Under the Eye of God (2 page)

“I’m the eye of god,” the shooter shouted, clutching a silver Colt with the longest barrel Isaac had ever seen. The Big Guy couldn’t grab his own Glock. He would have brought pandemonium to the Menger, might have started a massacre. He shielded Mrs. Markham and a little girl, who’d come to seek his autograph, thrust them out of the line of fire, and leapt on the shooter, who squeezed his trigger once, clipped Isaac, grazed him under the arm. The chandeliers rang like celestial chimes. But why, why did Isaac think of those army engineers on their hill in the Bronx just as he was about to topple? It had to be a sinister sign.

“The Citizen’s down, the Citizen’s down,” the Secret Service men sang into their button mikes. “The Citizen” was Isaac’s code name inside the Service. They’d already captured the shooter; four of them, including Boyle, were lying on top of Isaac. Boyle’s own cheeks were covered in Isaac’s blood.

“Boyle,” Isaac whispered, “will you get the fuck off? I can’t breathe.”

And then he blacked out.

H
E WOKE IN A HOSPITAL
room at Brooke Army Medical Center that must have been reserved for generals. It was bigger than Isaac’s bedroom at Gracie Mansion. He had tubes connected to his arm and a plug in his nose that fed him oxygen. This hospital was part of Fort Sam Houston. Isaac had read about Fort Sam when he was still a boy. It was where Geronimo and his own Apache generals had once been held as prisoners of war. . . .

He shut his eyes, and when he woke again, he no longer had the tubes or the plug in his nose. Doctors and nurses had come and gone. They all wore military uniforms. Boyle was near his bed.

“It shouldn’t have happened, Mr. President.”

“Boyle, do I have to tell you again? I’m nobody’s president. I’ll be Michael’s VP, if I live that long.”

“Yes, Mr. President. But it shouldn’t have happened. We were sloppy. It’s unforgivable.”

“What about the shooter? Is he hurt?”

“No, sir. He’s fine. He’s back in the hospital, under restraint.”

“Did you see the fucking size of his Colt? Where did he get a gun like that?”

“It’s a stage prop, sir. He swiped it from a rodeo.”

“What’s his name, Boyle?

“Billy Bob Archer. He’s a Korean War vet.”

“Korea? He looks like a baby. I’d have sworn he was even too young for Nam.”

“It’s the tunic, sir. It disguised his age. He’s touching sixty, and he has a whole sheet of mental problems.”

“Will they charge him with anything, Boyle?”

“Probably, sir. But I can’t get involved with local law enforcement.”

Tim Seligman came into the room with an enormous folder of press clippings.

“You’re a hero, goddamn. The whole planet’s raving about you, Isaac. You should see what they wrote in China and Pakistan.
Vice president–elect risks his life to safeguard an entire hotel from mad gunman
.”

“Where’s Mrs. Markham?”

“Hiding somewhere. We had to block her out of the story. People might get the idea that you have your own personal astrologer. It’s bad for politics.”

“But she is my astrologer. And she saved my ass. I’d never have noticed the shooter if it hadn’t been for . . . ”

The telephone rang.

“Is that J. Michael? Did you tell him to call me, Tim?”

Isaac picked up the phone and growled into the receiver. “Sidel here.”

It was the White House switchboard. Calder Cottonwood was on the line.

“How are you, son?”

“I feel like I’m living in a palace.”

“I reserved that room for you. It’s the best in the house. I’m still commander in chief, you know. And military hospitals are under my domain. . . . Is Tim Seligman there?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“That scumbag, he’s holding Markham a prisoner . . . in one of the Menger’s back rooms.”

“It’s politics. Tim’s playing hardball, like you.”

There was a moment of silence. “Hardball?”

“Didn’t you break her nose?”

“That was passion, not politics.”

“Well, I’m just as passionate about Marianna Storm. And I hate losing her, Mr. President, just because your lads have decided to call me a cop with a Lolita complex, a fucking pedophiliac. Do I have your promise that your little game will end?”

“I could promise you the sun and moon, Sidel, but my boys and girls will clobber you if they can.”

Isaac hung up on Calder Cottonwood. “Tim, I’d like to consult with my astrologer, please.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Shall I fetch her myself? I’ll knock on every fucking door at the Menger. I’ll go there in my hospital gown.”

Tim whispered into his button mike, and Mrs. Markham appeared. He must have taken her out of storage at the Menger and kept her in Isaac’s yellow bus. She was very pale. She’d probably realized that the Dems were as capricious as Calder.

