me?”
He smiled at her again. It did little to reassure her. “I know how much you like that little nickname I have for you. Used to bug the shit out of the Democratic leadership. Langlade bitched at me for fifteen minutes about it once. Cursed like a fucking sailor. He insisted my affection for you was unprofessional, but I think he was jealous.” He looked down at the table. “Everyone who knew you on the Hill loved you,” he whispered. “You know that?”
The compliment was nice, but nothing else made any sense. “Bob-”
The interruption came quickly, before she could even put her confusion into words. “Remember when we used to take the Red Line and go to those baseball games together? I was always so glad you were such a big Sox fan like me. And how much you hated that dump on the North Side. Piece of shit with its urinal trough cakes and crumbling façade, to say nothing of that crap product they used to put on the field.”
Caroline searched his eyes for mischief, but found nothing. Had he gone daft? He knew what a zealous Cub fan she was. They had indeed gone to plenty of Crosstown Classic games together. He agreed to take the L almost every single time, even when they had to take the long southbound route to the stadium she refused to refer to as anything other than Comiskey. Armour Square was a little rougher than Wrigleyville, but Caroline loved riding to the game with the other fans from both sides.
Bob had a driver but she always talked him into taking the train, his security team in tow. They’d rib each other through all nine innings, because the Speaker knew how much she despised the South Siders and Caroline knew that his intense dislike for the Cubs had taken generations to develop. She harbored far more animosity toward the Sox than she should, which was strange given her easygoing personality. But maybe he’d forgotten. Maybe this place had rattled his brain.
She chose to play along and plastered a smile on her face. “You know how much I loved Pudge while I was growing up. And the Big Hurt. Two of my favorite players.”
She hoped the Baseball Gods would forgive her transgressions; in all honesty, Carlton Fisk and Frank Thomas were superstars by any objective standard. But certainly not her favorites. Not by a long shot. They wore the wrong colors. Caroline kept the smile on her face, thinking that she couldn’t be that bad off if she was more worried about pissing off Bleacher Nation than about the fact that she was probably permanently trapped in a federal prison.
Bob returned her smile, pleased by her response. “I always got a kick out of your love of all things athletic, but especially baseball. And the fact that you forced me to take that infernal train. Smelled like piss half the time.” His expression changed. “How are they treating you here?”
Caroline pointed at her face, even though she was pretty sure he’d already figured out what they were doing to her. “How do you think?”
Bob blanched for a moment. “I’m sure that was an accident.”
“Perhaps.”
“They just want to talk to you,” he said.
“I have nothing to say to them.”
“I’m sure you do, pumpkin. You and Jack have been quite the troublemakers. You have to know something.”
Caroline flinched. “Please don’t say his name.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m sure you have information that our friends are eager to hear.”
Friends. He didn’t even waver while saying the word. Fuck. “I mean it, Bob. They’re wasting their time.”
“I told them what I knew.”
She tried to contain her shock. “And what was that?”
His eyes clouded over again. “Nothing.” He stared up at the camera. “I misspoke.”
“They sent you in here to try to get me to talk, didn’t they?”
“They told me you were here. I said I wanted to see you.”
“You have those kinds of privileges?”
He rubbed his hands together. “The guards here occasionally indulge the whims of a dying man.”
“You’re not dying.”
“We’re all dying, Caroline.”
He was going to wax philosophic on her? Was he going to whip out some Kierkegaard next? “Why is this so important to you?”
Bob put his hands over his face. That was fast. Fast enough that she wasn’t sure whether the action was credible or not. “You have to tell them what you know.”
“Why?”
He looked up at her. There were tears in his eyes. Legitimate tears. “They’ll kill me if you don’t.”
He actually looked a little