"Just the recent one, but that doesn't mean anything. Street junkies get tracked up, but a guy with decent hygiene can avoid it, just like diabetics. And the guy that found him in the bathroom? One of his former aides, who took it upon himself to clean up the scene before the paramedics got there. Save the widow some grief, he says. So his prints are all over the hypodermic and the other stuff, too, which the cops pulled out of a dumpster a few blocks away. But the real kicker is what the hospital staff finds in the dead man's pocket. Kiddie porn. Polaroids with the dead Governor's prints all over them."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Ten, maybe twelve years old. Not just nudies," he said quickly. "Fuck shots. Anal rape. Really bad. Not snuff pics, though," he admitted.

"Boys or girls?"

"What? Oh. Little girls."

"They calling his death murder?"

"No. Fact is, I think everyone there would like the whole mess to vanish. What's the motive? Dinner party was nothing but a bunch of Democratic legislators, past and present, and some old rich people that gave 'em money. Flanagan was out of office. No handle that anyone can see."

"Where did he stand on the gun issues?"

"Wanted Missouri to be the only state left in the Union where concealed carry for private citizens was completely illegal, and it cost him his office in the last election." The agent raised an eyebrow. "You think it was payback time, Alex?" Neumann considered the question. The same killer that murdered Arnold Katzenbaum? So now these guys are going after defeated state legislators with antigun records? A chill went through Alex Neumann as he thought of the implications of that line of thinking.

"Butch, these guys step on their dicks all the time," Alex Neumann said with a sardonic smile. He knew he was trying to convince himself this newest death was not a murder. "'Bimbo eruptions', wasn't that how that one campaign staffer put it?" The other agent laughed.

"Yeah, and I go back a lot longer than you, Alex. In Washington, at least. Let's see if I can hit the highlights. The last administration was hide the salami and munch city..."

"Yeah, when they weren't throwing pots at each other," a third agent broke in. He had been listening to the exchange for a while, and now it was too interesting for him to remain silent. "And we also had Cisneros buying off his mistress, Packwood keeping a diary, our crackhead Mayor, and of course Teddy Kennedy running around trying to cover for his nephew." The older agent nodded.

"Before that, you had Gary Hart posing for the Enquirer..."

"And that one Congressman with the guy in his basement running a male prostitution ring..." "And Ted Kennedy."

"Going back to the 'seventies, you got Wayne Hays hiring that blowjob queen that couldn't type, and Wilbur Mills' stripper diving into the tidal basin to get away from the press..."

"You're leaving out Ted Kennedy," Neumann reminded the two men, feeling drawn into the game.

"Yeah, well, he's a given, but his big one, Chappaquiddick, was in '69," the older agent said. "Back in the 'sixties, no one paid any attention to the sex stuff with little piss-ant senators and congressmen unless someone died. But in the White House, we all laughed about Lyndon Johnson doing his part for integration. And Jack Kennedy, he had a Dr. Feelgood on staff, and jumped whoever Sinatra fixed him up with. That included Sam Giancana's girlfriend and Marilyn Monroe, who his brother the Attorney General got a piece of, too. That's about as far back as I go, and I'm leaving out a lot." The oldest agent chewed his lip thoughtfully.

"Alex, out of all those pussy hounds, dopers, and butt pirates, not one of them died from it. Not in over thirty years. This guy Flanagan is the third one in, what-two months? Doesn't that set off any alarm bells in your head?" He squinted, trying to remember something.

"What's that quote, exactly? 'The first time is happenstance, the second is coincidence, the third time is enemy action.' Something like that."

"Hm," the young agent who had joined the conversation said. "I remember one of the gun rights people used that quote a while back. Neal Knox, I think it was. The part I remember was about how that Hennard guy shot up the Luby's Cafeteria in Texas the day before the Congress voted on a gun ban in '91, then that fool shot at the White House with a Chinese rifle a few days before the vote on the gun ban in '94. There was some other stuff, too, starting back in '68. Seems like just before every federal vote, there was some national incident that got a lot of press."

"What was the response to this theory?" Neumann asked.

"Nothing. Media wouldn't touch it. Thought he was paranoid."

"So that's what I am, for bringing it up?" the older agent asked.

"No, not at all," the third man said quickly. "Those gun nuts see monsters under every rock. What you're talking about is serious law enforcement business." Alex Neumann held up his hand to ward off any bickering between the other two FBI men.

"Wouldn't be any great accomplishment to overpower some guy in his fifties and give him a hotshot," Neumann admitted. "Be a lot trickier to make some guy take off his pants and get a hard-on before you kill him. Unless you were a girl he was about to screw. Maybe we got Mata Hari to deal with," he said with a laugh. The President wants the Schaumberg murder buried Neumann thought. Got to head this guy off.

"The real chicken-dinner winner is this Schaumberg thing," Alex Neumann went on. "OD'ed on coke, and just happens to have the semen from three or four different guys inside him when he checks out. At both ends, no less." Remembering the note from Ray Johnson, Neumann realized the smile on his face felt like it was molded in plastic.

"So you think that one's a legitimate OD?"

"What else could it be?" Neumann asked.

"I'd have a lot easier time believing the way it was laid out if it weren't for the way the body got found.

