Hope Never Dies Page 7

“Says the guy who’s dressed for a safari.”

  I glanced down at my sandals, blue chino shorts, and orange-and-yellow aloha shirt. Barack had gifted me the shirt one year for my birthday. I’d called it a Hawaiian shirt, and he’d told me not to call it that. He explained that in Hawaii, they were called aloha shirts.

  “I can go back inside and change—”

  Barack held up a hand. “We just waited twenty minutes for you to change, Joe.” He nodded at the Escalade. “As for the Little Beast…you have to weigh the benefits here. The body’s been reinforced with military-grade armor. Its windows can withstand armor-piercing bullets. The shocks are so good, you can drive over a land mine and not spill your tea. Plus, there’s a button you push, and it turns the exhaust into a flamethrower.”

  “Really?”

  “No, but that’s damn near the only thing it doesn’t have.”

  I hit the button on my keychain and waited for the garage door to dramatically unveil my baby: my neon-green 2017 Dodge Challenger T/A. A throwback to the 1970s Trans-Am series muscle cars. “You weren’t the only one who bought a new car.”

  Barack’s eyes opened wide. “What’d you do with your Stingray?”

  “It’s at the beach house.”

  Barack pinched the spot between his eyes. He was trying to be nonchalant about my new muscle car, but I could tell he was itching to get in and go for a test drive. “Steve would never go for it.”

  Steve was leaning against the SUV in the driveway, staring intently at his wristwatch. He had two fingers to the left of his Adam’s apple, feeling his pulse.

  “There’s plenty of room in back for Steve.” I slipped into the driver’s seat and started her up. She purred to life. A real beauty, no denying it. Over the sound of the engine, I shouted, “3.6-liter Pentastar VVT V6 engine with an 8-speed Torque-Flite automatic transmission that really gets up and goes.”

  I gave her a little gas, and Barack jumped.

  “Turn it off,” he said.

  “When you get her on the open road, she flies like Christ on a bike.”

  “No way,” Barack said. “There’s no way.”

  I nodded toward the Little Beast. “What’s the gas mileage on that thing?”

  The Challenger was an old-school gas guzzler, a muscle car in a world of flab. Still, it had to get better mileage than Barack’s armored SUV, which looked as if it drank gas like the Tweeter-in-Chief drank Diet Coke.

  Barack sighed. I had backed him into a corner and used his own ethics against him—a cruel trick. A career politician’s trick.

  He said, “Where do you want us to park the Little Beast?”

  If we parked it in the garage, there wouldn’t be any room for Jill to pull in. Barack’s SUV was so wide it would take up both spaces. If we parked the SUV in the driveway, neighbors might start whispering. It looked just enough like the old Beasts that someone might put two and two together. The last thing I wanted was a couple of Johnny Crabapples trying to do the math.

  “There’s a Walmart not far from here,” I said. “Plenty of people park their Winnebagos there. It’ll be fine.”

  “Why not here?”

  “It just wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  Barack stared at me. “Did you tell Jill you were going out with me?”

  “It’s none of her business who I go out with. I’m in the seventh decade of my life—I can do whatever I want. No one’s the boss of me.”

  “I used to be your boss.”

  “The American people were our boss,” I told him. “But things have changed.”

  He shook his head and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “Did you bring that heater you were packing the other night?”

  I felt a twinge of embarrassment. Of course Barack knew I was a gun owner—I’d talked about my shotguns enough that he could probably tell you the make and model. But he wasn’t talking about my shotguns.

  “There’ve been reports of prowlers,” I said. “You can’t be too careful.”

  “You’re right about that. A lot going on in this world. Even when it comes to friendly faces, it’s hard to tell who to trust these days.” He paused. “So you’re bringing it?”

  “I’m not bringing it.”

  He looked me steady in the eye, as if he was trying to assess whether I was lying or not. Finally satisfied, he fit the Phillies cap on his head. “Then let’s go, Joe.”

  14

  I swung the Challenger into the motel parking lot. There were around twenty rooms lined up in a row, with the main office situated in the middle. A half dozen cars, all nondescript jalopies. The very idea that Finn had lived the last few months of his life in this roach haven made me sick to my stomach. He’d been a proud government employee. He’d deserved better.

  “Color TVs,” Barack said, reading from the sign out front.

  “Color TVs? That settles it,” I said. “I’m getting us a room.”

  Steve piped up from the backseat: “If we’re staying here, I’d like to check the rooms first for potential jackals. Run the plates in the parking lot—”

  “We’re not staying here,” Barack said. “Joe was kidding.”

  I’d stayed in dumps like the Heart of Wilmington on my first campaign—for city council. There was no way Barack and I would be staying here, not now that we’d reached an age where a good night’s sleep was more refreshing than a lemonade.

  “Which room was Finn’s?” I asked.

  “One-ten,” Barack said.

  I looked at Steve. “You’re the one with the badge. Why don’t you see if it’s available for a quick look-see?”

  “And leave you two here on your own?”

  “You think we’re going to drive off without you?” Barack asked.

  “I’m concerned about your safety, Mr. President.”

