Dead Watch

I leave the decision up to you; this is the only place I talk about it.”

    One of Carl V. Schmidt’s neighbors called an FBI man who’d left him a card. “Agent Lane? This is Jimmy Jones down by Carl Schmidt’s house, you asked me to call you if I saw anything going on down there? Yeah? Well, Carl just got back. What? Yeah. He’s standing right here. He’s a little pissed . . .”
    Carl V. Schmidt took the phone: “Hey. What’ve you guys been doing in my house? The place is wrecked. What the hell is going on here?”
    After an active phone call, Schmidt agreed to wait at his house for an FBI man to get there for an interview. When Schmidt hung up, the neighbor asked, “Where’n the hell you been, Carl? Where’d you get that tan?”

    The president said to Arlo Goodman, in the Oval Office, “How the heck have you been, Arlo? Man, has this been a month, or what?”
    “This has been a month and a half, Mr. President,” Goodman said, as they sat down. Goodman crossed his legs. “The Lincoln Bowe thing . . . who would have thought?”
    “The man was crazy,” the president said. “Maybe the medication . . . or maybe he was just nuts.”
    “That’s my theory,” Goodman said.
    The president allowed the slightest frown to glide across his face: “I was shocked to hear about your brother. How’s that investigation going?”
    Goodman shook his head. “It’s going nowhere. Darrell was off on his own. I may have screwed up, letting him run too free, but he solved a lot of problems down there. Now . . . might be time to tighten the reins on the Watchmen.”
    The president nodded. “They seem a little too . . . what? Executive? A little too military?”
    “It bothers me,” Goodman confessed. “I think there are still uses for the organization, but more as a goodwill brotherhood. Remove any idea that there might be police functions.”
    “Excellent,” the president said, rapping the top of his desk with his knuckles. “Listen, I’m almost embarrassed to ask, but how heavily can we lean on you for the campaign? You must be tired, you have your own problems. I suspect you might have liked the vice presidency . . .”
    “You did exactly the right thing, there, Mr. President.” Goodman was embarrassed; he could feel himself brownnosing. “She absolutely guarantees that you’ll carry Texas—and she’ll be a good vice president, to boot. As for me, I’ll do whatever you want. Work as hard as you want me to, or go as easy. Actually, I think this campaign is gonna be fun. We’re gonna kick ass and take names.”
    The president said, “We’re counting on you, Arlo. And it could be tough. Now let me ask you one other thing . . .” He glanced at his watch. “What do you think of Ham Peterson?”
    Ham Peterson was the former governor of Nevada and head of Homeland Security. The calculator in Goodman’s head began to churn. “He’s a good guy, but he’s had some problems . . .”
    “He steps on his own dick every time he turns around,” the president said. “I’ll tell you, Arlo, we won’t fire anybody right after the election. Leaves a bad taste. But Ham should retire back to the ski slopes. Why don’t you bone up on Homeland Security? I’ll have Bill Danzig send you some materials . . .”

    A half hour later, the president was talking to Danzig, and said, “Send that Homeland stuff over to Arlo.”
    “He bit?”
    “Like a ten-pound bass,” the president said. “He’ll bust his ass during the election, finish out his term, and then . . . he’ll just go away.”
    “He’s not going to like that,” Danzig said.
    “We have an old farm saying in Indiana that covers the situation,” the president said. “Fuck him.”

    Jake sat on top of the horse, one knee curled up over the flat saddle. Madison sat one horse over. Jake said, “I feel like an asshole. These pants, these boots . . .” He was wearing knee-length riding boots and jodhpurs.
    “You look terrific,” Madison said. “You’d look even more terrific if you’d get rid of that ridiculous cowboy hat.”
    “That won’t happen,” Jake said, touching the hat. “My grandfather gave me this hat. He wore it on the Old Chisholm Trail.”
    “Jake, you bought it last week in New York,” Madison said. “At a gay boutique in SoHo. I was with you.”
    “Oh, yeah.” Good hat, though.
    “Eventually, if I can teach you to jump, you’re going to land on your head and kill yourself because