Molly had been busy. I felt a flare of pride for her, and no small amount of regret. Up to that point I had been anticipating some vigorous makeup sex…
Celebrity has a way of booking people solid. I returned to my room all perked on coffee and finally sat on the end of my bed with my cell. The time had come to call Mandy-Mrs. Bonjour. My brain was buzzing: it had yet to process the consequences of last night, let alone wrap itself around this latest twist in circumstances.
There was the Church of the Third Resurrection situation for one. It seemed to me that I was looking at one of two possibilities: either Reverend Nill was even crazier than I thought and he was the one responsible for Jennifer’s murder, or someone was trying to bring him down. My gut told me that it was the latter, but unlike the rest of the human race, I have no faith whatsoever in my gut. It does a fair to middling job processing my dinner into shit, but other than that, it clearly does not know shit.
I know that you buy into all that “go with your gut” or “follow your heart” bullshit simply because I see versions of it everywhere, from tampon commercials to Palme d’Or-winning cinema. But I remember all the instances where my instincts have been dead wrong, not to mention the instincts of those around me. Given that your bean is a cherry- picking machine, you remember only what confirms your assumptions. So of course you think your gut is a pretty good one, especially when you’re full of shit.
No. I wasn’t going to listen to my instincts on this one. I’d spent too much time with my thumb up my ass as it was. When it came to the Thirds, I needed to review things, maybe talk to Tim… Dutchie.
I imagined he was pretty pissed.
As for Nolen, well, I supposed he was pretty much out of the picture. The Bonjour investigation would be handed to Jeff Hamilton, his deputy chief, and it would probably take a day or two to re-wrangle things. I probably couldn’t count on the kind of assistance I had enjoyed so far: he struck me as a hard nut. Since I was the Bonjours’ man in the field, he would have to extend me certain courtesies-regular updates, the odd heads-up here and there-but copies of official statements? Fat chance. He would be too bent on proving himself.
The gathering media storm could change all that, of course. The positive was that it could turn Dead Jennifer into a national celebrity, and so enhance the chances of catching a break from someone who knew something without realizing they knew anything. The biggest negative was that it would slowly starve the Bonjours of emotional oxygen. The second drawback was that it would politicize the investigation. The simultaneous promise and threat of optics would bring in the Attorney General, state law enforcement, the FBI-as sure as shit.
Sooner or later, the heavy hitters would roll into town, and the “courtesies” they extended me would become more and more ornamental. Backslaps and grins tend to make me especially prickish.
Besides, I wasn’t sure how much “media scrutiny” a tarnished fuck- up like Disciple Manning could bear. I would look good on TV-that much was certain. For that reason alone I would probably be forgiven quite a bit, at first anyway. The world really is that super-fucking-ficial. But if they started digging…
Yup. I would be well and truly fucked.
There was a real issue here. An animal’s habitat is defined by the range of environments that allow it to squeak by. Feed and fuck, basically. So far I had been able to do both quite nicely. But things had changed radically, and were about to change even more radically still. The media sun was about to burn very hot and very close. The question was whether I could continue playing a role in the environmental collapse to come. Whether I could be a plus. For the case. For the drug-and-bimbo-binging travesty I call my life…
Would it be possible for me to run a clean private investigation?
Not bloody likely.
In any event, it was already too late. At the time I had thought myself pretty clever, gathering both “donations” and information with the toss of a single fraudulent stone. Vegas, baby. Now I wasn’t so sure. I could even see the news caption: