Dead Watch

headquarters is. But they’ve got several offices around Wisconsin.”
    “None of this connects to Senator Bowe’s last campaign, does it?”
    Patterson looked away, touched his fingertips together, rubbed them for a moment, and then said, “No. Not exactly.”
    “ ‘Not exactly’?”
    “He would have loved to fuck this president, and to have gotten word back about who did it to him, after what they did to him,” Patterson said. “Linc had a mean streak. Big mean streak—but then, he was a U.S. senator. You don’t get that job without a mean streak.”
    “Huh. But no involvement with Arlo Goodman.”
    Patterson produced a rueful smile. “Arlo Goodman,” he said. “How long did it take you to find out about this package? Track me down? After you started looking?”
    Jake shrugged: “A couple of days.”
    “Right. I bet fifty people have had a sniff of it by now. It’s like a great big Easter egg, and everybody’s hunting for it. I will bet you one thousand American dollars that Arlo Goodman and his boys have heard about it. I will bet you that that’s the reason they snatched Linc.”
    “You think Goodman . . .”
    “Damned right, I do. A couple of those Iraq veterans that Goodman has hanging around, those special forces assholes, took Linc out in the woods and drilled holes in his head until he told them about the package.”
    “That’s . . . quite the statement.”
    Patterson made a helpless gesture with his hands. “I can’t prove it. I don’t have a single atom of proof. But I bet that’s what happened. If Landers gets dumped now, who better for the vice presidency than Arlo Goodman? He’s popular, he’s good-looking, he’s a hell of a campaigner, he’s the governor of a big swing state, and he can’t succeed himself. He’s available. In four years, he’s got a shot at replacing the president.”
    “And for that to work, Landers has to get dumped now,” Jake suggested.
    “Absolutely. Goodman needs that package out there now, or in the next month. If it doesn’t come out until October, he’s outa luck. The Dems lose, Goodman’s out of his governorship next year, with nothing political available. And he has no real claim for the presidential nomination in four years.”
    They both thought about that for a minute. “If your guess is right, about Goodman and Bowe,” Jake said, “I’d think you’d be a little worried.”
    “I am—but not as worried as somebody else must be,” Patterson said. “I was downstream from the package. I never had it. Linc was the only guy who could point you upstream, to whoever has it now.”
    “Does Madison Bowe know about it?”
    Patterson scratched his head. “You know, I just don’t know about that. They were . . . separate . . . although they liked each other okay. And he was pretty protective of her. I don’t know if he would have told her about it. This thing could be real trouble for people who know about it.”
    Jake said, “Huh.” Then, “Have any idea where I could look? Who I could ask?”
    “I’d find Linc’s closest asshole buddy, and ask him. Somebody both in politics and in bed with him. But it’s just possible that he didn’t tell anyone.”
    Jake thought: Barber. And, Patterson knew that Lincoln Bowe was gay.

    “How many people knew about Lincoln Bowe’s sex life?” Jake asked. When Patterson hesitated, he added, “I don’t need a number, I’m just looking for a characterization.”
    “So you know?”
    “That he was gay? Yes. Madison told me.”
    Patterson nodded. “So who knew? Anybody who knew him for a while—knew him well. If you were close enough to see who he was looking at.”
    “Quite a few people.”
    “Yeah. He was careful, but people knew. Two dozen? Three or four dozen? I don’t know. I don’t know if his parents knew . . .”
    “Would Goodman know?”
    “Ah . . .” Patterson ruffled his hair with one hand, squinting at the bright light from the window. “That’s hard to tell. I would be surprised if Goodman hadn’t put a spy or two in our campaign, but it’d be at a pretty low level—a volunteer, somebody running our computers. If Goodman knows, it’s probably only at the rumor level. And then you look at Madison, and you think, ‘The guy’s gay? With pussy like that in the house? No way.’ ”

    They talked for another twenty minutes, with Jake trying to nail down every piece of information Patterson had about the Landers package. When they were