“Shit,” says Bill, pulling out his phone and telling his driver to circle.
Bill met Namor on a junket to Germany during the second Bush’s first regime. Namor was introduced to him by a local NGO as a man to know. And right off the bat the kid was feeding him gold. So Bill cultivated him, buying him meals, theater tickets, whatever, and making himself available whenever Namor felt like talking, which was usually north of one thirty in the morning.
“What did you find out?” he asks Namor after his phone is back in his pocket.
Namor looks around, gauging volume and distance.
“The civilians are easy,” he says. “We’re already up on the flight attendant’s father, the pilot’s mother, and the Bateman aunt and uncle.”
“Eleanor and—what’s it?—Doug.”
“Right.”
“They must be giddy,” says Bill, “winning the goddamn orphan lottery. It’s gotta be something like three hundred million the kid inherits.”
“But also,” says Namor, “he’s an orphan.”
“Boo hoo. I wish I was an orphan. My mother raised me in a boardinghouse and used bleach for birth control.”
“Well, taps are up there on all three phones, hers, his, and home. And we’re seeing all their electronic messages before they do.”
“And this feed goes where?”
“I set up a dummy account. You’ll get the info by coded text when we walk out tonight. I also hacked her voice mail so you can listen late at night while you’re humping your pillow.”
“Trust me, I get so much pussy—when I go home at night the only thing I put my cock in is ice.”
“Remind me not to order a margarita at your house.”
Bill finishes his beer, waves at the bartender for a second.
“And what about King Neptune,” he says, “the long-distance swimmer?”
Namor sips his beer.
“Nothing.”
“Whaddya mean, nothing? It’s two thousand fifteen.”
“What can I say? He’s a throwback. No cell phone, doesn’t text, pays all his bills by mail.”
“Next thing you’re gonna tell me is he’s a Trotskyite.”
“Nobody’s a Trotskyite anymore. Not even Trotsky.”
“Probably ’cause he’s been dead for fifty years.”
A waitress brings Bill a new beer. Namor signals he wants one too.
“At least,” says Bill, “tell me where this fucking Boy Scout is—on what planet.”
Namor thinks about that.
“What’s got you so bent about this guy?” he asks.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying—this swimmer—everybody else thinks he’s a hero.”
Bill makes a face like the word has made him physically sick.
“That’s like saying everything that’s wrong with the country is what makes it great.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Some failed drunk hobnobbing with men of actual accomplishment, a hitchhiker on the bootstrap express.”
“I don’t know what that—”
“He’s a fraud, I’m saying. A nobody. Muscling his way into the spotlight, playing the humble knight, when the actual heroes, the great men, are dead at the bottom of the deep blue bullshit. And if that’s what we call a hero in two thousand fifteen, then, buddy, we’re fucked.”
Namor picks his teeth. It’s no skin off his nose either way, but there’s a big ask here, a lot of laws about to be broken, so it’s probably worth being sure.
“He saved the kid,” he says.
“So what? They train dogs to wear whiskey barrels and find warm bodies in an avalanche, but you don’t see me teaching my kids to grow up to be malamutes.”
Namor thinks about that.
“Well, he didn’t go home.”
Bill stares at him. Namor smiles without teeth.
“I’m sifting through some chatter. Maybe he’ll turn up.”
“But you don’t know—is what you’re saying.”
“Yes. For once. I don’t know.”
Bill pumps his leg, suddenly uninterested in his second beer.
“I mean, what are we talking about here? A drunken degenerate? A black ops sleeper agent? Some kind of Romeo?”
“Or maybe he’s just a guy who got on the wrong plane and saved a kid.”
Bill makes a face.
“That’s the hero story. Everybody’s got the fucking hero story. It’s human interest bullshit. You can’t tell me that this dried-up has-been gets a seat on that plane just because he’s a good guy. I couldn’t even get a ride on the plane three weeks ago. Had to take the goddamn ferry.”
“And you’re definitely not a good guy.”
“Fuck you. I’m a great American. How is that not more important than what? Being nice?”
The waitress brings Namor’s second beer. He sips it.
“Here’s the thing,” he says. “Nobody stays buried forever. Sooner or later, this guy goes to the deli to buy a bagel and somebody gets a cell phone photo. Or he calls someone we’ve already tapped.”
“Like Franklin at NTSB.”
“I told you. That one’s tricky.”
“Fuck you. You said anybody. You said pick a name from the phone book.”
“Look, I can get his personal line, but not the satphone.”