Free Presidential Deal by Les Standiford Page B

had said, the guy looked like he’d stepped off the pages of
GQ
.
    “It’s something, all right,” Deal allowed, watching as a pair of security men hustled the camera crew toward the doors. He was still wondering about his wallet. He supposed it was safe in the hands of a Secret Service agent, but still he felt a little undressed without it.
    The two of them were standing by a table laden with finger foods and iced-down soft drinks at the back of the crowded staging suite where Fielding had delivered him. It was the rest of the heroes milling about the room, Deal assumed, though he hadn’t stopped to check any name tags.
    Four burly guys in short haircuts and the kind of clothing Driscoll had described stood at the other end of the table, devouring tiny sandwiches by the handful and cracking jokes in rapid-fire accents that bespoke the outer boroughs of New York. They were the most obvious cops in the room, though Deal was sure there were others, even the two long-haired, emaciated types in a far corner who were either heroic hippies or narcs who had brought down untold weight.
    For the most part, however, the group resembled an Amway dealers convention or some kind of casting call for a latter-day Norman Rockwell crowd scene: There seemed to be a fair complement of housewives, slightly paunchy middle-aged males, a goodly representation of blacks, several Hispanics, a couple of Asians. Also the hippies, the cops, a couple of younger men in Western-cut jackets talking together near the doors. There was one dark-haired woman wearing a black form-fitting cocktail dress standing alone near the center of the room who seemed uncharacteristically striking. Maybe she’d wandered into the wrong party, Deal thought.
    “Myself, I think she humped a bad guy to death,” the black man at his side said.
    Deal turned, feeling his face redden. “I was that obvious, huh?”
    The black guy shrugged. “Everybody else been staring at her, why wouldn’t you?”
    Deal laughed, and the black guy held out his hand. “Roland Wells,” he said. “What did you do to deserve this?”
    “I’ve been asking myself that very question,” Deal said, shaking hands. “My name’s John Deal.”
    There was a pause and then the black guy snapped his fingers, pointing at Deal’s chest. “I remember. You’re the guy that pulled all those folks out of the ocean.”
    Deal nodded, the feeling of discomfort welling up inside him once again. “It wasn’t like I went out hunting for them,” he said.
    Wells gave him a look. “I know what you mean, all this fuss,” he said, glancing about them. “Same way with me. I was driving home from work one day—I live just outside Columbus, that’s the Ohio one—I see a cop pulling a guy over up ahead, I don’t think much about it.” Wells took a sip of his Diet Coke, let his eyes travel to the knockout in the form-fitting dress.
    “By the time I pass by, the cop’s just getting out of the cruiser walking up on this trashed-out RX-7 when all of a sudden the guy floors it and takes off.”
    Wells stopped himself, turned back to Deal. “But you didn’t ask to hear this, now did you?”
    “I’m interested,” Deal said. Something about Wells’s unassuming manner had engaged him. “What did you do when the guy took off?”
    Wells raised his brows. “Nothing, at first. I mean, who the hell wants to get involved? Like I said, I was just on my way home.” Deal nodded, and Wells seemed to make some decision. He closed his eyes momentarily—it might have seemed just a blink in any other context—then took a breath, let it out in a sigh.
    “What happened was I glanced down—I’m driving my van, see, I install tile for a living, got my own little shop—and I realize the guy’s right beside me, trying to crowd in off the shoulder, and about the time I realize what’s really happening, the guy points a gun at me, like get your black ass out of the way.”
    “You didn’t get out of his way,” Deal