The Fool's Run

with computers.”
    I was about to go on, but Dace interrupted.
    “Got ’em,” he yelled from the office.
    LuEllen got off the couch and followed me back. Dace was grinning at the computer screen.
    “An old dirtbag never changes his grease spots,” Dace said. “I knew we could count on Heywood.”
    He tapped the computer screen with a fingernail.
    “This is a letter to a very heavy Air Force acquisitions guy at the Pentagon. Two stars. There’s a whole series of letters in here. They talk in circles, but when you see them all at once, it’s pretty clear. Some of them talk about employment, and some of them talk about problems with specs on the Hellwolf. You have to look at the dates, and what’s going on, before you realize that Whitemark is promising to take care of this guy and his buddies when they retire. Consultant jobs. Big bucks. Big offices. Cars. Goddamn. All Whitemark wants is some help with spec changes. It restores your faith in mankind to know that people like Heywood are still out there oozing around after all these years.”
    Dace was happy. He looked, in fact, about ten years younger. LuEllen squeezed his shoulder, and I said, “Right. Let’s get it printed out.”
    We dumped everything in Beltrami’s files into our memory. As it came chugging out of the printer, we decided on the next step.
    “We can work through the stuff tomorrow, decide the best way to leak it to the media,” Dace said. “And we’ll get a package together on our pornographer friends, so we can hand it to the cops.”
    “I’m going to Chicago,” I said. “I’ll be back the next day.”
    “We start the day after you get back?” asked LuEllen.
    “Yes. The fuckin’ Rubicon.”

Chapter 12
    M AGGIE WAS WAITING at the O’Hare arrival gate. She wore shades of blue this time, and low business heels. The outfit was subtly chic and must have set her back a thousand or more. She wore no makeup except a touch of pearl-pink lipstick. When she saw me, she smiled briefly and lifted a hand in greeting.
    “Did you check any bags?” she asked, as I came through the gate.
    “Nope. Just this.” I held up the canvas carry-on.
    “I’ve got a car.” She led the way toward the exit, and I tagged along behind like a friendly basset. The first two times I’d seen her, her hair had been loose on her shoulders. Now it was swept up in a knot. Her bare neck made her seem more vulnerable. Her carriage had also changed. She seemed softer. Tired. Crumpled.
    “You look down. Worn out,” I said, struggling for the right words.
    She glanced back. “It’s Rudy,” she said. “There’s been a lot of pressure.”
    “How sick is he?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s been having headaches, pretty bad ones. He had migraines when he was young. He’s afraid they’ve come back.”
    “You called in a doctor?”
    She gave me the brief smile again. “Oh, sure. Billionaires aren’t allowed to suffer. He’s had all kinds of scans and probes. They can’t find anything organic. They’ve given him tranquilizers. They seem to help.”
    I grabbed her arm and stopped her. She pivoted to face me.
    “What are you telling me? That he’s out of control?”
    “No. He still has control, but sometimes the pain . . . affects him.” We started walking again, and I held onto her arm. “He gets angry, out of all proportion to whatever set him off. And when it goes away, the relief is so strong that he gets almost maniacally happy. Overconfident. The swings are hard to deal with.”
    “How is he now?”
    “He’s in pretty good shape. He had a bad headache yesterday, but it was gone this morning.”
    “Are you still planning to come to Washington?”
    “Yes. He insists on it. The worse the headaches get, the more determined he is to follow this through.”
    We passed all the usual exits to the parking ramps and approached an unmarked desk manned by an elderly guard. He saw us coming and nodded at Maggie. She walked past him to a door labeled FIRE and bumped it open with her hip. We were in a reserved section of the parking ramp, separated from the rest of it by a concrete wall. It was the kind of place whose existence I never would have suspected, though it made sense. The average car was probably worth sixty or seventy thousand. There were a half dozen Rolls-Royces and a few sleek Italian jobs that made Maggie’s Porsche look Puritan-plain. She dropped neatly into the driver’s seat, opened the passenger door, and I climbed