The Devils Teardrop

pushed the button.
    Picture: the man who called himself Jefferson, though that was not his name, the man who was now so intertwined in this case, was resting something on the hood of acar, bending forward to read it. A book? A magazine? No, it glistened like a sheet of glass. All you could really see in the picture was the rigid attention of the man as he wrapped his leather jacket around the glass the way a father might bundle up his infant for a trip outside in the cold night air.
    Snap.
    * * *
    So. Protect the mayor.
    And don’t trash the feds.
    Anchorman Slade Phillips was in a coffee shop on Dupont Circle. There were still several dozen emergency vehicles parked nearby, lights flashing through the gray evening. Yellow police tape was everywhere.
    Phillips had shown his press pass and gotten through the line. He’d been terribly shaken by what he’d seen at the foot of the escalator. The sludge of blood still drying. Bits of bone and hair. He—
    “Excuse me?” a woman’s voice asked. “You’re Slade Phillips. WPLT.”
    Anchorpeople are forever doomed to be known by both names. Nobody ever says Mister. He looked up from his coffee at the flirty young blonde. She wanted an autograph. He gave her one.
    “You’re so, like, good,” she said.
    “Thank you.”
    Go away.
    “I want to be in TV someday too.”
    “Good for you.”
    Go away.
    She stood for a moment and when he didn’t ask her to join him she walked away on high heels, in a gait that reminded Phillips of an antelope’s.
    Sipping decaf. All the carnage in the Metro—he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Jesus . . . Blood everywhere. The chips in the tile and dents in the metal . . . Bits of flesh and bits of bone.
    And shoes.
    A half-dozen shoes had lain bloody at the base of the escalator. For some reason they were the most horrifying sight of all.
    This was the kind of story most reporters dream about in their ambitious hearts.
    You’re a reporter, go report.
    Yet Phillips found he had no desire to cover the crime. The violence repulsed him. The sick mind of the killer scared him. And he thought: Wait. I’m not a reporter. He wished he’d said this to that slick prick, Wendy Jefferies. I’m an entertainer. I’m a soap opera star. I’m a personality.
    But he was too deep in Jefferies’s pocket for that kind of candor.
    And so he was doing what he was told.
    He wondered if Mayor Jerry Kennedy knew about his arrangement with Jefferies. Probably not. Kennedy was a stand-up son of a bitch. Better than all the previous mayors of the District rolled into one. Because if Slade Phillips wasn’t a Peter Arnett or Tom Brokaw at least he knew people. And he knew that Kennedy did want a chance to fix as much of the city as he could before the electorate threw his ass out. Which would undoubtedly be in the next election.
    And this Project 2000 of his . . . Man, it took some balls to tax the corporations in the city even more than they were already taxed. Bad blood there. And Kennedy was also coming down like a Grand Inquisitor on that school construction scandal. Rumors were that he’dwanted to pay that whistle-blower, Gary Moss, an additional bonus from District coffers for coming forward and risking his life to testify (an expense Congressman Lanier had refused to approve, of course). There were rumors too that Kennedy was going to crucify anyone involved in the corruption—including long-time friends.
    So Phillips could rationalize taking some of the heat off Kennedy’s office. It was for a higher good.
    More decaf. Convinced that real coffee would affect his gorgeous baritone, he lived on unleaded.
    He looked out the window and saw the man he was waiting for. A slight guy, short. He was a clerk at FBI headquarters and Phillips had been currying him for a year. He was one of the “sources who wish to remain anonymous” that you hear about all the time—sources whose relationship to honesty was a bit dicey. But what did it matter? This was TV journalism and a different set of standards applied.
    The clerk glanced at Phillips as he stepped into the coffee shop, looking around cautiously like a bumbling spy. He pulled off his overcoat, revealing a very badly fitting gray suit.
    The man was basically a mailboy though he’d told Phillips that he was “privy” (oh, please . . .) to most of the Bureau’s “primary decision-making activities.”
    Ego’s such a bitch, Phillips thought. “Hello, Timothy.”
    “Happy New