Glass Tiger by Joe Gores Page A

glanced at Hastings Crandall, who said immediately, ‘Ah, I’m sorry, Mr. President, but the delegation of school children from Chicago…’
    ‘Damn!’ said Wallberg. ‘I forgot.’ He stood up. ‘Sorry, gentlemen, but that’s all the time we have for this right now.’
    Jaeger stayed behind. Wallberg sat down again, heavily. There was no meeting with school children from Chicago, but he had been having trouble keeping focussed.
    ‘I’m coming to feel Hennings was a mistake. Too abrasive. No rounded edges. Not a team player. He doesn’t get what this administration is all about.’
    ‘He’s the best we’re going to get for the job.’
    ‘I know, I know,’ he said petulantly. He leaned forward suddenly in the big executive chair he had brought to Washington from his governor’s mansion in Minneapolis. ‘The polls show I need to get out of D.C., let the people see their President…’
    ‘That’s dangerous until we have a fix on Corwin.’
    ‘I thought you were going to end the Corwin problem,’ he said shrilly. He softened his tone. ‘What is Thorne doing?’
    ‘He’s in California, where Corwin eluded Hatfield’s people. Twice. He says he’s trying to find out how Corwin thinks.’
    ‘That sounds like B.S. to me, but maybe not. Have him report directly to me here immediately he gets back.’
    Thorne made Jaeger uneasy: no give in him. Thorne closeted with the President made him even more uneasy. As long as Hatfield kept Thorne away from the President, Jaeger would help Hatfield with his as-yet unstated but obvious ambitions.
    ‘You got it, Chief,’ Jaeger said.
    Thorne phoned ahead to set a meeting with Wallberg’s aides for seven-thirty in the morning, then caught the redeye out of Oakland. Hastings Crandall, Peter Quarles,and Johnny Doyle had all been with Wallberg since his days as Minnesota governor: they had to know a lot that Thorne needed to know.
    As usual, he stayed awake during the flight, fearing public nightmares, so he was first off the plane at Reagan National. In the same basement conference room where he had been recruited to look for Corwin, Crandall and Quarles shook hands with him, then took places at the conference table. Doyle wasn’t there. Aced out again? Or too hungover to make it?
    But then Doyle’s ruddy drinker’s face appeared over a tray with two coffee carafes, regular and decaf, milk, sugar, pink, blue and yellow sugar substitutes, croissants.
    ‘A few too many at the Hard Times Cafe last night?’ sniggered Crandall.
    ‘I live in Old Town, so that’s where I drink,’ said Doyle.
    ‘Just pour our coffee, we’ll buzz you if we need anything.’
    But Thorne said, ‘Mr. Doyle, why don’t you join us?’
    Whichever way the other two jumped, Doyle might just be Thorne’s go-to guy. Crandall made a show of checking his watch.
    ‘I have a briefing with the President in twenty minutes.’
    ‘This won’t take long. First, I need everything the White House has on Corwin, from the day he was born up to the present.’
    ‘No problem there,’ said Quarles.
    ‘Second, I need the phone records from the Terminous Market in Terminous, California, for the day of the killings, and the… oh, say, the two weeks before that.’
    ‘I can do that,’ said Doyle.
    ‘Third, the sheriff’s deputy first at the crime-scene found a .357 Magnum handgun in close proximity to thebodies. Was it the murder weapon, and who was it registered to?’
    ‘The cop didn’t know?’ asked Doyle, surprised.
    But Crandall was on his feet, checking his watch again.
    ‘I have to tell you, Mr. Thorne, that this is very sensitive National Security material you are asking for here. You should have checked with Agent Hatfield before talking with any local hayseed law enforcement.’
    Inside, Thorne was amused. Hayseed? Escobar had a subtlety of mind that Crandall, who had just unwittingly confirmed the .357 as the murder weapon, could only wish for.
    ‘I’ll check with Agent Hatfield and