“Mrs. Markham, where would you put the eye of God? I mean, in what part of the Zodiac, what particular house?”

“I’m not equipped to answer that question.”

“But that’s what the mad soldier said. ‘I’m the eye of God.’ And you saw him coming, you anticipated him.”

She stared at the wall. “I’m not equipped to answer that question.”

“Timmy, what have you done to her? There are worse things than breaking a woman’s nose. . . . Boyle, will you find my pants? I’m taking a stroll.”

“You can’t leave,” Tim said. “There are a hundred reporters outside this room. You aren’t ready to face them.”

“Boyle, do you have my Glock?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Good. Then dress me, please.”

Isaac sat up in bed, and Boyle shucked off his hospital gown. Isaac’s ribs were taped. Boyle helped him into his shirt, pants, and shoes. Isaac wore a corduroy jacket that he’d picked up at a bargain counter in Waco. He looked like a catcher of criminals, a philosopher-clown.

“What’s our destination?” Boyle asked.

“Billy Bob Archer.”

Timmy groaned. “Isaac, they won’t let us into the lunatics’ ward.”

“Wanna bet?”

“You’re not to walk with Amanda Markham. We have to camouflage her as a volunteer.”

“Come on. She’s been on Letterman and Larry King. She’s a star clerk. The biggest in the business. Didn’t you say that?”

“She just happened to be near you when the gunman got there, thanks to Boyle’s negligence.”

“Don’t knock Boyle. He can’t attend to all the crazies.”

“He should have been guarding you. That’s what he’s paid for.”

“Tim, don’t irritate me.”

And Isaac sailed out of the room, holding Mrs. Markham’s hand.

“The Citizen’s up and running,” Boyle sang into his mike, and the Secret Service had to clear a path for Isaac and prevent reporters from crushing him.

“Mr. Sidel, do you believe in the stars?”

“Ah, the real question is: Do the stars believe in me?”

“But don’t you and the president share the same astrologer?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Markham is just a friend.”

“Who’s your biggest hero, Sidel?”

“AR,” Isaac said without a bit of hesitation.

“AR? Did he die at the Alamo?”

“Nah. He was a gambler, the king of crime. Arnold Rothstein.”

“Rothstein,” Seligman hissed into Isaac’s ear. “You’ll sink us, for Christ’s sake.”

And Boyle steered the whole menagerie down one flight to the mental ward, where Isaac was stopped by an army captain and two MPs.

“Sorry, sir,” the captain said, “but you can’t go in there. It’s off-limits, even to vice presidents.”

“Do you have a phone, Captain?”

Isaac rang the White House, screamed until the switchboard put him through to President Cottonwood.

“Isaac, I’m on the crapper. What the hell do you want? I thought we’d finished talking.”

“I found Mrs. Markham. You owe me one. I’d like to get into the mental ward and see Billy Bob, but the captain says no.”

“Who’s Billy Bob?”

“The man who tried to shoot up the Menger.”

“But he’s a nutcase. I can’t interfere.”

“Aren’t you commander in chief?”

Isaac handed the telephone to the captain, who listened, mumbled a few words, put down the phone, and saluted Isaac.

“Captain,” Isaac said, “Mrs. Markham goes with me.”

“But the president said . . . ”

“Do I have to call the White House again? It’s absolutely critical that Mrs. Markham meet with Billy Bob.”

The captain unlocked the gate to the mental ward.

Seligman seemed chagrined. “Isaac, shouldn’t I—”

“No,” Isaac said, and swept Mrs. Markham through the gate without Tim or Martin Boyle. They’d entered a kind of no-man’s-land, a long, long corridor, with an MP marching in front of them.

“Isaac, I’m touched,” said the astrologer, “that you took me into the cave with you.”

“Shut up,” Isaac said. He grabbed Mrs. Markham and pulled the bandage off her nose. She didn’t scream. Nothing was broken or bruised.

“You’re an actress, aren’t you, playing Mrs. Markham?”

The roly-poly woman nodded her head.

“Poor Tim. Thinks he’s bugging the White House. Calder has the best National Security boys. He lets Tim record whatever traffic he wants Tim to hear. What’s your name?”

“Amanda . . . Amanda Wilde.”

“You come into our camp with your little bona fides, and you’re paid to unravel me. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Wilde?”

“Yes . . . but I’m not married. I’m only—”

“Where did you pick up your astrology?”

“From a book.”

“But you warned me at the Menger Bar . . . about Billy Bob.”