Come on, Alex-after the fags clean the place up, one of them calls a reporter at the New York Post? When was the last time someone did that to report an accidental sex-and-drug death?"

"Well, I-"

"Maximum negative press," the older agent interrupted. "That's what our boy's been hitting us with. It's just like that Wilson Blair tape. Was it released when the Internet stuff first hit? No. Why not? Because if it was done after Greenwell publicly said Blair was dead and told everyone the Internet author was someone else, then Greenwell is an utter liar and what little credibility ATF might have left goes straight out the window.

"Then, take a look at those other two. Jerry Abel gets murdered with his pants off in an Illinois ghetto, and an ex-Governor OD's on heroin with kiddie porn in his pocket. Come on, Alex. If you and Mick here held a contest to see who could make up the set of circumstances most likely to discredit a dead politician, do either of you guys think you could do better than what we're looking at?"

"Got me there."

"Yeah."

"And this guy understands the beauty of laying out a simple story for the media," the agent added. "The papers and networks run with it, and the public buys it instantly. Schaumberg a gay cokehead? That's just Barney Frank and Marion Barry rolled into one. Jerry Abel likes cheap black whores? So did that Brit actor a while back, and he had Estee Lauder's top babe back at home waiting for him with her legs spread. You say Ken Flanagan's a heroin junkie with short eyes? Boy, that's really over the top. Wish he'd gone a little lighter on his last fix, maybe we could've seen him on the Tonight Show."

"So you want me to go public with this murder theory?" Neumann asked, challenging the older man.

"That's just it, Alex. We can't. The way it's laid out now is too believable, and we'll look like idiots. Remember Vince Foster? Look at that case. You had a guy who knew things that could cripple the Administration, and he's about to get subpoenaed on them. His own notes said "This is a fucking Pandora's box', or something like that, when the investigators were trying to get his records. He's got a hundred times more power and prestige than he did back in jerkwater Arkansas, but he's so upset about how mean people are in Washington he decides to commit suicide. As chance would have it, he elects to kill himself in a place he's never gone to before in his life. This tiny area just happens to be under the jurisdiction of the Washington department least capable of investigating a suspicious death. It just happens that he's managed to walk to the spot in this park where he killed himself without getting any dirt on the soles of his shoes."

"It just happens there are carpet fibers all over his suit," the young agent named Mick broke in. "Maybe he rolled around on a floor somewhere before hopping in his car to go kill himself in the park."

"Right," Butch agreed. "It just happens there's no blood on the scene but his corpse has less than half the normal amount of blood in it. Knowing that he was going to die, I guess Foster did the charitable thing and donated six pints of blood before killing himself. And he must've had superhuman motivation to get to that park to kill himself, 'cause every doctor I've asked says no one could remain conscious with so little blood in his system.

"He just happens to use an old piece-of-junk revolver no one has ever seen before. There's no way he could have bought it legally in D.C., so this high-powered lawyer must have brought the piece of junk all the way from Little Rock, and kept it a secret."

"Maybe it had sentimental value."

"It just happens that there's no bullet ever recovered, and the guy is found with his arm stretched out by his waist with the gun laying on his open palm."

"Which would make it the first suicide on record where that happened," Mick said.

"And finally, the instant he's dead, the people who had the most to lose if he talked go clean out his office and destroy all his records before we can seal the place. Only they leave this torn-up note that says, 'I did this all by myself, nobody else did anything bad, ever, they're all innocent of everything, I didn't have anything on them, I'm just depressed.'" The man took a breath.

"I've never seen a suicide case with as many red flags on it as Foster's," said the agent named Butch. "But anyone who even hinted there should be an investigation was called a right-wing lunatic with a personal vendetta against that administration. If we jump around yelling 'murder', we look like the same old bunch of government sleazeballs trying to whitewash the truth and make the feds look better."

"I guess we'll keep the murder theory in the same box as UFO sightings," Neumann said, secretly relieved. He shook his head in frustration. "Two things are becoming more and more clear."

"What's that?"

"Number one, the guy we're up against is goddamn good. And two, things keep happening in Missouri."

"Sir, this is Special Agent Alex Neumann of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D.C. We're in the middle of a very important murder investigation, and we believe you may be able to help us. Normally we contact people in person, but I wanted to give you a preliminary call before one of our agents came by from the Little Rock office. Could I please speak to whoever is in charge of your company?"

"This about them ATF agents killed out in Wyoming?" the man asked.

"Well, ah-"

"Heard it was somebody using the long six millimeter J-fours. I guess you folks want to find out who made the bullets. Boss says he'll be glad to turn over our customer list for the sixes we make, soon as we see a warrant." Shit! Neumann thought. He wasn't at all sure he could get one based on the evidence he currently had.

"You know, we been talking 'bout that bit of shooting," the man continued, "and some of the boys think maybe the VHA ought to come up with a new patch."

"I don't follow you." Alex Neumann did not yet know that the Varmint Hunters Association issued a cloth shoulder patch to members who provided documented proof that they had, in front of witnesses, killed a rockchuck at a measured distance in excess of 1000 yards.

"No matter," the man said with a chuckle. "Mr...Neumann, was it? If it'll help you out, I will tell you who our biggest customer is for our Very Low Drag sixes. They buy a ton of 'em. You got a pen?"

Alex Neumann felt his bowels loosen as the man read off the name and address.