Authors: Robert Ellis
The front door opened and Stewart Brown hurried outside lugging the answering machine and cardboard box filled with trash and what looked like mail. Brown was taking precautions, clearing out the office and covering his tracks. Eddie raised his camera, finishing off the roll of film as Brown popped open the trunk and dumped everything inside. Too rushed to notice them, Brown jumped into his Mercedes and sped off into the night.
“I’ll take it from here,” Frank said grimly. “Go home and get some rest.”
Frank waited until Brown disappeared around the corner. Then he made a U-turn and began following him.
He kept his distance, remaining a half-block back. When the Mercedes turned into the drive-thru window at an all-night Kentucky Fried Chicken, he parked on the street and waited, concentrating on his anger and trying to keep his emotions in check. Brown was a master at dirty politics. With RAVE, he’d reached the big time.
Frank shook it off, watching Brown order a large bucket of chicken and cruise out of the lot. After the Mercedes passed, Frank counted to ten before switching on his headlights and pulling away from the curb.
He followed Brown onto the Beltway. Fifteen minutes later, the Mercedes rolled up an exit ramp, made a right onto a two-lane road, then another right into a suburban neighborhood. Frank looked out the window at the houses and guessed that Brown wasn’t on his way home. They were small ranch jobs set on quarter-acre lots without trees. Pickup trucks and vans lined both sides of the street.
Brown parked in the drive of the only house with all its lights on. Frank found a space two doors down and pulled over, killing his headlights. After a moment, he saw Brown step into the backyard carrying his bucket of chicken and a bag of videotapes.
Frank got out of the car. He could hear a dog barking in the distance as he lit a cigarette and took in the house. The curtains were drawn. The place looked neglected. After three quick drags, he stepped on the butt and started into the yard.
Brown had entered the house from the back. Frank noticed the grime on a sliding door and saw a happy face sticker on the glass. The door remained open, his view concealed by a thin curtain. A cheap sign mounted on the exterior wall read DIGITAL IMAGE.
Frank peeked through the curtain. It was an unfinished basement set up like a video editing suite. An editor in his twenties sat before a computer in jeans and a T-shirt. Brown was slumped on the couch with his pants undone and his feet on the coffee table. He held a drumstick in his hand and was gnawing the chicken away from the bone in quick ravenous bites. As the editor played back a portion of the spot they were working on, Frank turned to the monitor and watched. It was work in progress, another ad for RAVE, only this time the TV wife was walking out of church with a girlfriend.
“But why is Lou Kay bad?” the girlfriend was asking.
A look of amazement washed over the TV wife’s face. “You’ve heard what everyone’s saying. Lou Kay doesn’t respect women. And he’s divorced. Didn’t you see his ex-wife on TV? Joe says that’s all we need to know.”
The TV wife looked up and saw her TV husband walking out of the church with a TV preacher. Everyone on camera looked like a freak.
“Hi, honey,” she said, waving her hand with an inflated smile. “Over here.”
It was garbage. And it was sick. The kind of TV spot that was slapped together in a basement late at night. Unable to contain himself, Frank pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the room. When the editor saw him enter, he nearly jumped out of his skin. When Brown finally turned and saw Frank walking toward him, he dropped that piece of fried chicken on his lap and froze.
“I needed to see it,” Frank said in a voice that rattled. “What are you making, something special for election day?”
Brown looked him over, beginning to panic. “I’m just the errand boy, Frank. The messenger.”
Frank grimaced, moving closer without saying anything. He was standing over Brown and watching him wipe the grease off his face. Brown’s hands were trembling.
“I do the work and you get the credit,” Brown said quickly. “You get the win, Frank. Now knock it off and get the hell out of here.”
Frank stared back at him for a long time. And then something happened. He could feel the energy inside his body.
He could feel it melting down. He could feel it releasing.
He grabbed the bucket of chicken and dumped it on the concrete floor. When the editor bolted up the steps in terror, he turned back to Brown and gave him a hard kick. Brown tumbled off the couch and bounced onto his stomach. He started groaning. Whining. As he scrambled to his knees and tried to pull up his pants, Frank gave him another hard kick and knocked him down again. Brown’s eyes went dead and he screamed. Then Frank seized him by the back of the head and pushed his sweaty face into all that chicken.
“Eat it,” he said, shouting. “Eat it, you greasy prick. Eat it.”
Chapter 61
On his own again, Raymond drove through Georgetown at 3:00 a.m. with his tape player just changing sides. Tape 5, side 2 in the series included,
keeping your client happy even when you’re not, how to turn rejection around and finally close that big deal, and mastering the art of a winning smile
. As much as Raymond loved the series, every time he listened to tape 5 he wished that the author had taken the time to expound on the issues in greater detail.
Closing the deal
. There had to be something more to it than calling it an art.
Raymond knew that the reason most people blew it was because they over-thought the process. This was the moment when something invariably went wrong. The moment when he had to keep his eyes and ears open, ignore the negatives and make his big push forward. The author likened this step to a football game as well. Every close game came down to a final drive. This was the time to review your ultimate goal, take another look at your plan, and make sure that you were ready before you stepped out onto the battlefield.
Raymond made a left at the corner. As Frank’s house came into view, he shielded his eyes from the glare and hit the brakes. The street was lined with news vans. Cameras and lights were set up all over the lawn. The night was bright as day.
Raymond ejected the tape, returning the cassette to its case and gazing through the windshield. He counted twenty-five video cameras mounted on tripods. More than fifty people were camped out, drinking takeout coffee and smoking cigarettes. Whatever the story, it had obviously spread beyond the local affiliates.
Raymond’s eyes moved to the house. The windows were dark and the metallic blue Chevy that he’d hoped to find parked in the driveway was gone. When he saw a man getting out of news van, he pulled forward and rolled down his window.
