug, the predominant colors being maroon and green. On the wall opposite his desk were two Degas prints of dancing ballerinas. His ex-wife had given him the faux-Tiffany lamp, the rug, and the ballerinas – a futile effort on her part to ‘warm the place up.’ Only an arsonist, DeMarco had concluded long ago, could give his office any warmth.

      DeMarco took to the chair behind his desk. He put his feet up, laced his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. What to do about Billy Ray? He doubted the agent was guilty of anything. It was just as Emma had said: Mahoney was playing a long shot and using DeMarco’s career for chips. He was hoping DeMarco would get lucky and find out Billy Mattis was dirty, in which case Donnelly’s failure to properly investigate the warning letter could be used to nail his slippery hide to the wall. DeMarco didn’t know why the Speaker disliked Patrick Donnelly but it was obvious he did. The bear wanted to gobble him up.

      So since the bear wanted his snack, DeMarco was stuck. He couldn’t disobey a direct order from Mahoney yet he could do nothing that would come to the attention of the Secret Service or the FBI. If they discovered he was mucking about in their business they’d stomp him to death with their wing-tipped shoes – and when the stomping began the Speaker would pretend he’d never heard the name Joe DeMarco. So he would investigate Billy Ray as ordered, but carefully. Invisibly. Discreetly. And investigating Billy meant making a gigantic leap of logic: he had to assume Mattis was guilty. To think otherwise left him nothing to do.

      DeMarco’s investigation began with the warning note. He took the index card Banks had given him and reread the words. The signature was interesting: ‘An agent in the wrong place.’ It sounded as if the author was being coerced or had knowledge he didn’t wish to have. It was a … reluctant signature. So if the note was legitimate and if the Secret Service was somehow involved in the assassination attempt, maybe Billy Mattis was the one who sent the note. He knew the assassination was going to take place, didn’t want any part of it, but could do nothing to stop it.

      A second possibility was that the note referred to Mattis and he had intentionally dropped his sunglasses to give the shooter a clear shot at the President. A third and more likely possibility was that the note was a prank and Mattis was innocent. Possibilities and could bes and ifs. He was skipping down a yellow brick road of nonsense in a political land of Oz.

      Banks had also given DeMarco a copy of Mattis’s personnel file, so he put aside the index card to shine the bright light of his intellect on that thin document. He would learn all there was to know about his quarry; he would study the jackal’s past.

      According to the file, the jackal was as American as grits and moonshine. He was born in Uptonville, Georgia, wherever the hell that was, and had lived there until he enlisted in the army at age eighteen. He spent fourteen uneventful months in South Korea and after the service joined the Army Reserve and spent a couple of years at a community college. Following college, the Secret Service hired him and he’d been with the agency for six years.

      There were two noteworthy incidents in Billy Ray’s file. Billy’s Army Reserve СКАЧАТЬ