Political Pressure

26

Bruce Griffin threw up some more and watched it swirl down the drain in the running water. Just like my career, he thought, and grabbed the phone from his pocket on the first ring.

"It's Clayton."

Griffin's heart started pounding. He hadn't expected the old newshound to return his call. They weren't exactly friends.

"Clayton, you've got to hear me out," Griffin said. "I know we can make a deal. You have got to kill that story!"

"No deals, Bruce. You know I don't work that way."

"Bullshit! Just tell me how much."

"I'm not selling out," Clayton said.

"Like you've never killed a story for cash," Griffin said, sneering. "I know for a fact you're retiring on your payoffs from the Scarpessi Family."

"I think we're done talking, Bruce," Clayton said.

"Clayton, wait!"

But he was talking to himself.

Bruce Griffin swore and stared at the phone, thinking fast. Clayton had clearly not been ready to deal, so why had he bothered to return the call?

Because his phone was bugged? Yes, he was trying to prove to somebody that he wasn't playing dirty pool. Maybe, Griffin thought, he could get the newspaper editor to talk in private and there would still be time to kill the story.

Adam Clayton was pacing his office when he spotted a familiar figure coming at a half jog across the sidewalk eight stories below.

Stupid bastard. Clayton dragged on his jacket and headed for the door, taking the stairs to avoid running into the state representative. He got down to the fourth floor before he changed his mind. He had to at least warn this poor slob that he was on somebody's hit list.

Clayton raced back to the eighth floor and spotted Griffin fidgeting outside his office, demanding answers from the receptionist. Clayton got his attention with a wave and Griffin came fast to the door to the stairs. Griffin started to whine, but Clayton cut him off with a quick set of instructions.

Ten minutes later they rendezvoused and were sitting side by side at the counter at D-Burgers, a 1950s-style diner that had been around so many years that the worn- down look was no longer artificial.

"Griffin, you gotta cut some sort of a deal with me,"

Clayton pleaded after the waitress poured them steaming hot coffee that was older than her current wad of gum.

"No deals."

"You gotta—"

"Shut up and listen, asshole," Clayton said. "You got worse problems than you know. Somebody is going to try to kill you. Tonight, maybe. Not until the story is out, anyway."

The state representative stared at the political editor of one of the largest newspapers in the city of San Francisco.

Clayton glanced in his direction, then stared into the black gruel in his cup as he scalded his lips on it. "Don't look at me—we don't know each other," Clayton growled.

Griffin looked into his own cup and Clayton risked a glance. "You look like shit."

It was no exaggeration. Clayton's hair was disheveled and crusted with something. There were stains on his crooked, wrinkled tie, which was now soaked at the bottom in very bitter coffee. And there was a smell. The state representative had been driving the porcelain school bus.

"What'd you expect when I find out my life is about to be ruined?" Griffin demanded. "What do you mean somebody is going to try to kill me?"

"Kill. Murder. Bang bang. What's not to understand?"

"But why?"

Clayton shrugged and filled his mouth with more black liquid.

Griffin was looking at him again. "You know why," he stated. "Tell me why."

"I don't know."

"Yeah, you do."

"Just tell me. Is it revenge, 'cause of the guy that died in the accident?"

Clayton laughed. "Is that what you call it? An accident? You drank a fifth of bourbon and decide to go for a drive, and it's an accident when somebody gets squashed at a crosswalk?"

"That's the reason?"

"No, asshole, it's not revenge." Clayton realized he and Griffin were now having a very public conversation. Shit. All he wanted to do was warn the guy! "Listen, I'm doing you a favor by telling you to get the fuck out of town now 'cause somebody is going to try to make you dead. What you do with this advice is up to you, but my part is done."

Clayton tossed some bills on the counter and walked back to the office, fast. His old wing tips had new soles that made satisfying clops on the sidewalk and people got out of his way.

Why did he have to be the one to figure this out? How come some other schmuck couldn't have been the one to connect the dots? Why him?

It was the story of a lifetime, sure, but it was a story that no reporter could break, because he'd be dead before he wrote it.

Whoever these guys were, they had to be the toughest sons of bitches who ever got together to represent the people of the United States of America. But sure as shit- tin' they had done it, and from coast-to-coast, anybody who got in their way was getting carefully executed.

What made them so damn hard to spot was that these guys killed about ten times more people than was necessary for their immediate goals. So they needed to off a city planner in Baton Rouge, they would kill a few cops, a sheriff, a small-town mayor and assorted others while they were at it. It helped obfuscate their real intention and it helped clean up the scum.

Because they had two goals: one was to get their people elected, and the other was to clean out a lot of the dirty-handed public officials.

Adam Clayton received a phone tip that opened up Bruce Griffin's sordid past. Clayton got one of his best political reporters to do the research, and pretty soon the entire ugly affair was exposed.

Clayton had the story ready that morning, and everybody was getting excited. Ruining somebody's career was always a big rush. The promotional spots would start running in prime time.

But something was bothering Clayton about the anonymous tip. He looked into it, looked at some of the other killings that had been going on. The connections were being made. Who's Killing The City Slackers? was the headline in Indianapolis. But nobody guessed how far the murder spree extended.

Oh, maybe some of the federals had figured it out, but they weren't going public with it yet.

Clayton figured it out over his salami sandwich at lunchtime and pretty soon he knew who was sponsoring the killers.

There had to be a lot of killers. Groups of them, working across the country, and then with a jolt Clayton made the connection between the killing spree and the murder, that very morning, of Mrs. George.

Soon more people would die in this city. Anybody whose salary came from the taxpayers and who had been accused of some sort of underhanded business was in deadly peril. The list was pretty damn long, and as soon as Clayton's expose ran on tonight's TV news and in tomorrow's paper, Representative Bruce Griffin would be on the list, too. Clayton would have helped murder him.

MAEBE. What the hell kind of name was that for a political party anyway? Sounded like a neighborhood watch committee or something. And yet, whoever pulled the strings over at MAEBE had to be the coldest, most heartless son of a bitch who ever ran for public office.

And that was saying something.