Deep Cover by Brian Garfield Page B

“Forrester here.”
    It was Les Suffield. “I’m still at your office and the phones are jumping off the desks. What do I tell the ink-stained hacks?”
    â€œYou have nothing to add to what I said at the press conference. You’re not empowered to speculate on questions I didn’t cover.”
    â€œMaybe. Christ, you didn’t half sling it all into the fan, did you?”
    â€œIf you pull punches you don’t get much coverage.”
    â€œToo much coverage, Senator. Too much. You take the lid off the honey jar, you’re bound to get all the predators swarming around. Just what effect did you expect to get, breathing fire like that?”
    â€œNot as much as I’d like. It will roll off the ones who want to stay indifferent, it’ll appear true to those who want to believe it, and it’ll be dismissed as a pack of lies by those who’ve committed themselves to their own pack of lies.”
    â€œAll right. So why did you do it?”
    â€œLet’s just say it was a fiendish impulse.”
    â€œChrist on a crutch. All right, you’re on the nine-o’clock flight in the morning out of National, tickets at the VIP lounge for you to pick up. If I were you I’d leave the phone off the hook, otherwise you won’t get any sleep.”
    â€œSenator Guest has already been heard from. I’m unlisted so there won’t be too many more.”
    â€œWhat did he say? As if I can’t guess.”
    â€œI’ve been drummed out of the party and he’s about to bust my saber across his knee.”
    Suffield laughed unpleasantly and hung up. Forrester put the phone down properly because there was one more call hehad to take tonight and he would know it when it came. The instrument began to ring immediately but he ignored it after the third ring and went into the kitchen feeling aggressive and alive, up on his toes, full of anticipatory adrenalin. He made another drink and sorted through the refrigerator to find the makings of a supper; the phone kept ringing angrily but he shut it out and thought of Angie, half-wishing she could be here for this fight and half-angry with himself for wishing it because he was very close now to putting her all the way behind him, and he knew he had to cover the last sprint toward escape even though it made him feel as guilty as if he were abandoning her. He supposed another woman would make the escape easier but no casual one-night stand would do it and he was not ready for anything deeper than that yet.
    He let his free associations ramble and so he was presently thinking about Top Spode because Top was one of those easygoing philandering grasshoppers who never stored up winter food and went through life regarding women the way most men regarded good cigars, as something to be treasured briefly and discarded when they had served their purpose. Actually he was thinking about Top because he was expecting Top’s call. He kept listening for it but it didn’t come until after he had finished scraping the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. Then he heard it, two rings and a pause, then two rings and another pause, and he headed toward it when it began to ring again.
    â€œWhat have you got, Top?”
    â€œA bad case of ring-around-the-rosy. Subject does not have the nitty-gritty. The job’s been subcontracted out.”
    â€œSubject” was Congressman Webb Breckenyear, and “nitty-gritty” meant the specifications and budgetary breakdown on the Phaeton Three program. Breckenyear had farmed the assignment out.
    â€œWhy the hell would he do a thing like that?”
    â€œI’ve only been on the job a few hours. What do you want out of me?”
    â€œYou’d better come out here. We’ll have to talk.”
    â€œI’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.”
    Forrester made a face. “All right, if you think it’s necessary.”
    â€œColor me paranoid but let’s