Absolute Power (13 page)

Jack looked over at the front of the house but without really seeing it. All he saw was Kate Whitney, in every window of the monolith.

Jennifer squeezed his arm, leaned against him. Jack’s headache moved into the panic zone. His mind was refusing to function. His throat went dry and his limbs felt stiff. He gently disengaged his arm from his fiancée’s, got up and walked quietly back to the car.

Jennifer sat there for several moments, disbelief chief among the emotions registering across her face, and then angrily followed him.

The Realtor, who had intently watched the exchange between the two while seated in her Mercedes, stopped writing up the contract, her mouth pursed in displeasure.

*   *   *

I
T WAS EARLY MORNING WHEN
L
UTHER EMERGED FROM THE
small hotel hidden in the cluttered residential neighborhoods of Northwest Washington. He hailed a cab to the Metro Center subway, asking the driver to take a circuitous route on the presumption of seeing various D.C. landmarks. The request did not surprise the cabbie and he automatically went through the motions to be replicated a thousand times before the tourist season was officially over, if it was ever truly over for the town.

The skies threatened rain but you never knew. The unpredictable weather systems swirled and whipped across the region either missing the city or falling hard on it before sliding into the Atlantic. Luther looked up at the darkness, which the newly risen sun could not penetrate.

Would he even be alive six months from now? Maybe not. They could conceivably find him, despite his precautions. But he planned to enjoy the time he had left.

The Metro took him to Washington National Airport, where he took a shuttle bus across to the Main Terminal. He had prechecked his luggage onto the American Airlines flight that would take him to Dallas/Fort Worth, where he would change airlines and then head to Miami. He would stay there overnight and then another plane would drop him in Puerto Rico and then a final flight would deposit him in Barbados. Everything was paid for in cash; his passport proclaimed him to be Arthur Lanis, age sixty-five, from Michigan. He had a half-dozen such identifying documents, all professionally crafted and official-looking and all absolutely phony. The passport was good for eight more years and showed him to be well-traveled.

He settled into the waiting area and pretended to scan a newspaper. The place was crowded and noisy, a typical weekday for the busy airport. Occasionally Luther’s eyes would rise over the paper to see if anyone was paying more than casual attention to him, but nothing registered. And he had been doing this long enough that something would have clicked if he had anything to worry about. His flight was called, his boarding pass was handed over and he trudged down the ramp to the slender projectile that within three hours would deposit him in the heart of Texas.

The Dallas/Fort Worth run was a busy one for American, but surprisingly he had an empty seat next to him. He took his coat off and laid it across the seat daring anyone to trespass. He settled himself in and looked out the window.

As they began to taxi to the takeoff runway, he could make out the tip of the Washington Monument over the thick, swirling mist of the clammy morning. Barely a mile from that point his daughter would be getting up shortly to go to work while her father was ascending into the clouds to begin a new life somewhat ahead of schedule and not exactly easy in his mind.

As the plane accelerated through the air, he looked at the terrain far below, noted the snaking of the Potomac until it was left behind. His thoughts went briefly to his long-dead wife and then back to his very much alive daughter.

He glanced up at the smiling, efficient face of the flight attendant and ordered coffee and a minute later accepted the simple breakfast handed to him. He drank down the steaming liquid and then reached over and touched the surface of the window with its queer streaks and scratches. Wiping his glasses clean, he noted that his eyes were watering freely. He looked around quickly; most passengers were finishing up their breakfast or reclining for a short nap before they landed.

He pushed his tray up, undid his seat belt and made his way to the lavatory. He looked at himself in the mirror. The eyes were swollen, red-blotched. The bags hung heavy, he had perceptibly aged in the last thirty-six hours.

He ran water over his face, let the droplets gather around his mouth and then splashed on some more. He wiped his eyes again. They were painful. He leaned against the tiny basin, tried to get his twitching muscles under control.

