Liars & Thieves (34 page)

She reached for my hand. “Spend the night with me. Let’s go up to my room. I need you now, this evening.”

A roll in the hay with hot, wanton Dorsey pulling out all the stops while Willie Varner listened to the action was the last thing on earth I needed that night. I told her I had to go back to work. I signaled for the check, stood, and dropped money on the table.

“I’ll put the tab on my room,” she said distractedly.

Truthfully, she was a very beautiful woman. And she wasn’t the woman for me.

“No, Dorsey. You won’t.” I bent, kissed her on the lips, and headed for the door.

It was raining when I came out of the hotel. I was in no mood for Willie Varner, so I went walking. Bought another umbrella and I didn’t even have an expense account. There was a little bar on Ninth Avenue at about Fifty-seventh, and I dropped in. Quiet. Two drunks at a little table in the back of the room. Tending bar was a defrocked priest or a disbarred lawyer—I didn’t ask which. The place reeked of old wood and wasted lives. High at one end of the bar was a television with a Yankees game going, with no sound. They were playing someplace with sunshine. I wished I were there.

I ordered a double Scotch, the oldest stuff they had, and sat at the end of the bar by the window and watched the rain and the traffic and the people hurrying by.

Dorsey wasn’t a bad person. Oh, she was a poor little rich girl, and I believed her when she said every man in her life wanted money. Still, I wasn’t the guy to rescue her. I didn’t want her money. I didn’t want the frantic indolence, the eternal vacation, the doomed-to-failure effort to stay young and trendy and with it. I wanted to look my age, to keep busy with things worth doing, and to find a woman who loved me.

Dorsey didn’t.

At least, I didn’t think she did.

So why in hell did she ask me to marry her?

Didn’t she know that wasn’t done in middle-class circles? Any woman worth her salt could maneuver the object of her affections into getting on his knee and popping the question. Or maybe, being a hip young modern, Dorsey didn’t give a damn.

Wonder if I was the first man Dorsey ever asked to wed.

Can a husband testify against a wife in New York? Maryland? Why did I have this suspicion eating on me that she was somehow involved in this mess with Royston? She knew everyone in Washington; she admitted she’d been to the White House. Why not Royston? Or the president?

Naw—she was no Monica.

I sipped the Scotch as slowly as I could, but it went down way too fast, so I ordered another.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and laid it on the bar beside my drink. After a while I picked it up and dialed a number I had memorized.

He got it on the second ring. “Grafton.”

“Tommy. Been a hell of an evening. Dorsey proposed.”

“Proposed what?”

“What the hell you think? Marriage, goddamn it!”

“How much is she worth, anyway?”

“My guess is about four hundred million. Give or take.”

“Why didn’t you get the number?”

“She was proposing marriage, not a merger.” That wasn’t strictly true, but I was in no mood to get into the messy details with Jake Grafton. I had all the respect in the world for him, but there is a limit.

“Girls that rich don’t come along every day,” he observed tactlessly. “My old man always told me that I should marry the first time for love, the second time for money.”

“If you and Callie ever split the blanket, I’ll give you Dorsey’s telephone number.”

“He also said it’s as easy to love a rich girl as a poor one, although I don’t think he had any experience to back that up. It was a naked assumption on his part.”

“Terrific.”

“So did you say yes?”

“I called because I think it’s time for you to tell me what is going on. Everything you know.”

“Don’t know much,” the admiral muttered, “and that’s a fact.”

“Everything you suspect.”

“All of it?”

“All of it. Who, what, where, when, why.”

“It’ll take a little bit.”

“Believe me, I’ve got nothing but time.”

So he told it. Dumped the whole load on me. When I hung up thirty minutes later I tossed the phone on the bar and sat watching the rain through the window. When the barman came around I asked if he had coffee. He said he could make a pot. And he did.

It was after midnight when I got back to the van. As I put my umbrella on the floor to drain, Willie sniffed and said, “Been drinkin’, huh?”

“If you were a better cook you’d make some lucky man a good mother.”

“So what’d she say?”

“She wants to marry me,” I said flippantly.

