The Ghost

my new telephone suddenly glowed blue and began to emit a faintly ominous electronic purr. I left my post at the window to answer it.
    “It’s me,” said Rycart. “Have you settled in?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Are you alone?”
    “Yes.”
    “Open the door, then.”
    He was standing in the corridor, his phone to his ear. Beside him was the driver who had met me at LaGuardia.
    “All right, Frank,” said Rycart to his minder. “I’ll take it from here. You keep an eye out in the lobby.”
    Rycart slipped his phone into the pocket of his overcoat as Frank plodded back toward the elevators. He was what my mother would have called “handsome, and knows it”: a striking profile, narrowly set bright blue eyes accentuated by an orangey tan, and that swept-back waterfall of hair the cartoonists loved so much. He looked a lot younger than sixty. He nodded at the empty bottle in my hand. “Tough day?”
    “You could say that.”
    He came into the room without waiting for an invitation and went straight over to the window and drew the curtains. I closed the door.
    “My apologies for the location,” he said, “but I tend to be recognized in Manhattan. Especially after yesterday. Did Frank look after you all right?”
    “I’ve rarely had a warmer welcome.”
    “I know what you mean, but he’s a useful guy. Ex-NYPD. He handles logistics and security for me. I’m not the most popular kid on the block right now, as you can imagine.”
    “Can I get you something to drink?”
    “Water would be fine.”
    He prowled around the room while I poured him a glass. He checked the bathroom, even the closet.
    “What is it?” I said. “Do you think this is a trap?”
    “It crossed my mind.” He unbuttoned his coat and laid it carefully on the bed. I guessed his Armani suit cost about twice the annual income of a small African village. “Let’s face it, you do work for Lang.”
    “I met him for the first time on Monday,” I said. “I don’t even know him.”
    Rycart laughed. “Who does? If you met him on Monday you probably know him as well as anyone. I worked with him for fifteen years, and I certainly don’t have a clue where he’s coming from. Mike McAra didn’t, either, and he was with him from the beginning.”
    “His wife said more or less the same thing to me.”
    “Well, there you go. If someone as sharp as Ruth doesn’t get him—and she’s married to him, for God’s sake—what hope do the rest of us have? The man’s a mystery. Thanks.” Rycart took the water. He sipped it thoughtfully, studying me. “But you sound as though you’re starting to unravel him.”
    “I feel as though I’m the one who’s unraveling, quite frankly.”
    “Let’s sit down,” said Rycart, patting my shoulder, “and you can tell me all about it.”
    The gesture reminded me of Lang. A great man’s charm. They made me feel like a minnow swimming between sharks. I would need to be on my guard. I sat down carefully in one of the two small armchairs—it was beige, like the walls. Rycart sat opposite me.
    “So,” he said. “How do we begin? You know who I am. Who are you?”
    “I’m a professional ghostwriter,” I said. “I was brought in to rewrite Adam Lang’s memoirs after Mike McAra died. I know nothing about politics. It’s as if I’ve stepped through the looking glass.”
    “Tell me what you’ve found out.”
    Even I was too canny for that. I hemmed and hawed.
    “Perhaps you could tell me about McAra first,” I said.
    “If you like.” Rycart shrugged. “What can I say? Mike was the consummate professional. If you’d pinned a rosette to that suitcase over there and told him it was the party leader, he’d have followed it. Everyone expected Lang would fire him when he became leader and bring in his own man. But Mike was too useful. He knew the party inside out. What else do you want to know?”
    “What was he like, as a person?”
    “What was he like as a person? ” Rycart gave me a strange look, as if it were the oddest question he’d ever heard. “Well, he had no life outside politics, if that’s what you mean, so you could say that Lang was everything to him—wife, kids, friends. What else? He was obsessive, a detail man. Almost everything Adam wasn’t, Mike was. Maybe that was why he stayed on, right through Downing Street and all the way out again, long after the others had all cashed in and gone to make some money. No fancy corporate jobs for our Mike. He was very loyal to