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sleeve. “Naw, no way. I could get fired. I hate that fuckin’ job but it’s better than being unemployed.”
    “How would anyone know if you called me?” the florist asked. “And you’re not doing anything illegal. Your visitors log is a matter of public record and I could obtain a copy by filing a FOIA request.” The florist actually had no idea if that was true.
    “Foyya?” the guard said.
    “Freedom of Information Act. But if I have to file a FOIA request it’ll take me weeks to get what I want—and you won’t make any money.”
    The guard didn’t say anything. He did sneak another look at the five bills under his forearm. He finished his third drink and called out to the bartender, “Tommy, another one, but give me an Absolut and not that rotgut you’ve been pouring.”
    Mahoney had said that when Sandy Whitmore was young she had a body that could stop traffic, and DeMarco concluded that her body could still perform that function: Whitmore was substantial enough to make a formidable barrier.
     
    She was a stout five foot four and her once trim calves now resembled those of a small sumo wrestler’s. Her face was bloated, her nose was a porcine snout, and she had the complexion of a drinker— little broken blood vessels all over her cheeks that would have been more noticeable if her complexion wasn’t already an unhealthy, near-stroke shade of red. Her hair was also red, or had been at one time. It was now badly dyed, streaked with gray, and brittle-looking.
    DeMarco was thinking that there were probably a lot of married men like John Mahoney walking around: men who had affairs when they were young and would now be embarrassed to be seen with some of the women they once found so desirable. Mahoney’s wife, Mary Pat, was, and probably always had been, ten times better looking than Sandra Whitmore.
    “Who the hell are you?” Whitmore asked as soon as she entered the room.
    “Mahoney sent me,” DeMarco said.
    Whitmore smiled—or
gloated
, to be accurate. “So, he got my letter.”
    “Yeah, he got your letter.”
    Whitmore heard the disdain in DeMarco’s voice and said, “Hey, fuck him and fuck you. I need some help here. They’ve got me locked up in a windowless box and they’re keeping my pain medication from me until I’m practically coming out of my skin. They’re basically
torturing
me to get me to talk.”
    “Mahoney can’t get you sprung from jail,” DeMarco said. “You must know that.”
    “Bullshit. He’s the Speaker of the House. He has influence. I want him to use it.”
    DeMarco just shook his head. “The only one that can get you out of here is the judge who put you here, and he’s not going to do that unless you give up your source. Your story got a spy killed, and right now nobody has a lot of sympathy for you.”
    “Hey! It wasn’t my fault that woman died and I’m sick and tired of people saying it was. If the CIA had been straight with me that never would have happened. And I’m not giving up my source. This is the best story I’ve had in years and there’s no way I’m gonna ruin things by selling out.”
    “So you wanna be a martyr but you’re not willing to burn at the stake.”
    “I don’t like your damn attitude, buster, and I don’t have to stand for it. Now what’s Mahoney gonna do for me?”
    DeMarco had told Mahoney that there wasn’t any way he could get Whitmore out of jail but he actually had thought of a way. “You can’t give up your source,” he said, “but someone else can.”
    “What are you talking about?” Whitmore said.
    “Let’s say that someone saw you and your source talking, and this person was to tell the CIA. LaFountaine wants your source so badly that he’d waterboard the guy to get him to admit that he leaked the story to you. So give me the guy’s name and where you met, and I’ll try to find some way to connect him to you so the CIA or the judge or somebody can drag the truth out of him, but no one will be able to