Access to Power (24 page)

“Shouldn’t he be talking to the camera?” Juliana asked.

Frank nodded. “He’s looking at himself on the monitor.”

“Why is
that woman
staring?” Jake blurted out.

Frank gave him a look and then noticed Linda crossing the war room.

“She’s staring,” Jake repeated. “Tell her to stop.”

“Or what?” Frank snapped back at him.

Everyone in the room became quiet. Frank realized his mistake but didn’t care. It had been a long morning of trying to keep his nerves in check, trying to act like nothing had changed when everything had changed. He was tired of looking at Jake’s face. For most of the last hour, he’d been fighting the urge to grab him by the throat and launch him out the window into space.

The door opened. It was Linda, straining to keep her eyes on Frank.

“You’ve got a call,” she said. “Line two. It’s personal.”

She backed out of the room. Frank picked up his file and followed her, closing the door behind them.

“It’s Mario,” she said anxiously. “He’s faxing something.”

“Get Lou Kay on the phone for me.”

Her eyes sharpened and she nodded. Frank crossed the room to the fax machine. When he noticed the Merdocks staring at him through the glass, he picked up the phone and turned his back.

“Where are they?” Mario asked.

“In the conference room,” Frank said. “They’re watching.”

“Can you see your fax machine?”

Frank turned to the fax, picked up the document and started reading.

“It’s a receipt for a wire transfer,” Mario said. “You were right. The dates and amounts match. So do the bank numbers. Two hundred and fifty grand went out of Merdock’s account the same day a fund-raiser on the Hill cut the check to Lou Kay’s ex-wife and sent it to RAVE. The money’s laundered, but there’s no doubt about it, Frank. Merdock paid the bitch to lie.”

“Who’s they, Mario? Who’s RAVE?”

“Someone in politics who knows what they’re doing.”

“What about Eddie?”

“He’s there and he’s got his camera. No one’s shown up yet.”

Linda nodded at him from her desk. He saw the light blinking on the phone.

“Lou Kay’s holding on the other line,” Frank said to Mario.

“If you fax him a copy of that check to his ex-wife and the wire transfer, then Mel Merdock burns down in front of live TV audience tonight. He won’t know what hit him. Good luck, Frank.”

Frank glanced at the conference room. Juliana and Jake were still watching him and seemed tense. Turning back to the phone, he hit the line button and opened his file to the photocopy of the check.

“This is Frank Miles,” he said into the phone. “What’s your fax number, Lou?”

Lou Kay hesitated a moment, then gave him the number.

“Thanks,” Frank said, jotting it down. “I’m sending you something for the debate tonight. It’s what you guys have been looking for. Go stand by your fax machine.”

He hung up without an explanation. As he turned to the fax machine, he saw Linda silently trying to warn him—Tracy and the interns staring at him wide-eyed from their desks.

“Frank,” Juliana said.

She was in the war room, moving in behind his back. Frank fed the papers into the fax machine.

“What are you doing, Frank?”

“I’ll be right with you,” he said.

Frank entered the number and heard the fax connect. As the papers began rolling through the machine face down, he turned and saw Juliana eyeing them.

“Jake was upset,” she said. “Mel’s worried about tonight. Let’s try it again.”

“Mel keeps forgetting that it’s a TV audience. They don’t read. That’s why we’ve always gotta bring it back to crime.”

She nodded, even smiled. The fax machine quieted. Frank returned the papers to his file folder. When the fax printed a record of the transmission that included the words
Lou Kay for U.S. Senate
in bold letters, he crumpled it up and threw the piece of paper in the trash. He was cool, calm, wiping the beads of sweat from his brow as he walked Juliana into the conference room and closed the door. It was time to get back to work. Time to prep his horse for the debate tonight and hope that he never reached the finish line.

Chapter 56

The Merdocks had left the office after lunch, and the debate wouldn’t be starting for another hour and a half. Frank poured a cup of coffee and took a sip. Through the glass he could see Tracy in the conference room, working with the new talk radio callers who had considered Merdock but were now voting for Lou Kay. Linda was at her desk, talking to someone on the phone. As he walked through the war room and finally reached Woody’s office, he stepped inside and closed the door.

He sat on the couch, looking outside at the Capitol and what seemed like a beautiful evening. Lou Kay and Stewart Brown had everything they needed to bring Merdock down. If they played it right, it would be the only part of the debate to make the late night news. Then the story would mushroom, taking on a life of its own. By tomorrow morning, Lou Kay would no longer be seen as a wife beater. Everyone would know that Mel Merdock was the asshole politician who had paid Lou Kay’s ex-wife a quarter million dollars to face the press and tell a lie.

It wasn’t the same as getting them for murder, but it was a start.

Frank turned away from the window and looked at the pictures his partner had hung on the wall. There was a shot of Woody standing with Danny Garfield outside the congressman’s campaign office in Austin, Texas. Garfield had been a senior member of the House, a very powerful man, but had gotten into trouble for not supporting his party’s line. He was a free thinker who had always said he never voted by consulting his party’s playbook, but listened to his conscience instead. His campaign for reelection had turned into an unexpectedly tight race, but Woody came through for him and they won by a slim margin. Frank remembered Garfield calling to thank Woody from the floor of the House after being sworn in. Frank had never heard of a client doing that before, particularly someone of Garfield’s stature. Even now, Frank couldn’t help but feel impressed.

The door opened. Linda stepped into the room with his jacket.

“You’re gonna be late,” she said in a quiet voice.

“I’m leaving in a few minutes.”

A moment passed, the two of them looking at each other. Then Frank finally got up off the couch and started to get into his jacket.

