Free Born to Run by James Grippando Page B

Juan?"
    "Claro. Turns out he's a friend de un amigo of a friend."
    Jack calculated that as a friend, once-Hispanic and twice - gringo removed. "Did he tell you anything about the man who hired him to meet me outside the museum?"
    "Un viejo."
    "How old of an old man?" said Jack.
    "In a wheelchair."
    "A wheelchair?"
    "St. A chair. With wheels. Tu sabes? Or you no speak English?"
    Paulette swallowed her laughter.
    "Yes," said Jack, "I know what a wheelchair is."
    "Did your homeless friend tell you anything else about the man?" said Paulette.
    "He like Anthony Hopkins."
    "He's like Anthony Hopkins?" she said. "Or he likes Anthony Hopkins?"
    "He is him. That character in the movie."
    "You mean he's a Hannibal Lecter?"
    "No. The other one." Juan started dancing, arms up over his head, humming to the tune of Zorba's famous Sirtaki.
    "You mean Anthony Quinn," said Paulette.
    "Si, si El Griego."
    The Greek.
    A volunteer from a local shelter passed by with cups of hot coffee. Juan called to her and was about to bolt. Jack needed to get to his morning meeting anyway, so with Juan's assurance that he wasn't forgetting to tell them anything, Jack and Paulette bid him good-bye and walked back toward the White House. At the corner, facing the Executive Mansion, Jack and Paulette exchanged glances.
    "What do you think?'1 said Jack.
    "I think the man who sent that e-mail to you also sent that e-mail to Chloe. I think if we find out what was actually inside Chloe's e-mail, we'll find out why he shot her."
    "But that was your theory even before we talked to Juan."
    "Right. A theory. Now I'm convinced it's fact."
    "How'd you make that leap?"
    "It makes perfect sense that the shooter would be in a wheelchair."
    "Why?"
    "Something broke down between him and Chloe. He needed to eliminate her and deal with you instead. He instructed her to walk to a bus stop where he could drive by, make the hit from his car, and make a quick escape. A clean job and a clean getaway for an old man who can't walk."
    Jack considered it. "That actually makes some sense."
    "Of course it does. You factor in the way the FBI has shut down the flow of information to both you and me, and it makes even more sense. The guy has something on President Keyes. Maybe he told it to Chloe, and she didn't pay him for it. He killed her before she could go public and make his secret worthless. Now he's looking to sell the same information to you--with the promise that, if your father is confirmed as vice president, it will make him president."
    "I don't follow that last part. If he has some dirt on the president, why not just blackmail him or his supporters? Why come to me, the son of the vice presidential nominee?"
    "I haven't figured that one out yet. But this much I can compute: right now the FBI is pulling out all the stops looking for an old Greek man in a wheelchair. We should be, too."
    "How many of those can there be in Washington?"
    "No idea," she said.
    "Me neither," said Jack. "But something tells me we're going to find out."

    Chapter 15
    Jack was surrounded by lawyers.
    He counted thirteen in all. They were gathered in the walnut-paneled courtroom on the ninth floor of the law offices of Carter and Brooke, the high-powered law firm that would be the Washington muscle behind Jack and Harry at the confirmation hearings. It was a moot courtroom, used primarily for dress rehearsals of important trials, and Jack could only imagine what kind of corporate skulduggery had been tested here. Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client did routinely fly its crop dusters while the migrant workers were in the tomato fields, but surely those company-issued sombreros offered more than enough protection from any cancer-causing pesticides. Theories abandoned, cases settled, egotistical corporate executives convinced not to testify at the real trial only after being shredded by their own lawyers in mock cross - examination.
    Today was the mock grilling of Harry Swyteck, as eight -