Free My King The President by Tom Lewis Page A

but he’s still alive.”
    “Really? Who?”
    “Salvatore Cancelossi.”
    “Wow! The Prince of Miami. Mr. Mafia himself!”
    “Right, and Walt, this next one may be tougher. See if you can hack your way into military files and dig out one Master Sergeant Mackenzie, Joseph, U.S. Army. May be retired by now. I need to find out where he is.”
    “I’ll give it my best shot.”
    “Thanks, Walt. You’re an Ace. Oh, almost forgot. Remember the Judge’s housekeeper? Hettie Keeler?”
    “I’ll add her to the list. Anybody else?”
    “That’s it. See you at the office tomorrow.”
    “You got it.”
    I paid for my gas and got back on the road, this time really enjoying a kind of second wind. Finally, I felt like I was back in the old saddle again, winging it the way I always had, and looking forward to tomorrow. I turned the radio on, pushed buttons until I found the nearest public radio station, and listened to the rest of somebody’s good performance of Brahms’ First, which lasted until the eight o’clock NPR news.
    “…And the entire nation is reeling yet again with the tragic news of the apparent suicide of former First Lady, Jean Tyndall. Information is still very sketchy at this hour, but police sources tell us the body was discovered around six o’clock this evening in the master bedroom of her Watergate apartment by a maid. Death was by hanging. We will certainly pass on further details as they become available. In other news…”
    I managed to get Cal’s Chevy onto the shoulder without wrecking it. It took me fifteen minutes more before my hands stopped shaking enough to drive the rest of the way to Washington.

 
     
    Chapter 8
     
     
    Thurmond Frye and one of his men were already in Ernie’s office when I got there at eight. I took one look at Ernie’s face, which was dark as an anvil cloud ready to explode. Something had come down, and it wasn’t anything good. I had no idea how bad it was until Ernie looked at the FBI men and said, “Gentlemen, would you mind stepping outside a few minutes? When I have to fire a man, I like it to be one on one.”
    I kept my mouth shut until Frye and his man took seats at a desk not more than fifteen feet from Ernie’s glass cage, their backs politely turned to us. “You’re going to can me before I write my first piece?” I said.
    “Before you write your first word! No, don’t bother taking off your raincoat and hat; you’re not going to be here that long. What the hell were you thinking about, threatening the Judge? In case you forgot, it’s not against the law to help get a President elected. Not only has Koontz burned up the phone lines all morning, he’s sicked the FBI on me—and you. Why didn’t you tell me you had McCarty’s diaries? No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. I can’t tell anybody anything if I don’t know anything. Besides that, the owner of this rag, unlike her saint of a mother, has no personal connection, political or otherwise to Ms. You-Know-Who, and even if she did, she’d still want your head on a platter. Maybe mine, too.”
    “I see. The reach of Ezekiel Koontz’s influence is as deep as it is long.”
    “And on top of it all, Jean Tyndall had to go hang herself last night! I got a heap of misery coming down on my head this morning without having to fend off a big lawsuit.”
    “There won’t be any lawsuit, Ernie. Koontz is bluffing. I got just the rise out of him I wanted.”
    “Yeah? Well, not at this paper’s expense. I’ve been told not to let you write one single word. You’re outa here. As she put it, if you darken the door of this newspaper again, I’m to be thrown out along with you, and neither one of us will ever find another job anywhere.”
    “Talk about the baby and the bath water. What about our other arrangement?”
    “Can’t be helped. You’re on your own.”
    Ernie Latham is the only journalist I ever met who could write and talk at the same time. During his tirade, he had