  “We’ll wait in the car,” Barack said. “We’ll lock the doors. If anybody so much as looks in our direction, we’ll honk the horn. Then you come in guns a-blazing and save the day. You’ll look like a hero. They’ll give you a book deal.”

  “What would I do with a book deal?”

  I took my glasses off and rubbed the bridge of my nose. The sun was beginning to set. The drive had taken twice as long as I’d expected, thanks to Steve’s insistence that we stick to back roads. Apparently everything with Steve was going to take twice as long.

  “I’ll go,” I said, unlocking my door.

  Steve sighed rather dramatically. “Stay in the car. I’ll be right back.” He left us, muttering something under his breath that sounded a lot like “Six weeks…six weeks…six weeks…”

  I leaned close to Barack. “What happens in six weeks?”

  “He’s leaving for CAT training,” Barack said. “The guy’s been putting his body through hell the past six months, trying to get in shape. You can ask him all about it—he’ll talk your ear off if you give him a chance.”

  “Huh.”

  “You know, it’s his job to protect us,” Barack said.

  “It’s his job to protect you.”

  That shut Barack up.

  If Steve graduated from the training program, he would join the Counter-Assault Team—an elite paramilitary squad of Service agents who provided the firepower in case of an attack on the president. Steve was on his way to the Show. No more time putzing around with has-beens like us.

  Once Steve was inside the motel office, I swung open my door.

  “Where are you going?” Barack asked.

  “Cool your jets, I’m just stretching my legs.”

  I slammed the door and hobbled around the car, trying to work out the kinks in my back. The kinks in my leg were going to need more work. The swelling around my knee looked worse than before. I’d obviously torn something, and I wasn’t sure it would heal on its own. It hurt when I stretched my leg, and it hurt when I didn�
�t stretch my leg. It needed ice and rest, neither of which I was likely to get anytime soon.

  I returned to my seat and turned up the radio. All I heard was the faint voice of a preacher, fading in and out, sermonizing about heaven and hell. I had heard enough sermonizing at the service today. I turned off the radio.

  “That’s interesting,” Barack said.

  At first I thought he meant the radio program, but then I followed Barack’s gaze to a woman standing at the door of a room. She was fumbling through her purse. The room number read 110. Finn’s room. I didn’t have a good view of her face, but I could see she had long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail that reached her waist.

  “How do you think she uses the toilet?” I asked Barack.

  “Excuse me?”

  “With hair that long. She can’t just sit down, or she’d dip it into the toilet. If she flips it to the side, it touches the floor.”

  “Forget her hair. She’s trying to jimmy open the door.”

  I took a second look. My vision wasn’t what it once was, but it appeared she was sliding a credit card alongside the door lock. The motel’s doors had old-style keyholes, not magnetic card readers.

  “She could be a guest,” I said without conviction.

  “Could be,” Barack said.

  “Then again, she could be the burglar who broke into the Donnellys’ home during the wake.”

  “Could be.”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  I opened my door.

  “We should wait for Steve,” Barack said, but it was too late. I was already out of the car. I wasn’t waiting around for him. The Secret Service couldn’t tell me what to do anymore.

  Barack mumbled something and got out, too.

  I took one look at his gray-flecked scalp and shook my head.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “Your cap,” I said. I reached back into the car and handed Barack the Phillies hat. “Oh, and don’t lose it—it’s Jill’s. She’s a Phillies fan. Don’t ask me why.”

  Barack put it on, but when we turned back around it was too late. The woman was gone. Was she in the room, or had we spooked her?

  Again: there was only one way to find out.

  We approached the door to room 110, moving as stealthily as my bum knee would allow. Inside, the lights were out. The curtains were pulled shut. I put a hand on the knob and gave it a slight twist.

  It wasn’t locked.

  Neither of us had a weapon. This was a minor problem. If somebody—the woman—had just broken into the room, this meant she was a criminal. And criminals carry guns. I wished I’d packed my pistol…but, then again, maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t. If we really, truly ran into trouble, would I have been able to pull it out of my chino shorts without shooting off my family jewels? Barack would have a real field day if that ever happened.

  Barack placed one of his oversized ears on the door. Political cartoonists had loved to mock Barack’s elephant ears. If only they could see him now, using them for their God-intended purpose.

  “What do you hear?” I whispered.

  A pickup the size of a semi rumbled past the motel.

  “I don’t hear a thing,” Barack said after it had passed.

  “Then I say we go in.”

  “Legally speaking, we’re treading on some dangerous ground,” Barack said. “This is breaking and entering.”

  “Even if the door’s unlocked?”

  Barack nodded.

  “Damn it,” I said. “I don’t want to start another Watergate.”

  “We’re not in the White House anymore. We’re private citizens.”

  “And as private citizens…”

  “It’s still illegal.”

  “Even if the door’s unlocked?”

  “I already said—”

  The door swung inward. I tumbled to the floor, and Barack tripped over me. We landed in a heap, a jumbled mess of arms and legs.

  “Can I help you?”