“Did you talk to Stewart Brown?” she asked.

Frank shook his head. “I couldn’t reach him. I’ll see him at the debate.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “My client’s the rich guy who likes to ruin other people’s lives. It’ll be all over the news tonight. Everything’s great.”

She flashed a worried smile at him. Then she stepped closer, fixing his shirt and straightening his tie. Frank looked at her face. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were bright and warm and she smelled good.

*          *          *

The debate was being held at a campus theater off Route 66 just west of the Beltway. By the time Frank arrived, Merdock and Kay were already standing before the TV cameras fielding questions.

Only half the seats were filled. Frank sat down in the back, checking out the audience in the darkness. He could see Jake holding an empty seat directly before the stage, and looked for Juliana but didn’t see her. When he turned, he spotted Stewart Brown on the far side of the room heading up the aisle toward the lobby. His beady eyes were shifting back and forth on the carpet, his body swelling out of his suit like a balloon ready to pop. Stewart Brown was disgusting. In spite of all that had happened, Frank couldn’t believe that he was handing the dirtbag a win.

He watched Brown pass, then waited a beat before getting up and exiting the theater. When he found the lobby empty, he moved to the glass doors and looked outside, but all he saw was Merdock’s limo idling at the curb with its parking lights on.

Frank turned back to the lobby and noticed the restroom. Pushing open the door, he called out Brown’s name in a low voice but no one answered.

It occurred to him that Brown probably hadn’t left the theater. That the consultant had only been moving to a seat in back for a better view of the audience. Lou Kay wouldn’t be mentioning what Merdock had done to him until the debate was nearly over. It would have more impact that way, and Merdock wouldn’t have the time or opportunity to undo what was about to happen. Brown would want to be behind the audience so that he could gage their reaction and savor it.

Frank left the lobby and started down the hall toward the stage entrance. The theater was on the other side of the wall and he could hear the audience clapping through the exits. He needed to keep walking, keep moving, maybe watch his client take the big fall to nowhere from the wings. He found the steps at the end of the hall and started downstairs. When he turned the corner, the space narrowed and finally came to an end as it met a darker passageway. The walls were unfinished, the stage creaking overhead. He stopped to get his bearings and noticed the set of stairs to the left leading directly to the stage. Above the handrail, a red light was mounted on the wall blinking on and off. Cameras were rolling. He heard the moderator ask Merdock a question, the words so loud and clear that they might have been in the same room.

Frank had another idea where Brown might be when he turned away from the stairs and noticed the dressing rooms. They could talk freely here without the fear of being seen together. He started down the passageway, keeping his eyes on the light leaking from a door at the very end. The door was cracked open. Reaching for the handle, he heard someone talking inside and stopped as he recognized the voice.

It was Juliana Merdock. Frank had picked the wrong dressing room.

“We’re renting this space on election night,” she was saying to someone in the room.

Frank peered through the crack. Juliana was holding a dress against her body and displaying it like a model working a runway. She seemed pleased with herself, in command.

“What do think of my dress?” she asked. “We’re meeting the governor for dinner tonight.”

Frank noticed the TV on the counter beneath the makeup lights. He couldn’t see who she was talking to, but guessed that it was the man with spiked gray hair. Frank could see his shoes, his slacks, a piece of the couch that he was sitting on as he watched the debate on TV. From the tone of Juliana’s voice, it seemed obvious that they’d spent a lot of time together.

Frank turned away from the door, looking for Lou Kay’s dressing room in the darkness.

“You’re not listening, are you?” Juliana was saying. “You’re thinking about what it would be like if I took off my clothes...”

Her words had a certain reach about them.

Frank turned back, watching Juliana unfasten her skirt and let it drop to the floor. Her legs were wrapped in black stockings. She had a lazy smile going as she unbuttoned her blouse and removed it. Frank came up for air. Leftover images of his sex-talk dinner with Juliana-the-innocent appeared before his eyes, mixing with other images from darker places of a young Juliana doing Merdock’s crippled father on silk sheets. It made sense, he realized. The man with gray hair had been Merdock Sr.’s bodyguard. This wasn’t their first time.

Juliana opened her bra, pulling it away from her shoulders and tossing it on the counter. As her breasts bounced out, they looked soft and buoyant. Her husband had just been asked a question and was answering it on TV. Juliana crossed the room, kneeling before the killer and pushing his legs open. She pressed her chest against his thighs and began unfastening his belt. She was looking toward his face, opening his pants and reaching inside.

“You think that I’m impressed with you,” she said in that earthy voice of hers. “That I think you’re brilliant. Devious. Able to keep secrets just the same as I do.”

She was squeezing him, stroking him. Frank saw his hand touch her breasts and begin kneading them. When the man didn’t say anything, Juliana flashed a sleepy smile his way and went down on him.

The veil was gone. Frank eased the door open an inch. When his view cleared, he let go of the door and recoiled.

It wasn’t the killer. It was Stewart Brown.

A moment passed as if Frank had been hit in the face. He staggered down the passageway through the red haze. Stumbling past the blinking light, he lumbered up the steps onto the stage. He was in hell—everything dream-like—and it stung. He looked past the cables and props. Merdock and Kay were standing before their podiums like puppets. He noticed the moderator staring at him and turned away. Off to the side, he found a chair against the wall and managed to sit down.

He needed to get a grip on things, but couldn’t. At some point in the next few minutes Lou Kay was supposed to destroy Mel Merdock. That was the plan. And Frank realized that it wouldn’t be happening now.

“But Mr. Merdock,” the moderator was saying. “What about the character issue and the politics of personal destruction? Haven’t we had enough?”