Despite all his willpower, his mind wandered back to that room where he had seen a woman savagely beaten. The President of the United States was a drunk, an adulterer and a woman beater. He smiled to the press, kissed babies and flirted with enchanted old women, held important meetings, flew around the world as his country’s leader, and he was a fucking asshole who screwed married women, then beat them up and then got them killed.

What a package.

It was more knowledge than one person should be carrying around.

Luther felt very alone. And very mad.

And the sorry thing was the bastard was going to get away with it.

Luther kept telling himself if he were thirty years younger he would take this battle on. But he wasn’t. His nerves were still stronger than most, but, like river rock, they had eroded over the years; they were not what they were. At his age battles became someone else’s to fight, and win or lose. His time had finally come. He wasn’t up to it. Even he had to understand that, to accept that reality.

Luther looked at himself in the tiny mirror again. A sob swelled in his throat before it reached the surface and filled the small room.

But no excuse would justify what he had not done. He had not opened that mirrored door. He had not flung that man off Christine Sullivan. He could have prevented the woman’s death, that was the simple truth. She would still be alive if he had acted. He had traded his freedom, perhaps his life, for another’s. For someone who could have used his help, who was fighting for her very life while Luther just watched. A human being who had barely lived a third of Luther’s years. It had been a cowardly act, and that fact gripped him like some savage anaconda, threatening to explode every organ in his body.

He bent low over the sink as his legs began to fail him. He was grateful for the collapse. He could not look at his reflection anymore. As choppy air buffeted the plane he was sick to his stomach.

A few minutes elapsed and he wet a paper towel with cold water and wiped it across his face and the back of his neck. He finally managed to stumble back to his seat. As the plane thundered on his guilt grew with each passing mile.

*   *   *

T
HE PHONE WAS RINGING
. K
ATE LOOKED AT THE CLOCK
. Eleven o’clock. Normally she would screen her calls. But something made her hand dart out and pick it up before the machine engaged.

“Hello.”

“Why aren’t you still at work?”

“Jack?”

“How’s your ankle?”

“Do you realize what time it is?”

“Just checking on my patient. Doctors never sleep.”

“Your patient is fine. Thanks for the worry.” She smiled in spite of herself.

“Butterscotch cone, that prescription has never failed me.”

“Oh, so there were other patients?”

“I’ve been advised by my attorney not to answer that question.”

“Smart counsel.”

Jack could visualize her sitting there, one finger playing with the ends of her hair, the same way she had done when they studied together; he laboring through securities regulations, she through French.

“Your hair curls enough at the ends without you helping it.”

She pulled her finger back, smiled, then frowned. That statement had brought a lot of memories back, not all good ones.

“It’s late, Jack. I’ve got court tomorrow.”

He stood up and paced with the cordless, thinking rapidly. Anything to hold her on the phone for a few more seconds. He felt guilty, as though he were sneaking around. He involuntarily looked over his shoulder. There was no one there, at least no one he could see.

“I’m sorry I called late.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m sorry I hurt your ankle.”

“You already apologized for that.”

“Yeah. So, how are you? I mean except for your ankle?”

“Jack, I really need to get some sleep.”

He was hoping she would say that.

“Well tell me over lunch.”

“I told you I’ve got court.”

“After court.”

“Jack, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. In fact I’m pretty sure it’s a lousy idea.”

He wondered what she meant by that. Reading too much into her statements had always been a bad habit of his.

“Jesus, Kate. It’s just lunch. I’m not asking you to marry me.” He laughed, but knew he’d already blown it.

Kate was no longer fiddling with her hair. She too stood up. Her reflections caught in the hallway mirror. She pulled at the neck of her nightgown. The frown lines were prominent on her forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Look, it’ll be my treat. I have to spend all that money on something.” He was met with silence. In fact, he wasn’t sure if she were still on the line.

He had rehearsed this conversation for the last two hours. Every possible question, exchange, deviation. He’d be so smooth, she so understanding. They would hit it off so well. So far, absolutely nothing had gone according to plan. He fell back on his alternate plan. He decided to beg.