“An actress’s intuition. I felt—”

“Wait a minute. Is Billy Bob Archer an actor, too? Does he come from your own little company? Or is he one of Calder’s commandos?”

“I don’t . . . he shot you, didn’t he?”

“A trifle. Calder could have risked a little flesh wound . . . if he had a marksman on his hands.”

“At the Menger? Where people could . . . ”

The MP brought them into a tiny cell that was isolated from the rest of the ward. Billy Bob Archer wasn’t lying in bed. He sat in a leather chair, with his arms and legs shackled, and Isaac wondered if he was caught in the middle of some crazy drama.

“Billy Bob, remember me?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would God lend His eye to you?”

“He didn’t lend. I’m God’s only eye.”

“Then the Lord Himself is blind.”

“That’s right, Mr. Fancy Pants. And I’ve got to lead Him out of the darkness. Who’s the fat girl?”

“My astrologer.”

The shooter smiled. “Then she knows that you were born in God’s house.”

“Is that why you came after me with a cannon, Billy Bob? What’s my birthday got to do with God?”

“A May baby is a mournful baby. . . . She knows.”

Isaac inched up to the leather chair. “What does she know? Does God live at the White House? Does He have dreams in the Oval Office? Did Calder Cottonwood hire you?”

The shooter started to cry. “You’re desecrating me. I had a mission. To shoot your eyes out. And I failed . . . on account of the fat girl.”

“What the hell is going on?”

The ward’s chief resident arrived in Billy Bob’s cell. He was furious with Isaac, this army psychiatrist who was also a colonel. Trevor Welles. He had the whitest hair Isaac had ever seen on a man.

“This is a psychiatric ward, Mr. Mayor. It doesn’t welcome nonsense.”

“Aw, Doc,” the shooter said. “Don’t pick on the May baby.”

“Do I have to gag you again, Corporal Archer?”

“But I want to hear what the fat girl has to say. Did you see God at the Menger, missy?”

Amanda blinked. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’m not sure.”

Isaac kept looking at Welles’ uniform: it seemed a little too familiar. “Colonel, did Billy Bob steal your tunic and wear it at the Menger?”

“Yes.”

“How did he get his hands on it?”

“Is this an interrogation? You shouldn’t even be here. . . . He broke into my locker.”

“And got past two MPs at the big gate?”

“This is a hospital, not a prison.”

“Did you coach him, Colonel Welles? Did you scrub him proper, lend him a rodeo gun?”

“Sir,” the colonel said, “you will have to vacate this ward immediately.”

“Not until I say good-bye to Billy Bob.”

Isaac bent over the leather chair, kissed the shooter on the forehead. “My poor sweet Bob.”

Then he clutched Amanda’s hand, marched past Colonel Welles and his white, white hair, and got to the gate. His shadow, Martin Boyle, was on the other side of the thick, brutal wire. His hands were twitching. “You shouldn’t have gone in there all alone.”

“Alone?” Isaac said. “I had Amanda to protect me.”

There was still a mob of reporters near the gate.

“Mr. Sidel, Mr. Sidel, did you meet with the crazy assassin?”

“Billy Bob’s not an assassin. He mistook me for someone else.”

“Who, sir?”

“A heavenly angel,” Isaac said, and turned to his shadow.

“Call our driver, Boyle. Tell him to rev up the bus. We’re getting out of San Antone.”

* * *

The bus appeared outside the medical center in nine minutes. Isaac hopped aboard with the reporters who were covering his romp through Texas. He had a secretary and a small staff, but he almost never used them. He had no deals to cut. He wasn’t a political strategist, like Tim. He was a hooligan with a gun. He got into fistfights. He had scars all over his body, like God’s own warrior. He watched Amanda, waited until she sat down. He didn’t want to panic his astrologer. And he didn’t have to signal to Tim.

Seligman approached Isaac, sat down.

“We have to dump the bitch. . . . Isaac, she’s in the public eye. My people checked. She’s a plant.”

“Timmy, darling, did they also check that your wire at the White House is a piece of fiction? Calder has his own script. He sucked you in.”

“That’s a lie.”

Isaac stroked Tim’s ear. “The ruckus at the Menger was a little assassination party. Amanda must have balked at the last minute. . . . Use your bean, Tim. How did Billy Bob waltz out of a locked facility in a colonel’s uniform . . . and who supplied the cannon?”

“If it was Calder, I’ll kill him. And I’ll grab the bitch, make a citizen’s arrest.”