The Devils Teardrop

been at the Potomac riverside, comforting survivors and surveying the devastation that the Digger had caused. His tall, thin wife, Claire, at his side, they’d been astonished at how the bullets had tornthe decks and cabins and tables to pieces. He could only imagine what the bullets had done to the bodies of the victims.
    He leaned forward and clicked the TV off.
    “How could he?” Claire whispered, referring to Slade Phillips’s suggestion that Kennedy had in some mysterious way been responsible for the deaths on the boat.
    Wendell Jefferies leaned forward, resting his glossy head in his hands. “Phillips . . . I already paid him. I—”
    Kennedy waved him silent. Apparently the aide had forgotten about the huge, bald federal agent in the front seat. Bribing media was undoubtedly a federal offense of some kind.
    Yeah, Jefferies had paid Slade Phillips his twenty-five thousand. And, no, they’d never get it back.
    “Whatever happens,” Kennedy said to Jefferies and Claire solemnly, “I don’t want to hire Slade Phillips as my press secretary.”
    His delivery was, as always, deadpan and it took them a minute before they realized it was a joke. Claire laughed. Jefferies still seemed shell-shocked.
    The irony was that Kennedy would never have a press secretary again. Former politicians don’t need one. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry.
    “What do we do now?” Claire asked.
    “We’ll have a drink and then go to the African-American Teachers’ Association party. Who knows? The Digger might still come forward and want the money. I still may have a chance to meet him face-to-face.”
    Claire shook her head. “After what happened on the boat? You couldn’t trust him. He’d kill you.”
    Couldn’t kill me any deader than the press has done tonight, Kennedy thought.
    Claire tacked down her wispy hair with a burst from a small container of perfumed spray. Kennedy loved the smell. It comforted him. The vibrant fifty-nine-year-old woman with keen eyes had been his main advisor since his first days of public office, years ago. To hell with nepotism; it was only that she was white that kept her from being his primary assistant as mayor: a characteristic that she too insisted would put him at a disadvantage in the 60-percent-black District of Columbia.
    “How bad is all this?” she asked.
    “As bad as it gets.”
    Claire Kennedy nodded and put her hand on her husband’s substantial leg.
    Neither spoke for a moment.
    “Is there any champagne in there?” he asked suddenly, nodding toward the minibar.
    “Champagne?”
    “Sure. Let’s start celebrating my ignominious defeat early.”
    “You wanted to teach,” she pointed out. Then with a wink she added, “Professor Kennedy.”
    “And you did too, Professor Kennedy. We’ll tell William and Mary we want adjoining lecture halls.”
    She smiled at him and opened the minibar of the limo.
    But Jerry Kennedy wasn’t smiling. Teaching would be a failure. A successful job at a Dupont Circle law firm would be a failure. Kennedy knew in his heart that his life’s purpose was to make this struggling, oddly shaped chunk of swampy land a better place for the youngsters who happened to be born here and that his Project 2000 was the only thing faintly within his grasp that would allow that to happen. And now those hopes had been destroyed.
    He glanced at his wife. She was laughing.
    She pointed to the bar. “Gallo and Budweiser.”
    What else in the District of Columbia?
    Kennedy lifted up on the door handle and stepped out into the cooling night.
    * * *
    The guns are finally loaded.
    The silencer he’s been using has been repacked and the new one is mounted on the second gun.
    The Digger, in his comfy room, checks his pocket. Let’s see . . . He has one pistol with him and two more in the glove compartment of his car. And lots and lots of ammunition.
    The Digger takes his suitcase out to the car. The man who tells him things told him that the room was paid for. When it was time to go all he had to do was leave.
    He packs his cans of soup and dishes and glasses and takes them in a box to the Everyday People Toyota.
    The Digger returns to the room and looks at thin Tye for a few minutes, wonders again where . . . click  . . . where Out West is then wraps the blanket around him. And carries the boy, light as a puppy, down to the car and puts him in the back seat.
    The Digger sits behind the wheel but doesn’t start the car right away. He turns