He snorted in derision. “That’ll be the day,” he said, turning back to the computer. “Royston got a call a while ago I think you should listen to. I got his end of it.”

“Who was he talking to?”

“You tell me.” He handed me the headphones, then went back to punching the keyboard. Rain drummed on the top of the van, making a pleasant sound.

I donned the headphones and got comfortable. A proposal from Dorsey. That’ll be the day! And yet, this was the day. Four hundred million genuine American dollars, half to me, and I told her I’d think about it.

If half of that pile wasn’t enough, Carmellini, just what was your price?

If Willie only knew the truth, my reputation as a corruptible bastard would be in jeopardy. Yet knowing Willie, he’d probably just tell everybody that Carmellini wanted to steal it, not marry it.

My ruminations were interrupted by Dell Royston’s gravelly voice in my ears.

“Hello.”

After mumbles and grunts and some long pauses, Royston said, “You’re going to have to announce your decision soon. Like tomorrow. Heston’s set to make the nominating speech, but he has to have a name to plug in.” Heston would be Senator Frank “Piggy” Heston, the senior senator from one of the smaller states—he got his nickname from his addiction to pork projects for his constituents. By reputation, he had never seen an appropriations bill he didn’t like.

Another long pause followed that comment, then, “I see . . .”

Finally, “I can hold the train in the station for a few hours, but by tomorrow afternoon it’s got to pull out. . . Sure. See you tomorrow evening.” Tomorrow evening, I knew, the president planned on making his acceptance speech to the convention, to be broadcast nationwide on all the networks.

Willie raised a finger and pushed a button.

I took off the headset.

“Well?”

“The president hasn’t made up his mind,” I said.

“His own wife! You’d think the bastard could say yes or no.”

Which left me speculating about the relationship between the president and first lady. Theirs was a political marriage, sure. But they had four years to figure this out!

Willie leaned back in his chair and scratched a scab. “Well, you ready to go back to Jersey and snatch a few winks? Or will you be sleeping over somewhere?”

“Maybe the president isn’t sure he could be reelected with Zooey on the ticket. Reelection is the first priority.”

“Bullshit!” Willie pointed to a stack of newspapers on a ledge. “The pundits say he’s a shoo-in. The economy is humming, he’s hell on terrorists, working on the Mideast thing . . . There’s a landslide shaping up.”

” ‘Dewey Defeats Truman!’ “

“Maybe he just doesn’t like the bitch.” The bitch he was referring to was Zooey.

“You think likes and dislikes matter in politics?” I mused.

“Oh, I know, these politicos would bend over and spread ‘em for the devil if he would deliver the sinner vote. But unless someone catches him in bed with a live boy or a dead woman, this president doesn’t need help. That’s my point.”

“Beats me,” I replied.

“Well, Jersey or what?”

“You go. Take a cab. I’m going to stay here a while.”

“At this time of night?”

“Get one in front of the hotel.” I dug in my wallet and gave him sixty bucks from my dwindling cash supply.

His parting shot was, “Try to stay out of trouble. I know it’s tough for you, but tonight, for my sake, give it your best shot.”

“Yeah.”

He took my umbrella and locked the door behind him.

But what, I wondered, if it came out that the president did a deal with the Russians, way back when? In that event, my guess was that he would need every vote he could beg, borrow, or steal. Say hello to the devil, folks!

I wondered what the Big Dog was thinking tonight as he sat in the White House.

The rain kept pounding on the roof.

An hour later I was having trouble staying awake. I sat watching the comings and goings on the penthouse floor of the Hilton on the monitors and listening desultorily to the conversations in the suites. And this convention was going to run on for two more days. Friday was the last day; the delegates couldn’t stay longer even if God asked them to. The television networks had other programming scheduled for the weekend and next week. The prez had to decide his choice for VP, get him or her nominated, and the delegates would vote on Friday. The cleanup people would work all weekend swabbing out the Javits Center, then next Monday a home products industry convention was opening there. Come hell or high water.

