Dead Watch

brick walkway?”
    “Yeah.”
    “The mansion is about, what, seventy-five yards from that. Yellow house, white pillars. There’s a gate to the mansion that faces the back entrance of the Patrick Henry. You’ll see a guardhouse, right there at the front. I’ll put you on the list.”

    Jake found a parking spot faster than he had in the morning, couldn’t read the meter clearly enough to see whether it needed money, plugged it with quarters, tapped along the deserted walkway in the growing darkness. The governor’s mansion was a two-story brick house, painted yellow, with four white columns over the front steps. The place was smaller then he’d expected, with a modest lotus-flower fountain in a front parking circle.
    At the guard gate, a uniformed guard was talking to a second man. The second man was dressed in a black raincoat, black shirt, black trousers, and black canvas Converse All Stars. He was wearing a khaki tennis hat. He was lean, with a face too weathered for his age, which was about the same as Jake’s. With his long nose and black clothing, he had the aspect of a crow. He saw Jake coming, watched him for a moment, then turned away and played with a television at the back of the guardhouse.
    The guard said, “Jake Winter.” Not a question.
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll take you in,” he said. He popped a latch on the steel gate and led the way across the parking circle, up the steps, and through a double door.
    Through the doors, the mansion seemed to expand. A fasces-styled chandelier hung overhead, with a long hall leading to a couple of big public rooms. A portrait of the Virgin Queen looked down the hall at them. The guard pointed to his left: “In here.”
    A parlor. Goines was standing just inside, leaning against the doorjamb. Three other men, none of whom Jake recognized, were lounging on two long leather couches in a conversation area, briefcases at their feet. Legal pads were strewn across a coffee table in front of them, along with two coffee cups, two bottles of beer, and a silver bowl, shaped like a maple leaf, full of peanuts and M&M’s. One man had his feet on the table; another had taken off his shoes to show a pair of dark brown dress socks. A hint of cigar smoke rode on the air; a portrait of George Washington looked down from above.
    The room vibrated with cronyism: this was the inner circle, no question about it. And Goodman was the chairman of the board. He sat, squarely, in a huge leather chair, at the head-of-the-table position between the two couches.
    “Jake,” Goodman said. He stood up, gestured to a smaller, lower leather chair in the foot-of-the-table position. As Jake took it, Goodman said, pointing with his bad hand, “You know Ralph; and John Patricia, Handy Rice, Troy Robertson. Men, Mr. Winter is former special forces, got shot up in Afghanistan.”
    Robertson said, “You look sort of bureaucratic.”
    Jake shrugged. “I sit in an office, I’m outa shape. It’d probably take me . . .”—he made a little show of surveying Robertson—“. . . seven or eight seconds to snap your neck.”
    The staff members laughed, and Goodman smiled down at him. Robertson said, “Snap Goines’s. He’s getting to be a major pain in the ass.”
    Rice asked, “You want a beer?”

    Jake took the beer, and they went to business.
    Goodman said, “Jake, I swear to God, I swear on the bodies of my dead friends in Syria, I swear on anything you want—I had nothing to do with Lincoln Bowe’s death. Neither did the Watchmen.”
    Jake nodded, and waited.
    Goodman leaned forward, took a few peanuts from the bowl, rattled them in his fist, like dice. “So . . . now we get to the part where I sound like the psychotic that Madison Bowe says I am. I believe this whole thing is a carefully constructed conspiracy to bring me down. I believe Lincoln Bowe was involved, and probably Madison Bowe. She’s been too good at ripping me. It seems scripted. Does that sound insane?”
    Jake raised his eyebrows a bit, and then said, “It doesn’t sound insane. I don’t know whether it’s probable.”
    “Good. That’s all we want from you, that attitude,” Goodman said. “Danzig says you’re the best when it comes to developing information about a confusing political situation. We need information. We’re trying desperately to figure out what’s happening. Can you see that?”
    Jake nodded. “Yeah—because that’s what I’m trying to do, too.”
    “I want to suggest that