Dev Conrad - 03 - Blindside by Ed Gorman Page A

get. ‘I don’t know why the hell I can’t smoke out there. I smoke everywhere else.’
    Lucy was her handler. ‘We won’t be out there that long, Mrs Watkins. I promise you, you can smoke the second the press conference ends.’
    â€˜Well if it goes very long I’m just gonna light up.’
    â€˜The big thing,’ Lucy said, her patience admirable, ‘is to be sure about what we discussed. You told us you saw him many times growing up and you always liked him.’
    Hacking, Mrs Watkins said, ‘I did like him but I always felt sorry for him, too. He was such a weird kid. Everybody always made fun of him. Even my two kids. They did it real bad one day and I beat their asses, you can bet on that.’
    â€˜Remember we agreed to leave out the ‘weird’ part, Mrs Watkins. And I wouldn’t mention beating your kids.’
    Mrs Watkins had a hell of a good cackle in her. ‘Honey, I’m old but I’m not an idiot. I know what you want me to do when we get out there. I’m supposed to put poor Jim in a good light. And I intend to. The poor kid loses his folks and then people pick on him all his life. Some life that was.’
    Kathy was talking to the nun. Sister Louise appeared to be about as old as Mrs Watkins, a plump woman with a gentle face and a very gentle speaking voice. ‘I just want to tell people about all the help Jim gave me at the soup kitchen. People always asked for him if they had a problem.’ She hesitated. ‘I won’t say this on TV but I think this made Jim feel wanted and needed in a way he’d never been before. He was always smiling when he was at the center. Smiling and laughing. But when I’d have coffee with him somewhere else during the day – well, he never looked or sounded very happy.’
    Now that he was coiffed and all shined up, Ward nodded to me. ‘Well, how’s all this looking to you? We’ve only got about five minutes before it starts.’
    I didn’t want to tell him that when Mrs Watkins first started talking I thought we might be in trouble. But now that I’d heard her out she was going to be fine, with or without her cigarette. Same for Sister Louise. ‘They’re the best kind of people to have with you. They’re not lying or exaggerating. They’re just saying what they believe.’
    â€˜Neither one of you is with the Mexican drug cartel, are you?’ Ward joked.
    The nun smiled. Mrs Watkins looked confused.
    Ward had moved closer to Kathy. He spoke way too loud. ‘I don’t know why all this shit has to happen to me.’
    Apparently Mrs Watkins, busy lighting up another smoke, hadn’t heard him. I wondered what she would have done if she had.
    When Ward turned back to the nun, Kathy made a face at me. I believe the word she was mouthing was ‘asshole.’
    I walked up front again. The reporters had replicated. Now our security people had joined the police in shoving everybody back away from the rostrum. Nobody seemed intimidated by the slicing wind or the scent of rain I smelled every time somebody opened the front door.
    â€˜The old man told me you’re good at this,’ Ward said, coming up next to me. ‘I can be a bit of a jerk sometimes and I apologize for that. I appreciate you rounding up those two. They’re good TV.’
    â€˜This still won’t be easy.’
    â€˜I’m about ready to vomit and that’s not an exaggeration. I don’t know if the old man told you but my plan is to run for Senate after this next term – if I win. So this race is important to me for a lot of reasons.’
    The sight of Ward in the window made some of the reporters go crazy, the way caged dogs would be if you were to run a steak along the metal links imprisoning them. In this case they wanted to vampire him.
    â€˜We about ready yet?’ Mrs Watkins snapped somewhere behind me.
    At least he saw the humor.