  I looked up. The lamps were off, but there was a thin beam of light coming from the bathroom, illuminating the room…just enough to see the curvaceous outline of a beautiful woman with damp hair down to her waist. She was wearing a white hotel towel. Just a white towel. Whatever Barack and I thought we’d seen her doing outside, we’d obviously been wrong. I didn’t imagine many burglars stopped to take showers during heists.

  I tipped my hat to her. “Good evening, ma’am. We’re, uh…”

  “We were looking for the pool,” Barack said, untwisting himself from me. “We appear to have taken a wrong turn.”

  The woman studied us for a moment. I might have been dressed for a pool, but there was no way Barack was going swimming in his navy suit.

  “They didn’t tell me there was a pool,” the woman said with a hint of a southern accent.

  “C’mon, Joe. We’ll take it up with the front desk,” Barack said. Then, to the woman, he added, “Sorry to have disturbed you.”

  She maintained the bewildered look on her face as we quietly backed out of the room.

  “I can’t believe you called me by my real name,” I said in a hushed tone on our way back to the car.

  “I don’t think she recognized us,” Barack said. “I mean, we have these great disguises.”

  “You’re making fun of me.”

  Barack slapped me on the back. “She can call all of her friends. She can post about it online. Who would ever believe her?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right. Still, next time we run into trouble, we’re using code names.”

  “Next time?” Barack asked. “What are you planning?”

  I had only a vague idea of what we’d been coming here to do, and that vague idea was mostly hot air. We’d just busted in on some innocent woman because our imaginations had gotten the better of us. Neither of us said a word about it, though. We were too embarrassed. What was I planning next? Nothing, if I could help it.

  We returned to the car. Steve stepped out of the lobby with a key in his hand attached to a small wooden keychain. I rolled down Barack’s window.

  “Let’s make this quick,” Steve said, passing the key to room 110 to Barack. “The night clerk said we can take a look around.”

  “What about the person in the room now?” Barack asked.

  Steve looked confused. “No one’s staying in the room now. It’s supposed to be empty.”

  “Son of a buttermilk biscuit,” I said, grimacing. “We got bamboozled.”

  15

  It wasn’t the first time I had been bamboozled. It wouldn’t be the last. Still, I should have seen it coming: there wasn’t a woman alive who’d take a shower in a motel room without locking the door first. She’d taken us for fools because we were a couple of fools. Especially when it came to the fairer sex. Barack and I were chivalrous to a fault. We should have trusted our instincts. Instead, we’d been flustered into doubting ourselves.

  The woman was long gone by the time we returned to the room. She’d left the door swinging open and the towel hanging over the back of the chair.

  The towel wasn’t even wet.

  “If you’ll let me know what we’re looking for, I can help,” Steve offered. He turned on a lamp; it flickered for a moment before shorting out.

  “This is the first time I’ve tossed a room for evidence,” I said, lifting one of the pillows off the bed as if I was looking for change left by the tooth fairy. “Fingerprints, I guess?”

  “The fingerprints would have been wiped clean by the cleaning person,” Barack said, holding one of the glasses up to the overhead light. “Although it looks like no one’s cleaned anything in this room in twenty years. It would take us weeks to dust for prints.”

  “I left my fingerprint-dusting kit at home, so I guess it doesn’t matter,” I said.
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br />   “You have a fingerprint-dusting kit?” Barack asked.

  I peeked underneath the bed. “The FBI gave them to everyone in Congress one year. A Christmas gift.” It took longer than usual to get to my feet, on account of my knee. “Looks like they have a little mouse problem at this establishment.”

  “Find some mouse droppings?” Barack asked.

  “Found a mouse,” I said. “Just a little guy.”

  “You don’t seem too surprised.”

  “For twenty-nine bucks a night, I’m surprised he wasn’t bigger.”

  I opened and closed the drawers in the dresser, all of which, of course, were empty. They’d been cleaned out by Finn’s family, then by housekeeping…and then, possibly, by the woman who’d given us the slip. Besides the bed and a ratty green sofa chair, the room was as bare as a newborn baby’s bottom. There wasn’t a safe in the closet. There wasn’t even a closet. There was a nightstand, but no pad of paper or pen. That meant I couldn’t try out that trick from TV, where the detective rubs a pencil over the top page to get an impression of whatever the criminal had written on the ripped-off page.

  I opened the nightstand drawer. Finally, something: a Gideon Bible. The familiar mottled maroon imitation-leather hardback of the Bible that was in every hotel room in the country. The same type of Bible the tattooed man had left behind in Darlene’s room. Not that this was any kind of connection. In fact, if the Bible had been missing from the drawer, that would have been something. This? This was nothing.

  “Either of you ever met a Gideon?”

  Barack shook his head. Steve, peeking through the curtains, said, “I got a cousin who’s a Gideon.”

  “Really?” I said. “What’s their angle?”

  “Spreading the word of Christ.”

  “You know what their business model looks like?”

  Steve pulled the curtains closed. “They pay for the Bibles with donations. That’s all I know.”

  “It’s just, I’ve never seen a Gideon church,” I said. “I’d always wondered if Gideons even existed.”

  “My cousin exists,” Steve said. “She lives in Cleveland.”

  Barack peered out from the bathroom. “Did anyone check the bed?”