“I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it,” a network correspondent was screaming into a handheld microphone. “The President’s been shot. Been shot. In front of all of us, the entire world.” He pushed his hair from in front of his face. “Not me,” he yelled at the cameraman. “Him! Get the camera on him!”

One reporter tried to place a mike in front of the suspect. A Secret Service officer punched him in the eye. The CNN correspondent grabbed the business wire service man.

“Did he say anything to you? Did he?”

“You’ll have to wait to read it.” He hurried to his cubbyhole to call the bureau.

In his office, Addis shut off the television. He listened to the shouting in the hallway. He ignored the ringing of the phone. He picked up a yellow legal pad and went to find the chief of staff.

“Say something, you fuck.”

Clarence Dunne stared at the assassin. In the thirty minutes since the murder of the President, the fellow in the chair had been silent. He wouldn’t give his name, his address. Where did you come from? How did you get the gun. Did you make it yourself? Nothing. Who are you working for? Nothing. Who helped you? Nothing. Who else is targeted? Nothing.

And there had been nothing on him. Nothing in his pockets. Nothing up his ass. Every button was being examined. Every seam of his shirt, pants, and jacket was being ripped and probed. No legal niceties. They had thrown him into a pair of overalls. Fingerprints had been taken, and hair and blood samples collected. The putty had been scraped off his nose and saved for a laboratory examination. The wig placed into a plastic bag. It would all be traced—followed back as far as it could. What store sold such putty? Who worked there? Do you recall ever seeing a customer who resembles this fellow in the photograph? Did he say anything to you? Did you see anyone with him?

There was a tattoo on his chest—the letter M pierced by a dagger. He would not say what it stood for. There were scars, too. On his torso, on his stomach, on his thighs, on his arms. In each place the word HAPPY had been carved several times into the skin. With a razor blade or sharp knife, one of the White House doctors had told Dunne. Seventeen times. Jagged lines of scabs. The inscriptions on his abdomen were upside down. The man could look at himself and read the letters. Evidence, the doctor had said, that he had cut himself. Self-mutilation.

Why HAPPY? Dunne wondered. All over his body. What did it mean?

“Tell me, you sick fuck.”

Nothing.