“What’s going on?” Raymond asked, yawning as if he lived in the neighborhood and was late getting home.
“Morning news,” the man said, jerking his thumb at the house. “He worked for the president. Past tense. We’re waiting for him to come home.”
The man smiled. Raymond nodded and smiled back, then idled off. The press would be keeping a close watch on Frank. Getting to him would be more difficult now.
Ignore the negatives
, he thought to himself.
Get those voices out of your head
. The press was nothing more than an occupational hazard that couldn’t be helped. And they definitely looked preoccupied. Their attention wouldn’t be on the house, but on the street as they waited for Frank to return home. Who were they to interfere with his plans?
Raymond made a left just past the house and parked around the corner. Olson’s night-vision goggles were in the glove box. Slipping them into his pocket, he got out of the car and started down the street. Ever since Jake had given him the go, he’d been considering his options. On the drive over he’d narrowed his choices down to two. In either case, Frank’s house had to be scouted tonight. He had to see the place just to make sure.
The moon was out. Raymond stopped at the corner and gazed up the street. The news vans blocked his view of Frank’s house and were providing perfect cover. Crossing the street, he scanned the neighboring property. The house was dark. Several days’ worth of newspapers were piled up by the front door. As he moved to the far side of the drive, he noticed the dew on the lawn. The grass was matted and he spotted a fresh set of tracks leading into the backyard.
The press never seemed to respect their boundaries. They were always getting in the way. Always making his job more difficult than it needed to be. Raymond lifted his pant leg and checked for the knife that he kept sheathed just above his right ankle. Then he walked down the drive, cutting into the yard and around the house. The property was densely landscaped. Keeping to the shadows, he could see Frank’s house on the other side of the fence. No one seemed to be around, and Raymond wondered about the tracks he’d found on the neighbor’s lawn. Through the trees he could see the aura of the camera lights and hear the sound of the press chattering away as if they were at a party. When he turned back, he scanned the property a second time but still didn’t see anyone.
Without making any sound, Raymond finally stepped out from behind the tree and moved toward the fence. He stopped and listened. He could hear something moving in the darkness. He turned and looked across the yard at the back porch. It was a dog. He was trotting down the steps and seemed rushed. After taking a quick shit in the pachysandra, the beast scampered back up the steps and vanished into the house through a doggy-door.
The dog was a definite complication. Raymond hated dogs just as much as they seemed to hate him. It was visceral on both sides. Although he’d shot them on numerous occasions, it had always been messy and unnerving. Dogs were hard to stop. Even with a slug in its chest, a dog could keep coming, keep barking and biting. For Raymond dogs were the stuff of nightmares, and he often woke up in the middle of the night with his heart pounding in his chest.
He took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. Something caught his eye as he looked back at the house. The windows were dark, but he thought that he could see a small bead of light in a window on the second floor. The light faded, then glowed. When he realized that it was the head of a cigarette, he ducked out of the moon light and below the line of the fence.
Frank Miles was home. He’d probably been watching him from that window since he’d stepped out from behind the tree.
Raymond dug the night-vision goggles out of his pocket and slipped them over his head. As he peeked over the fence and adjusted the focus, he saw Frank staring back at him from a chair by the window. The image was clear and vivid and he could see the entire room. Raymond waited for five minutes, but Frank’s eyes never moved away from him. When he finally backed away from the fence, he saw Frank stand up and follow his progress through the neighbor’s yard.
His body shivered in the cool night air. Frank Miles had known that he was here all along. It was almost as if his next target had been expecting him. Waiting for him to show up.
Raymond hurried back around the neighbor’s house and across the street to his car. He noticed the Chevy parked on the next block and thought about those tracks he’d seen on the lawn again. As he drove off, he tried to assess the damage in giving his next victim such a clear warning. There wasn’t any, he decided, because Frank Miles wasn’t capable of guessing what he had in mind. Raymond didn’t like him. He didn’t like his face, or the way that he had been staring at him. It was a strong face, just like the one he’d seen in the diner when Jake thought that he had the guy cornered. It was a face much like the one he liked to think he wore when confronting his victims. Jake had been right. The guy was an asshole who liked to screw with people’s heads. It would be a pleasure taking him out.
Chapter 62
Frank slid his bottom desk drawer open and looked at the gun. A Glock .45 with an extended clip. He checked the office before touching it. Tracy was at her desk keeping an eye on the callers in the conference room. His interns were busy on the phone, tracking spots between the campaigns and the TV and radio stations—everyone panicked because now they were only one day out. Tomorrow voters would be at the polls. When he looked in Linda’s office, she was still on the phone with her client in Colorado. They’d been at it for over an hour. Things weren’t going well in the Rockies.
Frank picked up the Glock, keeping it hidden behind the desk. He admired the simplicity of its design. He liked the weight—the way it felt in his hand. As he checked the mag, he noticed his hand quivering slightly from too much coffee. He hadn’t been able to sleep last night. He hadn’t even gotten close. He’d been sitting by the window trying to drink his way past all that had happened when he saw the man with spiked gray hair step out of the shadows and approach the fence. After that all he felt was terror.
Frank glanced outside at the office parking lot below. The press had followed him to work and reestablished their base camp on the sidewalk. Without the cover of night, Frank had been caught climbing his fence in the backyard this morning. He’d made a run for it, but they were ready for him. Cameras had been rigged on shoulders and it turned into an ugly foot race with the Armani-clad reporters shouting questions at him as he reached the car. The scope of their interest had widened. They were asking about the murders and why the president had
really
fired him. It was clear to Frank that someone in the U.S. Attorney’s office was setting the table and had leaked information. Things didn’t look so good.