“Please, Kate. I’d really like to talk to you. Please.”

She sat back down, curled her legs under her, rubbed at her long toes. She took a deep breath. The years hadn’t changed her as much as she had thought. Was that good or bad? Right now she had no way to deal with that question.

“When and where?”

“Morton’s?”

“For lunch?”

He could see her incredulous face at the thought of the ultra-expensive restaurant. Wondering what type of world he now lived in. “Okay, how about the deli in Old Town near Founder’s Park around two? We’ll miss the lunchtime crowd.”

“Better. But I can’t promise. I’ll call if I can’t make it.”

He slowly let out his breath. “Thanks, Kate.”

He hung up the phone and collapsed on the couch. Now that his plan had worked, he wondered what the hell he was doing. What would he say? What would she say? He didn’t want to fight. He hadn’t been lying, he did just want to talk to her, and to see her. That was all. He kept telling himself that.

He went to the bathroom, plunged his head into a sink of cold water, grabbed a beer and went up to the rooftop pool and sat there in the darkness, watching the planes as they made their approach up the Potomac into National. The twin bright, red lights of the Washington Monument blinked consolingly at him. Eight stories down the streets were quiet except for the occasional police or ambulance siren.

Jack looked at the calm surface of the pool, put his foot in the now cool water and watched as it rippled across. He drank his beer, went downstairs and fell asleep in a chair in the living room, the TV droning in front of him. He did not hear the phone ring, no message was left. Almost one thousand miles away, Luther Whitney hung up the phone and smoked his first cigarette in over thirty years.

*   *   *

T
HE
F
EDERAL
E
XPRESS TRUCK PULLED SLOWLY DOWN THE
isolated country road, the driver scanning the rusty and leaning mailboxes for the correct address. He had never made a delivery out here. His truck seemed to ride ditch to ditch on the narrow road.

He pulled into the driveway of the last house and started to back out. He just happened to look over and saw the address on the small piece of wood beside the door. He shook his head and smiled. Sometimes it was just luck.

The house was small, and not very well kept up. The weathered aluminum window awnings, popular about twenty years before the driver had been born, sagged down, as if they were tired and just wanted to rest.

The elderly woman who answered the door was dressed in a pullover flowered dress, a thick sweater wrapped around her shoulders. Her thick red ankles told of poor circulation and probably a host of other ailments. She seemed surprised by the delivery, but readily signed for it.

The driver glanced at the signature on his pad: Edwina Broome. Then he got in his truck and left. She watched him leave before shutting the door.

*   *   *

T
HE WALKIE-TALKIE CRACKLED
.

Fred Barnes had been doing this job for seven years now. Driving around the neighborhoods of the rich, seeing the big houses, manicured grounds, the occasional expensive car with its mannequinlike occupants coming down the perfect asphalt drive and through the massive gates. He had never been inside any of the homes he was paid to guard, and never expected to be.

He looked up at the imposing structure. Four to five million dollars, he surmised. More money than he could make in five lifetimes. Sometimes it just didn’t seem right.

He checked in on his walkie-talkie. He would take a look around the place. He didn’t exactly know what was going on. Only that the owner had called and requested a patrol car check.

The cold air in his face made Barnes think about a hot cup of coffee and a danish, to be followed by eight hours of sleep until he had to venture out again in his Saturn for yet another night of protecting the possessions of the wealthy. The pay wasn’t all that bad, although the benefits sucked. His wife worked full-time too, and with three kids, their combined incomes were barely enough. But then everybody had it tough He looked at the five-car garage in back, the pool and the tennis courts. Well, maybe not everybody.

As he rounded the corner, he saw the dangling rope and thoughts of coffee and a creamy danish disappeared. He crouched down, his hand flying to his sidearm. He grabbed his mike and reported in, his voice cracking embarrassingly. The real police would be here in minutes. He could wait for them or investigate himself. For eight singles an hour he decided to stay right where he was.