The crowd in Royston’s suite emptied out. A bunch of drunks were finishing a bottle of Scotch in one of the adjoining suites, and in the other some aide was getting laid by one of the true believers from Iowa, some woman who had something to do with the school system. No one in Dorsey’s suite on twelve.

Ah, me.

Just where was I going to be next week? Lodged in a jail someplace with a platoon of FBI agents shouting questions at me, or puking my guts out on a banana boat, sailing south under a false name? Wish I knew more about extradition treaties.

Of course, I could be making wedding plans with Dorsey, renting a tux and visiting lawyers’ offices and making big plans to spend a huge heaping pile of cabbage. On which the taxes had already been paid, thank you very much. Assuming the FBI didn’t latch on to me in the meantime.

What kind of yacht should I buy? What ocean should I put it in? Should I pop for gold faucets in the head? How big should the bed in the master suite be?

Say what you will about poor, rich Dorsey, the woman was flat-out dynamite in bed. Sure, she had been spreading it around—so had I—but with marriage and all, I could negotiate some sort of exclusivity deal.

Choices. Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, catch a tiger by the toe . . .

I checked Dorsey’s pad one more time and managed to hear a woman say, “Thank you, gentlemen. Please wait for me downstairs.”

The sound of a closing door. Water running in the bathroom. The faint sigh of a chair taking weight.

Who was that? Wasn’t Dorsey. I was sure that wasn’t her voice. Had she checked out?

I punched the button to record this.

As I looked up from the control panel, I got a glimpse on the monitor of Dell Royston coming out of his suite. Still wearing that suit and tie, of course. He walked to the elevator and pressed the down button. The camera beside the elevator gave me a good look at the thinning hair on the back of his head.

The elevator door opened and he entered.

Hmm . . .

Five minutes later someone rapped on the door of Dorsey’s suite.

“Oh, Dell. Come in, come in.”

Was this his wife? A secretary? The California car dealer’s AC/DC wife? Or a working girl who sucked toes for fun and profit? I guess I’m naive: Prior to this week I had no idea how much screwing went on at these conventions.

The door closed, and I heard the sound of the privacy latches being thrown. I doubted that Isabel from San Juan was bustling about at that hour, but a man in Royston’s position couldn’t be too careful.

A short silence followed, then the sound of the bed taking weight. Oh, boy.

After a bit I began to hear moans and so on. There was serious rucking going on, or I miss my guess.

It was over pretty quick. Four minutes by my watch. One thing about Dell Royston, it didn’t take him long to breed.

“Oh, baby, that was so good,” Royston said, panting.

“I needed that, darling. It’s been too long.”

“I talked to him a few hours ago. He still hasn’t made up his mind.”

“The bastard! He’s stringing this out to make me sweat.”

My eyebrows shot up into my hairline. Holy cow! The “gentlemen” who accompanied her to the door must have been Secret Service. Royston was fucking Zooey Sonnenberg, the first lady!

“Whoever he picks is going to be the next president of the United States,” Zooey declared. “With the vote of the party faithful and a huge chunk of the female vote from the other party, she’ll be unstoppable four years from now.”

“Maybe he isn’t thrilled about being first husband in four years.”

“Pffft.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to spend the next four years in bed with the heir apparent.”

“Dell, he doesn’t—“

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know what he thinks. The troll sits in the Oval Office all day talking to his cronies, making deals, parading before the press, trotting off for photo ops and speeches in front of every civic group that will have him from Maine to San Diego—I am about at the end of my rope. He has my life—my future—in his hands and he plays with it. Sometimes I wish he would just drop dead.”

“Let’s hope you’re the vice president if he does.”

“He’s healthy as a hog.” She sighed. “No, my chance is selection as his running mate. Give me four years to line up support and be seen by the public and I could beat Jesus Christ in the next election.”

“Maybe he’s worried you’ll steal the limelight now, during this election and during the next four years. The man has a titanic ego. He’s spent his whole life fighting to be in the center of the stage.”

“Perhaps.” She paused, then launched into an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the other female politicians who had been prominently mentioned as possible candidates. As Zooey saw it, she was the logical choice.

“Sometimes logic doesn’t carry the day,” Dell said gently.

Amen, I added.