Seeing Red(103)

The question seemed out of context, but he answered. “Soon after I graduated high school and left for college. Ninety-eight, ninety-nine.”

Glenn nodded. “One evening shortly after they’d gotten settled, I was approached by a man as I was leaving the office. I don’t remember his name. He was only a messenger. He told me that I was going to win the upcoming election. Hands down, he said. A landslide.”

He scratched his cheek. “I was facing stiff competition for the first time. Secretly I was worried my opponent would beat me, narrowly maybe, but, if I lost, it wouldn’t matter by how much.

“I figured this guy was one of those campaign gurus who was soliciting me to use his services for a heap of money.” He shook his head. “Nope, he said ‘you’re going to win,’ and ‘remember I told you.’ Walked off into the dark. I didn’t know what to make of it. Just thought he was a loony tune.”

“You won.”

“By a landslide.” He stopped, looked Trapper hard in the eye and said, “Not another goddamn word until I get my drink back.”

Trapper pushed the glass across to him, and he drank from it before resuming. “A week goes by. I get this voice mail on my phone. Said to come to an address in Dallas and told me to be there at the appointed time if I wanted to remain sheriff. Voice had threat behind it. Creeped me out. I was thinking maybe my opponent had demanded a recount, something like that.

“I went. The address was an ordinary office building, except that it didn’t have room numbers, no names on any of the doors. I had to check my weapon, was frisked, and was put through a series of security checks. I was beginning to think it was some kind of covert government organization. Eventually I was shown into a room. Only one person in it, a neatly dressed man of average height and weight. Good looking enough, but nobody to swoon over.”

“Wilcox.”

Glenn nodded. “He looked ordinary, but I gotta tell you, first time I looked into his eyes, a chill went down my spine.”

“Did you know who he was?”

“No. He introduced himself by name, but it didn’t mean squat to me. So when he began asking questions about my friend The Major, I was still under the impression that he might be an agent of some sort conducting an investigation for a government outfit.”

“What kind of questions was he asking?”

“About the bombing. Had The Major ever told me anything about it that wasn’t public knowledge? Had he seen something quirky, something that didn’t quite add up? Did he ever specifically refer to the three bombers?

“I got real uneasy real quick and asked him point blank if he was implicating The Major. When he smiled, I got another chill. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I blew up the Pegasus Hotel.’ Just like that. I nearly messed myself. What the hell had I been dragged into? Who was this guy? Was he joking?”

“No,” Trapper said.

“I soon got that. He was as serious as death.” When Glenn reached for his glass again, Trapper noticed that his hand was trembling. “I played dumb when The Major told me that you’ve been on to Wilcox for years, have a whole dossier on him, so no need for me to elaborate about the Pegasus, the confessor, all that.” Looking at Kerra, he said, “I assume Trapper has shared with you.”

She nodded.

Hank said, “Well, I’m glad somebody has been clued in, because I’m still in the dark here.”

“The three men who detonated the bombs in the Pegasus did so at the bidding of a man named Thomas Wilcox.” As Trapper laid it out for Hank, he was watching Glenn, so he saw the pain in Glenn’s eyes when his son confronted him.

“Dad? Is that true?”

Glenn’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Dad? Answer me.”

“Yes. It’s true.”

Hank stared at him with bafflement and disbelief. “You knew? Since … since … whatever year that was. You knew, but you never reported him? Why? Why didn’t you turn him in?”

Glenn looked miserable. He rubbed his hand across his eyes. “That’s not the end of the story, Hank.”

“You’re damn right it’s not,” he said, popping up out of his chair, his voice going shrill. “Call the FBI. If you don’t, I will.”

“Let him finish first,” Trapper said.

“And you, you worthless prick.” Hank looked down at him and sneered. “You’ve known, too, and haven’t done anything about it?”

Trapper glared at him. “You don’t have any idea what we’re dealing with here. You blow the whistle on Thomas Wilcox without a shred of evidence, and you had just as well throw Glenn under the next freight train that comes by, because he’ll be dead just about that soon. Now, if you want to stay and hear the rest, come down off your judgmental podium, sit down on your self-righteous ass, and shut the fuck up.”

As before, Kerra stabilized a situation rapidly spinning out of control. “Let’s hear the rest of the story before we jump to conclusions or make any rash decisions.”

Hank smoldered as he looked at each of them in turn, but he sat. He looked at Glenn. “What? You took a bribe?”

“In a sense, I already had. I’d won the election that many predicted I wouldn’t, that I had predicted I wouldn’t. Wilcox went on to tell me that I would get to keep the office for as long as I wanted it. Each time I came up for reelection, no contest.”